Sam Lawson's Oldtown Fireside Stories. Stowe Harriet Beecher
on like Ahashuerus and Herodias and all them old Scriptur’ days. There was a comin’ and goin,’ and there was gret dinners and gret doin’s, but no love; and, you know, the Scriptur’ says, ‘Better is a dinner o’ yarbs, where love is, than a stalled ox, and hatred therewith.’
“Wal, I don’t orter say hatred, arter all. I kind o reckon, the old Gineral did the best he could: the fact is, when a woman gits a kink in her head agin a man, the best on us don’t allers do jest the right thing.
“Any way, Ruth, she was sort o’ forlorn, and didn’t seem to take no comfort in the goin’s on. The Gineral he was mighty fond on her, and proud on her; and there wa’n’t nothin’ too good for Ruth. He was free-handed, the Gineral wuz. He dressed her up in silks and satins, and she hed a maid to wait on her, and she hed sets o’ pearl and dimond; and Madam Sullivan she thought all the world on her, and kind o’ worshipped the ground she trod on. And yet Ruth was sort o’ lonesome.
“Ye see, Ruth wa’n’t calculated for grande’r. Some folks ain’t.
“Why, that ‘are summer she spent out to Old Town, she was jest as chirk and chipper as a wren, a wearin’ her little sun-bunnet, and goin’ a huckle-berryin’ and a black-berryin’ and diggin’ sweet-flag, and gettin cowslops and dandelions; and she hed a word for everybody. And everybody liked Ruth, and wished her well. Wal, she was sent for her health; and she got that, and more too: she got a sweetheart.
“Ye see, there was a Cap’n Oliver a visitin’ at the minister’s that summer, – a nice, handsome young man as ever was. He and Ruth and your Aunt Lois, they was together a good deal; and they was a ramblin’ and a ridin’ and a sailin’: and so Ruth and the Capting went the way o’ all the airth, and fell dead in love with each other. Your Aunt Lois she was knowing to it and all about it, ‘cause Ruth she was jest one of them that couldn’t take a step without somebody to talk to.
“Captain Oliver was of a good family in England; and so, when he made bold to ask the old Gineral for Ruth, he didn’t say him nay: and it was agreed, as they was young, they should wait a year or two. If he and she was of the same mind, he should be free to marry her. Jest right on that, the Captain’s regiment was ordered home, and he had to go; and, the next they heard, it was sent off to India. And poor little Ruth she kind o’ drooped and pined; but she kept true, and wouldn’t have nothin’ to say to nobody that came arter her, for there was lots and cords o’ fellows as did come arter her. Ye see, Ruth had a takin’ way with her; and then she had the name of bein’ a great heiress, and that allers draws fellers, as molasses does flies.
“Wal, then the news came, that Captain Oliver was comin’ home to England, and the ship was took by the Algerenes, and he was gone into slavery there among them heathen Mahomedans and what not.
“Folks seemed to think it was all over with him, and Ruth might jest as well give up fust as last. And the old Gineral he’d come to think she might do better; and he kep’ a introducin’ one and another, and tryin’ to marry her off; but Ruth she wouldn’t. She used to write sheets and sheets to your Aunt Lois about it; and I think Aunt Lois she kep’ her grit up. Your Aunt Lois she’d a stuck by a man to the end o’ time ef’t ben her case; and so she told Ruth.
“Wal, then there was young Jeff Sullivan, the Gineral’s nephew, he turned up; and the Gineral he took a gret fancy to him. He was next heir to the Gineral; but he’d ben a pretty rackety youngster in his young days, – off to sea, and what not, and sowed a consid’able crop o’ wild oats. People said he’d been a pirating off there in South Ameriky. Lordy massy! nobody rightly knew where he hed ben or where he hadn’t: all was, he turned up at last all alive, and chipper as a skunk blackbird. Wal, of course he made his court to Ruth; and the Gineral, he rather backed him up in it; but Ruth she wouldn’t have nothin’ to say to him. Wal, he come and took up his lodgin’ at the Gineral’s; and he was jest as slippery as an eel, and sort o’ slid into every thing, that was a goin’ on in the house and about it. He was here, and he was there, and he was everywhere, and a havin’ his say about this and that; and he got everybody putty much under his thumb. And they used to say, he wound the Gineral round and round like a skein o’ yarn; but he couldn’t come it round Ruth.
