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+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #66972 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66972)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Samantha in Europe, by Mariettta Holley
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Samantha in Europe
-
-Author: Mariettta Holley
-
-Release Date: December 19, 2021 [eBook #66972]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-Produced by: hekula03, sf2001, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
-             Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
-             images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA IN EUROPE ***
-
-
-
-
-_Samantha in Europe_
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: “He riz right up and shook his fist at the man with the
-nightcap.” (See page 641.)]
-
-
-
-
- _Samantha in Europe_
-
- _by_
-
- _Josiah Allen’s Wife_
-
- (Marietta Holley)
-
- Illustrated by
-
- C DeGrimm
-
- _Printed in the United States_
-
- _New York · Funk and Wagnalls Company 1896_
-
- _London and Toronto_
-
-
-
-
-Copyright, 1895, by
-
-FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
-
- Registered at Stationers’ Hall
- London, England
-
-
-
-
- Dedication.
-
- TO THE WEARY TRAVELLER WHO YEARNS TO SEE UNDER STRANGE SKIES
- THE LIGHT OF THE OLD HOME FIRE,
-
- THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY
-
- Samantha and Josiah.
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE.
-
-
-Sez Josiah, as he see me writin’ this preface:
-
-“Seems to me, Samantha, you’ve writ enough prefaces.”
-
-(He wanted me to start the supper; but, good land! it wuzn’t only half
-past five, and I had a spring chicken all ready to fry, and my cream
-biscuit wuz all ready for the oven, on the kitchen table.)
-
-Sez he, “It seems to me you’ve writ enough on em.”
-
-And I sez, “Wall, Josiah, I’d hate to sadden the world by sayin’ I
-wouldn’t write any more.”
-
-And he sez, “How do you know it would sadden the world--how do you know
-it would?” And he continued: “Samantha, I hain’t wanted to dampen you,
-but I have always considered your writin’s weak; naterally they would
-be, bein’ writ by a woman; and,” sez he, as he looked longin’ly towards
-the buttery door and the plump chicken, “a woman’s spear lays in a
-different direction.”
-
-And I sez, “I thought I’d write some of our adventures in our trip
-abroad--that happy time,” sez I, lookin’ inquirin’ly at him.
-
-“Happy time!” sez he, a-kinder ’nashin’ his teeth--“happy! gracious
-Heavens! Do you want to bring up my sufferin’s agin, when I jest lived
-through ’em?”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, a-gittin’ up and approachin’ the buttery, and takin’
-down the tea-kettle and fryin’-pan and coffee-pot, “I have writ other
-things in the book that I am more interested in myself.”
-
-He sot kinder still and demute as I put the chicken on to fry in
-butter, and put the cream biscuit in the oven, and poured the bilein’
-water on the fragrant coffee; his mean seemed to grow softer, and he
-sez:
-
-“Mebby I wuz too hash a-sayin’ what I did about your writin’s,
-Samantha; I guess you write as well as you know how to; I guess you
-_mean_ well;” and as he see me a-spreadin’ the snowy table-cloth on the
-little round table, and a-puttin’ on some cream cheese and some peach
-sass, he sez further:
-
-“Nobody is to blame for what they don’t know, Samantha.”
-
-I looked down affectionately and pityin’ly on his old bald head and
-then further off--way off into mysterious spaces no mortal feet has
-ever trod, and I sez:
-
-“That is so, Josiah.”
-
-
-
-
-TABLE OF CONTENTS.
