He was considerable older than Josiah, I should think. His face was red and bloated, and his hair bein’ white as snow, and his white whiskers runnin’ all round his chin, and up the sides of his face, it give it considerable the look of a red pin-cushion with a white ruffle round it. Only the ruffle (still usin’ the poetical simely) wuzn’t white under his chin. No, he used too much tobacco for that. I s’pose he used it for the good looks of it; I s’pose that is what folks use tobacco for. But good land! I can’t see a single pretty look to it, nor never could, from the time a man takes in a half a plug or so, and wads it up in one side of his mouth, showin’ his yeller, nasty-lookin’ teeth, and lettin’ the black, filthy-lookin’ juice run down his mouth and whiskers, to the time he spits it all out agin onto carpets, stairways, church pews, concert halls, car floors, wimmen’s dresses, and et cetery.

I can’t see a mite of pretty looks about it. But I am reasonable and always was. And there probable may be some beauty in it that I hain’t never seen, or there wouldn’t so many foller it up.

For it must be for the looks of it that they use it. I have studied on it a sight, and there hain’t no other reason that I can see. And if there had been any the keen eye of my spectacles would have ketched sight on it. They go awful deep into subjects, them spectacles do.

It can’t be for the taste of it that they use it, for it don’t taste good. That I know, for I got some into my mouth once by mistake, over to Miss Bobbet’s, and so what I know, I know; I can take my oath on the taste of it. No, they don’t use it for that.

It can’t be for the profit of it, for it hain’t profitable; quite the reverse. Why, there is about 30 million dollars’ worth raised in the United States a year, and somebody has got to pay for it.

Why, I s’pose some poor men chew enough of this stuff,—chew it jest to spit it out agin,—and smoke it,—draw the smoke into their mouth jest to blow it out agin,—why, I s’pose this proceedin’ costs ’em enough in ten or fifteen years to buy ’em a good little home. And there they are willin’ to live and die homeless, themselves and them they love, jest for looks, jest to try to look pretty.

For it must be for that. It can’t be for health, for doctors say it hurts the health awfully, makes folks weak and nervious, and sometimes leads to blindness and fits.

It hain’t for morals, for folks say, and stick to it, that it makes ’em totter. Weakens a man’s moral nature, his social and religious faculties, gives him a taste for the stronger stimulent of intoxicatin’ drinks, and so leads him down to ruin gradual.

No, it hain’t for the morals. I have most probable hit on the right reason. But good land! where the beauty is in it I can’t see. But I am a episodin’ fearfully.

As I was a sayin’, this man, instead of beautifyin’ himself with it, had jest spilte the looks of his whiskers, in my eye. They looked yeller and nasty. And the sides of his mouth was all streaked with it. In some places it was sort o’ dried on. He looked to me as if it would do him good to put him asoak in weak lye, and let him lay in it 2 or 3 days till he got sweetened and cleansed.

His eyes was light-colored, and the lids was swelled and inflamed like. His mouth was drawed down into a dretful sanctimonious pucker; he had a awful big chew of tobacco in his mouth, and so it wasn’t all hypocracy that drawed it down; it was probable about half and half—half hypocracy and half tobacco. And under all the other expressions of his face was a dissipated, bad look. I didn’t like his looks a mite. But there he stood a kinder hangin’ onto the table (I found out afterwards that he had been drinkin’ all the hard cider he could to old Bobbet’ses).

He asked me, in a kind of a thick voice, for Josiah. And I, thinkin’ it was some one on business, asked him in a polite tone, though cool, “if he wouldn’t take a chair and set down.”

“I would,” says he, in that thick, husky voice, “I would set down, mum, but I am afraid if I should I couldn’t get up agin.”

And he looked at me in a curious, strange way; dretful wise, and yet foolish like.

Says I, gazin’ sternly at him: “I am afraid you have been a drinkin’, sir.”

“No! No! I hain’t! cider’s good; good for the blood. Will take a glass, if you please.”

“Not here you won’t,” says I firmly.

“I’ll take a glass if you please, I said,” says he, speakin’ up kinder loud. “Cider’s good; good for the blood.”

Says I: “It will be good for your blood if you get out of this house as quick as you can. And I would love to know,” says I, lookin’ at him keenly over my specks, “what you are here for, anyway.”

“I am here in the cause of—cider’s good for the blood. Will take a drink.”

Says I: “You start out of this house, or I’ll call Josiah.”

