A few days before the 4th Betsey Bobbet come into oure house in the mornin’ and says she,

“Have you heard the news?”

“No,” says I pretty brief, for I was jest puttin’ in the ingrediences to a six quart pan loaf of fruit cake, and on them occasions I want my mind cool and unruffled.

“Aspire Todd is goin’ to deliver the oration,” says she.

“Aspire Todd! Who’s he?” says I cooly.

“Josiah Allen’s wife,” says she, “have you forgotten the sweet poem that thrilled us so in the Jonesville Gimlet a few weeks since?”

“I haint been thrilled by no poem,” says I with an almost icy face pourin’ in my melted butter.

“Then it must be that you have never seen it, I have it in my port-money and I will read it to you,” says she, not heedin’ the dark froun gatherin’ on my eye-brow, and she begun to read,

“How this sweet poem appeals to tender hearts,” says Betsey as she concluded it.

“How it appeals to tender heads,” says I almost coldly, measurin’ out my cinnamon in a big spoon.

“Josiah Allen’s wife, has not your soul never sailed on that mystical sea he so sweetly depictures?”

“Not an inch,” says I firmly, “not an inch.”

“Have you not never been haunted by sorrowful phantoms you would fain bury in oblivion’s sea?”

“Not once,” says I “not a phantom,” and says I as I measured out my raisons and English currants, “if folks would work as I do, from mornin’ till night and earn thier honest bread by the sweat of thier eyebrows, they wouldn’t be tore so much by phantoms as they be; it is your shiftless creeters that are always bein’ gored by phantoms, and havin’ ’em leer at ’em,” says I with my spectacles bent keenly on her, “Why don’t they leer at me Betsey Bobbet?”

“Because you are intellectually blind, you cannot see.”

“I see enough,” says I, “I see more’n I want to a good deal of the time.” In a dignified silence, I then chopped my raisons impressively and Betsey started for home.

The celebration was held in Josiah’s sugar bush, and I meant to be on the ground in good season, for when I have jobs I dread, I am for takin’ ’em by the forelock and grapplin’ with ’em at once. But as I was bakin’ my last plum puddin’ and chicken pie, the folks begun to stream by, I hadn’t no idee thier could be so many folks scairt up in Jonesville. I thought to myself, I wonder if they’d flock out so to a prayer-meetin’. But they kep’ a comin’, all kind of folks, in all kinds of vehicles, from a 6 horse team, down to peacible lookin’ men and wimmen drawin’ baby wagons, with two babies in most of ’em.

There was a stagin’ built in most the middle of the grove for the leadin’ men of Jonesville, and some board seats all round it for the folks to set on. As Josiah owned the ground, he was invited to set upon the stagin’.

And as I glanced up at that man every little while through the day, I thought proudly to myself, there may be nobler lookin’ men there, and men that would weigh more by the steelyards, but there haint a whiter shirt bosom there than Josiah Allen’s.

When I got there the seats was full. Betsey Bobbet was jest ahead of me, and says she,

“Come on, Josiah Allen’s wife, let us have a seat, we can obtain one, if we push and scramble enough.” As I looked upon her carryin’ out her doctrine, pushin’ and scramblin’, I thought to myself, if I didn’t know to the contrary, I never should take you for a modest dignifier and retirer. And as I beheld her breathin’ hard, and her elboes wildly wavin’ in the air, pushin’ in between native men of Jonesville and foreigners, I again methought, I don’t believe you would be so sweaty and out of breath a votin’ as you be now. And as I watched her labors and efforts I continued to methink sadly, how strange! how strange! that retirin’ modesty and delicacy can stand so firm in some situations, and then be so quickly overthrowed in others seemin’ly not near so hard.

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Betsey finally got a seat, wedged in between a large healthy Irishman and a native constable, and she motioned for me to come on, at the same time pokin’ a respectable old gentleman in front of her, with her parasol, to make him move along. Says I,

“I may as well die one way as another, as well expier a standin’ up, as in tryin’ to get a seat,” and I quietly leaned up against a hemlock tree and composed myself for events. A man heard my words which I spoke about ½ to myself, and says he,

“Take my seat, mum.”

Says I “No! keep it.”

Says he “I am jest comin’ down with a fit, I have got to leave the ground instantly.”

Says I “In them cases I will.” So I sot. His tongue seemed thick, and his breath smelt of brandy, but I make no insinuations.

