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diff --git a/28467.txt b/28467.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..52ae702 --- /dev/null +++ b/28467.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6959 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Samantha at Coney Island, by Marietta Holley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Samantha at Coney Island + and a Thousand Other Islands + +Author: Marietta Holley + +Release Date: April 1, 2009 [EBook #28467] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AT CONEY ISLAND *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +SAMANTHA AT CONEY ISLAND + + + + +[Illustration: _Marietta Holley_ [_Samantha_]] + + + + +SAMANTHA AT CONEY ISLAND + +AND + +A THOUSAND OTHER ISLANDS + +BY + +JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE + +(Marietta Holley) + +THE CHRISTIAN HERALD + +Bible House, New York + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1911 + +THE CHRISTIAN HERALD + +THE PLIMPTON PRESS NORWOOD MASS U.S.A. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER ONE + + In Which the Coney Island Microbe Enters Our Quiet Home 1 + + CHAPTER TWO + + We set sail for Thousand Island Park and have a real good time, + but Josiah murmurs about Coney. 23 + + CHAPTER THREE + + We seek Quiet and Happiness in their beautiful hants and mingle + with the pleasure seekers of Alexandria Bay. 39 + + CHAPTER FOUR + + We enjoy the hospitalities of Whitfield's aunt's boardin'-house + at the Park, and my pardner goes a-fishin' 57 + + CHAPTER FIVE + + Josiah's imagination about his fishin' exploits carries him to a + pint where I have to rebuke him, which makes him dretful huffy 73 + + CHAPTER SIX + + In which I draw the matrimonial line round my pardner and also + keep my eye on Mr. Pomper 87 + + CHAPTER SEVEN + + In which Josiah proposes to dance and Mr. Pomper makes an + advance 101 + + CHAPTER EIGHT + + In which Mr. Pomper declares his intenshuns an' gives his + views on matrimony 123 + + CHAPTER NINE + + In which Mr. Pomper makes a offer of marriage and Faith has + a wonderful experience 147 + + CHAPTER TEN + + We Hear a Great Temperance Sermon, but Josiah Still Hankers + for Coney Island 163 + + CHAPTER ELEVEN + + In Which We Return Home, and I Perswaide Josiah to Build a + Cottage for Tirzah Ann 183 + + CHAPTER TWELVE + + In Which Josiah Still Works at His Plan for Tirzah Ann's + Cottage, and Decides to Send His Lumber C. O. W. 201 + + CHAPTER THIRTEEN + + In Which Josiah and Serenus Depart Sarahuptishusly for + Coney Island and I Start in Pursuit 211 + + CHAPTER FOURTEEN + + The Curious Sights I Seen An' the Hair-Raisin' Episodes I + Underwent in My Agonizin' Search for My Pardner 221 + + CHAPTER FIFTEEN + + I Visit the Moon, the Witchin' Waves, Open Air Circus, + Advise the Monkeys, Make the Male Statute Laugh, but + Do Not Find Josiah 233 + + CHAPTER SIXTEEN + + The Wonderful and Mysterious Sights I Saw in Steeple Chase + Park, and My Search There for My Pardner 249 + + CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + + In Which I Continue My Search for Josiah Through Dreamland, + Huntin' for Him in Vain, and Return to Bildad's at Night, + Weary and Despairin' 273 + + CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + + Josiah Found at Last! the Awful Fire at Dreamland and the + Terrible Sights I Saw There 293 + + CHAPTER NINETEEN + + We Return to Jonesville and Josiah Builds Tirzah Ann's + Cottage With Strange Inventions and Additions 309 + + CHAPTER TWENTY + + Faith Comes to Visit Us. We Attend the Camp Meetin' at + Piller Pint, and Faith Meets the Lover of Her Youth 327 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + PAGE + + _Marietta Holley_ [_Samantha_] _Frontispiece_ + + "_Serenus Gowdey tramped up and down our + kitchen floor swingin' his arms and describin' + the wonders of Coney Island._" 8 + + "_The old deacon couldn't stand such talk. He + turned him outdoors, slammed the door in his + face, and forbid Faith to speak to him + again._" 14 + + "_I liked Castle Rest. It seemed a monument + riz up to faithful, patient mothers by the hand + of filial gratitude and love._" 49 + + "_I tried to stop him. I didn't want him to + demean himself before the oarsmen tryin' to find + boats that hadn't been hearn on in hundreds of + years._" 68 + + "_'I won't wear a veil,' sez he stoutly. But + the next time a gale come from the sou'west I + laid the brim back and tied the veil in a big + bow knot under his chin._" 83 + + _"'What does ail you, Samantha, lockin' arms + with me all the time--it will make talk! he + whispered in a mad, impatient whisper, but I + would hang on as long as Mr. Pomper wuz + around."_ 99 + + _"As they come nigh me I riz up almost wildly + and ketched holt of my pardner and sez I: + 'Desist! Josiah Allen, stop to once!' The aged + female looked at me in surprise."_ 132 + + "_'No,' sez Mr. Pomper, 'I want it done as + speedily as possible, fer my late lamented left + me thirteen children, two pairs of triplets, two + ditto of twins, and three singles.'_" 144 + + "_Mr. Pomper, thinkin' he would see better, + got up on the bench, and jest as he shouted out + 'How firm a foundation,' the bench broke and + down he come._" 169 + + "_And then he would call in Uncle Nate Peedick + and they would bend their two gray bald heads + and talk about specifications and elevations + till my brain seemed most as soft as + theirn._" 196 + + "_'Serenus and Josiah are havin' a gay time at + Coney Island. I've jest had a card from + Serenus,' sez Miss Gowdey. You could have + knocked me down with a pin feather._" 215 + + "_I stood before what seemed to be a great + city. Endless white towers riz up as if callin' + attention to 'em._" 227 + + "_On we went under the waterfall, up, up, + down, down, and finally shot out jest where we + got in._" 231 + + THE WITCHING WAVES "_Folks get into + little automobiles and steer 'em + themselves._" 236 + + "_A boat full of men and women set out from + the highest peak, shot down the declivity like + lightnin' and dashed 'way out on the other side + of the bridge._" 239 + + "_Rows of high-headed mettlesome hosses._" 247 + + "_I'm tellin' the livin' truth, as she towered + up in front on me, her breast opened and a man's + face looked out on me._" 254 + + "_As I went down with lightnin' speed I had'nt + time to think much._" 259 + + "_Pretty soon it begun to move and one by one + they wuz throwed off and went down I know not + where._" 261 + + _"As I went into Dreamland it seemed as if all + the folks in the city was there."_ 267 + + _"We got in a small boat and wuz carried round + and round till we dived into a dark tunnel."_ 277 + + _"I went forward to see the Head Hunters. I + sez to 'em 'I've hearn of your doin's and I want + to advise you for your good_.'" 282 + + _"It wuz a sight to see, acres and acres of + sand dotted with men, wimmen, and children."_ 287 + + "_I rushed forwards and cried to the lordly + beast above, jest ready to spring: 'Don't harm + Josiah! Devour me instead._'" 304 + + "_I myself never sot foot on the Bowery; I + wuzn't goin' to nasty up my mind with it, though + I hearn there wuz some good things to be seen + there._" 314 + + "_'The suller!' He stood agast, perfectly + dumb-foundered but wuzn't goin' to give in he + had made a mistake. It wuz too mortifying to his + pride._" 319 + + "_I don't know how long they stood there, his + eyes searchin' the dear face and findin' a + sacred meanin' in it._" 348 + + + + +CHAPTER ONE + +IN WHICH THE CONEY ISLAND MICROBE ENTERS OUR QUIET HOME + + + + +SAMANTHA AT CONEY ISLAND AND A THOUSAND OTHER ISLANDS + +CHAPTER ONE + +IN WHICH THE CONEY ISLAND MICROBE ENTERS OUR QUIET HOME + + +When Serenus Gowdey got back last fall from Brooklyn, where his twin +brother, Sylvester, lives, he couldn't talk about anything but Coney +Island. He slighted religion, stopped runnin' down relations, politics +wuz left in the lurch, and cows, hens, and crops, wuz to him as if +they wuzn't. He acted crazy as a loon about that Island. + +Why, Sylvester'ses wife told Miss Dagget and she told the Editor of +the Augur's wife, and she told Ben Lowry's widder, and she told the +Editor of the Gimlet's mother-in-law, and she told me. It come +straight, that Serenus only stayed there nights and to a early +breakfast, but spent his hull durin' time to Coney Island, and he a +twin too. She said Sylvester felt so hurt she wuz afraid it would +make a lastin' hardness. And it made me enough trouble too, yes +indeed! for he would come and pour out his praises of that frisky, +frivolous spot into Josiah's too willin' ears, till he got him as wild +as he wuz about it. + +Why, evenin's after he'd been there recountin' its attractions till +bed-time, Josiah would be so wrought up he'd ride night mairs most all +night. He'd spring up in bed cryin' out, "All aboard for Coney +Island!" or, "There is the Immoral Railway! See the divin' girls, and +the Awful Tower. Get a hot dog; look at the alligators, etc., etc." I +gin him catnip to soothe his nerve, but that didn't git the pizen out +of his system; no, acres of catnip couldn't. + +Oh, how dead sick I'd git of their talk, Coney Island! Luna Park! Well +named, I'd say to myself, it is enough to make anybody luny to hear so +much about it. Steeple Chase! chasin' steeples, folly and madness. +Dreamland! night mairs, most probable. Why, from Serenus' talk that I +hearn onwillingly about toboggan slides, merry-go-rounds, swings, +immoral railways, skatin' rinks, diving girls, loops de loops, and +bumps de bumps, trips to the moon and trashy shows of all kinds I got +the idee there wuzn't nothin' there God had made, only the Ocean and +the little incubator babies, though them two shows wuzn't what you +might call similar and the same size. Why, I myself, with my powerful +mind, would git so cumfuddled hearin' his wild and glarin' +descriptions, that my brain would seem to turn over under my foretop, +and I didn't wonder at Josiah's bein' led away by it, much as I +lamented it, for he soon declared that go there he would. + +In vain I reminded him that he wuz a deacon and a grand-father. He +said he didn't care how many deacons he wuz, or how many +grand-fathers; he wuz goin' to see that beautiful and entrancin' place +with his own eyes. I tried to quell him down, but couldn't quell him +worth a cent, with Serenus firin' him up on the other side. + +One Sunday, Elder Minkley preached an eloquent sermon describing the +glories of the New Jerusalem, and Josiah said goin' home that from +Serenus' tell, the elder had gin a crackin' good description of Coney +Island. + +I groaned aloud. And he sez, "You may groan and sithe all you're a +minter; I shall see that magnificent place before I die." + +"Well," sez I coldly, "I don't want to talk about it Sunday. If +you've got to talk about shows and Pleasure Huntin', do it week days, +and don't pollute this sacred day with it." + +"Pollute nothing!" sez he, and we didn't speak for over two milds. But +another weariness wuz ahead on me, and another strain on my overworked +ear pans. Jest about this time, Whitfield Minkley, our Tirzah Ann's +husband, got jest as much carried away and enthused over some other +Islands, though he had more to show for his het up state of mind. One +thousand and seventy wuz the number of islands he fell voylently in +love with and tried to make us the same. He had been to Canada on +bizness and went through them islands, and wuz overcome by their +extreme beauty. I'd heard that Whitfield's islands wuz as beautiful as +anything this side of the Heavenly gardens. Still, with Serenus on one +side praisin' up Coney, and Whitfield on the other praisin' up his +islands, I got so dead tired of 'em that I wished there wuzn't a +single island on the hull face of the earth. Yes, extreme weariness +had got me so low down as that. + +One evenin', Serenus had been there and talked three hours stiddy, +describin' the charms and attractions of his island. The rush and +roar of the mechanical amusements, so wonderful they made scientific +men wonder. The educated animals that showed how fur animals could be +made to reason and understand. The constant hustle and bustle of the +immense crowds, ever comin', ever goin', ever movin', never stoppin'. +He stood up some of the time describin' the wonders and splendors +there, and tramped up and down our kitchen floor, swingin' his arms +and actin', till, when he left at late bed-time, Josiah wuz pale with +longin', and when I got up to lock the door and let out the cat, my +head seemed to go round and round, and I had to hang onto the door nob +to stiddy myself. + +And the very next forenoon Whitfield and Tirzah Ann and little Delight +come to spend the day. Her name is Anna Tirzah, but I called her +Heart's Delight, she wuz so sweet and pretty, and we've shortened it +into Delight. I wuz glad to see 'em and done well by 'em in cookin'. I +had a excelent dinner started--roast fowl and vegetables and orange +puddin', etc.--but Whitfield, jest as soon as he sot down, begun to +descant on the beauty of his islands. I groaned and sithed out in the +buttery. "Islands agin! I had one island last night till bed-time, and +now I've got one thousand and seventy ahead on me." + +[Illustration: "_Serenus Gowdey tramped up and down our kitchen floor +swingin' his arms and describin' the wonders of Coney +Island._" (_See page 7_)] + +He begun jest as I put my potatoes on to bile, I wuz goin' to smash +'em with plenty of cream and butter; I hearn him till dinner wuz on +the table, and I wuz turnin' out the rich, fragrant coffee and addin' +the cream to it, and his praise on 'em wuz still flowin' in a stiddy +stream, and then I asked him, in one of his short pauses for breath, +how Grout Nickelson's rumatiz wuz. + +He answered polite but brief, and resoomed the subject nearest and +dearest. I then, with dizzy foretop and achin' ear pans, tried to turn +his mind onto politics and religion, no avail. I tried cotton cloth, +carbide, lamb's wool blankets, Panama Canal, literatoor, X rays, hens' +eggs, Standard Oil, the school mom, reciprocity, and the tariff; not a +mite of change, all his idees swoshin' up against them islands, and +tryin' to float off our minds there with hisen. I thought of what I'd +hearn Thomas J. read about Tennyson's character, who "didn't want to +die a listener," and I sez in a firm voice, "I've had a letter from +Cousin Faithful Smith. She's comin' here next spring to make a +visit." + +Whitfield said he should love to see Cousin Faith, but whilst she wuz +here, we all ort to go to the Thousand Islands. + +Sez Josiah firmly, "We ort to take her to Coney Island," and he went +on rehearsin' Serenuses praises, and the education and the bliss one +could git there. He rid his hobby nobly, but Whitfield, bein' young +and spry, could ride his hobby faster and furder, till finally Josiah +got discouraged, and sot still a spell, and then scratched his head, +and went out to the barn. And Whitfield seated himself with ease on +his hobby, which pranced about us till, well as I love the children, I +felt relieved to see 'em go, for my head felt as if the river wuz +rushin' through it. And after they left and we driv over to the post +office, it seemed as if the democrat wuz a boat and the dusty road a +broad, liquid stream, down which we wuz glidin' and the neighin' of +the old mair (we had to leave her colt to home) wuz the snort of a +steamer. My dreams that night wuz about the Saint Lawrence, kinder +swoshy and floatin' round. + +Well, the cold winter passed away, as winters will, if you have +patience to wait (or if you don't either, to be exact and truthful). +The shiverin' earth begun to git a little warmer, kinder shook +herself and partly throwed off the white fur robe she'd wore all +huddled round herself so long, and as the sun looked down closter and +more smilin' it throwed it clear off and begun to put on its new green +spring suit. Them same smiles, only more warm and persuadin' like, +coaxed the sweet sap up into the bare maple tops in Josiah's sugar +bush and the surroundin' world, till them same sunny smiles wuz packed +away in depths of sugar loaves and golden syrup in our store room. +Wild-flowers peeped out in sheltered places; pussy willows bent down +and bowed low as they see their pretty faces in the onchained brook; +birds sung amongst the pale green shadders of openin' leaves; the west +wind jined in the happy chorus. And lo! on lookin' out of our winder +before we knowed it, as it were, we see Spring had come! + +And with the spring come my expected visitor, Faithful Smith. She is +my own cousin on my own side, called by some a old maid. But she +hain't so very old, and she's real good-lookin'--better than when she +wuz a girl, I think, for life has been cuttin' pure and sweet meanin's +into her face, some as they carve beauty into a cameo. She's kinder +pale and her sweet soul seems to look right out at you from her soft +gray eyes, and the lay of her hull face is such that you would think, +if the fire of happiness could be built up under it (in her soul), it +would light up into loveliness. + +She wuz disappinted some years ago (or I d'no what you would call it) +when she sent the man away herself. But she had a Bo when she wuz a +girl by the name of Richard West. Dick West wuz the fullest of fun you +ever see, though generous and good hearted; but he boasted on not +believin' anything, and Faithful's father, bein' a church member of +the closest kind, and she brung up as you may say, right inside the +tabernacle, with her Pa's phylakracy hangin' on the very horns of the +altar, you may know what opposition Richard got from her Pa and her +own conscience. Her conscience, as so many good girl's consciences +are, wuz a perfect tyrant, and drove her round--that, and her Pa. He +wanted to be a good man, but wuz bigoted and couldn't see no higher +than the top of the steeple, and didn't want to. And take these facts, +with her deep true love for Richard, you may know she got tossted +about more'n considerable. + +Richard would make fun right in meetin'--make fun of their religious +observances--and finally, though he wuz good natured, and did all his +pranks through light-hearted mischief and not malice, yet at last he +did git mad at the old deacon, who wuz comin' it dretful strong on him +with his doctrines and exhortin' him, tellin' him he wuz a lost soul +and had been from before his birth. Then Richard sassed him right back +and told him he didn't believe in _his_ idee of the Deity. + +The old deacon couldn't stand such talk. He turned him outdoors, +slammed the door in his face, and forbid Faith to speak to him again. +She obeyed her Pa and her own conscience; but it seemed to take all +the nip out of her life. You see, she loved this young man; and when +anyone like Faith loves it hain't for a week or a summer, but for +life. + +He writ to her burnin' words of love and passion, for he loved her too +in the old-fashioned way Adam did Eve--no other woman round, you know. +And the words he writ wuz, I spoze, enough to melt a slate stun, let +alone a heart, tender and true. She never writ a word back, and at +last she wouldn't read his letters and sent 'em back onopened. That +madded him and he went on from bad to worse, swung right out into +wickedness. He seemed to git harder and harder, and finally seein' he +could make no more impression on Faith than he could on white clear +crystal, he went off west, as fur as Michigan at first, so I hearn, +and so on, I don't know where to. + +[Illustration: "_The old deacon couldn't stand such talk. He turned him +outdoors, slammed the door in his face, and forbid Faith +to speak to him again._" (_See page 13_)] + +Well, Faith lived on in the old home, very calm and sweet actin', with +a shadder on her pretty face, worryin' dretful about her lover, so it +wuz spozed. But at last it seemed to wear off and a clear white light +took its place on her gentle forward, as if her trouble had bleached +off the earthly in her nature so her white soul could show through +plain. Mebby she'd got willin' to trust even _his_ future with the +Lord. + +Dretful good to children and sick folks and them that wuz in trouble, +Faith wuz. Good to her Pa, who wuz very disagreable in his last days, +findin' fault with his porridge and with sinners, and most of them +round him. But she took care on him patient, rubbed his back and +soaked his feet, and read the Sams to him, and reconciled him all she +could, and finally he went out into the Great Onknown to find out his +own mistakes if he had made any, and left Faith alone. + +The house wuz a big square one with a large front yard with some +Pollard willers standin' in a row in front on't, through which the +wind come in melancholy sithes into the great front chamber at night +where Faith slept, or ruther lay. And the moon fallin' through the +willers made mournful reflections on the clean-painted floor, and I +spoze Faith looked at 'em and read her past in the white cold rays and +her future too. + +She hired a man and his wife to live in part of the house, and she +herself lived on there, a life as cold and colorless as a nun's. But +there wuz them that said that she loved that young West to-day jest as +well as she did the day they parted, bein' one of the constant naters +that can't forgit; that she kep' his birthdays every year, but +sarahuptishously, and on the anniversary of the day she parted with +him, nobody ever see her from mornin' till night. + +The tall Pollard willers wuz the only ones that could look down into +her chamber, and see how she looked, or what she wuz doin'. And they +never told, only jest murmured and sithed, and kinder took on about it +in their own way. But the next day, Faith always looked paler and +sweeter than ever, they said. + +Well, I wuz glad enough to see Faith. I think a sight on her and she +of me, and we had a real good time. Josiah sez to me the day after +she come, "She is the flower of your family!" + +And I told him I didn't know as I should put it in jest that way, and +he might jest as well be mejum, sez I, "You're quite apt to demean the +relation on my side, and if you take it into your head to praise one +of the females, you no need to go _too_ high." + +"Well," he repeated, "she is the flower of the Smith race. Of course," +sez he, glancin' at my liniment and then off towards the buttery full +of good vittles, "I always except _you_, Samantha, who I consider the +fairest flower that ever blowed out on the family tree of Smith." + +Josiah is a man of excelent judgment. But to resoom backward, I had a +dretful good visit with Faith and enjoyed her bein' with us the best +that ever wuz. Instead of makin' work she helped, though I told her +not to. She would wipe and I would wash, and we would git through the +dishes in no time. She hunted round in my work basket and found some +nightcaps I'd begun and would finish 'em, put more work on 'em than I +should, for I slight my every day sheep's-head nightcaps. But she +trimmed 'em and cat-stitched 'em, till they wuz beautiful to look +upon. She wuz always very sweet and gentle in her ways. As wuz said +of her once, she entered a room so quietly and gracefully, she made +all the other wimmen there feel as if they'd come in on horse-back. +Now that I hadn't seen her for some time, it seemed as if I hadn't +remembered how lovely and interestin' she wuz. + +We had a good visit talkin' about the world's work, and reciprocity, +and Woman's suffrage--which we both believed in--and hens, both +settin' and layin'. And we talked about the relation on our two sides. +Of course, some of the wimmen hadn't done as we thought they ort to; +but we didn't run 'em, only wuz sorry they wuz so different. + +There wuz Aunt Nancy John and Aunt Nancy Jim, widders of the two old +Smith twins. I told Faith I wuz sorry they wuzn't more like her mother +and mine, our mothers wuz so much better dispositioned, and fur better +lookin', and didn't try to color their hair and act younger than they +wuz; and Uncle Preserved's boy, a lawyer, I told Faith it wuz a pity +he wuzn't more like our Thomas Jefferson, though it wuzn't to be +expected that there _could_ be two boys amongst the relations so +nearly perfect as Thomas Jefferson wuz; but I didn't act hauty, only +wuz sorry he hadn't turned out so well. + +And Uncle Lemuel's two girls, I said I wouldn't want it told out of +the family, but they wuz extravagant and slack, and their houses +didn't look much like Tirzah Ann's and Maggie's house. But we hadn't +ort to expect many such housekeepers as our children wuz. And we +talked about the Thousand Islands and she promised to go out with +Josiah and me the next summer if nothin' happened. And Josiah then and +there, tried to make us promise to go to Coney Island on our way +there. "On our way," sez I, "it would be five hundred milds out of our +way!" + +"And well worth it!" sez he, "to see what Serenus see, and hear what +Serenus hearn. Why I git so carried away jest hearin' about that +magnificent spot that I have to fairly hang onto myself to keep from +startin' there to once bareheaded." + +"I know it, Josiah; you've acted luny about it. And if jest hearin' +about it harrers your nerve so, what would seein' it do?" + +"My nerve ain't harrered," he sez. + +Sez I, "Can you deny I have had to give you quarts of catnip after you +have had a seancy with Serenus about that frivolous spot, full of +hilarity and temptation?" + +"Because you have drownded out my insides with catnip, it hain't no +sign I needed it. And I tell you, Samantha Allen, you may demean that +grand glorious place all you're a minter; I shall see it ere long. It +is the shinin' gole I have rared up in front of me and I'm bound to +set on it." + +Sez I, "If you hain't got any nobler gole than that ahead on you I +pity you from the bottom of my heart." And to kinder skair him I sez +agin, "Do you, a Christian deacon, want to act frisky and go +pleasure-huntin' at your age?" + +"Why," sez he, "Serenus sez it is the most entrancin'ly beautiful and +fascinatin' spot on earth. He sez, and can prove, it is the biggest +playground in the hull world, to say nothin' of what you can learn +there, and folks come from foreign countries jest to see it. Their +first question when they land is, 'Where is Coney Island? Lead me to +it!'" + +"Oh shaw!" sez I. + +"Well, it is so, and why should such droves of folks go there if it +hain't worth it? Serenus sez and can prove, that a million folks go +there in one day sometimes, and hundreds of thousands most every +day." + +Sez I solemnly, "Do you remember the him, 'Broad is the road that +leads,' you know where. 'And thousands walk together there.' Do you +want to walk with 'em, Josiah?" + +"Yes, I do, and lay out to." + +Oh how deep the pizen had gone into his solar system! I see scarin' +didn't do no good, so I tried tender talk to wean him from the idee. I +told him I thought too much on him to resk him there in such crowds. +He wuz too small boneded and his head too weak to grapple with the +lures and temptations that would surround him, and I'd never give my +consent to his goin,' much less lead him into temptation. + +"Lead your granny!" sez he in a rough axent. And that wuz all the good +my lovin' talk did. + +Faith said she didn't care about goin'. But we took her to visit the +children, though the day I took her to Whitfield's he had of course, +jest like Josiah, to ride that hobby of hisen which raced and cavorted +round us, till before night he got us both most as wild as he wuz +about the Islands. But she had to go from our house to Uncle Ornaldo +Smithses, and had promised to visit friends out to Ohio durin' the +summer. I hated to have her go. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +WE SET SAIL FOR THOUSAND ISLAND PARK AND HAVE A REAL GOOD TIME, BUT +JOSIAH MURMURS ABOUT CONEY. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +WE SET SAIL FOR THOUSAND ISLAND PARK AND HAVE A REAL GOOD TIME, BUT +JOSIAH MURMURS ABOUT CONEY. + + +Soon after, Whitfield wuz obleeged to go to Canada agin on that +bizness and go through them Thousand Islands, and said he felt like +jumpin' off the boat, swimmin' ashore and buyin' the hull on 'em, they +wuz so entrancin'ly lovely. But by holdin' onto his principles and +patience (of course he'd got quite a lot of patience, he'd been +married a number of years) he managed to git through without jumpin' +off the boat and tacklin' the job of buyin' 'em, but said to himself, +"If my life is spared to finish up that bizness I'll come back and buy +ten or a dozen." + +So sure enough on his way back he stopped off at Alexandria Bay and +tackled a real estate agent to see what he would ask for a few islands +close to the beautiful Bay. He had a idee, I spoze, of locatin' the +relation on his side and hern round on the different Islands, mebby +an island apiece. But to his surprise and horrow he found that the +price for the smallest one wuz appallin'. But he vowed that if it took +every cent of money he had (and he's quite well off) he would own a +piece of one big enough for a house. + +So, after searchin' both by water and by land, he found a buildin' +spot he felt able to buy. It wuz on one end of an island that wuz +called Shadow Island, mebby because the shadder of the tall trees upon +it wuz mirrored so plain in the water, makin' it look as if there wuz +another and fairer isle below. + +There wuz a big empty house standin' on one end of the Island, the +owner bein' in Europe and not wantin' to rent it. There wuz a portion +of it smooth and grassy, though the grass wuz kinder thin in places, +the rocks come up so clost to the surface. But as I told Whitfield, +stun is cleaner than dirt, and more healthy, unless you have 'em both +throwed at you, in that case dirt is more healthy. He said the spot +wuz dry and there wuz some hemlock and pine trees standin' on one end +on't, and under 'em wuz a carpet of the rich brown leaves and pine +needles that Whitfield thought would be beautiful for little Delight +to play in. + +And on the spot he'd picked out for a house the soil wuz deep enough +for a good suller. Tirzah Ann always did love sullers; she kinder took +to 'em. She has to go down suller most the first thing when she comes +home visitin'. She never seems to want anything, only to sort o' look +round. Some say her ma wuz so; but there is worse things to take to +than sullers, and I wuz glad enough there wuz a place there where +Tirzah Ann could have one. + +Well, I declare I fell in love with the place myself. And he beset us +to go out and see it, and early in the summer we sot sail, the hull on +us, for the Thousand Island Park, a good noble campin' ground, though +middlin' hot in some spots. I've been asked what made it so much +hotter there round the Tabernacle than it was up to Summer Land, where +the Universalists wuz encamped. And I don't spoze it is because they +believe in hotter places, but it kinder sets folks to thinkin'. Both +places are pleasant and cool enough in moderate weather. + +I hadn't no idee that so beautiful a spot wuz so nigh us. For as near +as we've lived to 'em, Josiah and I never laid eyes on them islands +before. But I've hearn of folks that lived within' hearin' of Niagara +Falls that never see that grand and stupendous wonder of the world; +they didn't see it just because they _could_. Queer, hain't it? But it +is a law of nater, and can't be changed. + +So one warm lovely mornin' we sot out. We went by way of Cape Vincent +which we found afterwards wuzn't the nearest way, but we didn't care, +for it gin us a bigger and longer view of the noble St. Lawrence. Cape +Vincent is a good-lookin' place, though like Josiah and myself, it +looks as if it had been more lively and frisky in its younger days. +Pretty soon the big boat hove in sight. We embarked and got good +seats, Whitfield full of bliss to think he wuz started for his +islands. + +And sure enough, tongue can never tell the beauty and grandeur we +floated by that afternoon; nor pen can't, no, a quill pen made out of +a eagle's wing couldn't soar high enough. And my emotions, as I took +in that seen, would been a perfect sight if anybody could got holt of +'em, as I rode along on that mighty river that is more like a ocean +than a river, holdin' the water that flows from the five great inland +seas of North America, the only absolutely tide-less river in the +world. It is so immense in size that the spring freshets that disturbs +other big rivers has no effect on its mighty depths, though once in a +while, every three years, I think it is, the river draws in her old +breath in an enormous sithe two or three feet deep, and stays so for +some time. I d'no what makes it nor nobody duz. But truly there is +enough in this old world to sithe about, as deep sithes as a mortal or +a river can heave. + +But to resoom forwards. The beautiful river bore us onwards, the green +shores receedin' on each side till pretty soon it got to be not much +shore but seemin'ly all river, all freshness and freedom and blue +sparklin' water, and blue sky above. Nater wuz foldin' us in her +faithful arms and sweepin' us away from the too civilized world into +the freshness and onstudied beauty of her own hants. + +I sot there perfectly entranced, and nothin' occurred to break my rapt +musin's save my pardner's request for a nut cake and a biled egg, and +a longin' murmer about Coney Island and a wish that he wuz started for +there. But that didn't seem to quell my emotions down. I handed the +food to him with a hand that seemed some distance off from my real +self. + +The first big island we went by wuz called Carleton. Standin' on it, +loomin' up tall and solemn and mysterious, wuz some high stun towers. +They stood up there as if tellin' us how little we knew. They looked +like great exclamation points set there to express the futility of our +boasted knowledge. + +Who built them chimblys? Who started the fires under 'em? Who drinked +the tea that wuz steeped there? What kind of tea wuz it? Did the water +bile? How did them tea drinkers feel and look and act while them +chimblys carried off the smoke of their fire? What wuz their highest +aspirations and idees? What wuz their deepest joy and keenest pain? +What goles did they see ahead on 'em, and did they ever set down on +them goles? I can't tell nor Josiah can't. A hundred years ago one +moulderin' old head-stun leaned over the grave of one of that company. +Wuz it a glad or a sad heart that rested there in that ancient grave? +Well, the sadness or the joy is jest as much lost and forgot as the +smoke that wafted up towards the sky on the June and December mornin's +of 1600 odd. + +As I thought of all these things, them lofty towers riz up like +gigantick skeleton fingers outstretched mockin'ly. They seemed to be +sayin' to me and Josiah and the world at large, "You may boast of +your inventions, your marvels of this age, your civilization, your +glory, your pryin' into dark continents and unexplored regions of land +and science. But what do you know anyway? Of what consequence are you? +How soon your life and your memory will be utterly wiped out and +forgotten. How soon the careless sun will forget the shadow you cast +on the earth's bosom. How soon the green grass of the forgettin' earth +will grow fresh and untrodden and cover up the traces of your eager +footsteps, no matter how deep you thought you had made the track you +walked in. How soon it is all wiped away as if it had never been. And +Mom Nater, instead of weepin' over your loss, goes on wreathin' new +flowers for new hands to gather, and mebby forgits to drop even a bud +on the dusty mound where you lay sleepin'--the sleep of long +forgetfulness. + +"Of what account are you anyway? Poor blind voyagers, floatin' by me +jest as so many generations have gone past--canoe and white sails +floatin' along, floatin' along, comin' in view of me in the fur blue +hazy distance, comin' into the broad light before me and glidin' off +and disappearin' in the shadows. Forever and ever, new ones comin,' +comin', goin', goin', year after year, generation after generation. +And here we have stood calm, settled down, pintin' up into the heavens +where our history is gathered up, where the ones that made our history +are gathered like the drops of spray from the river that has washed on +the shores at our feet, and then evaporated up agin into the blue +sky." + +And as I lost sight of them stun towers in the distance, they seemed +to say, "Float on, poor voyagers; float along with your pitiful little +crumbs of knowledge and wisdom carried so proudly. How soon the +shadows will drift apart to take you into 'em and then close up and +hold you there forever. And out of the shinin' west new faces will +come growin' plainer and plainer as the boat draws near; they will +shine out full and clear in front of me and then glide away into the +mist--I shall lose sight of 'em jest as I do of you to-day. Comin'! +comin'! goin'! goin'! They will look at me and wonder jest as you do +to-day, and I will say to 'em jest as I do to you, 'Hail and +farewell!'" + +Oh what emotions I did have! And I hadn't more'n got to this pint in +my meditatin', when I hearn a voice on the off side on me (Josiah wuz +on the nigh side). + +The voice said, "Oh how I wish I could be put back there jest a +minute and see what them tall towers see when they wuz built!" + +I felt that here wuz a congenial soul and I felt friendly to him as +one would hail a familiar sail when they wuz floatin' on foreign +waters. The voice went on: + +"Oh how I wish I could be a fly, and fly back there for a hour." + +Instinctively I looked round. The speaker weighed three hundred pounds +if he did an ounce, and the idee of his bein' turned into a fly seemed +to bring down my soarin' emotions more than considerable. Truly, we +ort to be careful how we handle metafors. If he'd said he wanted to be +changed into a elephant or a camel, or even a horse, it wouldn't have +seemed so curious, but a fly!!! Dear me! + +Clayton is a good-lookin' drowsy sort of a place, and kinder mixed up +lookin' from the aft forecastle, where I stood; but at last the little +foot bridge that connected us with the shore wuz took up, the old boat +gin a loud yell to skair the children and young folks back from the +water's edge, and the boat riders from fallin' off the boat, and we +sot out agin and floated along. + +And now pretty soon the islands grew closter and closter together, +and we wouldn't no more than go by one lovely one, than another more +perfect lookin' hove in sight, and then another and another, each one +seemin'ly more beautiful than the last. + +Some times we would go clost up to the shore, by islands whose green +forests swep' clear down to the water's edge, makin' the water look +green and cool and shady, and the water would narrow itself down +between two houses seemin'ly jest to be accomodatin', and run along +between 'em like a little rivulet with water lilies and buttercups +dippin' down into it on each side and boys wadin' acrost. Jest think +on't, that big noble-sized river, dwindlin' itself down jest to +obleege somebody. + +And sometimes big houses would loom up jest above the water's edge, +their daintily shaded winders lookin' down into the green waves and +reflected there, anon a stately mansion would set back a little with +towers and pinnacles risin' above the green trees, and cool shady +walks windin' by summer houses and bright posy beds, and gayly dressed +folks walkin' along the beautiful paths, and mebby a pretty girl +settin' in a boat, and a hull fleet of boats filled with gay pleasure +seekers would glide along like gayly plumed sea birds, and fur in the +distance and on every side white sails would sail on like bigger birds +of white plumage, all set out for the Isle of Happiness. + +I pinted out the metafor to Josiah. + +"Isle of Happiness?" he sez, sort o' dreamy like. "That's right. +Serenus sez its everywhere, all over the place." + +"What place?" sez I, suspicion darkenin' my foretop. + +"Why, Coney Island," sez he, "that's the only Isle of Happiness I ever +hearn tell on." + +I gin him a look. "Would you compare Coney Island with the beautiful +Isle of Happiness that the poets sing on?" I sez, severe like. + +"Where is it?" sez he. + +"Why," sez I, "It ain't ennywheres. Its a metafor of the brain." + +"Is it ketchin'?" sez he. "Seems to me I've hearn tell of that disease +before!" And then before I could gin him an indignant response, he +stuck his fingers in his ears and sot there grinnin' like a jimpanzee +all the time I wuz speakin' out my mind. But to resoom. + +Anon a bridge would rise up its fairy arch and connect two islands +together, each one holdin' a mansion that looked like a palace, and +the bright awnin's of the winders, the pillars and pinnacles, and gay +colors, reflected in the water makin' fairy palaces below as well as +above, and made the hull seen as we journeyed on one of enchantment, +that would made the grand Vizier of Bagdad turn green with envy. And +every palace, mansion, and cottage had its pretty boat-house, with the +water layin' there smooth and invitin' waitin' for the boats to be +lanched on its bosom, actin' for all the world like a first class +family stream, warranted to carry safe and not kick and act in the +harness. And then mebby the very next minute it would swell itself out +agin, and be twenty or thirty milds acrost, rushin', hurryin', and +dashin' itself along, hastenin' to the sea. + +Actin' as if it had sunthin' dretful pressin' and important to tell +it, and mebby it had. Who knows the language of the liquid waves as +they whisper to each other on sunny beaches and at the meetin' of +placid waters, makin' love to each other like as not--one tellin' the +other of the sweet cow-slip and ferny medders it had to leave at the +loud call of its love, the River. The River murmuring back deep words +of worship and gratitude at the feet of its newly arrived love. + +And then mebby the comin' rivulet complains, moanin' kinder low and +sorrowful, as it swashes up on sharp stuny beaches, for what it left +behind. Meadows and orchards full of May's rosy blossoms, low grassy +shores fringed with flowers and fresh, shinin' grasses. And white, +dimpled baby feet mebby that waded out in its cool shallows. Pretty +faces that bent over its sheltered pools, as in a lookin' glass, +wavin' locks that scattered gold light down into the water, bright +eyes that shone like stars above it. I shouldn't wonder a mite if it +missed 'em and tried to say so in its gentle, pensive swish, swash, +swish. + +And then mebby the River resented it and kinder roared at it; mebby +that is what it is sayin' in its louder and more voylent tones, +upbraidin' it for lookin' back to its more single and lonesome career, +when it now has _Him!