Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  “Have you a headache to-night, Miss Silence?”

  “No!” was the gruff answer.

  “Are you in a hurry about those bags?” said he, glancing at a pile of unmade ones which lay by her side.

  No reply. “Hang it all!” said our hero to himself, “I’ll make her speak.”

  Miss Silence’s needle book and brown thread lay on a chair beside her. Our friend helped himself to a needle and thread, and taking one of the bags, planted himself bolt upright opposite to Miss Silence, and pinning his work to his knee, commenced stitching at a rate fully equal to her own.

  Miss Silence looked up and fidgeted, but went on with her work faster than before; but the faster she worked, the faster and steadier worked our hero, all in “marvellous silence.” There began to be an odd twitching about the muscles of Miss Silence’s face; our hero took no notice, having pursed his features into an expression of unexampled gravity, which only grew more intense as he perceived, by certain uneasy movements, that the adversary was beginning to waver.

  As they were sitting, stitching away, their needles whizzing at each other like a couple of locomotives engaged in conversation, Susan opened the door.

  The poor child had been crying for the greater part of her spare time during the day, and was in no very merry humor; but the moment that her astonished eyes comprehended the scene, she burst into a fit of almost inextinguishable merriment, while Silence laid down her needle, and looked half amused and half angry. Our hero, however, continued his business with inflexible perseverance, unpinning his work and moving the seam along, and going on with increased velocity.

  Poor Miss Silence was at length vanquished, and joined in the loud laugh which seemed to convulse her sister. Whereupon our hero unpinned his work, and folding it up, looked up at her with all the assurance of impudence triumphant, and remarked to Susan, —

  “Your sister had such a pile of these pillow cases to make, that she was quite discouraged, and engaged me to do half a dozen of them: when I first came in she was so busy she could not even speak to me.”

  “Well, if you ain’t the beater for impudence!” said Miss Silence.

  “The beater for industry — so I thought,” rejoined our hero.

  Susan, who had been in a highly tragical state of mind all day, and who was meditating on nothing less sublime than an eternal separation from her lover, which she had imagined, with all the affecting attendants and consequents, was entirely revolutionized by the unexpected turn thus given to her ideas, while our hero pursued the opportunity he had made for himself, and exerted his powers of entertainment to the utmost, till Miss Silence, declaring that if she had been washing all day she should not have been more tired than she was with laughing, took up her candle, and good-naturedly left our young people to settle matters between themselves. There was a grave pause of some length when she had departed, which was broken by our hero, who, seating himself by Susan, inquired very seriously if his father had made proposals of marriage to Miss Silence that morning.

  “No, you provoking creature!” said Susan, at the same time laughing at the absurdity of the idea.

  “Well, now, don’t draw on your long face again, Susan,” said Joseph; “you have been trying to lengthen it down all the evening, if I would have let you. Seriously, now, I know that something painful passed between my father and you this morning, but I shall not inquire what it was. I only tell you, frankly, that he has expressed his disapprobation of our engagement, forbidden me to go on with it, and — —”

  “And, consequently, I release you from all engagements and obligations to me, even before you ask it,” said Susan.

  “You are extremely accommodating,” replied Joseph; “but I cannot promise to be as obliging in giving up certain promises made to me, unless, indeed, the feelings that dictated them should have changed.”

  “O, no — no, indeed,” said Susan, earnestly; “you know it is not that; but if your father objects to me — —”

  “If my father objects to you, he is welcome not to marry you,” said Joseph.

  “Now, Joseph, do be serious,” said Susan.

  “Well, then, seriously, Susan, I know my obligations to my father, and in all that relates to his comfort I will ever be dutiful and submissive, for I have no college boy pride on the subject of submission; but in a matter so individually my own as the choice of a wife, in a matter that will most likely affect my happiness years and years after he has ceased to be, I hold that I have a right to consult my own inclinations, and, by your leave, my dear little lady, I shall take that liberty.”

  “But, then, if your father is made angry, you know what sort of a man he is; and how could I stand in the way of all your prospects?”

