Patience Worth: A Psychic Mystery. Casper S. Yost
A hope—now dead, but showeth gold hid there;
A host o’ nothings—dreams, hopes, fears;
Love throbs afluttered hence
Since first touch o’ baby hands
Caressed my heart’s store ahidden.
Returning to the femininity of Patience, it is also shown in her frequent references to dress. Upon an evening when the publication of her poems had been under discussion, when next the board was taken up she let them know that she had heard, in this manner:
“My pettieskirt hath a scallop,” she said. “Mayhap that will help thy history.”
“Oh,” cried Mrs. Curran, “we are discovered!”
“Yea,” laughed Patience—she must have laughed, “and tell thou of my buckled boots and add a cap-string.”
Further illustrative of her feminine characteristics and of her interest in dress, as well as of a certain fun-loving spirit which now and then seems to sway her, is this record of a sitting upon an evening when Mr. Curran and Mr. Hutchings had gone to the theater, and the ladies were alone:
Patience.—“Go ye to the lighted hall to search for learning? Nay, ’tis a piddle, not a stream, ye search. Mayhap thou sendest thy men for barleycorn. ’Twould then surprise thee should the asses eat it.”
Mrs. H.—“What is she driving at?”
Mrs. P.—“The men and the theater, I suppose.”
Mrs. H.—“Patience, what are they seeing up there?”
Patience.—“Ne’er a timid wench, I vum.”
Mrs. C.—“You don’t approve of their going, do you, Patience?”
Patience.—“Thee’lt find a hearth more profit. Better they cast the bit of paper.”
Mrs. C.—“What does she mean by paper? Their programmes?”
Patience.—“Painted parchment squares.”
Mrs. P.—“Oh, she means they’d better stay at home and play cards.”
Mrs. H.—“Are they likely to get their morals corrupted at that show?”
Patience.—“He who tickleth the ass to start a braying, fain would carol with his brother.”
Mrs. C.—“If the singing is as bad as it usually is at that place, I don’t wonder at her disapproval. But what about the girls, Patience?”
Patience.—“My pettieskirt ye may borrow for the brazens.”
Mrs. P.—“Now, what is a pettieskirt? Is it really a skirt or is it that ruff they used to wear around the neck?”
Patience.—“Nay, my bib covereth the neckband.”
Mrs. H.—“Then, where do you wear your pettieskirt?”
Patience.—“ ’Neath my kirtle.”
Mrs. C.—“Is that the same as girdle? Let’s look it up.”
Patience.—“Art fashioning thy new frock?”
Mrs. H.—“I predict that Patience will found a new style—Puritan.”
Patience.—“ ’Twere a virtue, egad!”
Mrs. H.—“You evidently don’t think much of our present style. In your day women dressed more modestly, didn’t they?”
Patience.—“Many’s the wench who pulled her points to pop. But ah, the locks were combed to satin! He who bent above might see himself reflected.”
Mrs. C.—“What were the young girls of your day like, Patience?”
Patience.—“A silly lot, as these of thine. Wait!”
There was no movement of the board for about three minutes, and then:
“ ’Tis a sorry lot, not harming but boresome!”
Mrs. H.—“Oh, Patience, have you been to the theater?”
Patience.—“A peep in good cause could surely ne’er harm the godly.”
Mrs. C.—“How do you think we ought to look after those men?”
Patience.—“Thine ale is drunk at the hearth. Surely he who stops to sip may bless the firelog belonging to thee.”
When the men returned home they agreed with the verdict of Patience before they had heard it, that it was a “tame” show, “not harming, but boresome.”
The exclamation of Mrs. Curran, “Let’s look it up,” in the extract just quoted from the record, has been a frequent one in this circle since Patience came. So many of her words are obsolete that her friends are often compelled to search through the dictionaries and glossaries for their meaning. Her reference to articles of dress—wimple, kirtle, pettieskirt, points and so on, had all to be “looked up.” Once Patience began an evening with this remark:
“The cockshut finds ye still peering to find the other land.”
“What is cock’s hut?” asked Mrs. H.
“Nay,” said Patience, “Cock-shut. Thee needeth light, but cockshut bringeth dark.”
“Cockshut must mean shutting up the cock at night,” suggested a visitor.
“Aye, and geese, too, then could be put to quiet,” Patience exclaimed. “Wouldst thou wish for cockshut?”
Search revealed that cockshut was a term anciently applied to a net used for catching woodcock, and it was spread at nightfall, hence cockshut acquired also the meaning of early evening. Shakespeare uses the term once, in Richard III., in the phrase, “Much about cockshut time,” but it is a very rare word in literature, and probably has not been used, even colloquially, for centuries.
There are many such words used by Patience—relics of an age long past. The writer was present at a sitting when part of a romantic story-play of medieval days was being received on the board. One of the characters in the story spoke of herself as “playing the jane-o’-apes.” No one present had ever heard or seen the word. Patience was asked if it had been correctly received, and she repeated it. Upon investigation it was found that it is a feminine form of the familiar jackanapes, meaning a silly girl. Massinger used it in one of his plays in the seventeenth century, but that appears to be the only instance of its use in literature.
These words may be not unknown to many people, but the point is that they were totally strange to those at the board, including Mrs. Curran—words that could not possibly have come out of the consciousness or subconsciousness of any one of them. The frequent use of such words helps to give verity to the archaic tongue in which she expresses her thoughts, and the consistent and unerring use of this obsolete form of speech is, next to the character of her literary production, the strongest evidence of her genuineness. It will be noticed, too, that the language she uses in conversation is quite different from that in her literary compositions, although there are definite similarities which seem to prove that they come from the same source. In this also she is wholly consistent: for it is unquestionably true that no poet ever talked as he wrote. Every writer uses colloquial words and idioms in conversation that he would never employ in literature. No matter what his skill or genius as a writer may be, he talks “just like other people.” Patience Worth in this, as in other things, is true to her character.
It may be repeated that in all this matter—and it is but a skimming of the mass—one may readily discern a distinct and striking personality; not a wraith-like, formless, evanescent shadow, but a personality that can be clearly visualized. One can easily imagine Patience Worth to be a woman of