_ _Him!_ Rush! Roar! Crush! Roar! Roar! + +We can't tell what the river is talkin' about, in its calm gentle +moods or its voylent ones. Who knows what the loud angry scream and +screech of the deep waves say as the tempest and storm presses down on +'em and the Deep answers back in a voice of thunder, with its great +heart beatin' and heavin' up and throbbin' in its mad pain and +frenzy? Who knows what it is roarin' out, as it meets opposin' forces, +wave and rock, and dashes aginst 'em--fightin' and dashin' and tryin' +to vanquish 'em like as not? Who can translate the voice of the +waters? I can't, nor Josiah, nor nobody. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +WE SEEK QUIET AND HAPPINESS IN THEIR BEAUTIFUL HANTS AND MINGLE WITH +THE PLEASURE SEEKERS OF ALEXANDRIA BAY. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +WE SEEK QUIET AND HAPPINESS IN THEIR BEAUTIFUL HANTS AND MINGLE WITH +THE PLEASURE SEEKERS OF ALEXANDRIA BAY + + +Sometimes we would sail through the green water, so clost to the shore +we could almost pick off some of the cedar and pine boughs as we went +past, and we could look off into the green and sunny aisles of the +trees into beautiful solitude and quiet. And we'd want to foller Quiet +and Happiness back into them beautiful hants. And then agin, we'd +float by an island where there would be lots of white tents, with +wimmen and children and men and boys standin' out wavin' their +handkerchiefs and shoutin' to us, good natered and sociable. + +And agin we'd go by a kinder high island with a tall, noble mansion +standin' up on it with towers and balconies, and winders all +ornamented off, and flags a-flyin'. And every house and every tentin' +ground had their own little wharfs runnin' down into the water and +boats hitched to 'em, jest as we'd hitch the old mair and colt to a +hitchin' post. And most of 'em had picturesque boat-houses painted up +like the houses. + +And all of these pretty houses and towers and flags and boats and +everything wuz reflected down into the water, so there wuz handsome +pictures above, and still more extremely beautiful ones below. For the +sunlight shadow pictures wuz more beautiful fur than the reality, as +is often the case. Every little sail-boat and canoe had its white +shadder floatin' along by it, shinin' out from the blue and sea-green +surface of the water. + +Josiah wuz turrible interested in tryin' to see if the reflections wuz +exactly like the real seen up above, and he kept leanin' over the edge +of the boat tryin' to turn his head upside down so's to git a better +look, and at last he nearly fell overboard into the water only I +grabbed him quick. + +Sometimes,--I don't know what made it,--there would be long lines of +light in different colors layin' on the water; long waveless furrows +of palest amethyst, lilock, pale rose-color, and pearl, soft green and +blue, way off and near to, wide and long and changin' all the time. +Why, some of the time it would seem as if the surface of the river wuz +a shinin' pavement made of them glowin' and lustrous colors, that you +might walk out on. And then agin, cold Reality would say to you that +if you tried it, you'd most probable git drownded. + +Anon we went by a island with a house standin' on it, the hull thing +seemin'ly nothin' but house right in the strongest current of the +river, and on the end of the island wuz a wheel fixed that run all the +machinery of the house, lightin' it, and pumpin' water, and runnin' +the coffee mill and sewin' machine, and rockin' the cradle, for all I +know. + +The river waitin' on 'em, and doin' it cheerful. A soarin' soul of +power and might, so strong that a wink from its old eye-lids could +swallow up a fleet of ships, and a flirt of its fingers overthrow a +army of strongest men and toss 'em about like leaves on an autumn +gale. To see such a powerful, noble body, that wuz used to doin' the +biggest kind of jobs, quietly bucklin' down pumpin' water to supply a +tea-kettle, and churn a little butter, mebby! + +Why, thinks I, what a lesson to hired girls that is, they're always so +fraid of doin' a little more than it is their place to do. They're so +fraid of settin' back a chair, if it is their place to cook, and so +afraid of bilin' a egg if it is their place to slick up the house. +Why, it wuz a lesson in morals to see that big grand river crumplin' +down to do housework for a spell. + +Frontenac Island used to be called Round Island, I guess because it +wuz kinder square in shape. It is a handsome place with a immense +hotel[A] settin' back most a quarter of a mild, and jined by a long +railed balcony with another, makin' room enough, it seemed to me, for +an army. The broad, handsome path leadin' up to it wuz bordered with +beautiful flowers and shrubs, lookin' lovely against the vivid green +of the lawn. + +I liked the name Frontenac first rate, and Point Vivian, and the name +of the hotel on St. Lawrence Park, Lotus, seemed highly appropriate +for the idle hours of rest and pleasure in the balmy summer-time. + +And that park, while it could pass itself off for an island, wuz +really the main land. And if you wanted a doctor on a dark, stormy +night, you could get one without going on the wild waves; and if you +got skairt in the night and sot off to run, you could run as fur as +you wanted to without gittin' drownded. + +I spoke to Josiah about this and he agreed with me, though he took the +occasion to bring in Coney Island, much to my shagrin. + +"I wish," sez he, "I wish we could stop off somewheres and git a hot +dog." + +"A hot dog?" sez I, consternation showin' in my foretop. "Don't you +know that dogs roamin' round loose and overhet in this sultry weather +is apt to git mad and bite you?" + +"'Tain't that kind of animile I mean. I mean the kind they eat--in +Coney Island." + +"Do they eat dogs in Coney Island?" I asks in a faint voice. + +"Yes," sez he. + +"And would you eat enny on't?" + +"Why not?" sez he. + +"Why not?" I cries regainin' my voice to once. "Josiah Allen, have you +became a canibal like them as lives in heathen lands and welcomes +civilized folks with open mouths?" + +"Oh," sez he, "'tain't nothin' like that. These dogs hain't made o' +people. No, they air made from sassiges and cooked in front of a open +grate fire. They call 'em hot dogs and Serenus sez--" + +I didn't gin him no chance to tell what Serenus sez. I sez many things +to him there and then that wuz calculated to make him forgit Coney +Island for awhile. + +But to resoom forwards. We went by a big castle that wuz built up on a +hill on a island of considerable size with quite a grove of trees on +it. It wuz a noble, gray stun castle, with high towers and pinnacles +shinin' up toward the blue sky--Castle Rest, its name wuz, and I +thought most probable anybody could rest there first rate. The one +that built it and the one it wuz built for, had gone up into another +castle to rest, the great Castle of Rest, whose walls can't be moved +by any earthly shock. A good little mother it wuz built for, a +hard-workin', patient, tired-out little mother, who wuz left with a +house full of boys, and not much in the house, only boys. How she +worked and toiled to keep 'em comfortable and git 'em headed right, +washin', cookin', makin', and mendin'; learnin' 'em truthfulness, +honesty, and industry with their letters; teachin' 'em the +multiplication table and the commandments; trimmin' off their childish +faults, same as she did their hair; clippin' 'em off with her own +anxious lovin' hands. Mebby puttin' a bowl on their heads and cuttin' +round it, or else shinglin' 'em. But 'tennyrate doin' her best for +them, soul and body, till she got 'em headed right. Some on 'em givin' +their hull lives to help men's souls, lovin' this old world mebby for +their ma's sake, because it held so many other good wimmen; for they +jest about worshipped her all on 'em. And one of her boys, while the +rest of 'em wuz helpin' men and wimmen to build up better lives, he +wuz buildin' up his creed of helpfulness and improvement in bricks and +mortar, tryin' to do good, there hain't a doubt on't. + +Mebby them walls didn't stand so firm as the others did, and tottled +more now and then. Strange, hain't it, that solid bricks and stuns, +that you feel and see, are less endurin' and firm than the things you +can't see--changed lives, faith, hope, charity, love to God, good-will +to man, and that whiter ideals and loftier aims and desires may tower +up higher than any chimbly that ever belched out smoke. + +Curious it is so, but so it is. But 'tennyrate this one son rode on +his sleepin' cars right into millions, and his first thought wuz how +he could please best the little Mother. So he built a castle for her. +Tired little feet, walkin' the round of humble duties, waitin' on her +small boys, did they ever expect to tread the walls of a castle? Her +own too. I'll bet it seemed dretful big to her, or would anyway if it +hadn't been so full, so runnin' over full of the love and +thoughtfulness of all of her boys--and Love will fill and glorify +cottage or castle. + +But here she come yearly and gathered her strong, stalwart sons about +her, welcomin' them with the same old tender smile, and constant love, +and she, wropt completely round in the warm atmosphere of their love +and devotion. Year after year went happily by till the last time came, +and she went away out of her high castle into a still higher one. But +I liked Castle Rest, for it seemed a monument riz up to faithful, +patient mothers fur and near, rich and poor, by the hand of filial +gratitude and love. + +Comfort Island is real comfortable lookin', and Friendly Island looked +friendly and neighborly. And Nobby Island looked grand and stately +instead of nobby, the great house settin' up there on a high rock with +big green lawns and windin' paths under the shade trees, and the +bright faced posies on its tall banks peekin' over to see their faces +in the deep water below, and mebby lookin' for the kind master who had +gone away to stay. + +[Illustration: "_I liked Castle Rest. It seemed a monument riz up to +faithful, patient mothers by the hand of filial gratitude +and love._" (_See page 48_)] + +And pretty soon our boat sorter turned round and backed up graceful +into Alexandria Bay, and we hitched it there and lay off agin the +harbor real neighborly. There wuz two hotels there in plain sight, +each one on 'em as long as from our house to Miss Derias Bobbettses, +all fixed off with piazzas and porticos and pillows and awnin's and +handsome colors from the basement clear up--up--up to the ruff, and +the grounds laid out perfectly beautiful. Grass plats and terraces and +long flights of stairs, and glowin' flower beds and summer houses and +long smooth walks and short ones, and everything. And folks all the +time santerin' up and down the terraces and walks, and up and down the +piazzas and balconies. + +It beat all what a lot of steam yots and sailboats there wuz all round +us. It seemed as if every island had a boat of its own and had sent +'em all to Alexandria Bay that mornin'. I thought mebby they'd hearn +we wuz comin', and they wuz there to git a glimpse of us. But +Whitfield said the boats come to git the mail, and mebby it wuz so. + +Every yot wuz tootin' on its own separate engine; it made the seen +lively but not melogious. One of the boats had a whistle that sounded +as if you'd begin to holler down real low and then let your voice rise +gradual till you yelled out jest as loud as you could, and then died +down your yell agin real low. + +It sounded curous. I hearn it wuz tryin' to raise and fall the eight +notes, and it riz and fell 'em I should judge. + +Some of the yots had a loud shrill whistle, some a little, fine clear +one; then one would belch out low and deep some like thunder. And anon +our steamer thundered forth its own deep belchin' whistle, and turned +round graceful and backed off, and puffed, puffed back agin down the +bay. + +As we turned round, a bystander, standin' by, spoke of Bonnie Castle. +It stood up sort o' by itself on a rock one side of Alexandria Bay. +And I wondered if Holland's earnest soul that had thought so much on't +once, ever looked down on it now. For instance when the full moon wuz +high in the cloudless sky, and Bonnie Castle riz up fair as a dream, +with blue clear sky above, and silence, and deep blue shinin' water +below--and silence. And mebby some night bird singin' out of the +pretty green garden to its mate in the cool shadows. I wondered if the +lovin' soul who created it ever looked down from the blessed life, +with love and longin' to the old earth-nest--home of his heart. I +spozed that he did, but couldn't tell for certain. For the connection +has never been made fast and plain on the Star Route to Heaven. Love +rears its stations here and tries to take the bearin's, but we hain't +quite got the wires to jine. Sometimes we feel a faint jarrin' and +thrill as if there wuz hands workin' on the other end of the line. We +feel the thrill, we see the glow of the signal lights they hold up, +but we can't quite ketch the words. We strain our ears through the +darkness--listening! listening! + +Right acrost from Alexandria Bay is Heart Island; you'd know it at +night if you couldn't see the island, for a big heart of flashin' +electric lights is lifted up on a high pole, that can be seen fur and +near. As well as the big shinin' cross of light that is lifted up +every night on another island nigh by in memory of a sweet soul that +used to live there, and is lookin' down on it now, more'n as likely as +not. + +Heart Island is owned by a rich New York man. It is almost covered +with buildin's of different sizes and ruined castles (the ruins all +new, you know; ruined a-purpose), the buildin's made of the gray stun +the island is composed of. And there are gorgeous flower beds and +lawns green as emerald, and windin' walks lined with statuary, and +rare vases runnin' over with blossoms and foliage, and a long, cool +harbor, fenced in with posies where white swans sail, archin' up their +proud necks as if lookin' down on common ducks and geese. There wuz +ancient stun architecture, and modern wood rustic work, and I sez to +Josiah, "They believe in not slightin' any of the centuries; they've +got some of most every kind of architecture from Queen Mary down to +Taft." + +And he sez, "It is a crackin' good plan too; amongst all on 'em +they're sure to git some of the best." + +"Yes," sez I, "and it shows a good-hearted sperit too, not wantin' to +slight anybody." + +Jest then I heard a bystander say, "Amongst all the places to the +Islands, this place and Browney's take the cake." + +Brownings is another beautiful place just round the corner where the +flower-garlanded rocks looks down into the deep clear waters anxious +to see their own beauty. And a handsome residence a little back and a +big farm full of everything desirable. + +Only a little way acrost from Alexandria Bay is Westminster Park, a +handsome little village, with a big hotel set back under its green +trees and lots of cottages round it. A nice meetin' house too, and +everything else for its comfort. And all the way to the Methodist +place we wuz bound for, fair islands riz up out of the water, crowned +with trees and houses and tents and everything. No sooner would you go +by one, than another would hove in sight. Anon we come in sight of a +little village of houses fringin' the shore, called Fair View, and our +next stoppin' place wuz the Camp ground. I'd hearn, time and agin, +they wuz so strict there you'd have to pay for every step you took +from the ship to your boarding place. And if you said anything, you +would have to pay so much a word; or if you sithed, you'd have to pay +so much a sithe, or breathe deep you would have to pay accordin' to +the deepness of your breath. + +But it wuzn't no such thing; we never paid a cent, and I sithed deep +and frequent on the way up from the wharf, for weariness lay holt of +me and also little Delight. She preferred hangin' onto me ruther than +her parents. And I'd hearn that you'd be fined for laughin', and for +a snicker or giggle; but I heard several snickers (Whitfield is full +of fun, and young folks _will_ be young folks, and talk and laugh) and +not one cent did we see asked for 'em. Why, I'd hearn that they +wouldn't let a good smart whiff of wind land there on Sunday. The +trustees kep' 'em off and preached at 'em, and made 'em blow off +Clayton way. + +And I wuz told that the Sea Serpent (you know he always duz like +summer resorts), took it into his head to go to the Islands one summer +and happened to git to the Thousand Island Park on Sunday, and wuz +swoshin' round in the water in front of the dock, kinder switchin' his +tail and actin'. And the trustees got wind on't and went down with +rails and tracts and they railed at him, and exhorted him and made him +fairly ashamed of bein' round on Sunday. And wantin' to do a clean job +with him, bein' dretful mad at his bein' out on the Sabbath day, they +got a copy of their laws and restrictions governin' the Park, and they +said when the serpent hearn that long document read over, he jest +switched his tail, kinder disgusted like, and turned right round in +the water and headed off for Kingston. + +But I don't believe a word on it. I don't believe much in the sea +serpent anyway, and I don't believe it ever come nigh the Thousand +Island Park grounds--only the usual old serpent of Evil, that the good +Christians there fight agin all they can. + +----- + + [A] The great hotel which Samantha here describes was destroyed + by fire in August last. + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +WE ENJOY THE HOSPITALITIES OF WHITFIELD'S AUNT'S BOARDIN'-HOUSE AT THE +PARK, AND MY PARDNER GOES A-FISHIN' + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +WE ENJOY THE HOSPITALITIES OF WHITFIELD'S AUNT'S BOARDIN'-HOUSE AT +THE PARK, AND MY PARDNER GOES A-FISHIN' + + +Whitfield's aunt kep' a small boardin'-house at the Park. Of course we +knew it would be fur more genteel to go to the hotel, which loomed up +stately, settin' back on its green lawn right in front of us, as the +ship swep' into the harbor. + +But Josiah sez, "The tender ties of relationship hadn't ort to, in +fact _musn't_ be broke by us, and Miss Dagget would probable feel +dretful hurt if she knowed we wuz to the Park and had passed her +coldly by." (She didn't ask half so much for our boards as the hotel +did; that wuz where the boot pinched on my pardner's old feet.) + +Whitfield said we had better go to Aunt Dagget's that night anyway, so +we went. We found she lived in a good-lookin' cottage, and we had +everything we needed for comfort. She wuz a tall, scrawny woman, with +good principles and a black alpacky dress, too tight acrost the +chest, but she seemed glad to see us and got a good supper, broiled +steak, creamed potatoes, and cake, and such, and we all did justice to +it--yes indeed. + +After supper we walked out to the post office, and round in front of +the houses--very sociable and nigh together they are. It must be +dretful easy to neighbor there, most too easy. Why, I don't see how a +woman can talk to her husband on duty, if he goes in his stockin' +feet, or stays out late nights, or acts; I don't see how she can do +the subject justice and not have everybody in the encampment know it. +Too neighborly by fur! + +But off some little distance, good-lookin' houses stood with Seclusion +and Solitude guardin' their front doors--likely guards them be, and +beloved by Samantha. And back of the Island, glancin' through the +trees, wuz the same clear blue sparklin' waters of the St. Lawrence. +They said they wuz Canada waters, but I didn't see no difference, the +water wuz jest as blue and sparklin' and clear. + +We retired early and our beds wuz quite comfortable, though as I told +Josiah, I had seen bigger pillers, and I wuz more settled in my mind, +as to whether the feathers in 'em wuz geese or hen. + +He said he wuz glad to lay his head down on anything that would hold +it up. + +And after I remembered that Miss Dagget's bed wuz jest the other side +of the thin board partition. I sez, "Yes, Josiah, with weariness and a +easy conscience, any bed will seem soft as downy pillows are." + +The next day I felt pretty mauger and stayed in my room most of the +time, though Josiah and the children sallied round considerable. But +after supper I felt better and went out and set down on the piazza +that run along the front of the house, and looked round and enjoyed +myself first rate. + +Way off, between the trees and between the houses, I could see the +dear old Saint meanderin' along, blue and gold colored where the sun +struck the shining surface. And, dearer sight to me, I could catch a +glimpse through the interstices of the trees, of my beloved pardner +and little Delight in her white dress and flutterin' blue ribbons +walkin' along by his side. Whitfield and Tirzah Ann had gone santerin' +off some time before. + +The hour and the seen wuz both beautiful and soothin'. The little +streets between the houses stretched out on every side, some on 'em +bordered with trees. Gay awnings wuz over the doors and winders, +flowering shrubs and posies set off the yards, and the piazzas +ornamented by the good-lookin' folks settin' out on chairs and +benches, the wimmen in light, pretty summer gowns, and there wuz +babies in their perambulators perambulatin' along and pretty children +runnin' and playin' about. + +Anon or oftener a group of good-lookin' cottagers would sally out of +their houses and santer along, or a pedestrian in a hurry would walk +by. It seemed like the land where it is always afternoon, that I'd +hearn Thomas J. read about, + + The island valley of Avilion, + Where falls not rain or hail or any snow, + Nor ever wind blows loudly-- + Deep meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns + And bowery hollows, crowned by summer sea. + +It wuz a fair seen! a fair seen! and my soul seemed attuned to its +perfect harmony and peace. When all of a sudden I hearn these strange +and skairful words comin' like a sharp shower of hail from a clear +June sky:-- + +"Malviny is goin' to _freeze_ to-night!" + +There wuz a skairful axent on the word "freeze" that seemed to bring +all of Malviny's sufferin's right in front of me. But so strong is my +common sense that even in that agitatin' time I thought to myself, as +I wiped the perspiration from my foretop, "Good land! what is Malviny +made of to be even comfortable cool to say nothin' of freezin'." And +my next thought wuz, "What sort of a place have I got into?" Truly, I +had read much of the hardenin' effects of fashion and style, but I +little thought they would harden so fearful hard. None of these men +and wimmen settin' on them piazzas had gin any more attention to the +blood-curdlin' news that a feller creeter so nigh 'em wuz perishin', +no more than if they'd seen a summer leaf flutterin' down from the +boughs overhead. + +I thought of the rich man and Lazarus, only kinder turned round and +freezin' instead of burnin'. I felt bad and queer. But anon he drew +nigh the porch I wuz settin' on and looked up into my face with the +same harrowin' statement, "Malviny is a-goin' to freeze to-night!" + +And I said, with goose pimples runnin' down my back most as bad as I +mistrusted as Malviny had, "Who is Malviny?" + +He stopped and sez, "She is my wife." + +His indifferent mean madded me and I sez, "Well, you good-for-nothin' +snipe you, instead of traipsin' all over the neighborhood tellin' of +your wife's state, why hain't you to home buildin' a fire and heatin' +soap stuns and bricks, and steepin' pepper tea?" + +"What for?" sez he, amazed like. + +"Why, to keep Malviny from freezin'." + +"I don't want to stop it," sez he. + +Sez I, "Do you want your wife to freeze?" + +"Yes," sez he. + +Sez I, lookin' up and apostophrizin' the clear sky that looked down +like a big calm blue eye overhead, "Are such things goin' on here in a +place so good that folks can't git a letter Sundays to save their +lives, or embark to see their friends if they're dyin' or dead; is +such a place," I groaned, "to condone such wickedness!" + +Sez the man, "What harm is there in Malviny's freezin'?" + +Sez I, "You heartless wretch, you! if I wuz a man I'd shake some of +the wickedness out of you, if I had to be shot up the minute +afterwards!" + +"What harm is there in freezin' ice-cream?" sez he. + +Sez I, astounded, "Is that what Malviny's freezin'?" + +"Yes," sez he. + +I sunk back weak as a cat. + +Sez he, "I bring it round to the cottages every time Malviny freezes; +they give me their orders if they want any." + +"Well," sez I in a faint voice, "I don't want any." Truly I felt that +I had had enough chill and shock for one day. + +Well, Whitfield and Tirzah Ann come in pretty soon and she wuz all +enthused with the place. They'd been up the steep windin' way to +Sunrise Mountain, and gazed on the incomparable view from there. +Looked right down into the wind-kissed tops of the lofty trees and all +over 'em onto the broad panaroma of the river, with its innumerable +islands stretched out like a grand picture painted by the one Great +Artist. They had seen the little artist's studio, perched like a +eagle's nest on top of the mountain. Some dretful pretty pictures +there, both on the inside of the studio and outside. + +And they had stopped at the Indian camp, and Tirzah bought some +baskets which they see the Indians make right before their eyes out of +the long bright strips of willow. And I spoze, seein' the brown deft +fingers weavin' their gay patterns, Tirzah Ann wuz carried back some +distance into the land of romance and Cooper's novels, and "Lo the +Poor Indian" Stories. She's very romantick. + +And she'd gone into the place where they blow glass right before your +eyes and then cut your name on it. I couldn't do it to save my life. I +might jest as well give right up if I wuz told that I had got to blow +jest a plain bottle out of some sand and stuff. And they blow out the +loveliest, queerest things you ever see: ships in full sail with the +ropes and riggin' of the most delicate and twisted strands of +brilliancy; tall exquisite vases with flowers twisted all about 'em. +Posies of all kinds, butterflies, cups, tumblers, etc. They had been +into all the little art and bookstores, full of pictures and needle +work, shells, painted stuns, books, and the thousand and one souvenirs +of all kinds of the Thousand Islands. When Josiah come in he said he +had interviewed ten or a dozen men about Coney Island--all on 'em had +been there--I wuz discouraged, I thought I might jest as well let him +loose with Serenus. + +Well, Whitfield of course couldn't wait another minute, without seein' +Shadow Island, so the next day we went over there right after dinner. +Josiah proposed enthusiastickly to fish on the way there. Sez he, +"Samantha, how I do wish we could git a periouger to go in." + +"A what?" sez I. + +"A periouger," sez he, "that we could go fishin' in, a very uneek +boat." + +"Uneek!" sez I, "I should think as much. Where did you ever ever hear +on't?" + +"In Gasses Journal, Gass used to go round in 'em." + +Sez I, "That book wuz published before George Washington wuz born, or +Bunker Hill thought on." + +"What of it?" sez he; "that wouldn't hender a periouger from bein' a +crackin' good convenience to go round on the water in, and I'm goin' +to try to git one to-day. I bet my hat they have 'em to Coney +Island." + +I tried to stop him. I didn't want him to demean himself before the +oarsmen and onlookers by tryin' to find boats that hadn't been hearn +on in hundreds of years. But I couldn't git the idea out of his head +till after dinner. Then he wuz more meller and inclined to listen to +reason. It wuz a oncommon good meal, and he felt quite softened down +in his mean by the time he finished. And Whitfield's boatman he'd +engaged come with a good sizeable boat and we sot sail for Shadow +Island. + +[Illustration: "_I tried to stop him. I didn't want him to demean +himself before the oarsmen tryin' to find boats that +hadn't been hearn on in hundreds of years._" (_See +page 67_)] + +When we got there the sun wuz tingin' the tops of the trees with its +bright light, but the water on the nigh side, where we landed, wuz +cool and green and shadowy. Dretful fresh and restful and comfortable +that hot muggy day. + +We disembarked on the clean little wharf and walked up to the lot +Whitfield had bought. It wuz a pretty place in a kind of a holler +between high rocks, but with a full and fair view of the river on the +nigh side, on the off side and on the back the tall trees riz up. The +site of the house mebby bein' so low down wuz the reason that there +wuz good deep earth there. Tirzah Ann spoke of that most the first +thing:-- + +"I can have a good suller, can't I?" + +Whitfield spoke first of the view from the river, and little Delight +sez, "Oh what soft pretty grass." + +Josiah looked round for a minute on the entrancin' beauty of the water +and the islands and up into the green shadders of the trees overhead, +and then off into the soft blue haze that wrapped the beautiful shores +in the distance. After gazin' silently for a minute he turned to me +and sez, "Didn't you bring any nut cakes with you? I'd like one to eat +whilst I think of another Island far more beautiful than this, where I +yearn to be." + +I groaned in spirit but handed him the desired refreshment, and then +we talked over the subject of the cottage. Whitfield thought it would +be splendid for the health of Tirzah Ann and the children, to say +nothin' of their happiness. She and Delight both looked kinder +pimpin', and he sez, "Mother, I've got the lot, and now I am going to +lay up money just as fast as I can for our house; I hope we can live +here in a year or two anyway." + +Well, we stayed here for quite a spell, Whitfield and Tirzah Ann +buildin' castles higher than Castle Rest, on the foundations of their +rosy future, underlaid with youth and glowin' hope--the best-lookin' +underpinnin' you can find anywhere. And little Delight rolled on the +green moss and built her rosy castles in the illumined present, as +children do. And I looked off onto the fur blue waters some as if I +wuz lookin' into the past. And furder off than I could see the water, +the meller blue haze lay that seemed to unite earth and heaven, and I +looked on it, and way off, way off, and thought of a good many +things. + +Josiah wuz tryin' to ketch a fish for supper; the boatman had a pole +and fish hook, but he couldn't ketch any, he hadn't any nack; it takes +nack to ketch fish as well as worms. + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +JOSIAH'S IMAGINATION ABOUT HIS FISHIN' EXPLOITS CARRIES HIM TO A PINT +WHERE I HAVE TO REBUKE HIM, WHICH MAKES HIM DRETFUL HUFFY + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +JOSIAH'S IMAGINATION ABOUT HIS FISHIN' EXPLOITS CARRIES HIM TO A +PINT WHERE I HAVE TO REBUKE HIM, WHICH MAKES HIM DRETFUL HUFFY + + +The next morning we went over to Alexandria Bay on a tower. We walked +up to the immense hotels past the gay flower beds that seemed to be +growing right out of the massive gray boulders, and great willer trees +wuz droppin' their delicate green branches where gayly dressed ladies +and good-lookin' men wuz settin'. And in front wuz fleets of little +boats surroundin' the big white steamboats, jest as contented as big +white geese surrounded by a drove of little goslins. + +I'd hearn that the great hotel that wuz nighest to us looked by night +jest like one of the fairy palaces we read about in Arabian Nights, +and one night we see it. From the ground clear up to the high ruff it +wuz all ablaze with lines of flashin' light, and I sez instinctively +to myself, "Jerusalem the golden!" and "Pan American Electric Tower!" +And I d'no which metafor satisfied me best. 