Sweet Cicely or Josiah Allen as a Politician Part 7

But she said, after hearin' 'em all, "that she wus willin' to vote on the temperance question. She had thought it all over," she said. "Thought how the nation lay under the curse of African slavery until that race of slaves were freed. And she believed, that when women who were now in legal bondage, were free to act as their heart and reason dictated, that they, who suffered most from intemperance, would be the ones to strike the blow that would free the land from the curse."

Curius that she should feel so, but you couldn't get the idee out of her head. She had pondered over it day and night, she said,-pondered over it, and prayed over it.

And, come to think it over, I don't know as it wus so curius after all, when I thought how Paul had ruined himself, and broke her heart, and how her money wus bein' used now to keep grog-shops open, four of her buildin's rented to liquor-dealers, and she couldn't help herself.

Cicely owned lots of other landed property in the village where she lived; and so, of course, her property wus all taxed accordin' to its worth. And its bein' the biggest property there, of course it helped more than any thing else did to keep the streets smooth and even before the saloon- doors, so drunkards could get there easy; and to get new street-lamps in front of the saloons and billiard-rooms, so as to make a real bright light to draw 'em in and ruin 'em.

There wus a few-the doctor, who knew how rum ruined men's bodies; and the minister, he knew how it ruined men's souls-they two, and a few others, worked awful hard to get the saloons shut up.

But the executor, who wanted the town to go license, so's he could make money, and thinkin' it would be for her interest in the end, hired votes with her money. Her money used to hire liquor-votes! So she heard, and believed. The idee!

So her money, and his influence, and the influence of low appet.i.tes, carried the day; and the liquor-traffic won. The men who rented her houses, voted for license to a man. Her property used agin to spread the evil! She labored with these men with tears in her eyes. And they liked her. She was dretful good to 'em. (As I say, she held the things of this world with a loose grip.)

They listened to her respectful, stood with their hats in their' hands, answerin' her soft, and went soft out of her presence-and voted license to a man. You see, they wus all willin' to give her love and courtesy and kindness, but not the right to do as her heaven-learnt sense of right and wrong wanted her to. She had a fine mind, a pure heart: she had been through the highest schools of the land, and that higher, heavenly school of sufferin', where G.o.d is the teacher, and had graduated from 'em with her lofty purposes refined and made luminous with some thin' like the light of Heaven.

But those men-many of 'em who did not know a letter of the alphabet, whose naturally dull minds had become more stupified by habitual vice- those men, who wus her inferiors, and her servants in every thing else, wus each one of 'em her king here, and she his slave: and they compelled her to obey thier lower wills.

Wall, Cicely didn't think it wus right. Curius she should think so, some folks thought, but she did.

But all this that wore on her wus as nothin' to what she felt about the boy,-her fears for his future. "What could she do-what could she do for the boy, to make it safer for him in the future?"

And I had jest this one answer, that I'd say over and over agin to her,-

"Cicely, you can pray! That is all that wimmen can do. And try to influence him right now. G.o.d can take care of the boy."

"But I can't keep him with me always; and other influences will come, and beat mine down. And I have prayed, but G.o.d don't hear my prayer."

And I'd say, calm and soothin', "How do you know, Cicely?"

And she says, "Why, how I prayed for help when my poor Paul went down to ruin, through the open door of a grog-shop! If the women of the land had it in their power to do what their hearts dictate,-what the poorest, lowest man has the right to do,-every saloon, every low grog-shop, would be closed."

She said this to Josiah the mornin' after the lecture I speak of. He sot there, seemin'ly perusin' the almanac; but he spoke up then, and says,-

"You can't shet up human nater, Cicely: that will jump out any way. As the poet says, 'Nater will caper.'"

But Cicely went right on, with her eyes a s.h.i.+nin', and a red spot in her white cheeks that I didn't like to see.