About noon Prof. Aspire Todd walked slowly on to the ground, arm in arm with the editor of the Gimlet, old Mr. Bobbet follerin’ him closely behind. Countin’ 2 eyes to a person, and the exceptions are triflin’, there was 700 and fifty or sixty eyes aimed at him as he walked through the crowd. He was dressed in a new shinin’ suit of black, his complexion was deathly, his hair was jest turned from white, and was combed straight back from his forward and hung down long, over his coat coller. He had a big moustache, about the color of his hair, only bearin’ a little more on the sandy, and a couple of pale blue eyes with a pair of spectacles over ’em.

As he walked upon the stagin’ behind the Editer of the Gimlet, the band struck up, “Hail to the chief, that in trihump advances.” As soon as it stopped playin’ the Editer of the Gimlet come forward and said—

“Fellow citizens of Jonesville and the adjacent and surroundin’ world, I have the honor and privilege of presenting to you the orator of the day, the noble and eloquent Prof. Aspire Todd Esq.”

Prof. Todd came forward and made a low bow.

“Bretheren and sisters of Jonesville,” says he; “Friends and patrons of Liberty, in risin’ upon this aeroter, I have signified by that act, a desire and a willingness to address you. I am not here fellow and sister citizens, to outrage your feelings by triflin’ remarks, I am not here male patrons of liberty to lead your noble, and you female patrons your tender footsteps into the flowery fields of useless rhetorical eloquence; I am here noble brothers and sisters of Jonesville not in a mephitical manner, and I trust not in a mentorial, but to present a few plain truths in a plain manner, for your consideration. My friends we are in one sense but tennifolious blossoms of life; or, if you will pardon the tergiversation, we are all but mineratin’ tennirosters, hovering upon an illinition of mythoplasm.”

“Jess so,” cried old Bobbet, who was settin’ on a bench right under the speaker’s stand, with his fat red face lookin’ up shinin’ with pride and enthusiasm, (and the brandy he had took to honor the old Revolutionary heroes) “Jess so! so we be!”

Prof. Todd looked down on him in a troubled kind of a way for a minute, and then went on—

“Noble inhabitants of Jonesville and the rural districts, we are actinolitic bein’s, each of our souls, like the acalphia, radiates a circle of prismatic tentacles, showing the divine irridescent essence of which composed are they.”

“Jes’ so,” shouted old Bobbet louder than before. “Jes’ so, so they did, I’ve always said so.”

“And if we are content to moulder out our existence, like fibrous, veticulated, polypus, clingin’ to the crustaceous courts of custom, if we cling not like soarin’ prytanes to the phantoms that lower thier sceptres down through the murky waves of retrogression, endeavorin’ to lure us upward in the scale of progressive bein’—in what degree do we differ from the accolphia?”

“Jes’ so,” says old Bobbet, lookin’ defiantly round on the audience. “There he has got you, how can they?”

Prof. Todd stopped again, looked doun on Bobbet, and put his hand to his brow in a wild kind of a way, for a minute, and then went on.

“Let us, noble brethren in the broad field of humanity, let us rise, let us prove that mind is superior to matter, let us prove ourselves superior to the acalphia—”

“Yes, less,” says old Bobbet, “less prove ourselves.”

“Let us shame the actinia,” said the Professor.

“Yes, jes’ so!” shouted old Bobbet, “less shame him!” and in his enthusiasm he got up and hollered agin, “Less shame him.”

Prof. Todd stopped stone still, his face red as blood, he drinked several swallows of water, and then he whispered a few words to the Editer of the Gimlet who immegiately come forward and said—

“Although it is a scene of touchin’ beauty, to see an old gentleman, and a bald-headed one, so in love with eloquence, and to give such remarkable proofs of it at his age, still as it is the request of my young friend—and I am proud to say ‘my young friend’ in regard to one gifted in so remarkable a degree—at his request I beg to be permitted to hint, that if the bald-headed old gentleman in the linen coat can conceal his admiration, and supress his applause, he will confer a favor on my gifted young friend, and through him indirectly to Jonesville, to America, and the great cause of humanity, throughout the length and breadth of the country.”

Here he made a low bow and sot down. Prof. Todd continued his piece without any more interruption, till most the last, he wanted the public of Jonesville to “dround black care in the deep waters of oblivion, mind not her mad throes of dissolvin’ bein’, but let the deep waters cover her black head, and march onward.”