'Tennyrate this had the +deep broad river flowin' on in front, reflectin' every glowin' light +and buildin' another gleamin' castle down there more beautiful than +the one on land. Josiah's only remark wuz "Coney Island!" Everything +seems to make him think on't, from a tooth pick to a tower. Ten +thousand electric lights wuz the number that lit up that one house, so +I hearn. + +The big engine and chimney they use to turn the water into glorious +light, towers up behind the hotel, and made such a noise and shook the +buildin' so that folks couldn't stand it, and they jest collared that +noise as Josiah would take a dog he couldn't stop barkin' by the +scruff of the neck and lock it up in the stable, jest so they took +that noise and rumblin' and snaked it way offen into the river in a +pipe or sunthin', so it keeps jest as still now up there as if it +wuzn't doin' a mite of work. Queer, hain't it? But to resoom. + +It wuz indeed a fair seen to turn round when you wuz about half way up +the flower strewn declivity and look afar off over the wharf with its +gay crowd, over the boats gaily ridin' at anchor, and behold the +fairy islands risin' from the blue waves crested with castles, and +mansions and cottage ruffs, chimblys and towers all set in the green +of the surroundin' trees. + +And, off fur as the eye could see, way through between and around, wuz +other beautiful islands and trees covered with spires and ruffs +peepin' out of the green. And way off, way off like white specks +growin' bigger every minute, wuz great ships floatin' in, and nearer +still would be anon or oftener majestic ships and steamers ploughin' +along through the blue waves, sailin' on and goin' right by and +mindin' their own bizness. + +Well, when at last we did tear ourselves away from the environin' seen +and walk acrost the broad piazzas and into the two immense hotels, as +we looked around on the beauty of our surroundin's, nothin' but the +inward sense of religious duty seemed strong enough to draw us back to +Thousand Island Park, though that is good-lookin' too. + +But the old meetin' house with its resistless cords, and the cast-iron +devotion of a pardner wound their strong links round me and I wuz more +than willin' to go back at night. Josiah didn't come with us, he'd +gone fishin' with another deacon he'd discovered at the Park. + +Well, we santered through the bizness and residence streets and went +into the free library, a quaint pretty building full of good books +with a memorial to Holland meetin' you the first thing, put up there +by the hands of Gratitude. And we went into the old stun church, which +the dead master of Bonnie Castle thought so much on and did so much +for, and is full of memories of him. Whitfield thinks a sight of his +writings; he sez "they dignify the commonplace, and make common things +seem oncommon." Katrina, Arthur Bonniecastle, Miss Gilbert, Timothy +Titcomb the philosopher, all seemed to walk up and down with Whitfield +there. + +And while there we took a short trip to the Lake of the Isles, a +lovely place, where instead of boats full of gigglin' girls with +parasols, and college boys with yells and oars, the water lilies float +their white perfumed sails, and Serenity and Loneliness seem to kinder +drift the boat onwards, and the fashion-tired beholder loves to hasten +there, away from the crowd, and rest. + +Every mind can be suited at the Islands, the devotee of fashion can +swirl around in its vortex, and for them who don't care for it there +are beautiful quiet places where that vortex don't foam and geyser +round, and all crowned with the ineffable beauty of the St. Lawrence. + +And we sailed by the Island of Summer Land (a good name), where a +beloved pastor and his children in the meetin' house settled down so +long ago that Fashion hadn't found out how beautiful the Thousand +Islands wuz. They come here for rest and recreation, and built their +cottages along the undulatin' shore in the shape of a great letter S. +It wuz a pretty spot. + +When the boat wuz ready to go back at night I wuz, and wuz conveyed in +safety at about six p.m. to the bosom of my family. I say this +poetically, for the bosom wuzn't there when I got back; it hadn't come +in from fishin' yet, and when it did come it wuz cross and fraxious, +for the other deacon had caught two fish and he hadn't any. He said he +felt sick, and believed he wuz threatened with numony, but he wuzn't; +it wuz only madness and crossness, that kinder stuffs anybody up some +like tizik. + +Well, Whitfield found a letter that made it necessary for him to +return to Jonesville to once, and of course Tirzah Ann, like the fond +wife and mother she wuz, would take little Delight and go with him. +But after talkin' to Josiah, Whitfield concluded they would stay over +one day more to go fishin'. So the very next mornin' he got a big +roomy boat, and we sot out to troll for fish. The way they do this is +to hitch a line on behind the boat and let it drag through the water +and catch what comes to it. And as our boat swep' on over the glassy +surface of the water that lay shinin' so smooth and level, not hintin' +of the rocks and depths below, I methought, "Here we be all on us, men +and wimmen, fishin' on the broad sea of life, and who knows what will +tackle the lines we drop down into the mysterious depths? We sail +along careless and onthinkin' over rush and rapid, depth and shallow, +the line draggin' along. Who knows what we may feel all of a sudden on +the end of the line? Who knows what we may be ketchin' ontirely +onbeknown to us? We may be ketchin' happiness, and we may be layin' +holt of sorrow. A bliss may be jerked up by us out of the depth; agin +a wretchedness and a heart-ache may grip holt the end of the line. +Poor fishers that we be! settin' in our frail little shallop on deep +waters over onknown depths, draggin' a onceasin' line along after us +night and day, year in and year out. The line is sot sometimes by +ourselves, but a great hand seems to be holdin' ours as we fasten on +the hook, a great protectin' Power seems to be behind us, tellin' us +where to drop the line, for we feel sometimes that we can't help +ourselves." + +I wuz engaged in these deep thoughts as we glided onwards. Josiah wuz +wrestlin' with his hat brim, he would have acted pert and happy if it +hadn't been for that. At my request he had bought a straw hat to cover +his eyes from the sun and preserve his complexion, and so fur is that +man from megumness that he had got one with a brim so broad that it +stood out around his face like a immense white wing, floppin' up and +down with every gust of wind. He had seen some fashionable young +feller wear one like it and he thought it would be very becomin' and +stylish to get one for a fishin' excursion, little thinkin' of the +discomfort it would give him. + +"Plague it all!" sez he, as it would flop up and down in front of his +eyes and blind him, "what made me hear to you, goin' a-fishin' blind +as a bat!" + +Sez I, "Why didn't you buy a megum-sized one? Why do you always go to +extremes?" + +"To please you!" he hollered out from under his blinders. "Jest to +please you, mom!" + +Sez I, "Josiah Allen, you know you did it for fashion, so why lay it +off onto me? But," sez I, "if you'll keep still I'll fix it all +right." + +"Keep still!" sez he, "I don't see any prospect of my doin' anything +else when I can't see an inch from my nose." + +"Well," sez I, "push the brim back and I'll tie it down with my braize +veil." + +"I won't wear a veil!" sez he stoutly. "No, Samantha, no money will +make me rig up like a female woman right here in a fashionable summer +resort, before everybody. How would a man look with a veil droopin' +down and drapin' his face?" + +"Well," sez I, "then go your own way." + +But the next time a gale come from the sou'west he wuz glad to submit +to my drapin' him; so I laid the brim back and tied the veil in a big +bow knot under his chin. Then agin he reviled the bow, and said it +would make talk. But I held firm and told him I wuzn't goin' to tear +my veil tiein' it in a hard knot. And he soon forgot his discomposure +in wearin' braize veils, in his happiness at the idee of ketchin' +fish, so's to tell the different deacons on't when he got home. + +[Illustration: "_'I won't wear a veil,' sez he stoutly. But the next +time a gale come from the sou'west I laid the brim back +and tied the veil in a big bow knot under his chin._" +(_See page 82_)] + +Men do love to tell fish stories. Men who are truthful on every other +pint of the law, will, when they measure off with their hands how long +the fish is that they ketched, stretch out that measure more'n +considerable. + +Well, as I say, as our boat glided on between the green islands, anon +in shadder and then agin out in sunny stretches of glassy seas, I +looked off on the glorified distance and thought of things even furder +away than that. Tirzah Ann wuz engaged in tryin' to keep the sun out +of her face; she said anxiously she wuz afraid she would git a few +frecks on her nose in spite of all she could do. Whitfield wuz amusin' +Delight, and Josiah ever and anon speakin' of Coney Island and askin' +if it wuzn't time to eat our lunch. So the play of life goes on. + +We didn't ketch much of anything, only I ketched considerable of a +headache. Tirzah Ann ketched quite a number of frecks; she complained +that she had burnt her nose. Delight did, I guess, ketch quite an +amount of happiness, for the experience wuz new to her, and children +can't bag any better or more agreeable game than Novelty. And +Whitfield did seem to ketch considerable enjoyment; he loves to be out +on the water. + +My pardner drew up one tiny, tiny fish out of the depths; it looked +lonesome and exceedingly fragile, but oh how that man brooded over +that triumph! And by the time we reached Jonesville and he related +that experience to the awe-struck neighbors it wuz a thrillin' and +excitin' seen he depictered, and that tiny fishlet had growed, in the +fertile sile of his warm imagination, to such a length, that I told +him in confidence out to one side, that if I ever hearn him go on so +agin about it, and if that fish kep' a growin' to that alarmin' +extent, I should have to tell its exact length; it wuz jest as long as +my middle finger, for I measured it on the boat, foreseein' trouble +with him in this direction. + +It made him dretful huffy, and he sez, "I can't help it if you do have +a hand like a gorilla's." + +It hain't so; I never wore higher than number 7. But I have never seen +him since pull out his hands so recklessly measurin' off the +dimensions of that fish, or gin hints that it took two men to carry it +up from the boat to the hotel, and insinuate on how many wuz +nourished on it, and for how long a time. + +No, I broke it up. But Josiah Allen hain't the only man that stretches +out the fish they have ketched, as if they wuz made of the best kind +of Injy rubber. It seems nateral to men's nater to tell fibs about +fish. Curious, hain't it? That is one of the curious things that lay +holt of our lines. And wimmen have to see squirmin' at their feet anon +or oftener, game that flops and wriggles and won't lay still and grows +all the time. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +IN WHICH I DRAW THE MATRIMONIAL LINE ROUND MY PARDNER AND ALSO KEEP MY +EYE ON MR. POMPER + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +IN WHICH I DRAW THE MATRIMONIAL LINE ROUND MY PARDNER AND ALSO KEEP +MY EYE ON MR. POMPER + + +The next mornin' Whitfield and Tirzah went home, Josiah and I thinkin' +we would stay a few days longer. And what should I git but a letter +from Cousin Faithful Smith sayin' that her Aunt Petrie beyond Kingston +wuz enjoyin' poor health, and felt that she must have Faith come and +visit her before she went West. So she wuz goin' to cut short her +visit to the Smithses and go to her Aunt Petrie's on her way to the +West, and as she had heard Josiah and I wuz to the Islands, she would +stop and stay a few days with us there. And as the letter had been +delayed, she wuz to be there that very day on the afternoon boat. So +of course Josiah and I met her at Clayton. And I went to the +boardin'-house keeper to see if I could git her a room. + +But she wuz full, Miss Dagget wuz; and when anybody is full there is +no more to be said; so with many groanin's from my pardner, on account +of the higher price, we concluded we would git rooms at the hotel, +that big roomy place, with broad piazzas runnin' round it and high +ruffs. And as Josiah said bitterly, the ruffs wuzn't any higher than +the prices. And I told him the prices wuzn't none too high for what we +got, and I sez, "We are gittin' along in years and don't often rush +into such high expenses, so we'll make the venter." + +And he groaned out, "Good reason why we don't make the venter often, +unless we want to go on the Town!" + +And then he kinder brightened up and wondered if he couldn't make a +dicker with the hotel-keeper to take a yearlin' steer to pay for our +two boards. + +And I sez, "What duz he want of a yearlin' steer here in the midst of +a genteel fashion resort?" + +And he snapped me up and said he didn't know as there wuz anything +onfashionable or ongenteel about a likely yearlin'. Sez he, "I'll bet +they'd take it at Coney Island." + +"Well, what would he do with it here?" sez I. + +"Why, do as I do with it; let it grow up and make clear gain on its +growth." + +"Oh shaw!" sez I, "he couldn't have it bellerin' round amongst the gay +and fashionable throng." + +"It wouldn't beller," sez he, "if he fed it enough." + +I broke it up after a long talk, for I wouldn't let him demean himself +by askin' the question and bein' refused, and then he said he wuz +goin' to ask him if he would take white beans for his pay, or part of +it, or mebby, sez he, "he would like to take a few geese." + +"Geese!" sez I, "what would they want with geese squawkin' round +here?" + +"Why," sez he, "you know they would look handsome swimmin' round in +the water in front of the hotel. And he might gin out, if he wuz a +mind to, that they wuz a new kind of swans; they do such things at +Coney Island." + +Sez I, "Are you a deacon or are you not? Are you a pillow in the +meetin' house or hain't you a pillow?" + +"I didn't say he had _got_ to do thus and so, I said he might if he +wanted to." + +Sez I, "You keep your geese and pray to not be led into temptation." +And then the truth come out, he hated the geese and wanted to git rid +of 'em. Men always hate to keep geese, it is one of their ways, though +they love soft pillows and cushions as well as wimmen do, or better, +it is one of their curious ways to love the effects of geese dearly +and hate the cause and demean it. + +Well, by givin' up the best part of the forenoon to the job I ground +him down onto not tryin' to dicker with any barter, but to walk up +like a man and pay for our two boards. Faith is real well off and +kinder independent sperited, and I knew she wouldn't let us pay for +hern, and at last we got a good comfortable room for ourselves and one +for Faith, not fur from ourn. Both on 'em looked out onto the +beautiful river, and I had lots of emotions as I looked out on it, +although they didn't rise up so fur as they would, if I hadn't had +such a tussel with my pardner, so true it is that chains of cumberin' +cares and Josiahs drag down the aspirin' soul-wings for the time +bein'. But I laid out to take sights of comfort in more tranquil and +less dickerin' times, in lookin' out on the beauty and glory of the +waters, and fur off, into the beautiful distance lit with the mornin's +rosy light, and "sunset and evenin' star." + +We sot off on the afternoon boat for Clayton. Faith seemed real glad +to see us and we visey versey. And it wuz a joy to me to see her +admiration of the Islands as we swep' by 'em and round 'em on our way +to the Park. + +We got back in time to git ready for supper in pretty good sperits; +the dinin' room wuz large and clean and pleasant, the waiters doin' +all they could for us, and we had a good supper and enough on't. And +speakin' of the waiters, most of 'em wuz nice boys and girls, tryin' +to git an education; some on 'em had been to college and wanted to +earn a little more money to finish their education, and some wuz +learnin' music and wanted more money to go on with their lessons--good +plan, I think--they will be as likely agin to succeed as if they wuz +sot down and waited on. It is a good thing, as the Bible sez, "to bear +the yoke in your youth," and though I spoze the yoke weighed down +considerable heavy on 'em, specially on excursion days, and when there +wuz folks hard to please, yet I thought they will come out all right +in the end. + +Some on 'em wuz studyin' for the ministry, and I thought they would +git a real lot of patience and other Christian virtues laid up agin +the time of need. Though here, as in every other walk of life, there +wuz some that wuz careless and slack. + +But to resoom forwards. I see at the table there wuz the usual summer +tourists round me, care-worn fathers and weary dyspeptic mothers with +two or three flighty, over-dressed daughters, and a bashful, pale son +or two, and anon a lady with a waist drawed in to that extent that you +wondered where her vital organs wuz. And how could any live creeter +brook the agony them long steel cossets wuz dealin' the wearer? You +could see this agony in the dull eyes, pale face and wan holler cheeks +wearin' the hectic flush of red paint. And the little pinted shues, +with heels sot in the very center of the nerves, ready to bring on +prostration, and blindness. + +Right by that agonized female would be a real lady. English, mebby, +with a waist the size the Lord give and Fashion had not taken away. +With good, sensible shues on, dealin' out comfort to the amiable +feelin' feet; rosy cheeks, bright eyes, all bearin' witness to the +joys of sensible dressin' and sensible livin'. + +And then there wuz bright pert-lookin' young wimmen, travelin' alone +in pairs, and havin' a good time to all human appearance. Anon +good-lookin', manly men, with sweet pretty wives and a roguish, rosy +little child or so. Sad lookin' widder wimmen, some in their weeds, +but evidently lookin' through 'em. Anon a few single men with +good-lookin' tanned faces, enjoyin' themselves round a table of their +own, and talkin' and laughin' more'n considerable. Respectable, +middle-aged couples, takin' their comfort with kinder pensive faces, +and once in awhile a young girl as adorably sweet and pretty as only +American girls can be at their best. + +But on my nigh side, only a little ways acrost from us sot the +ponderous man I remembered on my journey thither who wanted to be a +fly. Furder and furder it seemed from amongst the possibles as he +towered up sideways and seemed to dwarf all the men round him, though +they wuz sizeable. And gittin' a better look at him, I could see that +he had a broad red face, gray side whiskers and one eye. That one eye +seemed to be bright blue, and he seemed to keep it on our table from +the time we come in as long as we sat there. + +That evenin' in the parlor he got introduced to us. Mr. Pomper, his +name wuz, and we all used him well, though I didn't like "the cut of +his jib," to use a nautical term which I consider appropriate at a +watering-place. + +But go where we would, that ponderous figger seemed to be near. At the +table he sot, where that one eye shone on us as constant as the sun to +the green earth. In our walks he would always set on the balcony to +watch us go and welcome us back. And in the parlor we had to set under +the rakin' fire of that blue luminary. And if we went on the boats he +wuz there, and if we stayed to home there wuz he. + +And at last a dretful conviction rousted up in me. It come the day we +went the trip round the Islands. We enjoyed ourselves real well, until +I discerned that huge figger settin' in a corner with that one eye +watchin' our party as clost as a cat would watch a mouse. Can it be, +sez I to myself, that that man has formed a attachment for me? + +No, no, it cannot be, sez I to myself. And yet I knowed such things +did occur in fashionable circles. Men with Mormon hearts hidden under +Gentile exteriors wuz abroad in the land, and such things as I +mistrusted blackened and mormonized the bosom of Mr. Pomper, did +happen anon and oftener. And I methought if so, what must I do? Must I +tell my beloved companion? Or must I, as the poet sez, "Let +concealment, like a worm in the rug, feed on my damaged cheek?" + +But thoughts of the quick, ardent temper of my beloved companion bade +me relinquish the thought of confidin' in him. No, I dassent, for I +knew that his weight wuz but small by the steelyards, and Mr. Pomper's +size wuz elephantine, with probably muscles accordin'. No, I felt I +must rely on myself. But the feelin's I felt nobody can tell. Thinks +I, "It has come onto me jest what I have always read and scorfed at"; +for I had always thought and said that no self-respectin' female need +be inviggled unless she had encouraged the inviggler, or had a hand in +the invigglin'. But alas! with no fault of my own, onless it wuz my +oncommon good looks,--and of course them I couldn't help,--here I wuz +the heroine of a one-eyed tragedy, for I felt that the smoulderin' +fire burnin' in that solitary orb might bust forth at any time and +engulf me and my pardner in a common doom. + +But two things I felt I could do; I could put on a real lot of +dignity, and could keep a eagle watch onto my beloved pardner, and if +I see any sign of Mr. Pompers attacktin' him, or throwin' him +overboard, I felt the strength of three wimmen would be gin to me, and +I could save him or perish myself in the attempt. In accordance with +them plans, when Mr. Pomper approached us bringin' us some easier +chairs, I confronted him with a look that must have appauled his +guilty mind, and when he sez to me: + +"It is a pleasant day, mom." + +I looked several daggers at him and some simiters, and never said a +word. And when a short time afterwards he asked me what time of day it +wuz, pretendin' his watch had stopped, I looked full and cold in his +face for several minutes before I sez in icy axents, "I don't know!" +Every word fallin' from my lips like ice-suckles from a ruff in a +January thaw, and then I turned my back and went away from him. + +Vain attempt! What wicked arts men do possess! He pretended to believe +I wuz deef, and with that pretext he dasted to approach still nearer +to me and kinder hollered out: + +"What time of day is it?" + +I see I must answer him, or make a still more sentimental and +romantick seen, and I sez, with extreme frigidity and icy chill, "I +don't know anything about it." + +[Illustration: _"'What does ail you, Samantha, lockin' arms with me all +the time--it will make talk!' he whispered in a mad, +impatient whisper, but I would hang on as long as Mr. +Pomper wuz around." (See page 100)_] + +And then I turned on my heel and walked off. In such noble and prompt +ways did I discourage all his overtoors, and every time I see him +approach my pardner, if they wuz anywhere near the outer taff-rail of +the boat, I would approach and lock arms with Josiah Allen, killin' +two birds with one stun, for that act both ensured safety to my +heart's idol, and also struck a blow onto Mr. Pomperses nefarious +designs. He see plain that I idolized my pardner. Once or twice, so +hardly is oncommon virtue rewarded in this world, Josiah spoke out +snappishly: + +"What duz ail you to-day, Samantha, lockin' arms with me all the +time--it will make talk!" he whispered in a mad, impatient whisper, +and he would kinder wiggle his arm to make me leggo'; but secure in my +own cast-iron principles, I would hang on as long as Mr. Pomper wuz +round. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +IN WHICH JOSIAH PROPOSES TO DANCE AND MR. POMPER MAKES AN ADVANCE + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +IN WHICH JOSIAH PROPOSES TO DANCE AND MR. POMPER MAKES AN ADVANCE + + +The day wuz a tegus one to me, borne down as I wuz by the constrainin' +atmosphere of a onwelcome and onlawful attachment. And it took all the +principle I had by me to git up even a emotion of pity for the +one-eyed watcher, whose only recreation seemin'ly durin' that long, +long day wuz to watch our party as clost as any cat ever watched a rat +hole, and to kinder hang round us. Faith kep' pretty clost to me all +day and seemed to take a good deal of comfort watchin' the entrancin' +scenery round us. + +Oh what beautiful sights! What enchantin' views of the water; or, if +the light struck it jest right, the long, blue, undilating plain, +dotted with gold points of light. Islands with the virgin forest +stretchin' down to the edge of the water, and cool green shadders +layin' on the velvet and mossy sward as you could see as you looked +into the green aisles. And all sorts of trees with different foliage, +some loose and feathery, some with shinin' leaves, glitterin' where +the rain had washed 'em the night before; some towerin' up towards the +heavens, shakin' their heads at the sun; some droopin' down as if +weighted with their wealth of branches and green leaves; anon a tree +covered with flowers, and then some evergreens, and anon one that had +ketched in its brilliant leaves the red hectic of autumn fever and +blazed out in crimson and yeller. And then a hull lot of evergreens +standin' up straight and tall by the water's edge, and as fur back as +you could see, but sort o' reachin' out their green arms towards the +river. And them on the edge, lookin' down into the clear depths and +seein' there another island, a shadow island layin' beautiful and +serene with nothin' disturbin' its beauty but the shinin' ripples +wavin' the fairy branches below, like the soft wind rustlin' the tree +tops overhead. + +So we sailed on by hamlet and town, rounded tree-crowned promontores, +swep' out into broader vistas stretchin' out like a lake, anon goin' +by a big island lookin' like the shore of the mainland, goin' right up +aginst it seemin'ly, as if the boat must strike it and git onto +wheels and travel as a wagon if it calculated to proceed onwards at +all. But jest as we would think in a nautical way: "Land ahoy! land +ahoy! oh, heave out and walk afoot," jest as these nautical terms +would be passin' through our alarmed foretops, the boat would turn its +prow slowly but graceful, round to a port-the-helm, or starboard +ditto, and we would glide out through a narrow way onbeknown to us, +onto a long, glassy road layin' fair and serene ahead. + +Then more islands, then more narrer channels, then more broad ones. By +Fiddler's Elbow, named Heaven knows for what purpose, for no fiddle +nor no elbow wuz in sight, nothin' but island and water and rock all +crowned with green verdure. Mebby it dates back to the time we read of +when the stars sung together, and if stars sing, why shouldn't islands +dance, and if islands dance it stands to reason they must have a +fiddle and one on 'em must fiddle. I do not say this _is_ so, but +throw out this scientific theory as one of singular interest to the +antiquarian and historian of the Thousand Islands. + +Anon we entered the Lost Channel, agin the antiquarian sperit is +rousted up as we inquire, "When wuz it lost? and how long? And when +wuz it found agin, and who found it?" Way back in the dawn of +creation, did the dimplin' channel git kinder restive and try to run +off by itself, and flow round and act? Or did the big leap down +Niagara skair it so that it run away and never stopped runnin' until +it got all confused and light-headed among these countless islands, +and wandered away and got lost and by the side of itself? + +Deep antiquarian conundrums; stern geological interests! In grapplin' +with 'em I leaned over the taff-rail of the boat and looked way down +into the blue green depths, seekin' a answer. But the shinin' waves on +top seemed to glitter mockin'ly and fur down, down in the green waves, +there seemed to look back a sort of a pityin' gleam that said to me: + +"Poor creeter! pass on with your little vague theories and +conjectures; you don't know any more about me than the rest on 'em do, +who have tried to write about me." I felt kinder took back and queer. +So vain are we that we don't like to have our carefully constructed +theories overthrown. But even as I mused, a voice said to the right of +me--a woman talkin' to her little boy: + +"The Lost Channel was named from the fact that durin' a war a large +body of troops got lost here in the channel in the late autumn and +could not find their way out, and was overtaken by the bitter cold and +perished here." + +Well, mebby if is so, I d'no. But I wuzn't knowin' to it myself, nor +Josiah wuzn't. Well, onheedin' our facts or fancies, the river bore us +onwards on its breast. Past high green boulders risin' up from the +water with nothin' on 'em, not even a tree; jest gray rock lookin' +some like a geni's castle frownin' down onto the intruders into their +realm. Then anon a pile of high gray rocks crowned as the Sammist sez +"with livin' green." Then in a minute more a little landlocked bay +with placid water sweepin' back into a pretty harbor, tree shaded, and +mebby a boat anchored there like a soul at rest, or mebby a sail-boat +with two young hearts in it driftin' down the sea of their content, as +the tiny waves rippled round their oars. Then a grand big mansion +lookin' down onto us kinder superciliously. Then a small, pretty farm +house with snug outbuildings, a man lookin' at us from the open barn +door, and some children playin' round the doorstep. Then a big island +with grassy shores or wooded depths; then a tiny island, not too big +for a child's playhouse, and some that wuz only a bit of rock peekin' +out of the water. + +And fur off all the time when we could see it wuz the blue hazy +distance full of beauty; ever-changin' glimpses of loveliness, givin' +place to new beauties. Fur off, fur off sometimes we could see distant +pinnacles and towers, all bathed in the blue shinin' mist. And as the +rapt eyes of our Fancy gazed on 'em, they might have been the towers +of the New Jerusalem, the Golden city, so dreamlike, so inexpressibly +lovely did they seem faintly photographed aginst the soft blue distant +heavens. + +But cold Reality said in her chillin' practical whisper, "It's nothin' +but Gananoque or Clayton," and she went on, "They hain't anything like +the New Jerusalem, either of them." + +Alas for us poor mortals! who drive or are driv by the two contendin' +coharts of Imagination, Idealized Fancy and practical Reality. And she +always will have the last word, Reality will, and her voice is loud +and shrill, and it penetrates into the warm, sweet Indian summer air, +where Fancy dwells and where we sometimes visit her for brief +intervals. Too brief! too brief! for cold Reality is always hangin' +round; she is always up and dressed ready to put in her note. + +I mentioned the metafor to Josiah and he sez, "Yes, it minds me of the +man who was brought up before the judge by his wife. She complained he +hadn't spoke to her for five years. The judge ast him if that were so, +and he said, 'Yes, that's so.' 'But why,' sez the judge, 'why hain't +you spoke to your wife for five years?' And the man sez, 'Because I +didn't want to interrupt her.'" Josiah declares it is true, but I +believe it is jest a slur on wimmen. + +But to resoom. Swiftly, silently we sped on with the islands about us, +the blue sky overhead and the shadow islands below. And innumerable +boats appeared far and near, some with white sails lifted, and +followed below by a white shadow sail, and anon a big steamer would +glide along, loaded down to its gunwale with crowds of gay pleasure +seekers, who would wave their snowy handkerchiefs and salute us, the +steamer backin' 'em with its deep grum voice. Or anon we could see a +big dark barge sailin' along, and Fancy would whisper to us as we +gazed on its mysterious dark sides without a soul in sight: + +"It may be the phantom of some old Pirate ship, condemned for its +sins to cruise along forever in strange waters, homesick for its +native seas." But Reality spoke right up jest as she always will and +said it wuz probable some big lake steamer heavy loaded with grain or +some great Canadian boat. And then a new seen of beauty would drift +into our vision and take our minds off and carry 'em away some +distance. Oh, it is no wonder that Faith's soft eyes grew more tender +and luminous. + +Josiah felt the beauty of the seen, he felt it deeply, but everybody +knows that beauty affects folks differently, it always seems to +sharpen up my dear companion's appetite, and three cookies in as many +minutes wuz offered up on the shrine of his vivid appreciation, and +two nut cakes. + +We got back to our hotel, the sun about an hour high. Jest before our +bark swep' into the haven, and while Josiah and Faith had crossed over +to the opposite side of our bark, I hearn a voice on the off quarter +windward, and I turned round and see to my dismay that it wuz Mr. +Pomper. He sez to me in a low voice, while his looks spoke volumes of +yellow colored literatoor: "I wish to speak a few words to you alone, +mum. Can you give me the opportunity?" + +I looked him full in that eye of hisen, a hauty cold look, a look as +much as 40 degrees below freeze, and said nothin' else but jest that +look. + +"I have somethin' very important to say to you. Can you hear me?" + +Words wuz risin' to my tongue that would wither him forever, and end +the vile persecutions I wuz undergoin', when before I could speak the +gang plank wuz charged back agin Mr. Pomper's foot in a way that made +him leap back like a sportive elephant, and for the moment I wuz free. +But as I wended my pensive way up to the hotel, I made up my mind that +if he ever approached me agin I would plainly tell him what wuz what, +and so end my purturbations of mind; for I felt if it wuz to go on +much longer I should lose a pound of flesh, and mebby a pound and a +half, in the stiddy wearin' persecution I wuz undergoin'. And that +night at dinner as I ketched the light smoulderin' in that lonely orb, +as it wuz bent on our table, and the corner in parlor and piazza where +we wuz ensconced, I wondered anew what wuz the attractions that kep' +Mr. Pomper so stiddy at my shrine, And I got so that I almost hated +the good looks that wuz ondoin' him and me too. And I looked into the +glass dreamily as I wadded up my back hair and did up the front, and +pinned my cameo pin onto my rich cotton and wool parmetty, and +wondered if it wuzn't my duty to leave off that pin, and change that +parmetty for calico, and sort o' frowzle up my hair onbecomingly in +order to wean him from me. But alas! my principles did not seem able +to git up onto that bite, so weak are we poor mortals after all our +aspirin' efforts. + +One curious thing I have ever noticed among men (and wimmen too) and +that is the ease and facility with which they will slip out of +statements and idees they have promulgated, and turn around in their +tracts as easy and graceful as a dummy before a show case. Now there +wuz a party to be gin to the hotel for a charitable purpose, each man +and woman present givin' 25 cents, and then havin' a social time +afterwards, and as the object wuz good I sez to my pardner, "I would +like to attend to it." And he acted fairly skairt and horrow struck at +the idee and went on eloquent about old folks at our ages, and with +our professions, and our rumatiz, follerin' up gayety and show. Sez +he, "The place for us evenin's is in our own room readin' our Bibles +and Tracks." + +And I sez as I calmly wadded up my back hair and smoothed my foretop, +"Well, I spoze I can go alone if you feel so." + +Then another thought seemed to roust him up; Jealousy seemed to strike +her sharp prongs into his slender side, and he sez bitterly, "Yes, +goin' down alone into a perfect mawlstrom of men flirtin' and +actin'!" + +"The mawlstrom won't hurt me," sez I, "I hain't goin' nigh it." But +even as I spoke I thought of Mr. Pomper, and sez to myself, Can I help +him from comin' nigh me? And as if in answer to my onspoken thoughts +my pardner sez: + +"Mawlstroms will draw anybody in onbeknown to them; they're deadly +dangerous!" And I see him gin a kin' of a shiver. I wuz touched to the +heart by the thought of his devotion, and as I fastened my cameo pin +more firmly into the rich folds of parmetty at my neck, I sez: + +"Dear Josiah, I don't know but you're right. I feel as though I want +you near me to protect me." That melted his heart, but alas, did not +affect his pocket book, and he sez, "I would go down with you in a +minute, Samantha, but jest consider on the 50 cents we would spend +there, how much comfort that would bring to some lonely widder, mebby +a blind woman, who is a-hunger and ye fed her not." + +I looked stiddy at him and sez I, "Josiah Allen, will that poor widder +git that fifty cents?" + +He answered evasive, and I went on, "It is easy to make the excuse +that the money you are asked for in charity will do so much more good +somewhere else, but," sez I sternly, "the money don't git there, and +you know it." He still kep' his hand in his pocket round that pocket +book I believe, whilst he took a new tact: "The air, Samantha, in that +room will be stiflin', and if I should take you into that place and +you should stifle, I should die away myself, I couldn't live a minute +without you, dear Samantha," sez he. + +Well, my tizik wuz pretty bad in crowded places and suffice it to say, +that though his arguments didn't convince me, they sort o' overpowered +me for the time bein', and we stayed in our own room. + +Now to show the facility with which folks will turn right round and +revolve, I will tell how Josiah seemin'ly forgot mawlstroms, bad air, +rumatiz, ages, meetin' housen, principles, etc., and turned right +round on the pivot of his inclination. A day or two after he heard +down in the office about the dancin' parties they had in the parlor +anon or oftener, and he come up into our room enthused with the idee +and wanted to branch out and go that night, and I sez: + +"What about mawlstroms and gayety, Josiah Allen?" + +"Oh," he sez, "I shall be there to protect you, Samantha, no mawlstrom +can draw you in and destroy you, whilst I have a drop of blood left in +my veins! I'll protect you here, and I'd protect you at Coney Island," +sez he--(that idee never left his mind I believe). + +"What about the bad air?" sez I. + +"Oh the winder will probable be open, and you can take your turkey +feather fan with you." And then I dropped my half jocular tone and sez +in deadly earnest: + +"Be I leanin' on a Methodist pillow or be I not? Have I a deacon by my +side or haven't I?" + +But Josiah seemed calm and even gay sperited under my two reproachful +orbs that poured their search lights into his very soul, and he sez: + +"From all I hear it hain't a wicked dance at all, but jest a pretty +dancin' party down in the parlor, jined in by men and wimmen and their +children and mebby their grand-children, and it is always so sweet," +sez he, "to see a man and his grand-children dancin' together. Oh, if +Delight wuz only here!" sez he. + +I riz up and sez in almost heart breakin' axents: + +"Josiah Allen, be you a thinkin' of dancin' yourself?" + +"No," sez he, "no, Samantha, I jest want to look on a spell, that's +all." + +But there wuz a look in his eyes that I hated to see, for I had seen +it many times in the past, and it had always foreboded trials to me +and humiliation to my pardner. How queer human critters be! what +strange and mysterious tacts they will git on and how they will foller +up them tacts and fads of theirn. But I d'no as human critters are any +worse about follerin' up their tacts and fads and follerin' 'em blind, +than old Mom Nater is. Now who hain't noticed her queer moods and how +prolonged they be, and how sudden and onexpected they will come onto +her? When she takes it into her head to have a pleasant spell of +weather, how she'll foller it up, clear skies, pleasant days and +nights for weeks and weeks. And if she takes it into her head to have +it rain, how she will keep the skies drippin' right along for most all +summer. And then when she has a dry spell, how dry she is! no matter +how much the dwindlin' creeks and empty wells and springs complain, +she has got to carry out her own idees till she gits ready to change. + +Josiah Allen, since I had been his pardner had took many a fad into +his old head, which he had carried out as only Nater or a man can +carry 'em, onreasonable, mysterious, out of season, but bound to let +'em run. Sometimes in the past it had been a desire for singin' base +that had laid holt on him, base in every sense the word can be used. +Then agin he had painful and prolonged spells of wantin' to be genteel +and fashionable, then anon political ambition had rousted up his rusty +old faculties and for months and months Coney Island had been his +theme, and wuz now, and so on through a long roll of characters he had +desired to play in the drama of life. + +But _dancin'!