Classic Poem

The Conversion of a Saint

" Why, Sallie Williams,
I'm proper glad to see ye.
Go straight in t' th' clock-room,
I blazed a fire in ther' this afternoon to take th' chill off
An' it's nice an' warm.
Now you set right down in th' red plush rocker
An' git your breath,
You look all beat out.
Just you set still an' rest
And I'll run out t' th' kitchen
And git ye a good strong cup o' tea an' some cookies.
I won't be a minute. "

" You're real good, Lidy,
But I don't hold with snacks between meals,
Never did, an' I don't dar'st begin now.
Th' tea'll be enough an' plenty.
I been a long walk
An' I do feel a mite tired. "

" I'll leave th' door open
So's we can talk through.
It's been some consid'able time since you was here,
All of two months, I do b'lieve.
I was goin' to git Oren to drive me into town
For a visit with you one o' these days.
However did you happen out here?
On foot too.
We ain't so young as we was, you an' me. "

" We ain't, Lidy, that's a fact,
Though I keep pretty spry, consid'rin'. "

" It's awful ugly footin' this time o' year,
Th' roads ain't dry yet.
A couple more weeks should harden 'mdash.
Now you just drink that,
I made it fire-strong a-purpose,
As Father used to say. "

" It's real revivin',
I feel better a'ready. "

" To think o' your trapesin' way out here,
An' in your best magenta silk too.
I must say I take it very kind.
But 'pears like we be gittin' strangers
When you have to dress up for me. "

" To tell th' truth, Lidy,
You ain't just th' reason I put on this dress.
I had another,
But I'm most afraid to tell it. "
" Don't you be silly, an' le' me take your cup.
This ain't no time o' day to be keepin' things from me.
Wa'n't you th' first I told
When I brought my mind to marry Oren,
An' ain't I been sharin' my troubles with ye ever since!
You got somethin' on your mind, Sallie,
I thought as much when you first come in.
Now you tell me right out what 'tis.
We're old to be hangin' back with one another
An' I'm bound to git it sooner or later.
If you didn't come out a-purpose to see me
What did you come for?
Ther' ain't nobody else to visit out this way
As I'm aware. "

" Ther's a lot o' folks, Lidy,
Only they're dead.
You're forgittin' th' buryin'-ground. "

" Sakes alive! What be you a-doin' to th' buryin'-ground?
I didn't know you ever went near it
'Cep' on Decoration Day. "

" I never did before.
I wanted to see Miss Ziba's grave. "

" Miss Ziba's grave!
Well, you do take me all aback.
I al'ays thought you hated her. "

" Hate ain't no word for th' way I felt 'bout that woman.
That's why I wanted to see her grave. "

" I don't sense your meanin', Sallie.
You'd best begin right at th' beginnin'
An' tell me straight through. "

" I guess I'll have to.
It's preyin' on me somethin' awful.
What's done's done, an' I'm glad,
But I'm kind o' scared too.
Lidy, you promise you won't tell a soul,
Not even Oren. "

" I won't if it'll ease you. Ther'!
Now you git it right out, dear,
I'm listenin'. "
" You mind th' trouble, Lidy? "

" Don't I? Why even us girls was all sides 'bout it.
I've never had nothin' to do with Hannah Williams
Nor Addie Belle Dyer since. "

