Mrs. Harris

“ Mrs Harris jestly says to me, but t’other day, “Oh! Sairey Gamp,” she says, “how is it done?” “Mrs Harris, ma’am,” I says to her, “we gives no trust ourselves, and puts a deal o’trust elsevere; these is our religious feelins, and we finds ‘em answer.” “Sairey,” says Mrs Harris, “sech is life. Vich likeways is the hend of all things!”’
The barber gave a soft murmur, as much as to say that Mrs Harris’s remark, though perhaps not quite so intelligible as could be desired from such an authority, did equal honour to her head and to her heart. ”

“ Mrs. Harris and her daughters had been lately busy in relieving the family of poor Martha Watson, whom the late circumstances had brought under their notice. The husband, by this good lady's well-timed attendance, had now recovered his health, and had gone to work, while the children were clothed and made decent in their appearance; and their mother never failed to bless the names of Henry and George, and to thank that Providence which had directed them to her cottage. ”

“ The funeral services of Mrs. Harris were conducted in the Presbyterian church at La Crescent, the same building in which [Pg 132] services were held for her husband, at which there were present from our society as representatives Mr. J. M. Underwood, the late Wyman Elliot, and the writer. Her body was laid to rest beside that of her husband in Prospect Hill Cemetery at La Crescent.
Mrs. Harris is survived by four children, ten grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. Frank I. Harris, one of the two sons, is well known to our membership who attend the annual meetings or the state fair ”

“ Harris walkin' down upon a public wharf. Which was the very words she says to me (although they was the last I ever had to speak) was these: 'Sairey,' she says, 'is it a public wharf?' 'Mrs. Harris,' I makes answer, 'can you doubt it? You have know'd me, now, ma'am, eight and thirty year; and did you ever know me go, or wish to go, where I was not made welcome, say the words.' 'No, Sairey,' Mrs. Harris says, 'contrairy quite.' And well she knows it, too. I am but a poor woman, but I 've been sought arter, sir, though you may not think it. ”

“ Harris's face was flushed and that she kept smiling to herself in a vague way, restless and fidgety. Poor thing! Her boy was an only son, like mine, and she was one of those many love-blind mothers who mistake their geese for swans. I saw quite plainly that she had no suspicion of the truth, and was sorry for her. Some one ought to have given her a hint.
The headmaster read his annual report—every paragraph punctuated with vociferous cheers from the back benches—and the Exalted Personage made a speech, unnecessarily diffuse. ”

“ Harris, as he occasionally explains to George and to myself, has daughters of his own, or, to speak more correctly, a daughter, who as the years progress will no doubt cease practising catherine wheels in the front garden, and will grow up into a beautiful and respectable young lady. This naturally gives Harris an interest in all beautiful girls up to the age of thirty-five or thereabouts; they remind him, so he says, of home. ”

“ What does I do? Nothin’. I goes on my way an’ swallers insults from a chit of a girl. I seen lots o’ things sence I come which ’urt my sensitive disposition, but I passes ’em by. Now it comes to tomatoes, an’ I guess we’ll part. You’re an ungrateful girl, an’ I washes my hands of you.”
Mrs. Harris crossed over to the sink, and solemnly washed and wiped her hands. Then she put on her faded black bonnet, which always hung by its rusty strings from a hook behind the door. She stood a minute, on the threshold, and looked at Barbara in Olympic sorrow. ”

“ Harris is willing to offer you his hand in marriage. He is capable of supporting you, and will, I am convinced, prove an excellent husband. By making you his wife he secures you against that future which looks at present dark and hopeless. ”

“ I am afraid my poor husband must have died for want of proper things. But the Lord will reward them for their kindness; and I am sure they are good boys."
Dr. Harris congratulated the cottager upon [59] the restoration of her husband to health, and said that Mrs. Harris should visit her family; and that he would also tell Henry and George that she had called to thank them; but that it was not convenient for her to see them just then. Having again asked her where she resided, he bade her good morning, and she immediately returned home.
When Martha Watson had gone, Dr. ”

“ Buxton," said Helen, smiling tenderly at her aunt; "I believe you would confess to serious symptoms yourself if Aunt Harriet insisted on it. What an extraordinary politician she would make! My sympathy with the woman-suffrage movement is in the nature of an investment. When we women succeed to the control of affairs, I count on achieving distinction as Aunt Harriet's niece." ”

