My Opinions and Betsey Bobbet's. Marietta Holley
The “deep blue sea.”
A voice, a noble form,
One day I saw;
An arrow flew,
My heart is nearly raw.
His first pardner lies
Beneath the turf,
He is wandering now,
In sorrows briny surf.
Two twins, the little
Deah cherub creechahs,
Now wipe the teahs,
From off his classic feachahs.
Oh sweet lot, worthy
Angel arisen,
To wipe the teahs,
From eyes like his’en.
“What think you of it?” says she as I finished readin’.
I looked right at her most a minute with a majestic look. In spite of her false curls, and her new white ivory teeth, she is a humbly critter. I looked at her silently while she sot and twisted her long yeller bunnet strings, and then I spoke out,
“Hain’t the Editor of the Augur a widower with a pair of twins?”
“Yes,” says she with a happy look.
Then says I, “If the man hain’t a fool, he’ll think you are one.”
“Oh!” says she, and she dropped her bunnet strings, and clasped her long bony hands together in her brown cotton gloves, “oh, we ahdent soles of genious, have feelin’s, you cold, practical natures know nuthing of, and if they did not gush out in poetry we should expiah. You may as well try to tie up the gushing catarack of Niagarah with a piece of welting cord, as to tie up the feelings of an ahdent sole.”
“Ardent sole!” says I coldly. “Which makes the most noise, Betsey Bobbet, a three inch brook or a ten footer? which is the tearer? which is the roarer? deep waters run stillest. I have no faith in feelin’s that stalk round in public in mournin’ weeds. I have no faith in such mourners,” says I.
“Oh Josiah’s wife, cold, practical female being, you know me not; we are sundered as fah apart as if you was sitting on the North pole, and I was sitting on the South pole. Uncongenial being, you know me not.”
“I may not know you, Betsey Bobbet, but I do know decency, and I know that no munny would tempt me to write such stuff as that poetry and send it to a widower, with twins.”
“Oh!” says she, “what appeals to the tendah feeling heart of a single female woman more, than to see a lonely man who has lost his relict? And pity never seems so much like pity as when it is given to the deah little children of widowehs. And,” says she, “I think moah than as likely as not, this soaring soul of genious did not wed his affinity, but was united to a weak women of clay.”
“Mere women of clay!” says I, fixin’ my spektacles upon her in a most searchin’ manner, “where will you find a woman, Betsey Bobbet, that hain’t more or less clay? and affinity, that is the meanest word I ever heard; no married woman has any right to hear it. I’ll excuse you, bein’ a female, but if a man had said it to me, I’d holler to Josiah. There is a time for everything, and the time to hunt affinity is before you are married; married folks hain’t no right to hunt it,” says I sternly.
“We kindred souls soah above such petty feelings, we soah fah above them.”
“I hain’t much of a soarer,” says I, “and I don’t pretend to be, and to tell you the truth,” says I, “I am glad I hain’t.”
“The Editah of the Augah,” says she, and she grasped the paper off’en the stand and folded it up, and presented it at me like a spear, “the Editah of this paper is a kindred soul, he appreciates me, he undahstands me, and will not our names in the pages of this very papah go down to posterety togathah?”
Then says I, drove out of all patience with her, “I wish you was there now, both of you, I wish,” says I, lookin’ fixedly on her, “I wish you was both of you in posterity now.”
HAVING MY PICTURE TOOK.
The very next Saturday after I had this conversation with Betsey, I went down to Jonesville to have my picture took, Tirzah Ann bein’ to home so she could get dinner for the menfolks. As for me I don’t set a great deal of store by pictures, but Josiah insisted and the children insisted, and I went. Tirzah Ann wanted me to have my hair curled, but there I was firm, I give in on the handkerchief pin, but on the curl business, there I was rock.
Mr. Gansey the man that takes pictures was in another room takin’ some, so I walked round the aunty room, as they call it, lookin’ at the pictures that hang up on the wall, and at the people that come in to have theirs took. Some of ’em was fixed up dreadful; it seemed to me as if they tried to look so that nobody wouldn’t know whose pictures they was, after they was took. Some of ’em would take off their bunnets and gaze in the lookin’-glass at themselves and try to look smilin’, and get an expression onto their faces that they never owned.
PREPARING FOR A PICTURE.
In one corner of the room was a bewrow, with a lookin’-glass and hair brushes onto it, and before it stood a little man dreadful dressed up, with long black hair streamin’ down over his coat coller, engaged in pouring a vial of oil onto his head, and brushing his hair with one of the brushes. I knew him in a minute, for I had seen him come into the meetin’ house. Afterwards when I was jest standin’ before the picture of a dreadful harmless lookin’ man—he looked meek enough to make excuses to his shadder for goin’ before it, and I was jest sayin’ to myself, “There is a man who would fry pancakes without complainin’,” I heard a voice behind me sayin’,
“So the navish villian stalks round yet in decent society.”
I turned round imegiately and see the little man, who had got through fixin’ his hair to have his pictur took, standin’ before me.
“Who do you mean?” says I calmly. “Who is stalkin’ round?”
“The Editor of the Gimlet,” says he, “whose vile image defiles the walls of this temple of art, the haunt of Aglia, Thalia, and Euphrosine.”
“Who?” says I glancin’ keenly at him over my specks, “the haunt of who?”
Says he “The daughters of Bachus and Venus.”
Says I “I don’t know anything about Miss Bachus, nor the Venus girls,” and says I with spirit, “if they are any low creeters I don’t thank you for speakin’ of ’em to me, nor Josiah won’t neether. This room belongs to Jeremiah Gansey, and he has got a wife, a likely woman, that belongs to the same meetin’ house and the same class that I do, and he haint no business to have other girls hauntin’ his rooms. If there is anything wrong goin’ on I shall tell Sister Gansey.”
Says he “Woman you mistake, I meant the Graces.”
“Graces!” says I scornfully, “what do I care for their graces. Sister Gansey had graces enough when he married her,” says I. “That is jest the way, a man will marry a woman jest as pretty as a new blown rose, and then when she fades herself out, till she looks more like a dead dandyline than a livin’ creeter, cookin’ his vittles, washin’ his dishes, and takin’ care of his children; then he’ll go to havin’ other girls hauntin’ him,