Wall, if you’ll believe it, after all my eloquent talk, and reasonin’, and everything, the very next week they set off on their journey after a change, on that exertion after rest and pleasure. They come to see us the day before they went, but their plans was all laid, and tickets bought, (they was goin’ to the same place and the same hotel and tavern Skidmore’s folks was), so I didn’t say nothin more—what was the use? Thinkses I, bought wit is the best if you don’t pay too much for it; they’ll find out for themselves whether I was in the right on’t or not.

But bad as I thought it was goin’ to be, little did I think it was goin’ to be so bad as it wuz. Little did I think that Tirzah Ann would be brought home on a bed. But she was. And Whitfield walked with two canes, and had his right arm in a sling. But as I told Josiah, when anybody chased up pleasure so uncommon tight, it wasn’t no wonder they got lamed by it. For pleasure is one of the curiousest things in the world to ketch,—speakin’ in a coltish and parable way. Almost impossible to ketch by chasin’ her. And if anybody don’t believe me, let ’em get up some mornin’ before sunrise, and take a halter, and start off a purpose, and see if they can overtake her;—see if they can ketch her, and put a bit and martingill onto her. See if they don’t find she is skittish and balky, and shies off when they go to put the bits in her mouth. And see, when they think they have got the upper hands of her, whether she don’t throw ’em head over heels, and caper off agin in front of ’em.

I have spoke in a parable way, and would not wish to be understood a thinkin’ pleasure is a horse. Far from it. But this is a very deep subject, and would be apt to carry any one beyond their depth if not simplified and brought down to human comprehension.

The first time I went to see ’em after they got back, Tirzah Ann told me all about it. She could set up some then. But if it wasn’t a pitiful sight to see them three—Whitfield, Tirzah Ann, and the babe. To see how their means looked now, and then to look back and think how they had looked the last time I had seen ’em in that very place. Why, as I looked at ’em, and see how feeble, and mauger, and used up they all looked, there wasn’t hardly a dry eye in my head. Tirzah Ann told me it was a lesson that would last her through her hull life. Why, she said right out plain, that if she should live to be 3 or 400 years old, she shouldn’t never forget it, and I don’t believe myself that she would.

There they was, she and Whitfield, poor as 2 snails. I never see either of ’em in half so poor order before. They hadn’t no ambition nor strength to work. Their morals had all got run down. Their best clothes was all wore out. And that babe! I could have cried, and wept, to see how that pretty little thing was lookin’. Poor as a feeble young snail, and pale as a little white cotton piller-case. Her appetite was all gone, too. She had always been used to sweet, fresh milk—the milk from her own heifer, white as snow, with a brindle back, that her grandpa give her for the name of Samantha. It gives dretful sweet, rich milk. And the babe almost lived on it. And all the milk they could get for her there was sale milk, sour half the time, and at the best full of adultery, so Whitfield said. And I don’t think anything that happened to them on their hull tower made Josiah and me so mad as that did. To think of that sweet little babe’s sufferin’ from adulted and sour milk. It made us so awful indignant that we can’t hardly speak peacible now, a talkin’ about it.

And then they was all cooped up together in a little mite of a room, and she was used to bein’ out-doors half the time, and had a great, cool, airy room to sleep in nights; and bein’ shet up so much, in such close, bad air, it all wore on her, and almost used her up. Oh! how pale she was, and mauger, and cross! Oh! how fearfully cross! She would almost take our heads off, Josiah’s and mine, (as it were,) every time we would speak to her. It was dretful affectin’ to me to see her so snappish; it reminded me so of her grandpa in his most fractious hours, and I told him it did. Josiah felt bad to see her so; it cut him down jest as bad as it did me.

And then to see Whitfield’s and Tirzah Ann’s demeaniers and means! Why jest as sure as I live and breathe they didn’t seem no more like their old means and demeaniers than if they belonged to perfect strangers, and I told Tirzah Ann so.

And she bust right out a-cryin’, and says she, “Mother, one week’s more rest would have tuckered me completely out. I could not have stood it, I should have died off.”

I wiped my own eyes, I was so affected, and says I, in choked-up axents, “You know I told you how it would be, I told you that you was happy enough to home, and you hadn’t better go off in search of pleasure.”

Says she, bustin’ right out agin, “One week more of pleasure and recreation would have been my death-blow.”

Says I, “I believe it. But,” says I, knowin’ it was my duty to be calm, “It is all over now, Tirzah Ann. You hain’t got to go through the pleasure agin. You hain’t got to rest any more. You must try to overcome your feelin’s. Tell your ma all about it,” says I, thinkin’ it would mebby do her good, and get her mind offen it quicker.