-
-
- Chapter                                              PAGE
-           Preface                                     vii
-           List of Illustrations                        xi
- I.        Trains of Retrospection                       1
- II.       A Heathen Missionary                         32
- III.      Off into Side Paths                          57
- IV.       Samantha’s Sword of Truth and Justice        85
- V.        A Heathen’s Standard of Morality            105
- VI.       A Little Fun and its Price                  119
- VII.      The Embarkation                             135
- VIII.     Landing in the Emerald Isle                 153
- IX.       A Visit to Blarney Castle                   173
- X.        Killarney, Dublin, and a Wake               183
- XI.       Josiah as a Banshee                         197
- XII.      Robert Burns and Highland Mary              223
- XIII.     Edinburgh and Mary Queen of Scots           241
- XIV.      Memories of Sir Walter Scott                262
- XV.       Old York and its Cathedral                  281
- XVI.      Edensor and the Duke of Devonshire          300
- XVII.     Josiah has an Adventure                     322
- XVIII.    Shottery and Warwick Castle                 354
- XIX.      The Lake District and its Poets             374
- XX.       The Arrival in London                       389
- XXI.      Westminster and Parliament Houses           400
- XXII.     Samantha Sees a Doctor                      418
- XXIII.    St. Paul’s and the Duke of Wellington       433
- XXIV.     “The Widder Albert”                         445
- XXV.      A Visit to the British Museum               464
- XXVI.     Paris and its Beauties                      486
- XXVII.    Napoleon and other Great Frenchmen          510
- XXVIII.   Germany and Belgium                         525
- XXIX.     Samantha Climbs the Righi                   548
- XXX.      Milan, Genoa, Venice                        574
- XXXI.     Colosseum and Catacombs                     602
- XXXII.    Fashionable Watering-Places                 616
- XXXIII.   Cathedrals and Castles in Spain             627
- XXXIV.    Josiah’s Devotion                           640
- XXXV.     The Queen, Ulaley, and a Bull-Fight         651
- XXXVI.    A Spanish Funeral and a Jonesville One      664
- XXXVII.   Al Faizi Says Good-Bye                      674
- XXXVIII.  Home again, from a Foreign Shore            683
- XXXIX.    Martin’s Terrible Lesson                    693
- XL.       Good-Night, Little Pardner                  707
-           Other Works by Josiah Allen’s Wife.         715
-
-
-
-LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
-
-
-                                                                    PAGE
- “He riz right up and shook his fist at the man with the
-   nightcap”                                              _Frontispiece_
- Twilight on the broad ocean                                           1
- Asleep in his narrer bunk                                             4
- Two prettier, winnin’er creeters never lived than them two            9
- “Aunt Samantha, where is Heaven? Is it up in the sky?”               12
- He sassed him and yelled out, “You dum fool, you,
-   throw me a board!”                                                 16
- “It depends on whose lives they be”                                  18
- Josiah and me put on our strongest specks                            27
- It wuz very dressy when it wuz done                                  31
- A dark figger that riz up like a strange picter aginst the sunset    34
- “I don’t love to hear that; that sounds bad”                         39
- “‘That man is a Christian.’ ‘How do you know?’
-   ‘Because he is drunk’”                                             45
- “Uncle Sam a-wadin’ in sin up to his old knee jints”                 49
- The game of Bulls and Bears                                          52
- Al Faizi made a deep bow, almost to the floor                        55
- Sez I, a-risin’ up in the democrat, “I’ll git out”                   61
- She met me with a sweet smile                                        68
- Finally, he got to be quarrelsome                                    75
- Ellick lay drunk in the office                                       80
- It wuz Ellick Gurley                                                 87
- “Yes, it _wuz_ sunthin’ else; it wuz _you_”                          97
- “Save the Sam, it may come in handy in the futer”                   102
- With one of his low, reverential bows                               112
- As the elder took it he turned pale                                 125
- I took down my old Atlas                                            131
- In time to kiss us and clasp our hands in partin’                   139
- Her big blue eyes wuz full of tears                                 142
- Then took his umbrell and started for the door                      147
- We tottered up on deck, two pale, thin figgers                      151
- The lord with a pink paper suit on                                  157
- With a stern look, calculated to wither him                         166
- We went in what they call a “jauntin’ car”                          171
- Three beautiful lakes                                               184
- Drinkin’ and tobacco-smokin’ in the little hovel drove ’em out      189
- Drippin’ wet when he come back                                      201
- Alice stood there, white and tremblin’                              206
- A dark figger a-standin’ up on a little rock                        209
- I laid out to talk to Victoria on the subject                       217
- Samantha and Ellen Douglas                                          219
- This immortal pair of lovers                                        230
- The same furies that pursued the drunken Tam                        238
- Edinburgh Castle                                                    250
- The National Covenant signed by the Earl of Sutherland              254
- When Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald parted                      259
- “I could sing to you,” sez he                                       263
- “When they got dirty, jest wet a towel and clean ’em off”           268
- “I never should think of usin’ it”                                  274
- Josiah wuz dretful took with it                                     281
- “What a sensation it would create in Jonesville!”                   285
- That sentinul twelve or fourteen hundred years ago                  289
- “With the ends of the fingers a-hangin’ down”                       294
- Robin Hood                                                          299