“ In the center of a group of expensive-looking people stood Mother, gorgeous in a gown like a herald’s cloth-of-gold tabard. She was as magnificent as one of the larger chairs in a New York hotel lobby. Her hair was waved. She was coldly staring at Harris through a platinum lorgnon. Round her were the élite of Lipsittsville—the set that wore dinner coats and drove cars. A slim and pretty girl in saffron-colored silk bowed elaborately. A tall man with an imperial chuckled. ”

“ Autumn had stood there before, its great sleeves flapping in the wind; and birds in October never know which way they are going. Across the road, like a large dry-goods box, stood the district school which he attended, where, before the Civil War, the dead woman's sister Eliza had taught. In Eliza Harris's day it was a hard school. The pupils had to stand around the stove in winter, three or four at a time, to keep their ears from freezing. Girls with full breasts and wild boys in their teens founded friendships and flirtations on plans to shame her and make her cry before the class. ”

“ Her accident had revealed to them how much they loved her; and her coolness in danger, and fortitude in suffering, had given them a greater respect for her character.
"We do sincerely thank God, on your account, cousin," said Harold, as soon as they were left alone that Sabbath morning. "It is so seldom a person meets with such an accident, without being seriously injured."
"I hope I feel thankful, too," returned Mary. "I could not help thinking last night, before going to sleep, how uncertain life is. O, I do wish I were a Christian, as I believe you to be, cousin." ”

“ I had come home from a walk, and as I climbed the first narrow stair I saw in the hall above me, a woman standing under the gas, reading a letter. I caught her in silhouette, a black form, very tall and broadening out into a wide hat, but even that way, without feature or detail, arresting. Then, as she heard me, she stepped back so that the light fell on her. I knew at once it was Miss Harris, tried not to stare, and couldn’t help it.
She is really remarkably good-looking—an oval-faced, dark-eyed woman, with black hair growing low on her forehead and waving backward over her ears. ”

“ Harris,' I says to her, 'be not alarmed—not reg'lar play-actors—hammertoors.' 'Thank Evans!' says Mrs. Harris, and bustiges into a flood of tears.
"When the sweet creetur had compoged hersef (which a sip of brandy and water warm, and sugared pleasant, with a little nutmeg did it) , I proceeds in these words. 'Mrs. Harris, I am told as these hammertoors are litter'ry and artistickle.' 'Sairey,' says that best of wimmin, with a shiver and a slight relasp, 'go on, it might be worse.' 'I likewise hears,' I says to her, 'that they're agoin play-acting, for the benefit of two litter'ry men ”

“ She even drove to a house in one of the bye-streets of the village, to see if a certain Ellen, whose black eyes and white aprons had always met her approval, was still out of a situation. All these were at her command—cook, waitress, and nurse. It was fascinating to have everything go so smooth. How delightful to have your own way; how heavenly to make people carry out your plans. Through it all there ran one little thread of doubt as to the steadfastness of Mr. Andrews; this only gave the matter zest. She felt as if it were quite a stirring little vaudeville ”

“ Buster John looked at Sweetest Susan, and Sweetest Susan looked at Buster John. They were too much astonished to say anything.
“Even so, Grandson of Abdallah,” said Aaron, “what says the sun on the wall above your trough? Does it stand at the dinner hour? Why grumble, then, about corn on the cob that I have saved for the grunter?”
“What is the Grunting Pig to me, Son of Ben Ali? Or the sun on the wall? The dinner hour of those who are hungry comes best when it comes quickest. I have hurt my teeth on your nubbins. Take them away.” ”

“ Who's Alphonsine? Your nurse? And what did she say?" asked Miss Varian, with keen interest.
"Some impertinence of the servants after they were sent away, I suppose," said Mr. Andrews, threatening Gabrielle with a look.
"Did Missy hear it?" asked Miss Varian, persisting.
"Papa says I mustn't tell," returned Gabrielle, hesitating.
"Oh," said Miss Varian, sharply. "It is always well to obey one's father."
"Gabrielle makes a great deal out of a very little," said Mr. Andrews, suppressing his annoyance. "She has had the misfortune to be a great deal thrown upon the care of servants. ”