" Well, that trouble sp'iled my life.
I never telled you how it laid on me.
I couldn't bring myself to speak on't even to you.
But it's been a dwellin' horror all my life,
Like a ghost-story,
Only 'twas I was ha'nted, not a house.
It begun when I was goin' on ten year old.
Miss Ziba'd al'ays been friendly with my folks,
I used to call her Aunt Ziba.
She made lovely paper-dolls;
Many's th' Sat'day afternoon I spent over to her house
Playin' with 'mdash,
An' an old doll's-house she had when she was a little girl.
Then all at once it come, th' quarrel.
Mother telled me I wa'n't never to go to Miss Ziba's agin.
I mind how she looked when she said it,
Not like Mother at all, but a stranger.
That look chilled me clear to th' marrer,
I git th' shivers now, thinkin' of it.
'Twas as if Mother was hid away an' someone else'd took her place,
I ain't never had a shock to beat that,
So lonely as 'twas, an' never been nothin' else since, not once.
I ran away up garret an' cried all afternoon.
I don't run now,
Habit keeps folks quieter if that's all it does.
One day I met Miss Ziba out walkin'
An' she stared right through me as if I wa'n't ther'.
That made me feel creepy
As though I wa'n't ther' myself.
O' course in a village like ours
You can't help meetin's,
But I never got used to Miss Ziba actin's though she could put her foot right down on me
An' feel th' boards under, just th' same.
I used to look in t' th' windows o' Mr. Gale's shop
To see if I could see myself in 'mdash
After she'd gone by.
Then th' girls begun.
Addie Belle took a notion to stick her tongue out at me
Whenever Miss Price's back was turned.
She'd do it a dozen times a forenoon.
An' then she an' Hannah Williams'd h'ist up their desk tops, an' whisper an' giggle behind 'mdash
Till Miss Price ketched 'mdash at it.
Tricky wa'n't th' word for them two.
Hannah'd say she wanted a drink an' ast to go out to th' well;
She had to pass me to git to th' door,
An' goin' an' comin' she'd give me a nasty pinch.
I'd ha' complained to Miss Price, only I darsn't,
Knowin' ther' was somethin' 'bout me,
Somethin' terrible, an' 'couldn't guess what.
If it hadn't ha' been for you an' one or two o' th' others
I think I'd ha' died for shame. "

" Why, Sallie dear, you're tremblin'.
I hadn't no knowledge you took it so hard.
We wouldn't let Addie Belle or Hannah
See our poppy-shows, I remember.
You said they shouldn't see yours for a whole packet o' pins.
I've laughed over it lots o' times since. "

" I expect you thought my dander was up, Lidy,
An' it ought to ha' been.
But th' peth was all gone out o' me,
I wanted to cry all th' time,
An' I wouldn't ha' gone to school
Only Mother made me. "

" What was it all about anyway?
I don't b'lieve I ever heerd. "

" That's th' awful part.
I don't know no more'n th' dead.
I ast Mother once, but she wouldn't say a word,
An' th' look she give me settled me not to ast agin,
'Twas like th' first time only worse.
Mother an' me wa'n't never th' same after.
I couldn't feel to love her like I should
With that secret in between. "

" Sallie! You don't say!
An' you an' your Mother livin' alone together twenty year;
It must ha' been all o' that. "

" It was, twenty-three.
We lived together, but we didn't speak,
Not really speak, I mean.
I used myself for her hard as I could,
But that was all ther' was to it.
I've al'ays been good at flourishin' flowers
An' Mother liked a posy by her bed,
But them flowers was th' nearest we come to speakin'.
I wa'n't no lonelier after she died
Than I was with her livin'.
Did I hate Miss Ziba, Lidy?
'Tis past expressin', I tell ye.
Wa'n't it her took my Mother away from me,
An' all th' youth an' splendour I'd a right to?
Girls needs cossetin' all through th' growin' years
But I didn't never have any,
An' I just lost heart for gay times an' junketin's.
I was a sort o' Ishmael to my own seemin'.
I read his story every night 'fore I went to bed one Winter,
He got to be a kind o' blood cousin,
An' th' thought of ther' bein' another of us comforted me some.
If it hadn't ha' been for you, Lidy —
But ther', if it hadn't been so between us
I wouldn't be here now, tellin' ye.
Don't mind me, dear, tears is a help sometimes,
An' I feel dretful low-sperited. "

" But what about th' buryin'-ground, Sallie? "