- “It don’t pay to tussel with ’em”                                   301
- Martin sent his card in                                             307
- Josiah’s home-made waterfall                                        313
- Her common-sense shoe                                               319
- A quaint, old-fashioned tarvern                                     322
- Says he, “I’m a-goin’ back--it is my duty”                          328
- Shakespeare’s ghost reading the effusions on the walls of his
-   house                                                             337
- A great many portraits of Shakespeare                               344
- The font in which Shakespeare was baptized                          350
- The supper that man eat wuz enormous                                353
- “You couldn’t eat that full of porridge”                            359
- “The more I see of moats, the more determined I be to have one
-   round our house”                                                  362
- “I am going to work for the poor”                                   370
- My tone chilled him to the veins                                    379
- Martin with his patronizin’ ways                                    384
- A livin’ poem bound up in a girl’s sweet body                       386
- Them letters wuz a stroke of genius                                 391
- A hull soap-box full                                                395
- We stood long and silently by the graves of the great dead          401
- An immense chair, the four legs bein’ four animals                  407
- “When I’m elected to Congress I’m goin’ to wear my hat the hull
-   time”                                                             415
- That little dude doctor, with his cane and his eyeglass             421
- “I have had some trouble with my back lately, and I want you to
-   look at it”                                                       424
- Samantha’s faith cure                                               427
- “Yes,” sez Josiah, “old Domono probble had his hands full with
-   her”                                                              442
- “Almost in the shadow of the Bank of England, I found the
-   greatest want and wretchedness”                                   455
- Right in front of the tarvern, I have seen with my own eyes as
-   many as five teams and two open buggies                           459
- “Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of Jonesville?”                    468
- Napoleon’s tooth                                                    472
- Josiah at the London “Zoo”                                          477
- “Calf-o-lay! I hain’t a calf or a ox!” he shouted                   486
- “How stylish I would look”                                          489
- “I don’t spoze I could ever git to be nigh so graceful as she is”   492
- Josiah, “cultered and travelled,” schemes for Jonesvillian
-   out-door dinner parties, à la Paris, and how Samantha foresees
-   the result                                                        500
- There wuz the clothes he wore that he ust to button over that
-   restless, ambitious heart                                         505
- With his arms folded, and that old hat of hisen on, and his
-   inscrutable eyes fixed on the heights                             512
- A-wipin’ my face on sech genteel towels                             518
- “I believe he’d sell the steelyards that Jestice weighs things in,
-   if he could git a few cents for ’em”                              523
- “No attention paid to rumatiz, or meal times, or corns”             526
- “A woman jest dressin’ herself--she seems all broke up”             537
- I thought more’n likely I should be melted into tears               540
- A-leadin’ Adrian and a-plannin’ sunthin’ with him relatin’ to a
-  whistle                                                            543
- A hogsit as big as the Jonesville tarvern                           553
- We did indeed go slow, but sure; for in two hours’ time we arrove
-   on the summit                                                     556
- “They have emulative Mas, who are bound that they shan’t be
-   out-travelled”                                                    561
- Ye-o-lo-leo-leo-leo--the melogious cry of the Alpine shepherds      563
- Listening to the organ’s grand, melancholy voice                    566
- I thought considerable about William Tell and his exploits with
-   Gessler, apples, etc.                                             568
- Divine realms of melody wuz brung to view by his heavenly vision    579
- “If this smell keeps on, and the dum muskeeters keeps on a-bitin’,
-   one man will ‘see Venice and die’”                                581
- “Next thing I’d know you’d have a inquisition a-goin’ on”           588
- The Tower of Pisa                                                   599
- The Colosseum                                                       602
- “The guides went ahead with flarin’ lights”                         607
- Mr. Goldwind, one of Martin’s business rivals                       616
- “I have faith that it aches like the old Harry”                     623
- I see one of the officials take up my sheep’s-head nightcap         628
- A smile of admiration swep’ over his dark visage                    628
- Heavey, rough carts, drawed by an ox and a cow lashed together
-   by ropes wound round their horns                                  631
- At my request he hooked up my dress skirt in the back               647
- She knowed me to once--a happy smile curved her pretty lips         653
- The Matador                                                         661
- His victim                                                          661
- How cold his feet must have been cold mornin’s                      666
- “I go back to my own country--I have many things to teach my
-   people--to avoid”                                                 675
- They had sent Philury out, like a dove, on the front doorstep
-   to meet us                                                        684
- His looks wuz so onbecomin’ to a deacon and a path-master           687
- Sez Martin agin, “I am sick to death of these everlasting
-   complaints”                                                       698
- He fell down jest like a log at my feet                             701
- A faithful creeter with a strong breath, caused by stimulants,
-   I believe                                                         704
- He busted out into tears and buried his face in his hands           709
- Finis                                                               714
-
-
-
-
-SAMANTHA IN EUROPE.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-TRAINS OF RETROSPECTION.
