Sweet Cicely or Josiah Allen as a Politician Part 14

"Now, that is a regular woman's idee," says he, goin' into the bedroom for a clean shirt. And as he opened the bureau-draw, he says,-

"Another thing I shall go for, is abolishin' lots of the bureaus. Why, what is the use of any man havin' more than one bureau? It is nothin' but nonsense clutterin' up the house with so many bureaus.

"When wimmen get to votin'," says he sarcastickly, "I'll bet their first move will be to get 'em back agin. I'll bet there hain't a women in the land, but what would love to have 20 bureaus that they could run to."

"Then, you think wimmen will vote, do you, Josiah Allen?"

"I think," says he firmly, "that it will be a wretched day for the nation if she does. Wimmen is good in their places," says he, as he come to me to b.u.t.ton up his shirtsleeves, and tie his cravat.

"They are good in their places. But they can't have, it hain't in 'em to have, the calm grasp of mind, the deep outlook into the future, that men have. They can't weigh things in the firm, careful balences of right and wrong, and have that deep, masterly knowledge of national affairs that we men have. They hain't got the hard horse sense that anybody has got to have in order to make money out of the nation. They would have some sentimental subjects up of right or wrong to spend their energies and their hearts on. Look at Cicely, now. She means well. But what would she do? What would she make out of votin'? Not a cent. And she never would think of pa.s.sin' laws for her own personal comfort, either. Now, there is the subsidy bill. I'll see that through if I sweat for it.

"Why, it would be worth more than a dollar-bill to me lots of times to make folks subside. Preachers, now, when they get to goin' beyond the 20ethly. No preacher has any right to go to wanderin' round up beyond them figures in dog-days. And if they could be made to subside when they had gone fur enough, why, it would be a perfect boon to Jonesville and the nation.

"And sewin'-machine agents-and-and wimmen, when they get all excited a scoldin', or talkin' about bonnets, and things. Why! if a man could jest lift up his hand, and say 'Subside!' and then see 'em subside-why, I had ruther see it than a circus any day."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WOMAN'S PLACE.]

I looked at him keenly, and says I,-

"I wish such a bill had even now pa.s.sed; that is, if wimmen could receive any benefit from it."

"Wall, you'll see it after I get to Washington, D.C., most probable. I calculate to jest straighten out things there, and get public affairs in a good runnin' order. The nation needs me."

"Wall," says I, wore out, "it can have you, as fur as I am concerned."

And I wus so completely f.a.gged out, that I turned the subject completely round (as I s'posed) by askin' him if he laid out to sell our apples this year where he did last. The man's wife had wrote to me ahead, and wanted to know, for they had bought a new dryin'-machine, and wanted to make sure of apples ahead.

"Wall," says Josiah, drawin' on his overshoes, "I shall probable have to use the apples this fall to buy votes with."

"To buy votes?" says I, in accents of horrow.

"Yes. I wouldn't tell it out of the family. But you are all in the family, you know, and so I'll tell you. I sha'n't have to buy near so many votes on account of my plan; but I shall have to buy some, of course. You know, they all do; and I sha'n't stand no chance at all if I don't."

My groans was fearful that I groaned at this; but truly, worse was to come. He looked kinder pitiful at me (he loves me). But yet his love did not soften the firm resolve that wus spread thick over his linement as he went on,-

"I lay out to get lots of votes with my green apples," says he dreamily. "It seems as if I ought to get a vote for a bushel of apples; but there is so much iniquity and cheatin' a goin' on now in politics, that I may have to give a bushel and a half, or two bushels: and then, I shall make up a lot of the smaller ones into hard cider, and use 'em to-to advance the interests of myself and the nation in that way.

"There is hull loads of folks uncle Nate says he can bring to vote for me, by the judicious use of-wall, it hain't likely you will approve of it; but I say, stimulants are necessary in medicine, and any doctor will tell you so-hard cider and beer and whiskey, and so 4th."

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUR LAW-MAKERS.]

I riz right up, and grasped holt of his arm, and says in stern, avengin' tones,-

"Josiah Allen, will you go right against G.o.d's commands, and put the cup to your neighbor's lips, for your own gain? Do you expect, if you do, that you can escape Heaven's avengin' wrath?"

"They hain't my neighbors: I never neighbored with 'em."

Says I sternly, "If you commit this sin, you will be held accountable; and it seems to me as if you can never be forgiven."

"Dumb it all, Samantha, if everybody else does so, where will I get my votes?"

"Go without 'em, Josiah Allen; go down to poverty, or the tomb, but never commit this sin. 'Cursed is he that putteth the cup to his neighbor's lips.'"

"They hain't my neighbors, and it probable hain't no cup that they will drink out of: they will drink out of gobblers" (sometimes when Josiah gets excited, he calls goblets, gobblers). But I wus too wrought up and by the side of myself to notice it.

