Helen Smyles Character Description

Helen Smyles (shown here) also goes with other characters ::
{-Here-} .. .. Juan Diego Character Description
{-Here-} … Dafyd Jones Character Description

!!Caution!!: .. As was commonplace in 1830’s popular entertainment::
This material joyfully refers to the physical side of a loving marriage.
Death lived with them, taking Loved Ones old and young constantly.

The year now is 1838.

Helen Smyles is a Black woman in strong robust health, age 34.

She is a farm Housewife living by a small road south of Worcester, .. .. With a south-north oriented, thickly wooded, slow stream far at the foot of their big field, .. .. .. And, hiking northward in the trees’ edge, forting up in fallen tangles, .. A rough thin trail, .. .. She knows that’s some hard nights up from the busy Connecticut coast-wise foot path, .. In Massachusetts.

Massachusetts has excellent newspapers and Public Education system.

She has 1 or 2 living children, but sent to live with her sister who lives not far away. They are from Black families who have lived in that state for several generations.

Aided always by her loyal husband John, she is a Conductor on the Underground Railway. Her husband John Smyles has an uncanny resemblance to St. John Baptist in some way.

When the audience first hears her name, they should suspect it refers to Helen of Troy. This will be confirmed soon:: She sees her husband smiling while reading a book; she looks carefully and realizes it is Homer’s Odyssey.

Helen of Troy has washed ashore somewhere with St. John Baptist. They are Secret Agents, in a Love Nest, ON A FARM.

They have a parlor with a few musical instruments. She is quite fond of both the popular romantic music and popular romantic poetry of the time. She wishes to have a clarinet made in Bavaria, by a company with “Wurlitzer“ in its name, which she really & truly knows she WILL learn to play well someday.

Helen also keeps a deck of handmade “Fate” cards, rectangles cut from paper sheets with a large scissors, then creatively lettered in her fancy quill hand. They are in a tin card case with painted tortoise shell decoration, .. secreted in the desk in the parlor, .. in the desk’s most secret secret-compartment.

Helen’s cards are patterned after the common type of “Fate” cards, which are very popularly made and used by folk of courting age. As with young courting Human specimens across the world, they have a thrilling Sex Flirtation ritual, in a very respectable family’s parlor, with Momma, and Momma’s friends, staring from the kitchen.

Even so, some decks’ would-be Romance Poem writers, .. They include a lucky wild card, a card commanding the player drawing it to choose someone and kiss their cheek. Thus that person’s blushing would reveal, to everyone and Momma, the height or absence of their Sex Arousal toward you. And of course, all this always reminds everyone of a wide variety other species.

Those ordinary “Fate” cards are an essential stratagem to get the young folk safely married, .. and adhered to each other’s body parts, .. but Helen’s cards have much more universal and profound text.

Helen’s are both profound and poetic, like:: .. .. “Soft Eyes, Warm Hearts, Find Their Proper Way” .. .. Instead of the just crude:: .. .. “You will marry someone who !!DANCES WELL!!” .. .. as young folks’ cards might coyly promise.

Helen re-makes and re-makes each of her cards as its paper wears out, but these now are the evolved descendants of those she made when John came courting, and of course she brought them out when he proposed, immediately after kissing him on the mouth, with her tongue.

The audience should now hear a Horsehair Divan bouncing up and down.

John Smyles gave her the cards’ tin case, painted like a tortoise’s shell, for a wedding gift.

https://collections.osv.org/object-41-2-3 .. metal card case c.1850
https://collections.osv.org/object-22-7-4a-zz .. handmade Fate card game c.1800
https://collections.osv.org/object-20-1-104 .. horsehair divan, with offsprings, c.1858

For one thing, every early morning and every late night she sits at the desk, says a few prayers, and does a reading. But especially, she does a reading when they realize a traveler has come to hide in the barn.

They keep the barn’s side door, which has a fancy braid of woolen cloth by it, .. .(a secret Road sign,). .. they keep that side door unlatched, .. but use the stratagem of pushing it shut and kicking on a pile of the farmyard’s rocky dirt, .. .. the absence of which is easily seen, .. by peeking thru the mill-manufactured eyelet-lace curtains, .. on the locally-glazed back kitchen window, .. beside their special shelf of fancy Majolica from England.

There’s always an urge to dash out and see what’s arrived, but the sun is still dawning so it’s really safer to wait.

So, as almost always, .. Helen waits a bit to hear for unusual noises, .. other than 3 crowing roosters, 4 bleating sheep, 5 quacking ducks, .. and the wheels of a heavy stone-quarry wagon, pulled by a very sedate and large horse munching its oats from its nosebag, passing on the little road, .. while the horse’s driver practices whistling with the birds, strumming a banjo.

Then Helen steps lively to the parlor desk and sits. Then this choosing and reading was unusual from the first moment.

You kno, ink is messy in those days, you always splash or dribble a bit when writing, so people have stuff called “blotting paper” to put on their desks. .. Well, usually Helen simply sets the blotting paper aside, .. and plays the cards on the desk top’s green-painted wood.

