When the news come to me that Horace Greely was dead I almost cried. The tears did just run down my face like rain-water, I don’t know when I have come nearer cryin’ than I did then. And my first thought was, they have tried awful hard to keep him out of the White House, but he has got into one whiter than any they have got in Washington, D. C. And then my very next thought was, Josiah Allen’s wife did you say anything to hurt that man’s feelin’s, when you was a tryin’ to influence him on your tower?

I believe if folks would only realize how every harsh word, and cold look they stab lovin’ hearts with, would just turn round like bayonets, and pierce their own heart in a time like this—they would be more careful how they handled ’em. But glad enough was I to think that I didn’t say a hard word to him, but had freed my mind, and told him jest how good I thought he was, and how much he had done for the Black African, and the Human Race, before it was too late. Glad enough was I that I didn’t wait till that noble heart was cold and lifeless, and couldn’t be pained by unkindness, or made gladder by sympathy, before I gin him mine.

But in the time of trouble, the love that had been his best reward for all the successes of his hard workin’ life, had gone from him. And I know jest how that great heart ached for that love and sympathy. I know jest how poor the praise of the world would have looked to him, if he couldn’t have seen it a shinin’ through them lovin’ eyes—and how hard it was for him to bear its blame alone. Tired out, defeated the world called him, but he only had to fold his hands, and shet his eyes up and he was crowned with success in that world where He, who was once rejected by a majority, crowned with thorns of earthly defeat waits now to give the crown of Eternal Repose to all true souls, all the weary warriors on life’s battle field who give their lives for the right. And it seemed so kinder beautiful too, to think that before she he loved so, hardly had time to feel strange in them a “many mansions,” he was with her agin, and they could keep house together all through Eternity.

Yet,—though as I say, I don’t know when I have come so near cryin’ as I did then—I said to myself as I wiped my eyes on my apron, I wouldn’t call him back from that happy rest he had earnt so well if I could.

But there are other things that are worrysome to me, and make me a sight of trouble. It was a day or 2 after this, and I was settin’ alone, for Josiah had gone to mill, and Thomas Jefferson and Maggy Snow and Tirzah Ann and Whitfield Minkley had gone a slay ridin’, (them two affairs is in a flourishin’ condition and it is very aggreeable to Josiah and me, though I make no matches, nor break none—or that is, I don’t make none, only by talkin’ in a encouragin’ manner, nor break none only with thoroughwert in a mild way).

I sot all alone, a cuttin’ carpet rags, and a musin’ sadly. Victory in jail! And though I felt that she richly deserved it, and I should liked to have shut her up myself in our suller way, for darin’ to slander Beecher, still to me who knows her sect so well, it seemed kinder hard that a woman should be where she couldn’t go a visatin’. And then to think the good talkin’ to, I give her when I was on my tower hadn’t ammounted to nothin’, seemin’ly. I wasn’t sorry I had labored with her—not a mite, I had did my duty anyway. And I knew jest as well as I know that my name was formally Smith, that when anybody is a workin’ in the Cause of Right, they hadn’t ought to be discouraged if they didn’t get their pay down, for you can’t sow your seeds and pick your posys the same day anyway. And I know that great idees was enough sight harder to get rooted and a growin’ than the Century plant, and that takes a hundred years for it to blow out.

I know all this, but human nater gets kinder tired a waitin’, and there seems no end to the snows that lay between us and that summer that all earnest souls are a workin’ for. And then I want my sect to do right,—I want ’em to be real respectable, and I felt that take Victory all together she wasn’t a orniment to it. I thought of my sect, and then I thought of Victory, and then I sithed. Beecher a bein’ lied about, Tilton ditto and the same, for you see I don’t nor won’t believe what Victory says against ’em, although they don’t come out and deny the truth of it, either of ’em, just to satisfy some folks who say that they ought to. Miss Anthony havin’ a hard tussle of it at Rochester.

Whitfield Minkley had told me too that day that Miss Aster didn’t keep tavern herself, and there I had had all my trouble about her for nothin’, demeanin’ myself by offerin’ to wash dishes for—I know not who. And to think that Jonothan Beans’es ex-wife should have deceived me so, when I befriended her so much when she first went to grass. And then when I thought how all the good advice I had given Victory hadn’t done her no good, and how Mr. Greely had died, before the seeds I sowed in his bosom on the great question of Wimmen’s Rights had sprouted and brought forth fruit, when I see my tower had been in vain, say nothin’ of the money it cost, oh! how holler the world looked to me, it almost seemed as if it would break in and let me through, rockin’ chair and all.

As I sot there a mewsin’ over it, and a cuttin’ my rags, I almost made up my mind that I would have the dark stripe in my carpet black as a coal, the whole on it, a sort of mournin’ stripe. But better feelin’s got up inside of my mind, and I felt that I would put in my but’nut color rather than waste it.