_ never did I expect to see that man with his age and his +profession and his achin' old bones, wantin' to dance. But so it wuz, +as will be seen in the follerin' pages. Queer as a dog folks are on +this planet, and I d'no but the Marites and Jupiters and Saturnses are +jest as queer. But to quit eppisodin' and resoom forwards agin. + +I have always found that it hain't best to draw the matrimonial rope +too tight round your pardner's jungular veins. I see he wuz sot on +goin' and I felt I would ruther he would go with me who could have +some savin' control over him, than to have him git reckless and sally +off alone. So it wuz settled that we should go that night at early +candle light. And Faith wuz to go with us. Yes, I, Josiah Allen's +wife, had gin my consent to go to a dance. But jest so the environin' +cord of circumstances gits us all wound up in its tangles time and +agin. And as the way of poor weak mortals is, havin' made up my mind +to go I tried to bring to mind all the mitigatin' circumstances I +could. I thought of how the lambs capered on the hillside, how the +leaves on the trees danced to the music of the south wind, and how +even the motes swung round with each other in the sunlight. And then I +thought of how David danced before the ark, and how Jeptha's daughter +danced out to meet her father (to be sure she had her head took off +for it, but I tried to not dwell on that side of the subject). And +then I remembered how I did love music, and in spite of myself I felt +kinder chirked up thinkin' I should enjoy quite a long spell on't. And +thinkses I, if dancin' is a little mite off from the hite Methodists +ort to stand on, music is the most heavenly thing we can lay holt of +below, so I sort o' tried to even up them two peaks in my mind and lay +a level onto 'em and try to make myself believe they struck about a +fair plane of megumness, and shet my eyes to the idee that it slanted +off some and wuz slippery. + +Oh what weak creeters we be anyhow! Well, that night there wuz goin' +to be a extra big party, and I wuz for startin' at once after supper, +for truly I felt that I wuz performin' a hard and arjous job, and as +my way is I wuz for tacklin' it to once and gittin' over it. Yes, I +felt it wuz goin' to be a wearin' job to git Josiah Allen to that +parlor durin' them festivities and back agin with no damage or scandal +arisin' from the enterprise. + +But Faith sez, "It will be too early, they won't begin to dance till +eight. We eat at six." And I sez, "For the land's sake! if I'd got to +dance I should begin early and stop early, so's to git a little rest." +And she sez: + +"Young folks don't think about that." + +Well, we compromised on half past seven (most bed-time). And when +Faith knocked at our door at that epoch of time we wuz all ready. +Josiah had carefully combed his few locks of gray hair upwards over +his bald head, had donned a sweet smilin' look, and a cravat, gayer +fur than I approved of (he'd bought it durin' the day onbeknown to +me). And I had arrayed my noble figger in my usual cotton and wool +brown dress, brightened up at the neck and sleeves with snowy collar +and cuffs, and further enriched by the large cameo pin. I also carried +a turkey feather fan that harmonized in color with my dress. I looked +exceedingly well and felt well. + +And Faith, I sez proudly to myself, a sweeter face and prettier dress +won't be seen there to-night. She did look lovely. Her soft eyes +shone, her cheeks looked pinky, her hair, a sort of a golden brown +with some gray in it, crinkled back from her white forward and wuz +gathered in a loose knot on the top of her head with a high silver +comb. Her dress wuz thin and white and gauzy, and though it wuz +considerable plain it wuz made beautiful by the big bunch of pale +pink roses at her belt and bosom, jest matchin' her cheeks in color. + +I wuz proud of her. And I felt quite well about my other companion, +for as I glanced at the small kerseymear figger and pert bald head, I +sez to myself, "He makes a much better escort than none at all." + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +IN WHICH MR. POMPER DECLARES HIS INTENSHUNS AN' GIVES HIS VIEWS ON +MATRIMONY + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +IN WHICH MR. POMPER DECLARES HIS INTENSHUNS AN' GIVES HIS VIEWS ON +MATRIMONY + + +As our party sort o' swep' gracefully down into the hall, we thought +we would step outdoors for a minute for a breath of fresh air. It +looked gay and almost fairy-like out there. The two broad piazzas wuz +all lit up with colored lights and baskets of posies hung down between +'em full of bloom, and the broad piazzas and wide flight of steps +leadin' up to 'em wuz full of folks in bright array, walkin' and +talkin' and laughin' makin' the seen more fair and picture-like. And +in front wuz the long grassy lawn with its gay flower beds, and the +long walk down to the wharf all sparklin' with lights, and beyend, in +front of it all, lay the deep river, with its sighin' voice borne in +on the stillness, jest as in the hearts of every one of that throng, +way back beyend the gayety and sparklin' mirth lay the deep sea of +their own inner life, with its melancholy hantin' memories, its +sighin' complainin' voices, its deeps that nobody else could fathom. + +And while we stood there, I wrapped in reverie and a gray zephyr +shawl, a broad beam of light wuz cast from somewhere fur off, shinin' +full and square first one side then the other side of the river. +Nearer and nearer it seemed to be comin' towards us, and wherever that +light fell a picture wuz brung quick as a flash of lightnin' out of +the darkness. + +It seemed some like the day of Judgment shinin' through the darkness +of men's lives and bringin' out the hidden things. Way out in the +distance where nothin' could be seen but blackness and shadows, the +beam would fall and a island would stand out plain before us, houses +with men and wimmen on the piazzas, a boat house, a boat with men and +wimmen and children in it. You could see for one dazzlin' minute the +color of their garments, and the motion of their hands and arms, then +the sea of darkness would engulf 'em agin, and on the nigh side out of +the darkness would shine out a vision of the shore with trees standin' +up green and stately, and you could see the color of leaf and bough +and almost the flutter of their leaves. A green lawn, rosy flower +beds, a pretty cottage, faces at the windows, agin darkness swallowed +it up, and broad and brilliant the great shaft of light lay on the +blackness, and on the shinin' water fur ahead a boat stood out vivid. +Its white sail shone, the young man at the helm with uplifted head wuz +wavin' a greetin', the girl in the other end of the boat looked like a +picture in her broad hat and white wrap, and beyend 'em and all round +'em, wuz little boats, and fur ahead a big steamer. + +Anon it wuz turned sideways, and a dark mysterious craft wuz seen +sailin' by mysteriously, one of the big lake vessels goin' I know not +where. Anon a dazzlin' flash swep' right across us, bringin' Faith and +me and my pardner out into almost blindin' relief, his bald head +shinin' in the foreground, his cravat gleamin' almost blindin'ly, and +with music and bright light shinin' from the cabin winders, and decks +loaded with gay passengers, the Search Light Steamer swep' up to the +wharf. + +The ball had not yet arrove at its hite when we entered the festivious +hall, so we readily found seats in a commogious corner. On one side on +me wuz my pardner, on the off side sot Faith in her serene beauty. In +front of me and on each side the gay crowd of dancers. + +Pretty young girls arrayed in every color of the rain-bow. Handsome +young men, ditto homely ones, little children as pretty as posies with +their white dresses and white silk stockin's and slippers dancin' as +gayly as any of the rest, all on 'em big and little, graceful and +awkward, swingin', turnin', glidin' along, swingin', turnin', all +keepin' time to the sweet swayin' tones of the music, music that +seemed sometimes to bear my soul off some distance away and swing it +round and dance with it a spell, and then whirl it back agin to the +Present and Josiah. It wuz a queer time, but very riz up and enjoyable +in spite of some little sharp twinges that come anon or oftener, which +might have been conscience, but which I tried to lay off onto +rumatiz. + +Two wimmen wuz talkin' near us, sez one of 'em, "There he goes agin, +see him prancin' round." And she motioned to a young chap I'd noticed +who seemed to be the most indefatigable dancer in the hull lot, and +his face wuz determined lookin', as if his hull life depended on +gallopin' round the room, and as if he never wuz goin' to stop. + +"See him," sez the woman, "that young man's father and grand-father +would have swooned away if they'd thought that any of their kin would +dance." + +"Wuz they so good?" sez the other woman. + +"No," wuz the reply, "they had all sorts of narrowness, sins and +coniptions, but they thought dancin' wuz the wickedest thing ever +done. This boy wuz brought up as strict as a he nun, and now see him +prancin' round!" + +And I spoke up and sez, "I hope he will prance off some of them +hereditary sins, if he's got to prance." They looked round at me +considerable cool and I said no more. But everybody wuzn't so clost +mouthed, for pretty soon a old lady come and sot down in a chair by +the side of me--Faith had moved a little back--and she sez: + +"I want to dance; I love it dearly." + +I looked up at her in amaze. Her cheeks wuz fell in. Her brow wuz +yellered and furrowed with years, and though her dress wuz gay she +couldn't conceal Time's ravages. + +"Dance," sez I kinder dreamily and brow beat, "well, why don't you +dance?" + +Sez she, "I don't know any of the gentlemen here." + +I felt a movement on my nigh side and see that Josiah wuz leanin' +forward in deep interest, and thinkses I, he is sorry for her folly, +he has a noble heart. Well, ere long she riz up and went out into the +hall, and I mused on what I had so often mused on--how necessary it +wuz for everybody to keep on their own forts--sixty years had fled +since dancin' wuz her becomin' fort, now a rockin' chair and knittin' +work wuz her nateral fort, but she didn't realize it. + +Well, the dancin' kep' on, the music pealed out sweet peals, heavenly +sweet, heavenly sad, and I wuz carried some distance away from myself +and heeded not what wuz passin' by my side. Anon a dance come on that +wuz called a German. In some of the figgers they seemed to be givin' +presents to each other, and had these presents kinder strung onto 'em, +same as savages ornament themselves with beads and things, though +these wuz quite pretty lookin' and seemed made up of posies and +ribbins and pretty little trinkets. And then the lights wuz lowered +and I see a long line of figgers come glidin' in, keepin' step to the +music, each one bearin' a pretty little colored lantern. And as I +looked on my eyes wuz almost stunted and blinded by a sight I see. Who +wuz the couple bringin' up the rear? Wuz it--it could not be--but yet +it _wuz_ my pardner, leadin' in the ancient dame, who wuz footin' it +merrily on her old toes, or as merrily as she could, liable to fall +down every step with rumatiz and old age. And what did my pardner bear +in his hand! + +That very day in goin' about the place he found in a store an old tin +lantern, a relic of the past someone had left there to be sold. It wuz +a lantern that used to be in vogue before Josiah Allen wuz born, a +anteek tin lantern with holes in the sides, and one candle power. He +had bought it greedily, sayin' it wuz jest like one his grandpa had +when he wuz a child. + +He had left it in the office, and had lit that lantern and wuz now +hangin' along in the rear of that gay procession, with that mummy-like +figger, a jest, a byword and a sneer, for laughter riz up round 'em +and sneers follered 'em as they swep' onwards. As they come nigh me I +riz up almost wildly and ketched holt of my pardner and sez I: + +"Desist! Josiah Allen, stop to once!" + +The aged female looked at me in surprise and feeble remonstrance, and +sez she: + +"Can it be that you're jealous?" + +[Illustration: _"As they come nigh me I riz up almost wildly and +ketched holt of my pardner and sez I: 'Desist! Josiah +Allen, stop to once!' The aged female looked at me in +surprise." (See page 131)_] + +Even in that awful moment my powers of deep reasonin' didn't desert me +and I said: + +"If I wuz goin' to be jealous I wouldn't be of a animated mummy, or +livin' skeleton!" And to my companion I sez, "Josiah Allen, if you +don't set down here by me, I will part with you to once before the +first Square or Justice I can ketch!" + +He see determination on my eye-brow, and as they wuz in the extreme +rear of the line, and it didn't break up nothin', I ketched the +lantern out of his hand and blowed it out, and put it under his chair +as he sot down in it. And then to her I sez with a almost frozen +politeness: + +"I'd advise you, mom, to soak your feet and go to bed." + +She vanished. But to my pardner my voice lost that icy coldness and +become het up with indignation, and I sez, "What tempted you, Josiah +Allen, to make a perfect fool of yourself--a show for hollow +worldlings to sneer at!" + +"Fool!" sez he in bitter axents, "you call me that when I wuz strictly +actin' out what you've always ordered me to do. You've always told me +to be good to females, to put myself out and make a martyr of myself +if necessary for their good. But it is the last time!" sez he +bitterly, "the very last time I will ever have anything to do with +your sect in any way, shape or manner. I get no thanks from you for +anything I do, and the worm may jest as well turn first as last." + +"Do you pretend to say, Josiah, that you did this to please me?" + +"Yes mom, I do! I did it to please you, and to take that woman's part. +You hearn her say she wanted to dance, but no man wuz forthcomin'." + +"Dance!" sez I, "dance at ninety years old!" + +"She hain't much more'n eighty," sez he, "I don't believe. But anyway, +you won't git me into such a scrape agin. Your sect may be trod on for +all that I care. They may set round till they grow to their chairs and +be trompled down into the ground--and I jest as soon tromple on a few +myself," sez he recklessly. + +Oh dear me! what a mysterious curous trial pardners be more'n half the +time! but still I feel that they pay after all. + +Let him talk as he would I knew he wuz only carryin' out that fad to +try to be genteel and fashionable, and oh how much trouble I've seen, +from first to last, with that sperit in my pardner! + +Well, we didn't stay down much longer. Faith had stepped out of the +long winder behind us and wuz lookin' off onto the glorified river +durin' this _contrary temps_, and as I glanced out of the winder to +look for her I see the huge form of Mr. Pomper hoverin' in the +foreground, and I sez to Josiah, "I think it is time to retire and go +to bed." + +And Faith bein' ready to go, we ascended to our rooms. As we passed +one of the landin' places on the staircase where some chairs wuz +placed, I see the ancient dame settin' and sarahuptishously rubbin' +her ankle jints. She straightened up and looked kinder coquetishly at +my pardner, but he swep' by her as if she wuz so much dirt under his +feet. Truly he seemed to be carryin' out his plan of ignorin' my sect +and passin' 'em by scornfully. I may see trouble with that sperit in +him yet. + +The next mornin' Josiah wanted Faith and I to go out with him fishin' +and have a fish dinner, a sort of a picnic, on some island on the +fishin' grounds. That's quite a fashionable entertainment. They fish +till they git real hungry I spoze, and then the boatman puts into some +sheltered cove, and the party goes on shore, builds a fire and cooks +some of the fish they have got, and make coffee, and with the nice +lunch they took from the hotel, they have a splendid dinner I spoze, +and take sights of comfort. + +Why lots of folks there would go out day after day early in the +morning, and stay until night, and then would walk proudly in with a +long string of fish, and would lay 'em on the desk in the office, and +a admirin' crowd would gather round to look at 'em and wonder how much +they weighed. Why wimmen and children would catch fish so big that it +is a wonder they could draw 'em into the boat, and I spoze they did +have help from the stronger sect (stronger arms I mean). And besides +the fish I spoze they ketch happiness and health. + +Well, Josiah wuz rampant to go. He said he wanted to surprise the +crowd in the hotel and the hull of Well's Island with the fish he +would git, and then I spoze the idee of the dinner wuz drawin' him +onward. I brung up several arguments, such as the danger, fatigue, +etc., but he stood firm. But I had one weepon left that seldom failed, +and as a last resort I drawed that weepon, and he fell woonded to +once. Sez I, "Do you have any idee, Josiah Allen, how much it is goin' +to cost you?" + +His linement fell. He hadn't thought on't. I see him silently draw a +boatman into a corner and interview him, and I hearn no more about a +fishin' picnic. + +The very evenin' after this, Fate and Mr. Pomper gin me a chance to +carry out the plan I'd laid out heretofore. Josiah had stepped over to +the post office, and Faith had walked over with him at my request, for +she had a headache, and I told him to walk down to the wharf with her +and see if the cool air wouldn't do her good. So she had put a black +lace scarf over her pretty golden hair and went off with him. + +Well, there wuz big doin's at the Tabernacle that night, and it wuz a +off night for music, and I found the parlor nearly deserted when I +walked in and sot down in my accustomed easy chair. And no sooner had +I sot down seemin'ly than Mr. Pomper's massive form emerged onto the +seen, and he drawed up a chair and sot down by my side. + +Agreably to the plans I had laid down in my mind, I did not object to +the move. But though a picture of calmness on the outside, inwardly I +wuz callin' almost wildly on my powers of memory, tryin' to think jest +what Malviny had done, one of the immortal Children of the Abbey, when +Lord Mortimer approached her with his onlawful suit, and I tried also +to recall what the Mountain Mourner had done in like circumstances, +but before I had half done interviewin' them heroines in sperit my +mind wuz recalled into the onwelcome present by Mr. Pomper's voice in +my left ear: + +"I asked you, Josiah Allen's wife," sez he, "to listen to me, for I +felt that you wuz the most proper person for me to state my feelings +to. Since you and your party have entered this house," sez he, "I have +had a great conflict goin' on between my mind and my heart." + +"Ah indeed! have you?" sez I, liftin' my nose at a angle of from forty +to fifty degrees. + +"Yes," sez he, "I have had a great struggle between my heart and my +common sense, and in the battle that ensued, Common Sense and Reason +has had to retire into the background, and Heart has triumphed." + +"It is a great pity!" sez I, "Common Sense and Reason had much better +come out ahead," and agin I lifted my nose to its extremest limit, and +looked swords and prunin' knives at him. + +"That is just what most folks would say, I am aware, but listen to my +story before you judge. I must reveal to you the state of my heart and +affections!" + +How sure it is that when a kag is tapped the contents will run out no +matter whether it is wine or water. At them bold words accompanied by +the ardent rollin' of that lone orb, my well-laid plans all left my +mind, nothin' wuz left but pure principle and devotion and loyalty to +my pardner. The full kag emptied its contents over his nefarious +purposes, and I bust out almost onbeknown to me and sez: + +"It is no use; it is vain, it is worse than vain! it is wicked!" + +"What," sez he, "is she engaged to another?" + +"Who?" sez I, turnin' like lightnin' and facin' him. + +"Why, Miss Smith, your niece or grand-child who is with you. That +beauchious creature!" sez he. + +"Faithful Smith!" sez I faintly, "is she the one you are talkin' +about?" + +"Yes," sez he, "your grand-daughter, is she not?" + +"My grand-daughter!" sez I in deep contempt, "she is my own cousin on +my own side." + +"I thought," sez he, "from her looks and yours that she might be your +grand-child, but that is of no moment," sez he. + +"It is of moment!" sez I, "she is uncle Leander Smith's own child, +and though she is a few years younger than I be, it has always been +said and thought all over Jonesville and Loontown that I hold my age +to a remarkable extent. And though I think my eyes of Faith I won't +thank you or anyone else for callin' her my grand-child!" + +"But yet," sez he, "that's a tender, sweet relationship. What I want +to say to you is in relation to Miss Smith, she looks sad but +beauchious. I like her looks. You may have noticed that I have +occasionally glanced in the direction of your party." + +"Yes," sez I, "Heaven knows I have noticed it!" + +"Yes," sez he, "as I have looked upon her face from day to day a +conflict has been wagin' in my heart, and though you may be surprised +at the result (for I am very wealthy) I have decided to make her glad +and joyous once more." + +He paused, as if for a reply, and I sez, "How did you mean to tackle +the job?" + +"By makin' her my wife," sez he. + +The mystery wuz all explained, my dignity and my beloved pardner's +safety all assured. I felt a feeling of infinite relief, and yet I +felt like a fool, and I blamed him severely for this ridiculous +_contrary temps_ that had occurred in my mind. + +"Of course," sez he, "it is a great rise for her, I have hearn that +she hain't worth much, as I count wealth, and as we are speakin' in +confidence, I will say that there is a rich widder here who has hopes +of me, and mebby I've gin her some encouragement, kinder accidental, +as you may say, but I ort to know better. Widdowers can't be too +careful; they do great harm, let 'em be as careful as possible. They +tromple right and left over wimmen's hearts do the best they can. But +since I have seen Miss Smith and witnessed her sad face I have done a +sight of thinkin'. Here the case lays, the widder is strong, she can +stand trouble better. The widder is happy, for she has got that which +will make any woman happy--health, wealth, and property. And I've been +turnin' it over in my mind that mebby Duty is drawin' me away from the +widder and towards the maid. It hain't because the widder is homely as +the old Harry that influences me, no not at all. But the thought of +lightenin' the burden of the sad and down hearted, makin' the mournful +eyes dance with ecstasy, and the skrinkin' form bound with joy +like--like--the boundin' row on the hill tops. Now as the case stands +marry I will and must. My wife has already been lost for a period of +three months lackin' three weeks. She sweetly passed away murmurin', +'I am glad to go.'" + +"No wonder at that!" I sez, "no wonder!" + +"Yes, she wuz a Christian and she passed sweetly up into the Hevings, +thank the Lord!" sez he lookin' acrost onto Faith's sweet face, for +she had come back and set down acrost the room. + +"She is better off, I hain't a doubt on't!" sez I fervently. + +"I don't know about that. I did well by her, and she felt as well as +myself, that to be my wife wuz a fate not often gin to mortal +wimmen." + +"That is so!" sez I fervently, "that is so!" + +"Yes she wuz proud and happy durin' her life. I did everything for +her. I killed a chicken durin' her last sickness onasked, jest to +surprise her with soup. She lived proud and happy and died happy." + +"I hain't a doubt that she died happy." + +"No," sez he, "and now I must make a choice of her successor. It is a +hard job to do," sez he. + +"No doubt on't," sez I, "no doubt on't!" + +"Yes, whatever woman I choose, some must be left, pinin' on their +stems, to speak poetically. I can't marry every woman, that's plain to +be seen." + +"Yes, thank Heaven! that's a settled thing," sez I lookin' longin'ly +at my pardner, who wuz leanin' aginst the door and conversin' with the +man of the house on his chosen theme, for anon or oftener I hearn the +words--Coney Island! Dreamland--Luny Park, etc., etc. + +"No, and my choice made, I want it done as speedily as possible, for +my late lamented left as a slight token of her love thirteen children +of all ages, rangin' from six months up to twelve years, two pairs of +triplets, two ditto of twins, and three singles. + +"My wealth lays in land mostly. I never believed in idle luxuries, +only comfort, solid comfort, and my wife will have a luxurious home of +a story and a half upright, and a linter, groceries and necessaries +all provided, and all she will have to do will be the housework and +gently train and care for the minds and bodies of the little ones, +with some help from the oldest set of triplets, and make my home agin +an oasis of joy, a Eden below. Oh! how happy she will be!" sez he, +"Nestlin' down like a wanderin' dove in the safety and peace and pride +of married life. When can I see Miss Smith?" sez he. "Or will you tell +her in advance of her good fortune?" + +[Illustration: "_'No,' sez Mr. Pomper, 'I want it done as speedily as +possible, fer my late lamented left me thirteen children, +two pairs of triplets, two ditto of twins, and three +singles.'_" (_See page 143_)] + +"No indeed!" sez I, "I make no matches nor break none. You will have +to do your own errents." + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +IN WHICH MR. POMPER MAKES A OFFER OF MARRIAGE AND FAITH HAS A +WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +IN WHICH MR. POMPER MAKES A OFFER OF MARRIAGE AND FAITH HAS A +WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE + + +Faith had got up and gone out onto the piazza, and he riz up +ponderously and proudly and follered her. And onless I put cotton in +my ears, I couldn't help hearin' what wuz said. I could hear his proud +axent and her low gentle voice in reply. + +Sez he, "Miss Smith, of course you hain't known me long, but I feel +that we are well acquainted. I have watched you when you hain't known +it." + +I could imagine just how wonderingly the soft gentle eyes wuz raised +to his as he went on: + +"Yes, I have kep' my eye on you, and I will say right out that I like +your looks and your ways, and I feel that you are worthy of being +promoted to the high honor I am about to heap onto you, by askin' you +to be my wife." + +I heard a little low, skairt ejaculation and a chair pushed back. + +"Your wife! oh no, no, you are mistaken!" + +Then his voice in soothin' axents, "There, set down agin, set down. I +knew you'd take it so. I knew it would overcome you, but I say you are +worthy on't, and you needn't never be afraid I'll throw it in your +face that I am rich and you--and you----" + +Then I hearn a swish of a dress float along, quick steps acrost the +piazza, a door shet, and anon Mr. Pomper come back to me. + +"Jest as I told you, mom, stunted," sez he, "fairly stunted and broke +down by the suddenness of the good news. I'll give her time to git +used to the idee. I won't say no more at present." + +"No," sez I dryly, "I wouldn't if I wuz in your place, I'd go and rub +some ile into my head or sweat it, or sunthin'." + +"What for?" sez he in surprise, "why should I bathe my head, or +annoint it?" + +"Oh nothin'," sez I, "if you don't think it needs softenin' up and +illuminatin'." + +Well, I went up to my room and in a few minutes Faith come in, and she +went right by me and looked in the glass. She wuz pale and seemed to +be kinder tremblin'. She studied her face intently in the lookin' +glass, then sez she, "What is there in my face, what have I done?" +sez she, "How have I looked, that that awful man dare insult me? Oh, I +must have looked weak or acted weak, or he wouldn't have dared to!" +and she busted out cryin'. + +And I sez soothin'ly, "It hain't the worst thing that could happen to +you. A offer of marriage hain't like a attack of yeller fever, or +cholera, or even the janders, nor," sez I, "it hain't like losin' +friends, or a plague of grasshoppers, or----" + +And I spoze there hain't no tellin' onto what hites of eloquence I +might have riz to cheer her up. But all of a sudden she bust out +a-laughin' with the tears standin' in her big eyes and runnin' down +her cheeks. + +"There," sez I, "you see I'm right, don't you?" + +"Oh you dear, delicious Samantha!" sez she, and she throwed her arms +round me and kissed me. I kissed her back and then I went on brushin' +my hair for the night. I hadn't nothin' on but my skirts and dressin' +sack, but I didn't mind her. And she went and sot down by the winder +and looked off into the west. Fur off the blue hazy distance lay like +another country. The moonlight lay on the waters, a white sail fur +off seemed to float into dreamy mist. She sot there still, and a queer +look seemed to come into her face. I felt that she wuz thinkin' of +him, the lost lover of her youth. I felt that she wuz with him and not +with me. I thought from the looks of her face she might think he had +been insulted by the rude feet that had assayed to walk into the +kingdom where he had rained, and rained still, I believe. Sez I to +myself, mebby she is walkin' with him in the past, and mebby in the +futer, how could I tell, I felt queer and wadded up my hair with +emotions that never before went into them hair pins. + +After I had finished I sot down, as my habit is, to read a few verses +of Skripter, to sort o' carry with me in my journey through the +unknown realms of Sleep. And as I make a practice of openin' wherever +I happen to--or I don't really like that word happen--I let the book +open where it will, and I wuz jest readin' these words: + +"Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes, the signs and +the great miracles." + +When I hearn through my readin', as one will, the whistle of the night +boat comin' in, and the noise of many steps goin' along the walk +below. Then I opened the book agin and went on with my readin': + +"The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but these things that +are revealed belong to us." + +When sunthin' made me look up, Faith wuz bendin' forward lookin' out +of the winder, though she couldn't see anyone that wuz passin' on +account of the ruff, and I see a look that I never see before on any +face, it wuz all rousted up, illuminated, glad, triumphant, sad, +glowin', blessed, and everything else. + +And I said, "What is it, Faith, what do you see?" + +Sez she, "I don't know." + +And I said then, "What do you think it is?" + +And she sez, "Cousin Samantha, do you think that those who are far +away ever return to the hearts that are mourning for them? Is there +any way that souls can meet while the bodies are far apart?" + +"Why yes," sez I, "I have always thought so, I have always thought +they had some way of tellin' us they wuz nigh without usin' language +we know anything about. Many is the time I've expected visitors that I +hadn't seen or hearn from in some time, and sure enough they'd come +jest as I seemed to think they would. And letters! how many a time all +of a sudden I would most know I wuz goin' to git a letter from +somebody, and sure enough when Josiah would go to the post office he'd +bring it back with him. How them folks hundreds of milds away managed +to let me know they wuz thinkin' of me on paper, or how I knew these +friends wuz approachin' onbeknown to me, I don't know nor Josiah +don't. + +"There wuzn't no U. S. stamp on these messages, nor earthly hands +didn't bring the tidin's of these visitors. No the post-masters and +messengers on that mysterious Route keep perfect silence as to where +they be, or who they be. But they are at work all the same, though who +they work for, or how they work, how can we tell? The strange rays of +light that flash through the darkness of dense bodies makin' visible +what has been onseen since the creation, hasn't discovered these +highways yet, mebby they will. The strange new air route messages that +travel acrost the stormy Atlantic may run right acrost these +mysterious highways," and for a minute my mind follered off on them +strange, strange tracks, Marconi roads lighted by X-rays and leadin' +who knows where. + +When my mind kinder come back agin to what we wuz talkin' about I +resoomed, "And if this happens to us as it duz time and agin in regard +to friends and well wishers, how much more it is likely to be true of +those we love and who love us. This strange knowledge and fore-warnin' +is not material, it is independent of the body or any workin's of the +mind that we understand, and how do we know how fur reachin' and +universal that law is if our eyes wuz not held so we could discern it? +If these fine senses wuz not so unused, and as you may say bed-rid by +disuse, how do we know how truly near to us may be those who in our +blindness we say are fur away, how do we know but their spiritual +self, their real self, may be nearer to us than our neighbors in the +flesh, and those who sit by our firesides, though our mortal eyes may +not see them, and oceans and seas may divide us and mebby the Deepest +River. What do we know about the onseen roads that lay all about us, +leadin' from Loontown and Jonesville and from one continent to the +other, and mebby up through the clear fields of Light? What do we know +about them still mysterious streets windin' mebby from our home and +hearts to Thomas Jefferson's, and so on, mebby from star to star? And +what do we know of the travelers that go up and down on 'em and +outward and homeward? These roads don't need any surveyor to lay 'em +out, or path-master to clear 'em of snow and dirt, no weeds grow up by +the wayside, nor dirt lays in the track. + +"No, clear and broad and unobstructed the luminous pathways may lay +all round us onknown to us. Noiseless chariots, swifter than our +imaginations can grasp now, may cleave these star routes, connecting +one land to another, and mebby jinin' immense distances to our planet, +as easy as we can hitch up and go to Jonesville. + +"We don't see these noiseless conveyances, lighter and swifter than +thought, nor the forms they waft to us from afar. We can't hear their +voices, but our soul listens! We feel their nearness! For a blessed +moment we are thrilled with the bliss of their presence, their full +comprehension of pity and love. + +"'Dear ones!' our heart cries, 'where are you? Come nearer! Let our +eyes behold you!' Our soul peers longin'ly through the mist of earthly +blindness, looking! listening!'" + +I wuz carried some distance away from myself by my deep eppisodin' +when a sigh from Faith brung me down and landed me on terry firmy agin +and I sez, + +"Why do you ask this question to-night, dear?" + +"Because," sez she in a tremblin' voice, "I feel that someone long +gone and lost is near me to-night, I feel the presence nearer than you +are now," sez she, puttin' her little white tremblin' hand on my own. + +"I am not mistaken," sez she with streaming eyes, "I know that in +whatever world or distant way that soul may be dwellin', it is with me +to-night. It frightens me!" sez she, white as a cloth, "And it fills +me with the blessedness of Heaven!" And she smiled with her big +luminous eyes. She wuz tremblin' like a popple leaf. + +"Well, well," sez I, "shet up the winder, and take a little catnip +tea. I'll steep it on my alcohol lamp, and go to bed. You've been +excited too much to-night." I knew, though she didn't say so, that the +very idee of catnip wuz repugnant and oncongenial to her at that time, +but I felt that I had reason and common sense on my side. Faithful +hain't over strong, and had been through considerable excitement, +besides I hearn the distant step of my pardner, and his voice +parleyin' with the hall boy for sunthin'. + +And though the subject broached by Faith, and believed in by me, wuz +as interestin' to me as a subject could be, yet I felt then, and feel +now, that though transcendentalism may be more agreable talkin' +matter, and may be indulged in at times, yet such commonplace subjects +as herb drink has to be brung forwards and sort o' hung onto by our +minds, in order to anchor 'em as it were to the land of Megumness, +where I would fain tarry myself and have my near and dearest dwell. +But Faith said she didn't want any catnip, and jest before Josiah come +in she kissed me good night, and I said, "Good night, dear, and 'God +be with you till we meet again.'" + +I knew she thought everything of that him, and thought mebby it would +sort o' quiet her some since she rejected the paneky I spoke of. But +her face at the very last looked white and riz up and luminous, and +her eyes shone. I felt queer. + +The next day wuz Sunday and Josiah and I went to the Tabernacle to +meetin'. Faith havin' a headache didn't go. But before I go any +furder I will back up the boat and moor it to the shore, while I tell +you what the result wuz so fur as Mr. Pomper wuz concerned. At the +breakfast table next mornin' he cast languishin' glances at Faith, and +then looked round the room proudly as much as to say: + +"Gentlemen and ladies, behold my choice, and I hain't sorry I chose +her out of the throng of waitin' wimmen." + +But some time durin' that day he found out his mistake. I don't know +exactly how Faith managed to pierce the rhinocerous hide of his +self-conceit with the truth, but she did somehow let him know that his +attentions wuz futile, futiler than he ever mistrusted his attentions +could be. + +But he wuzn't danted and down-casted more'n several minutes, I guess, +for anon I see him walkin' with a woman almost as ponderous as he wuz, +and as she wuz all janglin' with black jet and as humbly as humbly +could be, I mistrusted that he had gone back to his allegiance to the +widder, and I think he looked happier than I had ever seen him. He +looked as if he wuz rejoiced that his temporary thraldom to sentiment +wuz over, and common sense and practical gain wuz in the ascendancy +agin. And though it hain't much matter, I will say I read his +marriage in the paper the next week: + +"Amaziah Pomper to Euphrasia, relict of Elnathan Fatt." + +But I d'no as Faith knew anything about it, for she didn't stay with +us only a few days longer, she went on to visit her aunt Petrie and so +on to the Ohio, makin' a solemn promise to me to stop and visit us on +her way home the last of September. Well, I will now onhitch the boat +and row back, and then let it sail on down the stream of history. As I +said, the next day after that singular experience of Faith's wuz +Sunday, and my pardner and I went to the Tabernacle. We wuz told that +there wuz to be oncommon exercises that day owin' to the visit of a +great Evangelist from the West. Lots of folks had come on the night +boats so as to be there to hear him. For if the angel Gabriel wanted +to preach there to lost sinners, he couldn't land there on Sunday +unless he swum or come cross lots (that is, unless he flowed down). +The folks on that island are too good to let anyone come there to +meetin' unless they come sarahuptishously. I asked a trustee once why +it wuz wicked for folks to ride there to meetin'. + +And he said, "A merciful man is merciful to his beast." + +Sez I, "A steamer hain't a beast, and if it wuz, it wouldn't tucker it +out much to come over from the bay or Clayton." And he said the +sailors would have to toil to git 'em there. + +"So the driver and the horses have to toil to git sinners to meetin' +on the main land," sez I. And he said, "The steamers would make noise +and confusion, and disturb the sweet Sabbath calm." I felt there wuz +some truth in this, though it wouldn't make nigh so much noise as the +thousands of church bells clangin' out church time in cities and +villages. + +Sez he, "If we allowed boats to land here we should be overrun with +excursionists who don't care for Sunday as a day of holy quiet and +rest, and our peaceful Sabbath would be turned into a carnival of +pleasure seekers, flirtations, giggles, brown paper parcels, egg +shells, cigar smoke and sandwiches." + +And I sez, "Like as not that is so." And I felt that mebby he wuz in +the right on't. But some don't like it and feel that they'd ort to +take the resk. + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +WE HEAR A GREAT TEMPERANCE SERMON, BUT JOSIAH STILL HANKERS FOR CONEY +ISLAND + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +WE HEAR A GREAT TEMPERANCE SERMON, BUT JOSIAH STILL HANKERS FOR +CONEY ISLAND + + +Ever since I had been to the Thousand Island Park, my mind had roamed +onto that idee of the Tabernacle with a sort of or. It is a big +impressive word and one calculated to impress a stranger and +sojourner. And so when we made up our minds to attend to it I almost +instinctively put on my best alpacky dress (London brown) and I also +run a new ribbin into my braize veil and tied it round my bunnet so it +would hang in graceful folds adown the left side of my frame, I also +put on my black mitts and my mantilly with tabs; of course I carried +my faithful umbrell. + +I looked well. Faith had a bad headache, I guess the job of gittin' +that information into Mr. Pomper's head had tuckered her out, so I and +my pardner sot off alone. All the way there my mind wuz real riz up +thinkin' I wuz goin' to see sunthin' very grand lookin' and +scriptural, and I said over and over to myself a number of times with +deep respect and or, "Tabernacle! Tabernacle!" + +Yes, I felt some as if I wuz the Queen of Sheba and Josiah wuz +Solomon, though I might have knowed, my pardner lacked the first +ingregient in Solomon's nater, wisdom. And I probable wuzn't so dressy +as Miss Sheba, 'tennyrate I hadn't no crown or septer, a brown straw +bunnet and umbrell meetin' my wants better, but not nigh so dashy +lookin'. But my feelin's all come from the name of the place we wuz +bound for, and the patriarchical, Biblical past my mind wuz rovin' +round in. Yes, my mind wuz rousted up and runnin' on the trimmin's of +the Ark and Temple. I thought like as not I should see purple curtains +hung on shinin' poles, jest so many cubits long and high, and gorgeous +carpets to walk on and ornaments and fringes and tossels. + +I would not ask questions, but I wuz prepared for splendid lookin' +things and lots of 'em. Well, if you'll believe me there wuzn't a +thing there that I expected to see, not a ornament or curtain or +tossel, and nothin' but jest common ground to walk on like our suller +bottom or dooryard. And long benches all through it as fur as the eye +could reach almost. + +The platform wuz big as most meetin' housen, but bare and plain, and +there wuz what seemed to be sheets hung up round the hull concern, +though rolled up so we could see out all round us. There wuz only one +way it come up to my idees, and that wuz the cubits. I should think it +wuz jest about as many cubits long and broad as anything ever wuz or +ever will be. They say it will hold five thousand folks, and I should +judge they wuz all there that mornin', and had brung their children +and relations on both sides. + +They wuz havin' a song service when we went in, and to hear five +thousand voices or so fillin' that Tabernacle full of high and +inspirin' melody, wuz indeed a treat. It filled it so full that it +oozed out of the sheets on all sides and soared up through the +encirclin' green trees, up, up towards the blue sky, and no knowin' +how much furder it did go upwards, clear up to Heaven like as not, for +that place we have always been told is the home of music. It wuz +sunthin' to remember as long as you lived to hear that great flood of +melody flow out and swash and sway round us, bearin' us some distance +away from ourselves. + +My Josiah tuned up and sung jest as loud as any of 'em, but his +singin' would have sounded better if he had sung the tune the rest +did. He sung the tune he had always been used to singin' hims in, he +is dretful sot on it, and don't like to change. But as he seemed to +enjoy it so much, and the great rush of melody wuz so powerful his +voice wuz onnoticed. The him wuz, "How firm a foundation ye saints of +the Lord." + +Mr. Pomper wuz jest ahead on us, and thinkin' he would see better, I +spoze had got up on the bench, and jest as he shouted out with the +rest, "How firm a foundation," the bench broke and down he come, but +in the big volume of sound, his yell of fright wuzn't heard no more +than the note of a mosquito in a