" Yes, th' buryin'-ground. I'm comin' to that.
When I heerd last Tuesday Miss Ziba was dyin'
It acted like a crust broke up in me somewheres,
I was so rej'iced 'twas like a jubilee.
I tried to pray aginst it,
But 'twa'n't no use.
I was as happy as though I'd heerd trumpetin' angels
Callin' me to dance before th' ark,
Th' way they done in th' Bible.
I couldn't go to th' buryin', nat'rally,
But I watched it from th' garret window
Windin' up along,
An' when I couldn't see it no more
I went an' got out this dress
An' pressed it nice an' tidy, an' put new lace to th' neck an' sleeves.
Ther' was somethin' I had to do, Lidy.
You needn't feel obleeged to remark it none,
'Cause I had to do it.
I'd got to feelin' old scores must be paid,
An' I was goin' to pay 'mdash for keeps.
I waited a couple o' days
Till I 'lowed all th' tendin' an' visitin'd be done
An' nothin' left to fix but th' stone,
An' you couldn't expect that for some weeks;
Asa Frye makes real pleasin' stones, but he's slow.
When I got up this mornin' an' see what a day 'twas,
With th' wind Southerly an' th' snow-drops up an' noddin',
I know'd 'twas just time.
So I dressed me all up,
Same's I planned,
An' come right along up here to th' buryin'-ground.
I can't go on, Lidy.
It's too dretful now.
Don't, don't let me go on.
Lidy, you mustn't let me go on,
I can't do it. "

" There now, dearie, don't you fret.
You better tell it all out,
It's th' holdin' in's hurtin' ye.
What'd you do, Sallie?
I want to know complete. "

" It's awful, Lidy,
A great deal more awful'n you'd think 'twould be.
I walked right up to Miss Ziba's grave an' — kicked it.
Th' earth was all soft, o' course,
An' mounded up th' way they al'ays leaves 'mdash.
I kicked that soft loam hard's ever I could,
An' I kep' kickin' till I made a big hole.
When I got through I felt as light as air,
All my hate was gone.
I was all full up with lovin' kindness.
Then I went to work an' filled up that hole with my bare hands
An' come right over to you.
Oh, Lidy, don't look at me like that!
I had to do it, an' I feel so happy,
So diff'rent from common,
Like ther' was was wings on my feet
An' my eyes peerin' to a sunrise. "

" But 'twas wicked, Sallie,
A wicked, wicked thing.
I don't see how you, a church member,
Could bring yourself to do such a thing. "

" Neither do I.
Half of me's just as shocked as you be,
But th' other half's so glad I could clap my hands. "

" Don't, Sallie.
It ain't like you.
'Tis a very wrong thing to meddle with a grave.
Oh, whatever shall you do now
With such a mem'ry?
Poor little Sallie!
Poor child! I can't see my way at all. "

" Now don't you go on like that, Lidy.
Half of me's happy an' I ain't wishful to lose it.
You were plumb right,
Tellin' you's done me a heap o' good.
Th' happy half's drowndin' out th' other quicker every minute.
What am I goin' to do?
I settled that when I was pressin' out my dress.
I'm goin' to take in boarders.
I do enjoy havin' company around.
I sent a couple o' notices to the Boston papers yesterday.
I'll bring th' answers right along to you
Soon's I git any.
P'raps I can git a real nice young man,
An' maybe a mother an' daughter.
I should love to have a romance goin' on
Right under my own roof.
That house has had nothin' but gloomy things happen in it
Long's I can remember.
Now I'm goin' to give it smilin' things if I can git to do it. "

" But, Sallie, what will th' minister say?
You can't go on goin' to meetin'
With this on your mind.
You'll have to tell him. "

" I shan't do no such a thing.
I guess I'll give up goin' to meetin' for a spell.
I been steady at it all my life,
But I can't see's any good come from it.
I'm goin' to be a errin' sperit for th' rest o' my days,
Hell can't be no worse nor what I've had;
Anyhow, I'm goin' to resk it.
If th' boardin' works, maybe I'll take a house down to Boston
An' keep at it Winters.
Oh, we're goin' to have a beautiful time, Lidy!
An' I'll git my folks to hire Oren's automobile for picnics an' things.
My! If ther' ain't Oren now, drivin' in t' th' barn.
I must be goin' on along home.
Don't you tell him, Lidy.
If I'm goin' to live with a sin on my conscience
Th' fewer knows it th' better.
An' don't you worrit 'bout me a mite,
Like's not I'll be sorry as can be one o' these days,
But I can't see my way to it now.
I'll be up agin soon's th' answers come.
Ain't th' snow-drops lovely with th' moon on 'mdash?
I don't know as I ree'lect a forwarder Spring,
Ther'll be cherry-blows in next to no time.
No, I won't stay, dear.
I'll just git me a bit o' supper,
An' set that new knittin' stitch on a needle 'fore I go to bed.
I'm so glad I come in. " English