“I come, and I’m workin’ for the cause of religion, if you please—and I’ll take a glass of it, if you please.”

He’d make a sort of a drunken bow, every word or two, and smiled sort o’ foolish, and winked long, solemn winks.

Says I sternly: “You act as if you was a workin’ for the cause of religion.”

“Apple-cider’s good. Hain’t apples religious, easy entreated? Hain’t apples peacible, long sufferin’? Will take a drink, if you please.”

Says I, with a awful dignity: “I’d love to see myself givin’ you anything to drink. You are drunk as a fool now; that is what ails you.”

“Cider hain’t tox-tox-toxicatin’; Bobbet said ’twuzn’t. He said his cider-mill was harmless, easy ’ntreated, as peacible a one as he ever see. Will take a glass, if you please. I wouldn’t drink a tox-tox-toxin’ bevrig, not for dollar. Guess Bobbet knows what’s pious drink and what hain’t. Cider’s pious bevrig—called so—peacible, pious drink.”

“Pious drink!” says I, sternly. “I have seen more than one man made a fool and a wild man by it, pious or not. Oh!” says I, eppisodin’ out loud and eloquent, entirely unbeknown to me, “how Satan must laugh in his sleeves (if he wears sleeves) to see how good men are deceived and blindered in this matter. Nothin’ tickles Satan more than to get a good man, a church member, to work for him for nothin’. When he gets good, conscientious, christian folks to tackle his work of ruinin’ souls, unbeknown to them, and let him rest off a spell,—why it tickles him most to death.

“And when anyone plants the first seeds of drunkenness in a person, no matter how good-naturedly it is done, no matter how good the ones are who do it, they are workin’ for Satan and boardin’ themselves, entirely unbeknown to them. That is, the good ones are; some know and realize what they are a doin’, but keep at it through selfishness and love of gain.”

“Likker’s bad, wrong; but cider’s in’cent, in’cent as a babe, a prattlin’ little babe; it’s called so.”

“Good land!” says I, “do you s’pose I care a cent what a thing is called?” Says I: “I have seen cider that three glasses of it would fix a man out so he couldn’t tell how many childern he had, or fathers and mothers, no more than he could count the stars in the zodiact. And couldn’t walk straight and upright, no more than he could bump his old head aginst the moon. When a man is dead what difference does it make to him whether he died from a shotgun or billerous colic, or was skairt to death? And what difference does it make when a man is made a fool of, whether it is done by one spunefull or a dozen, or a quart? The important thing to him is, he is a fool.”

“Yes, ’n I’ll take a glass of cider, if you please.”

I started right straight for the back stoop and hollered to Josiah.

That skairt him. He started kinder sideways for the door, got holt of the latch, and says he:

“I come to labor with you, n’ I don’t want to leave you goin’ the broad road to destruction; but I will,” says he, with a simple sort of a smile, and as foolish a wink as I ever see wunk, “I will if you’ll give me a drink of cider, if you please.”

Says I, firmly, “You will take a broader road than you have calculated on, if you don’t clear out of this house, instantly and to once.” And as I still held my umberell in my hand, I held it up in a threatnin’ way in my left hand, some like a spear. And he started off and went staggerin’ down the road.

I was a wonderin’ awfully who he was, and what he come for, when Miss Bobbet come in to bring home a drawin’ of tea, and she was so full of news that she most fell aginst the door, as wimmen will when they are freighted too heavy with gossip. And she said it was Elder Judas Wart, a Mormon Elder, who had come back to Jonesville again.

“And,” says she, hurryin’ to relieve herself, for her mind was truly loaded heavy with news beyond its strength, “what do you think now about the Widder Bump bein’ a Mormon. I told you she was one, a year ago, and other wimmen told you so, but you would stick to it that she was a camel.”

“Yes,” says I, “in the name of principle I have upholded that woman and called her a camel.”

“Wall,” says she, “camel or not, she was sealed to Elder Judas Wart last week. You know she went home to her mother’s in the spring. And he has been out there all summer holdin’ his meetin’s, and married her.

“He told us all about it to-day. He said he hadn’t hardly a wife by him but what was disabled in some way from workin’. He said he was fairly discouraged. Eleven of ’em was took down with the tyfus, violent. A few of ’em, he didn’t hardly know jest how many, but quite a number of ’em, had the chills. Two or three of ’em was bed-rid. Four of ’em had young babes; and he said he felt it was not good for man to be alone, and he needed a wife—so he married the Widder Bump and sent her on to Utah by express to take charge of things till he come. He had meetin’s to Jonesville last spring, and Bobbet went to ’em.”

