Samantha Among the Brethren | Page 3

hull community wuz so sot on havin' them five deacons embark onto these buzz saws that they would not brook any interference, least of all from a female woman.
But I had a feelin' that Josiah Allen wuz, as you may say, my lawful prey. I felt that I had a right to question my own pardner for the good of his own soul, and my piece of mind.
And I sez to him in solemn axents:
"Josiah Allen, what time will you get when you are fairly started on your buzz saw, for domestic life, or social, or for religious duties?"
And Josiah sez, "Dumb 'em! I guess a man is a goin' to make money when he has got a chance." And I asked him plain if he had got so low, and if I had lived with him twenty years for this, to hear him in the end dumb religious duties.
And Josiah acted skairt and conscience smut for most half a minute, and said, "he didn't dumb 'em."
"What wuz you dumbin'?" sez I, coldly.
"I wuz dumbin' the idee," sez he, "that a man can't make money when he has a chance to."
But I sez, a haulin' up this strong argument agin--
"Every one of you men, who are a layin' holt of this enterprise and a-embarkin' onto this buzz saw are married men, and are deacons in a meetin' house. Now this work you are a-talkin' of takin' up will devour all of your time, every minute of it, that you can spare from your farms.
"And to say nothin' of your wives and children not havin' any chance of havin' any comfort out of your society. What will become of the interests of Zion at home and abroad, of foreign and domestic missions, prayer meetin's, missionary societies, temperance meetin's and good works generally?"
And then again I thought, and it don't seem as if I can be mistaken, I most know that I heerd Josiah Allen mutter in a low voice,
"Dumb good works!"
[Illustration: "I HEERD JOSIAH MUTTER, 'DUMB GOOD WORKS!'"]
But I wouldn't want this told of, for I may be mistook. I didn't fairly ketch the words, and I spoke out agin, in dretful meanin' and harrowin' axents, and sez, "What will become of all this gospel work?"
And Josiah had by this time got over his skare and conscience smite (men can't keep smut for more'n several minutes anyway, their consciences are so elastic; good land! rubber cord can't compare with 'em), and he had collected his mind all together, and he spoke out low and clear, and in a tone as if he wuz fairly surprised I should make the remark:
"Why, the gospel work will get along jest as it always has, the wimmen will 'tend to it."
And I own I was kinder lost and by the side of myself when I asked the question--and very anxious to break up the enterprise or I shouldn't have put the question to him.
For I well knew jest as he did that wimmen wuz most always the ones to go ahead in church and charitable enterprises. And especially now, for there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male men of the meetin' house, and they wouldn't do a thing they could help (but of this more anon and bimeby).
There wuz two or three old males in the meetin' house, too old to get mad and excited easy, that held firm, and two very pious old male brothers, but poor, very poor, had to be supported by the meetin' house, and lame. They stood firm, or as firm as they could on such legs as theirs wuz, inflammatory rheumatiz and white swellin's and such.
But all the rest had got their feelin's hurt, and got mad, etc., and wouldn't do a thing to help the meetin' house along.
Well, I tried every lawful, and mebby a little on-lawful way to break this enterprise of theirs up--and, as I heern afterwards, so did Sister Henzy.
Sister Sypher is so wrapped up in Deacon Sypher that she would embrace a buzz saw mill or any other enterprise he could bring to bear onto her.
"She would be perfectly willin' to be trompled on," so she often sez, "if Deacon Sypher wuz to do the tromplin'."
Some sez he duz.
Wall, in spite of all my efforts, and in spite of all Sister Henzy's efforts, our deacons seemed to jest flourish on this skeme of theirn. And when we see it wuz goin' to be a sure thing, even Sister Sypher begin to feel bad.
She told Albina Widrig, and Albina told Miss Henn, and Miss Henn told me, that "what to do she didn't know, it would deprive her of so much of the deacon's society." It wuz goin' to devour so much of his time that she wuz afraid she couldn't stand it. She