Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a Politician by Marietta Holley (novels for teenagers .txt) 📗
- Author: Marietta Holley
Book online «Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a Politician by Marietta Holley (novels for teenagers .txt) 📗». Author Marietta Holley
“No, no! he fell because he sinned.”
But the boy went right on, in a tone of calm conviction,—
“No big man would be apt to fall a walking right along. He fell out of the apple-tree.”
And then he says, after a minute's still thought,—
“I believe, if I had been there, and had a string round Adam's leg, I could kep' him from fallin' off;—and say, where was the Lord? Couldn't He have kept him? say, couldn't He?”
“Yes: He can do any thing.”
“Wall, then, why didn't He?”
Josiah groaned, low.
“If Adam hadn't fell, I wouldn't have fell, would I?—nor you—nor Ury—nor anybody?”
“No: I s'pose not.”
“Wall, wouldn't it have paid to kept Adam up? Say, uncle Josiah, say!”
“Oh! less talk about sunthin' else,” says my poor Josiah. “Don't you want a sweet apple?”
“Yes; and say! what kind of a apple was it that Adam eat? Was it a sweet apple, or a greening, or a sick-no-further? And say, was it right for all of us to fall down because Adam did? And how did I sin just because a man eat an apple, and fell out of an apple-tree, when I never saw the apple, or poked him offen the tree, or joggled him, or any thing—when I wasn't there? Say, how was it wrong, uncle Josiah? When I wasn't there!”
My poor companion, I guess to sort o' pacify him, broke out kinder a singin' in a tone full of fag, “'In Adam's fall, we sinned all.'” Josiah is sound.
“And be I a sinning now, uncle Josiah? and a falling? And is everybody a sinning and a falling jest because that one man eat one apple, and fell out of an apple-tree? Say, is it right, uncle Josiah, for you and me, and everybody that is on the earth, to keep a falling, and keep a falling, and bein' blamed, and every thing, when we hadn't done any thing, and wasn't there? And say, will folks always keep a falling?”
“Yes, if they hain't good.”
“How can they keep a falling? If Adam fell out of the apple-tree, wouldn't he have struck on the ground, and got up agin? And if anybody falls, why, why, mustn't they come to the bottom sometime? If there is something to fall off of, mustn't there be something to hit against? And say”—
Here the boy's eyes looked dreamier than they had looked, and further off.
“Was I made out of dirt, uncle Josiah?”
“Yes: we are all made out of dust.”
“And did God breathe our souls into us? Was it His own self, His own life, that was breathed into us?”
“Yes,” says Josiah, in a more fagged voice than he had used durin' the intervue, and more hopelesser.
“Wall, if God is in us, how can He lose us again? Wouldn't it be a losing His own self? And how could God lose Himself? And what did He find us for, in the first place, if He wus going to lose us again?”
Here Josiah got right up in the Democrat, and lifted the boy, and sot him over on the seat with me, and took the lines out of Ury's hands, and drove the old mair at a rate that I told him wus shameful on Sunday, for a perfessor.
CHAPTER II.
Wall, Cicely and the boy staid till Tuesday night. Tuesday afternoon the children wus all to home on a invitation. (I had a chicken-pie, and done well by 'em.)
And nothin' to do but what Cicely and the boy must go home with 'em: they jest think their eyes of Cicely. And I couldn't blame 'em for wantin' her, though I hated to give her up.
She laid out to stay a few days, and then come back to our house for a day or two, and then go on to her aunt Mary's. But, as it turned out, the children urged her so, she stayed most two weeks.
And the very next day but one after Cicely went to the children's—And don't it beat all how, if visitors get to comin', they'll keep a comin'? jest as it is if you begin to have trials, you'll have lots of 'em, or broken dishes, or any thing.
Wall, it wus the very next mornin' but one after Cicely had gone, and my voice had actually begun to sound natural agin (the boy had kep' me hoarse as a frog answerin' questions). I wus whitewashin' the kitchen, havin' put it off while Cicely wus there; and there wus a man to work a patchin' up the wall in one of the chambers,—and right there and then, Elburtus Smith Gansey come. And truly, we found him as clever a critter as ever walked the earth.
It wus jest before korkuss; and he wus kinder visatin' round amongst his relations, and makin' himself agreable. He is my 5th cousin,—5th or 6th. I can't reely tell which, and I don't know as I care much; for I think, that, after you get by the 5th, it hain't much matter anyway. I sort o' pile 'em all in promiscous. Jest as it is after anybody gets to be 70 years old, it hain't much matter how much older they be: they are what you may call old, anyway.
But I think, as I said prior and beforehand, that he wus a 5th. His mother wus a Butrick, and her mother wus a Smith. So he come to make us a visit, and sort o' ellectioneer round. He wanted to get put in county judge; and so, the korkuss bein' held in Jonesville, I s'pose he thought he'd come down, and endear himself to us, as they all do.