“Bobbet went to ’em,” says I, mechanically. For oh! what strange and curious feelin’s was a tacklin’ of me. Memeries of that terrible crysis in my life when I heard the mutterin’s of a earthquake, a rumblin’ and a roarin’ unbeknown to me. When everything in life seemed uncertain and wobblin’ to a Samantha, and a Josiah talked in his slumbers of a Widder Bump.

“Yes,” says she, “Bobbet owned it all up to me, jest now. He wouldn’t, if the Elder hadn’t come in and acted so glad to see him. But, if you’ll believe it, Bobbet looked as if he would sink when he said he had married the Widder Bump. And he says he hain’t goin’ to have no new overcoat made this winter. And he has been sot on havin’ one.”

“Bobbet owned it all up to you,” says I, speakin’ agin mechanically, for I felt fairly stunted by the emotions that was rushin’ onto me.

“Yes, I remember he used to go evenin’s to Jonesville a sight, last spring, when I had the quinzy and was laid up. But I s’posed he went to the Methodist Conference meetin’s. But he didn’t, he went to hear Elder Judas Wart. And Bobbet says Josiah Allen went to ’em, too.”

At them fearful words I groaned aloud. I wouldn’t say a word aginst my pardner. But to save my life I couldn’t keep that groan back. It fairly groaned itself (as it were), my feelin’s was such.

It was a fearful groan, deep and melancholy in the extreme. I was determined to not say one word about my feelin’s concernin’ my pardner, and I didn’t, only jest that groan. She is quite a case to make mischief in families, but she hain’t got a thing to carry from me, only jest that groan. And there can’t be much done, even in a court of law, with one plain groan, and nothin’ else; there can’t be much proved by it.

She is a pryin’ woman, and I see she mistrusted sunthin’. Says she:

“What is the matter, Josiah Allen’s wife? What are you groanin’ for, so heavy?”

I wouldn’t come right out and tell the awful emotions that was performin’ through my mind—and at the same time I wouldn’t lie. So I broke out sort o’ eloquent, and says I:

“When I think what female wimmen have suffered, and are sufferin’, from this terrible sin of polygamy, it is enough to make anybody groan.” Says I, “I feel guilty, awful guilty, to think I hain’t done sunthin’ before now to stop it. Here I have,” says I, growin’ fearfully excited, “here I have jest sot down here, with my hands folded (as it were), and let them doin’s go on without doin’ a single thing to break it up. And it makes me feel fairly wicked when I think of that address the sufferin’ female wimmen of Utah sent out to Miss Hays and me.”

“To Miss Hays and you?” says Miss Bobbet, in a sort of a jealous way. “I don’t know as it was sent to you special. It said Miss Hays, and the other wimmen of the United States.”

“Wall,” says I, “hain’t I a woman, and hain’t Jonesville right in the very center of the United States?”

“Why yes,” says she. Miss Bobbet will always give up when she is convinced. I’ll say that for her.

“Wall,” says I, “that address that they sent out to us was one of the most powerful and touchin’ appeals for help ever sent out by sufferin’ humanity. And here I hain’t done a thing about it, and I don’t believe Emily has.”

“Emily who?” says she.

“Why, Emily Hays,” says I. “Rutherford Hays’es wife. She that was Emily Webb. As likely a woman as ever entered that White House. A woman of gentle dignity, sweet, womanly ways, earnest christian character, and firm principles. No better or better-loved woman has ever sot up in that high chair since Lady Washington got down out of it. A good-lookin’ woman, too,” says I proudly. “She has got a fair face and a fair soul. Her christian example is as pure and clear as the water she makes them old congressmen drink to her dinner-table, and is as refreshin’, and as much of a rarity to ’em. I can tell you,” says I, “it makes me and America proud, it tickles both of us most to death, to think our representative lady is one so admirable in every way. And foreigners can gaze at her all they are a mind to. We hain’t afraid to let ’em peruse her through the biggest telescopes they can get; they won’t find nothin’ in her face nor her nature but what we are proud of, both of us.

“But in this matter I’ll bet a cent Emily hain’t made a move, no more than I have. We have been slack in it, both on us. But as for me,” says I firmly, “I am determined to be up and a doin’.”