Wall, it run along for weeks and weeks, he with his hopes a risin" up sometimes like his yeast and then bein" pounded down ag"in like his bread, under the hard knuckles of a woman"s capricious cruelty. For I must say that she did, for sech a soft littte creeter, have cold and cruel ways to Abram. (But I s"pose it wuz when she got to thinkin" about the Prince, or some other genteel lover.)
But her real feelin"s would break out once in a while, and lift him up to the 3d heaven of happiness and then he"d have to totter and fall down ag"in. Abram Gee had a hard time on"t. I pitied him from nearly the bottom of my heart. But I still kep" a thinkin" it would turn out well in the end. For it wuz jest about this time that I happened to find this poetry in a book where she had, I s"posed, left it. And I read "em, almost entirely unbeknown to myself.
It wuz wrote in a dreatful blind way but I recognized it at once.
I looked right through it, and see what she wuz a writin" about though many wouldn"t, it wuz wrote in sech a deep style.
"STANZAS ON BREAD;
"or
"A LAY OF A BROKEN HEART.
"Oh Bread, dear Bread, that seemest to us so cold, Oft"times concealed thee within, may be a sting!
Sweet buried hopes may in thy crust be rolled; A sad, burnt crust of deepest suffering.
"There are some griefs the female soul don"t tell, And she may weep, and she may wretched be; Though she may like the name of Abram well And she may not like dislike the name of G ,
"Oh Fel Ambition, how thou lurest us on, How by thy high, bold torch we"re stridin" led: Thou lurest us up, cold mountain top upon, And seated by us there, thou scoffest at bread.
"Thou lookest down, Ambition, on the ovens brim; Thou brookest not a word of him save with contumalee: And yet, wert thou afar, how sweet to set by him And cut low slices of sweet joy with G ,
"Oh! Fel Ambition, wert but thou away, Could we thy hauntin" form no more, nor see; How sweet "twould be to linger on with A-, How sweet "twould be to dwell for aye with G-."
Wall, as I say, she gin good satisfaction in the deestrict and I declare for it, I got to likin" her dretful well before the winter wuz over. Softer she wuz, and had to be, than any fuz that was ever on any cotton flannel fur or near. And more verses she wrote than wuz good for her, or for anybody else, - Why she would write "Lines on the Tongs," or "Stanzas on the Salt Suller," if she couldn"t do any better; it beats all! And then she would read "em to me to get my idees on "em. Why I had to call on every martyr in the hull string of martyrs sometimes to keep myself from tellin" her my full mind about "em unbeknown to me. For, if I had, it would have skairt the soft little creeter out of what little wit she had.
So I kep" middlin" still, and see it go on. For she wuz a good little soul, affectionate and kinder helpful. A good creeter now to find your speks. Why she found "em for me times out of number, and I got real attached to her and visey versey. And when she came a visitin" me in the spring (at my request), and I happened to mention that Josiah and me laid out to go to Saratoga for the summer, what did the soft little creeter want to do but to go too. Her father was well off and wuz able to send her, and she had relatives there on her own side, some of the Pixleys, so her board wouldn"t cost nothin". So it didn"t look nothin"
unreasonable, though whether I could get her there and back without her mashin" all down on my hands, like a over ripe peach, she wuz that soft, wuz a question that hanted me, and so I told Josiah.
But Josiah kinder likes young girls (nothin" light; a calm meetin"-house affection), it is kinder nater that he should, and he sez: "Better let her go, she won"t make much trouble."
"No," sez I, "not to you, but if you had to set for hours and hours and hear her verses read to you on every subject -- on heaven, and earth, and the seas, and see her a measurin" of it with a stick to get the lines the right length; if you had to go through all this, mebby you would meditate on the subject before you took it for a summer"s job."
" Wall," sez he, "mebby she won"t write so much when she gets started; she will be kinder jogged round and stirred up in body and mebby her feelins" will kinder rest. I shouldn"t wonder a mite if they did," sez he. "And then she can take a good many steps for you, and I love to see you favored," sez he.
He wanted her to go, I see that, and I see that it wuz natur that he should, and so I consented in my mind -- after a parlay.
She found his specks a sight and his hat. Nothin" seemed to please her better than to be gropin" round after things to please somebody; her disposition wuz such. So it wuz settled that she should accompany and go with us. And the mornin" we started she met us at the Jonesville Depot in good sperits and a barege delaine dress, cream color, and a hat of the same.
I hadn"t seen her for some weeks, and she seemed softly tickled to see Josiah and me, and asked a good many questions about Jonesville, kinder turnin" the conversation gradually round onto bread, as I could see. So I branched right out, knowin" what she wanted of me, and told her plain, that "Abram Gee wuz a lookin"
kinder mauger. But doin" his duty stiddy," sez I, lookin" keenly at her, "a doin" his duty by everybody, and beloved by everybody, him and his bread too."
She turned her head away and kinder sithed, and I guess it wuz as much as a quarter of a hour after that, that I see her take out a pencil and a piece of paper out of her portmonny, and a little stick, and she went to makin" some verses, a measurin" "em careful as she wrote "em, and when she handed "em to me they wuz named
"A LAY ON A CAR;
"or
"THE LESSON OF A LOCOMOTIVE."
