Sweet Cicely or Josiah Allen as a Politician Part 10

And I says, "What did the conductor say?"

And he says, "He didn't say nothin'. When he asked me for my fare, I told him I had a free pa.s.s, and I showed it to him. And he took it, and looked at it close, and took out his specks, and looked and looked at it for a number of minutes; and then he handed it back to me, and I put it into my pocket; and that wus all there was of it."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOKING DUBERSOME.]

Says I, "How did the conductor look when he was a readin' it?"

And he owned up that he looked dubersome. But, says he, "I rode on it, and I told you that I could."

"Wall," says I, sithin', "there is a great mystery about it."

Says he, "There hain't no mystery to me."

And then I beset him agin to tell me what he thought the reason wus they give it to him.

And he said "he thought it was because he was so smart." Says he, "I am a dumb smart feller, Samantha, though I never could make you see it as plain as I wanted to." And then says he, a goin' on prouder and prouder every minute,-

"I am pretty-lookin'. I am what you might call a orniment to any car on the track. I kinder set a car off, and make 'em look respectable and dressy. And I'm what you might call a influential man, and I s'pose the railroad-men want to keep the right side of me. And they have took the right way to do it. I shall speak well of 'em as long as I can ride free. And, oh! what solid comfort I shall take, Samantha, a ridin' on that pa.s.s! I calculate to see the world now. And there is nothin' under the sun to hender you from goin' with me. As long as you are the wife of such a influential and popular man as I be, it don't look well for you to go a mopein' along afoot, or with the old mare. We will ride in the future on my free pa.s.s."

"No," says I. "I sha'n't ride off on a mystery. I prefer a mare."

Says he, for he wus that proud and excited that you couldn't stop him nohow,-

"It will be a dretful savin' of money, but that hain't what I think of the most. It is the honor they are a heapin' onto me. To think that they think so much of me, set such a store by me, and look up to me so, that they send me a free pa.s.s without my makin' a move to ask for it. Why, it shows plain, Samantha, that I am one of the first men of the age."

And so he would go on from hour to hour, and from day to day; and I wus that dumbfoundered and wonderin' about it, that I couldn't for my life tell what to think of it. It worried me.

But from that day Josiah Allen rode on that pa.s.s, every chance he got. Why, he went to the Ohio on it, on a visit to his first wive's sister; and he went to Michigan on it, and to the South, and everywhere he could think of. Why, he fairly hunted up relations on it, and I told him so.

And after he got 'em hunted up, he'd take them onto that pa.s.s, and ride round with 'em on it.

And he told every one of 'em, he told everybody, that he thought as much agin of the honor as he did of the money. It showed that he wus thought so much of, not only in Jonesville, but the world at large.

Why, he took such solid comfort in it, that it did honestly seem as if he grew fat, he wus so puffed up by it, and proud. And some of the neighbors that he boasted so before, wus eat up with envy, and seemed mad to think he had come to such honor, and they hadn't. But the madder they acted, the tickleder he seemed, and more prouder, and high-headeder.

But I could not feel so. I felt that there wus sunthin' strange and curius about it. And it wus very, very seldom that Josiah could get me to ride on it. Though I did take a few short journeys on it, to please him. But I felt sort o' uneasy while I was a ridin' on it, same as you feel when you are goin' up-hill with a heavy load and a little horse. You kinder stand on your feet, and lean forward, as if your bein' oncomfortable, and standin' up, helped the horse some.

I had a good deal of that restless feelin', and oneasy. And as I told Josiah time and time again, "that for stiddy ridin' I preferred a mare to a mystery."

Wall, it run along for a year; and Josiah said he s'posed he'd have to write on, and get the pa.s.s renewed. As near as he could make out, it run out about the 4th day of April. So he wrote down to the head one in New- York village; and the answer came back by return mail, and wrote in plain writin' so we could read it.

It seemed there wus a mistake. It wuzn't a free pa.s.s, it wus a order for Josiah Allen to remove a pig-pen from his place on the railroad-track within three days.

