“I should be weak indeed, if I allowed such things as you have been saying to disturb me,” replied the stanch old doctor.
“He died like a philosopher, my dear,” said Lady Lothrop to me, “just as he always lived.”
My grandmother, during the last part of her life, was totally blind. One would have thought that a person of her extreme activity would have been restless and wretched under this deprivation; but in her case blindness appeared to be indeed what Milton expressed it as being, “an overshadowing of the wings of the Almighty.” Every earthly care was hushed, and her mind turned inward, in constant meditation upon those great religious truths which had fed her life for so many years.
Aunt Lois we found really quite lovely. There is a class of women who are like winter apples, – all their youth they are crabbed and hard, but at the further end of life they are full of softness and refreshment. The wrinkles had really almost smoothed themselves out in Aunt Lois’s face, and our children found in her the most indulgent and painstaking of aunties, ready to run, and wait, and tend, and fetch, and carry, and willing to put everything in the house at their disposal. In fact, the young gentleman and lady found the old homestead such very free and easy ground that they announced to us that they preferred altogether staying there to being in Boston, especially as they had the barn to romp in.
One Saturday afternoon, Tina and I drove over to Needmore with a view to having one more gossip with Sam Lawson. Hepsy, it appears, had departed this life, and Sam had gone over to live with a son of his in Needmore. We found him roosting placidly in the porch on the sunny side of the house.
“Why, lordy massy, bless your soul an’ body, ef that ain’t Horace Holyoke!” he said, when he recognized who I was.
“An’ this ‘ere ‘s your wife, is it? Wal, wal, how this ‘ere world does turn round! Wal, now, who would ha’ thought it? Here you be, and Tiny with you. Wal, wal!”
“Yes,” said I, “here we are.”
“Wal, now, jest sit down,” said Sam, motioning us to a seat in the porch. “I was jest kind o’ ‘flectin’ out here in the sun; ben a readin’ in the Missionary Herald; they ‘ve ben a sendin’ missionaries to Otawhity, an’ they say that there ain’t no winter there, an’ the bread jest grows on the trees, so ‘t they don’t hev to make none, an’ there ain’t no wood-piles nor splittin’ wood, no nothing’ o’ that sort goin’ on, an’ folks don’t need no clothes to speak on. Now, I ‘s just thinkin’ that ‘ere ‘s jest the country to suit me. I wonder, now, ef they could n’t find suthin’ for me to do out there. I could shoe the hosses, ef they hed any, and I could teach the natives their catechize, and kind o’ help round gin’ally. These ‘ere winters gits so cold here I ‘m been a ‘most crooked up with the rheumatiz –”
“Why Sam,” said Tina, “where is Hepsy?”
“Law, now, hain’t ye heerd? Why, Hepsy, she ‘s been dead, wal, let me see, ‘t was three year the fourteenth o’ last May when Hepsy died, but she was clear worn out afore she died. Wal, jest half on her was clear paralyzed, poor crittur; she could n’t speak a word; that ‘ere was a gret trial to her. I don’t think she was resigned under it. Hepsy hed an awful sight o’ grit. I used to talk to Hepsy, an’ talk, an’ try to set things afore her in the best way I could, so ‘s to git ‘er into a better state o’ mind. D’ you b’lieve, one day when I ‘d ben a talkin’ to her, she kind o’ made a motion to me with her eye, an’ when I went up to ‘er, what d’ you think? why, she jest tuk and BIT me! she did so!”
“Sam,” said Tina, “I sympathize with Hepsy. I believe if I had to be talked to an hour, and could n’t answer, I should bite.”
“Jes’ so, jes’ so,” said Sam. “I ‘spex ‘t is so. You see, women must talk, there ‘s where ‘t is. Wal, now, don’t ye remember that Miss Bell, – Miss Miry Bell? She was of a good family in Boston. They used to board her out to Oldtown, ‘cause she was ‘s crazy ‘s a loon. They jest let ‘er go ‘bout ‘cause she did n’t hurt nobody, but massy, her tongue used ter run ‘s ef ‘t was hung in the middle and run both ends. Ye really could n’t hear yourself think when she was round. Wal, she was a visitin’ Parson Lothrop, an’ ses he, ‘miss Bell, do pray see ef you can’t be still a minute.’ ‘Lord, bless ye, Dr. Lothrop, I can’t stop talking!’ ses she. “Wal,’ ses he, ‘you jest take a mouthful o’ water an’ hold in your mouth, an’ then mebbe ye ken stop.’ Wal, she took the water, an’ she sot still a minute or two, an’ it kind o’ worked on ‘er so ‘t she jumped up an’ twitched off Dr. Lothrop’s wig an’ spun it right acrost the room inter the fireplace. ‘Bless me! Miss Bell,’ ses he, ‘spit out yer water an’ talk, ef ye must!’ I ‘ve offun thought on ‘t,” said Sam. “I s’pose Hepsy ‘s felt a good ‘eal so. Wal, poor soul, she ‘s gone to ‘er rest. We ‘re all on us goin;, one arter another. Yer grandther ‘s gone, an’ yer mother, an’ Parson Lothrop, he ‘s gone, an’ Lady Lothrop, she ‘s kind o’ solitary. I went over to see ‘er last week, an’ ses she to me, ‘Sam, I dunno nothin’ what I shell do with my hosses. I feed ’em well, an’ they ain’t worked hardly any, an’ yet they act so ‘t I ‘m ‘most afeard to drive out with ‘em. I ‘m thinkin’ ‘it would be a good thing ef she ‘d give up that ‘ere place o’ hern, an’ go an’ live in Boston with her sister.”
