Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Sam Lawson filled this post with ample honor in Oldtown. He was a fellow dear to the souls of all “us boys” in the village, because, from the special nature of his position, he never had anything more pressing to do than croon and gossip with us. He was ready to spend hours in tinkering a boy’s jack-knife, or mending his skate, or start at the smallest notice to watch at a woodchuck’s hole, or give incessant service in tending a dog’s sprained paw. He was always on hand to go fishing with us on Saturday afternoons; and I have known him to sit hour after hour on the bank, surrounded by a troop of boys, baiting our hooks and taking off our fish. He was a soft-hearted old body, and the wrigglings and contortions of our prey used to disturb his repose so that it was a regular part of his work to kill the fish by breaking their necks when he took them from the hook.

  “Why, lordy massy, boys,” he would say, “I can’t bear to see no kind o’ critter in torment. These ‘ere pouts ain’t to blame for bein’ fish, and ye ought to put ’em out of their misery. Fish hes their rights as well as any on us.”

  Nobody but Sam would have thought of poking through the high grass and clover on our back lot to look me up, as I lay sobbing under the old apple-tree, the most insignificant little atom of misery that ever bewailed the inevitable.

  Sam was of respectable family, and not destitute of education. He was an expert in at least five or six different kinds of handicraft, in all of which he had been pronounced by the knowing ones to be a capable workman, “if only he would stick to it.” He had a blacksmith’s shop, where, when the fit was on him, he would shoe a horse better than any man in the county. No one could supply a missing screw, or apply a timely brace, with more adroitness. He could mend cracked china so as to be almost as good as new; he could use carpenter’s tools as well as a born carpenter, and would doctor a rheumatic door or a shaky window better than half the professional artisans in wood. No man could put a refractory clock to rights with more ingenuity than Sam, – that is, if you would give him his time to be about it.

  I shall never forget the wrath and dismay which he roused in my Aunt Lois’s mind by the leisurely way in which, after having taken our own venerable kitchen clock to pieces, and strewn the fragments all over the kitchen, he would roost over it in endless incubation, telling stories, entering into long-winded theological discussions, smoking pipes, and giving histories of all the other clocks in Oldtown, with occasional memoirs of those in Needmore, the North Parish, and Podunk, as placidly indifferent to all her volleys of sarcasm and contempt, her stinging expostulations and philippics, as the sailing old moon is to the frisky, animated barking of some puppy dog of earth.

  “Why, ye see, Miss Lois,” he would say, “clocks can’t be druv; that ‘s jest what they can’t. Some things can be druv, and then agin some things can’t, and clocks is that kind. They ‘s jest got to be humored. Now this ‘ere ‘s a ‘mazin’ good clock, give me my time on it, and I ‘ll have it so ‘t will keep straight on to the Millennium.”

  “Millennium!” says Aunt Lois, with a snort of infinite contempt.

  “Yes, the Millennium,” says Sam, letting fall his work in a contemplative manner. “That ‘ere s an interestin’ topic now. Parson Lothrop, he don’t think the Millennium will last a thousand years. What ‘s your ‘pinion on that pint, Miss Lois?”

  “My opinion is,” said Aunt Lois, in her most nipping tones, “that if folks don’t mind their own business, and do with their might what their hand finds to do, the Millennium won’t come at all.”

  “Wal, you see, Miss Lois, it ‘s just here, – one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

  “I should think you thought a day was a thousand years, the way you work,” said Aunt Lois.

  “Wal,” says Sam, sitting down with his back to his desperate litter of wheels, weights, and pendulums, and meditatively caressing his knee as he watched the sailing clouds in abstract meditation, “ye see, ef a thing ‘s ordained, why it ‘s got to be, ef you don’t lift a finger. That ‘ere ‘s so now, ain’t it?”

  “Sam Lawson, you are about the most aggravating creature I ever had to do with. Here you ‘ve got our clock all to pieces and have been keeping up a perfect hurrah’s nest in our kitchen for three days, and there you sit maundering and talking with your back to your work, fussin’ about the Millennium, which is none of your business, or mine, as I know of! Do either put that clock together or let it alone!”

  “Don’t you be a grain uneasy, Miss Lois. Why, I ‘ll have your clock all right in the end, but I can’t be druv. Wal, I guess I ‘ll take another spell on ‘t to-morrow or Friday.”