“Wal, the Gineral said she shouldn’t be forced; and Jeff, he was smooth as satin, and said he’d be willing to wait as long as Jacob did for Rachel. And so there he sot down, a watchin’ as patient as a cat at a mousehole; ’cause the Gineral he was thick-set and shortnecked, and drank pretty free, and was one o’ the sort that might pop off any time.
“Wal, Mis’ Sullivan, she beset the Gineral to make a provision for Ruth; ’cause she told him very sensible, that he’d brought her up in luxury, and that it wa’n’t fair not to settle somethin’ on her; and so the Gineral he said he’d make a will, and part the property equally between them. And he says to Jeff, that, if he played his part as a young fellow oughter know how, it would all come to him in the end; ’cause they hadn’t heard nothing from Captain Oliver for three or four years, and folks about settled it that he must, be dead.
“Wal, the Gineral he got a letter about an estate that had come to him in England; and he had to go over. Wal, livin’ on the next estate, was the very cousin of the Gineral’s that he was to a married when they was both young: the lands joined so that the grounds run together. What came between them two nobody knows; but she never married, and there she was. There was high words between the Gineral and Madam Sullivan about his goin’ over. She said there wa’n’t no sort o’ need on’t, and he said there was; and she said she hoped she should be in her grave afore he come back; and he said she might suit herself about that for all him. That ‘are was the story that the housekeeper told to Aunt Polly; and Aunt Polly she told me. These ‘ere squabbles somehow allers does kind o’ leak out one way or t’other. Anyhow, it was a house divided agin itself at the Gineral’s, when he was a fixin’ out for the voyage. There was Ruth a goin’ fust to one, and then to t’other, and tryin’ all she could to keep peace beteen ‘em; and there was this ‘ere Master Slick Tongue talkin’ this way to one side, and that way to t’other, and the old Gineral kind o’ like a shuttle-cock atween ‘em.
“Wal, then, the night afore he sailed, the Gineral he hed his lawyer up in his library there, a lookin’ over all his papers and bonds and things, and a witnessing his will; and Master Jeff was there, as lively as a cricket, a goin’ into all affairs, and offerin’ to take precious good care while he was gone; and the Gineral he had his papers and letters out, a sortin’ on ‘em over, which was to be took to the old country, and which was to be put in a trunk to go back to Lawyer Dennis’s office.
“Wal, Abner Ginger, Polly’s boy, he that was footman and waiter then at the Gineral’s, he told me, that, about eight o’clock that evening he went up with hot water and lemons and sperits and sich, and he see the gret green table in the library all strewed and covered with piles o’ papers; and there was tin boxes a standin’ round; and the Gineral a packin’ a trunk, and young Master Jeff, as lively and helpful as a rat that smells cheese. And then the Gineral he says, ‘Abner,’ says he, ‘can you write your name?’ – ‘I should hope so, Gineral.’ says Abner. – ‘Wal, then, Abner,’ says he, ‘this is my last will; and I want you to witness it,’ and so Abner he put down his name opposite to a place with a wafer and a seal; and then the Gineral, he says, ‘Abner, you tell Ginger to come here.’ That, you see, was his housekeeper, my Aunt Polly’s sister, and a likely woman as ever was. And so they had her up, and she put down her name to the will; and then Aunt Polly she was had up (she was drinking tea there that night), and she put down her name. And all of ‘em did it with good heart, ‘cause it had got about among ‘em that the will was to provide for Miss Ruth; for everybody loved Ruth, ye see, and there was consid’ble many stories kind o’ goin’ the rounds about Master Jeff and his doin’s. And they did say he sort o’ kep’ up the strife atween the Gineral and my lady, and so they didn’t think none too well o’ him; and, as he was next o’ kin, and Miss Ruth wa’n’t none o’ the Gineral’s blood (ye see, she was Mis’ Sullivan’s sister’s child), of course there wouldn’t nothin’ go to Miss Ruth in way o’ law, and so that was why the signin’ o’ that ‘are will was so much talked about among ‘em.”
“Wal,