"A thousand temptations that surround my boy now, could be removed, a thousand low influences changed into better, helpful ones. There are drunkards who long, who pray, to have temptations removed out of their way,-those who are trying to reform, and who dare not pa.s.s the door of a saloon, the very smell of the liquor crazing them with the desire for drink. They want help, they pray to be saved; and we who are praying to help them are powerless. What if, in the future, my boy should be like one of them,-weak, tempted, longing for help, and getting nothing but help towards vice and ruin? Haven't mothers a right to help those they love in every way,-by prayer, by influence, by legal right and might?"

"It would be a dangerous experiment, Cicely," says Josiah, crossin' his right leg over his left, and turnin' the almanac to another month. "It seems to me sunthin' unwomanly, sunthin' aginst nater. It is turnin' the laws of nater right round. It is perilous to the domestic nature of wimmen."

"I don't think so," says I. "Don't you remember, Josiah Allen, how you worried about them hens that we carried to the fair? They wus so handsome, and such good layers, that I really wanted the influence of them hens to spread abroad. I wanted otherfolks to know about 'em, so's to have some like 'em. But you worried awfully. You wus so afraid that carryin' the hens into the turmoil of public life would have a tendency to keep 'em from wantin' to make nests and hatch chickens! But it didn't. Good land! one of 'em made a nest right there, in the coop to the fair, with the crowd a shoutin' round 'em, and laid two eggs. You can't break up nature's laws; they are laid too deep and strong for any hammer we can get holt of to touch 'em; all the nations and empires of the world can't move 'em round a notch.

"A true woman's deepest love and desire are for her home and her loved ones, and planted right in by the side of these two loves of hern is a deathless instinct and desire to protect and save them from danger.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAMANTHA'S HENS.]

"Good land! I never heard a old hen called out of her spear, and unhenly, because she would fly out at a hawk, and cackle loud, and cluck, and try to lead her chickens off into safety. And while the rooster is a steppin' high, and struttin' round, and lookin' surprised and injured, it is the old hen that saves the chickens, nine times out of ten.

"It is against the evil hawks,-men-hawks,-that are ready to settle down, and tear the young and innocent out of the home nest, that wimmen are tryin' to defend thier children from. And men may talk about wimmen's gettin' too excited and zealous; but they don't cluck and cackle half so loud as the old hen does, or flutter round half so earnest and fierce.

"And the chicken-hawk hain't to be compared for danger to the men-hawks Cicely is tryin' to save her boy from. And I say it is domestic love in her to want to protect him, and tenderness, and nature, and grace, and- and-every thing."

I wus wrought up, and felt deeply, and couldn't express half what I felt, and didn't much care if I couldn't. I wus so rousted up, I felt fairly reckless about carin' whether Josiah or anybody understood me or not. I knew the Lord understood me, and I knew what I felt in my own mind, and I didn't much care for any thing else. Wimmen do have such spells. They get fairly wore out a tryin' to express what they feel in thier souls to a gain-sayin' world, and have that world yell out at 'em, "Unwomanly! unwomanly!" I say, Cicely wuzn't unwomanly. I say, that, from the very depths of her lovin' little soul, she wus pure womanly, affectionate, earnest, tender-hearted, good; and, if anybody tells me she wuzn't, I'll know the reason why.

But, while I wus a reveryin' this, my Josiah spoke out agin', and says,-

"Influence the world through your child, Cicely! influence him, and let him influence the world. Let him make the world better and purer by your influencein' it through him."

"Why not use that influence now, myself? I have it here right in my heart, all that I could hope to teach to my boy, at the best. And why wait, and set my hopes of influencing the world through him, when a thousand things may happen to weaken that influence, and death and change may destroy it? Why, my one great fear and dread is, that my boy will be led away by other, stronger influences than mine,-the temptations that have overthrown so many other children of prayer-how dare I hope that my boy will withstand them? And death may claim him before he could bear my influence to the world. Why not use it now, myself, to help him, and other mothers' boys? If it is, as you say, an experiment, why not let mothers try it? It could not do any harm; and it would ease our poor, anxious hearts some, to make the effort, even if it proved useless. No one can have a deeper interest in the children's welfare than their mothers. Would they be apt to do any thing to harm them?"

