Читать книгу Josiah Allen's Wife as a P. A. and P. I - Marietta Holley - Страница 4

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My companion, Josiah, knew that my book was all finished and completed, and so one lovely day about half past four, P. M. in the afternoon, when he see me walk with a firm and even step up to the mantletry piece and take down my bottle of ink and my steel mounted pen, he says to me:

“What are you goin’ to writin’ on now, Samantha?”

Says I mildly, “I thought I’d lay to and write a preface to my book, Josiah. I thought I’d tell ’em that I had wrote it all down about you and I goin’ on a tower to Filadelfy village to see the Sentinel.”

“I guess after you have wrote it all out in black ink in a book, about our goin’ to the Sentimental, folks that read it will find out we have been there, without your writin’ a preface to tell ’em of it. They will unless they are dumb fools.”

He snapped out awful snappish. I couldn’t think what ailed him, and says I firmly:

“Stop swearin’ instantly and to once, Josiah Allen!” And I added again in mild axents: “I guess I’ll lay to and write my preface, Josiah; you know there has got to be one.”

“Why has there got to be one?”

Oh! how fractious and sharp that “why” was. I never see a sharper, more worrysome “why” in my hull life than that “why” was. But I kep’ cool, and says I in calm tones:

“Because there has; Folks always have prefaces, Josiah.”

“What makes ’em have ’em? there’s the dumb of it. What makes ’em?”

Says I mekanically,—for a stiddy follerin’ of duty has made reprovin’ my pardner in times of need, a second or third nature to me—“stop swearin’ to once, Josiah Allen! They have prefaces, Josiah, because”—again I paused half a moment in deep thought—“they have ’em, because they do have ’em, that’s why.”

But even this plain and almost lucid statement didn’t seem to satisfy him, and he kep’ a arguin’ and sayin’,—“I’d be hanged if I’d have ’em,” and so on and so 4th. And I argued back again. Says I:

“You know folks are urged to publish books time and again, that wouldn’t have had no idee of doin’ it if they had been let alone.” Says I,—“You know after they git their books all finished, they hang back and hate to have ’em published; hate to, like dogs; and are urged out of their way by relatives and friends, and have to give up, and have ’em published. They naturally want to tell the Public how it is, and that these things are so.”

“Oh wall,” says he, “if the Public is any like me, he’d ruther hear the urgin’ himself than to hear the author tell on it. What did they break their backs for a writin’ fourteen or fifteen hundred pages if they laid out to hang back in the end. If they found their books all wrote out, a growin’ on huckleberry bushes, or cewcumber vines, there would be some sense in talkin’ about urgin’ ’em out of their way.”

And he sot his head on one side, and looked up at the ceilin’ with a dretful shrewd look onto his face, and went to kinder whistlin’. I can’t bear hintin’, and never could, I always despised hinters. And I says in almost cold tones, says I:

“Don’t you believe they was urged, Josiah Allen?”

“I haint said they wuzn’t, or they wuz. I said I had ruther see the hangin’ back, and hear the urgin’ than to hear of it by-the-by, in prefaces and things. That’s what I said.”

But again that awful shrewd look come onto his face, and again he sot his head on one side and kinder went to whistlin’; no particular tune, but jest a plain sort of a promiscous whistle. But I kep’ considerable cool, and says I:

“Folks may be real dissatisfied with what they have wrote, and want to sort o’ apoligise, and run it down kinder.”

Says Josiah,—“If folks don’t write the best they know how to, it is a insult to the Public, and ort to be took by him as one.”

“That is so, Josiah,” says I. “I always thought so. But writers may try to do the very best they can; their minds may be well stabled, and their principles foundered on a rock; their motives as sound as brass, and soarin’ and high-toned as anything can be, and still at the same time, they may have a realizin’ sense that in spite of all their pains, there is faults in the book; lots of faults. And they may” says I, “feel it to be their duty to tell the Public of these faults. They may think it is wrong to conceal ’em, and the right way is to come out nobly and tell the Public of ’em.”

“Oh! wall!” says Josiah, “if that is what you are goin’ to write a preface for, you may set your heart at rest about it. Anybody that reads your book will find out the faults in it for themselves, without your tellin’ ’em of ’em in a preface, or sayin’ a word to help ’em on in the search. Don’t you go to worryin’ about that, Samantha; folks will see the faults jest as easy; wont have to put on no specks nor nothin’ to find ’em; such things can’t be hid.”