  Poor Aunt Lois, horror-stricken, but seeing herself actually in the hands of the imperturbable enemy, now essayed the tack of conciliation. “Now do, Lawson, just finish up this job, and I ‘ll pay you down, right on the spot; and you need the money.”

  “I ‘d like to ‘blige ye, Miss Lois; but ye see money ain’t everything in this world. Ef I work tew long on one thing, my mind kind o’ gives out, ye see; and besides, I ‘ve got some ‘sponsibilities to ‘tend to. There ‘s Mrs. Captain Brown, she made me promise to come to-day and look at the nose o’ that ‘ere silver teapot o’ hern; it ‘s kind o’ sprung a leak. And then I ‘greed to split a little oven-wood for the Widdah Pedee, that lives up on the Shelburn road. Must visit the widdahs in their affliction, Scriptur’ says. And then there ‘s Hepsy: she ‘s allers a castin’ it up at me that I don’t do nothing for her and the chil’en; but then, lordy massy, Hepsy hain’t no sort o’ patience. Why jest this mornin’ I was a tellin’ her to count up her marcies, and, I ‘clare for ‘t if I did n’t think she ‘d a throwed the tongs at me. That ‘ere woman’s temper railly makes me consarned. Wal good day, Miss Lois. I ‘ll be along again tomorrow or Friday or the first o’ next week.” And away he went with long, loose strides down the village street, while the leisurely wail of an old fuguing tune floated back after him, –

  “Thy years are an

  Etarnal day,

  Thy years are an

  Etarnal day.”

  “An eternal torment,” said Aunt Lois, with a snap. “I am sure, if there ‘s a mortal creature on this earth that I pity, it ‘s Hepsy Lawson. Folks talk about her scolding, – that Sam Lawson is enough to make the saints in Heaven fall from grace. And you can’t do anything with him: it ‘s like charging bayonet into a woolsack.”

  Now, the Hepsy thus spoken of was the luckless woman whom Sam’s easy temper, and a certain youthful reputation for being a capable fellow, had led years before into the snares of matrimony with him, in consequence of which she was encumbered with the bringing up of six children on very short rations. She was a gnarly, compact, efficient little pepper-box of a woman, with snapping black eyes, pale cheeks, and a mouth always at half-cock, ready to go off with some sharp crack of reproof at the shoreless, bottomless, and tideless inefficiency of her husband. It seemed to be one of those facts of existence that she could not get used to, nor find anywhere in her brisk, fiery little body a grain of cool resignation for. Day after day she fought it with as bitter and intense a vigor, and with as much freshness of objurgation, as if it had come upon her for the first time, – just as a sharp, wiry little terrier will bark and bark from day to day, with never-ceasing pertinacity, into an empty squirrel-hole. She seemed to have no power within her to receive and assimilate the great truth that her husband was essentially, and was to be and always would be, only a do-nothing.

  Poor Hepsy was herself quite as essentially a do-something, – an early-rising, bustling, driving, neat, efficient, capable little body, – who contrived, by going out to day’s works, – washing, scrubbing, cleaning, – by making vests for the tailor, or closing and binding shoes for the shoemaker, by hoeing corn and potatoes in the garden at most unseasonable hours, actually to find bread to put into the mouths of the six young ravens aforesaid, and to clothe them decently. This might all do very well; but when Sam – who believed with all his heart in the modern
doctrines of woman’s rights so far as to have no sort of objection to Hepsy’s sawing wood or hoeing potatoes if she chose – would make the small degree of decency and prosperity the family had attained by these means a text on which to preach resignation, cheerfulness, and submission, then Hepsy’s last cobweb of patience gave out, and she often became, for the moment, really dangerous, so that Sam would be obliged to plunge hastily out of doors to avoid a strictly personal encounter.

  It was not to be denied that poor Hepsy really was a scold, in the strong old Saxon acceptation of the word. She had fought life single-handed, tooth and nail, with all the ferocity of outraged sensibilities, and had come out of the fight scratched and dishevelled, with few womanly graces. The good wives of the village, versed in the outs and ins of their neighbors’ affairs, while they admitted that Sam was not all he should be, would sometimes roll up the whites of their eyes mysteriously, and say, “But then, poor man, what could you expect when he has n’t a happy home? Hepsy’s temper is, you know,” etc., etc.