Yet oh how holler and onstiddy everything looked to me; who could I trust, whose apron string could I cling to, without expectin’ it would break off short with me? For pretty nigh 2 minutes and a half I had the horrors almost as bad as Simon Slimpsey, (he has ’em now every day stiddy, Betsey is so hard on him), but oh how sweetly in that solemn time there came to me the thought of Josiah. Yes, on that worrysome time I can truly say that Josiah Allen was my theme, and I thought to myself, there may be handsomer men than he is, and men that weigh more by the steelyards, but there hain’t one to be found that has heftier morals, or more well seasoned principles than he has. Yes, Josiah Allen was my theme, I felt that I could trust my Josiah. I guess I had got mewsin’ agin on jails and wickedness, and so 4th, for all of a sudden the thought knocked aginst my heart,

“What if Josiah Allen should go to cuttin’ up, and behavin’?”

I wouldn’t let the thought in, I ordered it out. But it kep’ a hangin’ round,—

“What if your Josiah should go to cuttin’ up?”

I argued with it; says I to myself, I guess I know Josiah Allen, a likelier man never trod shoe leather. I know him like a book.

But then thinks’es I—what strange critters men and wimmin be. Now you may live with one for years, and think you know every crook and turn in that critter’s mind, jest like a book; when lo! and behold! all of a sudden a leaf will be turned over, that had been glued together by some circumstance or other, and there will be readin’ that you never set eyes on before. Sometimes it is in an unknown tongue—sometimes it is good readin’, and then again, it is bad. Oh how gloomy and depressted I was. But Josiah Allen’s wife haint one to give up to the horrers without a tussle, and though inwardly so tosted about, I rose up and with a brow of calm, I sot my basket of carpet rags behind the door, and quietly put on the tea-kettle, for it was about time for Josiah to come.

Then I looked round to see if there was anything I could do to make it look more pleasant than it did for Josiah Allen when he came home cold and tired from the Jonesville mill. It never was my way to stand stun still in the middle of the floor and smile at him from half to three-quarters of an hour. Yet it was always my idee that if a woman can’t make home the pleasantest spot in the world for her husband, she needn’t complain if he won’t stay there any more than he can help. I believe there wouldn’t be so many men a meanderin’ off nights into grog shops, and all sorts of wickedness, if they had a bright home and a cheerful companion to draw ’em back, (not but what men have to be corrected occasionally, I have to correct Josiah every little while.) But good land! It is all I can do to get Josiah Allen and Thomas Jefferson out of the house long enough to mop.

I looked round the room, as I said, but not a thing did I see that I could alter for the better; it was slick as a pin. The painted floor was a shinin’ like yaller glass, (I had mopped jest before dinner.) The braided mats, mostly red and green, was a layin’ smooth and clean in front of the looking-glass, and before the stove, and table. Two or three pictures, that Thomas Jefferson had framed, hung up aginst the wall, which was papered with a light colored buff ground work with a red rose on it. The lounge and two or three rockin’ chairs was cushioned with handsome copper plate. And Tirzah Ann had got a hangin’ basket of ivy on the west winder that made that winder look like summer. I’ll bet her canary hangin’ there in the thickest of the green leaves, thought it was summer, he sang like it. The stove hearth shone like a silver dollar, and there was a bright fire, and in a minute the tea-kettle began to sing most as loud as Whitey, that is her canary’s name. (I mistrust she named it in that kinder underhanded way, after Whitfield Minkley—though I never let her know I mistrusted it, but I never could think of any other earthly reason why she should call it Whitey, for it is as yaller as any goslin’ I ever laid eyes on.)

I felt that I couldn’t alter a thing round the house for the better. But as I happened to glance up into the lookin’-glass, I see that although I looked well, my hair was slick and I had on a clean gingham dress, my brown and black plaid, still I felt that if I should pin on one of Tirzah Ann’s bows that lay on the little shelf under the lookin’-glass I might look more cheerful and pleasant in the eyes of my companion Josiah. I haint made a practice of wearin’ bows sense I jined the meetin’-house. And then agin I felt that I was too old to wear ’em. Not that I felt bad about growin’ old. If it was best for us to have summer all the year round, I know we should have it. As I have said to Josiah Allen more’n once when he got kinder doun hearted, says I, Josiah Allen look up where the stars are shinin’ and tell me if you think that with all them countless worlds, with all that wealth in His hands, and His lovin’ heart, the Lord begruches anything that is for His children’s good. No! I am willin’ to take God’s year as it comes, summer and winter.

And then do you s’pose I would if I could by turning my hand over, go back into my youth agin, and leave Josiah part way down hill alone? No! the sunshine and the mornin’ are on the other side of the hill, and we are goin’ down into the shadders, my pardner Josiah and me. But we will go like Mr. and Mrs. Joseph John, that Tirzah Ann sings about—

knowing that beyond them shadders is the sunshine of God’s Great Mornin’.

