Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1875 — FETCHING AND CARRYING. [ARTICLE]

FETCHING AND CARRYING.

“You see,” said my great-aunt, addressing us girls, “ it was well-nigh thirty years that I followed sewing for a living. I could do tailoring and dressmaking and mending and quilting, and such, as well as the best, and so I was sent for far and near. Now suppose I had allowed myself to fetch and carry from house to house whatever I might happen to hear of people’s affairs, like some folks, I should have got myself into a muss many’s the time. My mother taught me better. ‘ Now, Sally,’ says she, when I first went out to work, 1 be mighty careful how you carry news from house to house, or tell what you know of people’s private matters, even when it doesn’t seem as if it could do the least mite of harm.’ And she went on to say that some people never liked to have a tailoress or seamstress or even a washerwoman around, because some of them are apt to be full of gossip, and to fetch and carry from house to house. Even when there isn’t a single thing they are ashamed to have known, people like to feel that they can keep their private business to themselves. So my mother said, and I found it to be exactly so. I thought all the more of it after mother was dead and gone. Most people seemed to like my way of keeping myself to myself, and again there were others who acted as if they were really provoked because they couldn’t get any more out of me, and they pestered me to death, hinting around to see if by putting that that and that together they couldn’t make out something without asking me outright. There were the two Snuffer girls, Lyddy Ann and Betsy Jane; they wanted to know everybody’s business, and were always trying to find out something. And such ridiculous things many tablecloths the Snowdons used in a week (that was our minister’s family), and how much they paid their hired girl a week and if she ate at the table with the family. If a stranger came to church with any of the girls they couldn’t listen to the sermon until they had found out who and <vhat he was, and the next day they made a business of collecting information about his family, his property and all such. I always hated to go there to work when any of the girls in Shrewsbury or in the towns round were to be married. They most generally sent for me to help a spell, and of course I knew pretty much their affairs. But I wasn’t going to tell what the wedding-dress was to be, nor just how much it cost a yard, nor whether they bought it in Boston or nearer home, nor how many pounds of cake they were going to make, and all such. The girls said it kind of took the edge off to tell everything beforehand ; they all had rather come out new. Well, when it came time for Deacon Goodman’s daughter to be married, there was a great stir among the girls. Matildy had lived in Boston considerable with her Uncle Joshua, who was rich and, lived in a good deal of so the girls all expected that her outfit would be something pretty handsome; and so it was. Why, her wedding-dress, with her gloves and slippers and little motions, cost well-nigh thirty dollars! Matildy laid herself that she thought a part of the money ought to be given to the missionaries, but then it was a present from her uncle, and so there nothing to be said. I was going there to< help about some matters and so I happened to say that there would be a great curiosity among the young people to know the particulars of the wedding. “ ‘ Lawful sakes!’ says Mrs. Goodman, * do, dear, tell them all they want to know;’ and Matildy said the same, for she wasn’t in the least stuck up. They only waiting for Spring to get home from Ohio. That was a cousin of Matil dy’s who was going to stand up with her. He was named Aminadab after his frandfather; but as people that had nown him from a baby would keep on calling him Minny, and the young men

called him Dab, his folks condluded to call him by his last name—Spring. I said to Mrs. Goodman that she would miss Matildy when she came to go away for good. Oh, yes, of course; but she went on to say that she and the deacon might go with the young folks to Boston ana that would make it seem not quite so sudden. Matildawas very anxious to have them go and stay until after Thanksgiving. The deacon insisted that, his wife should go, but he said what with' his rheumatism and some chores he had to do on the farm he thought he had better stay at home and see to things. Hip wife would hardly agree to this. She said it would be the first time they had been separated for thirty years, and, as the deacon said, the first time they ever had a serious disagreement; and he laughed as if it was an uncommon good joke. ;;; “Well, as I left the deacon’s with such a budget of news that I was at liberty to tell, thinks I to myself, I shall be ?uite a welcome visitor at some houses know of. As it happened, I was going to work for the Snuffers the very next day, and so I should have a chance to make up in a manner for being so closemouthed, as they called me, by speaking out for once as free as other folks.

“ I got there the next morning rather before they expected me, and as I stood ready to knock at the side door I heard my name and waited a moment. A window was open, and as one of the girls was laying the table in the kitchen and the other out in the back room ironing they spoke pretty loud to each other and I could hear every word they said, though they didn’t hear me knock and knock. One of them said: ‘ Don’t tell me about Sail Barker’s prudence and her being so mighty conscientious and all that. I warrant you she is as glad to poke that great long nose of hers into other people’s business as anybody, and it is only because she is so con|jary that she likes to keep things to herself. She feels so important when she has some great secret that she can keep from everybody else! It is the way she takes to pester folks.’ And she went on about old maids in a way that was scandalous. But lam not going to repeat it. You may be sure that I felt pretty well riled up, and 1 had half a mind to go straight home; but I had sent my goose and lap-board along, for I had a jacket to press off for Reuben Snuffer, and so I concluded to put down the old Adam and go right in. I ought to explain that what set Lyddy Ann out so fierce was that her mother had been taking her to do for letting out some secrets that had made mischief, and she had held me up as a pattern. Everybody knows that nothing makes some people dislike you more than to have some other people always praising you. Well, I went in and sat down to breakfast, and they had a buttermilk cake that Lyddy Ann had made and baked on a board before the fire on purpose for me, because she knew I liked them so much. There are some folks that always like to have you eat their victuals, even if they hate you. I ate it and praised it, though I hadn’t so much appetite as common, for I kept thinking about my great long nose and of being called an old maid. We sat pretty much without speaking for a spell, for the girls mistrusted that I overheard them talk; but before long Betsy Jane gave a little heni to clear her throat, and observed that they must be middling busy down at Deacon Goodman’s if Matildy was to be married in a week or two. I said, ‘ She isn’t to be married till Spring comes; ’ and I was going on to tell the rest, but they didn’t give me time to finish.