  The fact is, that Sam’s softly easy temper and habits of miscellancous handiness caused him to have a warm corner in most of the households. No mothers ever are very hard on a man who always pleases the children; and every one knows the welcome of a universal gossip, who carries round a district a wallet of choice bits of neighborhood information.

  Now Sam knew everything about everybody. He could tell Mrs. Major Broad just what Lady Lothrop gave for her best parlor carpet, that was brought over from England, and just on what occasions she used the big silver tankard, and on what they were content with the little one, and how many pairs of long silk stockings the minister had, and how many rows of stitching there were on the shoulders of his Sunday shirts. He knew just all that was in Deacon Badger’s best room, and how many silver table-spoons and teaspoons graced the beaufet in the corner; and when each of his daughters was born, and just how Miss Susy came to marry as she did, and who wanted to marry her and could n’t. He knew just the cost of Major Broad’s scarlet cloak and shoe-buckles, and how Mrs. Major had a real Ingy shawl up in her “camphire” trunk, that cost nigh as much as Lady Lothrop’s. Nobody had made love, or married, or had children born, or been buried, since Sam was able to perambulate the country, without his informing himself minutely of every available particular; and his unfathomable knowledge on these subjects was an unfailing source of popularity.

  Besides this, Sam was endowed with no end of idle accomplishments. His indolence was precisely of a turn that enjoyed the excitement of an occasional odd bit of work with which he had clearly no concern, and which had no sort of tendency toward his own support or that of his family. Something so far out of the line of practical utility as to be in a manner an artistic labor would awaken all the energies of his soul. His shop was a perfect infirmary for decayed articles of virtu from all the houses for miles around. Cracked china, lame tea-pots, broken shoe-buckles, rickety tongs, and decrepit fire-irons, all stood in melancholy proximity, awaiting Sam’s happy hours of inspiration; and he was always happy to sit down and have a long, strictly confidential conversation concerning any of these with the owner, especially if Hepsy were gone out washing, or on any other work which kept her at a safe distance.

  Sam could shave and cut hair as neatly as any barber, and was always in demand up and down the country to render these offices to the sick. He was ready to go for miles to watch with invalids, and a very acceptable watcher he made, beguiling the night hours with endless stories and legends. He was also an expert in psalmody, having in his youth been the pride of the village singing school. In those days he could perform reputably on the bass-viol in the choir of a Sunday with a dolefulness and solemnity of demeanor in the highest degree edifying, – though he was equally ready of a week-evening in scraping on a brisk little fiddle, if any of the thoughtless ones wanted a performer at a husking or a quilting frolic. Sam’s obligingness was many-sided, and he was equally prepared at any moment to raise a funeral psalm or whistle the time of a double-shuffle.

  But the more particular delight of Sam’s heart was in funerals. He would walk miles on hearing the news of a dangerous illness, and sit roosting on the fence of the premises, delighted to gossip over the particulars, but ready to come down at any moment to do any of the odd turns which sickness in a family makes necessary; and when the last earthly scene was over, Sam was more than ready to render those final offices from which the more nervous and fastidious shrink, but in which he took almost a professional pride.

  The business of an undertaker is a refinement of modern civilization. In simple old days neighbors fell into one another’s hands for all the last wants of our poor mortality; and there were men and women of note who took a particular and solemn pride in these mournful offices. Sam had in fact been up all night in our house, and having set me up in the clover, and comforted me with a jack-knife, he proceeded to inform me of the particulars.

  “Why, ye see! Horace, I ben up with ’em pretty much all night; and I laid yer father out myself, and I never see a better-lookin’ corpse. It ‘s a ‘mazin’ pity your daddy hed such feelin’s ‘bout havin’ people come to look at him, ‘cause he does look beautiful, and it ‘s been a long time since we ‘ve hed a funeral, anyway, and everybody was expectin’ to come to his ‘n, and they ‘ll all be dissipinted if the corpse ain’t show ‘d; but then, lordy massy, folks ought n’t to think hard on’t ef folks hes their own way ‘bout their own funeral. That ‘ere ‘s what I ‘ve been a tellin’ on ’em all, over to the tavern and round to the store. Why, you never see such a talk as there was about it. There was Aunt Sally Morse, and Betsey and Patsy Sawin, and Mis’ Zeruiah Bacon, come over early to look at the corpse, and when they was n’t let in, you never heerd sich a jawin’. Betsey and Patsy Sawin said that they allers suspected your father was an infidel, or some sich, and now they was clear; and Aunt Sally, she asked who made his shroud, and when she heerd there was n’t to be none, he was laid out in his clothes, she said she never heerd such unchristian doin’s, – that she always had heerd he had strange opinions, but she never thought it would come to that.”

