Samantha Among the Brethren | Page 8

go.
And I give my consent. Then my mind travelled down that pleasant
road, moongilded, to the school-house. It stopped on the door-step
while Josiah hitched the mair.
We found the school-house crowded full, fur a female lecturer wuz a
rarity, and she wuz a pretty girl, as pretty a girl as I ever see in my life.
And it wuz a pretty lecture, too, dretful pretty. The name of the lecture
wuz, "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose."
A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and
extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz all
carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the rehearsin'
of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it, first rate.
I can't begin to tell it all as she did, 'specially after this length of time,
in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of the
heads of it.
It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish,
eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the
bare heads.

She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to
speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of
the subject, "Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?"
She had even read these dreadful words--"Marriage is a Failure." She
hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people
spoke against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as
privilege, to speak in its praise.
I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For no
living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she whose
name vuz once Smith.
I love Josiah Allen, I am glad that I married him. But at the same time,
my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on every side
of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I love Josiah
Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with every
word she said.
But she went on perfectly beautiful--I didn't wonder it brought the
school-house down--about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage,
and how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares.
How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from
every rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman's
life wuz like a oneasy, roarin', rushin' river, that swept along
discontented and onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into
the calm sea of Repose--melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest,
marriage.
And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How
peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm!
Oh, how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy,
united souls bathed in blissful repose!
[Illustration: "HE HAD ON A NEW VEST."]
It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'. There wasn't a dry eye

in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin' vent
to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest slipped my
pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind. (His
handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.) And
I knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new vest.
Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by
remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby.
And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum,
caused by admiration and bein' so highly tickled.
I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep'
me calmer wuz, I knew, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she
went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough.
And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations,
comparin' married life and single--jest as likely metafors as I ever see,
and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one of
'em had this fault--when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em too fur.
And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince
me.
[Illustration: "I MYSELF DIDN'T SHED ANY TEARS."]
Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost
the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along over a
thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy
forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold foot
and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye lookin'
out for dangers