“Let ’em come; never fear. They all know we ‘ve got a best room, and that ‘s enough. Or, if you ‘d rather, I ‘ll pin a card to that effect upon the door; and then we ‘ll take our ease. Or, better than that, I ‘ll take ’em all in and show ’em our best chairs, andirons, and mahogany table, and then we can come out and be comfortable.”
“Bill, you ‘re a saucy boy,” said Aunt Lois, looking at him indulgently as she subsided into her chair.
“Yes, that he always was,” said my grandfather, with a smile of the kind that fathers give to frisky sophomores in college.
“Well, come sit down, anyway,” said my grandmother, “and let ‘s have a little Sunday-night talk.”
“Sunday-night talk, with all my heart,” said Bill, as he seated himself comfortably right in front of the cheerful blaze. “Well, it must be about ‘the meetin’,’ of course. Our old meeting-house looks as elegant as ever. Of all the buildings I ever saw to worship any kind of a being in, that meeting-house certainly is the most extraordinary. It really grows on me every time I come home!”
“Come, now Bill,” said Aunt Lois.
“Come, now! Ain’t I coming? Have n’t said anything but what you all know. Said our meeting-house was extraordinary, and you all know it is; and there ‘s extraordinary folks in it. I don’t believe so queer a tribe could be mustered in all the land of Israel as we congregate. I hope some of our oddities will be in this evening after cider. I need to study a little, so that I can give representations of nature in our club at Cambridge. Nothing like going back to nature, you know. Old Obscue, seems to me, was got up in fine fancy this morning; and Sam Lawson had an extra touch of the hearse about him. Hepsy must have been disciplining him this morning, before church. I always know when Sam is fresh from a matrimonial visitation: he ‘s peculiarly pathetic about the gills at those times. Why don’t Sam come in here?”
“I ‘m sure I hope he won’t,” said Aunt Lois. “One reason why I wanted to sit in the best room to-night was that every old tramper and queer object sees the light of our kitchen fire, and comes in for a lounge and a drink; and then, when one has genteel persons calling, it makes it unpleasant.”
“O, we all know you ‘re aristocratic, Lois; but, you see, you can’t be indulged. You must have your purple and fine linen and your Lazarus at the gate come together some time, just as they do in the meeting-house and the graveyard. Good for you all, if not agreeable.”
Just at this moment the conversation was interrupted by a commotion in the back sink-room, which sounded much like a rush of a flight of scared fowl. It ended with a tumble of a row of milk-pans toward chaos, and the door flew open and Uncle Fly appeared.
“What on earth!” said my grandmother, starting up. “That you, ‘Liakim? Why on earth must you come in the back way and knock down all my milk-pans?”
“Why, I came ‘cross lots from Aunt Bathsheba Sawin’s,” said Uncle Fly, dancing in, “and I got caught in those pesky blackberry-bushes in the graveyard, and I do believe I ‘ve torn my breeches all to pieces,” he added, pirouetting and frisking with very airy gyrations, and trying vainly to get a view of himself behind, in which operation he went round and round as a cat does after her tail.
“Laws a-massy, ‘Liakim!” said my grandmother, whose ears were startled by a peculiar hissing sound in the sink-room, which caused her to spring actively in that direction. “Well, now, you have been and done it! You ‘ve gone and fidgeted the tap out of my beer-barrel, and here ‘s the beer all over the floor. I hope you ‘re satisfied now.”
“Sorry for it. Did n’t mean to. I ‘ll wipe it right up. Where ‘s a towel, or floor-cloth, or something?” cried Uncle Fly whirling in more active circles round and round, till he seemed to me to have a dozen pairs of legs.
“Do sit down, ‘Liakim,” said my grandmother. “Of course you did n’t mean to; but next time don’t come bustling and whirligigging through my back sink-room after dark. I do believe you never will be quiet till you ‘re in your grave.”
“Sit down, uncle,” said Bill. “Never mind mother, – she ‘ll come all right by and by. And never mind your breeches, – all things earthly are transitory, as Parson Lothrop told us to-day. Now let ‘s come back to our Sunday talk. Did ever anybody see such an astonishing providence as Miss Mehitable Rossiter’s bonnet to-day? Does it belong to the old or the new dispensation, do you think?”
“Bill, I ‘m astonished at you!” said Aunt Lois.