My companion meant to chirk me up and comfort me. His will was good, but somehow, I s’pose I didn’t look so chirked up and happy as he thought I ort to, and so to prove his words, and encourage me still more, he went on and told a story:

“Don’t you remember the boy that was most a fool, and when he sot out for his first party, his father charged him not to say a word, or they would find him out. He sot perfectly speechless for more’n an hour; wouldn’t answer back a word they said to him, till they begun to call him a fool right to his face. And then he opened his mouth for the first time, and hollered to his father,—‘Father! father! they’ve found me out.’”

Josiah is a great case to tell stories. He takes all the most high-toned and popular almanacs of the day, and reads ’em clear through. He says he “will read ’em, every one of ’em, from beginnin’ to Finy.” He is fond of tellin’ me anecdotes. And is also fond of tragedies—he reads the World stiddy. And I always make a practice of smilin’ or groanin’ at ’em as the case may be. (I sot out in married life with a firm determination to do my duty by this man.) But now, though I smiled a very little, there was sunthin’ in the story, or the thoughts and forebodin’s the story waked up in me, that made my heart sink from—I should judge from a careless estimate—an inch, to an inch and three-quarters. I didn’t make my feelin’s known, however; puttin’ my best foot forred has been my practice for years, and my theme. And my pardner went on in a real chirk tone:

“You see Samantha, jest how it is. You see there haint no kind o’ need of your writin’ any preface.”

I was almost lost in sad and mournful thought, but I answered dreamily that “I guessed I’d write one, as I had seemed to sort o’ lay out and calculate to.”

Then my companion come out plain, and told me his mind, which if he had done in the first place, would have saved breath and argument. Says he:

“I hate prefaces. I hate ’em with almost a perfect hatred.” And says he with a still more gloomy and morbid look,—“I have been hurt too much by prefaces to take to ’em, and foller ’em up.”

“Hurt by ’em?” says I.

“Yes,” says he firmly. “That other preface of your’n hurt me as much as 7 cents in the eyes of the community. It was probable more’n that damage to me. I wouldn’t”—says he, with as bitter a look onto him as I ever see,—“have had it got out that I had the Night Mair, for a silver 3 cent piece.”

“Why,” says I mildly, “it wasn’t nothin’ ag’inst your character, Josiah.”

“Oh no!” says he in a sarcastic tone. “You would want it talked over in prefaces and round, wouldn’t you, that you had the Night Mair, and pranced round in your sleep?”

“I never mentioned the word prance,” says I mildly, but firmly, “never.”

“Oh wall,” says he, “it is all the same thing.”

“No it haint,” says I firmly. “No it haint.”

“Wall,” says he, “you know jest how stories grow by tellin’. And by the time it got to New York,—I dare persume to say before it got to that village,—the story run that I pranced round, and was wild as a henhawk. I have hated prefaces ever sense, and druther give half a cent than to have you write another one.”

“Don’t go beyond your means a tryin’ to bribe me,” says I, in a almost dry tone. Josiah is honest as a pulpit, but close, nearly tight. After a moment’s thought, I says,—“If you feel like that about it, Josiah, I wont have no preface in this book.”

“Wall,” says he, “it would take a load offen my mind if you wouldn’t.” And he added in cheerful and tender tones,—“Shan’t I start up the fire for you, Samantha, and hang onto the tea-kettle?”

I told him he might, and then I rose up and put my bottle of ink on to the mantletry piece, and sot the table for supper. And this—generous and likely reader though I think a sight on you, and would have been glad of the chance to have told you so in a lawful way—is jest the reason why I have denied myself that privilege and don’t have no preface to this book. Further explanations are unnecessary. To the discernin’ mind my reasons are patented, for such well know that a husband’s wishes to a fond wife, are almost like takin’ the law to her. And knowin’ this, I hope and trust you will kindly overlook its loss. You will not call me shiftless, nor yet slack. You will heed not the dark report that may be started up that I was short on it for prefaces, or entirely run out of ’em, and couldn’t get holt of one. You will believe not that tale, knowin’ it false and also untrue. You will regard its absence kindly and even tenderly, thinkin’ that what is my loss is your gain; thinkin’ that it is a delicate and self-sacrificin’ token of a wife’s almost wrapped devotion to a Josiah.