“Well, Sam,” said Tina, “what has become of Old Crab Smith? Is he alive yet?”
“Law, yis, he ‘s creepin’ round here yit; but the old woman she ‘s dead,” said Sam. “I tell you she ‘s a hevin’ her turn o’ hectorin’ him now, ‘cause she keeps appearin’ to him, an’ scares the old critter ‘most to death.”
“Appears to him?” said I. “Why, what do you mean, Sam?”
“Wal, jest as true ‘s you live an’ breathe, she does ‘pear to him,” said Sam. “Why, ‘t was only last week my son Luke an’ I, we was a settin’ by the fire here, an’ I was a holdin’ a skein o’ yarn for Malviny to wind (Malviny, she ‘s Luke’s wife), when who should come in but Old Crab, head first, lookin’ so scart an white about the gills thet Luke, ses he, ‘Why, Mistur Smith what ails ye?’ ses he. Wal, the critter was so scared ‘t he could n’t speak, he jest set down in the chair, an’ he shuk so ‘t he shuk the chair, an’ his teeth, they chattered, an’ ‘t was a long time ‘fore they could git it out on him. But come to, he told us, ‘t was a bright moonlight night, an’ he was comin’ ‘long down by the Stone pastur, when all of a suddin he looks up an’ there was his wife walkin right ‘long-side on him, – he ses he never see nothin’ plainer in his life then he see the old woman, jest in her short gown an’ petticut ‘t she allers wore, with her gold beads round her neck, an’ a cap on with a black ribbon round it, an’ there she kep’ a walkin’ right ‘long-side of ‘im, her elbow a touchin’ hisn, all ‘long the road, an’ when he walked faster, she walked faster, an’ when he walked slower, she walked slower, an’ her eyes was sot, an’ fixed on him, but she did n’t speak no word, an’ he did n’t darse to speak to her. Finally, he ses he gin a dreadful yell an’ run with all his might, an’ our house was the very fust place he tumbled inter. Lordy massy, wal, I could n’t help thinkin’ ‘t sarved him right. I told Sol ‘bout it, last town-meetin’ day, an’ Sol, I thought he ‘d ha’ split his sides. Sol said he did n’t know ‘s the old woman had so much sperit. ‘Lordy massy,’ ses he, ‘ef she don’t do nothin’ more ‘n take a walk ‘long-side on him now an’ then, why, I say, let ‘er rip, – sarves him right.”
“Well,” said Tina, “I ‘m glad to hear about Old Sol; how is he?”
“O, Sol? Wal, he ‘s doin’ fustrate. He married Deacon ‘Bijah Smith’s darter, an’ he ‘s got a good farm of his own, an’ boys bigger ‘n you be, considerable.”
“Well,” said Tina, “how is Miss Asphyxia?”
“Wal, Sol told me ‘t she ‘d got a cancer or suthin’ or other the matter with ‘er; but the old gal, she jest sets her teeth hard, an’ goes on a workin’. She won’t have no doctor, nor nothin’ done for ‘er, an’ I expect bimeby she
‘ll die, a standin’ up in the harness.”
“Poor old creature! I wonder, Horace, if it would do any good for me to go and see her. Has she a soul, I wonder, or is she nothing but a ‘workin machine’?”
“Wal, I dunno,” said Sam. “This ‘er world is cur’us. When we git to thinkin’ about it, we think ef we ‘d ha’ had the makin’ on ‘t, things would ha’ ben made someways diffurnt from what they be. But then things is just as they is, an’ we can’t help it. Sometimes I think” said Sam, embracing his knee profoundly, “an’ then agin I dunno. – There ‘s all sorts o’ folks hes to be in this ‘ere world, an’ I s’pose the Lord knows what he want ’em fur; but I ‘m sure I don’t. I kind o ‘hope the Lord ‘ll fetch everybody out ‘bout right some o’ these ‘ere times. He ain’t got nothin’ else to do, an’ it ‘s his lookout, an’ not ourn, what comes of ’em all. – But I should like to go to Otawhity, an’ ef you see any o’ these missionary folks, Horace, I wish you ‘d speak to ’em about it.”