cyclone. + +In the intervals of silence Josiah sot and made comments to me on the +surroundin' seen, that alas made me know his mind wuzn't riz up on +such hites as mine wuz. He commented on the looks of the men around +him, and cast the idee in my face that there wuzn't any on 'em so good +lookin' as he wuz, or nigh so distinguished in their means. I felt +sorry to think he wuz so blinded, though of course he looks good to +me. And he talked about the wimmen and advanced the idee that they +well might take pattern by his pardner in their looks and deportment. +Josiah after all is a man of good sense. + +[Illustration: "_Mr. Pomper, thinkin' he would see better, got up on +the bench, and jest as he shouted out 'How firm a +foundation,' the bench broke and down he come._" +(_See page 168_)] + +As I looked round me, I liked the place more and more. What need wuz +there of upholstery and carpets? Brussels never turned out such a +carpet as old Mom Nater had spread all round that Temple of hern. Old +Gobelin never wove such tapestry. No Empress of the wonder-laden East +ever had hung in her boodore such a marvelous green texture as drooped +down in emerald canopies above us. No golden lamp ever gin such a +light as sifted down over the matchless green overhead, to light that +solemn sanctuary. No organ ever gin out such sweet sound as the birds +warbled anon or oftener. No jeweled ornaments ever sparkled on a altar +like the emerald and gold winged butterflies flutterin' round that +sacred hant, amongst the wild flowers that blossomed even up to the +door. And it seemed as if the soul could soar up easier somehow when +you could look right into the blue mystery of the sky, the trackless +path that souls mount up on in prayer and praise. Somehow plaster and +mortar seem more confinin'. Though I d'no as it really makes any +difference. Heaven is over all, and the soul's wings can pierce the +heaviest material, bein' made in jest that strong and delicate way, +but yet it seemed more free and soarin' somehow, and as if the path +heavenward wuz clearer. + +The breezes kind of hung off and didn't come in. Josiah said they wuz +afraid to land on Thousand Island Park for fear of bein' fined for +travelin' on Sunday, but it wuzn't so, they didn't come because it wuz +so sultry and kinder muggy. + +I'd hearn that the man who wuz goin' to preach wuz a dretful smart +man, a Evangelist and Temperance Lecturer. A man so gifted and good +that folks would go milds and milds to hear him, he seemed to hold the +secret of inspirin' men and wimmen, and rousin' 'em out of their cold +icy states, and drawin' 'em right along towards the mounts he +habitually stood on. He'd done sights of good, sights on it. + +And anon I see a stir round the preacher's stand that made me know the +speaker of the day, the great Revivalist and Temperance worker had +come. And most immegiately a tall figger passed through the crowd that +made way for him reverentially. There wuz a smile and a good look on +his face for all the bretheren round him, some like a benediction, +only less formal. As he come out on the stand and stood before us I +could see that there wuz a light shinin' on his face as if ketched +from some heavenly and divine power. His eyes wuz soft and deep +lookin', as if he knew jest how mean and weak humanity wuz, and wuz +sorry for folks, and would like to tell 'em the secret he had found +out, how to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, specially +the devil. + +His smile wuz sad and sweet, jest about half-and-half. His features +wuz good, and his hair, which wuz light brown to start with, wuz +considerable gray round his forward. His voice wuz like the sound of +deep waters that penetrates through all lighter voices and that you +hear through 'em all, jest as you hear the voice of the great River +through all the murmurin's of the trees and bird song on the shore. He +gin out a him in that sweet melogious voice that wuz as good as +singin' or better. The him told how, though we could not climb up into +Heaven to bring the Lord Christ down, yet how love had still its +Olivet and Faith its Galilee. And one verse wuz: + + The healing of that seamless dress + Is by our beds of pain; + We touch it in life's care and stress + And we are strong again. + +And oh the truth of them verses! As that man read and prayed and +spoke, that seamless dress seemed to float along by us, worn by the +pityin' Christ, we laid holt on it with our yearnin' longin's and +outreachin' sperits, and felt that strength had gone out of it into +our souls. + +His prayer seemed to bring Heaven so near to us that we could almost +look in. He asked the Lord to draw nigh to us, and He did. He asked +Him to help us bear our daily trials and temptations, and the weary +wearin' cares of life, and we felt that He would help us. We felt that +that sweet strong appeal for the Comforter to come into our lives to +bless and strengthen us for good work, wuz answered then and there. + +The Word he read wuz that incomparable chapter in Hebrews, in which +Paul tells of the mighty works wrought by faith, of them who through +faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, stopped the mouths of +lions, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, +turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead +raised to life agin. And on to the end of that matchless chapter. + +And the text wuz, "Wherefore seeing we are encompassed about by so +great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin +that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race +that is set before us." + +And then follered a sermon that wuz better than any I ever hearn in my +life, and I have sot under splendid preachers in my day. But this, +though delivered in simple language wuz so helpful, lifting us, +holding us up, so we could ketch a glimpse of the right way and +inspire us with the strength to foller it. + +He pinted out to us the sins that so easily beset us, easily indeed. +Not the old sins of Adam and Noah and the rest--patriarchal sins that +made us feel reproachful towards the old sinful patriarchs and +comfortable toward ourselves. No, he pinted out the besettin' sins +that are rampant and liable to ruin us in the nineteen hundreds. After +speakin' of the other deadly sins that are liable to lay holt on us, +such as oncharitableness, envy, jealousy, bigotry, intolerance, +injustice, over-weaning ambition, and other personal and national +sins, he spoke at length of that monster sin, that national disgrace, +Intemperance. + +I spoze it wuz some as if when you tapped a barrel filled with pure +water, why pure water would flow out of it. And I spoze he wuz so full +of his great life work aginst that gigantick evil Intemperance, that +them ideas had to flow out when the plug of silence wuz removed. And +readin' what he had about them who through faith had stopped the mouth +of lions, escaped the edge of the sword, I spoze he wanted to make his +hearers feel that they too could so arm themselves with faith and the +power of His might, as to stop the mouths of these nineteenth century +lions, overthrow the laws entrenched in lion-like strength in the +stronghold of National protection, and escape the edge of the sword of +personal greed and selfishness, and put to flight the army of the +aliens from God and the good of humanity. + +And I spoze when he thought of them wimmen who had received their dead +raised to life agin, he thought of the yearly sacrifice to +Intemperance, the thousands and thousands of husbands, sons, brothers +who are struck by the death blight now, makin' ready to fall into +those oncounted graves. And he wanted to roust 'em up and save their +souls and bodies alive and give them back to these wimmen agin, raised +from the dead. + +Yes, his warnin's and appeals wuz all directed to this present time +and preached to us. He never mentioned them old Egyptians who wuz all +dead and drownded out years ago, both by the Red sea, and the long +swosh of the sea of Time, or the old Jews and Hebrews, nor he didn't +dwell on science or philosophy, but he pressed the truth home to the +hearts of his hearers, how the Lord Jesus had once dwelt upon earth, +how He had passed through all the cares and sufferings that we wuz +passing through, how He wuz tempted by the sins, pained by the griefs +of the world, and how He pitied us and would help us. + +As I say, instead of Bible crimes that had been committed centuries +ago, he dwelt strong and as if his hull heart wuz in his words on that +terrible national crime back of most all the other sins and crimes of +to-day. That stands a huge black shape blocking up the world's +progress, that we ort to try our best to fight aginst, and how we had +a Helper. And his idee wuz that good men, clergymen and such, who are +wont to stand off and look down on the battlefield, ort to buckle on +their armor and join in the warfare. And he said that if sometimes +the battle smoke hid the form of our great High Priest and Helper we +mustn't forgit that He wuz there, lookin' on, seeing how the battle +went between the Right and the Wrong, and giving His help towards the +right side in His own good time, and he gin us to understand that: + + All the blood that falls in righteous cause, + Each crimson drop shall nourish snowy flowers, + And quicken golden grain bright sheaves of good, + That under happier skies shall yet be reaped. + +"For," sez he: + + When Right opposes Wrong, shall Evil win? + Nay, never; but the years of God are long. + +And he counseled his hearers to keep on and work--work and follow the +leadin' of Him who shall conquer all sin and evil. + +It wuz a grand and powerful effort. It wuzn't so flowery as I've +hearn, but the strength, the pathos of it wuz wonderful. I didn't +wonder as I hearn him talk of what I'd been told that day by different +ones of how people flocked to hear him, how he might have the choice +of big city churches with big salaries accordin', but he had chosen to +stay by the common people. Had elected that he would not have wealth +and station, that he would go about tellin' of the love of God, urgin' +men to accept Him, goin' about doin' good. + +As we listened to him, everything seemed possible, the right seemed +possible to do, it almost seemed as if we felt the crown restin' on +our tired foretops. And he ended the sermon as he had begun it with a +few words from the Book, "Now bretheren quit ye like men, be +steadfast, strong in the Lord and in the power of His might." And then +agin he breathed out his very soul in prayer, and we wuz lifted up +some distance towards the Better Country. As he ended his words we all +heaved some long sithes and seemed to fall down some distance, and +found ourselves to our great surprise still on the old earth. + +A enthusiastick little woman, who'd shouted out, "Amen!" with the best +of 'em sez to me, "Wasn't that sermon a grand one?" + +"Yes," sez I, "it come right from his heart, and went to mine. It +lifted me up some distance above the earth," sez I. + +"Yes," sez she, "the Elder is one of the saints on earth, but we are +afraid he hain't long for this world." + +"Why?" sez I. + +"He don't take any care of himself. He lives alone with an old +housekeeper who is dretful slack and don't have any faculty, and he +don't have things for his comfort, though he don't complain. He gits +no end of money, but gives it all away, or it is wasted to home. I +went to his house once on business,--I am from the West," sez +she,--"and it wuz so bare and desolate lookin' that I almost cried. He +ort to marry," sez she, "I have five daughters myself, and three +onmarried nieces and they all say the same thing, that he ought to be +married to some woman who would jest worship him, for no woman could +help it, and take care on him. For," sez she with a shrewd look, "the +smartest men and the most spiritual ones are the most helpless, come +to things of this world." + +"Yes," sez I, "our minister to Jonesville could no more make a mess of +cream biscuit than he could fly. He is great on the Evidences, and a +great Bible expounder, but he couldn't sew on a button so it wouldn't +pucker the cloth, if he should cry like a babe." + +"No," sez she, "I presume not, my girls are splendid with the needle, +and good cooks, and so religious--it's a sight! and so are my +sister's three girls, though they don't quite come up to my five." + +Well, there wuz a stir in the crowd. The Elder had come down and wuz +shakin' hands right and left with them that crowded up to him. The +little woman pressed towards him and I wuz drawed along in her wake by +the crowd, some as a stately ship is swep' on by a small tug and the +flowin' waves. And anon, after shakin' hands with her, he took my hand +in hisen. A emotion swep' through me, a sort of electric current that +connects New Jerusalem to Jonesville and Zoar. He bent his full sweet +penetratin' look onto me, it seemed to go through my head clear to my +back comb, and he sez, + +"Have I met you before?" + +"Yes," sez I, "in sperit, we have met, I want to thank you for the +words you have said this day. It seems to me I shall be good for some +time, it seems that I _must_ after hearin' your discourse, and I want +to thank you for it, thank you earnest and sincere." + +He smiled sort o' sad and yet riz up, and sez, "We are all wayfarers +here on a hard journey, and if I can help anyone along the way, it is +I who should be thankful, and," sez he, "may God bless you, sister!" + +And he passed on. + +But he seemed to leave a wake of glory behind him as he went, some +like the glow on the water when the sun walks over it, a warmin' life +givin' influence that comes from a big soul filled with light and +goodness. I seemed to be riz up above the earth all the way back to +the hotel, though in body I wuz walkin' afoot by the side of my +pardner. He too wuz enthused by the sermon--I had reconized his little +treble voice shoutin' out "Amen!" and he said now that it wuz grand, +powerful! + +"Yes," sez I, "and good and holy and tender!" + +"Yes indeed!" sez he. And he added, "Speakin' of tenderness, I do hope +the beef will be tenderer than it wuz yesterday. I don't believe they +have such beef to Coney Island." + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +IN WHICH WE RETURN HOME, AND I PERSWAIDE JOSIAH TO BUILD A COTTAGE FOR +TIRZAH ANN + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +IN WHICH WE RETURN HOME, AND I PERSWAIDE JOSIAH TO BUILD A COTTAGE +FOR TIRZAH ANN + + +The next afternoon Faith started on her visit to her aunt beyend +Kingston. And immegiately after her departure, Josiah said he'd got to +go home right away. Sez he, "It hain't right to leave Ury to bear all +the brunt of the work alone." + +Sez I, "Ury has got over the hardest of the work, and writ so." + +"Well," sez he, "I'm a deacon and I can't bear the thought of +religious interests languishin' for my help." + +Sez I, "Seven folks wuz baptized last Sunday: the meetin' house wuz +never so prosperous." + +And then he went on and said political ties wuz drawin' him, and he +brung up fatherly feelin's for the children, and cuttin' up burdocks, +and buildin' stun walls, and etcetery. But bein' met with plain Common +Sense in front of all these things, he bust out at last with the true +reason: "I hain't no more money to spend here, and I tell you so, +Samantha, and I mean it!" + +And I sez, "Why didn't you say so in the first place, it would have +been more noble." + +And he said a man didn't care much about bein' noble when they'd got +down to their last cent (he's got plenty of money, though I wouldn't +want it told on, for rich folks are always imposed upon, and charged +higher). + +Well, suffice it to say, we concluded to go home the next day and did +so. And though I felt bad to leave the horsepitable ruff where I'd +enjoyed so much kind and friendly horspitality yet to the true home +lover there are always strong onseen ties that bind the heart to the +old hearth stun, and they always seem to be drawin' and tuggin' till +they draw one clear back to the aforesaid stun and chimbly. Josiah +paid for our two boards like a man, and we embarked for Clayton and +from thence traveled by cars and mair to our beloved home. + +And right here let me dispute another wicked wrong story, we never had +to pay a cent for gittin' offen the Thousand Island Park. It is a base +fabrication to say folks have to pay to git out. They let us out jest +as free and easy as anything, and I thought they acted kinder smilin' +and good feelin'. What a world of fibs and falsehoods we are livin' +in! + +We got home in time for supper and at my companion's request I took +off the parfenalia of travel, my gray alpacky, and havin' enrobed +myself in a domestic gingham of chocklate color and a bib apron, I +proceeded to help Philury git a good supper. The neighbors all flocked +in to see us and congratulate us on our safe return from the perils +and temptations of worldly society. And Josiah wuz indeed in his glory +as he told the various deacons and church pillows that gathered round +him from time to time, of all his fashionable experiences and +dangerous exploits while absent. + +Of course my time wuz more took up by my female friends, but anon or +oftener I would ketch the sound of figgers in connection with fish +that wuz astoundin' in the extreme. But when I would draw nigh the +subject would be turned and the attention of the pillows would be +drawed off onto yots, summer hotels, Tabernacles, etc., etc. Well such +is life. But anon the waves of excitement floatin' out insensibly from +the vortex in which we had so lately revolved round in, gradually +abated and went down, and the calm placid surface of life in +Jonesville wuz all we could see as we looked out of our turret +winders--(metafor). + +Gradually the daily excitement of seein' the milk cans pass morning +and night, and the school children go whoopin' schoolward and +homeward, wuz the most highlarious excitement participated in. A few +calm errents of borryin' tea and spice, now and then a tin peddler and +a agent, or a neighborhood tea drinkin', wuz all that interrupted our +days serene. + +And old Miss Time, that gray headed old weaver, who is never still, +but sets up there in that ancient loom of hern a weavin', while her +pardner is away mowin' with that sharp scythe of hisen from mornin' +till night, and from night till mornin', jest so stiddy did she keep +on weavin'. Noiseless and calm would the quiet days pass into her old +shuttle (which is jest as good to-day as it wuz at the creation). +Silent days, quiet days, in a broad stripe, not glistenin' or shiny, +but considerable good-lookin' after all. Then anon variegated with +moon lit starry nights, blue skies, golden sunsets, deep dark, +moonless midnights, all shaded off into soft shadders. + +And then givin' way to a stripe of hit or miss, restless hours, days +when the "Fire won't burn the stick and the kid refuses to go," small +excitements, frustrated ambitions, etc. + +Anon a broad gray stripe, monotony, deadly monotony, and lonesomeness, +gray as a rat both on 'em, all loosely twisted together makin' a wide +melancholy stripe. Then a more flowery piece, golden moments, mounts +of soul transfiguration, full understandin', divine hopes and +raptures, heart talks, illuminations, all striped in with images of +golden rod, evergreen trees pintin' up into the friendly blue heavens, +that leaned down so clost you could almost see into the Sweet Beyond. +Singin' rivulets, soarin' birds, green fields, rosy clouds. Anon a +plain piece, some slazy, as the shuttle seemed to go slower and kinder +lazy, and then agin quick strong beats that made the web firm as +iron. + +Mebby that wuz the time that old Mr. Time hung up that old scythe of +hisen for a few minutes on the top bars of the loom, and got in and +footed it out for his pardner for a spell, while she rested her old +feet or wound her bobbins for another stripe. But such idees are +futile, futiler than I often mean to be. 'Tennyrate and anyway all the +time, all the time the shuttles moved back and forth to and fro, and +old Miss Time's tapestry widened out. + +That summer my pardner had a oncommon good streak of luck, he sold two +colts and a yearlin' heifer for a price that fairly stunted us both, +it wuz so big. And his crops turned out dretful well, and he jest laid +up money by the handfuls as you may say. And one day we wuz talkin' +about what extreme good luck we'd had for the past year, and we also +talked considerable about Tirzah Ann and little Delight, and how they +wuz both pimpin' and puny. The older children away to school wuz doin' +first rate both in health and studies, but Tirzah Ann's health wuz +such that Whitfield had to keep a girl and pay doctor's bills, and I +sez to Josiah: + +"I am sorry for 'em as I can be, and if this goes on much longer there +don't seem much chance of Whitfield's buildin' his house on Shadow +Island this summer." + +And Josiah sez, "No indeed! if he can pay the doctor's bills and help, +he will do well. But," sez he, "he is goin' to have quite a good job +up to his folkses." + +His uncle, Jotham Minkley, who is forehanded and a ship builder up in +Maine, had invited Whitfield to come and take charge of some bizness +for him, and he said he must bring Tirzah Ann and Delight. So it wuz +arranged that they wuz goin' to stay for some time. We all thought the +change would do Tirzah Ann good, and then Whitfield had been promised +good pay for his work. And then wuz the time I tackled my pardner on +the subject I had thought over so long. He looked so sort o' mournful +over the hard times Whitfield wuz havin', and Tirzah Ann's and +Delight's enjoyment of poor health, that I thought now wuz the +appinted time for me to onfold this subject to him. This idee wuz that +while Whitfield and Tirzah Ann wuz away up to Maine we should build a +pretty little house for 'em on Shadow Island. "For," sez I, "the +health and life of Tirzah Ann and Delight may hang in the balances, +and if anything will help 'em I believe that dear old Saint Lawrence +will." But Josiah demurred strongly on account of the expense. In fact +I had to use some of my strongest arguments to convince him of the +feasibility of my plans. + +One of my arguments wuz that in all probability all our property would +before long descend onto the children, and so why not use some now for +'em, while they wuz sufferin' for the use on't. That wuz one of my +arguments, and my other one wuz, that he couldn't take any of his +property with him. But he had got kinder mad and when I told him in a +solemn tone, "Josiah Allen, you know you can't take any of your +property with you when you die," he snapped out, "I don't know whether +I can or not; it won't be as _you_ say about it." + +"Well," sez I, in lofty axents and quotin' Skripter, "there is only +one way you can take your property with you, and that is to send it on +before you. Make friends with the Mammon of your wealth so that when +you fail here it may receive you into a everlastin' habitation. Turn +it into angels of Gratitude and Love that may be waitin' to welcome +you. Do good with your money. Lend to the Lord," sez I. + +And Josiah wuz so pudgicky, he snapped out, "I didn't know as the Lord +wanted to borry any money." + +But I gin him such a talkin' to that I brung him to a sense of his +sinful talk, and right then while he wuz conscience smut for as much +as seven minutes, I brung him round to the idee of buildin' the house. +But it wuz a gradual bringin'. + +Of course he begged and beseeched to build it on Coney Island. Sez +he, "I wouldn't begrech the money but spend it lavish, if the house +sot there. I could go there and spend months and months of perfect +bliss, and learn more there in one day than I could in years in +Jonesville." + +"Where would you build it?" sez I in frosty axents. + +"Well, the top of one of them tall mountains in Luna Park Serenus +tells on would be a good spot, near the beautiful waterfall where the +boats full of happy Hilariors dash down the steep declivity and bound +way off onto the water and sail away. The view would be so lively and +inspirin', it would be equal to havin' a brass band in your bedroom." + +"Yes, jest about like that," sez I. "Do you know what them mountains +are made of? They're jest about as solid as your idees." + +"Well, I might build it on the other side of Surf Avenue, nigh that +long line of dashin' horses Serenus depicters, that go racin' and +cavortin' round and round, bearin' the gay and happy Hilariors on +their backs." + +"How much do you spoze a lot would cost there, Josiah, if you wuz +ravin' crazy enough to want it? All the property in Jonesville +wouldn't buy a spot big as a table cloth, and I d'no as it would a +towel." + +"Well," sez he real sulky, "I can let my mind dwell on it, can't I? +That is some comfort." + +"I wouldn't think on't too much, you don't want to tire your mind, it +hain't over strong, you know." + +It beats all how sometimes when you are doin' your very best for your +pardners, they don't like it. He acted huffy. + +But at last it wuz settled, Tirzah Ann's cottage wuz to be begun the +minute they left, it wuz to be kep secret from 'em, and we wuz to have +a surprize party there, to welcome 'em home. Well, from the very day +it wuz settled begun my trials with Josiah Allen about the plan. My +idee wuz to employ a first rate architect, but he sez: + +"I can tell you, Mom, if that plan is made I shall make it. There +hain't an architect in the country that could begin with me in drawin' +up this plan." Oh how I sithed and groaned when I see his sotness, and +knowed he wuz no more fit for the job than our old steer to give music +lessons on the banjo. + +He went to the village that afternoon and obtained two long blank +books (oh that they could have stayed blank) and three quires of +fool's cap paper (well named) and a bottle of red ink and one of blue +ink, besides black, and a dozen pencils of different colors, and after +these elaborate preparations he begun drawin' up his plans. + +He would roll up his sleeves, moisten his hands, and go to work early +in the mornin', and set and pour over 'em all day, every stormy day, +and every night he sot up so late goin' over 'em that he most +underminded his health, to say nothin' of the waste of my temper and +kerseen. And then he would call in uncle Nate Peedick and they would +bend their two gray bald heads together and talk about +"specifications" and "elevations" and "ground plans" and "suller +plans" till my head seemed to turn and my brain seemed most as soft as +theirn. + +[Illustration: "_And then he would call in Uncle Nate Peedick and they +would bend their two gray bald heads and talk about +specifications and elevations till my brain seemed most as +soft as theirn._" (_See page 195_)] + +And sometimes Serenus Gowdey would be called in to aid in their +deliberations, though their talk always led off onto Coney Island and +rested there, he didn't git no other idees out of him. Josiah never +called on a woman for advice and counsel, not once, though a woman +stood nigh him who wuz eminently qualified to pass a first class +judgment on the plan. But no, it wuz males only who gin him their +deepest thoughts and counsels. Once in awhile I would ask how many +stories he wuz layin' out to have it, and how big it wuz goin' to be, +and every time I asked him he said: + +"Wimmen's minds wuz too weak to comprehend his views. It took a man's +mind to tackle such a subject and throw it." + +And that would mad me so that it would be some time before I would ask +him agin, and then curosity would git the better of me and I would ask +him agin sunthin' about it, but his reply wuz always the same: + +"Wimmen's minds wuz too weak and tottlin' to tackle the subject." So +all the light I could git wuz to hear him talk it over with some man. +I see that there wuz a great difference of opinion between 'em. +Josiah, true father of Tirzah Ann, seemed anxious mainly to unite +display and cheapness. Uncle Nate seemed more for solidity and +comfort. Sez Josiah to him: + +"It is my idee to have the house riz up jest as high as the timbers +will stand, the main expense anyway is the foundation and floorin' and +I would rise up story after story all ornamented off beautiful and +cheap, basswood sawed off in pints makes beautiful ornaments, and what +a show it would make round the country, and what air you could git up +in the seventh or eight story." + +So he would go on and argy, regardless of common sense or Tirzah Ann's +legs. And then Uncle Nate would reply: + +"Josiah, safety lays on the ground, and in this climate more liable +each year to tornadoes and cyclones, the only safety lays in spreadin' +out on the ground. Build only one story," sez he, "and a low one at +that, and let it spread out every way as much as it wants to." + +"But," sez Josiah, "to have every room on the bottom would take up all +the lot and lap over into the river." + +"Better do that," sez Uncle Nate, "than to have your children and +grand-children blowed away. Safety is better than sile," sez he +solemnly. And then I hearn 'em talkin' about a travelin' woodhouse. +Josiah advoctated the idee of havin' the woodhouse made in the form of +a boat, only boarded up like a house, and have big oars fixed onto the +sides on't so's it could be used as a boat, and a house. Sez he: + +"How handy it would be to jest onmoor the woodhouse and row over to +the main land and git the year's stock of wood, and then row back +agin, cast anchor and hitch it onto the house agin." But Uncle Nate +demurred. He thought the expense would be more than the worth of usin' +it once a year. + +"Once a year!" sez Josiah. "You forgit how much kindlin' wood a woman +uses." Sez he, "When she that wuz Arvilly Nash worked here I believe +we used a woodhouse full a day. If we had a floatin' woodhouse here, +we should had to embark on it once a day at least and load it up with +shavin's and kindlin' wood. Samantha is more eqinomical," sez he. + +"But," sez Uncle Nate, "I hearn that Whitfield's folks wuz layin' out +to use a coal oil stove durin' the summer." + +Josiah's face fell. "So they be," sez he. + +But he wuz loath to give up this floatin' woodhouse and went on: + +"How handy it would be for a picnic, jest fill the woodhouse full of +Highlariers and set off, baskets, bundles and all. It would do away +with parasols; no jabbin' 'em into a man's eyes, or proddin' his ears +with the pints of umbrells. Or on funeral occasions," sez he, "jest +load the mourners right in, onhitch the room and sail off. Why it +would be invaluable." + +But Uncle Nate wuz more conservative and cautious. He sez, "What if it +should break loose in the night and start off by itself? It would be +a danger to the hull river. How would boats feel to meet a woodhouse? +It would jam right into 'em and sink 'em--sunk by a woodhouse! It +wouldn't sound well. And row boats would always be afraid of it, +they'd be thinkin' it would be liable to come onto 'em at any time +onbeknown to 'em, 'twouldn't have no whistle or anything." + +"Yes it would," sez Josiah hautily; "I laid out to fix it somehow with +a whistle." + +"But it couldn't whistle itself if it sot off alone." + +"Well," sez Josiah, scratchin' his head, "I hain't got that idee quite +perfected, but I might have a self actin' whistle, a stationary self +movin' gong, or sunthin' of that kind." But I didn't wait to hear any +more; I left the room, and I shouldn't wonder if I shet the door +pretty hard. + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +IN WHICH JOSIAH STILL WORKS AT HIS PLAN FOR TIRZAH ANN'S COTTAGE, AND +DECIDES TO SEND HIS LUMBER C. O. W. + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +IN WHICH JOSIAH STILL WORKS AT HIS PLAN FOR TIRZAH ANN'S COTTAGE, +AND DECIDES TO SEND HIS LUMBER C. O. W. + + +Wall the next evenin', Josiah would make the plan all over, would rub +out red marks and put in blue ones, and then rub 'em out with his +thumb and fore finger, and then anon, forgittin' himself, he'd rub his +forward with the same fingers, till he looked like a wild Injun +started for war. And he would sithe heart breakin' sithes, and moisten +his hands in his mouth, and roll up his shirt sleeves, and toil and +toil till he seemed to git a new plan made after Uncle Nate's idees, +as squatty and curous lookin' as I ever see as I glanced at it in a +cursory way. And he would work at that till some new man come round +with some new idee and then he would (goin' through with all the +motions and acts I have depictered) make a new one. And so it went on +till finally in the fullness of time Josiah produced a dockument +which he said wuz the finest plan ever drawed up in America. + +Sez he, "I have at last reached perfection." + +"I spoze you'll let me see it now it is finished," I sez. + +"Yes," sez he, "I've always been willin' to give you all the chances I +could of improvin' and enlargin' your mind, all that a woman's mind is +strong enough to bear. I am willin', Samantha, that you should look at +it and admire it, now it is too late for you to advocate any +changes." + +Sez I coldly, "If I am goin' to see the plan, bring it on." + +He laid it before me with a hauty linement and stood off a few steps +to admire it. It wuz drawed up handsome, with little ornaments in blue +and yeller ink runnin' all round the porticos and piazzas, which wuz +in red ink. But on a closer perusal I sez to him: + +"What room is this where the walls and ceilin' are all ornamented off +so?" + +"The settin' room," sez he. + +Sez I, "Where are the winders?" + +"The winders?" sez he, lookin' closter at it. + +"Yes," sez I, "as the ornaments are all fastened on now there hain't +no winders and no room for any." + +"By thunder!" sez he, the second time in my life that I ever hearn him +use that wicked swear word. + +And I sez, "I should think you would be afraid to be so profane, you a +deacon and a grand-father!" + +But he paid no attention to my remarks, but sez agin out loud and +strong, "By thunder! I forgot the winders." + +"You profane man you!" sez I, pintin' to another room, "what room is +this?" + +Sez he in a lower and more mortified tone, "It is the parlor." + +Sez I, "How be you goin' to git out of this room if you wuz built into +it? There hain't no door nor no place for one. You couldn't git out of +the room unless you climbed up through the chimbly and emerged onto +the ruff, and," sez I, "there hain't a sign of a stairway to git up +into the chambers, nor no chamber doors." + +But all the answer my pardner made wuz to snatch up the paper and tear +it right through the middle, and sez he, "There, I hope you're +satisfied now! it is all your doin's!" + +Sez I, "How, Josiah?" I spoke with calmness, for a long life passed by +the side of a man had taught me this great truth, that every man from +Adam to Josiah will blame a woman for every mistake and blunder they +make, no matter of what name or nater, from bringin' sin into the +world, to bustin' off a shirt button. + +So I sez with composure, "How did I do it, Josiah?" + +"Well," sez he, "the day I finished that plan you had company, and you +and Miss Gowdey and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury kep' up such a +confounded clackin' that a man couldn't hear himself think!" + +Sez I, "Josiah, you finished the plan the next day." + +"Well," sez he, "I kep' thinkin' of the clack. Now," sez he, "I'm +goin' to build a house by rote and not by note. I will git me away +from wimmen, and when I'm on the lot with the timber before me, my +mind will work clear." + +Sez I, "Do hear to me now; do git a good builder to lay out the plan, +one that knows how." + +"Well, I shan't do no such thing!" + +Sez I, "Then do git a first rate carpenter!" + +"No, Samantha, I shan't git any man to be bossin' me round. I shall +git some humble man that knows enough to drive a nail, to carry out +my views and be guided by me. There is so much jealousy in every walk +of life now, that when a man that shows originality and genius comes +forth from the masses, there is immegiately a desire to keep him back +and hide his talents." Sez he, "I'm afraid of this sperit so I am +goin' to git a man that can do what I tell him and ask no questions; +in these conditions," sez he, "I can swing right out and do justice to +myself." + +"Then you do have some few fears about your plans yourself?" + +Sez he, "Let me once git into a place where my mind can work, I'll +show what I can do, let me once git away from meddlin' and clack." + +But that night of his own accord (I'd had a uncommon good supper) he +acted real affectionate and more confidentialer than he had for weeks, +an' he sez, "There is one thing, Samantha, I'm bound to have, and that +is a mullin' winder." + +"A what?" sez I. "A mullin winder; what is that?" + +"Why a winder made out of mullins," sez he hautily. + +Sez I, "How do you make it? Mullin leaves are thick and the stalks +tougher than fury, how do you make winders out of 'em?" + +"That," sez he proudly, "is the work of a architect to take stalks of +the humble mullin and transfer it into a tall and stately winder." + +Sez I, "I don't believe it can be done. How would you go to work to do +it?" + +Sez he, "It would be fur from me, Samantha, to muddle up a woman's +brains any more than they be muddled naturally, tryin' to inform her +how this is done. I only say there will be a mullin' winder in the +house." + +Sez I, "Hain't you goin' to have a bay winder?" + +"That depends on whether there will be room for the bay. But as to the +ventilation, on that pint my plans are made. I believe a house should +be ventilated to the bottom instead of the top. Air goes up instead of +down, a house should be ventilated from the mop boards, I think some +of havin' em open like a trap door to let the air through. Sime +Bentley sez have a row of holes bored right through the sides of the +house to let in the air, and when you didn't want to use 'em plug 'em +up, when you want a little air take out one stopple, when you want a +good deal take out a hull row of plugs. That's a good idee," sez +Josiah, "but I convinced him that it lacked one important thing, the +air didn't come up from the bottom as I consider it necessary for +health and perfect ventilation." + +Sez I dryly, "You might have the holes bored through into the suller!" +My tone wuz as irony as a iron tea-kettle, but he didn't perceive it. + +"That is a woman's idee," sez he, "rip up a breadth of carpet every +time you want a little air, keep a man down on his knee jints the hull +of the time tackin' down carpets and ontackin' 'em. Nothin' ever made +a woman so happy as to see a man down on his marrer bones tackin' down +a carpet, unless it is seein' him takin' it up and luggin' it +outdoors, histin' it up on a line and beatin' it. No, my idee is the +only right one, ventilate from the mop boards." + +Well, true to his hauty resolution to not share his grand success and +triumph with anybody he went the next day and hired a man by the name +of Penstock. He had been a good carpenter in his day, but his brain +had kinder softened, yet he could work quite fast, and sez Josiah: + +"He's jest the man for me. He won't be jealous, he will carry out my +views and not steal my plans or my credit. There is a lumber dealer +out to the Cape owin' me for a horse, and I propose to buy of him and +have the things landed at Shadow Island." Sez he, "I am a solid +influential man, and they will send the boards and charge 'em to me, +or send 'em C. O. W." + +"C. O. W.?" sez I. "What do you mean by that?" + +"Oh," sez he, "that's a bizness phrase wimmen don't understand, we men +use it often." + +"But what duz it mean? Most things mean sunthin', at least they do in +wimmen's bizness." + +"Well, I don't want to muddle up your head with such things, Samantha, +but if you must know, it means Collect All Winter, meanin' that I can +have till spring to pay it up." + +"How do you spell all?" sez I. + +"Why o-w-l of course." + +And I sez, "With wimmen that spells owl, a bird that pertends to great +wisdom but don't know anything. Send your things C. O. W. by all +means!" sez I wore out. "Send 'em along and spell your all, o-w-l. I +think it is a highly figurative and appropriate expression." + +"Well, that is what I thought you would say as fur as you could see +into it," sez he hautily, and in the same axent he asked me if I had +packed up a extra pair of socks for him. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + +IN WHICH JOSIAH AND SERENUS DEPART SARAHUPTISHUSLY FOR CONEY ISLAND +AND I START IN PURSUIT + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + +IN WHICH JOSIAH AND SERENUS DEPART SARAHUPTISHUSLY FOR CONEY ISLAND +AND I START IN PURSUIT + + +That afternoon I see Josiah and Serenus leanin' on the barnyard fence +talkin' dretful earnest, I spozed about the Plan. But when I went to +put my milk pans in the sun I hearn the same old story Coney Island! +Dreamland! Luny! Bowery! etc., and I hurried into the house. When +Josiah come in he sez, "I guess I'll invite Serenus to go with me." + +Sez I, "Why should you invite him to go to Shadow Island?" + +"Oh he's got such good judgment," sez he. + +I felt dubersome, but bein' so mellered in sperit by his consentin' to +build the cottage I didn't stand out. And they started the next +mornin' at sunrise for Shadow Island as I spozed. Till the next day +but one Miss Gowdey come over to borry a drawin' of tea and she sez, + +"Serenus and Josiah are havin' a gay time at Coney Island. I've jest +had a card from Serenus." + +You could have knocked me down with a pin feather. But so powerful is +my mind, though it seemed to roll to and fro under my foretop and my +knees wobbled under me, I did up the tea with marble composure and a +piece of paper, and she sot off with it, and then I fell into a +rockin' chair with almost frenzied forebodin's. What! _what_ wuz +Josiah Allen doin' in that place of folly and fashion? Could he keep +his innocence amidst the awful temptations? I'd hearn there wuz places +there where folks stood on their heads; wuz his brain strong enough to +stand the jolt? + +Spozein' them iron horses should kick him over? Spozein' he got +wrecked on the Immoral railway? Or went up on the Awful Tower and fell +off? Spozein' the elephants should tread on him? Or the +boyconstructors or tigers git after him? Or he should go to the moon +and git lost there and be obleeged to stay? Oh the wild fears that +raced through my foretop; mebby they wuzn't reasonable but they gored +me jest the same. What must I, what could I do? I couldn't tell. + +[Illustration: "_'Serenus and Josiah are havin' a gay time at Coney +Island. I've jest had a card from Serenus,' sez Miss +Gowdey. You could have knocked me down with a pin +feather._" (_See page 214_)] + +But all of a sudden I thought of what Serenus said about a woman twice +my size dressed in gaudy red, forever takin' after folks--What would +Josiah do if she took after him? And no doubt she would, for looked at +through the magnifying lens of Absence and Anxiety he looked passingly +beautiful. As I thought of her I knowed what I would do. Sez I, "I +will go and tear him away and bring him back to duty and his mournin' +pardner." + +But how could I go, wuz my next thought? How dast I venter there +alone? I lacked both courage and a summer suit. But when did Samantha +ever fail to lay holt of Duty's apron strings when they dangled in +front of her? Better go clothed in a righteous purpose and a old +parmetty than in the richest new alpacky and a craven sperit. + +I knowed that if I had wanted a hobble skirt or a hayrem, or a hip +cosset there wuz no time to git 'em. But Heaven knows I didn't want +'em, treasurin' as I did the power to walk and breathe. Suffice it to +say the next mornin' the risin' sun gilded my brown straw bunnet and +umbrell as I descended from the car at the Grand Central. + +Havin' walked round and round, and through and through that immense +depo, huffin' it from as fur as from our house to Jonesville, gittin' +lost time and agin, and bein' found and sot right by onlookers and +bystanders, in the fullness of time I emerged out on't with a deep +sithe of relief. + +Believin' as I do that the great beneficent Power that fills the ether +about us, will bring us the help our sperit desires if we ask for it, +it didn't surprise me that almost the first man I met after I left the +press and turmoil of the throng, wuz Deacon Gansy, who moved from +Jonesville and is now runnin' a provision store in New York. + +I inquired for my cousin Bildad Smith of Coney Island and told him I +wuz goin' there. Sez I, "You know Bildad's wife is runnin' down." +Which wuzn't a lie, but on the very edge on't, for what did I care for +her enjoyment of poor health? And he said he wuz goin' down there in +his delivery auto to carry 'em some fresh butter and eggs and he would +take me. I thought it wuzn't a chance to refuse. Bildad runs a eatin' +house on Coney Island. + +So I sot off with Deacon Gansy, and after goin' through Chaos and +Destruction on lower New York streets, and Williamsburg bridge, and +acrost it, for all the folks in New York and Brooklyn wuz there that +day--and after passin' through crowded, hustlin', bustlin' streets, we +found ourselves anon on the broad beautiful Ocean Avenue smooth as +glass and as broad as from our house to hern that was Submit +Tewksbury's and I guess wider. Bordered on each side with four rows of +noble trees with paths between 'em. The deacon said there wuz over +'leven thousand trees along that avenue, and I didn't dispute him. + +He got real talkative and kinder bragged on how much money he wuz +makin', said he'd bought a place up in Harlem, and sez he, "I've got +another auto for pleasure drivin'." + +Sez I, "_Is_ it pleasure to drive a car through such crowded places as +we've been through to-day?" + +And he said it wuz, if folks wouldn't act mean. Sez he, "Last Sunday I +took my wife out in the country and a old man in a buggy kep' right in +front of me and wouldn't turn out, and I had to squeeze through +between him and the ditch." + +"Did you git through safe?" sez I. + +"Yes, I did, but I had to bend my mud guard right up agin his hoss's +side and scraped the skin raw, and raked its collar off." + +"What did the old man say?" sez I. + +"I never heard such language out of the mouth of man, and of course as +a deacon I couldn't listen to such profanity, so I hurried right +away." + +"Hadn't you ort to return the hoss collar, Deacon?" + +"Oh no, I couldn't stop to listen to such wicked talk." + +That wuz jest like deacon Gansy; he thought he wuz awful religious but +I always felt dubersome about it. + +But on we went through the matchless beauty of the drive. And anon we +ketched a view of the blue tostin' waves of the Atlantic, the air jest +as fresh and invigoratin' as when it blowed unto Columbuses weary +foretop when he discovered us. And like his dantless cry to his +fearful pilot, so my soul echoed the same cry to my deprestin' fears: + +"Sail on, and on, and on," to the goal of our own desires. Our two +quests wuz some different, he wuz seekin' a new continent and I an old +Josiah. But I knowed the Atlantic breezes never blowed on two more +determined and noble linements than hisen and mine. And I felt that we +would have been real congenial if he hadn't died too soon, or I been +born too late. + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + +THE CURIOUS SIGHTS I SEEN AN' THE HAIR-RAISIN' EPISODES I UNDERWENT IN +MY AGONIZIN' SEARCH FOR MY PARDNER + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + +THE CURIOUS SIGHTS I SEEN AN' THE HAIR-RAISIN' EPISODES I UNDERWENT +IN MY AGONIZIN' SEARCH FOR MY PARDNER + + +Bildad's folks wuz glad to see me. They visited us jest before they +moved there, so I felt free. But not one word did I say about my quest +for Josiah. No, such is woman's deathless devotion to the man she +loves, I'd ruther face the imputation of frivolity and friskiness, and +I spoze they think to this day I went to Coney Island out of curosity +and Pleasure Huntin', instead of the lofty motives that actuated me. I +knowed Bildad's wife wuz most bed-rid so I would be free to conduct my +search with no gossip or slurs onto Josiah. + +And another reason for goin' there: I knowed the savin' sperit of my +pardner, and I thought he would ruther git a free meal than to keep +his incognito incog. And sure enough Bildad's first words wuz, "Why +didn't you come with Josiah yesterday? He wuz here to dinner." + +"Where is he now?" sez I. + +Sez Bildad, "The last time I see him he wuz startin' to take a trip to +the Moon." + +Oh what a shock that wuz, Josiah goin' to the moon; and yet even as he +spoke I felt a relief, knowin' man's fickle nater, that the only +inhabitant I ever hearn on in the moon wuz an old man instead of a +woman. For few indeed are the men that will stand without hitchin,' +and as for girl blinders, they won't wear 'em, much as they need 'em +from the cradle to the grave. + +"When wuz he layin' out to return?" sez I in a tremblin' voice. + +"Oh they take trips there every half hour." + +Thinks I, to-day I go there myself, and Josiah Allen will come down to +earth agin' if I know myself. But not one word did I say to demean my +pardner. Breakfast wuz ready and I sot down. But my emotions filled me +up. I couldn't seem to have any place for meat vittles, I couldn't eat +anything but some bread and butter and a glass of milk. A female +settin' by me sez, "You're not goin' to eat loose milk, are you?" + +"Loose!" sez I, "Why should milk be tied up? I never wuz afraid +on't." + +"I mean milk that hain't bottled," sez she. "I wouldn't eat loose +milk for the world." And she being enthusiastick gin a long eulogy of +the good men who wuz tryin' to save poor babies by givin' 'em pure +milk, and she talked bitter about the men who opposed the idee for +fear it would pauperize the babies. + +And I told her it wouldn't make much difference with the babies +pizened by microby milk whether they died pauperized or onpauperized. + +Well, I didn't know whether the milk wuz loose or tight, but I eat it +rapidly, so's to begin my hunt. I'd slep' some on the cars, and when I +had changed my parmetty waist for a brown gingham shirt waist, and +washed my face, and brushed back my hair, I wuz ready to start. The +room they gin me wuz so small I thought I would have to go out in the +hall to change my mind. But I did manage to change my waist. Bildad's +old colored woman wuz singin' as she made the bed in the next room +that old him "Pull for the Shore." She sung: + + "Pull for the shore, brother, + Pull for the shore, + Heed not the rollin' pins, + Bend to the oar-- + + Leave the poor old straddled wreck + And pull for the shore." + +She didn't git the words right, but her voice wuz melogious, and as I +listened my soul parodied the words to suit my needs. Yes, I felt that +I must "bend to the oar" of my purpose, I must not "heed the rollin' +waves" of weariness and anxiety, must leave "the poor old stranded +wreck" of my domestic happiness and security and pull for Josiah. + +Luny Park wuz only a few steps from Bildad's and anon I stood before +what seemed to be a great city, gorgeous below and way up above the +thronged streets and mountains and flower-decked declivities, endless +white towers riz up as if callin' attention to 'em. And I didn't know +but the place had been lied about, and I asked a bystander if any of +'em wuz meetin' house steeples. + +He laughed in derision at me, and I passed on and come to a lot of +girls dressed up in red, and settin' in chariots like them old Roman +females used to go to war in. I asked one on 'em if she wuz layin' out +to go to Mexico, and she replied "Ten cents," and shoved out a piece +of paper to me. + +[Illustration: "_I stood before what seemed to be a great city. Endless +white towers riz up as if callin' attention to 'em._" +(_See page 226_)] + +I see she wuz luny as the park, but didn't argy, and passed on furder +when a man out of a row of great tall men dressed in red, took the +piece of paper from me. He took it right out of my hand, and if there +is anything wrong goin' on between him and the girl that gin it to me +I hain't to blame, and want it understood that I hain't. + +Anon I see a dancin' pavilion big enough for all the folks in +Jonesville and Zoar to dance in at one time. But I never thought of +dancin' or two-steppin' myself, though the music wuz enticin' to them +easy enticed. But knowin' the infinite variety of fads my pardner had +indulged in, I cast some searchin' glances at the dancers and +two-steppers as I went past, but to my relief I see that he wuz not +among 'em. + +On the left side, as I strolled along, I see a big butcher shop, with +hull sides of beef, mutton, pork, hams, chickens, etc., hangin' up. +And a long counter, piled full of invitin' lookin' pieces ready to +roast or brile. The butcher in a clean white apron stood behind the +counter. Everything looked good and clean, but I'd hearn of city meat +givin' toe main pizen, and knowin' Josiah's fondness for meat +vittles--I asked anxiously, "Are you sure the critters this meat come +from hadn't got cow consumption, or hog cholera?" + +A friendly female standin' by said, "Every mite of that is candy." +And she offered me a piece of sassidge, and asked which I preferred, +wintergreen or peppermint. + +I answered mekanically that I seasoned my sassidge with sage and +pepper. Agin she affirmed that everything in the butcher shop wuz +candy. + +I didn't argy, but merely said, "It is enough to deceive the very +electioneers." + +Sez she, "I spoze you mean politicians, and that's so, if they're +deceived anyone can be." + +I wuz talkin' Bible but didn't explain, and walked onwards. The F. F. +(friendly female) come too, and pretty soon we come to what they +called a new-matic tube and the F. F. explained it to me, sez she, +"You are shet into a car made of iron and it runs with a deafenin' +roar into a dark tunnel, and all to once the car slides down twenty +feet and dashes through another dark tunnel and then comes out where +you went in. If it wuzn't for the dretful noise," sez she, "it would +seem like a grave. Don't you want to try it?" + +"No, mom," sez I, "I shan't git into any coffin' and grave till my +time comes." + +"Well," sez she, "I'm goin' into the Scenic Railway, won't you come +too?" And not wantin' to act hauty and high-headed I bought a ticket +and went in with her. It looked some like a great high rock with a +cavern hollered out, and a huge devil's head with a waterfall flowin' +out of its mouth. I knowed the devil couldn't hurt us as long as he +kep' his mouth full of water. So we got on a car with about ten other +folks and they locked us in and we went right up I calculated about +half a mild, though I didn't measure, and then we sailed off and first +I knew there wuz Havana Harbor, war ships, forts, etc., and the city. +But we didn't stop for refreshments, for all of a sudden down we went +probably half a mild right straight down. I ketched holt of the F. F. +and she ketched holt of me. When all to once we wuz to the North Pole, +ice, snow drifts, white bears, etc., surrounded us and a sign with Dr. +Cook on it. + +The F. F. riz up and yelled to the conductor to stop. Sez she, "I want +to get out to the Pole, I want to discover it! I want to git my name +in the papers! I want to be talked about!" sez she. + +We wuz goin' up a tremengous mountain, and he sez, "Set down or you +_will_ git your name in the death notices." + +Whether he laid out to kill her I don't know, for she set down. And +jest then somebody yells, "Here we go down to the bottomless pit." + +I sez to the F. F., "I can't believe it! 'Tain't so! It must be +Pugatory!" + +But there wuz the sign, "Hell." + +[Illustration: "_On we went under the waterfall, up, up, down, down, +and finally shot out jest where we got in._" (_See +page 232_)] + +"Oh!" I groaned out in agony, "what have I ever done to merit this! +Have I ever been mean enough to Josiah?" But there they wuz, fiery +pits, big devils and little ones with pitchforks and darts, etc. Only +one thought assuaged my torment, my Josiah wuzn't there. But in a +minute up we went, up--up--and come out to an open place, where I see +what I thought wuz Heaven, but it wuz only Coney Island, but after +what I'd been through even that worldly frivolous spot looked heavenly +to me. On we went under the waterfall, up, up, down, down, through hot +countries and cold, and finally shot out jest where we got in. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + +I VISIT THE MOON, THE WITCHIN' WAVES, OPEN AIR CIRCUS, ADVISE THE +MONKEYS, MAKE THE MALE STATUTE LAUGH, BUT DO NOT FIND JOSIAH + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + +I VISIT THE MOON, THE WITCHIN' WAVES, OPEN AIR CIRCUS, ADVISE THE +MONKEYS, MAKE THE MALE STATUTE LAUGH, BUT DO NOT FIND JOSIAH + + +The Witching Waves is a track that moves up and down in waves. +Scientific folks say that it is a mechanical wonder. I couldn't see +how it wuz done. I couldn't make one to save my life. Folks git into +little automobiles and steer 'em themselves and first they know some +unseen power under 'em lifts the track right up, and of course their +car goes too with it. Then anon the track will go way down, and they +with it, mebby meetin' another car down there, and they will be all +mixed up, but first they know the track will hist up agin under 'em +and they have to foller it up agin. Dretful curious spot, well called +Witching Waves. But every owner of an auto sees curious times, and +feels witchin' waves, yes indeed! + +Why, I hearn about a little girl who happened to hear a man swearin' +dretfully at sunthin and he apoligized. + +"Oh," sez she, "I'm used to it, my papa owns a car." But 'tain't +necessary to swear at 'em, it don't do no good, besides the wickedness +on't. + +[Illustration: THE WITCHING WAVES "_Folks get into little automobiles +and steer 'em themselves._" (_See page 235_)] + +But jest as I wuz moralizin' on this, I hearn a bystander talkin' +about the Trip to the Moon. And rememberin' what Bildad said I sot out +for the air-ship that took folks there. To tell the truth, I'd always +hankered to see what wuz on the moon. Not to see that old man of the +moon (no, Josiah wuz my choice); but I always did want to know what +wuz on the other planets, and though I'm most ashamed to say it, after +all my talk agin Coney Island, yet if it hadn't been for the kankerin' +worm of anxiety knawin' at my vitals, I should have enjoyed myself +first rate as the air-ship sailed off, with a stately motion, for the +moon. + +I had watched the passengers with a eagle vision but no Josiah +embarked, but the air-ship sailed off, the earth receeded, we wuz in +the clouds, anon we passed through a big thunder storm, I wuz almost +lost in thought watchin' sea and ocean when the captain called out: + +"The Moon! the Moon!" + +And we alighted and got off, I a-thinkin' what and who wuz I to see in +thet place I'd always hankered for. Strange shapes indeed, foreign to +our earth, birds, dragons, animals of most weird shape. Anon I see a +little figger, queer-lookin' as you might spoze. I accosted the little +Moony, my first words bein' not a question of deep historical +research, you would expect a woman with my noble brain would ask, +about that onexplored country. No, my head didn't speak, it wuz my +heart, that gushed forth in a agonized inquiry. + +"Have you seen Josiah? Have you seen my beloved pardner? Is he in the +moon?" + +His words in reply wuz in moon language, nothin' I ever hearn in +Jonesville or Zoar, and anon he begun to sing in that moony language, +and I see I wuz wastin' time, I must conduct my quest myself. + +But oh, the seens I passed through! And oh, the queer moon landscapes! +the queer moony animals and moon creeters I passed! But all in vain, +no Josiah blessed my longin' vision. And with my brain turnin' over +and my heart achin', I agin entered the air-ship and returned to terry +cotta; or mebby I hain't got it right in my agitation, mebby I'd ort +to say visey versey. 'Tennyrate I found myself out in Luny Park agin. + +Well, what wuz to be my next move? Fur up a steep hite I see water +pourin' down a deep abyss and a boat full of men and wimmen set out +from the highest peak, shot down the declivity like lightnin' and +dashed 'way out in the water on the other side of the bridge where I +wuz standin'; but my idol wuz not among 'em. + +I see a great checker-board raised up, so big it wuz played with human +creeters instead of beans or kernels of corn. But no Josiah wuz there +movin' and jumpin', or bein' jumped as the case might be. + +[Illustration: "_A boat full of men and women set out from the highest +peak, shot down the declivity like lightnin' and dashed +'way out on the other side of the bridge._" (_See +page 238_)] + +On one side riz up a high mountain full of green shrubs and flowers, +and windin' round and round from the bottom clear to the top, went +cars filled with men and wimmen, boys and girls, up, up, down, down, +as fur as from our house to Betsy Bobbet Slimpsey's; but no Josiah wuz +among the winders up or the winders down. + +Even as I looked, a elephant passed me with stately tread, bearin' on +his richly ornamented back a small-sized man with a bald head; but it +wuzn't Josiah's baldness or his small, meachin' figger. + +Two high tiers of balconies stretched along on one side, ornamented +off with white pillows and posies where folks could set and eat their +good meals, and enjoy the music and the never ceasing gayety. Beneath +'em, above 'em and beyond 'em, as fur as they could, see, towers, +pinnacles, battlements, steeples, palms, flowers, color, light, music, +and the endless, endless procession of pleasure hunters passin' below. +Rich men, poor men, wimmen in satin and serge, shiffon and calico, +babies, boys and girls. + +I made the calculation that about a million folks could be +accommodated on them balconies. I may have got one or two too many; I +didn't stop to count. + +Lower down run a low, ornamented ruff, coverin' hundreds of little +tables where folks could set and git soft drinks and hard. The hard +drink's true to its name everyway. For when did the Whiskey Demon ever +turn out anything but hard, from the time it exhilerates the consumer +till it drives him away from love, home, friends, happiness, and at +last gives him a final hard push, sendin' him into a onlamented +grave! + +But truly no one has time to moralize or eppisode to any extent amidst +the music, laughter and gay voices, the endless procession passin' by. +To most a seen of happiness, but to me they seemed like shadders; the +Reality of life, my beloved pardner, wuz lost, lost to me. A pleasant +lookin' female standin' by, seein' the emotion in my face, and wantin' +to cheer me up, I spoze, sez: + +"Have you tried the Loop de Loop?" + +I answered with a sad dignity, "Yes, I've done considerable tattin' in +my day." + +"Mebby you'd like to try the Bump de Bump." + +I sez, "No, I've enjoyed enough of that since comin' in here." + +Sez she, "Have you seen the monkeys keepin' house?" + +"No," sez I, "but I will." And sure enough, there wuz a big family of +monkeys housekeeping. Some eatin' dinner in the dining room, some +doin' different kinds of housework, sweepin', operatin' the dumb +waiter, payin' bills, etc. Some in the settin' room readin' the +newspaper. And there is a band of sixty monkey musicians. And I hearn +they're learnin' bridge whist; I wuz sorry to hear that, and I sez to +the oldest and wisest lookin' monkey: + +"You'll sup sorrow if you go into bridge whist, gamblin' and wastin' +good daylight in civilized sports, when you might be hangin' from tree +tops, and chasin' each other 'round stumps, in a honest, oncivilized +way. If you don't look out your ladies will foller the example of the +Four Hundred and be thinkin' of a divorce and big alimony next." + +He looked impressed by my noble anxiety on their behaff, but didn't +say nothin'. But mebby he'll hear to me. A little boy standin' by sez, +"Ma, Jimmy Bates sez that he and I and everybody descended from +monkeys--did I, ma?" + +"I don't know," sez she, "I never knew much about your father's +family." + +I didn't stay long at the Open Air Circus, though it wuz a big place +and sights goin' on there; bare-backed riders, Japanese jugglers and +acrobats, tight-rope walkers, elephants and camels with folks on their +backs, with Arabians and East Indians in their native costumes takin' +care of 'em. + +Not fur off I see a male statute; lots of folks wuz congregated in +front of it, and I went up too, and I sez to a female bystander, "I +always did love to see statutes. But this one's linement is humblier +than most on 'em." + +When if you'll believe it it turned round and sez, "Thank you, mom, +for the compliment." It acted mad. + +Another man stood like a statute, and the woman I had spoke to sez, +"You can git a dollar if you can make that man laugh." + +And I sez, "I can." + +Sez she, "I don't believe it; I've read to him lots of the humorous +stories in the late magazines, and he looked fairly gloomy when I got +done." + +And I sez, "I don't wonder at that, I do myself. They're awful +deprestin'." + +And she sez, "I've held up in front of him the funny colored +supplements to the Sunday papers, and I thought he'd cry." + +"Well," sez I, "I've pretty nigh shed tears over 'em myself, they made +me so onhappy." + +"How be you goin' to make him laugh?" sez she. + +"You watch me and see," sez I. So I went up to him and got his eye and +told him over a lot of laws our male statesmen have made, and are +makin'. License laws of different kinds, but all black as a coal. How +a little girl of twelve or fourteen, pronounced legally incapable of +buyin' or sellin' a sheep or a hen, can legally sell her virtue and +ruin her life. How pizen is licensed by law to make men break the law, +and then they are punished and hung by the law for doin' what the law +expected they would do. + +How a woman can protect her dog by payin' a dollar, but can't protect +her boy with her hull property and her heart's blood. How mothers are +importuned by male statesmen to bring big families into a world full +of temptation and ruin, but have no legal rights to protect them from +the black dangers licensed by these law-makers. + +His face looked so queer, I worried some thinkin' I should git him to +cryin' instead of laughin'; but I hurried and told him how our +statesmen would flare up now and then and turribly threaten the Mormon +who keeps on marryin' some new wives every little while, and then +elect him to Congress, and sculp his head on our warship to show +foreign nations that America approves of such doin's. And I told him +how girls and boys, hardly out of pantalettes and knee breeches, could +git married in five minutes, but have to spend months and money to +break the ties so easily made and prove they are morally fit to care +for the children born of that careless five minute ceremony. + +His linement looked scornful at the idee. And I told him how they tax +wimmen without representation, and then spend millions rasin' statutes +to our forefathers for fightin' agin the same thing. And how statesmen +trust wimmen with their happiness, their lives and their honor, but +deny 'em the rights they give to wicked men, degenerates, and men +whose heads are so soft a fly will slump in if it lights on 'em. To +such men (as well as better ones) they give the right to govern the +wimmen they love, their good inteligent wives and mothers, rule 'em +through life, and award punishment and death to 'em. + +"And such men," sez I, "say wimmen don't know enough to vote." + +The very idee wuz so weak and inconsistent that it made the man +statute hysterical, and he bust out into a peal of derisive laughter, +and I took my dollar and walked off, though I knowed enough could be +said on this subject to make a stun statute hystericky. I lay out to +send the dollar to the W. C. T. U. + +Jest after this I met Bildad, and he sez, "I jest see Josiah; he wuz +in Steeple Chase Park, talkin' with some girls there." + +I didn't wait to ask what they wuz talkin' about, I hoped it wuz +religion, but felt dubersome, and hurried there fast as I could. I +crossed the automobile track where crowded cars wuz runnin' all the +while round and round, past the rows of big high headed mettlesome +hosses (this is a pun; they wuz made of metal). + +But I passed 'em all as if they wuzn't there; for my mind wuz all took +up with the thought, should I find my pardner there talkin' with them +girls, and if so, what would be the subject of their conversation? +Josiah is sound; but the best of men have weak spots in their armor +which the glance of a bright eye will oft-times pierce through and do +damage. So, to protect my dear pardner from danger, I pressed forward +and wuz let in by a good-lookin' man for twenty-five cents. He gin me +a paper locket and told me to be sure and not lose it. It had a man's +face on it, and I d'no but he thought I would treasure it on account +of that. + +I didn't argy with him, but jest looked him coldly in the face and +sez, "I am no such a woman, I have got a pardner of my own, though I +can't put my hand on him this minute." And I passed on. + +[Illustration: "_Rows of high-headed mettlesome hosses._"] + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + +THE WONDERFUL AND MYSTERIOUS SIGHTS I SAW IN STEEPLE CHASE PARK, AND +MY SEARCH THERE FOR MY PARDNER + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + +THE WONDERFUL AND MYSTERIOUS SIGHTS I SAW IN STEEPLE CHASE PARK, AND +MY SEARCH THERE FOR MY PARDNER + + +Steeple Chase Park is most as big as Luny Park, but is mostly one huge +buildin' covered with glass, and every thing on earth or above, or +under the earth, is goin' on there, acres and acres of amusements +(so-called) in one glass house. + +As I went in, I see a immense mirror turnin' round and round seemin'ly +invitin' folks to look. But as I glanced in, I tell the truth when I +say, I wuzn't much bigger round than a match, and the thinness made me +look as tall as three on me. + +"Oh," sez I, "has grief wore my flesh away like this? If it keeps on I +shan't dast to take lemonade, for fear I shall fall into the straw and +be drowned." + +A bystander sez, "Look agin, mom!" + +I did and I wuzn't more'n two fingers high, and wide as our barn +door. + +I most shrieked and sez to myself, "It has come onto me at last, grief +and such doin's as I've seen here, has made me crazy as a loon." And I +started away almost on a run. + +All of a sudden the floor under me which looked solid as my kitchen +floor begun to move back and forth with me and sideways and back, to +and fro, fro and to, and I goin' with it, one foot goin' one way, and +the other foot goin' somewhere else; but by a hurculaneum effort I +kep' my equilebrium upright, and made out to git on solid floorin'. +But a high-headed female in a hobble skirt, the hobbles hamperin her, +fell prostrate. I felt so shook up and wobblin' myself, I thought a +little Scripter would stiddy me, and I sez, "Sinners stand on slippery +places." + +"I see they do!" she snapped out, lookin' at me; "but I can't!" + +I sez to myself as I turned away, "I'll bet she meant me." But bein' +tuckered out, I sot down on a reliable-lookin' stool, the high-headed +woman takin' another one by my side--there wuz a hull row of folks +settin' on 'em--when, all of a sudden, I d'no how it wuz done or why, +but them stools all sunk right down to the floor bearin' us with 'em +onwillin'ly. + +I scrambled to my feet quick as I could, and as I riz up I see right +in front on me the gigantick, shameless female Bildad had as good as +told me Josiah had been flirtin' with. I knowed her to once, the +gaudy, flashin' lookin' creeter, bigger than three wimmen ort to be; +she wuz ten feet high if she wuz a inch. As she come up to me with +mincin' steps, I sez to her in skathin' axents: + +"What have you done with my innocent pardner? Where is Josiah Allen? +Open your guilty breast and confess." And now I'm tellin' the livin' +truth, as she towered up in front on me, her breast did open and a +man's face looked out on me. My brain tottled, but righted itself with +relief, for it wuz not Josiah; it wuz probable some other woman's +husband. But I sez to myself, let every woman take care of her own +husband if she can; it hain't my funeral. + +And I hurried off till I come out into a kinder open place with some +good stiddy chairs to set down on, and some green willers hangin' down +their verdant boughs over some posy beds. Nothin' made up about 'em. +Oh how good it looked to me to see sunthin' that God had made, and man +hadn't dickered with and manufactured to seem different from what it +wuz. Thinks I, if I should take hold of one of these feathery green +willer sprays it wouldn't turn into a serpent or try to trip me up, or +wobble me down. They looked beautiful to me, and beyond 'em I could +see the Ocean, another and fur greater reality, real as life, or +death, or taxes, or anything else we can't escape from. + +[Illustration: "_I'm tellin' the livin' truth, as she towered up in +front on me, her breast opened and a man's face looked out +on me._" (_See page 253_)] + +Settin' there lookin' off on them mighty everlastin' waves, forever +flowin' back and forth, forth and back, the world of the flimsy and +the false seemed to pass away and the Real more nigh to me than it did +in the painted land of shams and onreality I had been passin' through. +And as I meditated on the disgraceful sight I had seen--that gaudy, +guilty creeter with a man concealed in her breast. For if it wuzn't a +guilty secret, why wuz the door shet and fastened tight, till the +searchlight of a woman's indignant eyes brought him to light? + +Thinkin' it over calmly and bein' reasonable and just, my feelin's +over that female kinder softened down, and I sez to myself, what if +there wuz a open winder or door into all our hearts, for outsiders to +look in, what would they see? Curious sights, homely ones and +beautiful, happy ones and sorrowful, and some kinder betwixt and +between. Sacred spots that the nearest ones never got a glimpse on. +Eyes that look acrost the coffee pot at you every mornin' never +ketched sight on 'em, nor the ones that walk up and down in them +hidden gardens. Some with veiled faces mebby, some with reproachful +orbs, some white and still, some pert and sassy. + +Nothin' wicked, most likely; nothin' the law could touch you for; but +most probable it might make trouble if them affectionate eyes opposite +could behold 'em, for where love is there is jealousy, and a lovin' +woman will be jealous of a shadder or a scare-crow. It is nateral +nater and can't be helped. But if she stopped to think on't, she +herself has her hid-away nooks in her heart, dark or pleasant +landscapes, full of them, you never ketch a glimpse on do the best you +can. And jealous curosity goes deep. What would Josiah see through my +heart's open door? What would I see in hisen? It most skairs me to +think on't. No, it hain't best to have open doors into hearts. Lots of +times it would be resky; not wrong, you know, but jest resky. + +Thus I sot and eppisoded, lookin' off onto the melancholy ocean, +listenin' to her deep sithes, when onbid come the agonizin' thought, +"Had Josiah Allen backslid so fur and been so full of remorse and +despair, that his small delicate brain had turned over with him, and +he had throwed himself into the arms of the melancholy Ocean? Wuz her +deep, mournful sithes preparin' me for the heart-breakin' sorrow?" I +couldn't abear the thought, and I riz up and walked away. As I did so +a bystander sez, "Have you been up on the Awful Tower?" + +"No," sez I, "I've been through awful things, enough, accidental like, +without layin' plans and climbin' up on 'em." But Hope will always +hunch Anxiety out of her high chair in your head and stand up on it. I +thought I would go upstairs into another part of the buildin' and +mebby I might ketch a glimpse of my pardner in the dense crowd below. + +And if you'll believe it, as I wuz walkin' upstairs as peaceful as our +old brindle cow goin' up the south hill paster, my skirts begun to +billow out till they got as big as a hogsit. I didn't care about its +bein' fashion to not bulge out round the bottom of your skirts but +hobble in; but I see the folks below wuz laughin' at me, and it madded +me some when I hadn't done a thing, only jest walk upstairs peaceable. +And I don't know to this day what made my clothes billow out so. + +But I went on and acrost to a balcony, and after I went in, a gate +snapped shet behind me and I couldn't git back. And when I got to the +other side there wuzn't any steps, and if I got down at all I had to +slide down. I didn't like to make the venter, but had to, so I tried +to forgit my specs and gray hair and fancy I wuz ten years old, in a +pig-tail braid, and pantalettes tied on with my stockin's, and sot +off. As I went down with lightnin' speed I hadn't time to think much, +but I ricollect this thought come into my harassed brain: + +Be pardners worth all the trouble I'm havin' and the dretful +experiences I'm goin' through? Wouldn't it been better to let him go +his length, than to suffer what I'm sufferin'? I reached the floor +with such a jolt that my mind didn't answer the question; it didn't +have time. + +All to once, another wind sprung up from nowhere seemin'ly, and tried +its best to blow off my bunnet. But thank Heaven, my good green braize +veil tied round it with strong lutestring ribbon, held it on, and I +see I still had holt of my trusty cotton umbrell, though the wind had +blowed it open, but I shet it and grasped it firmly, thinkin' it wuz +my only protector and safeguard now Josiah wuz lost, and I hastened +away from that crazy spot. + +[Illustration: "_As I went down with lightnin' speed I had'nt time to +think much._" (_See page 258_)] + +As I passed on I see a hull lot of long ropes danglin' down. On top of +'em wuz a trolley, and folks would hang onto the handle and slide +hundreds of feet through the air. But I didn't venter. Disinclination +and rumatiz both made me waive off overtures to try it. + +Pretty soon I come to a huge turn-table, big as our barn floor. It wuz +still and harmless lookin' when I first see it, and a lot of folks got +onto it, thinkin' I spoze it looked so shiny and good they'd like to +patronize it. But pretty soon it begun to move, and then to turn +faster and faster till the folks couldn't keep their seats and one by +one they wuz throwed off, and went down through a hole in the floor I +know not where. + +As I see 'em disappear one by one in the depths below, thinks I, is +that where Josiah Allen has disappeared to? Who knows but he is +moulderin' in some underground dungeon, mournin' and pinin' for me and +his native land. Of course Reason told me that he couldn't moulder +much in two days, but I wuz too much wrought up to listen to Reason, +and as I see 'em slide down and disappear, onbeknown to myself I spoke +out loud and sez: + +"Can it be that Josiah is incarcerated in some dungeon below? If he +is, I will find and release him or perish with him." + +A woman who looked as if she belonged there, hearn me and sez, "Who is +Josiah?" "My pardner," sez I, and I continued, "You have a kind face, +mom; have you seen him? Have you seen Josiah Allen?" + +[Illustration: "_Pretty soon it begun to move and one by one they wuz +throwed off and went down I know not where._" (_See +page 260_)] + +"Describe him," sez she, "there wuz a man here just now hunting for +some woman." + +"Oh, he is very beautiful!" + +"Young?" sez she. + +"Well, no; about my age or a little older." + +"Light complexion? Dark hair and eyes? Stylish dressed?" + +"No, wrinkled complexion, bald, and what few hairs he's got, gray." + +She smiled; she couldn't see the beauty Love had gilded his image +with. + +Sez I, "If he's incarcerated in some dungeon below, I too will mount +the turn-table of torture, and share his fate or perish on the turn +table." + +Sez she, "There is no dungeons below; the folks come out into a vast +place as big as this. There is just as much to see down there as there +is here, just as many people and just as much amusement." + +"Amusement!" sez I in a holler voice. + +After I left her, I see a whisk broom hangin' up in a handy place, and +it had a printed liebill on it, "This whisk broom free." And as my +parmetty dress had got kinder dusty a slidin' and wobblin' as I had +slode and wobbled, I went to brush off my skirt with it, when all of +a sudden somebody or sunthin' gin me a stunnin' blow right in my arm +that held the brush. I dropped it without waitin' to argy the matter, +and I don't know to this day who or what struck me and what it wuz +for. But my conscience wuz clear; I hadn't done nothin'. + +I santered on and entered an enclosure seemin'ly made of innocent +lookin' fence rails. I wuz kinder attracted to it, for it looked some +like the rail fence round our gooseberry bushes. But for the lands +sake! it wuzn't like any fence in Jonesville or Zoar, for though it +looked innocent, it shet me in tight and I couldn't git out. + +I wandered round and round, and out and in, and it wuz a good half +hour before I got out, and I d'no but I'd have been there to this day, +if a man hadn't come and opened a gate and let me out. Only one +thought kep' up my courage in my fruitless wanderings. It wuz all done +in plain sight of everybody, and I could see for myself that Josiah +wuzn't kep' there in captivity. + +There wuz a tall pole in the middle of the Amaze, as they call it +(well named, for it is truly amazin'), and the liebill on that pole +read, "Climb the pole and ring the bell on it, and we will give you a +prize." + +I didn't try to climb that pole, and wouldn't if I had been a athleet. +How did I know but it would turn into a writhin' serpent, and writhe +with me? No, I thought I wouldn't take another resk in that dredful +spot. And I wuz glad I thought so, for jest a little ways off, some +honest, easy lookin' benches stood invitin' the weary passer-by to set +down and rest and recooperate. And right there before my eyes some +good lookin' folks sot down on 'em trustin'ly, and the hull bench fell +over back with 'em and then riz up agin, they fallin' and risin' with +it. + +I hastened away and thought I would go up into the second story agin +and mebby ketch sight of my pardner, for the crowd had increased. And +as I stood there skannin' the immense crowd below to try to ketch a +glimpse of my lawful pardner, all to once I see the folks below wuz +laughin' at me. I felt to see if my braize veil hung down straight and +graceful, and my front hair wuz all right, and my cameo pin fastened. +But nothin' wuz amiss, and I wondered what could it be. The balcony +wuz divided off into little spaces, five or six feet square, and I +stood in one, innocent as a lamb (or mebby it would be more +appropriate to say a sheep), and leanin' on the railin', and one sassy +boy called out: + +"Where wuz you ketched? Are you tame? Wuz you ketched on the Desert of +Sara? Did Teddy ketch you for the Government?" and I never knowed till +I got down what they wuz laughin' at. + +The little boxes in the balcony wuz painted on the outside to +represent animal cages. On the one where I had been wuz painted the +sign Drumedary. Josiah Allen's wife took for a drumedary--The idee! + +But the view I got of the crowd below wuz impressive, and though it +seemed to me that everybody in New York and Brooklyn and the adjacent +villages and country, wuz all there a Steeple Chasin', yet I knowed +there wuz jest as many dreamin' in Dreamland and bein' luny in Luny +Park. And Surf Avenue wuz full, and what they called the Bowery of +Coney Island, and all the amusement places along the shore. And all on +'em on the move, jostlin' and bein' jostled, foolin' and bein' fooled, +laughin' and bein' laughed at. + +Why, I wuz told and believe, that sometimes a million folks go to +Coney Island on a holiday. And I wuz knowin' myself to over three +thousand orphan children goin' there at one time to spend a happy day, +the treat bein' gin 'em by some big-hearted men. Plenty to eat and +drink, and a hull day of enjoyment, candy, pop corn, circus, etc., +bright day, happy hearts, how that day will stand out aginst the dull +gray background of their lives! And them men ort to hug themselves +thinkin' the thought, over three thousand happinesses wuz set down to +their credit in the books of the Recordin' Angel. And I sez to myself, +"Samantha, you ort to speak well of anything that so brightens the +lives of the children of the great city." + +As I went into Dreamland Park, it seemed agin as if all the folks in +the city wuz there in the immense inner court, surrounded by +amusements on every side. They wuz comin' and goin', talkin', +laughin', hurryin', santerin', to and fro, fro and to. Lots on 'em +talkin' language I never hearn before, but I thought, poor things, you +never had the advantage of livin' in Jonesville, so I overlooked it in +'em. + +[Illustration: _"As I went into Dreamland it seemed as if all the folks +in the city was there." (See page 266)_] + +I see most the first thing as I entered, a place called Creation, and +feelin' dubersome that any thing more could be created than what I'd +seen that day, I bought a ticket and went in, and to my glad surprise, +I found it wuz some like a prayer meetin'. For a man with a loud +preachin' voice quoted a lot of Scripter most the first thing. After +we all got seated it turned dark as pitch all in a minute. But you +could dimly see a vast waste of water, kinder movin' and swashin' to +and fro, as if some great force wuz workin' down below. And out of the +darkness we hearn that Voice: + +"In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth, and the Earth +wuz without form and void, and darkness wuz on the face of the deep." + +Anon the fiery energy that wuz makin' a planet, wuz hearn in deafenin' +peals of thunder, and blazed through the sky in sheets of lightnin' +and dartin' balls of flame, quietin' down some after awhile. And the +Voice continued: + +"The spirit of God moved on the face of the deep. And God said, Let +there be light; and there wuz light." + +And slowly a faint light dawned and growed brighter and brighter and +fleecy clouds appeared. The sky growed golden and rosy in the east, +and the sun come up in splendor. Livin' forms appeared in the water, +monsters of all kinds and sizes, queerer than any dog I ever see, and +the Voice went on: + +"And God separated the water from the land." Little peaks of land +emerged from the water or it seemed as if the water receeded from +them, and gradually the dry land appeared, and soon queer livin' forms +appeared on it. And gradually, with green grass and verdure, it become +fit for the home of man, and then Adam and Eve appeared. They wuzn't +clothed in much besides innocence, but somehow they didn't look so +immodest as some of the fashonably dressed females of to-day, with +dekolitay and peek-a-boo waists, and skin-tight drapery. + +There wuz good Bible talk and sacred music all through the show. And I +felt as if I had looked on and seen a world made right before my eyes, +and that I would dearly love to make a few myself if I had time, and +Josiah wuz willin'. I wuz highly delighted with it and said as much to +the female who sot next to me. She had a discontented, onhappy face, +and I guess she had enough to make her so, for her husband who sot by +her kep' findin' fault with her all the time, till at last she +turned--for you know a angle worm will turn if it is trod on +enough--and she sez to me, but meant it for her pardner I knowed: + +"The lecturer ort to gone on and told how sneakin' mean Adam treated +his wife, eatin' the apple, I'll bet down to the very core, and then +misusin' her for givin' it to him, and puttin' all the blame on her +for bringin' sin into the world, when he wuz jest as much to blame as +she wuz." + +Sez her husband, "You have to slur men all the time, don't you? You +can't see or hear anything without findin' sunthin' to complain of +about men. I despise such a sperit; men don't have it." + +Now, I love justice, and I hate to see my sect imposed upon, and then +whenever or wherever I travel, I always bear with me the honorary +title I won honorably. Jest as men take with 'em on sea or land their +titles of B. A. or D. D., just so I ever carry the title, won by high +minded and strenous effort, Josiah Allen's wife, P. A. and +P. I.--Public Adviser and Private Investigator. Here, I thought, is +need for a P. A. So I sez to her, yet in a voice her pardner couldn't +help hearin': + +"I hearn once of a husbands' meetin' in a revival, when the minister +asked every man to git up who had complaints to make about his wife. +Every man sprung to his feet to once, except one lone man by the door. +And the minister sez, 'My friend, you are one man in a million who +have no complaints to make about your wife.' The man sez, 'That hain't +it; I'm paralyzed, I can't _git_ up.'" + +I d'no as the husband I aimed this at took it kind or not, but he +didn't nag his wife any more in my hearin'. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + +IN WHICH I CONTINUE MY SEARCH FOR JOSIAH THROUGH DREAMLAND, HUNTIN' +FOR HIM IN VAIN, AND RETURN TO BILDAD'S AT NIGHT, WEARY AND DESPAIRIN' + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + +IN WHICH I CONTINUE MY SEARCH FOR JOSIAH THROUGH DREAMLAND, HUNTIN' +FOR HIM IN VAIN, AND RETURN TO BILDAD'S AT NIGHT, WEARY AND DESPAIRIN' + + +Creation wuz such a good show I felt considerable rested and refreshed +when it wuz over. And I thought the woman looked quite a little +perter; it duz down-trod folks lots of good to have somebody take +their part. I felt kinder good to think I had lightened a sister +female's sperit a little, and wuz walkin' along quite comfortable in +mind when like an arrow out of a bo, the old pain and anxiety stabbed +me afresh. Another hour gone and Josiah Allen not found! What shall I +do? Where shall I turn the eyes of my spectacles? Jest as I wuz askin' +this question to my troubled soul I hearn a boy speak to another one +about a futur' state of punishment in sich a vulgar and familiar way +that I turned round to once, carryin' out my roll of Promisicous +Adviser, and I sez, "You wicked boys you, to talk so light of your +future states, I wonder you dast! If I wuz your mother and had had +your bringin' up, you wouldn't dast!" + +They looked real impudent at me, and one on 'em sez, "You hain't the +money to go with, that's what ails you." + +I sez solemnly, "Riches is a snare. I know how hard it is for the eye +of a needle to have a camel git through it; I know how the rich man +longed for a drop of water. And you'd better meditate on these things +and try to git used to heat, instead of talkin' light about 'em!" I +don't know how much longer I should have gone on as a P. A. and P. I. +but the woman I had befriended stepped up and sez, "He means the show +there." And lookin' up, if you'll believe it, I see the words "Hell +Gate," and sez she, "I have got two tickets and my husband don't care +about goin', won't you go with me?" + +I thought to myself, he probably thinks he'll have chances to sample +it in the futur, but mebby he wuz jest sulky. But I only sez to her, +"It is the last place I ever laid out to go unless I wuz obleeged to. +But lead on," sez I recklessly, "I'll foller." For the thought had +come to me onbid, How did I know how fur Josiah Allen had +back-slided? How did I know but I'd find him there? + +[Illustration: _"We got in a small boat and wuz carried round and round +till we dived into a dark tunnel."_] + +But to my great surprise--and I wish Elder Minkley could see it, I +thought mebby it would modify his sermons some--the first thing we see +wuz a great trough of water, and I said to the woman in surprise, "I +never expected that folks would go to this hot place by water!" But +we got into a small boat and wuz carried round and round like a +whirlpool, till the boat got in the very center, when it dived down +into a dark tunnel. + +At the further end we climbed out onto a platform, and found ourselves +in a long, low-vaulted place, some like a immense tunnel. We could +jest ketch a glimpse of a light way off at the end, and we sot off for +it, I lookin' clost and sharp on every side for my pardner, hopin' and +dreadin' to find him there. When all of a sudden, the most terrific +yells and shrieks sounded on every side and we see cages of wild +animals on both sides of us movin' up and down howlin' and snarlin'. + +Sez the woman, "They're men dressed up as wild beasts." + +Sez I, "Have they got to stay here always? Do you spoze it is wrong +doin' that has changed 'em into wild animals?" Sez I, "Judgin' from +the papers some on 'em wouldn't need much of a turn." But oh, I +groaned to myself, "Is Josiah Allen turned into a bear or a cammy +leapord! Is he here? I don't believe," sez I to myself, "he has ever +been bad enough to be turned into anything worse than a sheep or a +rooster." And as I didn't hear any blattin' or crowin', and knowed +that if he had seen me he would have tried to communicate with his +beloved pardner, I felt hopeful he wuzn't there. + +We went on and as soon as we got out she asked me if I didn't want to +see the Incubator babies, and bein' agreeable to the idee, we went and +see 'em. There they lay in glass cases, pretty little creeters lookin' +like wee bits of dolls, I felt sad as I looked down on 'em, and +thought on the hard journey them tiny feet must set out on from them +glass boxes. What rough crosses the little fingers had got to grasp +holt of, and onbeknown to me my mind fell onto the follerin' poetry-- + + "Our crosses are made from different trees, + But we all of us have our Calvaries; + We may climb the mount from a different side, + But we all go up to be crucified." + +Of course, I knowed there would be some bright posies wreathed round +the crosses; but there would be thorns in them. And though the road +might be soft and agreeable in spots, yet I knowed well what hard +rocks there wuz in the highway of life to stub toes on, even +common-sized toes, and it did seem a pity such little mites of feet +had got to git stun bruises on 'em. + +Poor little creeters! I thought, little do you know what sadness and +ecstacy, what grief and joy, gloom and glory lays ahead on you. I wuz +sorry for 'em, sorry as a dog. + +And then I didn't like the idee of the little helpless creeters bein' +laid out on exhibition, like shirt buttons, or hooks and eyes, to be +stared on by saint and sinner, by eyes tender or cruel--and voices +lovin' and hateful to comment on. I felt that the place for little +babies wuz to home in the bedroom. And I thought nothin' would tempt +me, if Josiah wuz a infant babe, to place him on exhibition like +Hamburg edgin', or bobbinet lace. The very idee wuz repugnant to me. +And I wuz more than willin' when the female asked me if I didn't want +to go and see the midgets, and we went. + +And you don't know what interestin' little creeters they wuz, mindin' +their own bizness and midgetin' away. Actin' out a little play jest as +if a company of dolls had come to life, talkin' and actin'. They +seemed to be jest as happy and contented as if they wuz eight or ten +feet high and heavy accordin'. + +As we left this place the female ketched sight of her husband. He +bagoned hautily to her with one finger, and she hastened to jine him. +Such is females. And so true it is that love in either sect will rise +up above naggin', or any other kind of pardner meanness. + +I went forward alone to see the Head Hunters. And I looked on the +brown little folks with a feelin' of pity. How did I know they had +ever had good advice? I felt here wuz a noble chance for a P. A. + +So I sez to 'em, "I've hearn of your doin's, and I want to advise you +for your good." They looked at me real stiddy and I went on, "You may +think you hain't so guilty because you only take folkses heads. But +for the lands sakes! did you ever stop to think on't? What can they do +without their heads? Of course," sez I reasonably, "there is a +difference in heads. Some folkses heads hain't got so much sense in +'em as others. I've seen 'em myself that I've thought a good wooden +head would be jest as useful. But they are the best they've got, and +they're attached to 'em, and they can't git along without 'em. And I +always thought you might jest as well take their hull bodies whilst +you wuz about it. Don't you see that is so? When it is pinted out to +you by a P. A.?" + +[Illustration: _"I went forward to see the Head Hunters. I sez to 'em +'I've hearn of your doin's and I want to advise you for +your good_.'" (_See page 281_)] + +They kinder jabbered over sunthin' to themselves, and I sez as I +turned away, "Now, don't let me hear of any more such doin's! Be +contented with the heads you've got, and don't try to git somebody +elses that don't belong to you." Sez I, "Sunthin' like that, namely +stealin' the interior of folkses heads, has been done time and agin +among more civilized folks, and it don't work; they git found out." + +I left 'em getisculatin' and jabberin' in that strange lingo and am in +hopes they wuz promisin' to quit their Head Huntin', but can't tell +for certain. + +As I santered along a female asked me if I had seen the Divin' Girls, +sez she, "There is a immense pond of water, and they are the best +divers and swimmers in the world." + +But I sez, "Nobody can dive into deeper depths than I have doven +to-day." + +"The ocean?" sez she. + +"Oceans of anxiety," sez I, "rivers of grief." I spoze my dretful +emotions showed on my linement, and to git my mind off she sez, "You +ort to see the aligators." + +I'd hearn they had immense tanks of water as long as from our house to +Philander Dagget's, holdin' thousands and thousands and thousands of +aligators, from them jest born, to them a hundred years old, from them +the size of your little finger weighin' a few ounces, to them big as +elephants, weighin' two tons. + +But I told her I could worry along for years without aligators, I +never seemed to hanker for 'em, I wouldn't take 'em as a gift if I had +to let 'em have the run of the house. Humbly things! though I spoze +they hain't to blame for their looks, or their temperses, which are +fierce. And I didn't go into the big animal house, thinkin' I wuz so +dog tired that I would go back to Bildad's and come back the next day +and see all the animals and birds and the hundreds of other shows I'd +had to slight that day, enough to devour days of stiddy sight seein'. +The Siege of Richmond, The Great Divide, Switzerland, Congress of +Nations, Indian Village, The Orient, Bathin' Pavilions, Japanese Tea +Gardens, and etc. + +I did want to see the Shimpanzee who duz everything but talk. And I +thought mebby the reason he wuz so close-mouthed wuz because he hearn +so much talkin' he wuz sick on't, as I wuz, and made a sample of +himself. But if he did nobody follered it, no indeed! Why, you jest +spozen a hundred swarms of bees big as giants, with buzzes big +accordin', all a swarmin' and a buzzin', and you'll git a little idee +of the noise and tumult of Coney Island. But you won't spozen' fur +enough, I don't believe. Yes, I laid out to spend considerable time in +Dreamland next day. But little did I think of what a day might bring +forth, and have got it to think on like them that lose friends, "Oh +why didn't I do thus and so? And now it is too late to wait on 'em, +and pay attention to 'em?" But I'm leadin' a melancholy horse up to a +mournin' wagon, before the thills are on, so I'll stop eppisodin' and +resoom forwards. Jest outside the gate of Dreamland I met Bildad, and +he sez, "Have you found Josiah yet?" + +"No," I sez in despairin' axents, "I hain't seen hide nor hair on +him." + +And he sez, "Mebby he's gone in bathin'." + +"No," I sez, "He took a bath in the wash-tub the night before he come +here, and he hain't a man that will wash oftener than he has to." + +Sez he, "Hundreds of folks take sand baths, lay in the sand and throw +it at each other, cover themselves up in it." + +"What for?" I sez. + +"Oh, jest for fun. They'll go into the water mebby, and then come +ashore and roll and tumble in the sand, men, wimmen, and children, +mostly foreigners," sez he. + +I sez, "It don't seem as if Josiah would go into that bizness; he +always despised sand." + +"Well," sez he, "as I come by there jest now, I see somebody that +looked like Josiah, goin' towards the beach with a girl by him." + +I turned onto my heel to once and asked sternly, "Where is that beach? +And where is that sand?" He told me and I made for it to once. I +hain't got a jealous hair in my head, but I thought I'd go. Well, it +wuz a sight to see, acres and acres of sand dotted with men, wimmen, +and children. And beyond, the melancholy ocean, also dotted with +swimming heads, with bodies attached, so I spozed. Well might Atlantic +be melancholy to see such sights, hundreds of folks comin' out of the +water, hundreds goin' in, and other hundreds walkin' or rollin' in the +sand or throwin' it at each other or half covered up with it. + +And as for the clothes they had on, I thought no wonder the Ocean and +I sithed to see it, no money would tempt me to wear 'em to mill or +meetin', or to let Josiah wear 'em. They didn't look decent. Either +they wuz scrimped for cloth, or they wanted to look so; whichever way +it wuz, I pitied 'em. + +[Illustration: _"It wuz a sight to see, acres and acres of sand dotted +with men, wimmen, and children." (See page 286)_] + +But where wuz Josiah? On every side wuz folks settin' and walkin', and +mounds of sand with sometimes a head stickin' out, or a foot, or a +arm, or a nose. I had hard work to keep from treadin' on 'em. There +would be little hillocks of sand with mebby a child's head or foot +stickin' out. + +Anon a mound over a fat man or a woman big as a hay stack. I walked +along for some time keepin' a clost watch on every side, but no Josiah +did I see nor no mound I felt wuz hisen, till jest as I wuz ready to +drop down with fatigue with my arjous work to keep from treadin' on +folks, I ketched sight of a nose stickin' out of a small mound that I +thought sure I reconized. My heart bounded at the sight. My first look +wuz to see if any girl mound wuz nigh him. But there wuzn't nothin' +but some children's heads and feet stickin' about, and I hastened to +that nose and poked the sand from it with my umbrell cryin': + +"Dear Josiah! Is this indeed your nose? Have I found you at last?" + +When to my horrow a fierce red whiskered face rared itself up from the +sand, and jabbored at me in a onknown tongue; onknown the words, but +the language of anger can be read in any tongue. Hisen betokened the +most intense madness, and I spoze that in my agitation I might have +jabbed him some with my umbrell, and I hastened away, tromplin' as I +did so in my haste on various heads and arms, and follered by loud +busts of what I most know wuz blood curdlin' profanity, though not +Jonesville swearin'. + +Well, I wuz tired out and discouraged. No Josiah, no pardner! I felt +some like a grass widder, or I guess it wuz more like a real widder. +'Tennyrate my feelin's wuz too awful to describe, so lonesome, so +cast-down and deprested. And no knowin' as I would ever feel any +better, no knowin' if that dear man would ever be found. And what +would life be without him? Nothin' but a holler mockery filled with +movin' shadders, the Reality of life gone and lost. + +Night wuz comin' on apace and I thought I might as well abandon my +quest for the time, so I returned to Bildad's feelin' some as if I wuz +a sickly serial readin'--"To be continued in our next." For I knowed +that I would resoom the search bright and early, and find that man or +perish in my tracks. + +Friday--onlucky day, as it has always been called--had gone to jine +the days of the past. I sot on the piazza at Bildad's lookin' out on +the seen that, bewilderin' as it wuz by daylight, wuz ten times more +bewilderin'ly beautiful by night. Like stars in the tropics, the +electric lights flashed out over the hull place, the greatest number +of electric lights in the same space in the world, I wuz told and +believe. + +Every pinnacle, battlement, tower, balcony, winder, ruff, wuz edged +with the blazin' fire embroidery. And the tall mountains, palaces, +graceful bridges, piers, pleasure places of all kinds, looked fairy +like, under the friendly hand of Night. And 'way up to the very +heavens Dreamland tower lifted itself, a gigantic shaft of dazzling +brilliancy, dominatin' the hull island. Passingly beautiful tower by +night or day, the first thing the homesick mariner sees as he +approaches his Homeland. + +Thousands and thousands and thousands of gay pleasure seekers trod the +walks to and fro. Thousands and thousands more, rich and poor dined in +the gay restaurants and balconies, surrounded with flowers and light +and music. And still other thousands enjoyed the myriad amusements +afforded them. Bildad's sister, who wuz on a visit there from +Hoboken, thinks it aristocratick, and herself more refined and rare to +run the place down. Lots of folks do that; they go there and stay from +mornin' till night, go up in the Awful Tower, take in every +Bump-de-Bump and Wobble-de-Wobble, and then turn up their noses +talkin' to outsiders about it, as fur as their different noses will +turn. She was lame at the time from tromplin' all over the place for +the past week. But she sez to me (with her nose turned up as fur as it +could, bein' a pug to start with): + +"It is Common people who come here mostly." And she kinder glared at +me as if mistrustin' I wuz one of 'em. + +And I sez, "Well, you know, Lucindy, who it wuz the common people +received gladly, and who dwelt among them? And you know Lincoln said, +'It must be the Lord liked the common people, He made so many on +'em.'" + +She didn't reply, only with her nose, which looked disdainful. And I +sez to myself in astonishment, "Can this be Samantha, praisin' up what +she has always run down?" But I had to own up to myself that though I +had seen many places more congenial to me, yet I wuz glad that so many +people, some of 'em cut off from the beauty of life, could come here +quickly and easily, and forgit their cares and toil for awhile, and go +home refreshed and ready to take up their burdens agin. And the +children, God bless them! I knowed it wuz indeed to them, the big +Wonder Place, and beauty spot of the world and their life. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + +JOSIAH FOUND AT LAST! THE AWFUL FIRE AT DREAMLAND AND THE TERRIBLE +SIGHTS I SAW THERE + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + +JOSIAH FOUND AT LAST! THE AWFUL FIRE AT DREAMLAND AND THE TERRIBLE +SIGHTS I SAW THERE + + +I didn't go out that evenin', weariness and rumatiz both kep me to +home a settin' on that piazza. And in vain for me did the countless +lights burn and blaze. The great tower that lighted up the deep breast +of the Atlantic, for milds and milds, couldn't light up my gloomy +sperit. + +Where wuz my Josiah? Where wuz the pardner of my youth? In vain did +the melogious music blare out its loudest blares, it brought no bam to +my sperit. I sot and looked on the countless hosts passin' by as if +they wuzn't there, the man I loved wuz not among 'em. I sot there lost +in mournful thought till the endless crowd gradually dispersed. The +music ceased, the lights went out. The hand of Midnight let down her +dark mantilly of repose, spangled with stars, Silence sot on the +throne Noise had vacated. + +The great City of Mirth wuz asleep. Only the Atlantic and Samantha +seemed awake, the Ocean's deep voice sounded out in the same +ontranslated language it has from the creation, and will I spoze till +there is no more sea. Ontranslated to most, but to me it thundered +out, Swish!--Swosh!--Roar! Where is Josiah? Where is Josiah? Where? +Where? Swish!--Swosh!--Roar! + +I didn't want to go to bed, but knowed I needed rest for another +arjous day of Husband huntin'. I retired to bed but not to sleep. +Anxiety and Grief lay on both sides on me and crowded me, and prodded +me with their sharp elbows. + +But I spoze I must have droze off, for all to once I wuz passin' +through a great silent city. Hours and hours I trod up and down broad +stun highways, through endless parks and Pleasure Places, climbin' +interminable flights of marble stairs, walkin' through immense picture +galleries. Days and days went by, whilst I wuz conductin' this quest +through a deserted city, searchin' for sunthin' I couldn't name. Till +at last I lay wore out, on a couch, and Josiah wuz bendin' over me. He +had a small green hat sot rakishly on one side, a red neck-tie flashed +out, a immense cigar wuz in his mouth, out of which streamed a flame +of fire. As he bent over me, and I see his dissolute linement and +mean, I groaned out, "Oh Josiah, is it thus we meet?" + +"We meet as Highlariers!" sez he gayly, and bent still closter, I +spozed he wuz goin' to kiss me. And so philosophical is my mind asleep +or awake, I thought even then, the law couldn't touch him for it if he +did. But before his face met mine, that immense flaming cigar sot fire +to the piller case. The flames riz up round me, the smoke entered my +nostrils and nose. + +I sprung up. Josiah had disappeared, but the smell of fire remained. I +hurried to the winder. As I had last seen it all the great pleasure +ground seemed fast asleep. Gone wuz the tread of the innumerable +multitude. The music of the bands wuz hushed, the cries of the +different venders and showmen, automobiles, wagons, the stiddy sound +of machinery running the mechanical amusements, and the constant sound +of footsteps and voices, that filled the day full, wuz all hushed. +Even to the long onshapely animal house Night had brought silence. The +hull place looked like a City of Dreams, only the eternal waves +washin' up on the beach, seemed to emphasize the silence. + +But what wuz that I see over the dim ruffs? A slender spiral of flame +shootin' up through the shadows, and on Dreamland tower a rosy blush +seemed to grow on its whiteness. As I watched the flame, it grew +larger and larger, and my heart most stopped beatin', for I knowed +what a fire would mean in them unsubstantial buildin's. And somewhere +there under them flimsy ruffs was my Josiah! + +The flame increased! Coney Island wuz afire! Made sensitive by +anxiety, I had reconized the smoke borne to me on some vagrant +breeze. + +The long elaborate dream of mine hadn't lasted a second. It wuz staged +in the _real_ Dream Land, for the awful drayma so soon to be enacted +there, by the terrible actor, Fire! The most fearful and tragic actor +on the hull stage of life. + +Fire! Fire! Fire! + +Thus did I scream as I throwed on my clothes, I thought at the top of +my voice, but I don't spoze it wuz much above a whisper, for Bildad's +folks didn't hear me in the next room, through the thin wall, till I +rushed to their door and knocked, cryin' out: + +"Bildad, git up! Josiah is afire!" + +"What you say?" he called back. + +"Dreamland is afire! Josiah is in danger! But I will save him or +perish!" And I ketched up a two quart pail of water, and rushed out +doors. You can't recall your exact thoughts at such a time, yet I have +a ricellection of thinkin'--Josiah is small boneded, and two quarts of +water might put him out if he had jest got afire. But where wuz the +idol of my soul? I spoze every woman on Coney Island thought them +thoughts whether she remembers it or not. Where is _he_? Will he +escape? And men wuz thinkin', Where is _she_? Is she safe? Love puts +the question, and Fear and Horrer answers it. + +As I rushed along cryin' Fire! winders wuz throwed up, doors opened, +and in less time than I can tell on't, Surf Avenue wuz full of people. +Frenzied cries and shouts rung through the air. And as the flames riz +higher and higher, so did the shrieks and yells of the crowd, which +had swelled to a mob; bells clanged, fire wagons raced and jangled. + +Quicker than any seen wuz ever changed at a theatre the Quiet Night +wuz turned into Pandemonium. Men, wimmen and children rushin' every +which way--police--firemen--fire bells clangin'--men shoutin'--wimmen +shriekin'--and every minute the flames increased! + +The firemen did what they could, they worked like giants, but the +element they wuz workin' aginst wuz more powerful than man. Anon +burnin' timbers fell with a crash, clouds of smoke wropped us round +and choked us, the firemen sent up streams of water that turned to +mountains of steam. + +I wuz carried by the screechin' mob hither and yon with no will of my +own. Another element wuz added to the dretful seen. Someone cried +out: + +"The wild animals are loose!" + +Wimmen fainted, and men, wimmen and children screamed louder than +ever, expectin' any minute a tiger or lion or leapord to rush at 'em, +or a maddened elephant to tromple 'em down. + +They said the sight at that time in the animal house wuz enough to +turn the soundest brain, for to save the animals they had to let 'em +loose. And as they couldn't be driven out, at last it wuz a great +writhin', strugglin' mass of animal forms appallin' to see, while the +ears wuz deafened by the maddened cries of leapords and hyenas--the +wild jabberin' of monkeys, snarlin' and growlin' of panthers, tigers +and bears, roarin' of lions--hybrids--hissin' of serpents--pitiful +frightened neighing of ponies, trumpetin' of elephants. A great +screamin', roarin, hissin', writhin', fightin' mass! + +But as they refused to be driven to safety, the keepers after heroic +efforts to save 'em, give 'em a more merciful death. It took fur +greater heroism to do this, for some of 'em wuz dear pets, and it wuz +like slayin' their own children, and they aimed their revolvers at 'em +through tearful eyes. + +A bareheaded bystander sez, "The fire started in Hell Gate." + +Sez I, "Jest what you could expect of that place, I never hearn no +good of it yet." + +But the wild crowd surged to and fro. Earth and Heaven seemed filled +with the dretful roar and confusion-- + +It wuz a riot of deafenin' noise and clamor below, and fur fur above, +Dreamland Tower flamed up a immense pillar of fire, blazin' out for +the last time over sea and land, and with a dyin' effort at +decoration, crashed down, sendin' up a shower of golden sparks a +hundred feet high. + +Jest then a woman sez, "The little Incubator Babies have been +forgotten." + +"Not by me!" I sez, and I strove to push my way towards 'em, the woman +toilin' along by my side through the inferno of clamor, steam, smoke, +and shriekin' rushin' humanity. But jest before we got there we met +the good doctors and nurses who wuz bearin' 'em to safety, and I sez +to the woman, "It will be a shame if them helpless mites are ever +brought back to this place of danger." + +"Danger!" the words rousted up afresh my agonized fears. Where wuz +Josiah? Where wuz my idol? The woman tried to comfort me, for I wuz +now cryin' aloud, and callin' on his name. + +She sez, "He will escape; men can git round so much easier than +wimmen." + +"Have you a husband in this dretful place?" sez I. + +"No," sez she, "only their dust, I have got three in a vase on my +mantle piece in Surf Avenue." Instinctively I thought "she'd had +husbands to burn, but some wimmen can't get one to save their lives, +and them that get one can't keep track on him." + +But I d'no whether she saved her vase or not, for we wuz parted by the +hustlin', tearin', scramblin' mob, and I wuz carried in another +direction, choked and blinded, and tossted and torn. + +I hearn someone say, "Black Prince is loose, the biggest lion of all!" +And sure enough, wild and crazy with the fiery heat and noise, the +great beast rushed up and down, the crowd givin' him the Right of Way. +And at last he clim' up onto a battlement and looked down on the mad +seen below, the shoutin' yellin' mob bore me onwards, so I stood only +a stun's throw from the spot. + +Never agin will there be such a seen presented to the eye of man, as +that kingly form, standin' up above the crowd aginst the background of +lurid flame. + +But who wuz that standin' directly beneath, in the very middle of +danger? My heart bounded so it most broke through my bodist waist. + +Did I not know that small boneded figger? That bald head lit up by the +glare of flames? It wuz! it wuz Josiah! My pardner-huntin' wuz ended, +but wuz it to be death at the gole? That agonizin' thought made me by +the side of myself, and entirely onbeknown to me I rushed forwards and +cried to the lordly beast above, jest ready to spring: + +"Don't harm Josiah! Devour me instead!" + +[Illustration: "_I rushed forwards and cried to the lordly beast above, +jest ready to spring: 'Don't harm Josiah! Devour me +instead._'" (_See page 303_)] + +I knowed I would make a better meal for it; Josiah is lean and boney. +But I won't try to make myself out better than I am; I didn't think of +the lion's digestion, and how Josiah would set on his stomach. My only +thought wuz to save my pardner. And with a herculaneum effort I +reached his side, and snatched him away jest as a shot rung out and +the noble beast fell, his great, shaggy head restin' on the +balustrade, lookin' down on the crowd below as if in questionin' agony +and contempt, as though his last thoughts wuz: + +"Did you tear me away from my own free, beautiful, tropical forest for +such a fate as this? Where is man's boasted wisdom and power? I could +have cared for myself, lived and died in happiness and safety, but +civilized man has ruined and destroyed the wild beast." + + * * * * * + +The rest of that seen is like a dream to me. I guess when the heavy +dread and fear I had carried so long, wuz lifted from my brain, it +made me light-headed. 