And then I spoke up, entirely unbeknown to myself, and says,-

"Selfishness has had its way for years and years in politics, and now why not let unselfishness have it for a change? For, Josiah Allen," says I firmly, "you know, and I know, that, if there is any unselfishness in this selfish world, it is in the heart of a mother."

"It would be apt to be dangerous," says Josiah, crossin' his left leg over his right one, and turnin' to a new month in the almanac. "It would most likely be apt to be."

"Why?" says Cicely. "Why is it dangerous? Why is it wrong for a women to try to help them she would die for? Yes," says she solemnly, "I would die for Paul any time if I knew it would smooth his pathway, make it easier for him to be a good man."

"Wall, you see, Cicely," says Josiah in a soft tone,-his love for her softenin' and smoothin' out his axent till it sounded almost foolish and meachin',-"you see, it would be dangerous for wimmen to vote, because votin' would be apt to lower wimmen in the opinion of us men and the public generally. In fact, it would be apt to lower wimmen down to mingle in a lower cla.s.s. And it would gaul me dretfully," says Josiah, turnin' to me, "to have our sweet Cicely lower herself into a lower grade of society: it would cut me like a knife."

And then I spoke right up, for I can't stand too much foolishness at one time from man or woman; and I says,-

"I'd love to have you speak up, Josiah Allen, and tell me how wimmen would go to work to get any lower in the opinion of men; how they could get into any lower grade of society than they are minglin' with now. They are ranked now by the laws of the United States, and the will of men, with idiots, lunatics, and criminals. And how pretty it looks for you men to try to scare us, and make us think there is a lower cla.s.s we could get into! There hain't any lower cla.s.s that we can get into than the ones we are in now; and you know it, Josiah Allen. And you sha'n't scare Cicely by tryin' to make her think there is."

He quailed. He knew there wuzn't. He knew he had said it to scare us, Cicely and me, and he felt considerable meachin' to think he had got found out in it. But he went on in ruther of a meek tone,-

"It would be apt to make talk, Cicely."

"What do I care for talk?" says she. "What do I care for honor, or praise, or blame? I only want to try to save my boy."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CICELY AND HER PEERS.]

And she kep' right on with her tender, earnest voice, and her eyes a s.h.i.+nin' like stars,-

"Have I not a right to help him? Is he not my child? Did not G.o.d give me a right to him, when I went down into the darkness with G.o.d alone, and a soul was given into my hands? Did I not suffer for him? Have I not been blessed in him? Why, his little hands held me back from the gates of death. By all the rights of heavenliest joy and deepest agony-is he not mine? Have I not a right to help him in his future?

"Now I hold him in my arms, my flesh, my blood, my life. I hold him on my heart now: he is mine. I can s.h.i.+eld him from danger: if he should fall into the flames, I could reach in after him, and die with him, or save him. G.o.d and man give me that right now: I do not have to ask for it.

"But in a few years he will go out from me, carrying my own life with him, my heart will go with him, to joy or to death. He will go out into dangers a thousand-fold worse than death,-dangers made respectable and legal,- and I can't help him.

"I his mother, who would die for him any hour-I must stand with my eyes open, but my hands bound, and see him rus.h.i.+ng headlong into flames tenfold hotter than fire; see him on the brink of earthly and eternal ruin, and can't reach out my hand to hold him back. My boy! My own! Is it right? Is it just?"

And she got up, and walked the room back and forth, and says,-

"How can I bear the thought of it? How can I live and endure it? And how can I die, and leave the boy?"

And her eyes looked so big and bright, and that spot of red would look so bright on her white cheeks, that I would get skairt. And I'd try to sooth her down, and talk gentle to her. And I says,-