第11章 THE CHERITY OF THE JONESVILLIANS(1)

We have been havin' a pound party here in Jonesville.There wuz a lot of children left without any father or mother, nobody only an old grandma to take care of 'em, and she wuz half bent with the rheumatiz, and had a swelled neck, and lumbago and fits.

They lived in an old tumble-down house jest outside of Jonesville.

The father wuz, I couldn't deny, a shiftless sort of a chap, good-natured, always ready to obleege a neighbor, but he hadn'nt no faculty.And I don't know, come to think of it, as anybody is any more to blame if they are born without a faculty, than if they are born with only one eye.Faculty is one of the things that you can't buy.

He loved to hunt.That is, he loved to hunt some kinds of things.

He never loved to hunt stiddy, hard work, and foller on the trail of it till he evertook success and captured it.No, he druther hunt after catamounts and painters, in woods where catamounts haint mounted, and painters haint painted sence he wuz born.

He generally killed nothin' bigger than red squirrels and chipmunks.

The biggest game he ever brought down wuz himself.He shot himself one cold day in the fall of the year.He wuz gettin' over a brush fence, they s'posed the gun hit against somethin' and went off, for they found him a layin' dead at the bottom of the fence.

I always s'posed that the shock of his death comin' so awful sudden unto her, killed his wife.She had been sick for a long spell, she had consumption and dropsy, and so forth, and so forth, for a long time, and after he wuz brought in dead, she didn't live a week.She thought her eyes of him, for no earthly reason as Icould ever see.How strange, how strange a dispensation of Providence it duz seem, that some women love some men, and vicy versey and the same.

But she did jest about worship him, and she died whisperin' his name, and reachin' out her hands as if she see him jest ahead of her.And I told Josiah I didn't know but she did.I shouldn't wonder a mite if she did see him, for there is only the veil of mystery between us and the other world at any time, and she had got so nigh to it, that I s'pose it got so thin that she could see through it.

Just as you can see through the blue haze that lays before our forest in Injun summer.Come nigh up to it and you can see the silvery trunks of the maples and the red sumac leaves, and the bright evergreens, and the forms of the happy hunters a passin'

along under the glint of the sunbeams and the soft shadows.

They died in Injun summer.I made a wreath myself of the bright-colored leaves to lay on their coffins.Dead leaves, dead to all use and purpose here, and yet with the bright mysterious glow upon them that put me in mind of some immortal destiny and blossoming beyond our poor dim vision.Jane Smedley wuz a good woman, and so wuz Jim, good but shiftless.

But I made the same wreath for her and Jim, and the strange mellow light lay on both of 'em, makin' me think in spite of myself of some happy sunrisin' that haply may dawn on some future huntin'

ground, where poor Jim Smedley even, may strike the trail of success and happiness, hid now from the sight of Samantha, hid from Josiah.

Wall, they died within a week's time of each other, and left nine children, the oldest one of 'em not quite fifteen.She, the oldest one, wuz a good girl, only she had the rickets so that when she walked, she seemed to walk off all over the house backwards, and sideways, and every way, but when she sot down, she wuz a good stiddy girl, and faithful; she took after her mother, and her mother took after her grandmother, so there wuz three takin' after each other, one right after the other.

Jane wuz a good, faithful, hard-workin' creeter when she wuz well, brought up her children good as she could, learnt 'em the catechism, and took in all kinds of work to earn a little somethin' towards gettin' a home for 'em; she and her mother both did, her mother lived with 'em, and wuz a smart old woman, too, for one that wuz pretty nigh ninety.And she wuzn't worrysome much, only about one thing -- she wanted a home, wanted a home dretfully.Some wimmen are so; she had moved round so much, from one poor old place to another, that she sort o' hankered after bein' settled down into a stiddy home.

Wall, there wuz eight children younger than Marvilla, that wuz the oldest young girl's name.Eight of 'em, countin' each pair of twins as two, as I s'pose they ort.The Town buried the father and mother, which wuz likely and clever in it, but after that it wouldn't give only jest so much a week, which wuz very little, because it said, Town did, that they could go to the poor-house, they could be supported easier there.

I don't know as the Town could really be blamed for sayin' it, and yet it seemed kinder mean in it, the Town wuz so big, and the children, most of 'em, wuz so little.

But any way, it wuz jest sot on it, and there wuz the end of it, for you might jest as well dispute the wind as to dispute the Town when it gets sot.

Wall, the old grandma said she would die in the streets before she would go to the poor-house.She had come from a good family in the first place, They say she run away and left a good home and got married, and did dretful poor in the married state.He waz shiftless and didn't have nothin' and didn't lay up any.And she didn't keep any of her old possessions only jest her pride.She kept that, or enough of it to say that she would die on the road before she would go to the poor-house.And once I see her cry she wanted a home so bad.

And lots of folks blamed her for it, blamed the old woman awfully.

They said pride wuz so wicked.Wimmen who would run like deers if company came when they wuzn't dressed up slick, they would say the minute they got back into the room, all out of breath with hurryin'

into their best clothes, they'd say a pantin' "That old woman ought to be made to go to the poorhouse, to take the pride out of her, pride wuz so awfully, dretfully wicked, and it wuz a shame that she wuz so ongrateful as to want a home of her own." And then they would set down and rest.