So she up and told me the hull story. And I see plain that Miss Skidmore was to the bottom of it all. She and Tirzah Ann’s determination to not let her get ahead of her, and be more genteel than she was. Tirzah Ann said she was jest about sick when they started, for she found out most the last minute that Miss Skidmore had one dress more than she had, and a polenay, and so she sent at once for materials and ingregients, and sot up day and night and worked till she had got hers made, full as good and a little ahead of Miss Skidmore’s.

Wall, they started the same day, and went to the same place, a fashionable summer resort, and put up to the same tavern, a genteel summer tavern, to rest and recreate. And Miss Skidmore bein’ a great, healthy, strong, raw-boned woman, could stand as much agin rest and recreation as Tirzah Ann could.

Why, Tirzah Ann said the rest was enough to wear out a leather woman, and how she ever stood it for two weeks was more than she could tell.

You see she wasn’t used to hard work. I had always favored her, and gone ahead with the work myself, when she lived to home; and Whitfield had been as careful of her as he could be, and jest as good as a woman to help her, and so the rest come tough on her; it was dretful hard on her. But as hard as the rest was for her, I s’pose the recreation was as bad agin; I s’pose it was twice as tough on her.

You see she had to dress up 3 or 4 times a day, and keep the babe dressed up slick. And she had to prominade down to the waterin’ place and drink at jest such a time. And go a-ridin’ out on the water in boats and yots; and had to play crokay, and be up till midnight every night to parties. You see she had to do all this, ruther than let Miss Skidmore get on ahead of her, and do more than she did, be more genteel than she was, and rest more.

Their room was a little mite of a room up four flights of stairs, and Tirzah Ann never could climb stairs worth a cent; and it leaked awful—the rain come down round the chimbley. But they had to take that room or none, the house bein’ so full and runnin’ over. And Whitfield thinkin’ they could rest better in it than they could on the fence or door-step, took it. But if there happened to come up a storm in the night, a thunder-storm or anything, they would have to histe their umberells and lay under ’em. They must have looked as curious as 2 dogs, and I told ’em so.

The room bein’ so high up, it wore on Tirzah Ann—she never could climb stairs worth a cent. And then it was so small, the air was close, nearly tight, and hot as a oven. And the babe bein’ used to large, cool rooms, full of fresh, pure air, couldn’t stand the hotness and the tightness, and it begun to enjoy poor health, and it cried most all the time. And to home it could play round out in the yard all day a’most, and here it hung right onto its ma. And before long she begun to enjoy poor health.

And then the room on one side of ’em was occupied by a young man who was learnin’ to play on the flute. He had been disappointed in love, and he would try to make up tunes as he went along, sort o’ tragedy style, and dirge-like. The most unearthly, and woe-begone, and soul-harrowin’ sounds, they say that they ever heard or read of. They say it was enough to make any one’s blood run cold in their vains to hear ’em. He kept his room most of the time, and played day and night. He had ruther be alone day times, and think of that girl, and lament over her, and play about her, than go into company; and nights he couldn’t sleep, owin’ to his trouble, so he would set up and play. They was sorry for him, they said they was. They said they knew he must have been in a awful state, and his sufferin’s intense, or he couldn’t harrow up anybody’s feelin’s so. But that didn’t make it none the easier for them.

Tirzah Ann and Whitfield are both tender-hearted and sympathetic by nature; if they hadn’t been, it wouldn’t have been so hard on ’em. But they both say that tongue never can express the sufferin’s they underwent from that flute, and from the feelin’s they felt for that young man. They expected every day to hear that he had made way with himself, his sufferin’s seemed so great. Such agonizin’ wails of woe he would blow into that flute! and he would groan and writhe so when he wasn’t a playin’.

Twice Whitfield went to bed with his clothes on, he was so certain the young feller couldn’t stand it till mornin’, and would need help.

The room on the other side of ’em was occupied by a young woman who owned a melodeon. She went into company a good deal, and her spells to play would come on nights, after she got home from parties. She had a good many bo’s, and was happy dispositioned naturally, and they said some nights it seemed as if there wouldn’t be no end hardly to her playin’, quick pieces, waltzes, and pokeys bein’ her theme—and love songs, which she would sing very sentimental and impressive, and put in sights of quavers and shakes—they said it did seem as if they never see so many quavers and trills as she trilled and quavered.

Tirzah Ann and Whitfield both said that they knew what it was to be young, they had been young themselves, not much more’n two years ago, and they knew by experience what it was to be lovesick, and they wanted to sympathize with happiness and gayity of heart, and they didn’t want to do nothin’ to break up her highlarity of spirits. But still it come dretful tough on ’em. I s’pose the sufferin’s couldn’t never be told nor sung that they underwent from them 2 musicianers.

