Sweet Cicely or Josiah Allen as a Politician Part 2

And our broad land is full of jest such sufferin's, jest such crimes, jest such disgrace, caused by the same cause;-as I told Josiah, suffering, disgrace, and crime made legal and protected by the law.

And Josiah squirmed as I said it; and I see him squirm, for he believed in it: he believed in licensing this shame and disgrace and woe; he believed in makin' it respectable, and wrappin' round it the mantilly of the law, to keep it in a warm, healthy, flouris.h.i.+n' condition. Why, he had helped do it himself; he had helped the United States lift up the mantilly; he had voted for it.

He squirmed, but turned it off by usin' his bandana hard, and sayin', in a voice all choked down with grief,-

"Oh, poor Cicely! poor girl!"

"Yes," says I, "'poor girl!' and the law you uphold has made her; 'poor girl'-has killed her; for she won't live through it, and you and the United States will see that she won't."

He squirmed hard; and my feelin's for him are such that I can't bear to see him squirm voyalently, as much as I blamed him and the United States, and as mad as I was at both on 'em.

So I went to cryin' agin silently under my linen handkerchief, and he cried into his bandana. It wus a awful blow to both on us.

Wall, she lived, Cicely did, which was more than we any one of us thought she could do. I went right there, and stayed six weeks with her, hangin' right over her bed, night and day; and so did his mother,-she a brokenhearted woman too. Her heart broke, too, by the United States; and so I told Josiah, that little villain that got killed was only one of his agents. Yes, her heart was broke; but she bore up for Cicely's sake and the boy's. For it seemed as if she felt remorsful, and as if it was for them that belonged to him who had ruined her life, to help her all they could.

Wall, after about three weeks Cicely begun to live. And so I wrote to Josiah that I guessed she would keep on a livin' now, for the sake of the boy.

And so she did. And she got up from that bed a shadow,-a faint, pale shadow of the girl that used to brighten up our home for us. She was our sweet Cicely still. But she looked like that posy after the frost has withered it, and with the cold moonlight layin' on it.

Good and patient she wuz, and easy to get along with; for she seemed to hold earthly things with a dretful loose grip, easy to leggo of 'em. And it didn't seem as if she had any interest at all in life, or care for any thing that was a goin' on in the world, till the boy wus about four years old; and then she begun to get all rousted up about him and his future. "She must live," she said: "she had got to live, to do something to help him in the future.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CICELY AND THE BOY.]

"She couldn't die," she told me, "and leave him in a world that was so hard for boys, where temptations and danger stood all round her boy's pathway. Not only hidden perils, concealed from sight, so he might possibly escape them, but open temptations, open dangers, made as alluring as private avarice could make them, and made as respectable as dignified legal enactments could make them,-all to draw her boy down the pathway his poor father descended." For one of the curius things about Cicely wuz, she didn't seem to blame Paul hardly a mite, nor not so very much the one that enticed him to drink. She went back further than them: she laid the blame onto our laws; she laid the responsibility onto the ones that made 'em, directly and indirectly, the legislators and the voters.

Curius that Cicely should feel so, when most everybody said that he could have stopped drinking if he had wanted to. But then, I don't know as I could blame her for feelin' so when I thought of Paul's chin and lips. Why, anybody that had them on 'em, and was made up inside and outside accordin', as folks be that have them looks; why, unless they was specially guarded by good influences, and fenced off from bad ones,-why, they could not exert any self-denial and control and firmness.

Why, I jest followed that chin and that mouth right back through seven generations of the Slide family. Paul's father wus a good man, had a good face; took it from his mother: but his father, Paul's grandfather, died a drunkard. They have got a oil-portrait of him at Paul's old home: I stopped there on my way home from Cicely's one time. And for all the world he looked most exactly like Paul,-the same sort of a irresolute, handsome, weak, fascinating look to him. And all through them portraits I could trace that chin and them lips. They would disappear in some of 'em, but crop out agin further back. And I asked the housekeeper, who had always lived in the family, and wus proud of it, but honest; and she knew the story of the hull Slide race.

And she said that every one of 'em that had that face had traits accordin'; and most every one of 'em got into trouble of some kind.

One or two of 'em, specially guarded, I s'pose, by good influences, got along with no further trouble than the loss of the chin, and the feelin' they must have had inside of 'em, that they wuz liable to crumple right down any minute.

And as they wus made with jest them looks, and jest them traits, born so, entirely unbeknown to them, I don't know as I can blame Cicely for feelin' as she did. If temptation hadn't stood right in the road in front of him, why, he'd have got along, and lived happy. That's Cicely's idee. And I don't know but she's in the right ont.

