My Opinions and Betsey Bobbet's. Marietta Holley
would be fun, mother,” says Thomas J.; “I should love to see you and Deecon Gowdey or old Bobbet, playin’ wink ’em slyly.”
“Let ’em wink at me if they dare to,” says I sternly; “let me catch ’em at it. I don’t believe in surprise parties,” and I went on in about as cold a tone as they make. “Have you forgot how Mrs. Gowdey had her parlor lamp smashed to bits, and a set of stun china? Have you forgot how four or five stranger men got drunk to Peedicks’es, and had to be carried up stairs and laid out on her spare bed? Have you forgot how Celestine Wilkins fell with her baby in her arms, as she was catchin’ old Gowdey, and cracked the little innocent creeter’s nose? Have you forgot how Betsey Bobbet lost out her teeth a runnin’ after the editor of the Augur, and he stepped on ’em and smashed ’em all to bits? Have you forgot these coincidences?” Says I: “I don’t believe in surprise parties.”
“No more do I,” says Josiah; “but the children feel so about our goin’, sposen’ we go, for once! No livin’ woman could do better for children than you have by mine, Samantha, but I don’t suppose you feel exactly as I do about pleasin’ ’em, it haint natteral you should.”
Here he knew he had got me. If ever a woman wanted to do her duty by another woman’s children, it is Samantha Allen, whose maiden name was Smith. Josiah knew jest how to start me; men are deep. I went to the very next party, which was to be held two miles beyond Jonesville; they had had ’em so fast, they had used up all the nearer places. They had heard of this family, who had a big house, and the women had been to the same meetin’ house with Betsey Bobbet two or three times, and she had met her in a store a year before, and had been introduced to her, so she said she felt perfectly free to go. And as she was the leader it was decided on. They went in two big loads, but Josiah and I went in a cutter alone.
We got started ahead of the loads, and when we got to the house we see it was lit up real pleasant, and a little single cutter stood by the gate. We went up to the door and knocked, and a motherly lookin’ woman with a bunch of catnip in her hand, came to the door.
“Good evenin’,” says I, but she seemed to be a little deaf, and didn’t answer, and I see, as we stepped in, through a door partly open, a room full of women.
“Good many have got here,” says I a little louder.
“Yes, a very good doctor,” says she.
“What in the world!”—I begun to say in wild amaze.
“No, it is a boy.”
I turned right round, and laid holt of Josiah; says I, “Start this minute, Josiah Allen, for the door.” I laid holt of him, and got him to the door, and we never spoke another word till we was in the sleigh, and turned round towards home; then says I,
“Mebby you’ll hear to me, another time, Josiah.
“I wish you wouldn’t be so agravatin’,” says he.
Jest then we met the first load, where Tirzah Ann and Thomas Jefferson was, and we told ’em to “turn round, for they couldn’t have us, they had other company.” So they turned round. We had got most back to Jonesville, when we met the other load; they had tipped over in the snow, and as we drove out most to the fence to get by ’em, Josiah told ’em the same we had the other load.
Says Betsey Bobbet, risin’ up out of the snow with a buffalo skin on her back, which made her look wild,
“Did they say we must not come?”
“No, they didn’t say jest that,” says Josiah. “But they don’t want you.”
“Wall then, my deah boys and girls,” says she, scramblin’ into the sleigh. “Let us proceed onwards, if they did not say we should not come.”
Her load went on, for her brother, Shakespeare Bobbet, was the driver. How they got along I haint never enquired, and they don’t seem over free to talk about it. But they kep’ on havin’ ’em, most every night. Betsey Bobbet as I said was the leader, and she led ’em once into a house where they had the small pox, and once where they was makin’ preparations for a funeral. Somehow Tirzah and Thomas Jefferson seemed to be sick of ’em, and as for Josiah, though he didn’t say much, I knew he felt the more.
This coinsidense took place on Tuesday night, and the next week a Monday I had had a awful day’s work a washin’, and we had been up all night the night before with Josiah, who had the new ralegy in his back. We hadn’t one of us slept a wink the night before, and Thomas Jefferson and Tirzah Ann had gone to bed early. It had been a lowery day, and I couldn’t hang out my calico clothes, and so many of ’em was hung round the kitchen on lines and clothes bars, and nails, that Josiah and I looked as if we was a settin’ in a wet calico tent. And what made it look still more melancholy and sad, I found when I went to light the lamp, that the kerosene was all gone, and bein’ out of candles, I made for the first time what they call a “slut,” which is a button tied up in a rag, and put in a saucer of lard; you set fire to the rag, and it makes a light that is better than no light at all, jest as a slut is better than no woman at all; I suppose in that way it derived its name. But it haint a dazzlin’ light, nothin’ like so gay and festive as gas.
I, beat out with work and watchin’, thought I would soak my feet before I went to bed, and so I put some water into the mop pail, and sot by the stove with my feet in it. The thought had come to me after I got my night-cap on. Josiah sot behind the stove, rubbin’ some linament onto his back; he had jest spoke to me, and says he,
“I believe this linament makes, my back feel easier, Samantha, I hope I shall get a little rest to-night.”
Says I, “I hope so too, Josiah.” And jest as I said the words, without any warning the door opened, and in come what seemed to me at the time to be a hundred and 50 men, wimmen, and children, headed by Betsey Bobbet.
Josiah, so wild with horror and amazement that he forgot for the time bein’ his lameness, leaped from his chair, and tore so wildly at his shirt that he tore two pieces right out of the red flannel, and they shone on each shoulder of his white shirt like red stars; he then backed up against the wall between the back door and the wood box. I rose up and stood in the mop pail, too wild with amaze to get out of it, for the same reason heedin’ not my night-cap.
“We have come to suprize you,” says Betsey Bobbet, sweetly.
I looked at ’em in speechless horror, and my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth; no word did I speak, but I glared at ’em with looks which I suppose filled ’em with awe and dread, for Betsey Bobbet spoke again in plaintive accents,
“Will you not let us suprize you?”
Then I found voice, and “No! no!” says I wildly. “I won’t be suprized! you sha’n’t suprize us to-night! We won’t be suprized! Speak, Josiah,” says I, appealin’ to him in my extremity. “Speak! tell her! will we be suprized to-night?”
“No! no!” says he in firm, decided, warlike tones, as he stood backed up against the wall, holdin’ his clothes on—with his red flannel epaulettes on his shoulders like a officer, “no, we won’t be suprized!”
“You see, deah friends,” says she to the crowd, “she will not let us suprize her, we will go.” But she turned at the door, and says she in reproachful accents, “May be it is right and propah to serve a old friend and neighbah in this way—I have known you a long time, Josiah Allen’s wife.”
“I have known you plenty long enough,” says I, steppin’ out of the pail, and shettin’ the door pretty hard after ’em.
Josiah came from behind the stove pushin’ a chair in front of him, and says he,
“Darn suprize parties, and darn—”
“Don’t swear, Josiah, I should think you was bad enough off without swearin’—”
“I will darn Betsey Bobbet, Samantha. Oh, my back!”