Chapter 9. In Which Mr. Pomper Makes A Offer Of Marriage...

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_ CHAPTER NINE. IN WHICH MR. POMPER MAKES A OFFER OF MARRIAGE AND FAITH HAS A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE

Faith had got up and gone out onto the piazza, and he riz up ponderously and proudly and follered her. And onless I put cotton in my ears, I couldn't help hearin' what wuz said. I could hear his proud axent and her low gentle voice in reply.

Sez he, "Miss Smith, of course you hain't known me long, but I feel that we are well acquainted. I have watched you when you hain't known it."

I could imagine just how wonderingly the soft gentle eyes wuz raised to his as he went on:

"Yes, I have kep' my eye on you, and I will say right out that I like your looks and your ways, and I feel that you are worthy of being promoted to the high honor I am about to heap onto you, by askin' you to be my wife."

I heard a little low, skairt ejaculation and a chair pushed back.

"Your wife! oh no, no, you are mistaken!"

Then his voice in soothin' axents, "There, set down agin, set down. I knew you'd take it so. I knew it would overcome you, but I say you are worthy on't, and you needn't never be afraid I'll throw it in your face that I am rich and you--and you----"

Then I hearn a swish of a dress float along, quick steps acrost the piazza, a door shet, and anon Mr. Pomper come back to me.

"Jest as I told you, mom, stunted," sez he, "fairly stunted and broke down by the suddenness of the good news. I'll give her time to git used to the idee. I won't say no more at present."

"No," sez I dryly, "I wouldn't if I wuz in your place, I'd go and rub some ile into my head or sweat it, or sunthin'."

"What for?" sez he in surprise, "why should I bathe my head, or annoint it?"

"Oh nothin'," sez I, "if you don't think it needs softenin' up and illuminatin'."

Well, I went up to my room and in a few minutes Faith come in, and she went right by me and looked in the glass. She wuz pale and seemed to be kinder tremblin'. She studied her face intently in the lookin' glass, then sez she, "What is there in my face, what have I done?" sez she, "How have I looked, that that awful man dare insult me? Oh, I must have looked weak or acted weak, or he wouldn't have dared to!" and she busted out cryin'.

And I sez soothin'ly, "It hain't the worst thing that could happen to you. A offer of marriage hain't like a attack of yeller fever, or cholera, or even the janders, nor," sez I, "it hain't like losin' friends, or a plague of grasshoppers, or----"

And I spoze there hain't no tellin' onto what hites of eloquence I might have riz to cheer her up. But all of a sudden she bust out a-laughin' with the tears standin' in her big eyes and runnin' down her cheeks.

"There," sez I, "you see I'm right, don't you?"

"Oh you dear, delicious Samantha!" sez she, and she throwed her arms round me and kissed me. I kissed her back and then I went on brushin' my hair for the night. I hadn't nothin' on but my skirts and dressin' sack, but I didn't mind her. And she went and sot down by the winder and looked off into the west. Fur off the blue hazy distance lay like another country. The moonlight lay on the waters, a white sail fur off seemed to float into dreamy mist. She sot there still, and a queer look seemed to come into her face. I felt that she wuz thinkin' of him, the lost lover of her youth. I felt that she wuz with him and not with me. I thought from the looks of her face she might think he had been insulted by the rude feet that had assayed to walk into the kingdom where he had rained, and rained still, I believe. Sez I to myself, mebby she is walkin' with him in the past, and mebby in the futer, how could I tell, I felt queer and wadded up my hair with emotions that never before went into them hair pins.

After I had finished I sot down, as my habit is, to read a few verses of Skripter, to sort o' carry with me in my journey through the unknown realms of Sleep. And as I make a practice of openin' wherever I happen to--or I don't really like that word happen--I let the book open where it will, and I wuz jest readin' these words:

"Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes, the signs and the great miracles."

When I hearn through my readin', as one will, the whistle of the night boat comin' in, and the noise of many steps goin' along the walk below. Then I opened the book agin and went on with my readin':

"The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but these things that are revealed belong to us."

When sunthin' made me look up, Faith wuz bendin' forward lookin' out of the winder, though she couldn't see anyone that wuz passin' on account of the ruff, and I see a look that I never see before on any face, it wuz all rousted up, illuminated, glad, triumphant, sad, glowin', blessed, and everything else.