“Miss Mehitable is of a most respectable family,” said Aunt Keziah, reprovingly. “Her father and grandfather and great-grandfather were all ministers; and two of her mother’s brothers, Jeduthun and Amariah.”
“Now, take care, youngster,” said Uncle Fly. “You see you young colts must n’t be too airy. When a fellow begins to speak evil of bonnets, nobody knows where he may end.”
“Bless me, one and all of you,” said Bill, “I have the greatest respect for Miss Mehitable. Furthermore, I like her. She ‘s a real spicy old concern. I ‘d rather talk with her than any dozen of modern girls. But I do wish she ‘d give me that bonnet to put in our Cambridge cabinet. I ‘d tell ‘ em it was the wing of a Madagascar bat. Blessed old soul, how innocent she sat under it! – never knowing to what wandering thoughts it was giving rise. Such bonnets interfere with my spiritual progress.”
At this moment, by the luck that always brings in the person people are talking of, Miss Mehitable came in, with the identical old wonder on her head. Now, outside of our own blood-relations, no one that came within our doors ever received a warmer welcome than Miss Mehitable. Even the children loved her, with that instinctive sense by which children and dogs learn the discerning of spirits. To be sure she was as gaunt and brown as the Ancient Mariner, but hers was a style of ugliness that was neither repulsive nor vulgar. Personal un-comeliness has its differing characters, and there are some very homely women who have a style that amounts to something like beauty. I know that this is not the common view of the matter; but I am firm in the faith that some very homely women have a certain attraction about them which is increased by their homeliness. It is like the quaintness of Japanese china, – not beautiful, but having a strong, pronounced character, as far remote as possible from the ordinary and vulgar, and which, in union with vigorous and agreeable traits of mind, is more stimulating than any mere insipid beauty.
In short, Miss Mehitable was a specimen of what I should call the good-goblin style of beauty, and people liked her so much that they came to like the singularities which individualized her from all other people. Her features were prominent and harsh; her eyebrows were shaggy, and finished abruptly half across her brow, leaving but half an eyebrow on each side. She had, however, clear, trustworthy, steady eyes, of a greenish gray, which impressed one with much of that idea of steadfast faithfulness that one sees in the eyes of some good, homely dogs. “Faithful and true,” was written in her face as legibly as eyes could write it.
For the rest, Miss Mehitable had a strong mind, was an omnivorous reader, apt, ready in conversation, and with a droll, original way of viewing things, which made her society ever stimulating. To me her house was always full of delightful images, – a great, calm, cool, shady, old-fashioned house, full of books and of quaint old furniture, with a garden on one side where were no end of lilies, hollyhocks, pinks, and peonies, to say nothing of currants, raspberries, apples, and pears, and other carnal delights, all of which good Miss Mehitable was free to dispense to her child-visitors. It was my image of heaven to be allowed to go to spend an afternoon with Miss Mehitable, and establish myself, in a shady corner of the old study which contained her father’s library, over an edition of Æsop’s Fables illustrated with plates, which, opened, was an endless field of enchantment to me.
Miss Mehitable lived under the watch and charge of an ancient female domestic named Polly Shubel. Polly was a representative specimen of the now extinct species of Yankee serving-maids. She had been bred up from a child in the Rosseter family of some generatio
ns back. She was of that peculiar kind of constitution, known in New England, which merely becomes drier and tougher with the advance of time, without giving any other indications of old age. The exact number of her years was a point unsettled even among the most skilful genealogists of Oldtown. Polly was a driving, thrifty, doctrinal and practical female, with strong bones and muscles, and strong opinions, believing most potently in early rising, soap and sand, and the Assembly’s Catechism, and knowing certainly all that she did know. Polly considered Miss Mehitable as a sort of child under her wardship, and conducted the whole business of life for her with a sovereign and unanswerable authority. As Miss Mehitable’s tastes were in the world of books and ideas, rather than of physical matters, she resigned herself to Polly’s sway with as good a grace as possible, though sometimes she felt that it rather abridged her freedom of action.