And the babe not bein’ used to such a racket nights would get skairt, and almost go into historical fits. And two or three nights Tirzah Ann had ’em, too—the historicks. I don’t see what kep’ Whitfield up; he says no money would tempt him to go through with it agin. I s’pose Tirzah Ann almost tore him to pieces. But she wasn’t to blame; she didn’t know what she was a doin’.

It hain’t no use to blame Tirzah Ann now, after it is all over with. And she sees it plain enough now; she is sufferin’ enough from the effects of it—her tryin’ to keep up with Miss Skidmore, and rest as much as she did, and recreate as fur, and do all that she done. And that is where her morals got all run down, and Whitfield’s, too.

To think of them two—she that was Tirzah Ann Allen, and Whitfield Minkley—to think of them two, brought up as they had been, havin’ such parents and step-parents as they had, settin’ under such a preacher as they had always set under—to think of them two a dancin’! and a flirtin’!

Why, if anybody had told me, if it had come through two or three, I would have despised the idee of believin’ of it. But it didn’t come through anybody; she owned it up to me herself. I couldn’t hardly believe my ear when she told me, but I had to.

They had parties there every evenin’ in the parlors of the tavern, and Miss Skidmore went to ’em all, and danced, and so they went, and they danced. I didn’t say nothin’ to hurt her feelin’s, her mean looked so dretful, and I see she was a gettin’ her pay for her sinfulness, but I groaned loud and frequent while she was a tellin’ me of this (entirely unbeknown to me).

Here was where Whitfield got so lame. He never had danced a step before in his life—nor Tirzah Ann, neither. But Skidmore and his wife danced every night till after midnight, and Tirzah Ann was so ambitious she was determined that she and Whitfield should recreate and dance as much as they did, if they fell dead a doin’ of it. And not bein’ used to it, it almost killed ’em. Besides loosenin’ their morals so that it will be weeks and weeks before they get as strong and firm as they was before. When morals get to tottlin’ and wobblin’ round, it is almost impossible to get ’em as firm as they was before.

But truly they got their pay. Whitfield not bein’ used to it, and bein’ so tuckered out with the recreation and rest he had been a havin’, it lamed him dretfully, rheumatiz sot in, and his sufferin’s was intense. And then a base-ball hit him—or anyway he got hurt awfully when he was a playin’ some game, base-ball, or billiards, or polo. That is a game, polo is, that I never heard on in my life before, and Josiah was awful interested in it when I told him about it. And he said he should deerly love to learn to play it. That man acts frisky now, a good deal of the time, and is a great case to foller up new idees.

But I told him it would be dretful foolish for him to try to learn it, for the old mare had enough to do now, without that. It is played on horseback, and from the name I s’pose they try to hit each other with poles, or hit the horses, or sunthin’. I don’t really understand it well enough to give directions about playin’ it straight and correct.

But Josiah was all carried away with the idee, and stuck to it he should love to play it, love to like a dog. Says he: “How I should enjoy to take a game with old Bobbet. Why,” says he, “let me get onto the old mare, and give me a good, strong hop-pole, and I believe I could fetch the old man down the first blow.”

But I discourage the idee, and don’t mean to let him undertake it. Says I, “Josiah Allen, it stands you in hand at your age to not go to caperin’ round, and actin’, and get all the other old men in Jonesville all rousted up about it, and a actin’. And I should think,” says I, “that one lame one in the family is enough, without your chasin’ after pleasure on the old mare, and mebby both of you get killed in the job.”

I guess I have kinder broke it up; I don’t believe he will try to learn the game. But as I was a sayin’, in that or some other of the games Whitfield got hit on his elbo, right on his crazy-bone, and I s’pose it made him most crazy. But the doctor thinks with the best of care he may get over it, and use his arm again.

Tirzah Ann’s dancin’ didn’t give her the rheumatiz; it seemed to hurt her more inwardly, the doctor says, brought on a kind of weakness. But where she got her death-blows (as it were), what laid her up, and made her bed-sick, was goin’ in bathin’, and drinkin’ so much mineral water. Ridin’ out on the water so much come hard on ’em both, for it made ’em sick as snipes. Every ride was so severe on ’em it almost spilte their stomachs. Tirzah Ann never could bear deep water—was always afraid of it. But she wasn’t goin’ to have Miss Skidmore bathe, and she not, not if she drounded herself in the operation. So she went in, and got skairt the minute the water was over her knees; it skairt her so she had sort o’ cramps, and gin up she was a droundin’. And that made it worse for her, and she did crumple right down in the water, and would have been drounded if a man hadn’t rescued her. She was a sinkin’ for the 3d time when he laid holt of her hair, and dragged her out. She hain’t got over the fright yet, and I am afraid she never will.