But as I said, when her child wus about four years old, Cicely took a turn, and begun to get all worked up and excited by turns a worryin' about the boy. She'd talk about it a sight to me, and I hearn it from others.

She rousted up out of her deathly weakness and heartbroken, stunted calm, -for such it seemed to be for the first two or three years after her husband's death. She seemed to make an effort almost like that of a dead man throwin' off the icy stupor of death, and risin' up with numbed limbs, and shakin' off the death-robes, and livin' agin. She rousted up with jest such a effort, so it seemed, for the boy's sake.

She must live for the boy; she must work for the boy; she must try to throw some safeguards around his future. What could she do to help him? That wus the question that was a hantin' her soul.

It wus jest like death for her to face the curius gaze of the world again; for, like a wounded animal, she had wanted to crawl away, and hide her cruel woe and disgrace in some sheltered spot, away from the sharp-sot eyes of the babblin' world.

But she endured it. She came out of her quiet home, where her heart had bled in secret; she came out into society again; and she did every thing she could, in her gentle, quiet way. She joined temperance societies,- helped push 'em forward with her money and her influence. With other white-souled wimmen, gentle and refined as she was, she went into rough bar-rooms, and knelt on their floors, and prayed what her sad heart wus full of,-for pity and mercy for her boy, and other mothers' boys,-prayed with that fellows.h.i.+p of suffering that made her sweet voice as pathetic as tears, and patheticker, so I have been told.

But one thing hurt her influence dretfully, and almost broke her own heart. Paul had left a very large property, but it wus all in the hands of an executor until the boy wus of age. He wus to give Cicely a liberal, a very liberal, sum every year, but wus to manage the property jest as he thought best.

He wus a good business man, and one that meant to do middlin' near right, but wus close for a bargain, and sot, awful sot. And though he wus dretful polite, and made a stiddy practice right along of callin' wimmen "angels," still he would not brook a woman's interference.

Wall, he could get such big rents for drinkin'-saloons, that four of Cicely's buildings wus rented for that purpose; and there wus one billiard-room. And what made it worse for Cicely seemin'ly, it wus her own property, that she brought to Paul when she wus married, that wus invested in these buildings. At that time they wus rented for dry-goods stores, and groceries. But the business of the manufactories had increased greatly; and there wus three times the population now there wus when she went there to live, and more saloons wus needed; and these buildings wus handy; and the executer had big prices offered to him, and he would rent 'em as he wanted to. And then, he wus something of a statesman; and he felt, as many business men did, that they wus fairly sufferin' for more saloons to enrich the government.

Why, out of every hundred dollars that them poor laboring-men had earned so hardly, and paid into the saloons for that which, of course, wus ruinous to themselves and families, and, of course, rendered them incapable of all labor for a great deal of the time,-why, out of that hundred dollars, as many as 2 cents would go to the government to enrich it.

Of course, the government had to use them 2 cents right off towards buyin' tight-jackets to confine the madmen the whiskey had made, and poorhouse- doors for the idiots it had breeded, to lean up aginst, and buryin' the paupers, and buyin' ropes to hang the murderers it had created.

But still, in some strange way, too deep, fur too deep, for a woman's mind to comprehend, it wus dretful profitable to the government.

Now, if them poor laborin'-men had paid that 2 cents of theirn to the government themselves, in the first place, in direct taxation, why, that wouldn't have been statesmans.h.i.+p. That is a deep study, and has a great many curius performances, and it has to perform.

[Ill.u.s.tration: UNCLE SAM ENRICHING THE GOVERNMENT.]

Cicely tried her very best to get the executor to change in this one matter; but she couldn't move him the width of a horse-hair, and he a smilin' all the time at her, and polite. He liked Cicely: n.o.body could help likin' the gentle, saintly-souled little woman. But he wus sot: he wus makin' money fast by it, and she had to give up.

And rough men and women would sometimes twit her of it,-of her property bein' used to advance the liquor-traffic, and ruin men and wimmen; and she a feelin' like death about it, and her hands tied up, and powerless. No wonder that her face got whiter and whiter, and her eyes bigger and mournfuller-lookin'.

Wall, she kep' on, tryin' to do all she could: she joined the Woman's Temperance Union; she spent her money free as water, where she thought it would do any good, and brought up the boy jest as near right as she could possibly bring him up; and she prayed, and wept right when she wus a bringin' of him, a thinkin' that her property wus a bein' used every day and every hour in ruinin' other mothers' boys. And the boy's face almost breakin' her heart every time she looked at it; for, though he wus jest as pretty as a child could be, the pretty rosy lips had the same good-tempered, irresolute curve to 'em that the boy inherited honestly. And he had the same weak, waverin' chin. It was white and rosy now, with a dimple right in the centre, sweet enough to kiss. But the chin wus there, right under the rosy snow and the dimple; and I foreboded, too, and couldn't blame Cicely a mite for her forebodin', and her agony of sole.