Then the old gentleman forgot himself, and sprang up and hollered—

“Yes! dround the black cat, hold her head under! What if she is mad! don’t mind her screamin’! there will be cats enough left in the world! do as he tells you to! less dround her!”

Prof. Todd finished in a few words, and set doun lookin’ gloomy and morbid.

The next speaker was a large, healthy lookin’ man, who talked aginst wimmin’s rights. He didn’t bring up no new arguments, but talked as they all do who oppose ’em. About wimmin outragin’ and destroyin’ thier modesty, by bein’ in the same street with a man once every ’lection day. And he talked grand about how woman’s weakness arroused all the shivelry and nobility of a man’s nature, and how it was his dearest and most sacred privilege and happiness, to protect her from even a summer’s breeze, if it dared to blow too hard on her beloved and delicate form.

Why, before he had got half through, a stranger from another world who had never seen a woman, wouldn’t have had the least idee that they was made of clay as man was, but would have thought they was made of some thin gauze, liable at any minute to blow away, and that man’s only employment was to stand and watch ’em, for fear some zephyr would get the advantage of ’em. He called wimmin every pretty name he could think of, and says he, wavin’ his hands in the air in a rapped eloquence, and beatin’ his breast in the same he cried,

“Shall these weak, helpless angels, these seraphines, these sweet, delicate, cooin’ doves—whose only mission it is to sweetly coo—these rainbows, these posys vote? Never! my bretheren, never will we put such hardships upon ’em.”

As he sot down, he professed himself and all the rest of his sect ready to die at any time, and in any way wimmin should say, rather than they should vote, or have any other hardship. Betsey Bobbet wept aloud, she was so delighted with it.

Jest as they concluded thier frantic cheers over his speech, a thin, feeble lookin’ woman come by where I stood, drawin’ a large baby wagon with two children in it, seemin’ly a two-year-old, and a yearlin’. She also carried one in her arms who was lame. She looked so beat out and so ready to drop down, that I got up and give her my seat, and says I,

“You look ready to fall down.”

“Am I too late,” says she, “to hear my husband’s speech?”

“Is that your husband,” says I, “that is laughin’ and talkin’ with that pretty girl?”

“Yes,” says she with a sort of troubled look.

“Well, he jest finished.”

She looked ready to cry, and as I took the lame child from her breakin’ arms, says I—

“This is too hard for you.”

“I wouldn’t mind gettin’ ’em on to the ground,” says she, “I haint had only three miles to bring ’em, that wouldn’t be much if it wasn’t for the work I had to do before I come.”

“What did you have to do?” says I in pityin’ accents.

“Oh, I had to fix him off, brush his clothes and black his boots, and then I did up all my work, and then I had to go out and make six length of fence—the cattle broke into the corn yesterday, and he was busy writin’ his piece, and couldn’t fix it—and then I had to mend his coat,” glancin’ at a thick coat in the wagon. “He didn’t know but he should want it to wear home, he knew he was goin’ to make a great effort, and thought he should sweat some, he is dreadful easy to take cold,” says she with a worried look.

“Why didn’t he help you along with the children?” says I, in a indignant tone.

“Oh, he said he had to make a great exertion to-day, and he wanted to have his mind free and clear; he is one of the kind that can’t have their minds trammeled.”

“It would do him good to be trammeled—hard!” says I, lookin’ darkly on him.

“Don’t speak so of him,” says she beseechingly.

“Are you satisfied with his doin’s?” says I, lookin’ keenly at her.

“Oh yes,” says she in a trustin’ tone, liftin’ her care-worn, weary countenance to mine, “oh yes, you don’t know how beautiful he can talk.”

I said no more, for it is a invincible rule of my life, not to make no disturbances in families. But I give the yearlin’ pretty near a pound of candy on the spot, and the glances I cast on him and the pretty girl he was a flirtin’ with, was cold enough to freeze ’em both into a male and female glazier.

Lawyer Nugent now got up and said, “That whereas the speaking was foreclosed, or in other words finished, he motioned they should adjourn to the dinner table, as the fair committee had signified by a snowy signal that fluttered like a dove of promise above waves of emerald, or in plainer terms by a towel, that dinner was forthcoming; whereas he motioned that they should adjourn sine die to the aforesaid table.”

Old Mr. Bobbet, and the Editer of the Gimlet seconded the motion at the same time. And Shakespeare Bobbet wantin’ to do somethin’ in a public way, got up and motioned “that they proceed to the table on the usial road,” but there wasn’t any other way—only to wade the creek—that didn’t seem to be necessary, but nobody took no notice of it, so it was jest as well.

