Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1894 — IN LOVE AND WAR. [ARTICLE]

IN LOVE AND WAR.

New York Journal. The story of a country village is the story of its store. That was what I was thinking as I sat in ’Bijah’s store, with the mingled odors of calico print and Iried apples, coffee and the straw that crockery is packed in fighting for supremacy in my notice. ’Bijah’s broad back was turned to me as he was sorting the day’s mail with comments that made me as wise as himself regarding its contents. “Miss Mi-randy Beal,” said Bijah; “that’s baout her pension, I guess. Ruther official lookin’, thet is. Mr. Asy Fowler; his son John—gone down to Pochemouth —he writes to him nigh onto once every week—en a nice clean hand he writes, does John. Here’s a letter fer the schulema’amNow thet’s han’writin’ fer you! Putty ez she is, an’ jest as simple like.” The latch clicked and the door opened; ’Bijah looked over his shoulder and grinned. I was shut out from sight of more than the visitor’s legs by a slack line of -dangling towels, apronsand socks; but they were steady, reliable looking legs, straight and strong, clothed in heavy boots and blue overalls. ’Bijah neither turned nor did he lay down his letters. He stood there grinning, and whether the person in the doorway was grinning also, or plotting my assassination in pantomime, I was none the wiser. The oheavy boots shuffled and turned about, stepped outside, and the door shut. ’Bijah chuckled to himself and looked back to his letters again. “Them papers is for young Thompson. He’s tfe’ editor of our paper. He’s ajive—alive and kickin’. He’s been out West fur a spell, an’ he thinks we’re all dead and buried. An’ he has made a great change in the Bugler, I tell you. Folks say he’ll be made to smart fur the way he musses raound inter other people’s affairs, but it’s lively, it’s lively.”

The papers went into a separate box, and ’Bijah resumed the letters. “Mehaley Hopkins; she’s got a heap of money. ’Mazin’ haow fond yer folks is of ye when yer got a pile an’ ain’t no heirs of yer buddy. She’s good fer ’em, though; she’s a cute un,” “I suppose it is unusual for any one to make much more than their living away up here, isn’t it, Bijah?” “Hump! yes, fer any one. Not fer some on em, though. Some on ’em is smarter’n greased lightnin’.” “Him, mow, Jeremiah Wilson, he’s a keen ’un. Nobody ever got the best o’ th’ ole man but Jim. You saw Jim—came in here jest naow; ain’t no 'tater bugs on Jim; when he gits up he’s up fer all day.” Bijah grinned and wagged his head. “Jere-miah-Wilson!” he remarked, and slapped the letter into its pigeon hole. The latch clicked again, the door opened, and the same pair of legs appeared in the very same spot where I had seen them before. Bijah grinned. Presumably the unseen grinned also, for there was too much of Bi-. jah’s grin not to be offensive, if it were otherwise. “What chu want?” —— “Nothin’." “We don’t keep that; or if we do, we’re just aout of it.” The big boots turned about slowly. “Sure ye do want no lamps, are ye?” “Gals go with em?” “Not in this shop.” “That settles it, as fur as I’m concerned,” and he went away and closed the door again. Bijah looked after him and chuckled. “What’s the joke, Bijah?" “Dono ez I’d orter say an thin, aoutside, but you know how it is, Mr. Carson, you never seem no stranger.”

