Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (ebook reader android txt) 📖

know how it is, Si Ann, in the berry lot now if there are bushes hangin’ full of big ones jest over the fence and somebody else is gittin’ ’em all, you kinder want to jine in and git some on ’em yourself, though you may be a perfesser and singin’ a Sam tune at the time, specially if the fence is broke down that separates you. I can see how it wuz with that Piece Commission and make allowances for ’em, but we didn’t have a thing to do with it and we don’t want any of the pieces.” My axent carried conviction with it; I see she looked relieved. She didn’t 216 say it right out, but I felt that we hadn’t fell in her estimation, and I went on:

“And I don’t want you to blame Uncle Sam either, Si Ann. I believe he will help you all he can, help you in the right way, too; help you to help yourselves. But your folks have got to brace up and do their part; Uncle Sam will neighbor with you if you give him a chance. He’s real good-hearted, though bein’ so easy and good-natered, he is deceived lots of times and influenced and led around by them that want to make money out of him, such as the trusts and the liquor power. But he stands ready to neighbor with you, and don’t turn your back on him, Si Ann. Don’t do anything to get him huffy, for though he hain’t quick to git mad, he’s got a temper when it’s rousted up.”

She said sunthin’ about Uncle Sam turnin’ her folks out and not lettin’ ’em step their feet on our sile. I couldn’t deny it, and it kinder danted me for a minute how I wuz goin’ to smooth that over, but concluded that as in every other emergency in life, the plain truth wuz the best, and I sez in a real amiable voice:

“Si Ann, there is two sides to that jest as there is to every national and neighborhood quarrel. Uncle Sam hain’t liked the way your folks have acted with him, and though I dare presoom to say he’s some to blame, yet I can see where your folks have missed it. They would flock right over to our place, crowdin’ our own folks out of house and home, and expect Uncle Sam to protect ’em, and then they would jest rake and scrape all they could offen us and go home to spend their money; wouldn’t even leave one of their bones in our ground. They didn’t want to become citizens of the United States, they seemed to kinder want to set down and stand up at the same time, which hain’t reasonable if it is done by an American or a Chinee.”

She said sunthin’ about the masses of other foreigners that Uncle Sam allowed to crowd into our country.

“Well,” sez I, “they’re willin’ to become citizens, the 217 German and English and Irish and Russian and Italian babies grow up Americans. But it wuzn’t so with your folks, Si Ann. From the children’s little pig-tails down to their little wooden shues they wuz clear China, soaked in, dyed in the wool, born so, and as long as their bones hung together and afterwards, clear China. They kep’ themselves jest as fur from American institutions and beliefs as ile stays away from water and wouldn’t mix any more. Their bodies stayed on our shores whilst they could make money out of us. But their souls and minds wuz jest as fur removed from our institutions and constitutions as if they wuz settin’ in Jupiter with their legs hangin’ off. It wuz galdin’ to Uncle Sam and finally he had to stop it. But he didn’t do it out of meanness. He jest had to, for of course you know your own folks come first.”

And thinkin’ mebby I’d been too hash describin’ her folks I went on, “I spoze mebby that high stun wall of yourn has kinder stiffened and hardened the nature of your folks and made it harder for ’em to change. But you’re on the right track now, Si Ann, you have begun to break down that big wall, you’ve begun to be more neighborly. And don’t you ever crouch down and hide behind that great stun wall agin; you jest keep right on bein’ neighborly and Uncle Sam will help you.”

Si Ann looked real good and as if she took every word I said in good part; bein’ naterally so smart she would recognize the onselfishness and nobility of my mission, but I see that there wuz a real pert look on one of the ladies’ faces as she said sunthin’ to one of the other ones, and I mistrusted that they didn’t like what I had said about that wall of theirn, and I went on to say to Si Ann:

“Of course you may say that a nation or a woman has a right to do as they’ve a mind to, but common sense must be used if you are goin’ to enjoy yourself much in this world. Now, we had a neighbor in Jonesville that sot out in married life determined not to borrow or lend, dretful exclusive, 218 jest built a high wall of separation round herself and family. But after tryin’ it for a year or so she wuz glad to give it up, and many is the cup of tea and sugar I’ve lent her since, and she borries and lends her washtub now or biler, or settin’ hens, or anythin’. And she sez that she and her family takes as much agin’ comfort now and are doin’ as well agin’, for of course the neighbors didn’t set so much store by ’em as they did when their ports wuz open, as you may say, and they wuz more neighborly.”

I could see by Si Ann’s face that she not only enjoyed all I said, but believed a good share on’t, and bein’ such a case for justice, I felt that I ort to let her know I realized our own nation’s short-comin’s, as well as hern. Sez I, “I hain’t got a word to say to you, Si Ann, about the different castes in your country, when the wimmen in my own land build up a wall between themselves and their kitchen helpers higher than the highest peak of your stun wall and harder to git over, and I don’t want to say a word about your folks bindin’ down their children’s feet to make ’em small as long as our own females pinch down their waists till they’re in perfect agony and ten times as bad as to pinch their feet, for the life, the vital organs don’t lay in the feet, or hain’t spozed to, and so it don’t hurt ’em half so much to be tortured. And as long as they drag round yards of silk and velvet through the streets to rake up filth and disease to carry home and endanger their own lives and their families; no, as long as our females do all this I hain’t nothin’ to say about your dress and customs here, nor I hain’t a goin’ to cast reflections agin you about your men wearin’ night gowns and braidin’ their hair down their backs. Good land, Si Ann! you and I know what men be. We are married wimmen and seen trouble. You couldn’t stop ’em if you tried to. If Josiah Allen took it into his head to braid his hair down his back, I should have to let it go on unless I broke it up sarahuptishly by cuttin’ it off when he wuz asleep, but thank fortin’ he hain’t got enough so that the braid would be bigger than a pipe stale anyway if he should let it grow out, and he is so dressy he wouldn’t like that. But I’ve tried to break up his wearin’ such gay neckties for years and years, and if he should go out and buy one to-day it would most likely be red and yaller.”