The dinner was good, but there was an awful crowd round the tables, and I was glad I wore my old lawn dress, for the children was thick, and so was bread and butter, and sass of all kinds, and jell tarts. And I hain’t no shirk, I jest plunged right into the heat of the battle, as you may say, waitin’ on the children, and the spots on my dress skirt would have been too much for anybody that couldn’t count 40. To say nothin’ about old Mr. Peedick steppin’ through the back breadth, and Betsey Bobbet ketchin’ holt of me, and rippin’ it off the waist as much as ½ a yard. And then a horse started up behind the widder Tubbs, as I was bendin’ down in front of her to get somethin’ out of a basket, and she weighin’ above 200, was precipitated onto my straw bonnet, jammin’ it down almost as flat as it was before it was braided. I came off pretty well in other respects, only about two yards of the ruflin’ of my black silk cape was tore by two boys who got to fightin’ behind me, and bein’ blind with rage tore it off, thinkin’ they had got holt of each other’s hair. There was a considerable number of toasts drank, I can’t remember all of ’em, but among ’em was these,

“The eagle of Liberty; May her quills lengthen till the proud shadow of her wings shall sweetly rest on every land.”

“The 4th of July; the star which our old four fathers tore from the ferocious mane of the howling lion of England, and set in the calm and majestic brow of E pluribus unum. May it gleam with brighter and brighter radience, till the lion shall hide his dazzled eyes, and cower like a stricken lamb at the feet of E pluribus.”

“Dr. Bombus our respected citizen; how he tenderly ushers us into a world of trial, and professionally and scientifically assists us out of it. May his troubles be as small as his morphine powders, and the circle of his joys as well rounded as his pills.”

“The press of Jonesville, the Gimlet, and the Augur; May they perforate the crust of ignorance with a gigantic hole, through which blushing civilization can sweetly peer into futurity.”

“The fair sect: first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of their countrymen. May them that love the aforesaid, flourish like a green bayberry tree, whereas may them that hate them, dwindle down as near to nothin’ as the bonnets of the aforesaid.”

That piece of toast was Lawer Nugent’s.

Prof. Aspire Todd’s was the last.

“The Luminous Lamp of Progression, whose sciatherical shadows falling upon earthly matter, not promoting sciolism, or Siccity, may it illumine humanity as it tardigradely floats from matter’s aquius wastes, to minds majestic and apyrous climes.”

Shakspeare Bobbet then rose up, and says he,

“Before we leave this joyous grove I have a poem which I was requested to read to you, it is dedicated to the Goddess of Liberty, and was transposed by another female, who modestly desires her name not to be mentioned any further than the initials B. B.” He then read the follerin’ spirited lines:

The picknick never broke up till most night, I went home a little while before it broke, and if there was a beat out creeter, I was; I jest dropped my delapidated form into a rockin’ chair with a red cushien and says I,

“There needn’t be another word said, I will never go to another 4th as long as my name is Josiah Allen’s wife.”

“You haint patriotic enough Samantha,” says Josiah, “you don’t love your country.”

“What good has it done the nation to have me all tore to pieces?” says I, “Look at my dress, look at my bonnet and cape, any one ought to be a iron clad to stand it, look at my dishes!” says I.

“I guess the old heroes of the Revolution went through more than that,” says Josiah.

“Well I haint a old hero!” says I coolly.

“Well you can honor ’em can’t you?”

“Honor ’em! Josiah Allen what good has it done to old Mr. Layfayette to have my new earthern pie plates smashed to bits, and a couple of tines broke off of one of my best forks? What good has it done to old Thomas Jefferson, to have my lawn dress tore off of me by Betsey Bobbet? what benefit has it been to John Adams, or Isaac Putnam to have old Peedick step through it? what honor has it been to George Washington to have my straw bonnet flatted down tight to my head? I am sick of this talk about honorin’, and liberty and duty, I am sick of it,” says I “folks will make a pack horse of duty, and ride it to circuses, and bull fights, if we had ’em. You may talk about honorin’ the old heroes and goin’ through all these performances to please ’em. But if they are in Heaven they can get along without heerin’ the Jonesville brass band, and if they haint, they are probably where fireworks haint much of a rarity to ’em.”

Josiah quailed before my lofty tone and I relapsed into a weary and delapidated silence.

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COUNTIN’ THE COST