Luckily for my own individual self, Polly patronized me, and gave me many a piece of good advice, sweetened with gingerbread, when I went to visit Miss Rossiter. I counted Miss Mehitable among my personal friends; so to-night, when she came in, I came quickly and laid hold of the skirt of her gown, and looked admiringly upon her dusky face, under the portentous shadow of a great bonnet shaded by nodding bows of that preternatural color which people used to call olive-green. She had a word for us all, a cordial grasp of the hand for my mother, who sat silent and thoughtful in her corner, and a warm hand-shake all round.
“You see,” she said, drawing out an old-fashioned snuff-box, and tapping upon it, “my house grew so stupid that I must come and share my pinch of snuff with you. It ‘s windy out to-night, and I should think a storm was brewing; and the rattling of one’s own window-blinds, as one sits alone, is n’t half so amusing as some other things.”
“You know, Miss Rossiter, we ‘re always delighted to have you come in,” said my grandmother, and my Aunt Lois, and my Aunt Keziah, all at once. This, by the way, was a little domestic trick that the females of our family had; and, as their voices were upon very different keys, the effect was somewhat peculiar. My Aunt Lois’s voice was high and sharp, my grandmother’s a hearty chest-tone, while Aunt Keziah’s had an uncertain buzz between the two, like the vibrations of a lose string; but as they all had corresponding looks and smiles of welcome, Miss Mehitable was pleased.
“I always indulge myself in thinking I am welcome,” she said. “And now pray how is our young scholar, Master William Badger? What news do you bring us from old Harvard?”
“Almost anything you want to hear Miss Mehitable. You know that I am your most devoted slave.”
“Not so sure of that, sir,” she said, with a whimsical twinkle of her eye. “Don’t you know that your sex are always treacherous? How do I know that you don’t serve up old Miss Rossiter when you give representations of the Oldtown curiosities there at Cambridge? We are a set here that might make a boy’s fortune in that line, – now are n’t we?”
“How do you know that I do serve up Oldtown curiosities?” said Bill, somewhat confused, and blushing to the roots of his hair.
“How do I know? Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? and can you help being a mimic, as you were born, always were and always will be?”
“O, but I ‘m sure, Miss Mehitable, Bill never would, – he has too much respect,” said Aunt Keziah and Aunt Lois, simultaneously again.
“Perhaps not; but if he wants to, he ‘s welcome. What are queer old women for, if young folks may not have a good laugh out of them now and then? If it ‘s only a friendly laugh, it ‘s just as good as crying, and better too. I ‘d like to be made to laugh at myself. I think generally we take ourselves altogether too seriously. What now, bright eyes?” she added, as I nestled nearer to her. “Do you want to come up into an old woman’s lap? Well, here you come. Bless me, what a tangle of curls we have here! Don’t your thoughts get caught in these curls sometimes?”
I looked bashful and wistful at this address, and Miss Mehitable went on twining my curls around her fingers, and trotting me on her knee, lulling me into a delicious dreaminess, in which she seemed to me to be one of those nice, odd-looking old fairy women that figure to such effect in stories.
The circle all rose again as Major Broad came in. Aunt Lois thought, with evident anguish, of the best room. Here was the major, sure enough, and we all sitting round the kitchen fire! But my grandfather and grandmother welcomed him cheerfully to their corner, and enthroned him in my grandfather’s splint-bottomed rocking-chair, where he sat far more comfortably than if he had been perched on a genteel, slippery-bottomed stuffed chair with claw feet.
The Major performed the neighborly kindnesses of the occasion in an easy way. He spoke a few words to my mother of the esteem and kindness he had felt for my father, in a manner that called up the blood into her thin cheeks, and made her eyes dewy with tears. Then he turned to the young collegian, recognizing him as one of the rising lights of Oldtown.
“Our only nobility now,” he said to my grandfather. “We ‘ve cut off everything else; no distinction now, sir, but educated and uneducated.”
“It is a hard struggle for our human nature to give up titles and ranks, though,” said Miss Mehitable. “For my part, I have a ridiculous kindness for them yet. I know it ‘s all nonsense; but I can’t help looking back to the court we used to have at the Government House in Boston. You know it was something to hear of the goings and doings of my Lord this and my Lady that., and of Sir Thomas and Sir Peter and Sir Charles, and all the rest of ‘em.”
“Yes,” said Bill; “the Oldtown folks call their minister’s wife Lady yet.”
“Well, that ‘s a little comfort,” said Miss Mehitable; “one don’t want life an entire dead level. Do let us have one titled lady among us.”