  “Why, my dear Susan, do you think I count myself dependent upon my father, like the heir of an English estate, who has nothing to do but sit still and wait for money to come to him? No! I have energy and education to start with, and if I cannot take care of myself, and you too, then cast me off and welcome;” and, as Joseph spoke, his fine face glowed with a conscious power, which unfettered youth never feels so fully as in America. He paused a moment, and resumed: “Nevertheless, Susan, I respect my father; whatever others may say of him, I shall never forget that I owe to his hard earnings the education that enables me to do or be any thing, and I shall not wantonly or rudely cross him. I do not despair of gaining his consent; my father has a great partiality for pretty girls, and if his love of contradiction is not kept awake by open argument, I will trust to time and you to bring him round; but, whatever comes, rest assured, my dearest one, I have chosen for life, and cannot change.”

  The conversation, after this, took a turn which may readily be imagined by all who have been in the same situation, and will, therefore, need no further illustration.

  “Well, deacon, railly I don’t know what to think now: there’s my Joe, he’s took and been a courting that ‘ere Susan,” said Uncle Jaw.

  This was the introduction to one of Uncle Jaw’s periodical visits to Deacon Enos, who was sitting with his usual air of mild abstraction, looking into the coals of a bright November fire, while his busy helpmate was industriously rattling her knitting needles by his side.

  A close observer might have suspected that this was no news to the good deacon, who had given a great deal of good advice, in private, to Master Joseph of late; but he only relaxed his features into a quiet smile, and ejaculated, “I want to know!”

  “Yes; and railly, deacon, that ‘ere gal is a rail pretty un. I was a tellin’ my folks that our new minister’s wife was a fool to her.”

  “And so your son is going to marry her?” said the good lady; “I knew that long ago.”

  “Well — no — not so fast; ye see there’s two to that bargain yet. You see, Joe, he never said a word to me, but took and courted the gal out of his own head; and when I come to know, says I, ‘Joe,’ says I, ‘that ‘ere gal won’t do for me;’ and I took and tell’d him, then, about that ‘ere old fence, and all about that old mill, and them medders of mine; and I tell’d him, too, about that ‘ere lot of Susan’s; and I should like to know, now, deacon, how that lot business is a going to turn out.”

  “Judge Smith and ‘Squire Moseley say that my claim to it will stand,” said the deacon.

  “They do?” said Uncle Jaw, with much satisfaction; “s’pose, then, you’ll sue, won’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” replied the deacon, meditatively.

  Uncle Jaw was thoroughly amazed; that any one should have doubts about entering suit for a fine piece of land, when sure of obtaining it, was a problem quite beyond his powers of solving.

  “You say your son has courted the girl,” said the deacon, after a long pause; “that strip of land is the best part of Susan’s share; I paid down five hundred dollars on the nail for it; I’ve got papers here that Judge Smith and ‘Squire Moseley say will stand good in any court of law.”

  Uncle Jaw pricked up his ears and was all attention, eying with eag
er looks the packet; but, to his disappointment, the deacon deliberately laid it into his desk, shut and locked it, and resumed his seat.

  “Now, railly,” said Uncle Jaw, “I should like to know the particulars.”

  “Well, well,” said the deacon, “the lawyers will be at my house to-morrow evening, and if you have any concern about it, you may as well come along.”

  Uncle Jaw wondered all the way home at what he could have done to get himself into the confidence of the old deacon, who, he rejoiced to think, was a going to “take” and go to law like other folks.

  The next day there was an appearance of some bustle and preparation about the deacon’s house; the best room was opened and aired; an ovenful of cake was baked; and our friend Joseph, with a face full of business, was seen passing to and fro, in and out of the house, from various closetings with the deacon. The deacon’s lady bustled about the house with an air of wonderful mystery, and even gave her directions about eggs and raisins in a whisper, lest they should possibly let out some eventful secret.

  The afternoon of that day Joseph appeared at the house of the sisters, stating that there was to be company at the deacon’s that evening, and he was sent to invite them.

  “Why, what’s got into the deacon’s folks lately,” said Silence, “to have company so often? Joe Adams, this ‘ere is some ‘cut up’ of yours. Come, what are you up to now?”