“ 1 Not till spring! What on earth could, that mean?' Now what possessed me I couldn’t tell. I don’t pretend to say that I did right; but you must remember that it was only half an hour since I had heard myself nicknamed and called an old maid, just because I wouldn’t tell all I knew. ‘ Well,’ says I, ‘ strange things happen sometimes. You haven’t heard that the deacon and his wife have had a disagreement and are talking of a separation. ’ Now, mind, I didn’t tell them that / had heard so; I only said that they hadn’t heard it. Of course they ■ were amazed beyond all account. They couldn’t say much but ‘Did I ever!’ and ‘lf that doesn’t beat all I ever did hear in my born days!’ Their mother wasn’t a talking woman, and she asked me if I didn’t think there must be some mistake. I said time would show. But the girls said they had noticed for some time how red Mrs. Goodman’s eyes had looked, and now it was all explained. “It wasn’t long after, as I sat by a window at work, I spied Lyddy Ann, with a shawl over her head, slipping across from their side gate into Sliss Jones’, and in another half hour I saw one of the Jones girls, with a shawl and cape bonnet, going across the road; and before dinner I counted half a dozen cape bonnets going hither and yon. Well, the long and short of it was, that by the end of two days there wasn’t a man or woman in Shrewsbury that hadn’t heard that Deacon Goodman and his wife had had a quarrel, that Mrs. Goodman had cried her eyes out, and that the match between Josiah and Matildy was ail broken up. “ Old Deacon "Vfalker was greatly exercised in his mind when he found there was no such thing as putting down the rumor, for he was a peaceable man, and he and Deacon Goodman had served the same communion-table for many a year. He couldn’t bear to go to his brother about such unpleasant busigess, though he didn’t believe the stories. After making it a subject of prayer he concluded it was better that the minister shouJ4 take it in hand, and so to the minister he went. Parson Snowdon didn’t believe the stories. It wasn’t long since he had called at the deacon’s and all was pleasant enough at that time. Still, he hated rumors and he hated misunderstandings, and he would go and put a stop to such goings on in his parish. So in the afternoon the parson’s old yellow chaise went ogging and teetering along the road tcT Deacon Goldman’s house. He hitched his horse and then rapped at the front door, instead of going to the side-porch as usual, and Nancy—that was their hired girl—supposing that he must have come on some Bolemn business, took him

into the great solemn parlor, where, I venture to say, not one of the family sat down six times in a year. The deacon was out doing some fall planting. His wife brought out his other coat and helped him spruce up a little, and then he went with a little cough and hem or two, and feeling very stiff, into the great stiff room. ‘ How d’ye do, Parson Snowdon? Glad to see you. And how is your wife?’ The parson and his wife were both pretty smart, and how was tike deacon ana his wife? Well, both cleverly, except that the deacon’s rheumatism held on in spite of his good wife’s great care of him, and she herself was troubled with weak eyes. They looked red and watered all the time, and pained her considerable. The parson had noticed along back that her eyes had looked red, and he was afraid that she was taking on, maybe, about losing Matilda so soon. ‘Well, no; it wasn’t exactly that, for Matildy was going to wait a while till her cousin Spring got home, and then, very likely, his wife would go to Boston to stay with her while she set up housekeeping.’ And he told the rest, about her wishing him to go with her, and about their never having been separated since they were married, and he repeated his little joke about their never having had a disagreement before. “ The parson’s face grew broader and shorter, and presently, as the full light broke in, he brought down his foot with a stamp, and threw back his head and laughed so long and loud that N ancy declared if Parson Snowdon wasn’t a master-hand to laugh then she didn’t know; and Mrs. Goodman ventured to show herself to ask him not to go home without taking along a few notions for his wife. The chaise box was packed with fall sweetings, a pair of chickens, half a peck of dofighnuts, and cheese to go with them; and soon the parson, in the best of humors, went teetering homeward.

“ The whole matter was soon explained and the stories traced to the Snuffer girls. They were dreadfully cut up and laid the whole on my shoulders; but nobody else blamed me; and as for Betsy Jane and Lyddy Ann, they knew it wouldn’t do a mite of good to keep put out with me. It was only cutting off their own noses, for they couldn’t do without me, anyway. The best of it was when Lyddy Ann came to be getting ready all of a sudden to marry a widower with five children, and didn’t want a soul to know of it till the last minute, especially as she had always declared that she never would marry a widower—no, not if she had to live an old maid till the day of her death —and the girls would never be done hectoring her! “ Now, girls, let me give you one piece of advice: Never be telling beforehand who you will or who you won’t marry. According to my way of thinking, it is more prudent and more modest to wait until you are asked. “As for Lyddy Ann, she owned that I was all right in keeping things to myself, and that she had been ugly in running out so against me; and she went on to say that she had learned one lesson from me and one that she would try to indoctrinate her step-children with, and that was not to fetch and carry from house to house what they might happen to see and hear.”— Harper's Bazar.