Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a Politician — John Shaqi
Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a PoliticianHolley, Marietta
Religion
Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a Politician
Holley, Marietta
Methodist Church (U.S.) -- Fiction; Temperance and religion -- Fiction; Women -- Suffrage -- Fiction
But from that day Josiah Allen rode on that pass, every chance he got.
Why, he went to the Ohio on it, on a visit to his first wive's sister;
and he went to Michigan on it, and to the South, and everywhere he could
think of. Why, he fairly hunted up relations on it, and I told him so.
And after he got 'em hunted up, he'd take them onto that pass, and ride
round with 'em on it.
And he told every one of 'em, he told everybody, that he thought as much
agin of the honor as he did of the money. It showed that he wus thought
so much of, not only in Jonesville, but the world at large.
Why, he took such solid comfort in it, that it did honestly seem as
if he grew fat, he wus so puffed up by it, and proud. And some of the
neighbors that he boasted so before, wus eat up with envy, and seemed
mad to think he had come to such honor, and they hadn't. But the
madder they acted, the tickleder he seemed, and more prouder, and
high-headeder.
But I could not feel so. I felt that there wus sunthin' strange and
curius about it. And it wus very, very seldom that Josiah could get me
to ride on it. Though I did take a few short journeys on it, to please
him. But I felt sort o' uneasy while I was a ridin' on it, same as you
feel when you are goin' up-hill with a heavy load and a little horse.
You kinder stand on your feet, and lean forward, as if your bein'
oncomfortable, and standin' up, helped the horse some.
I had a good deal of that restless feelin', and oneasy. And as I told
Josiah time and time again, “that for stiddy ridin' I preferred a mare
to a mystery.”
Wall, it run along for a year; and Josiah said he s'posed he'd have to
write on, and get the pass renewed. As near as he could make out, it
run out about the 4th day of April. So he wrote down to the head one in
New-York village; and the answer came back by return mail, and wrote in
plain writin' so we could read it.
It seemed there wus a mistake. It wuzn't a free pass, it wus a order for
Josiah Allen to remove a pig-pen from his place on the railroad-track
within three days.
There it wuz, a order to remove a nuisence; and Josiah Allen had been a
ridin' on it for a year, with pride in his mean, and haughtiness in his
demeanor.
Wall, I never see a man more mortified and cut up than Josiah Allen
wuz. If he hadn't boasted so over its bein' gin to him on account of his
bein' so smart and popular and etcetery, he wouldn't have felt so cut
up. But as it was, it bowed down his bald head into the dust (allegory).
But he didn't stay bowed down for any length of time: truly, men are
constituted in such a way that mortification don't show on 'em for any
length of time.
But it made sights and sights of talk in Jonesville. The Jonesvillians
made sights and sights of fun of him, poked fun at him, and snickered. I
myself didn't say much: it hain't my way. I merely says this: says I,--
“You thought you wus so awful popular, Josiah Allen, mebby you won't go
round with so haughty a mean onto you right away.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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