There it wuz, a order to remove a nuisence; and Josiah Allen had been a ridin' on it for a year, with pride in his mean, and haughtiness in his demeanor.

Wall, I never see a man more mortified and cut up than Josiah Allen wuz. If he hadn't boasted so over its bein' gin to him on account of his bein' so smart and popular and etcetery, he wouldn't have felt so cut up. But as it was, it bowed down his bald head into the dust (allegory).

But he didn't stay bowed down for any length of time: truly, men are const.i.tuted in such a way that mortification don't show on 'em for any length of time.

But it made sights and sights of talk in Jonesville. The Jonesvillians made sights and sights of fun of him, poked fun at him, and snickered. I myself didn't say much: it hain't my way. I merely says this: says I,-

"You thought you wus so awful popular, Josiah Allen, mebby you won't go round with so haughty a mean onto you right away."

"Throw my mean in my face if you want to," says he. "But I guess," says he, "it will learn 'em another time to take a little more pains with their duck's tracks, dumb 'em!"

Says I, "Stop instantly." And he knew what I meant, and stopped.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOSIAH AND HIS RELATIONS ON THE Pa.s.s.]

CHAPTER V.

Josiah is as kind-hearted a man as was ever made. And he loves me with a devotion, that though hidden sometimes, like volcanic fires, and other married men's affections for their wives, yet it bursts out occasionally in spurts and jets of unexpected tenderness.

Now, the very next mornin' after Cicely left for her aunt Mary's, he gave me a flaming proof of that hidden fire that burns but don't consume him.

A agent come to our dwelling, and with the bland and amiable air of their sect, asked me,-

"If I would buy a encyclopedia?"

I was favorable to the idee, and showed it by my looks and words; but Josiah wus awful set against it. And the more favorable I talked about it, the more horrow-struck and skairt Josiah Allen looked. And finally he got behind the agent, and winked at me, and made motions for me to foller him into the b.u.t.tery. He wunk several times before I paid much attention to 'em; but finally, the winks grew so violent, and the motions so imperious, yet clever, that I got up, and follered him into the b.u.t.tery. He shet the door, and stood with his back against it; and says to me, with his voice fairly tremblin' with his emotions,-

"It will throw you, Samantha! you don't want to buy it."

"What will throw me? and when?" says I.

"Why," says he, "you can't never ride it! How should I feel to see you on one of 'em! It skairs me most to death to see a boy ride 'em; and at your age, and with your rheumatiz, you'd get throwed, and get your neck broke, the first day." Says he, "If you have got to have something more stylish, and new-fangled than the old mair, I'd ruther buy you a philosopher. They are easier-going than a encyclopedia, anyway."

"A philosopher?" says I dreamily.

"Yes, such a one as Tom Gowdey has got."

Says I, "You mean a velocipede!"

"Yes, and I'll get you one ruther than have you a ridin' round the country on a encyclopedia."

His tender thoughtfulness touched my heart, and I explained to him all about 'em. He thought it was some kind of a bycicle. And he brightened up, and didn't make no objections to my gettin' one.

Wall, that very afternoon he went to Jonesville, and come home, as I said, all rousted up about bein' a senator. I s'pose Elburtus'es bein' there, and talkin' so much on politics, had kinder sot him to thinkin' on it. Anyway, he come home from Jonesville perfectly rampant with the idee of bein' United-States senator. "He said he had been approached on the subject."

He said it in that sort of a haughty, high-headed way, such as men will sometimes a.s.sume when they think they have had some high honors heaped onto 'em.

Says I, "Who has approached you, Josiah Allen?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOSIAH BEING APPROACHED.]

"Wall," he said, "it might be a foreign minister, and it might be uncle Nate Gowdey." He thought it wouldn't be best to tell who it was. "But," says he, "I am bound to be senator. Josiah Allen, M.C., will probable be wrote on my letters before another fall. I am bound to run."