Sweet Cicely or Josiah Allen as a Politician Part 38

"O Josiah Allen!" says I. "Don't ever try to do any thing, or say any thing, or lay on any plans agin, without lettin' me know beforehand."

"I'd like to know why it hain't jest as well for 'em to go one at a time? They are both a goin You needn't worry about that. I hain't a goin' to break that up."

I groaned awful; and he snapped out,-

"I want sunthin' to eat."

"To eat?" says I. "Can you eat with such a conscience? Think of that poor little freckled thing way off there alone!"

"That poor little freckled thing is with her folks by this time, as happy as a king." But though he said this sort o' defient like, he begun to feel bad about what he had done, I could see it by his looks; but he tried to keep up, and says he, "My conscience is clear, clear as a crystal goblet; and my stomack is as empty as one. I didn't eat a mouthful of supper. Cake, cake, and ice-cream, and jell! a dog couldn't eat it. I want some potatoes and meat!"

And then he started out; and I went down, and got a good supper, but I sithed and groaned powerful and frequent.

Philury got home safely from her bridal tower, lookin' clever, but considerable lonesome.

Truly, men are handy on many occasions, and in no place do they seem more useful and necessary than on a weddin' tower.

Ury seemed considerable tickled to have her back agin. And Josiah would whisper to me every chance he got,-

"That now she had got back to help him, it was Ury's turn to go, and there wuzn't nothin' fair in his not havin' a tower." Josiah always stands up for his sect.

And I would answer him every time,-

"That if I lived, Philury and Ury should go off on a tower together, like human bein's."

And Josiah would look cross and dissatisfied, and mutter somethin' about the milkin'. There was where the shoe pinched.

Wall, right when he was a mutterin' one day, Cicely got back from Washington. And he stopped lookin' cross, and looked placid, and sunshiny.

That man thinks his eyes of Cicely, both of 'em; and so do I.

But I see that she looked f.a.gged out.

And she told me how hard she had worked ever sence she had been gone. She had been to some of the biggest temperance meetin's, and had done every thing she could with her influence and her money. She was willin' to spend her money like rain-water, if it would help any.

But she said it seemed as if the powers against it was greater than ever, and she was heart-sick and weary.

She had had another letter from the executor, too, that worried her.

She told me that, after she went up to her room at night, and the boy was asleep.

She had took off her heavy mournin'-dress, covered with c.r.a.pe, and put on a pretty white loose dress; and she laid her head down in my lap, and I smoothed her shinin' hair, and says to her,-

"You are all tired out to-night, Cicely: you'll feel better in the mornin'."

But she didn't: she was sick in bed the next day, and for two or three days.

And it was arranged, that, jest as quick as she got well enough to go, I was to go with her to see the executor, to see if we couldn't make him change his mind. It was only half a day's ride on the cars, and I'd go further to please her.

But she was sick for most a week. And the boy meant to be good. He wanted to be, and I know it.

But though he was such a sweet disposition, and easy to mind, he was dretful easy led away by temptation, and other boys.

Now, Cicely had told him that he must not go a fishin' in the creek back of the house, there was such deep places in it; and he must not go there till he got older.

And he would mean to mind, I would know it by his looks. He would look good and promise. But mebby in a hour's time little Let Peed.i.c.k would stroll over here, and beset the boy to go; and the next thing she'd know, he would be down to the creek, fishin' with a bent pin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LED ASTRAY.]

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 Peed.i.c.k 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BOY'S EXPLANATION.]

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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE THAT WUS KEZIER LUM.]

I riz up, and led him out of the room quick, and told him "never to talk so agin."