Says I, "To think a human bein', to say nothin' of a perfessor, would go to work deliberate to get a man into a state that is jest as likely as not to end in a murder, or any crime, for gain to himself." Says I, "Think of the different crimes you commit by that one act, Josiah Allen. You make a man a fool, and in that way put yourself down on a level with disease, deformity, and hereditary sin. You steal his reason away. You are a thief of the deepest dye; for you steal then, from the man you have stole from- steal the first rights of his manhood, his honor, his patriotism, his duty to G.o.d and man. You are a thief of the Government-thief of G.o.d, and right.

"Then, you make this man liable to commit any crime: so, if he murders, you are a murderer; if he commits suicide, your guilty soul shall cower in the presence of Him who said, 'No self- murderer shall inherit eternal life.' It is your own doom you shall read in them dreadful words."

"Good landy, Samantha! do you want to scare me to death?" and Josiah quailed and shook, and shook and quailed.

"I am only tellin' you the truth, Josiah Allen; and I should think it would scare anybody to death."

"If I don't do it, I shall appear like a fool: I shall be one by myself."

Oh, how Josiah duz want to be fashionable!

"No, you won't, Josiah Allen-no, you won't. If you try to do right, try to do G.o.d's will, you have His armies to surround you with a unseen wall of Strength." "Why, I hain't seen you look so sort o' skairful and riz up, for years, Samantha."

"I hain't felt so. To think of the brink you wuz a standin' on, and jest a fallin' off of."

Josiah looked quite bad. And he put his hand on his side, and says, "My heart beats as if it wuz a tryin' to get out and walk round the room. I do believe I have got population of the heart."

Says I, in a sarcasticker tone than I had used,-

"That is a disease that is very common amongst men, very common, though they hain't over and above willin' to own up to it. Too much population of the heart has ailed many a man before now, and woman too," says I in reasonable axents. "But you mean palpitation."

"Wall, I said so, didn't I? And it is jest your skairful talk that has done it."

"Wall, if I thought I could convince men as I have you, I would foller the business stiddy, of skairin' folks, and think I wuz doin' my duty." Says I, my emotions a roustin' up agin,-

"I should call it a good deal more honorable in you to get drunk yourself; and I should think more of you, if I see you a reelin' round yourself, than to see you make other folks reel. I should think it was your own reel, and you had more right to it than to anybody else's.

"Oh! to think I should have lived to see the hour, to have my companion in danger of goin' aginst the Scripter-ready to steal, or be stole, or knock down, or any thing, to buy votes, or sell 'em!"

"Wall, dumb it all, do you want me to appear as awkward as a fool? I have told you more than a dozen times I have got to do as the rest do, if I want to make any show at all in politics."

I said no more: but I riz right up, and walked out of the room, with my head right up in the air, and the strings of my head-dress a floatin' out behind me; and I'll bet there wus indignation in the float of them strings, and heart-ache, and agony, and-and every thing.

I thought I had convinced him, and hadn't. I felt as if I must sink. You know, that is all a woman can do-to sink. She can't do any thing else in a helpful way when her beloved companion hangs over political abysses. She can't reach out her lovin' hand, and help stiddy him; she can't do nothin' only jest sink. And what made it more curious, these despairin' thoughts come to me as I stood by the sink, washin' my dinner-dishes. But anon (I know it wus jest anon, for the water wus bilein' hot when I turned it out of the kettle, and it scalded my hands, onbeknown to me, as I washed out my sa.s.s-plates) this thought gripped holt of me, right in front of the sink,-

"Josiah Allen's wife, you must not sink. You must keep up. If you have no power to help your pardner to patriotism and honor, you can, if your worst fears are realized, try to keep him to home. For if his acts and words are like these in Jonesville, what will they be in Washington, D.C., if that place is all it has been depictered to you? Hold up, Samantha! Be firm, Josiah Allen's wife! John Rogers! The nine! One at the breast!"

So at last, by these almost convulsive efforts at calmness, I grew more calmer and composeder. Josiah had hitched up and gone.

And he come home clever, and all excited with a new thing.

They are buildin' a new court-house at Jonesville. It is most done, and it seemed they got into a dispute that day about the cupelow. They wanted to have the figger of Liberty sculped out on it; and they had got the man there all ready, and he had begun to sculp her as a woman,-the G.o.ddess of Liberty, he called her. But at the last minute a dispute had rosen: some of the leadin' minds of Jonesville, uncle Nate Gowdey amongst 'em, insisted on it that Liberty wuzn't a woman, he wuz a man. And they wanted him depictered as a man, with whiskers and pantaloons and a standin' collar, and boots and spurs-Josiah Allen wus the one that wanted the spurs.