I noticed them lips and that chin the very minute Josiah brought him into the settin'-room, and set him down; and my eyes looked dubersome at him through my specks. Cicely see it, see that dubersome look, though I tried to turn it off by kissin' him jest as hearty as I could after I had took the little black-robed figure of his mother, and hugged her close to my heart, and kissed her time and time agin.

She always dressed in the deepest of mournin', and always would. I knew that.

Wall, we wus awful glad to see Cicely. I had had the old fireplace fixed in the front spare room, and a crib put in there for the boy; and I went right up to her room with her. And when we had got there, I took her right in my arms agin, as I used to, and told her how glad I wus, and how thankful I wus, to have her and the boy with us.

The fire sparkled up on the old bra.s.s handirons as warm as my welcome. Her bed and the boy's bed looked white and cozy aginst the dark red of the carpet and the cream-colored paper. And after I had lowered the pretty ruffled muslin curtains (with red ones under 'em), and pulled a stand forward, and lit a lamp,-it wus sundown,-the room looked cheerful enough for anybody, and it seemed as if Cicely looked a little less white and brokenhearted. She wus glad to be with me, and said she wuz. But right there-before supper; and we could smell the roast chicken and coffee, havin' left the stair-door open-right there, before we had visited hardly any, or talked a mite about other wimmen, she begun on what she wanted to do, and what she must do, for the boy.

I had told her how the boy had grown, and that sot her off. And from that night, every minute of her time almost, when she could without bein' impolite and troublesome (Cicely wus a perfect lady, inside and out), she would talk to me about what she wanted to do for the boy, to have the laws changed before he grew up; she didn't dare to let him go out into the world with the laws as they was now, with temptation on every side of him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SPARE ROOM.]

"You know, aunt Samantha," she says to me, "that I wanted to die when my husband died; but I want to live now. Why, I must live; I cannot die, I dare not die until my boy is safer. I will work, I will die if necessary, for him."

It wus the same old Cicely, I see, not carin' for herself, but carin' only for them she loved. Lovin' little creeter, good little creeter, she always wuz, and always would be. And so I told Josiah.

Wall, we had the boy set between us to the supper-table, Josiah and me did, in Thomas Jefferson's little high-chair. I had new covered it on purpose for him with bright copperplate calico.

And that night at supper, and after supper, I judged, and judged calmly,- we made the estimate after we went to bed, Josiah and me did,-that the boy asked 3 thousand and 85 questions about every thing under the sun and moon, and things over 'em, and outside of 'em, and inside.

Why, I panted for breath, but wouldn't give in. I was determined to use Cicely first-rate, and we loved the boy too. But, oh! it was a weary love, and a short-winded love, and a hoa.r.s.e one.

We went to bed tuckered completely out, but good-natured: our love for 'em held us up. And when we made the estimate, it wuzn't in a cross tone, but amiable, and almost winnin'. Josiah thought they went up into the trillions. But I am one that never likes to set such things too high; and I said calmly, 3,000 and 85. And finally he gin in that mebby it wuzn't no more than that.

Cicely told me she couldn't stay with us very long now; for her aunt Mary wuz expectin' to go away to the Michigan pretty soon, to see a daughter who wus out of health,-had been out of it for some time,-and she wanted a visit from her neice Cicely before she went. But she promised to come back, and make a good visit on her way home.

And so it was planned. The next day was Sunday, and Cicely wus too tired with her journey to go to meetin'. But the boy went. He sot up, lookin' beautiful, by the side of me on the back seat of the Democrat; his uncle Josiah sot in front; and Ury drove. Ury Henzy, he's our hired man, and a tolerable good one, as hired men go. His name is Urias; but we always call him Ury,-spelt U-r-y, Ury,-with the emphasis on the U.

Wall, that day Elder Minkly preached. It wus a powerful sermon, about the creation of the world, and how man was made, and the fall of Adam, and about Noah and the ark, and how the wicked wus destroyed. It wus a middlin' powerful sermon; and the boy sot up between Josiah and me, and we wus proud enough of him. He had on a little green velvet suit and a deep linen collar; and he sot considerable still for him, with his eyes on Elder Minkly's face, a thinkin', I guess, how he would put us through our catechism on the way home. And, oh! didn't he, didn't he do it? I s'pose things seem strange to children, and they can't help askin' about 'em.

But 4,000 wus the estimate Josiah and me calculated on our pillows that night wus the number of questions the boy asked on our way home, about the creation, how the world wus made, and the ark-oh, how he harressed my poor companion about the animals! "Did they drive 2 of all the animals in the world in that house, uncle Josiah?"