“Pollute nothing!” sez he, and we didn’t speak for over two milds. But another weariness wuz ahead on me, and another strain on my overworked ear pans. Jest about this time, Whitfield Minkley, our Tirzah Ann’s husband, got jest as much carried away and enthused over some other Islands, though he had more to show for his het up state of mind. One thousand and seventy wuz the number of islands he fell voylently in love with and tried to make us the same. He had been to Canada on bizness and went through them islands, and wuz overcome by their extreme beauty. I’d heard that Whitfield’s islands wuz as beautiful as anything this side of the Heavenly gardens. Still, with Serenus on one side praisin’ up Coney, and Whitfield on the other praisin’ up his islands, I got so dead tired of ’em that I wished there wuzn’t a single island on the hull face of the earth. Yes, extreme weariness had got me so low down as that.
One evenin’, Serenus had been there and talked three hours stiddy, describin’ the charms and attractions of his island. The rush and roar 7 of the mechanical amusements, so wonderful they made scientific men wonder. The educated animals that showed how fur animals could be made to reason and understand. The constant hustle and bustle of the immense crowds, ever comin’, ever goin’, ever movin’, never stoppin’. He stood up some of the time describin’ the wonders and splendors there, and tramped up and down our kitchen floor, swingin’ his arms and actin’, till, when he left at late bed-time, Josiah wuz pale with longin’, and when I got up to lock the door and let out the cat, my head seemed to go round and round, and I had to hang onto the door nob to stiddy myself.
And the very next forenoon Whitfield and Tirzah Ann and little Delight come to spend the day. Her name is Anna Tirzah, but I called her Heart’s Delight, she wuz so sweet and pretty, and we’ve shortened it into Delight. I wuz glad to see ’em and done well by ’em in cookin’. I had a excelent dinner started—roast fowl and vegetables and orange puddin’, etc.—but Whitfield, jest as soon as he sot down, begun to descant on the beauty of his islands. I groaned and sithed out in the buttery. “Islands agin! I had one island last night till bed-time, and now I’ve got one thousand and seventy ahead on me.”
8
“Serenus Gowdey tramped up and down our kitchen floor swingin’ his arms and describin’ the wonders of Coney Island.” (See page 7)
9
He begun jest as I put my potatoes on to bile, I wuz goin’ to smash ’em with plenty of cream and butter; I hearn him till dinner wuz on the table, and I wuz turnin’ out the rich, fragrant coffee and addin’ the cream to it, and his praise on ’em wuz still flowin’ in a stiddy stream, and then I asked him, in one of his short pauses for breath, how Grout Nickelson’s rumatiz wuz.
He answered polite but brief, and resoomed the subject nearest and dearest. I then, with dizzy foretop and achin’ ear pans, tried to turn his mind onto politics and religion, no avail. I tried cotton cloth, carbide, lamb’s wool blankets, Panama Canal, literatoor, X rays, hens’ eggs, Standard Oil, the school mom, reciprocity, and the tariff; not a mite of change, all his idees swoshin’ up against them islands, and tryin’ to float off our minds there with hisen. I thought of what I’d hearn Thomas J. read about Tennyson’s character, who “didn’t want to die a listener,” and I sez in a firm voice, “I’ve had a letter from Cousin Faithful Smith. She’s comin’ here next spring to make a visit.”
Whitfield said he should love to see Cousin 10 Faith, but whilst she wuz here, we all ort to go to the Thousand Islands.
Sez Josiah firmly, “We ort to take her to Coney Island,” and he went on rehearsin’ Serenuses praises, and the education and the bliss one could git there. He rid his hobby nobly, but Whitfield, bein’ young and spry, could ride his hobby faster and furder, till finally Josiah got discouraged, and sot still a spell, and then scratched his head, and went out to the barn. And Whitfield seated himself with ease on his hobby, which pranced about us till, well as I love the children, I felt relieved to see ’em go, for my head felt as if the river wuz rushin’ through it. And after they left and we driv over to the post office, it seemed as if the democrat wuz a boat and the dusty road a broad, liquid stream, down which we wuz glidin’ and the neighin’ of the old mair (we had to leave her colt to home) wuz the snort of a steamer. My dreams that night wuz about the Saint Lawrence, kinder swoshy and floatin’ round.
Well, the cold winter passed away, as winters will, if you have patience to wait (or if you don’t either, to be exact and truthful). The shiverin’ earth begun to git a little warmer, 11 kinder shook herself and partly throwed off the white fur robe she’d wore all huddled round herself so long, and as the sun looked down closter and more smilin’ it throwed it clear off and begun to put on its new green spring suit. Them same smiles, only more warm and persuadin’ like, coaxed the sweet sap up into the bare maple tops in Josiah’s sugar bush and the surroundin’ world, till them same sunny smiles wuz packed away in depths of sugar loaves and golden syrup in our store room. Wild-flowers peeped out in sheltered places; pussy willows bent down and bowed low as they see their pretty faces in the onchained brook; birds sung amongst the pale green shadders of openin’ leaves; the west wind jined in the happy chorus. And lo! on lookin’ out of our winder before we knowed it, as it were, we see Spring had come!
And with the spring come my expected visitor, Faithful Smith. She is my own cousin on my own side, called by some a old maid. But she hain’t so very old, and she’s real good-lookin’—better than when she wuz a girl, I think, for life has been cuttin’ pure and sweet meanin’s into her face, some as they carve beauty into a cameo. She’s kinder pale and her sweet soul seems to look right out at you from her soft gray 12 eyes, and the lay of her hull face is such that you would think, if the fire of happiness could be built up under it (in her soul), it would light up into loveliness.
She wuz disappinted some years ago (or I d’no what you would call it) when she sent the man away herself. But she had a Bo when she wuz a girl by the name of Richard West. Dick West wuz the fullest of fun you ever see, though generous and good hearted; but he boasted on not believin’ anything, and Faithful’s father, bein’ a church member of the closest kind, and she brung up as you may say, right inside the tabernacle, with her Pa’s phylakracy hangin’ on the very horns of the altar, you may know what opposition Richard got from her Pa and her own conscience. Her conscience, as so many good girl’s consciences are, wuz a perfect tyrant, and drove her round—that, and her Pa. He wanted to be a good man, but wuz bigoted and couldn’t see no higher than the top of the steeple, and didn’t want to. And take these facts, with her deep true love for Richard, you may know she got tossted about more’n considerable.
Richard would make fun right in meetin’—make fun of their religious observances—and 13 finally, though he wuz good natured, and did all his pranks through light-hearted mischief and not malice, yet at last he did git mad at the old deacon, who wuz comin’ it dretful strong on him with his doctrines and exhortin’ him, tellin’ him he wuz a lost soul and had been from before his birth. Then Richard sassed him right back and told him he didn’t believe in his idee of the Deity.
The old deacon couldn’t stand such talk. He turned him outdoors, slammed the door in his face, and forbid Faith to speak to him again. She obeyed her Pa and her own conscience; but it seemed to take all the nip out of her life. You see, she loved this young man; and when anyone like Faith loves it hain’t for a week or a summer, but for life.
He writ to her burnin’ words of love and passion, for he loved her too in the old-fashioned way Adam did Eve—no other woman round, you know. And the words he writ wuz, I spoze, enough to melt a slate stun, let alone a heart, tender and true. She never writ a word back, and at last she wouldn’t read his letters and sent ’em back onopened. That madded him and he went on from bad to worse, swung right out into wickedness. He seemed to git harder and harder, and finally seein’ he could make no more impression on Faith than he could on white clear crystal,