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-Twilight on the broad ocean! Smooth, wild waste of blue-gray waters
-stretchin’ out as fur as the eye could reach on every side.
-
-In the east a silvery moon hangin’ low and a shinin’ path leadin’ up
-to it. In the west Mars a-dazzlin’ bright over a pale pink sky, with
-streaks of yeller and crimson a-layin’ stretched acrost it, like bars
-put up by angel hands a-fencin’ in their world from ourn.
-
-Now in a sunset in Jonesville it might seem as if you could put on your
-sun-bunnet and stride off over hills and valleys and at las’ reach the
-Sunset Land, and peek over the bars and ketch a glimpse of what wuz
-beyend.
-
-It would seem amongst the possibles.
-
-But here--oh! how fur-off, illimitable, unaproachable, duz that fur-off
-glory look!
-
-And Mars seemed to wink that red eye of hisen at me mockin’ly as I
-strained my eyes over the long watery plain, as if to say--“The time
-has been when you wuz free to roam round, a-walkin’ off afoot; you may
-have gloated over me in your free thoughts and said--
-
-“You are fixed and sot up there, while I am free to soar and sail. Now,
-haughty female mortal, your wings are clipped--the time has come when
-your walkin’ afoot and roamin’ round is stopped.”
-
-To think that I myself, Josiah Allen’s Wife, should find myself on
-the Atlantic a-hangin’ onto the gunwale of the ship with one hand,
-and a-lookin’ off over the endless waters below and all round me,
-and a-thinkin’ if I should trust myself to step out onto its heavey,
-treacherous surface where should I go to, and when, and why! I,
-Samantha, who had ever been ust to slippin’ on my sun-bunnet and
-runnin’ into Miss Bobbettses, or out into the garden, or out to the
-hen-house for eggs, or down into the orchard, or the wood paster for
-recreation or cowslips.
-
-To think that I wuz thus caged up as it were, my restless wings
-(speakin’ in metafor) folded in such clost quarters, with no chance (to
-foller up the metafor) of floppin’ ’em to any extent.
-
-Oh! where wuz I? The thought wuz full of or. Why wuz I? This thought
-brung on trains of retrospection.
-
-As I sot in my contracted corner of the aft fore-castle deck, and Night
-wuz lettin’ down, gradual, her starry mantilly over me and the seen,
-as erst it did over me as I sot in the sweet, restful door-yard at
-Jonesville. (Dear seen, shall I ever see thee agin?)
-
-I will rehearse the facts that led to my takin’ this onpresidented step.
-
-My pardner is asleep in his narrer bunk, or ruther on one of the
-shelves in our cell, that are cushioned, and on which our two forms
-nightly repose.
-
-[Illustration: Asleep in his narrer bunk.]
-
-He is at rest. The waves are asleep, or pretty nigh asleep, the night
-winds are hushed, and all Nater seems to draw in her breath and wait
-for me as I tell the tale.
-
-I will begin, as most fashionable novelists do, with a verse of
-poetry----
-
-    “Backward, turn backward (as fur as Jonesville), Oh Time,
-      in thy flight--
-    Make me (a trusty, short-winded, female historian) jest
-      for to-night.”
-
-It wuz now goin’ on three years sence Uncle Philander Smith’s son,
-Philander Martin, named after his Pa and his Uncle Martin, writ a
-line to me announcin’ his advent into Jonesville. And in speakin’ of
-Philander I shall have to go back, kinder sideways, some distance into
-the past to describe him.
-
-Yes, I will have to lead the horse fur back to hitch it on properly to
-the wagon of my history, or mebby it would be more proper, under the
-circumstances, to say how fur I must row my little personal life-boat
-back to hitch it onto the great steamer of my statement, in order that
-there shall be direct smooth sailin’ and no meanderin’.
-
-Wall, with the first paddle of my verbal row-boat, I would state--
-
-(And into how many little still side coves and seemin’ly wind-locked
-ways my little life-boat must sail on her way back to be jined to the
-great steamer, and how I must stay in ’em for some time! It can’t be
-helped.)
