PADUTCH-LIFE-L Archives

From: "Vee L. Housman" <>
Subject: 56-The Gossips
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 17:41:17 -0400

THE GOSSIPS

Right now there is a terrible uproar here on the Mountain.
The wives are spreading gossip, and I wouldn't be surprised if it all
ended up in court with lawyers and the sheriff.

I want to give you the particulars now as best as I can. It's
about Sally Ann Seimoyer, one of old Benj Seimoyer's girls, and
one of those Philadelphia agents that travels around with samples
for storekeepers. The agent in question, they say, is a married man
with three children from Philadelphia. Whatever the real truth is
behind the story, you can guess for yourself.

Sally Ann and her mother had decided to find out who started
the story. They discovered that Betz Miller was the last to tell of it,
so they went straight to Betz to try to find out who told her. She
said Marianda Schmidt told her, so they visited Marianda, and she
said she heard it from Jemima Wafflebach, and Jemima said she got
it from Anne Bensmiller, and Anne said got it from Sam Kissinger's
wife. When they got to Sam's wife, she said she wasn't too sure
who said it, but she heard Polly Bixler talking about it. They finally
got to Polly, and she named someone else who supposedly started
the story. But eventually all leads ended back with Polly. Now
they say Sally Ann Seimoyer is going to town to retain a lawyer and
to have Mrs. Kissinger summoned to court to prove the truth or
falsity of her story.

I, for my part, have nothing to say about the matter. If Sally
Ann really thought a lot about her agent from Philadelphia, she
should have been smart enough to keep it to herself. The ten
commandments in the scriptures forbid all sinful doings, but they
say there should have been an eleventh commandment: "You should
never be found out." It doesn't make any difference how bad a
fellow is nowadays as long as he's smart enough to keep it quiet.

The streets are filled with people who have hands as white as
snow and hearts as black as chimney soot. There are plenty of
church goers who can remold their faces like you can stretch a
gumshoe until they resemble a look of innocence in church on
Sundays. And yet come Mondays, I wouldn't hope to trust them
anymore among a crowd of women than I could hope to lead an
elephant by its tail.

Sally Ann Seimoyer may not have meant anything by it, and I
think the Philadelphia agent was single, but that makes no
difference. It was her business to find out. No farmer would lend
his farm to a man whom he knew nothing of. A good name is
worth more than acres of land. Sometimes women gossip too
much, but let me tell you, if it weren't for their tongues, more
wrong doings would succeed than without them. As things are,
each woman is a detective, and since they know each other so well,
it doesn't take them long to detect when something has run afoul.

I want to tell you one more thing. Sally Ann Seimoyer is just
like a lot of our other girls on the Mountain, and they can all learn a
lesson from her experience. The hand of an honest hard-working
farmer’s son, even though it’s callused from labor, is worth more
than a soft, dishonest hand wearing dress gloves. Any man who has
to leave the city to hunt for a wife is either out to betray or was
betrayed.

But I'll let these things stand on their own. Perhaps there is a
good reason for bringing this problem to young women. Many
families at the Mountain have girls for whom they'd like to find
good husbands, and since Sally Ann Seimoyer is a good-looking,
friendly girl, maybe they want to rescue her name so that she can
get another chance at a city fellow. This is the way many quarrels
get started. And it seems that those who bray the longest during
prayer hour and spend the most time in church are the worst ones
for starting gossip.

Didn't you know that a woman who doesn't trust herself with
men will be the first to suspect other women of misbehavior with
men? A man who has a pure heart will think that everyone else is
pure, and a man who is unclean throws dirt on everyone else.
Christianity bestows purity upon those who have it and makes
rascals out of those who think they have it. Because of this you'll
often find bad people in church. They need to stay close to
Christianity to cover up their ill doings.

Moral: Those unworthy of trust should not be trusted.

* * *

Note: This collection of Boonastiel stories was written by H. A.
Harter in the original Penna-Dutch dialect and were published in the
Keystone Gazette, Bellefonte, PA, between 1894 and 1904. They
were translated and transcribed by Bob James of Alaska and they
are being posted to this PADUTCH-LIFE mailing list with his
permission.

This thread:

• 56-The Gossips by "Vee L. Housman" <>