Part 39 (1/2)

And he says,-

”Why, I told the truth, aunt Samantha.”

”Wall, truth hain't to be spoken at all times.”

”Mother punished me last night for not telling the truth, and told me to tell it always.”

And then I tried to explain things to him; and he looked sweet, and said ”he would try and remember not to hurt folks'es feelin's.”

He never thought of doin' it in the first place, and I knew it. And I declare, I thought to myself, as I went back into the room,-

”We whip children for tellin' lies, and shake 'em for tellin' the truth.

Poor little creeters! they have a hard time of it, anyway.”

But when I went back into the room, I see Kezier was mad. And she said in the course of our conversation, that ”she thought Cicely was too much took up on the subject of intemperance, and some folks said she was crazy on the subject.”

Kezier was always a high-headed sort of a woman, without a nerve in her body. I don't believe her teeth has got nerves; though I wouldn't want to swear to it, never havin' filled any for her.

And I says back to her, for it made me mad to see Cicely run,-

Says I, ”She hain't the first one that has been called crazy, when they wus workin' for truth and right. And if the old possles stood it, to be called crazy, and drunken with new wine-why, I s'pose Cicely can.”

”Wall,” says she, ”don't you believe she is almost crazy on that subject?”

Says I, deep and earnest, ”It is a good crazy, if it is. And,” says I, ”to s'posen the case,-s'posen the one we loved best in the world, your Ebineezer, or my Josiah, should have been ruined, and led into murder, by drinkin' milk, don't you believe we should have been sort o' crazy ever afterwards on the milk question?”

”Why,” says she, ”milk won't make anybody crazy.”

There it wuz-she hadn't no imagination.

Says I, ”I am s'posen milk, I don't mean it.” Says I, ”Cicely means well.”

And so she did, sweet little soul.

But day by day I could see that her eagerness to accomplish what she had sot out to, her awful anxiety about the boy's future, wus a wearin' on her: the active, keen mind, the throbbin', achin' heart, was a wearin' out the tender body.

Her eyes got bigger and bigger every day; and her face got the solemnest, curiusest look to it, that I ever see.

And her cheeks looked more and more like the pure white blow of the Sweet Cicely, only at times there would be a red upon 'em, as if a leaf out of a scarlet rose had dropped dowrn upon their pure whiteness.

That would be in the afternoon; and there would be such a dazzlin' brightness in her eyes, that I used to wonder if it was the fire of immortality a bein' kindled there, in them big, sad eyes.

And right about this time the executor (and I wish he could have been executed with a horse-whip: he knew how she felt about it)-he wuz sot, a good man, but sot. Why, his own sir name wuz never more sot in the ground than he wuz sot on top of it. And he didn't like a woman's interference. He wrote to her that one of her stores, that he had always rented for the sale of factory-cloth and sheep's clothin', lamb's-wool blankets, and etcetery, he had had such a good offer for it, to open a new saloon and billiard-room, that he had rented it for that purpose; and he told how much more he got for it. That made 4 drinkin' saloons, that wuz in the boy's property. Every one of 'em, so Cicely felt, a drawin' some other mother's boys down to ruin.

Cicely thought of it nights a sight, so she said,-said she was afraid the curses of these mothers would fall on the boy.

And her eyes kep' a growin' bigger and solemner like, and her face grew thinner and thinner, and that red flush would burn onto her cheeks regular every afternoon, and she begun to cough bad.

But one day she felt better, and was anxious to go. So she and I went to see the executor, Condelick Post.