-
-Yes, it must have been pretty nigh three years ago that we had our
-first letter from P. Martyn Smythe.
-
-He is my second cousin on my own side. And he sot out from Spoonville
-(a neighborin’ hamlet) years ago with lots of ambition and pluck and
-energy, and about one dollar and seventy-five cents in money.
-
-Uncle Philander, his father, had a big family, and died leavin’ him
-nothin’ but his good example and some old spectacles and a cane.
-
-He wuz brung up by his Uncle Martin, a good-natered creeter, but
-onfaculized and shiftless.
-
-Young Martin never loved to be hampered, and after he got old enough
-to help his uncle, he didn’t want to be hampered with him, so he
-packed up his little knapsack and sot out to seek his fortune, and he
-prospered beyend any tellin’, bought some mines, and railroads, and
-things, and at last come back East and settled down in a neighborin’
-city, and then got rid of several things that he found hamperin’ to
-him. Amongst ’em wuz his old name--now he calls it “Smythe.”
-
-Yes, he got rid of the good, reliable old Smith name, that has stood
-by so many human bein’s even unto the end. And he got rid, too, of his
-conscience, the biggest heft of it, and his poor relations.
-
-For why, indeed, should a Bill or a Tom Smith claim relationship with a
-P. Martyn Smythe?
-
-Why, indeed! He got rid of ’em all in a heap, as it were, a-ignorin’
-“the hull kit and bilein’ of ’em,” as Aunt Debby said.
-
-“Never seen hide nor hair of any of ’em, from one year’s end to the
-other,” sez Aunt Debby.
-
-As to his conscience, he got rid of that, I spoze, kinder gradual, a
-little at a time, till to all human appearance he hadn’t a speck left,
-of which more anon.
-
-But there wuz a little of it left, enough to leven his hull nater and
-raise it up, some like hop yeast, only stronger and more spiritual (as
-will also be seen anon).
-
-Wall, he never seemed to know where his cousin, she that wuz Samantha
-Smith, lived, and his neck seemed to be made in that way--kinder held
-up by his stiff white collar mebby--that it held his head up firm and
-immovable, so’s he didn’t see me nor my Josiah when he’d meet him once
-in a great while at some quarterly meetin’ or conferences and sech.
-
-I guess that neck of hisen carried him so straight that he couldn’t
-seem to turn it towards the old Smith pew at all.
-
-And then he wuz dretful near-sighted, too; his eyes wuz affected
-dretful curous.
-
-Uncle Mart Smith, the one P. Martin wuz named after, atted him about
-it, for he wuz his own uncle, and dretful shiftless and poor, but a
-Christian as fur as he could be with his nateral laziness on him.
-
-As I say, he partly brung Martin up. A good-natered creeter he wuz.
-And one day he walked right up and atted P. Martyn Smythe as to why he
-never could see him.
-
-And P. Martyn sed that it wuz his eyesight; sez he, “I’m dretful
-near-sighted.”
-
-It made it all right with Uncle Martin, but his wife, Aunt Debby, she
-sed, “Why can he see bishops and elders so plain?”
-
-“Wall,” sez Uncle Mart, “it is a curous complaint.” And she sez--
-
-“’Tain’t curous a mite; it’s as nateral as ingratitude, and as old as
-Pharo.”
-
-And she and Uncle Mart had some words about it.
-
-Wall, his eyesight seemed to grow worse and worse so fur as old friends
-and relations wuz concerned, till all of a sudden--it wuz after my
-third book had shook the world, or I spoze it did; it kinder jarred it
-anyway, I guess--wall, what should that man, P. Martyn, do, but write
-to me and invite me to the big city where he lived.
-
-Sez he, “Relations ort to cling closter to each other;” sez he, “Come
-and stay a week.”
-
-I answered his note, cool but friendly.
-
-And then he writ agin, and asked me to come and stay a month. Agin my
-answer wuz Christian, but about as cool as well water.
-
-And then he writ agin and asked me to come and stay a year with ’em.
-And he would be glad, he said, he and his two motherless children, if I
-would come and live with ’em always.
-
-This allusion to the motherless melted me down some, and my reply wuz,
-I spoze, about the temperture of milk jest from the cow.
-
-But I said that Duty and Josiah binded me to my home and Jonesville.
-
-Wall, the next summer what should P. Martyn do but to write to me that
-he and Alice and Adrian, his two children, wuz a-comin’ to Jonesville,
-and would we take ’em in for a week? He thought his children needed
-fresh air and a little cossetin’.