And I said, "What is it, Faith, what do you see?"

Sez she, "I don't know."

And I said then, "What do you think it is?"

And she sez, "Cousin Samantha, do you think that those who are far away ever return to the hearts that are mourning for them? Is there any way that souls can meet while the bodies are far apart?"

"Why yes," sez I, "I have always thought so, I have always thought they had some way of tellin' us they wuz nigh without usin' language we know anything about. Many is the time I've expected visitors that I hadn't seen or hearn from in some time, and sure enough they'd come jest as I seemed to think they would. And letters! how many a time all of a sudden I would most know I wuz goin' to git a letter from somebody, and sure enough when Josiah would go to the post office he'd bring it back with him. How them folks hundreds of milds away managed to let me know they wuz thinkin' of me on paper, or how I knew these friends wuz approachin' onbeknown to me, I don't know nor Josiah don't.

"There wuzn't no U. S. stamp on these messages, nor earthly hands didn't bring the tidin's of these visitors. No the post-masters and messengers on that mysterious Route keep perfect silence as to where they be, or who they be. But they are at work all the same, though who they work for, or how they work, how can we tell? The strange rays of light that flash through the darkness of dense bodies makin' visible what has been onseen since the creation, hasn't discovered these highways yet, mebby they will. The strange new air route messages that travel acrost the stormy Atlantic may run right acrost these mysterious highways," and for a minute my mind follered off on them strange, strange tracks, Marconi roads lighted by X-rays and leadin' who knows where.

When my mind kinder come back agin to what we wuz talkin' about I resoomed, "And if this happens to us as it duz time and agin in regard to friends and well wishers, how much more it is likely to be true of those we love and who love us. This strange knowledge and fore-warnin' is not material, it is independent of the body or any workin's of the mind that we understand, and how do we know how fur reachin' and universal that law is if our eyes wuz not held so we could discern it? If these fine senses wuz not so unused, and as you may say bed-rid by disuse, how do we know how truly near to us may be those who in our blindness we say are fur away, how do we know but their spiritual self, their real self, may be nearer to us than our neighbors in the flesh, and those who sit by our firesides, though our mortal eyes may not see them, and oceans and seas may divide us and mebby the Deepest River. What do we know about the onseen roads that lay all about us, leadin' from Loontown and Jonesville and from one continent to the other, and mebby up through the clear fields of Light? What do we know about them still mysterious streets windin' mebby from our home and hearts to Thomas Jefferson's, and so on, mebby from star to star? And what do we know of the travelers that go up and down on 'em and outward and homeward? These roads don't need any surveyor to lay 'em out, or path-master to clear 'em of snow and dirt, no weeds grow up by the wayside, nor dirt lays in the track.

"No, clear and broad and unobstructed the luminous pathways may lay all round us onknown to us. Noiseless chariots, swifter than our imaginations can grasp now, may cleave these star routes, connecting one land to another, and mebby jinin' immense distances to our planet, as easy as we can hitch up and go to Jonesville.

"We don't see these noiseless conveyances, lighter and swifter than thought, nor the forms they waft to us from afar. We can't hear their voices, but our soul listens! We feel their nearness! For a blessed moment we are thrilled with the bliss of their presence, their full comprehension of pity and love.

"'Dear ones!' our heart cries, 'where are you? Come nearer! Let our eyes behold you!' Our soul peers longin'ly through the mist of earthly blindness, looking! listening!'"

I wuz carried some distance away from myself by my deep eppisodin' when a sigh from Faith brung me down and landed me on terry firmy agin and I sez,

"Why do you ask this question to-night, dear?"

"Because," sez she in a tremblin' voice, "I feel that someone long gone and lost is near me to-night, I feel the presence nearer than you are now," sez she, puttin' her little white tremblin' hand on my own.

"I am not mistaken," sez she with streaming eyes, "I know that in whatever world or distant way that soul may be dwellin', it is with me to-night. It frightens me!" sez she, white as a cloth, "And it fills me with the blessedness of Heaven!" And she smiled with her big luminous eyes. She wuz tremblin' like a popple leaf.

