The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 01, November, 1857. Various
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she said this; and the old sailor, turning round, surveyed her with a grin of honest admiration.
"Well said, gal! but you're out o' your reckonin', ef you think women a'n't nothin' in war-time. I tell yew, them is the craft that sails afore the wind, and does the signallin' to all the fleet. When gals is full-rigged an' tonguey, they're reg'lar press-gangs to twist young fellers round, an' make 'em sail under the right colors. Stick to the ship, Miss Sally; give a heave at the windlass now'n then, an' don't let nary one o' them fellers that comes a buzzin' round you the hull time turn his back on Yankee Doodle; an' you won't never hanker to be a man, ef 'tis war-time!"
Sally's eyes burned bluer than before. "Thank you kindly, Mister Snapps. I'm obleeged to you for putting the good thought into my head. (If I don't pester George Tucker! the plaguy Tory!)"
This parenthesis was mental, and Sally went off to bed with a busy brain; but the sleep of youth and health quieted it; and if she dreamed of George Tucker in regimentals, I am afraid they were of flagrant militia scarlet;—the buff and blue were not distinctive yet. However, for the next week Sally heard enough revolutionary doctrine to revive her Sunday-night enthusiasm; the flame of "successful rebellion" had spread; the country began to stir and hum ominously; people assembled in groups, on corners, by church steps, around tavern-doors, with faces full of portent and expectance; ploughs stood idly in the fields; and the raw-boned horses, that should of right have dragged the reluctant share through heavy clay and abounding stones, now, bestridden by breathless couriers, scoured the country hither and yon, with news, messages, and orders from those who had taken the right to order out of the hands of sleek and positive officials.
Nor were Westbury people the last to wake up in the general réveille. Everybody in the pretty, tranquil village, tranquil now no more, declared themselves openly on one side or the other;—Peter Tucker and his son George for the king, of course; and this open avowal caused a sufficiently pungent scene in Miss Sally Parsons's keeping-room the very next Sunday night, when the aforesaid George, in company with several of his peers, visited the farm-house for the laudable purpose of "sparkin'" Miss Sally.
There were three other youths there, besides George; all stout for the Continental side of the question, and full of eager but restrained zeal; ready to take up arms at a moment's notice; equally ready to wait for the ripened time. Of such men were those armies made up that endured with a woman's patience and fought with a man's fury, righting a great wrong as much by moral as by physical strength, and going to death for the right, when death, pitiless and inevitable, stared them in the face.
Long Snapps had been, in his own phrase, "weather-bound" at Westbury, and was there still, safe in the chimney-corner, his shrewd face puckered with thought and care, his steady old heart full of resolute bravery, and longing for the time to come; flint and steel ready to strike fire on the slightest collision. On the other side of the hearth from Snapps sat Zekle in his butternut-colored Sunday suit; the four young men ranged in a grim row of high-backed wooden chairs; Sally, blooming as the roses on her chintz gown, occupying one end of the settle, while Aunt Poll filled the rest of that institution with her ample quilted petticoat and paduasoy cloak, trying hard to keep her hands still, in their unaccustomed idleness,—nay, if it must be told, surreptitiously keeping up a knitting with the fingers, in lieu of the accustomed needles and yarn.
An awful silence reigned after the preliminary bows and scrapes had been achieved,—first broken by George Tucker, who drew from under his chair a small basket of red-cheeked apples and handed them to Aunt Poll.
"Well, now, George Tucker!" exclaimed the benign spinster, "you dew beat all for sass out o' season! Kep 'em down sullar, I expect?"
"Yes'm, our sullar's very dry."
"Well, it hed oughter. What kind be they?"
"English pippins, ma'am."
"Dew tell! be you a-goin to hev one, Sally?"
"No, Aunt Poll! I don't want any thin' English 'round!"
The three young men grinned and chuckled. George Tucker turned red.
"Hooray for you, Sally!" sung out old Snapps. "You're a three-decker, ef ever there was 'un!"
Again George reddened, fidgeted on his chair, and at last said, in a disturbed, but quite distinct voice,—
"I think the apples are good, Miss Sally, if the name don't suit you."
"The name's too bad to be good, sir!" retorted Sally, with a decided sniff and toss of the head. Old Zekle gave a low laugh and interfered.
"You see, George Tucker, these here times is curus! It wakes up the wimmen folks to hev no tea, nor no prospects of peace an' quiet, so's to make butter an' set hens."
"Oh, father!" burst out Sally, "do you think that's all that ails women? I wouldn't care if I eat samp forever, and had nothing but saxifrax tea; but I can't stand by cool, and see men driven like dumb beasts by another man, if he has got a crown, and never be let speak for themselves!"
Sally's logic was rather confused, but George got at the idea as fast as was necessary.
"If 'twas a common man, Miss Sally; but a king's set up on high by the Lord, and we ought to obey what He sets over us."
"I don't see where in Scriptur you get that idee, George," retorted Zekle.
"Well, it says in one place you're to obey them that has the rule over you, sir."
"So it do; but ef the king ha'n't got no rewl over us, (an' it looks mighty like it jes' now,) why, I don't see's we're bound to mind him!"
This astute little sophism confounded poor George for a minute, during which Sally began to giggle violently, and flirt in her rustic fashion with the three rebels in a row. At length George, recovering his poise and clear-sightedness, resumed,—
"But he did rule over us, Mister Parsons, and I can't see how it's right to rebel."
"There don't everythin' come jest square about seein' things," interposed Long Snapps; "folks hed better steer by facts sometimes, than by yarns. It's jest like v'yagin'; yew do'no' sumtimes what's to pay with a compass; it'll go all p'ints to once; mebbe somebody's got a hatchet near by, or some lubber's throwed a chain down by the binnacle, or some darned thing's got inside on't, or it's shipped a sea an' got rusted; but there's allers the Dipper an' the North Star; they're allers true to their bearin's, and you can't go to Davy Jones's locker for want of a light'us so long's they're ahead. I calk'late its jes' so about this king-talk; orders is very well when they a'n't agin common sense an' the rights o' natur; but you see, George Tucker, folks will go 'cordin to natur an' reason, ef there's forty parlamints an' kings in tow. Natur's jest like a no'west squall; you can't do nothin' but tack ag'inst it; and no men is goin' to stan' still and see the wind taken out o' their sails, an' their liberty flung to sharks, without one mutiny to know why!"
"No!" burst out Sally, who had stopped flirting, and been listening with soul and body to Long; "and no man, that is a man, will go against the right and the truth just because the wrong is strongest!"
This little feminine insult was too much for George Tucker, particularly as he had not the least idea how its utterance burned Sally's lips, and made her heart ache. He got up from his chair with a very bitter look on his handsome face.
"I see," said he, quite coldly, "I am likely to be scarce welcome here. I believe the king is my master, made so by the Lord, and I think it is my honest duty to obey him. It hurts me to part otherwise than kind with friends; but I wish you a good night, and better judgment."
There was something so manly in George's speech, that, but for its final fling and personality, every man in the room would have crowded round him to shake hands; but what man ever coolly heard his judgment impeached?
Sally swallowed a great round sob; but being, like all women, an actress in her way, bowed as calmly to Mr. George as if he only said adieu, after an ordinary call.
Aunt Poll snuffled, and followed George to the door; Uncle Zekle drew himself up straight, and looked after him, his clear blue eyes sparkling with two rays,—one of honest patriotic wrath, one of affection and regret for George; while Long, from the corner, eyed all with a serpent's wisdom in his gaze, oracularly uttering, as the