Isa Nutter speaks from the grave, brushing aside the doctors’ names for what killed him. He insists it wasn’t satyriasis or leukemia, late hours or jealousy over Minnie. He was still strong at sixty-four. What truly laid him low, he says, was the fury of his own family—daughters clamoring, sons threatening, relatives sneering and cursing him right up until he slipped away to Peoria and married Minnie in spite of them all. The mood is bitter and defensive, but also stubbornly loyal. By leaving his will to Minnie, whom he calls “the best and purest of women,” he gets the last word: his love was not a sickness or a scandal, but a choice he stands behind even after death.
Isa Nutter — Summary
Doc Meyers said I had satyriasis, And Doc Hill called it leucæmia— But I know what brought me here: I was sixty-four but strong as a man Of thirty-five or forty. And it wasn’t writing a letter a day, And it wasn’t late hours seven nights a week, And it wasn’t the strain of thinking of Minnie, And it wasn’t fear or a jealous dread, Or the endless task of trying to fathom Her wonderful mind, or sympathy For the wretched life she led With her first and second husband— It was none of these that laid me low— But the clamor of daughters and threats of sons, And the sneers and curses of all my kin Right up to the day I sneaked to Peoria And married Minnie in spite of them— And why do you wonder my will was made For the best and purest of women?