"Well, well," sez I, "shet up the winder, and take a little catnip tea. I'll steep it on my alcohol lamp, and go to bed. You've been excited too much to-night." I knew, though she didn't say so, that the very idee of catnip wuz repugnant and oncongenial to her at that time, but I felt that I had reason and common sense on my side. Faithful hain't over strong, and had been through considerable excitement, besides I hearn the distant step of my pardner, and his voice parleyin' with the hall boy for sunthin'.

And though the subject broached by Faith, and believed in by me, wuz as interestin' to me as a subject could be, yet I felt then, and feel now, that though transcendentalism may be more agreable talkin' matter, and may be indulged in at times, yet such commonplace subjects as herb drink has to be brung forwards and sort o' hung onto by our minds, in order to anchor 'em as it were to the land of Megumness, where I would fain tarry myself and have my near and dearest dwell. But Faith said she didn't want any catnip, and jest before Josiah come in she kissed me good night, and I said, "Good night, dear, and 'God be with you till we meet again.'"

I knew she thought everything of that him, and thought mebby it would sort o' quiet her some since she rejected the paneky I spoke of. But her face at the very last looked white and riz up and luminous, and her eyes shone. I felt queer.

The next day wuz Sunday and Josiah and I went to the Tabernacle to meetin'. Faith havin' a headache didn't go. But before I go any furder I will back up the boat and moor it to the shore, while I tell you what the result wuz so fur as Mr. Pomper wuz concerned. At the breakfast table next mornin' he cast languishin' glances at Faith, and then looked round the room proudly as much as to say:

"Gentlemen and ladies, behold my choice, and I hain't sorry I chose her out of the throng of waitin' wimmen."

But some time durin' that day he found out his mistake. I don't know exactly how Faith managed to pierce the rhinocerous hide of his self-conceit with the truth, but she did somehow let him know that his attentions wuz futile, futiler than he ever mistrusted his attentions could be.

But he wuzn't danted and down-casted more'n several minutes, I guess, for anon I see him walkin' with a woman almost as ponderous as he wuz, and as she wuz all janglin' with black jet and as humbly as humbly could be, I mistrusted that he had gone back to his allegiance to the widder, and I think he looked happier than I had ever seen him. He looked as if he wuz rejoiced that his temporary thraldom to sentiment wuz over, and common sense and practical gain wuz in the ascendancy agin. And though it hain't much matter, I will say I read his marriage in the paper the next week:

"Amaziah Pomper to Euphrasia, relict of Elnathan Fatt."

But I d'no as Faith knew anything about it, for she didn't stay with us only a few days longer, she went on to visit her aunt Petrie and so on to the Ohio, makin' a solemn promise to me to stop and visit us on her way home the last of September. Well, I will now onhitch the boat and row back, and then let it sail on down the stream of history. As I said, the next day after that singular experience of Faith's wuz Sunday, and my pardner and I went to the Tabernacle. We wuz told that there wuz to be oncommon exercises that day owin' to the visit of a great Evangelist from the West. Lots of folks had come on the night boats so as to be there to hear him. For if the angel Gabriel wanted to preach there to lost sinners, he couldn't land there on Sunday unless he swum or come cross lots (that is, unless he flowed down). The folks on that island are too good to let anyone come there to meetin' unless they come sarahuptishously. I asked a trustee once why it wuz wicked for folks to ride there to meetin'.

And he said, "A merciful man is merciful to his beast."

Sez I, "A steamer hain't a beast, and if it wuz, it wouldn't tucker it out much to come over from the bay or Clayton." And he said the sailors would have to toil to git 'em there.

"So the driver and the horses have to toil to git sinners to meetin' on the main land," sez I. And he said, "The steamers would make noise and confusion, and disturb the sweet Sabbath calm." I felt there wuz some truth in this, though it wouldn't make nigh so much noise as the thousands of church bells clangin' out church time in cities and villages.

Sez he, "If we allowed boats to land here we should be overrun with excursionists who don't care for Sunday as a day of holy quiet and rest, and our peaceful Sabbath would be turned into a carnival of pleasure seekers, flirtations, giggles, brown paper parcels, egg shells, cigar smoke and sandwiches."

And I sez, "Like as not that is so." And I felt that mebby he wuz in the right on't. But some don't like it and feel that they'd ort to take the resk. _

Read next: Chapter 10. We Hear A Great Temperance Sermon, But Josiah Still Hankers For Coney Island

Read previous: Chapter 8. In Which Mr. Pomper Declares His Intenshuns...

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