  “Come, come, dress yourselves and get ready,” said Joseph; and, stepping up to Susan, as she was following Silence out of the room, he whispered something into her ear, at which she stopped short and colored violently.

  “Why, Joseph, what do you mean?”

  “It is so,” said he.

  “No, no, Joseph; no, I can’t, indeed I can’t.”

  “But you can, Susan.”

  “O Joseph, don’t.”

  “O Susan, do.”

  “Why, how strange, Joseph!”

  “Come, come, my dear, you keep me waiting. If you have any objections on the score of propriety, we will talk about them to-morrow;” and our hero looked so saucy and so resolute that there was no disputing further; so, after a little more lingering and blushing on Susan’s part, and a few kisses and persuasions on the part of the suitor, Miss Susan seemed to be brought to a state of resignation.

  At a table in the middle of Uncle Enos’s north front room were seated the two lawyers, whose legal opinion was that evening to be fully made up. The younger of these, ‘Squire Moseley, was a rosy, portly, laughing little bachelor, who boasted that he had offered himself, in rotation, to every pretty girl within twenty miles round, and, among others, to Susan Jones, notwithstanding which he still remained a bachelor, with a fair prospect of being an old one; but none of these things disturbed the boundless flow of good nature and complacency with which he seemed at all times full to overflowing. On the present occasion he appeared to be particularly in his element, as if he had some law business in hand remarkably suited to his turn of mind; for, on finishing the inspection of the papers, he started up, slapped his graver brother on the back, made two or three flourishes round the room, and then seizing the old deacon’s hand, shook it violently, exclaiming, —

  “All’s right, deacon, all’s right! Go it! go it! hurrah!”

  When Uncle Jaw entered, the deacon, without preface, handed him a chair and the papers, saying, —

  “These papers are what you wanted to see. I just wish you would read them over.”

  Uncle Jaw read them deliberately over. “Didn’t I tell ye so, deacon? The case is as clear as a bell: now ye will go to law, won’t you?”

  “Look here, Mr. Adams; now you have seen these papers, and heard what’s to be said, I’ll make you an offer. Let your son marry Susan Jones, and I’ll burn these papers and say no more about it, and there won’t be a girl in the parish with a finer portion.”

  Uncle Jaw opened his eyes with amazement, and looked at the old man, his mouth gradually expanding wider and wider, as if he hoped, in time, to swallow the idea.

  “Well, now, I swan!” at length he ejaculated.

  “I mean just as I say,” said the deacon.

  “Why, that’s the same as giving the gal five hundred dollars out of your own pocket, and she ain’t no relation neither.”

  “I know it,” said the deacon; “but I have said I will do it.”

  “What upon ‘arth for?” said Uncle Jaw.

  “To make peace,” said the deacon, “and to let you know that when I say it is better to give up one’s rights than to quarrel, I mean so. I am an old man; my children are dead” — his voice faltered—”my treasures are laid up in heaven; if I can make the children happy, why, I will. When I thought I had lost the land, I made up my mind to lose it, and so I can now.”

  Uncle Jaw looked fixedly on the old deacon, and said, —

  “Well, deacon, I believe you. I vow, if you hain’t got something ahead in t’other world, I’d like to know who has — that’s all; so, if Joe has no objections, and I rather guess he won’t have — —”

  “The short of the matter is,” said the squire, “we’ll have a wedding; so come on;” and with that he threw open the parlor door, where stood Susan and Joseph in a recess by the window, while Silence and the Rev. Mr. Bissel were drawn up by the fire, and the deacon’s lady was sweeping up the hearth, as she had been doing ever since the party arrived.

  Instantly Joseph took the hand of Susan, and led her to the middle of the room; the merry squire seized the hand of Miss Silence, and placed her as bridesmaid, and before any one knew what they were about, the ceremony was in actual progress, and the minister, having been previously instructed, made the two one with extraordinary celerity.

  “What! what! what!” said Uncle Jaw. “Joseph! Deacon!”

  “Fair bargain, sir,” said the squire. “Hand over your papers, deacon.”