As I said, I don’t make a practice of wearin’ bows, and this bein’ fire red, I should have felt a awful backslidin’ feelin’ about wearin’ it, if I hadn’t felt that principle was upholdin’ me.

Then I drawed out the table, and put on a clean white table-cloth, and begun to set it. I had some good bread and butter, I had baked that day, and my bread was white as snow, and light as day, some canned peaches, and some thin slices of ham as pink as a rose, and a strawberry pie,—one of my cans had bust that day, and I made ’em up into pies. And then I brought up some of my very best cake, such as I keep for company—fruit cake, and delicate cake. And then after I had put on a great piece of white honey in a glass dish, and some cheese that was like cream for richness, the table looked well.

I had got the table all set, and had jest opened the door to see if he was a comin’, when lo! and behold! there he stood on the doorstep—he had come and put his horses out before I see him. He looked awful depressted, and before he got the snow half off’en his boots, says he:

“That new whip I bought the other day is gone Samantha. Some feller stole it while I was gettin’ my grist ground.”

Says I, “Josiah I have been a mewsin’ on the onstiddiness, and wickedness of the world all day, and now that whip is gone. What is the world a comin’ to, Josiah Allen?”

Josiah is a man that don’t say much, but things wear on him. His face looked several inches longer than it usially did, and he answered in a awful depressted tone:

“I don’t know, Samantha, but I do know, that I am as hungry as a bear.”

“Wall,” says I, soothingly, “I thought you would be, supper’s all on the table.”

He stepped in, and the very minute that man ketched sight of that cheerful room, and that supper table, that man smiled. And it wasn’t a sickly, deathly smile either, it was a smile of deep inward joy and contentment. And says he in a sweet tone, “it seems to me you have got a awful good supper to-night, Samantha.”

As I see that smile, and looked into that honest beamin’ face, I jest turned out them gloomy forebodin’s about him, out of my heart, the whole caboodle of ’em, and shet the door in their faces. But I controlled my voice, till it sounded like a perfect stranger to me, and says I:

“Don’t I always get good suppers, Josiah Allen?”

“Yes,” says he, “and good dinners and breakfess’es, too. I will say this for you, Samantha, there haint a better cook in Jonesville, than you be, nor a woman that makes a pleasanter home.” And he went on placidly, as he stood there with his back to the fire a warmin’ him, a lookin’ serenely round that bright warm room, and ont’ that supper table.

“There haint no place quite so good as home, is there, Samantha? haint supper about ready?”

Says I, firmly, “The Cause of Right, and the Good of the Human Race will ever be dear to the soul of her who was formally Samantha Smith. But at the same time that don’t hender me from thinkin’ a sight of my home, and from gettin’ good suppers. It will be ready, Josiah, jest as quick as the tea is steeped, I didn’t want to make it till you come, for bilein’ jest spiles that last tea you got,” and I went on in tones as firm as Plymouth Rock, yet as tender as a spring chicken.

“As I have said more’n a hundred times, if it is spelt right there haint another such a word as home in the English language. The French can’t spell it at all, and in my opinion that is jest what makes ’em so light minded and onstiddy. If it is spelt wrong, as in the case of Bobbet and Slimpsey, it means the horrors, and the very worst kinds of discomfort and misery. In fact love is the only school-master, that can put out that word worth a cent. And if it is put out by him, and spelt, for instance, by a couple who have loved each other for goin’ on fifteen years, with a firm and almost cast iron affection, why it stands for peace and rest and comfort, and is the plainest picture God has give us below, kinder as we put painted pictures in children’s story books, of that great Home above, where the colors won’t never rub off of the picture, and the peace and the rest are everlasting.”

I had been real eloquent, I knew it, and Josiah knew it, for that man looked awful kinder earnest and serene like. He was silent for mebby half or three quarters of a minute, and then he said in calm, gentle tones:

“I guess I’ll carry the grist up stairs before supper, Samantha, and have it done with.”

There haint a lazy hair in that man’s head, and for that matter there haint many of any kind, either smart or shiftless, he grows bald every day, not that I blame him for it.

He came down stairs, and we sot down to the table, happy as a king and queen, for all the old world was a caperin’ and cuttin’ up as if it would go crazy. The little blackslidin’ feelin’ about wearin’ that fire red bow died away too, as ever and anon, and I don’t know but oftener, I would look up and ketch the eye of my companion Josiah bent on me in a pleasant and sort of a admirin’ way. That bow was becomin’ to me I knew. For as Josiah passed me his cup for his second cup of tea, (no dishwatery stuff, I can tell you) he says:[1]

“I don’t see what makes you look so young and handsome, to-night, Samantha, I believe I shall have to go to courtin’ you over agin.”

And I answered him in the same aggreable accents, “I don’t know as the law could touch you for it Josiah if you did.”

THE END.