  “My father is n’t an infidel, and I wish I could kill ’em for talking so,” said I, clenching my jack-knife in my small fist, and feeling myself shake with passion.

  “Wal, wal, I kind o’ spoke up to ’em about it. I was n’t a-goin’ to hear no sich jaw; and says I, ‘I think ef there is any body that knows what ‘s what about funerals I ‘m the man, fur I don’t s’pose there ‘s a man in the county that ‘s laid out more folks, and set up with more corpses, and ben sent for fur and near, than I have, and my opinion is that mourners must always follow the last directions gi’n to ’em by the person. Ef a man has n’t a right to have the say about his own body, what hes he a right to?’ Wal, they said that it was putty well of me to talk so, when I had the privilege of sittin’ up with him, and seein’ all that was to be seen. ‘Lordy massy,’ says I, ‘I don’t see why ye need envi me; ‘t ain’t my fault that folks thinks it ‘s agreeable to have me round. As to bein’ buried in his clothes, why, lordy massy, ‘t ain’t nothin’ so extraordinary. In the old country great folks is very often laid out in their clothes. ‘member, when I was a boy, old Mr. Sanger, the minister in Deerbrook, was laid out in his gown and bands, with a Bible in his hands, and he looked as nateral as a pictur. I was at Parson Rider’s funeral, down to Wrentham. He was laid out in white flannel. But then there was old Captain Bigelow, down to the Pint there, he was laid out regular in his rigimentals, jest as he wore ’em in the war, epaulets and all.’ Wal now, Horace, your daddy looks jest as peaceful as a psalm-tune. Now, you don’t know, – jest as nateral as if he ‘d only jest gone to sleep. So ye may set your heart at rest ‘bout him.”

  It was one of those beautiful serene days of October, when , the earth lies as bright and still as anything one can dream of in the New Jerusalem, and Sam’s homely expressions of sympathy had quieted me somewhat. Sam, tired of his discourse, lay back in the clover, with
his hands under his head, and went on with his moralizing.

  “Lordy massy, Horace, to think on ‘t, – it ‘s so kind o’ solemnizin’! It ‘s one’s turn to-day, and another’s to-morrow. We never know when our turn ‘ll come.” And Sam raised a favorite stave, –

  “And must these active limbs of mine

  Lie moulderin’ in the clay?”

  “Active limbs! I guess so!” said a sharp voice, which came through the clover-heads like the crack of a rifle. “Well, I ‘ve found you at last. Here you be, Sam Lawson, lyin’ flat on your back at eleven o’clock in the morning, and not a potato dug, and not a stick of wood cut to get dinner with; and I won’t cut no more if we never have dinner. It ‘s no use a humorin’ you, – doin’ your work for you. The more I do, the more I may do; so come home, won’t you?”

  “Lordy massy, Hepsy,” said Sam, slowly erecting himself out of the grass, and staring at her with white eyes, “you don’t ought to talk so. I ain’t to blame. I hed to sit up with Mr. Holyoke all night, and help ’em lay him out at four o’clock this mornin’.”

  “You ‘re always everywhere but where you ‘ve, business to be,” said Hepsy; “and helpin’ and doin’ for everybody but your own. For my part, I think charity ought to begin at home. You ‘re everywhere, up and down and round, – over to Shelbun, down to Podunk, up to North Parish; and here Abram and Kiah Stebbins have been waitin’ all the morning with a horse they brought all the way from Boston to get you to shoe.”

  “Wal now, that ‘ere shows they know what ‘s what. I told Kiah that ef they ‘d bring that ‘ere hoss to me I ‘d ‘tend to his huffs.”

  “And be off lying in the mowing, like a patridge, when they come after ye. That ‘s one way to do business,” said Hepsy.

  “Hepsy, I was just a miditatin’. Ef we don’t miditate some times on all these ‘ere things, it ‘ll be wus for us by and by.”