I told her I was glad she had a house that wouldn’t want shinglin’ right away; it is hard enough to be a Widder without bein’ leaked down on.
And then we meandered off into other friends in the village, and I asked her if Victoria had been cuttin’ up and behavin’?
She said, she guessed my advice had quieted her down. She hadn’t heerd of her actin’ for quite a spell. I felt noble when she told me this, but her very next words made me feel different; I didn’t feel so good as I did. Says she: “Beecher has been talked about some sense you was to the village.”
Says I in a almost dry tone, “I have heerd his name mentioned once or twice durin’ the past few years.”
“I believe he is guilty,” says she with a radiant look.
“Well _I_ don’t,” says I almost warmly. “I don’t believe it no more than I believe my pardner is a drumedary.” And says I firmly, “I will come out still plainer; I don’t believe it no more than I believe Josiah Allen is an ostridge.”
“Oh!” says she with a still more delighted and lively mean, “I never see anybody talked about quite so bad as he has been; and that shows that meetin’ house folks haint no better than common folks.”
Miss Bean is a Nothingarian in good standin’, and loves to see meetin’ house folks brought low; loves it dearly. “Jest think,” says she with that proud and raptuous look on her, “how high he has stood up on a meetin’ house, and how he has been run down it.”
But I interrupted of her by askin’ her this conundrum, in about as cold a tone as they make.
“Miss Bean, which would be apt to have the biggest, blackest shadder at its feet; a mullien stalk, or a meetin’ house?”
“Why, a meetin’ house, of course,” says she.
“Well,” says I, “that is reasonable. I didn’t know,” says I in a very dry tone, “but you would expect to see a shadder as black and heavy as a meetin’ house shadder, a taggin’ along after a mullien stalk. But it wouldn’t be reasonable; the cloud of detraction and envy and malice that follers on at the feet of folks is generally proportioned to their size.” Says I, “Jonathan Beans’es wife, you are not a runnin’ at Henry, you are runnin’ at Religion.”
Says I, “If Christianity can stand ag’inst persecution and martyrdom, if it is stronger than death and the grave, do you s’pose Jonathan Beans’es wife, and the hull Nothingarian church is a goin’ to overthrow it?”