  The deacon handed them, and the squire, having read them aloud, proceeded, with much ceremony, to throw them into the fire; after which, in a mock solemn oration, he gave a statement of the whole affair, and concluded with a grave exhortation to the new couple on the duties of wedlock, which unbent the risibles even of the minister himself.

  Uncle Jaw looked at his pretty daughter-in-law, who stood half smiling, half blushing, receiving the congratulations of the party, and then at Miss Silence, who appeared full as much taken by surprise as himself.

  “Well, well, Miss Silence, these ‘ere young folks have come round us slick enough,” said he. “I don’t see but we must shake hands upon it.” And the warlike powers shook hands accordingly, which was a signal for general merriment.

  As the company were dispersing, Miss Silence laid hold of the good deacon, and by main strength dragged him aside. “Deacon,” said she, “I take back all that ‘ere I said about you, every word on’t.”

  “Don’t say any more about it, Miss Silence,” said the good man; “it’s gone by, and let it go.”

  “Joseph!” said his father, the next morning, as he was sitting at breakfast with Joseph and Susan, “I calculate I shall feel kinder proud of this ‘ere gal! and I’ll tell you what, I’ll jest give you that nice little delicate Stanton place that I took on Stanton’s mortgage: it’s a nice little place, with green blinds, and flowers, and all them things, just right for Susan.”

  And accordingly, many happy years flew over the heads of the young couple in the Stanton place, long after the hoary hairs of their kind benefactor, the deacon, were laid with reverence in the dust. Uncle Jaw was so far wrought upon by the magnanimity of the good old man as to be very materially changed for the better. Instead of quarrelling in real earnest all around the neighborhood, he confined himself merely to battling the opposite side of every question with his son, which, as the latter was somewhat of a logician, afforded a pretty good field for the exercise of his powers; and he was heard to declare at the funeral of the old deacon, that, “after all, a man got as much, and may be more, to go along as the deacon did, than to be all the time fisting an
d jawing; though I tell you what it is,” said he, afterwards, “‘tain’t every one that has the deacon’s faculty, any how.”

  THE TEA ROSE.

  There it stood, in its little green vase, on a light ebony stand, in the window of the drawing room. The rich satin curtains, with their costly fringes, swept down on either side of it, and around it glittered every rare and fanciful trifle which wealth can offer to luxury; and yet that simple rose was the fairest of them all. So pure it looked, its white leaves just touched with that delicious creamy tint peculiar to its kind; its cup so full, so perfect; its head bending as if it were sinking and melting away in its own richness — O, when did ever man make any thing to equal the living, perfect flower?

  But the sunlight that streamed through the window revealed something fairer than the rose. Reclined on an ottoman, in a deep recess, and intently engaged with a book, rested what seemed the counterpart of that so lovely flower. That cheek so pale, that fair forehead so spiritual, that countenance so full of high thought, those long, downcast lashes, and the expression of the beautiful mouth, sorrowful, yet subdued and sweet — it seemed like the picture of a dream.

  “Florence! Florence!” echoed a merry and musical voice, in a sweet, impatient tone. Turn your head, reader, and you will see a light and sparkling maiden, the very model of some little wilful elf, born of mischief and motion, with a dancing eye, a foot that scarcely seems to touch the carpet, and a smile so multiplied by dimples that it seems like a thousand smiles at once. “Come, Florence, I say,” said the little sprite, “put down that wise, good, and excellent volume, and descend from your cloud, and talk with a poor little mortal.”

  The fair apparition, thus adjured, obeyed; and, looking up, revealed just such eyes as you expected to see beneath such lids — eyes deep, pathetic, and rich as a strain of sad music.

  “I say, cousin,” said the “bright ladye,” “I have been thinking what you are to do with your pet rose when you go to New York, as, to our consternation, you are determined to do; you know it would be a sad pity to leave it with such a scatterbrain as I am. I do love flowers, that is a fact; that is, I like a regular bouquet, cut off and tied up, to carry to a party; but as to all this tending and fussing, which is needful to keep them growing, I have no gifts in that line.”