“ And he'd simply hate this scout 'bus with the engine ahead to change into a 'pusher' two-seater in six paragraphs."
Harris was routed, absolutely demoralised. "They told me to put in lots of flying talk," he murmured abjectly, "and tons of local colour to make it lifelike."
"Yes," I said grimly, "but this colour's too local for words."
"Of course, if you think you could do it better yourself," Harris observed with heavy sarcasm, "well, then—"
"Certainly," I agreed heartily. "I don't mind showing you, Harris, seeing you're a pal of mine. Just pass the ink and let your uncle get to work." ”

“ Ay, ruin for time and eternity—having preached to others to become yourself a castaway; but you will not suffer alone, Harris. Your gentle, refined wife will be plunged from comfort to penury; your beautiful, promising children will know the cruel shifts of poverty; will hear their father's name uttered in accents of contempt by a scoffing world; will watch his downward career with fear and loathing, and yet, oh! mark my words, will probably follow in his footsteps, drag out miserable existences, and eventually fill drunkards' graves. ”

“ Harris as capable of the great services and the extraordinary power of endurance with which her name has since been identified. A pale, quiet, delicate woman, often an invalid for months, and almost always a sufferer; the wife of a somewhat eminent physician, in Philadelphia, and in circumstances which did not require constant activity for her livelihood, refined, educated, and shrinking from all rough or brutal sights or sounds, she seemed one of those who were least fitted to endure the hardships, and encounter the roughnesses of a life in the camp or field hospitals. ”

“ If I had only known, I would have cut out all the Lizzies that infested my life and reserved myself for the love that was soon to oust the mere sex-urge.
Next door to us lived a doctor's widow with two daughters, the eldest a medium-sized girl with large head and good grey eyes, hardly to be called pretty though all girls were pretty enough to excite me for the next ten years or more. This eldest girl was called Molly—a pet name for Maria. Her sister Kathleen was far more attractive physically: she was rather tall and slight, with a lithe grace of figure that was intensely provocative. ”

“ Helen had known how to dress in the happy, wild-rose period of her youth; but how can you keep up the flaunting, flowing sweetness of your draperies when you are no longer a girl to be won, but have become a wife who has been reduced to her duties and her virtues? ”

“ They had two nurses all to themselves, quite apart from Miss Harris, who looked after Rose: one uncannily infallible person, omniscient in baby lore—thoroughgoing, logical, efficient, remorseless as a German staff officer; and a bright-eyed, snub-nosed, smart little maid, for an assistant, who boiled bottles, washed clothes, and, at certain stated hours, over a previously determined route, at a given number of miles per hour, wheeled the twins out, in a duplex perambulator, which Harriet had acquired as soon as the need for it had become evident. ”

“ Harris, too, was busy with his thoughts. He measured the obstacles ahead with the greater precision of the masculine mind. To him, love was not a magician's wand to dissolve his difficulties in thin air, but a mighty power which should enable him to uproot them from his path. No matter what stood in the way—what loneliness, what hardship, what disappointment and even disillusionment—he should fight his way out to ultimate victory for the sake of the dear girl at his side. ”

“ I could not resist: I took her hand and drew her to me and kissed her on the lips, slipping my right hand the while up to her left breast: it was as firm as india-rubber: at once I felt my sex stand and throb: resolve and desire fought in me, but I was accustomed to make my will supreme:
"You are the loveliest girl in Lawrence", I said, "but I must really go now: I have an appointment and I'm late." ”

“ Well, suh, I sot dar some little time, but eve’ything wuz so still in de house, bein’s Marse Tumlin done gone down town, dat I crope back an’ crope in fer ter see what Miss Vallie doin’. Well, suh, she wuz cryin’—settin’ dar cryin’. I ’low, ‘Honey, is I say anything fer ter hurt yo’ feelin’s?’ She blubber’ out, ‘You know you ain’t!’ an’ den she cry good-fashion.
“Des ’bout dat time, who should come in but Marse Tumlin. He look at Miss Vallie an’ den he look at me. He say, ‘Valentine, what de matter?’ I say, ‘It’s me! I’m de one! ”