I am one that likes company first-rate, and I always try to do well by 'em; but I tell Josiah, that somehow city folks (Elburtus wus brought up in a city) are a sort of a bother. They require so much, and give you the feelin', that, when you are a doin' your very best for 'em, they hain't satisfied. You see, some folks'es best hain't nigh so good as other folks'es 3d or 4th.
But this feller—why! I liked him from the first minute I sot my eyes on him. I hadn't seen him before sence I wus a child, and so didn't feel so awful well acquainted with him; or, that is, I didn't, as it were, feel intimate. You know, when you don't see anybody from the time you are babies till you are married, and have lost a good many teeth, and considerable hair, you can't feel over and above intimate with 'em at first sight.
But I liked him, he wus so unassuming and friendly, and took every thing so peaceable and pleasant. And he deserved better things than what happened to him.
You see, I wus a cleanin' house when he come, cleanin' the kitchen at that out-of-the-way time of year on account of Cicely's visit, and on account of repairin' that had promised to be done by Josiah Allen, and delayed from week to week, and month to month, as is the way with men. But finally he had got it done, and I wus ready to the minute with my brush and scourin'-cloth.
I wus a whitewashin' when he come, and my pail of whitewash wus hung up over the kitchen-door; and I stood up on a table, a whitewashin' the ceilin, when I heard a buggy drive up to the door, and stop. And I stood still, and listened; and then I heard a awful katouse and rumpus, and then I heard hollerin'; and then I heard Josiah's voice, and somebody else's voice, a talkin' back and forth, sort o' quick and excited.
Now, some wimmen would have been skairt, and acted skairt; but I didn't. I jest stood up on that table, cool and calm as a statue of Repose sculped out of marble, and most as white (I wus all covered with whitewash), with my brush held easy and firm in my right hand, and my left ear a listenin'.
Pretty soon the door opened right by the side of the table, and in come Josiah Allen and a strange man. He introduced him to me as Elburtus Gansey, my 4th cousin; and I made a handsome curchy. I s'pose, bein' up on the table, the curchy showed off to better advantage than it would if I had been on the floor: it looked well. But I felt that I ort to shake hands with him; and, as I went to step down into a chair to get down (entirely unbeknown to me), my brush hit against that pail, and down come that pail of whitewash right onto his back. (If it had been his head, it would have broke it.)
I felt as if I should sink. But he took it the best that ever wus. He said, when Josiah and me wus a sweepin' him off, and a rubbin' him off with wet towels, that “it wusn't no matter at all.” And he spoke up so polite and courteous, that “it seemed to be first-rate whitewash: he never see better, whiter lime in his life, than that seemed to be.” And then he sort o' felt of it between his thumb and finger, and asked Josiah “where did he get that lime, and if they had any more of it. He didn't believe they could get such lime outside of Jonesville.” He acted like a perfect gentleman.
And he told me, in that same polite, pleasant tone, how Josiah's old sheep had knocked him over 3 times while he wus a comin' into the house. He said, with that calm, gentle smile, “that no sooner would he get up, than he would stand off a little, and then rush at him with his head down, and push him right over.”
Says I, “It is a perfect shame and a disgrace,” says I. “And I have told you, Josiah Allen, that some stranger would get killed by that old creeter; and I should think you would get rid of it.”
“Wall, I lay out to, the first chance I get,” says he.
Elburtus said “it would almost seem to be a pity, it was so strong and healthy a sheep.” He said he never met a sheep under any circumstances that seemed to have a sounder, stronger constitution. He said of course the sheep and he hadn't met under the pleasantest of circumstances, and it wusn't over and above pleasant to be knocked down by it three or four times; but he had found that he couldn't have every thing as he wanted it in this world, and the only way to enjoy ourselves wus to take things as they come.
Says I, “I s'pose that wus the way you took the sheep;” and he said, “It was.”
And then he went on to say in that amiable way of hisen, “that it probably made it a little harder for him jest at that time, as he wus struck by lightnin' that mornin'.” (There had been a awful thunder-storm.)
Says Josiah, all excitement, “Did it strike you sensible?”
Says I, “You mean senseless, Josiah Allen.”
“Wall, I said so, didn't I? Did it strike you senseless, Mr. Gansey?”
“No,” he said: it only stunted him. And then he went on a praisin' up our Jonesville lightnin'. He said it wus about the cleanest, quickest lightnin' he ever see. He said he believed we had the smartest lightnin' in our county that you could find in the nation.
So good he acted about every thing. It beat all. Why, he hadn't been in the house half an hour when he offered to help me whitewash. I told him I wouldn't let him, for it would spile his clothes, and he hadn't ever been there a visitin' before, and I didn't want to put him to work. But he hung on, and nothin' to do but what he had got to take hold and whitewash. And I had to give up and let him; for I thought it wus better manners to put a visiter to work, than it wus to dispute and quarrel with 'em: and, of course, he wasn't used to it, and he filled one eye most full of lime. It wus dretful painful, dretful.
But I swabbed it out with viniger, and it got
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