THE END
MY WIFE AND I
OR, HARRY HENDERSON’S HISTORY
My Wife and I: Or, Harry Henderson’s History was first published in 1871 by J. B. Ford and approached the topic of the domestic sphere in then contemporary society. The tale is set in New York, but narrated by a New Englander, Harry Henderson, who moves to the city as a young journalist. He recalls his education and his courtship and subsequent marriage to a society woman, Eva Van Arsdel, whom he loves greatly. The novel is chiefly comprised of events leading up until the wedding although the book does not end with the wedding as was the convention of most romantic novels. The book details their life together culminating in a new home where Eva comes to find happiness in the domestic setting. Stowe is keen to criticise society life of New York as vacuous and a disruption and corruption of the true and pure life, in which women should find contentment and happiness.
My Wife and I: Or, Harry Henderson’s History has often been criticised for being a reactionary work and a regression from Stowe’s depiction of women in her earlier novels. Eva becomes the ideal of femininity who finds great purpose in the domestic sphere. She discovers her vocation in housewifery and the repetitive duties which accompany most of the work involved in keeping a home. The author does believe that women should be allowed lives and careers which removed them from the domestic realm, though marriage appears at times to be very idealised by Stowe. She actually dedicates a chapter of her novel to detailed accounts of furniture and domestic goods that the couple accrue for their house, even down to the flowers they choose to brighten the home. Perhaps one of the most interesting characters in the novel, who would be further developed in the sequel We and Our Neighbors is Tom Bolton, who is an alcoholic. The character was inspired by Stowe’s son Frederick, who suffered from alcoholism and the novel offers a sympathetic and compassionate portrayal of an ailment at a time when the prevailing attitude was to treat the condition as a personal moral ill.
The first edition
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
PREFACE
CHAPTER I. MY CHILD-WIFE
CHAPTER II. OUR CHILD-EDEN
CHAPTER III. MY SHADOW-WIFE
CHAPTER IV. I START FOR COLLEGE AND MY UNCLE JACOB ADVISES ME
CHAPTER V. MY DREAM-WIFE
CHAPTER VI. THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION
CHAPTER VII. THE BLUE MISTS
CHAPTER VIII. AN OUTLOOK INTO LIFE
CHAPTER IX. COUSIN CAROLINE
CHAPTER X. WHY DON’T YOU TAKE HER
CHAPTER XI. I LAY THE FIRST STONE IN MY FOUNDATION
CHAPTER XII. BACHELOR COMRADES
CHAPTER XIII. HAPS AND MISHAPS
CHAPTER XIV. I MEET A VISION
CHAPTER XV. THE GIRL OF OUR PERIOD
CHAPTER XVI. I AM INTRODUCED INTO SOCIETY
CHAPTER XVII. THE YOUNG LADY PHILOSOPHER
CHAPTER XVIII. FLIRTATION
CHAPTER XIX. I BECOME A FAMILY FRIEND
CHAPTER XX. I DISCOVER THE BEAUTIES OF FRIENDSHIP
CHAPTER XXI. I AM INTRODUCED TO THE ILLUMINATI
CHAPTER XXII. I RECEIVE A MORAL SHOWER-BATH
CHAPTER XXIII. AUNT MARIA
CHAPTER XXIV. A DISCUSSION OF THE WOMAN QUESTION FROM ALL POINTS
CHAPTER XXV. COUSIN CAROLINE AGAIN
CHAPTER XXVI. EASTER LILIES
CHAPTER XXVII. ENCHANTMENT AND DISENCHANTMENT
CHAPTER XXVIII. A NEW OPENING
CHAPTER XXIX. PERTURBATIONS
CHAPTER XXX. THE FATES
CHAPTER XXXI. THE GAME OF CROQUET
CHAPTER XXXII. THE MATCH GAME
CHAPTER XXXIII. LETTER FROM EVA VAN ARSDEL
CHAPTER XXXIV. DOMESTIC CONSULTATIONS
CHAPTER XXXV. WEALTH VERSUS LOVE
CHAPTER XXXVI. FURTHER CONSULTATIONS
CHAPTER XXXVII. MAKING LOVE TO ONE’S FATHER-IN-LAW
CHAPTER XXXVIII. ACCEPTED AND ENGAGED
CHAPTER XXXIX. CONGRATULATIONS, ETC.