After I had read it and handed it back to her, she sez, "Don"t you think I improve on the melody and rhythm of my poetry? I take this little stick with me now wherever I go, and measure my lines by it. They are jest of a length, I am very particular; you know you advised me to be."
"Yes," sez I mechaniklly, "but I didn"t mean jest that." Sez I, "the poetry I wuz a thinkin" on, is measured by the soul, the enraptured throb of heart and brain; it don"t need takin" a stick to it. Howsumever," sez I, for I see she looked sort a disapinted, "howsumever, if you have measured "em, they are probable about the same length: it is a good sound stick, I haint no doubt;" and I kinder sithed.
And she sez, "What do you think of the first verse? Haint that verse as true as fate, or sadness, or anything else you know of?"
"Oh yes," sez I candidly, "yes; if the cars run backwards we shouldn"t go on; that is true as anything can be. But if I wuz in your place, Ardelia," sez I, "I wouldn"t write any more to-day. It is a kind of muggy damp day. It is a awfully bad day for poetry to-day. And," sez I, to get her mind offen it, "Have you seen anything of my companion"s specks?"
And that took her mind offen poetry and she went a huntin" for "em, on the seat and under the seat. She hunted truly high and low and at last she found "em on my pardner"s foretop, the last place any of us thought of lookin". And she never said another word about poetry, or any other trouble, nor I nuther.
V.
WE ARRIVE AT SARATOGA.
We arrived at Saratoga jest as sunset with a middlin" gorgeous dress on wuz a walkin" down the west and a biddin" us and the earth good-bye. There wuz every color you could think on almost, in her gown and some stars a shinin" through the floatin" drapery and a half moon restin" up on her cloudy foretop like a beautiful orniment.
(I s"pose mebby it is proper to describe sunset in this way on goin" to such a dressy place, though it haint my style to do so, I don"t love to describe sunset as a female and don"t, much of the time, but I love to see things correspond.)
Wall, we descended from the cars and went to the boardin" place provided for us beforehand by the look out of friends. It wuz a good place, there haint no doubt of that, good folks; good fare and clean.
Ardelia parted away from us at the depo. She wuz a goin" to board to a smaller boardin" house kep" by a second cousin of her father"s brother"s wife"s aunt. It wuz her father"s request that she should get her board there on account of its bein" in the family. He loved "to see relations hang together;" so he said, and "get their boards of each other." But I thought then, and I think now, that it wuz because they asked less for the board.
Deacon Tutt is close. But howsumever Ardelia went there, and my companion and me arrove at the abode where we wuz to abide, with no eppisode only the triflin" one of the driver bein" dretful mistook as to the price he asked to take us there.
I thought, and Josiah thought, that 50 cents wuz the outlay of expendatur he required to carry us where we would be; it wuz but a short distance. But no! He said that 5 dollars wuz what he said, that is, if we heard anything about a 5. But he thought we wuz deef, and dident hear him. He thought he spoke plain, and said 4 dollars for the trip.
And on that price he sot down immovible. They arged, and Josiah Allen even went so far as to use language that grated on my nerve, it wuz so voyalent and vergin" on the profane. But there the man sot, right onto that price, and he had to me the appeerance of one who wuz goin" to sot there on it all night. And so rather than to spend the night out doors, in conversation with him, he a settin"
on that price, and Josiah a shakin" his fist at it, and a jawin"
at it, I told Josiah that he had better pay it. And finally he did, with groanin"s that could hardly be uttered.
Wall, after supper (a good supper and enough on"t), Josiah proposed that we should take a short walk, we two alone, for Ardelia wuz afar from us, most to the other end of the village, either asleep or a writin" poetry, I didn"t know which, but I knew it wuz one or the other of "em. And I wuz tired enough myself to lay my head down and repose in the arms of sleep, and told my companion so, but he said:
"Oh shaw! Let old Morpheus wait for us till we get back, there"ll be time enough to rest then."
Josiah felt so neat, that he wuz fairly beginnin" to talk high learnt, and cla.s.sical. But I didn"t say nothin" to break it up, and tied on my bonnet with calmness (and a double bow knot) and we sallied out.
Soon, or mebby a little after, for we didn"t walk fast on account of my deep tucker, we stood in front of what seemed to be one hull side of a long street, all full of orniments and open work, and pillows, and flowers, and carvin"s, and scallops, and down between every scollop hung a big basket full of posys, of every beautiful color under the heavens. And over all, and way back as fur as we could see, wuz innumerable lights of every color, gorgeousness a shinin" down on gorgeousness, glory above, a shinin" down on glory below. And sweet strains of music wuz a floatin, out from somewhere, a shinin" somewhere, renderin" the seen fur more beautiful to all 4 of our wraptured ears.
And Josiah sez, as we stood there nearly rooted to the place by our motions, and a picket fence, sez he dreamily,
"I almost feel as if we had made a mistake, and that this is the land of Beuler." And he murmured to himself some words of the old him:
"Oh Beuler land! Sweet Beuler land!"