'Tennyrate, it don't seem as if I come fully to +myself, till Josiah and I wuz takin' leave at Bildad's with tickets +for Jonesville in our pockets. + +The agony I had went through there, and my joy in his recovery wuz +such, that I didn't throw Josiah's waywardness in his face (not much +of any). But if you'll believe it--and I don't spoze you will--he +turned the tables 'round, and blamed me. That is often done by +pardners of both sects, when they feel real guilty, to try to draw +attention off their own misdoin's, by findin' fault with their +pardners. It has been done time and agin, and I spoze will be, as long +as man is man, and woman is woman. + +When I told him that I rid down there with Deacon Gansey, that man +acted jealous and mad as a hen. He never liked him, they fell out +years ago about a rail fence, and wuz hurt. But now he acted furious, +and his last words to Bildad wuz: + +"I want you to have a funeral for Deacon Gansey before I see you agin, +and I'll pick out the him I want you to sing at his funeral: + + "Believein', we rejoice, + To see the cuss removed." + +But I spoke right up and sez, "Don't you bury him till he is dead, +Bildad, no matter who tells you to." + +And Josiah didn't like that, or acted as if he didn't; mebby he wuz +subterfugin' to draw off attention. Truly, pardners is a mysterious +problem, and it takes sights of wisdom and patience to solve' em, and +sometimes you can't git the right answer to 'em then, male or female. + +As we left Surf Avenue I looked back on the blackened ruins of what +had been the fair City of Dreamland, the broken totterin' remains of +that glorious tower, the black tangled masses of iron and steel, the +ruins of the great animal house mixed with the ashes of a hundred and +twenty animals, and I see with my mind's eye that great flat plain of +blackened ruins, all cleared away, and green velvety grass, and trees, +and fountains sprayin' over shrubs, and flowers, and white smooth +paths windin' through the bloom and verdure clear down to the clean +sand of the water's verge. And the high fence of Exclusion that shets +them from other fair parks along the shore removed, thousands and +thousands and thousands of happy children playin' there in the pure +air, takin' in in one summer day enough strength to last 'em through a +crowded, suffocatin', weary week. And grown folks, rich and poor, +tired of city sights and sounds, strollin' about or settin' on +comfortable seats lookin' off on the water, or watchin' the play of +their children, the fresh air blowin' some of their cares and troubles +away. + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN + +WE RETURN TO JONESVILLE AND JOSIAH BUILDS TIRZAH ANN'S COTTAGE WITH +STRANGE INVENTIONS AND ADDITIONS + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN + +WE RETURN TO JONESVILLE AND JOSIAH BUILDS TIRZAH ANN'S COTTAGE WITH +STRANGE INVENTIONS AND ADDITIONS + + +I told Josiah I hoped my vision would come true, and they would make +an open park of Dreamland, so the millions who visit Coney Island +could git a good look at Mom Nater and old Ocean. "And heaven knows," +sez I, "there would be amusements enough left in Luny, and Steeple +Chase Park, and other resorts all along the shore." And he said he +didn't care a dum what they did with it. Sez he, "They needn't build +it up on my account, for I won't patronize 'em any more!" And I told +him, "I guessed he wouldn't be missed, specially Sundays and +holidays." And he said, "Miss me or not, they needn't try to git me +there agin, and they may jest as well give up hopin' to, first as +last." + +Sez I, "Can't you be megum, Josiah? You wuz all carried away with it, +and now you're turned agin it; what makes you turn so _fur_? Can't +you see the good side to it?" + +"No, I can't, and won't!" + +So we went home some like the Baptist and the Methodist who had a +public meetin' to argy their two beliefs, on which they wuz dretful +sot, and they converted each other, so the Baptist went home a +Methodist, and the Methodist a Baptist. + +I'd been considerable sot agin it, but I went home with the eye of my +spectacles able to look on both sides. The side I didn't like, that it +shares with other Pleasure Resorts. And its good side, as a care +lightener, and diversion to toil. And a golden Pleasure House to the +millions of children who go there every year, many of 'em poor +children who get there their only glimpse of rest and light hearted +enjoyment. + +But my dear pardner can't be megum; that quality wuz left out when he +wuz manufactured. And now if anyone sez Coney Island, he starts for +the barn. + +Serenus come home a few days after we did. He'd been on the Bowery of +Coney Island that night, Josiah havin' refused to go to such a lowdown +place with him. So as it often is in this strange world, the +wrong-doer comes out ahead, for the _present_. He made a night of it +with Jim Cobb, a rural cousin, and not a hair of his head wuz +scorched, nor the smell of fire on his garments. + +But I wuz proud that Josiah withstood temptation, and told him that I +would ruther he had got afire, and burned considerable, than had him +yield to the tempter. + +I myself never sot foot on the Bowery; I wuzn't goin' to nasty up my +mind with it, though I hearn there wuz some good things to be seen +there. Folks told me I'd ort to gone to Brighton, and Atlantic City, +and see the milds of beautiful Pleasure places along the ocean, but I +sez, "I thank you, but I've seen enough," though there wuz sights +there that I would loved to see. + +Among 'em wuz that Mother's Camp, where thousands and thousands of +poor children and their mas go to spend a day in the bracin' +atmosphere. And the children have pure milk, and their mas good tea, +and they can go there day after day all they want to. How the children +look forward to it, and their mas too. + +[Illustration: "_I myself never sot foot on the Bowery; I wuzn't goin' +to nasty up my mind with it, though I hearn there wuz some +good things to be seen there._" (_See page 313_)] + +The goodness and helpfulness of such places along the beach, wrops +their bright mantillys over some of the other places not so good and +makes folks more lenitent to 'em, as they endure a poor husband for +the sake of his good wife, and visey versey. + +A few days after we got home, Josiah took Penstock and they sot off +for a two weeks' stay at Shadow Island. And a few days after they got +there he writ me that they had broke ground for the cottage. And that +very day I got my feet wet down to the creek paster huntin' for a +turkey's nest, and come down with inflamatory rumatiz, and couldn't +walk a step for upwards of four weeks, and Ury's wife come and took +care on me. My head felt bad too, Coney Island had been too much for +me-- + +Well, Josiah would come home Sundays all wrought up and enthusiastick +boastin' what a model house it wuz, jest perfect, and what new and +magnificent discoveries he had made to lighten labor, which he wuz +goin' to git patented and probable make our everlastin' fortune, as +well as make Tirzah Ann perfectly happy. And I'd set with my foot on a +piller, and hear him go on and forebode and forebode, and I groaned +more about the house than I did with the pain in my lim, though that +wuz fearful. + +Well, after it had been goin' on for about four weeks, one Saturday +when he come home over Sunday, he said the house wuz all up and +nearin' completion, and he carried the idee if he didn't come right +out and say it, that there wuzn't a mansion in the New Jerusalem that +went ahead on't. My rumatiz and head wuz quite a little better, and he +proposed that I should go back with him Monday mornin' on a short +tower and see the house, and be a humble witness and admirer of his +glorious triumph (he didn't say these words right out but carried the +idee plain in his linement, and hauty demeanor). Well, I concluded to +go, and Philury bandaged up my lim in soft flannel moistened with +anarky, and packed various bottles of linement, etc., in my portmanty +and Ury took us to the train. + +Well I will pass over our voyage to Shadow Island, but in the fullness +of time we arrove there, and stood in front of the cottage. The seen +all round it wuz fair indeed, but the structure looked queer, queer as +a dog. There wuz piazzas and porticos, and ornament piled on ornament +cropped out on every side. It wuz weighted down with cheap little +sawed out peaks and pints, and triangles perforated with holes for +ornaments, but the hull thing looked shiftless, tippin' and lop sided. +I stood lookin' at it in silence for a long time, it looked so queer +that it sort o' stunted and brow beat me, and my first words wuz spoke +as much to my own soul as to my companion, "It looks strange, passin' +strange!" + +"Yes," sez Josiah, "hain't it a uneek plan?" + +"Yes," sez I, "a uneeker one wuz never seen on this planet." And agin +I seemed to lose myself in strange emotions, it looked so awful, a +kind of or mingled with my indignation and regret. + +"Nobody will steal them idees!" sez he proudly. + +"No," sez I sadly, "you're safe from that." And I sez, as I looked up +at the queer, lop sided, flighty, vain thing, "It leans over +considerable, Josiah Allen, it is very tippin'." + +He looked worried, but sez in a sort of apology way, "I had it lean +over one side on account of havin' rain water dripp offen the eaves, +and have the snow slide off in drifty times. Ruffs have been known to +fall in, and I wanted to ensure Tirzah Ann's havin' a ruff over her +head anyway." + +Agin I looked on in solemn or, and sez wonderin'ly, "What will Tirzah +Ann say when she sees it?" + +"I don't care," sez he, "what she sez! if she don't like it she can +lump it!" + +But I could see that the tippin' sides wuz done through a mistake, and +he wuz tryin' to cover it up with a mantilly of bravado and +boastfulness. I agin kep' silence for quite a spell, and my next +words, so fur as I remember 'em, wuz, "Where is the suller?" + +He stood agast and repeated, "The suller!" He looked perfectly +dumb-foundered but wuzn't goin' to give in he made a mistake, it wuz +too mortifyin' to his pride, so sez he in faint axents: + +"I laid out to build it after the house wuz done." Sez I, "What wuz +you goin' to do with the dirt?" + +"Why, I laid out," sez he lookin' helplessly round for a excuse, "I +laid out to bring it up in baskets," and he went on brightenin' up as +a idee struck him--"I've observed, Samantha, that dirt is handy for +house plants, or to plant seeds in the spring of the year." + +Sez I dryly, "I guess three or four hundred wagon loads won't be +needed for house plants, and after Tirzah Ann sees all that dirt +lugged up her suller stairs and through her kitchen she won't have +much time or ambition for posies." + +[Illustration: "_'The suller!' He stood agast, perfectly dumb-foundered +but wuzn't goin' to give in he had made a mistake. It wuz +too mortifying to his pride._" (_See page 318_)] + +"Well," sez he, a bright idee occurrin' to him, "it will be a first +rate job for the men to do rainy days. In buildin' a house there +hain't much a man can do durin' a hard thunder storm, or hail storm, +but they can go right on with the suller jest as well as though it wuz +a sunshiny day. That is one great thing that architects have +heretofore overlooked, work that men can do durin' cyclones--I have +met that want," sez he proudly. + +"I should think as much," sez I mekanically, for my thoughts wuzn't +there, they wuz afar with Tirzah with her poor health, and the blow +that had got to come onto her, when she see this thing that wuz rared +up in front of me. + +Well, I went round to the kitchen door, the winders all seemed sot in +tottlin' and shaky, and my pen fails me to tell the looks of them back +door steps, they wuz very high here, for the land sloped off sudden, +but suffice it to say that I wouldn't trust even one foot on 'em for a +dollar bill. There wuz a great long concern that looked like a huge +wooden arm that come out of the settin' room winder on that side and +seemed to reach down to the water, and sez I, "What, for the land's +sake! is that?" + +"That," sez he proudly, "is the crownin' work of my life! that will +make me famous and enormously rich when it becomes known to the +world. That is a attachment to hitch onto the sewin' machine, the +churn, the coffee mill or any domestic article where foot or hand +power is used, and is to be used in pumpin' water." + +"Pumpin' water!" sez I coldly, "what for?" + +"Oh, for drinkin', for irrigatin', or for any use that water is used +for, puttin' out fires, or anything." + +Sez I coldly, "Do you spoze that Tirzah Ann with her health, is goin' +to set at her sewin' machine and do fine sewin', and at the same time +pump water from hour to hour?" + +"Yes," sez he, "and hain't it a beautiful thought, how it will add to +her sweet content and happiness as she sets sewin' on Whitfield's +shirts, and thinkin' at the same time she is benefittin' the world at +large, quietly and unostentatiously sewin' on gussets, and makin' the +desert blossom like a rosy all round her; how happy she will be," sez +he. + +Sez I, "It is a crazy idee! crazy as a loon! What under the sun would +she want to pump hundreds and hundreds of barrels of water for? Half a +barrel would last 'em a day for all their work." + +He murmured sunthin' about a fountain, that might be sprayin' up in +the front yard, and how beautiful it would be, and enjoyable. + +And I sez, "Could you set and enjoy yourself lookin' on a fountain +risin' up and dashin' jewels of spray all round you, and thinkin' that +every drop wuz bein' pumped up by the weary feet of your own girl by +your first wife? That poor delicate little creeter's tired feet, +toilin' on hour by hour and day by day." + +He looked real bad, he hadn't thought so fur, and I went on, "Don't +you know it would make the sewin' machine go so hard that no woman +could run it a minute, let alone for days and weeks?" His linement +fell two or three inches. I see he gin up it needed more strength to +run it. "And it looks like furiation too," sez I. + +"Look!" He snapped out, "What do you spoze I care for looks!" + +But I see his idees wuz all broke up, as well they might be, Tirzah +Ann pumpin' water all day with her feet! the idee! + +Well, out on one side of the house I see a great pile of bricks, they +seemed to be divided in two piles, one wuz good sound bricks, and one +wuz broken some, and I sez, "What are these bricks divided off so +fur?" + +"That," sez he, "is a sample of how men see into things." + +"How?" sez I. + +"Well, I'll tell you." And he went on proudly, as if glad to git a +chance to show off how fur seem' and eqinomical he wuz, and to recover +from the machinness that had settled down on him like a dark mantilly, +while we discussed the suller and pump attachment. + +"I got them bricks at a bargain. I hain't got enough good bricks for +the hull chimbly, and so I'm goin' to have 'em begin the chimbly on +top instead of the usual way of beginin' at the bottom, and then I can +see jest how fur my good bricks will go." + +"How be you goin' to make the top bricks stay up?" sez I, "a layin' up +on nothin'?" + +"That is a man's work," sez he, "a woman couldn't understand it if I +should explain it." + +"No," sez I, "Heaven knows no woman on earth would ever understand +that idee!" + +Well, all I could do he would go that very afternoon and engage a +mason to do the work, build the chimbly after his views, beginin' on +top instead of the bottom. But though deeply mortified at it, that wuz +jest the move that sot me free from my anxieties about the house, for +the mason, who wuz a great case for a joke, made so much fun of the +idee, and of the hull structure, that my companion threw up the hull +job and told me that the house might go to----for anything he cared. I +will never tell the place he said the house might go to, it is too +wicked to even think on calmly, it begun with an H and that is all +that I will ever tell to anybody. + +Well, when Whitfield and Tirzah Ann come back from Maine and went to +Shadow Island to see that strange queer lookin' buildin, I spoze +Whitfield laughed till his sides ached. Tirzah cried, they say; cried +partly out of sentiment to think her Pa had showed such affection for +her as to build the cottage, and partly because it looked so awful, it +made her hystericky. + +But Whitfield sobered down, and when he come back to Jonesville acted +good to Josiah, he seemed to be real thankful to Josiah and me for +buildin' it, and his grateful, affectionate ways kinder took the edge +offen Josiah's humiliation, but then he would probable have sprunted +up anyway--mortification never prayed on him for more'n a short time. + +Well, the end on't wuz, Whitfield hired a good carpenter to oversee +the work, and some strong workmen who wuz able to lift and lug, there +wuz plenty of lumber, and in four weeks the house wuz transmogrified +into a good lookin' cottage. They built on a L, I believe they called +it, which they're to use as a store room, and under that Tirzah Ann is +to have her suller, Whitfield wuzn't the man to deprive her of that +comfort. And in some way they straightened up the house, and put in a +winder here and there, tore off lots of the ornaments, but left on +some of the piazzas, and balconies, and things, and it wuz a pretty +and commogious lookin' cottage. They painted the hull concern a soft +buff color, with red ruffs that looked real picturesque settin' back +aginst the dark green of the trees. + +And sure enough the first week in September we had our party there. It +wuzn't a surprise--no, Heaven knows the surprise wuz when we first +laid eyes on the house as Josiah left it--but it wuz a very agreable +party. Tirzah Ann did well by us in cookin' (of course we helped her) +and we all stayed three days and two nights; Thomas J. and Maggie and +the children, and Josiah and me. Tirzah Ann and Whitfield stayed +longer, so's to leave everything in first rate order for another year. +They sot out some pretty shrubs and made some posy beds under the +winders, and planted bulbs in 'em, that they spozed would rise up and +break out in sunny smiles when they met 'em another summer. They lay +out to take sights of comfort in that house--yes indeed! + +And I shouldn't be at all surprised if it ended by our all havin' +cottages there for summer comfort. It looks like it now. Though I told +'em I'd ruther have our cottage on the main land pretty nigh to 'em; +there's places where the land juts out into the river havin' all the +looks of a island on the fore side, and on the hindside more solidity +somehow. + +And with the society of the Saint on the front side, and Safety on the +hind side, it seems as if anybody could take considerable comfort +there. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY + +FAITH COMES TO VISIT US. WE ATTEND THE CAMP MEETIN' AT PILLER PINT, +AND FAITH MEETS THE LOVER OF HER YOUTH + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY + +FAITH COMES TO VISIT US. WE ATTEND THE CAMP MEETIN' AT PILLER PINT, +AND FAITH MEETS THE LOVER OF HER YOUTH + + +Accordin' to her promise Faithful Smith come to Jonesville in the fall +and we wuz glad enough to see her. + +We had laid our plans to attend the Camp Meetin' at Piller Pint, and +at last the time arriv. The day before the great meetin', the sky wuz +rosy in the mornin', the distant lake looked blue, and everything bid +fair for a good spell of weather. + +Josiah iled up the old double harness and washed the democrat off and +rubbed it down with shammy skin till it shone like glass. And I +prepared a glass can of baked beans brown and crispy, but sweet and +rich tastin' as beans know how to be when well cooked, then I briled +two young chickens a light yeller brown, and basted 'em well with +melted butter, and had a new quart basin of as good dressin' as +Jonesville ever turned out, and I've seen good dressers in my day. +And a quart can of beautiful creamed potatoes all ready to warm up, +two dozen light white biscuit, a canned strawberry pie, and a dozen +sugar cookies reposed side by side in a clean market basket, and by +'em lay peacefully a little can of rich yeller butter and one of +brittle cowcumber pickles, and one dozen deviled eggs. + +A better lunch wuz never prepared in the precincts of Jonesville. + +Oh! and I had some jell too, and cream cheese, and the next mornin' I +made two quarts of coffee all ready to warm up in Sister Meechum's +tent (she had gin permission), and a can of sweet cream to add +richness to it, and lump sugar accordin'. + +I felt that these wuz extraordinary preparations, but didn't begrech +'em, part on 'em wuz on Faith's account. Well, as I say, the +preparations wuz all completed the day before exceptin' the coffee and +creamed potatoes, and them wuz accomplised early in the mornin' while +I wuz gittin' breakfast, and we all sot off triumphant at nine A.M. + +It wuz a clear cool mornin' in lovely autumn. Old Nater hadn't as you +may say finished up her fall job of colorin' and paintin', but she wuz +all rousted up tendin' to it. + +All along the smooth highway leadin' to the lake, trees and bushes +bent over the roadside tinged with crimson and yeller and russet +brown, and red, and shaded gold colors mingled with the rich green of +the faithful cedars and hemlocks and pines. Sometimes up a high pine +tree or ellum a wild ivy had clum and wuz hangin' on with one hand and +wavin' out to us its banner of gold and crimson as we passed. And fur +off the maple forest looked like a vast mass of rose and amber and +golden brown, mingled with the deep green of spruces and cedars, and +furder off still a blue haze lay over all like a soft veil partly +hidin' and partly revealin' the glory of the seen. And ever and anon +the blue flashin' waters of the lake could be seen like the soul in a +woman's face, givin' life and meanin' to the picture. + +Well, anon as we clumb a hill, the hull lake bust out on our vision, +it lay spread out broad and beautiful and calm, with the breezes +ripplin' its blue surface into waves, and the sunshine sparkling on +its bosom, and down under the hill on a pint of land that stretched +out into the water stood the noble grove of trees where the camp +meetin' wuz held. That wuz Piller Pint. + +We descended a hill, driv along half a mild or so till we come to a +fence and a open pair of bars, in front of which stood two muscular +attendants and one on 'em sez, "We take a small fee from them that +enter." + +Sez Josiah, lookin' gloomy, "I spozed religion wuz free." + +"It is free," sez the man, "but this is only to smooth its way, put up +seats and such." + +Sez Josiah, "I didn't know that Religion had to set down." + +"Sinners have to set," sez the man. + +Sez Josiah, "We hain't sinners." But I hunched him and sez, "Pay your +fee and go on." So after a deep sithe he produced his old leather +wallet and fished up ten cents out of its depths, and we proceeded +on. + +The grove wuz a large one, acres and acres of big trees on every side, +and vehicles of every description from smart canopy top buggies, and +Sarah's, and automobiles, down to one horse sulkies and rickety +buck-boards, and horses of every size and color wuz hitched to 'em. +And on the fallen tree trunks sot wimmen and girls, young boys, +children, and pairs of lovers wuz walkin' afoot amidst the deep green +aisles. Way in the green depths of the woods you could see the glimpse +of a woman's dress, or see the head of a horse lookin' out peaceful. + +But we advanced a little furder as the road led out amongst the trees +and pretty soon we come in sight of a large round tent where the +meetin' wuz held, and from which we could hear the voice of hims and +oratory, along on both sides of the immense tent, so's to leave a road +between, wuz rows of small tents where the campers dwelt. They +stretched on like two rows of white dwellings way off into the green +of the woods. Josiah and I are well thought on in Jonesville, and as +fur out as Loontown and Piller Pint, and a man soon advanced and gin +us an advantageous position, and Josiah hitched the mair and we +advanced into the amphitheatre. + +The tent riz up like a big white umbrell, or like great broodin' wings +overhead, leavin' the sides free for the soft air to enter. There wuz +rows of seats, boards laid on wooden supports and on one side a high +wooden structure, open towards the seats, in which the preachers sot +or stood. A wooden railin' run along in front of that rough pulpit. +Under foot wuz the green moss and rich mold of the onbroken forest. +And way up over the white tent the tall tree tops arched, and you +could look way up into the green aisles of light with glimpses of +sunshine between, castin' shady shadows and golden ones on the grass +and moss below. + +Folks wuz settin' round of all sorts, some handsome, some humbly, some +dressed up slick, some in rough common attire, but most on 'em looked +like good sturdy farmers and their families. The old grand-ma of +ninety with bent form and earnest face, side by side with her great +grand-child. + +I myself with Josiah sot down by a large boneded woman with a big, +calm, good-lookin' face. She had on a dress and mantilly of faded +black cashmere; the mantilly wuz wadded, a pink knit woolen scarf wuz +wound loose round her neck, she had a small hat of black straw trimmed +with red poppies, and she wore a pair of large hoop ear-rings. Her +face had the calm and sunshine of perfect peace on it. Her husband, a +small pepper-and-salt iron gray man, with sandy hair and a multitude +of wrinkles, sot by her, and they had a young child elaborately +dressed in red calico between 'em. + +Beyond her sot a little slender woman in a stylish dark blue dress and +turban, her face alert and eager, lit with deep gray eyes, had the +passion and zeal of a Luther or Wesley. On the nigh side of me sot two +young girls in pink and white muslin; a father and mother and three +children wuz behind us, and on the seat in front wuz some young men +and two old ones. I hearn the big calm woman say, "I shall be dretful +disappinted if he don't come to-day." + +"So shall I," sez the pepper-and-salt man, "I shall feel like turnin' +right round and goin' back home, but I think he is sure to be here." +Bein' temporary neighbors I asked who it wuz that wuz expected. + +"Why, the great revivalist and preacher who is expected here to-day." + +Sez I, "Who is it?" The woman said she couldn't remember the name, but +he wuz the greatest preacher sence Wesley. He jest went about doin' +good, folks would go milds and milds to hear him, and he drawed their +souls and sperits right along with his fervor and eloquence. He is to +a big meetin' at Burr's Mills to-day, but is expected here for sure. +Two hundred had been converted under him at Burr's Mills. He had been +there a week. + +I sez, "Whyee! is that so?" + +"Yes," sez the calm woman, and she went on to say, "I hear that he +used to be a wicked man, but had some trouble that made him desperate, +and finally driv him right into the Kingdom, and sence that he can't +seem to work hard enough for the Master." + +"Well," sez I, "Saul the scoffer got turned into Paul the apostle, and +that same power is here to-day." + +"Speakin' of the power," sez the woman, "two wimmen and a man had the +power last night, one girl lay speechless for hours, and when she come +to said she had been ketched right up into Heaven. She talked +beautiful," sez she. + +Sez I calmly, "That's jest what Paul said, he said he wuz caught up to +the Third Heaven." + +Sez Josiah, "That power don't come to earth to-day, Samantha." + +Sez I, "Who told you it didn't? I hain't hearn on't. Earth hain't no +furder from Heaven now than it wuz then, and the same God reigns." + +"Amen," sez the pepper-and-salt man, I see he had zeal and religion, +but I felt kinder flustrated to be "amened" to in public, and I looked +kinder meachin' I spoze, and the calm woman see I did. And she sez: + +"Sister Calvin Martin lays there now in her tent with the Power. She +lay there all day yesterday and all night." + +Some of the boys before me begun to titter and snicker at anybody's +havin' the power, and I sez, eyein' 'em sternly, "Do you know what +you're laughin' at, young men? You talk about it real glib, but have +you any idee of the greatness and overwhelmin' might of the Force +you're speakin' of? That Power wuz at Pentecost in cloven tongues of +flame, and strange voices and words that no man could utter. Saul +laughed at the Power but it struck him blind in the street, and +ketched him up into the Seventh Heaven. When that Power comes down on +earth, let sinners quail, and saints look on with or and tremblin'." + +They looked real meachin'. But jest then the Experience meetin' begun, +and a old man with thin white hair and white whiskers framin' his meek +wrinkled face, come forward, and layin' his hand on the railin' sez in +a kinder tremblin' voice, "Bless the Lord who has made His servant +able to come to this temple in the wilderness, to witness the glory He +has poured down on his people. Every camp-meetin' for years I have +thought would be my last, but bless Him who has preserved me to this +day." + +"Yes, bless the Lord! Amen! amen!" wuz shouted on every side, and as +he stopped after a few minutes' exhortation, the other ministers and +some of the old bretheren crowded round the white headed old saint to +shake his hand. + +Then a sweet faced little girl in a pink hat got up and said "the Lord +wuz precious to her." + +"Amen! amen! Bless His name! He carries the lambs in His bosom!" said +the white headed preacher. Then a pleasant lookin' middle-aged +minister related this incident, "A young boy had been converted, and +said he had a view of Heaven. A onbeliever tried to frighten him and +asked him if he didn't tremble at the thought. Sez the boy, 'My feet +are on the rock.' + +"'But don't you tremble?' sez the infidel. + +"'Yes,' sez the boy, 'I do, but the rock under my feet don't +tremble.'" + + "Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land, + A weary land, a weary land-- + Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land-- + A shelter in the time of storm." + +High and clear this believin' song floated through our souls--and up +to Heaven. + +Then a good lookin' young man arose and sez, "Did you ever hear of the +drunken horse jockey and thief down to Loontown? Well, I'm that man +clothed and in my right mind. The Lord stopped me in my evil course, +and I am His and He is mine." + +A bystander sez, "That is so, he is a changed man." Then they all +sung: + + "There is a fountain filled with blood, + Drawn from Emmanuel's veins; + And sinners plunged beneath its flood + Lose all their guilty stains. + Lose all their guilty sta-ains; + Lose all their guilty sta-ains; + And sinners plunged beneath that flood + Lose all their guilty stains." + +That is a melogious chorus, but so kinder floatin' on, and back and +forth, that I don't see how they can ever stop it when they begin. Of +course as wuz natural there wuz some there who wuz bashful and made +mistakes. A tall slim young man got up, he wuz studying for the +ministry, sez he, "My friends, I am a stranger to you all, I am a +stranger to myself, and I trust," sez he, "I am a stranger to my +God." + +He left out a "wuzn't," he meant that he wuzn't a stranger to his God. +Bashfulness wuz the cause. Madder red wuz pale compared to his face +when he sot down, and his tongue wuz thick and husky. I wuz sorry for +him. Then a woman riz up with a black bunnet and veil on and white +collar and cuffs; she looked like a Quakeress, and I believe that if +Emperors and Zars had stood before her she would have been onmoved, +she wuz as calm and earnest as Ruth or Esther, or any of our good old +four-mothers. Sez she: + +"My friends, I see your faces to-day and watch the different +expressions upon them. How will these faces look when we meet at the +Bar of God? Will peace be on them? Or dismay and everlastin' regret?" + +"Oh yes! The Lord help! Let us hear from some one else!" A slight +pause ensued and then there riz up this melogious appealin' old him: + + "Shall Jesus bear the cross alone, + And all the world go free? + No, there's a cross for every one, + And there's a cross for me." + +A colored boy got up; he wuz tall and gant with big soft eyes full of +the pathetic wisdom and ignorance of his race. He spoke kinder slow +and sez, "I wuz sick once and I felt alone. I wuz afraid to die. Now +if I wuz sick I shouldn't be alone, nor afraid, I've got somebody with +me. Jesus Christ is with me all the time. I hain't lonesome no more, +nor 'fraid." + +"Tell your experience, Joe, tell it here!" shouted an old man. Joe +stepped forward, took the Bible offen the rustic stand, turned over +the leaves to the first page, and slowly and laboriously read, +"Darkness was on the face of the earth--and God said, let there be +light--and there wuz light." + +He closed the book and looked round with rapt luminous eyes. "That is +me," sez he, "that is my experience." + +"Amen! amen!" shouted the brethren. The little refined lookin' woman +in the blue dress started this verse and sung it through almost alone, +in a clear sweet voice: + + "I am but a traveller here, Heaven is my home. + Earth's but a desert drear, Heaven is my home. + Time's cold and chilling blast, soon will be over past, + I shall reach home at last, Heaven is my home." + +"Amen! amen! Now let us hear from another." And one after another rose +and told of the goodness of God and what He had done for them. The +sweet earnest hims floated out ever and anon and over the place seemed +to brood a Presence that boyed our sperits up as on wings, and I felt +that we wuz there with one accord, and my soul seemed lifted up fur +above Jonesville and Josiah, and all earthly troubles. + +All to once a woman rose with a light on her face as if she wuz +lookin' on sunthin' fur above this earth. She delivered a eloquent +exhortation in words of praise and ecstasy. More and more earnest and +eloquent she grew and lifted up from earthly influences. At last she +lifted her hands and stepped out with a swayin' motion of her body, as +if keepin' step to some onhearn melody that ears stuffed with the +cotton of worldliness and onbelief wuzn't fine enough to ketch, and +finally her feet begun to keep step with that mysterious music, that +for all I know might have been soundin' down from the ramparts of the +New Jerusalem. Round and round she slowly swayed and stepped. Wuz it +to the rythm of that invisible music? + +There wuz a look on her pure face as if she wuz hearin' sunthin' we +didn't. I wuz riz up and carried away some distance from myself. When +still lookin' up with that rapt luminous face she fell to the ground +as prostrate as Saul did on the road to Jerusalem, and lay in that +state, so I hearn afterwards, for a day and a night. Jest as she fell +that iron gray man yelled out, "Bless the Lord!" + +And I sez, bein' all wrought up, "Don't you know when to say that, and +when not to? She might have broke her nose." He looked queer. + +In a few minutes I see a stir round the speakers' stand, and knew the +speaker of the day, the great revivalist from the West, had come. And +anon I see a tall noble figger passin' through the crowd that made way +for it reverentially. And lo and behold! I see as I ketched a glimpse +of his profile that it wuz the minister I had hearn at Thousand Island +Park. The same sweet smile rested on his face as he looked round on +his brethren and the crowd before him, some like a benediction, only +more tender like, and a light seemed to be shinin' through his +countenance, ketched from some Divine power. + +It wuz the same face I had framed that summer day in the Tabernacle at +T. I. Park, and hung up in my mind right by the side of Isaiah and St. +Paul. Yes, I see agin the broad white forward with the brown hair +mixed with gray thrown back from it kinder careless, his eyes had the +same sweet sad expression, soft, yet deep lookin', and pitiful, as if +he wuz sorry for us and would love to teach us the secret he had found +of how to overcome the world and its sins and sorrows. + +His prayer had the same power of lifting us up fur above the world and +settin' down our naked souls in the presence of Him who searcheth the +heart, searchin' and probin' to our consciences, and yet consolin', +puttin' us in mind of that text, "As a father pitieth his children" +and yet wants 'em to mind. It wuz a prayer for help and as if we would +git it. + +He read in that same sweet, melogious voice I remembered so well, +Paul's wonderful words about how he wuz led from the blackness of +unbelief up into the Great Light, and how he wuz caught up into the +Third Heaven and saw things so great and glorious that it would not be +lawful for man to speak of them, and where he goes on to tell of his +belief, his hope and his faith. The text wuz Paul's words when he +recalls those divine hours up on the heights alone with God: + +"Wherefore not being disobedient to the heavenly vision." + +And as he went on, as uplifted as I wuz, I felt fearful ashamed to +think how many times I had been disobedient to the Heavenly vision, +the white ideals that shone out in my mind so high and clear in the +mornin' light, and I wuz so sure I could reach. But havin' set down +to rest in the heat of the day, and bein' drawn off into the shadders +and thickets of environin' cares and perplexities, I didn't git nigh +enough to grasp holt of, and I whispered as much to my pardner. + +And he said he felt different, he had always ever sence he sot out +marched right straight towards the Kingdom. + +Sez I, "Josiah Allen, hain't you ever meandered at all from that +straight and narrer way?" + +"No mom, not a inch, not a hair's breadth." I wuz dumb-foundered by +his conceit as many times as I had witnessed it. + +The sermon that follered wuz white and glowin' with the light of +Heaven. You could see that _he_ had not been disobedient to that +Divine vision that had been revealed to him. The deep sweet look of +his eyes told of them supreme heights his own soul had reached. +Upliftin', sympathizin', soul searchin', callin' on the best in every +heart there to rise up and try to fly Heavenward. + +His looks and words rousted up my soul and carried me off so fur from +the world and Piller Pint, that I lost sight entirely of the crowd +around me. But anon I hearn a voice at my side and I see Faith had +come back onbeknown to me (she had been in Sister Meechum's tent +mendin' a rent in her dress). But when I looked at her I realized how +the face of St. Stephen looked. It sez, "His face shone like the face +of an angel." Faith's looked jest so, only tears wuz slowly droppin' +from her eyes and runnin' down her white cheeks. Sez I, whisperin' to +her with or in my axents, + +"What is it, Faith? What is it, dear? Is it the Power?" + +I most knew it wuz, and I wuz mekanically turnin' it over in my mind +what I should do with her if she fell over prostrate, and where I +should lay her out. When she turned, her glowin' awe-struck eyes held +a world of joy and glory in each one on 'em. + +"Yes, it is the Power, the power and goodness of God." And she +whispered in blissful axents, "It is Richard, Richard redeemed and +working for my Master." + +I see it all, it wuz the lost lover of her youth, I read it in her +face. You could have knocked me down with a clothes-pin aimed by a +infant. + +"How come he here?" sez I in a onbelievin' way. + +"God sent him!" She whispered. "He sent this blessedness to me, to +know his soul is saved, that he is working for Him." + +I felt queer. + +That afternoon they met under a ellum tree. He'd found out she wuz +there, and asked for a interview, which I see that she granted him. It +wuz a pretty spot, clost to the water, with trees of droopin' ellums +and some maples, and popples touched with fire and gold. The autumn +leaves made a sort of canopy over their heads, and all round 'em wuz +the soft melancholy quiet of the fall of the year. He stood there +waitin' for her. + +"Faith!" + +"Richard!" + + * * * * * + +I don't know how long they stood there, her little cold hands held in +his big warm palms, his eyes searchin' the dear face and findin' a +sacred meanin' in it, and she in hisen. He wuz pale, his voice +trembled like the popple leaves overhead, and visey versey hern. + +The settin' sun glowed warm on the face of the water some as his eyes +did, readin' her sweet face, and some of that fire seemed to glow in +his deep blue eyes. + +"I had been so wicked, Faith, I had done so much harm, I said I would +never seek my own happiness, I would work only for my fellow +creatures, striving if I might undo some of my evil work, but I see +to-day that I have been an egotist. God would not be offended at my +happiness if I could win the dear woman I have loved all these years. +You have forgiven me, Faith, I see it in your sweet eyes." + +[Illustration: "_I don't know how long they stood there, his eyes +searchin' the dear face and findin' a sacred meanin' in +it._" (_See page 347_)] + +Agin he paused, and nothin' broke the silence but the murmur of the +blue waters swashin' up on the beach, and furder off through the trees +some belated campers jest drivin' onto the ground sung out with clear +voices, + + "God moves in a mysterious way, + His wonders to perform." + +"He led me here to-day. I had not seen your face for twenty years, but +this morning, at day dawn, I stood at my open window striving to +decide to which place I should go to-day. Through a mistake I was +expected in two places. And as I stood thinking, your face dawned on +my inner vision as plainly as I see it now, and I _had_ to come here, +something told me I must come. He led me here and you also. He has a +meaning in this----shall we read it together, Faith?" + +And through the arched vista of autumn leaves they could see that the +sky beyend the Pint gleamed out like a city of golden palaces. They +seemed to be goin' through its gates----into the glory beyend. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Samantha at Coney Island, by Marietta Holley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AT CONEY ISLAND *** + +***** This file should be named 28467.txt or 28467.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/4/6/28467/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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