All I could do and say, Betsey would keep a goin’ into one store after another, and I jest trailed round with her ’till it was pitch dark. Finally after arguin’ I got her headed towards her cousin’s.

It was as late as half past eight when I got back to Miss Asters’es. As I went by the parlor door, I heard a screechin’ melankoly hollerin’. Thinks’es I to myself, “somebody’s hurt in there, some female I should think, by the voice.” I thought at first I wouldn’t interfere, as there was enough to take her part, for the room seemed to be chuck full. So I was goin’ on up to my room, when it come to my ears agin, louder and more agonizin’ than ever. I couldn’t stand it. As a female who was devoted to the cause of Right, I felt that in the behalf of my sect I would see what could be done. I kinder squeezed my way in, up towards the sound, and pretty soon I got where I could see her. Then I knew she was crazy.

She looked bad. Her dress seemed to be nice silk, but it jest hung on to her shoulders, and she had strung a lot of beads and things round her neck—you know how such poor critters will rig themselves out—and she had tore at her hair so she had got it all streamin, down her neck. Her face was deathly white, only in the middle of her cheeks there was a feverish spot of fire red. Her eyes was rolled up in her head. She looked real bad.

She had got to the piano in some way, and there she set a poundin’ it, and yellin’. Oh how harrowin’ it was to the nerves, it made my heart almost ache to see her. There was a good many nicely dressed wimmen and men in the room and some of ’em was leanin’ over the poor girl’s shoulders, a lookin’ at her hands go, and some of them wimmen’s dresses was hangin’ down off their shoulders, so that I thought they must have been kinder strugglin’ with the maniac and got ’em all pulled down and torn open, and they looked most as crazy as she did.

The poor girl didn’t know a word she was sayin’ but she kep’ a mutterin’ over somethin’ to herself in a unknown tongue. There wasn’t no words to it. But poor thing, she didn’t sense it. Some of the time she would be a smilin’ to herself, and go on a mutterin’ kinder low, and then her worse fits seemed to come on in spasms, and she would go to poundin’ the piano and yellin’. And I see by the way her hands went that she had got another infirmity too. I see she had got Mr. Vitus’es dance. It was a sad sight indeed.

As I see the poor thing set there with her dress most off of her, jest a hangin’ on her shoulders, right there before so many men, I thought to myself, what if was my Tirzah Ann there in that condition. But one thing I know as long as Josiah Allen’s wife lived, she wouldn’t go a wanderin’ round half naked, to be a laughin’ stock to the community. I took it so right to myself, I kep’ a thinkin’ so, what if it was our Tirzah Ann, that there wasn’t hardly a dry eye in my head. And I turned to a bystanter, standin’ by my side, and says I to him in a voice almost choked down with emotion,

“Has the poor thing been so long? Can’t she get any help?”

Jest that minute she begun to screech and pound louder and more harrowin’ than ever, and I says in still more sorrowful accents, with my spectacles bent pityin’ly on her,

“It seems to come on by spasms, don’t it?”

She kinder held up in her screechin’ then, and went at her mutterin’ agin in that unknown tongue, and he heard me, and says he,

“Beautiful! hain’t it?”

That madded me. I give that man a piece of my mind. I told him plainly that it “was bad enough to have such infirmities without bein’ made a public circus of. And I didn’t have no opinion of anybody that enjoyed such a scene and made fun of such poor critters.”

He looked real pert, and said somethin’ about my “not havin’ a ear for music.”

That madded me agin. And says I, “Young man, tell me that I hain’t got any ears agin if you dare!” and I ontied my bonnet strings, and lifted up the corner of my head dress. Says I, “What do you call that? If that hain’t a ear, what is it? And as for music, I guess I know what music is, as well as anybody in this village.” Says I, “you ought to hear Tirzah Ann sing jest between daylight and dark, if you want to hear music.” Says I, “her organ is a good soundin’ one everybody says. It ought to be, for we turned off a good two year old colt, and one of our best cows for it. And when she pulls out the tremblin’ stopple in front of it, and plays psalm tunes Sunday nights jest before sundown, with the shadders of the mornin’ glory vines a tremblin’ all over her, as she sings old Corinth, and Hebron, I have seen Josiah look at her and listen to her till he had to pull out his red bandanna handkerchief and wipe his eyes.”