-
-Wall, to me, Josiah Allen’s wife, who has brung up almost numberless
-lambs and chickens by hand as cossets, this allusion to “cossetin’”
-melted me so and warmed up my nater, that my reply wuz about the
-temperture of skim milk het for the calves.
-
-So they come.
-
-And indeed I said then what I say now, and I’ll defy anybody to dispute
-me, that two prettier, winnin’er creeters never lived than them two
-children.
-
-[Illustration: Two prettier, winnin’er creeters never lived than them
-two.]
-
-Alice wuz about sixteen then, and Adrian wuz about five, and wuzn’t
-they happy! My hull heart went out to ’em, and mebby it wuz that love
-atmosphere that wropped ’em completely round that made ’em grow so
-bright and cheerful and healthy.
-
-There hain’t no atmosphere that is at the same time so inspirin’ and so
-restful as the heart atmosphere of love.
-
-You can always tell ’em that breathe its rare, fine atmosphere by the
-radiance in their faces and the lightness of their step.
-
-I loved them two children dearly. They wuz both as handsome as picters,
-Alice fair and slender and sweet as a white day lily, with big, happy
-blue eyes, and hair of the same gold color that her mother had had.
-
-Adrian had long curls of that same wonderful golden hair, and his eyes
-wuz big, inspirin’, blue gray, and his lips always seemed to hold a
-happy secret. He had that look some way.
-
-Though what it could be we couldn’t tell, for he talked pretty much all
-the time.
-
-And the questions he asked would more’n fill our old family Bible,
-I’m sure, and I thought some of the time that the overflow would fill
-Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs.”
-
-Why, one day we got old Uncle Smedley to mow our lawn while Adrian
-wuz there, and I felt sorry that I didn’t put down the questions that
-Adrian asked that perfectly deaf man as he trotted along in his little
-velvet suit by the side of the lawn mower.
-
-But then I d’no as I’m sorry, after all, for paper is sometimes skurce,
-and I don’t believe in extravagance.
-
-And how he did love poseys, most of all the English violets! We had
-a big bed of ’em, and he always had a bunch of ’em in his little
-buttonhole, and be a-pinnin’ ’em to my waist and Alice’s. And he would
-have a big bunch in his hand, and jest bury his face in ’em, as if he
-wuz tryin’ to take in their deep, sweet perfume through his pores as it
-wuz. And always a little, low vase that stood before his plate on the
-table would be full of ’em.
-
-I wondered at it some, but found out that before he wuz born his sweet
-Ma had jest sech a passion for ’em, and always had her room full of
-’em. And I kinder wondered if, in some occult way, she wuz a-keepin’
-up the acquaintance with her boy by means of that sweet and delicate
-language that we can’t spell yet, let alone talkin’.
-
-I d’no, nor Josiah don’t, but anyway Adrian jest seemed to live on ’em
-in a certain way, as if they satisfied some deep hunger and need in his
-inmost nater.
-
-And he would sometimes make the old-fashionedest remarks I ever
-hearn, and praise himself up jest as though he wuz somebody else. Not
-conceited at all, but jest sincere and honest.
-
-One day after family prayers, Josiah had been readin’ about the New
-Jerusalem, and I spoze Adrian’s curosity wuz rousted up, and sez he,
-“Aunt Samantha, where is Heaven? Is it up in the sky, or where is it?”
-
-[Illustration: “Aunt Samantha, where is Heaven? Is it up in the sky?”]
-
-And I sez, “Sometimes I have thought, Adrian, it wuz right here all
-round us, if we could only see it.”
-
-“I wonder if I could find it?” sez he, and he peered all round him in
-the old-fashionedest way I ever see.
-
-Sez he, “I spoze my pretty Mamma is there; I guess she wants me
-dreadfully sometimes; I am a very bright little boy--I am very
-agreeable.”
-
-“But,” I sez, “that hain’t pretty for you to talk so.”
-
-“Why, Papa sez I am, and he sez I am his wise little partner, and my
-Papa knows everything that wuz ever known--he knows more than any other
-man in the world.”
-
-And I sez to myself, “No, he don’t. He don’t know enough to be jest,
-from all I’ve hearn of his doin’s.”
-
-But I didn’t wonder that Adrian thought as he did, or Alice either, for
-if there wuz ever a indulgent and lovin’ father on earth, it wuz Martin
-Smith.