Not this time. This time she sets the blotting paper by, .. And then she recalls a green calico napkin, printed with delightful little Spring Bouquets, .. which she happens to have in her pocket.

Dressing, she had folded the calico, which is now at her fingertips, into her pocket, .. A bottle-green cotton kerchief printed with spring flowers, .. .. Dressing, she had brought it from the bedroom cupboard for the day, .. to wrap her shiny hair, .. to keep it sexy for John to brush.

And suddenly Helen of Troy, .. deep in her soul, .. distinctly KNOWS the poetic Romantic Holiness, .. of opening out her calico, .. somewhere on a stormy shore, .. to play the game of “Fate”.

== == == == ==

But John Smyles MUST be introduced again today.
.. For instantly, when Helen has the first card out, and she is reading it, .. John will rush into the parlor.

He’s found the side door was opened, he’s searched every pile of hay, and not yet found the cargo.

== == == == ==

They had been in the True Cause together from the first.
At their wedding, .. with the vows, .. they swore an oath before the congregation, .. to “save the childers” in some way that was still vague then.

But the fervor of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Lecturers, and the very convincing Recruiters, .. That simply galloped them away into action, wild horses as they were. .. .. After a few years, this good situation for a Station was found, and the couple chosen for it.

Next, after the valuable house deed in John Smiles’ name, came John Smile’s Bank Shares, .. an impressive 10 Bank Shares to be exact.

Gold coin to the amount of $350 was raised for him to put on his best suit, .. walk into the town bank, .. show the land deed, .. show a reference letter from a well-established local businessman, .. ..(who had gathered the finances, and met with the Cashier).. .. Then pour a little Niagara Falls of 70 rather small gold coins from a leather bag. ..

.. To become legal owner of some little corner of the Gd Dmned place, .. maybe 3 dozen of those bricks in the wall, .. Maybe 4 feet of sculpted plaster molding, .. or the writing stand, .. or the lamp.

They (and he) had a green-tinted, molded glass lamp, .. its surface made as a pineapple, .. with dozens of green facets throwing sparks. .. That would look quite nice at his house.

Of course what John Smyles really wanted from the bank that fine day, .. a gift for Helen, .. .. Which he would bring home in a decorated buggy which he would hire, .. ..(!Finally he has an idea reflecting Shakespeare’s brilliance!).. .. Her gift from the world of money, .. .. to nail up with a patriotic drape of bunting, .. over the fireplace of the Parlor Of Eden, .. What gift?

The bank’s oil painting of his majesty, .. Gd’s holy saint, .. George Washington, .. grinning like a monkey, posed beside his horse’s butt.

https://collections.osv.org/2020.4 .. stock certificate, $350 for 10 shares, c.1836
https://collections.osv.org/object-15-14-34 .. coin, US. $5 half-eagle, c.1834
https://collections.osv.org/object-3-1-845 .. burning fluid lamp, c. 1850
https://collections.osv.org/object-20-1-114 .. painting: Washington at Dorchester Heights, c.1838

:: zzz
Put more here about “John Smyles’ Bank Draft” .. !!Now they can send money thru the mail!!
And also “John Smyles’ Strong Box”::
An iron box in the small bank’s small iron vault, .. a room of iron, which might stand up to an exploded keg of gunpowder.
:: zzz

That made John the keeper of the keys a trove of documents. .. In that box Reverend John began keep a book he prized above Jimmy’s Bible. .. His treasure he planned to raise before the Riteous Judgement Seat when he was judged.

It was his ledger of baptisms done, .. almost always in a farmyard tub of water, .. which he always consecrated most EMPHATICALLY, .. consecrated to “The True And Holy Cause”, .. in the name of “Our Holy Savior”.

== == == ==

=> BACK TO HELEN’S READING <=
The first card, which Helen has taken from the tortoise shell, with fingertips and eyes shut, .. Lettered in its top left corner, in her bold hand, it has the capitals “O.H.S.” .. .. meaning the couple’s favorite pious euphemism “Our Holy Savior”.

For this pious couple say the name “Jesus Christ” only right out loud in church, .. or whispered in pillow talk. .. .. And Helen makes only 4 cards with “O.H.S.” .. And this is the one with this written by it:: .. “When he walked the roads”.

And her sharp stylus, .. with which she touches a card with eyes still shut, .. its point was directly on “he”. It skipped a lot.

“O.H.S. When he walked the roads”. .. that was the card’s heading. .. Like most, under that were compartments, the topmost saying this:: .. “Dead were raised”, .. four others, .. Then the terrible last:: .. “Wine skins flowed”.

But the sharp stylus said:: .. “HE”.

So Saint John Baptist runs in panicked, .. from fruitless searching the barn, ..

Helen Of Troy whispers loud: .. “!hush!” with a hand up turns her ear. .. She hears Spirit speak as clear as she has ever heard.

She says:: .. I see: Past midnight one man climbed the loft. .. Swooned away faint, just needs reviving. .. .. I’ll get the brandy, you fetch him down. .. He’ll walk again quite dandy. .. You’ll see.

aaa

~~~ ~~~ ~~~
aaa

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{-When I Finish, This Will Be The End Of This Blog Post-}