“Who is Josiah?” says he.

Says I, “It is Tirzah Ann’s father.” And I continued goin’ on with my subject. “No medder lark ever had a sweeter voice than our Tirzah Ann. And when she sings about the ‘Sweet fields that stand dressed in livin’ green,’ she sings it in such a way, that you almost feel as if you had waded through the ‘swellin flood,’ and was standin’ in them heavenly medders. Tell me I never heard music! Ask Whitfield Minkley whether Tirzah Ann can sing Anna Lowery or not, on week day evenin’s, and old Mr. Robin Grey. Ask Whitfield Minkley, if you don’t believe me. He is a minister’s only son, and he hadn’t ought to lie.”

The little conceited feller’s face looked as red as a beet. He was a poor lookin’ excuse any way, a uppish, dandyfied lookin’ chap, with his moustache turned up at the corners, and twisted out like a waxed end. He pretended to laugh, but he showed signs of mortification, as plain as I ever see it. And he put up his specs, and I’ll be hanged if he hadn’t broke one eye off’en ’em, and looked at me through it. But I wasn’t dawnted by him, not a bit. I didn’t care how close he looked at me. Josiah Allen’s wife hain’t afraid to be examined through a double barreled telescope.

Just then a good lookin’ man with long sensible whiskers and moustache, hangin’ the way the Lord meant ’em to, and who had come up while I was a speakin’ this last—spoke to me and says he,

“I am like you madam, I like ballads better than I do opera music for the parlor.”

I didn’t really know what he meant, but he looked good and sensible lookin’ and so says I in a blind way,

“Yes like as not.”

Says he, “I am very partial to those old songs you have mentioned.”

Says I “They can’t be bettered.”

Before I could say another word, that poor crazy thing begun agin, to yell, and pound and screech, and I says to him,

“Poor thing! couldn’t there be somethin’ done for her? If her mind can’t be restored, can’t she get help for Mr. Vitus’es dance?”

And then he explained it to me, he said she wasn’t crazy, and didn’t have Mr. Vitus’es dance. He said she was a very fashionable young lady and it was a opera she was singin’.

“A operation,” says I sithin’ “I should think as much! I should think it was a operation! It is a operation I don’t want to see or hear agin.” And says I anxiously, “Is it as hard on everybody as it is on her? Does everybody have the operation as hard as she has got it?”

He kinder smiled, and turned it off by sayin’ “It is the opera of Fra Diovole.”

“Brother Devel,” says the conceited little chap with the waxed end moustache.

“‘The Operation of the——’” on account of my connection with the M. E. church, says I, “I will call it David.” But they both knew what I meant. “The operation of the—the David. I should think as much.”

And I don’t know as I was ever more thankful than I was when I reflected how my pious M. E. parents had taught me how to shun that place of awful torment where the——David makes it his home. For a minute these feelin’s of thankfulness swallered these other emotions almost down. But then as I took another thought, it madded me to think that likely folks should be tormented by it on earth. And I says to the little feller with the waxed end moustache,

“If that operation is one of the torments that the——the David keeps to torment the wicked with, it is a burnin’ shame that it should be used beforehand, here on earth, to torment other Christian folks with.”

I didn’t wait for him to answer, but I turned round with a real lot of dignity, and sailed out of the room. It was with a contented and happy feelin’ the next mornin’ that I collected together my cap box, and spectacle case, packed my satchel bag with my barred muslin night cap and night gown, and put my umberella into its gingham sheath (for it was a pleasant mornin’) and set, as you may say, my face homewards. I thought I would proceed right from Horace’s to the depott, and not come back agin to Miss Aster’ses. I paid my bill with a calm demeaner, though it galled me to see ’em ask such a price.

Jonothan Beans’es ex wife seemed to hate to have me go, she is one that don’t forget the days when she first went to grass. I told her to tell Miss Aster just how it was, that I felt as if I must go, for Josiah would be expectin’ me. But I would love to stay and get acquainted with her. But she had so much on her hands, such a gang to cook for, that I knew she didn’t have no time to visit with nobody. And I told her to be sure and tell Miss Aster, that she mustn’t feel particuler at all because we hadn’t visited together—but she must pay me a visit jest the same. Then I sent my best respects to Mr. Aster and the boys, and then I set out. Jest by the front door I met Betsey, and we both set sail for Horace’s.