“And a fine lady she is,” said the Major. “Our parson did a good thing in that alliance.”
While the conversation was thus taking a turn of the most approved genteel style, Aunt Keziah’s ears heard alarming premonitory sounds outside the door. “Who ‘s that at the scraper?” she said.
“O, it ‘s Sam Lawson,” said Aunt Lois, with a sort of groan. “You may be sure of that.”
“Come in, Sam, my boy,” said Uncle Bill, opening the door. “Glad to see you.”
“Wal now, Mr. Badger,” said Sam, with white eyes of veneration, “I ‘m real glad to see ye. I telled Hepsy you ‘d want to see me. You ‘re the fust one of my Saturday afternoon fishin’ boys that ‘s got into college, and I ‘m ‘mazing proud of ‘t. I tell you I walk tall, – ask ‘ em if I don’t, round to the store.”
“You always were gifted in that line,” said Bill. “But come, sit down in the corner and tell us what you ‘ve been about.”
“Wal, you see, I thought I ‘d jest go over to North Parish this afternoon, jest for a change, like, and I wanted to hear one of them Hopkintinsians they tell so much about; and Parson Simpson, he ‘s one on ‘em.”
“Yu ought not to be roving off on Sunday, leaving your own meeting,” said my grandfather.
“Wal, you see, Deacon Badger, I ‘m interested in these ‘ere new doctrines. I met your Polly a goin’ over, too,” he said to Miss Mehitable.
“O yes,” said Miss Mehitable, “Polly is a great Hopkinsian. She can hardly have patience to sit under our Parson Lothrop’s preaching. It ‘s rather hard on me, because Polly makes it a point of conscience to fight every one of his discourses over to me in my parlor. Somebody gave Polly an Arminian tract last Sunday, entitled, ‘The Apostle Paul an Arminian.’ It would have done you good to hear Polly’s comments. ‘‘Postle Paul an Arminian! He ‘s the biggest ‘lectioner of ’em all.’”
“That he is,” said my grandmother, warmly. “Polly ‘s read her Bible to some purpose.”
“Well, Sam, what did you think of the sermon?” said Uncle Bill.
“Wal,” said Sam, leaning over the fire, with his long, bony hands alternately raised to catch the warmth, and then dropped with an utter laxness, when the warmth became too pronoun
ced, “Parson Simpson ‘s a smart man; but, I tell ye, it ‘s kind o’ discouragin’. Why, he said our state and condition by natur was just like this. We was clear down in a well fifty feet deep, and the sides all round nothin’ but glare ice; but we was under immediate obligations to get out, ‘cause we was free, voluntary agents. But nobody ever had got out, and nobody would, unless the Lord reached down and took ‘em. And whether he would or not nobody could tell; it was all sovereignty. He said there wa’ n’t one in a hundred, – not one in a thousand, – not one in ten thousand, – that would be saved. Lordy massy, says I to myself, ef that ‘s so they ‘re any of ’em welcome to my chance. And so I kind o’ ris up and come out, ‘cause I ‘d got a pretty long walk home, and I wanted to go round by South Pond, and inquire about Aunt Sally Morse’s toothache.”
“I heard the whole sermon over from Polly,” said Miss Mehitable, “and as it was not a particularly cheerful subject to think of, I came over here.” These words were said with a sort of chilly, dreary sigh, that made me turn and look up in Miss Mehitable’s face. It looked haggard and weary, as of one tired of struggling with painful thoughts.
“Wal,” said Sam Lawson, “I stopped a minute round to your back door, Miss Rossiter, to talk with Polly about the sermon. I was a tellin’ Polly that that ‘ere was puttin’ inability a leetle too strong.”
“Not a bit, not a bit,” said Uncle Fly, “so long as it ‘s moral inability. There ‘s the point, ye see, – moral, – that ‘s the word. That makes it all right.”
“Wal,” said Sam, “I was a puttin’ it to Polly this way. Ef a man ‘s cut off his hands, it ain’t right to require him to chop wood. Wal, Polly, she says he ‘d no business to cut his hands off; and so he ought to be required to chop the wood all the same. Wal, I telled her it was Adam chopped our hands off. But she said, no; it was we did it in Adam, and she brought up the catechise plain enough, – We sinned in him, and fell with him.’”
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 244