“Hand over your story, you old gossip,” I answered. “Why, it would burn your tongue off if you tried to keep it in.” ’Bijah laughed heartily at this polite sally. “Well, I take for my tex’, as Elder Slocum says, that beautiful axum, ’All is fair in love an’ war.” He came round the end of the counter and sat on an unopened sugar barrel, with his legs crossed and his rough hands clasped around his knee. “The old man, Jeremiah Wilson, that I mentioned back a spell, he’s a TSi 1 tbf."ire"db”Tinow nothin’ b'ut'Jiis own way; an’ Mis’ Wilson, she never know’d nothin’ but to gin it to* him. He’s got a trick er turnin’ red faced an’ lookin’ like he was so neat, she couldn’t bear ter hev her house mussed, so she jest gin in to him, “There wuz one gal—Mame her name wuz —an’ they both thought a sight uv her. She wa’n’t no more like neither uv them than nothin’ at all, and they both tried projecks with her. “Her father wanted her to be a boy, an’ he alluz felt as es she done him when she wan’n’t. He wanted ter make a lawyer out uv her; he’s dead in love with lawin’, ole man Wilson is; but yer might better try ter make a hossrake out of whalebones ez ter make a lawyer outer Mame. What the ole man said wuz gospel, though; she felt sorter like she’d better not make him no more hard feelin’ after no! bein’ that boy he wanted. “Her mother meant her ter be a good housekeeper an’ put up p’serves an’ make pickles; an’ Mame'would Stan’ at the winder an' sing an’ fret

al! about her mess till ’twas clean spilt. “After Mis’ Wilson died, though, Marne ,done better round the haouse. Mebbe es the ole man wuzter die she’d take ter lawin’. Ye can’t tell; she kin do most an’thin’. “Jest about then Jim Lane began ter sleeve round with Mamie Wilson. Smart as a steel trap, he is; he runs the sawmill up the crick; but the old man hates him like pizen, an’ he talked ter Mame till she lowed she wouldn’t take up with Jim ’less he wuz willin’. “Jim Lane is the darndest goodnatured feller you ever see. He’s alluz got a good word an’ a pleasant smile fer folks, an’ he’ll go further out o r Eis track fer a friend ’an most anybody T know. “He took it offul hard about Mame. an’ he reg’lar got mopey and down in the mouth about it. Then he got his second wind, an’ he tried every w’ich way to play it on the old man. But Mame she got purty stuffy, too, and she declared she’d never ’pose her father, so thar ’Bijah got off the barrel to sell a couple of candy balls to a rosy faced little lass who was so short as tn hn visible under the slack line, and resumed, as she closed the door of the shop: “The hull village knew all about it, and they talked it up, early and late. The gals they wasn’t slow ter say what they’d do es they wuz in her place, and The Bugler took a hand, so to speak, and nearly drove the old man wild. But Miss Peterson, the minister’s sister, she ’lowed that Mame wuz right to mind her father.

“ ‘Look a-here,’ says Jim, ‘ain’t I got no rights at all?’ an Miss Peterson she laughed an’ said she s’posed so, but he cert’nly didn’t orter ask Mame to take the responsibility of breakin’ her word.” ’Bijah chuckled and changed his legs andclaspedthe other knee. “ ’Twasn’t very long after that ole Wilson went home one night. ’Twuz gettin’ early dusk, an’ he tole Mame she’d better get the lamp afore she set down ter tea. Mame wuz a goin’ through the entry way with a whoopin’ great shade lamp in her hand, when somebody knocked ter the front door, an’ she jest stopped an’ opened it without thinkin’. “Jim Lane was a-standin’ there. ‘Don’t say nothin’, Mame, says he, an’ he takes her bodily, lamp an’ all, an’ tucks her inter a carriage thet he hed at the gate. He didn’t fool raound with no railroad train, but jest turned them horses’ heads fer Canada, an’ when they got ter the line Mame wuz a settin’ there ez still ez a mouse, without ary hat er coat, an’ that big shade lamp a burnin’ jest ez peart as es it wuz on the ole man Wilson’s table ter home.” ’Bijah spat at the stove and laughed to himself. “Fearful thing—the ingratitude ol children, ain’t it? But you’d orter ter seen the Bugler the nex’ mornin’. Every dad blamed colume in it hed a big headline, ‘Jim Lane has got his gal.’ Gosh! thet jest proved ole Wilson wouldn’t never hev busted when he didn’t bust that moniin’. “He went whoopin’off ter see his lawyer ter see what he cud do ter Jim, but Mame she wuz of age an’she writ him that she went of her own free will; so all he could make any fussabaout wuz the lamp, an’ they’ve been a lawin’ an’ foolin’ an’ arbitratin’ ever since.”