CHAPTER XL. THE EXPLOSION
CHAPTER XLI. THE WEDDING AND THE TALK OVER THE PRAYER- BOOK
CHAPTER XLII. BOLTON
CHAPTER XLIII. THE WEDDING JOURNEY
CHAPTER XLIV. MY WIFE’S WARDROBE
CHAPTER XLV. LETTERS FROM NEW YORK
CHAPTER XLVI. AUNT MARIA’S DICTUM
CHAPTER XLVII. OUR HOUSE
CHAPTER XLVIII. PICNICKING IN NEW YORK
CHAPTER XLIX. NEIGHBORS
CHAPTER L. MY WIFE PROJECTS HOSPITALITIES
CHAPTER LI. PREPARATIONS FOR OUR DINNER-PARTY
CHAPTER XLII. THE HOUSE-WARMING
Stowe, 1872
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
In the series of papers now included in Household Papers and Stories, Mrs. Stowe had assumed the character of Christopher Crowfield. She followed the same plan in Oldtown Folks, where she figured as Henry Holyoke, and now, when again essaying fiction which partook largely of the didactic element, she sheltered herself behind the masculine fiction of Harry Henderson. That what she wished to say respecting society and social ideals must be said in the form of a story was something of a trial to her, and she evidently felt that in casting her work in this mould she was not following the natural bent of her mind, for a story to her was still the old-fashioned piece of literature of that name which recounted adventure; and in the two books which related the fortunes and spiritual experiences of the people grouped about Harry Henderson, there was not, in her plan, much adventure.
She wrote this book in her Florida home in 1871 as a serial to be published in The Christian Union, the new journal conducted under the name of her brother, Henry Ward Beecher; and when the story was issued in book-form, it came out under the auspices of the publishers of that paper, Messrs. J. B. Ford & Co. The same firm announced later the sequel to this book, We and our Neighbors, to appear in The Christian Union, where it ran as a serial for nearly a year, from May, 1874, to April, 1875, being published immediately afterward in book form. The attitude which Mrs. Stowe took toward both books is so well defined in the first chapter of My Wife and I, as it originally stood, and that chapter was so essentially in the nature of an introduction, that it is now disengaged from the hook proper and included here.
THE AUTHOR DEFINES HIS POSITION
It appears to me that the world is returning to its second childhood, and running mad for Stories. Stories! stories! stories! everywhere; stories in every paper, in every crevice, crack, and corner of the house. Stories fall from the pen faster than leaves of autumn, and of as many shades and colorings. Stories blow over here in whirlwinds from England. Stories are translated from the French, from the Danish, from the Swedish, from the German, from the Russian. There are serial stories for adults in the Atlantic, in the Overland, in the Galaxy, in Harper’s, in Scribner’s. There are serial stories for youthful pilgrims in Our Young Folks, the Little Corporal, “ Oliver Optic,” the Youth’s Companion, and very soon we anticipate newspapers with serial stories for the nursery. We shal
l have those charmingly illustrated magazines, the Cradle, the Rocking Chair, the First Rattle, and the First Tooth, with successive chapters of “Goosy Goosy Gander,” and “ Hickory Dickory Dock,” and “Old Mother Hubbard,” extending through twelve, or twenty-four, or forty-eight numbers.
I have often questioned what Solomon would have said if he had lived in our day. The poor man, it appears, was somewhat blasé with the abundance of literature in his times, and remarked that much study was weariness to the flesh. Then, printing was not invented, and “books” were all copied by hand, in those very square Hebrew letters where each letter is about as careful a bit of work as a grave-stone. And yet, even with all these restrictions and circumscriptions, Solomon rather testily remarked, “Of making many books there is no end!” What would he have said had he looked over a modern publisher’s catalogue?
It is understood now that no paper is complete without its serial story, and the spinning of these stories keeps thousands of wheels and spindles in motion. It is now understood that whoever wishes to gain the public ear, and to propound a new theory, must do it in a serial story. Hath any one in our day, as in St. Paul’s, a psalm, a doctrine, a tongue, a revelation, an interpretation — forthwith he wraps it up in a serial story, and presents it to the public. We have prison discipline, free-trade, labor and capital, woman’s rights, the temperance question, in serial stories. We have Romanism and Protestantism, High Church and Low Church and no Church, contending with each other in serial stories, where each side converts the other, according to the faith of the narrator.
We see that this thing is to go on. Soon it will be necessary that every leading clergyman should embody in his theology a serial story, to be delivered from the pulpit Sunday after Sunday. We look forward to announcements in our city papers such as these: The Rev. Dr. Ignatius, of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, will begin a serial romance, to be entitled “ St. Sebastian and the Arrows,” in which he will embody the duties, the trials, and the temptations of the young Christians of our day. The Rev. Dr. Boanerges, of Plymouth Rock Church, will begin a serial story, entitled “Calvin’s Daughter,” in which he will discuss the distinctive features of Protestant theology. The Rev. Dr. Cool Shadow will go on with his interesting romance of “Christianity a Dissolving View,” — designed to show how everything is, in many respects, like everything else, and all things lead somewhere, and everything will finally end somehow, and that therefore it is important that everybody should cultivate general sweetness, and have the very best time possible in this world.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 302