-
-Nothin’ wuz too good for his children. He adored ’em, and tried to be
-father and mother both to his motherless boy and girl. And money, so
-fur as they wuz concerned, flowed as free as water.
-
-P. Martyn didn’t stay but a few days this time, but left the children
-two weeks and come back for ’em.
-
-He stayed right to our house, and his eyesight, so fur as the other
-relations wuz concerned, wuz jest the same. He rode round considerable
-with his children, and writ about five thousand letters, and sent off
-and received about the same number of letters and telegrams, and said
-and assured us at the end of the three days he wuz there, that “it wuz
-so sweet for him to have sech a perfect rest.”
-
-He didn’t tell us much about what wuz in the letters, though the last
-day that he wuz there he got sech a enormous batch of ’em that he daned
-to explain the meanin’ of ’em to Josiah and me, for we both had helped
-him to carry ’em in. Sez he, “There is no such thing as satisfying the
-masses.
-
-“Now,” sez he, “I’ve built a line of trolley cars, that are the means
-of saving no end of time, for my drivers, if they don’t come up to the
-swift schedule time I have marked down for them, I discharge them at
-once.
-
-“They are economical, much cleaner and swifter than horses, an
-invaluable saving of time. They are convenient, rapid, and cheap. Now
-you would think that would satisfy them, but no; because they run
-through the most populous streets of the city, and because once in
-awhile an accident takes place, what do they want? They want me to add
-further to the enormous expense I have already been subjected to, and
-buy some fenders to prevent accidents.”
-
-“Wall, hain’t you goin’ to?” sez I.
-
-“No,” sez he, “I am not. If I do, they will probably want some sashay
-bags to hang up in the cars, and some automatic fans to fan them with
-as they ride.” But I had been a-readin’ a sight about the deaths them
-swift monsters had caused, and I sez--
-
-“Martin, life is dear, and it seems as if every safeguard possible ort
-to be throwed round the great public, between ’em and death.”
-
-“But,” sez he, “it is impudent in them to demand anything further than
-what I’ve already done. Horses were always causing accidents.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “when folks are in danger of death, it makes ’em
-impudent. Why, Deacon Garvin sassed the minister when he fell into the
-pond at a Sunday School picnic, and the minister told him to call on
-the Lord in his extremity.”
-
-He sassed him and yelled out to him, “You dum fool, you, throw me a
-board!”
-
-[Illustration: He sassed him and yelled out, “You dum fool, you, throw
-me a board!”]
-
-Sez I, “Dretful danger makes folks sassy.”
-
-“Well, I won’t be to the expense of getting them,” sez he.
-
-Sez I mildly, “You told Josiah Allen and me yesterday that you’d laid
-up two millions of dollars sence you had gone into this enterprise.
-Now, as a matter of justice, don’t you think that the public who have
-paid you two millions of their money have a right to demand these
-safeguards to life and limb?”
-
-He waived off the question.
-
-“Why,” sez he, “in all the last year there have not been more than
-fifty lives lost in our city from these cars, and considering the hosts
-that have been carried, considering the convenience, the swiftness, the
-rapidity, and etcetera--what is fifty lives?”
-
-[Illustration: “It depends on whose lives they be.”]
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “it depends on whose lives they be. Now I know,” sez I,
-a-glancin’ at my pardner’s shinin’ bald head a-risin’ up like a full
-harvest moon from behind the pages of _The World_--
-
-“I know one life that if it went down in darkness under them wheels,
-it would make the hull world black and empty. It would take all the
-happiness and hope and meanin’ out of this world, and change it into a
-funeral gloom.”
-
-Sez I, “It would darken the world for all who love him.” And sez I,
-“Every one of them fifty that have gone down under them death chariots
-have left ’em who loved ’em. Hearts have ached and broken as they have
-looked at the mangled bodies and the emptiness of life faced ’em.” Sez
-I, “Them rollin’ billows of blackness have swept over the livin’ and
-the lovin’ every time them cruel wheels have ground a bright human life
-to death.
-
-“They have mostly been children,” sez I, “and think of the anguish
-mother hearts have endured, and father love and pride--how it has been
-crushed down under the rollin’ wheels of death.
-
-“Sometimes a father, who wuz the only prop of a family, has gone down.
-How cold the world is to ’em when the love that wropped ’em round
-has been tore from ’em! Sometimes a mother--what can take the place
-of mother love to the little ones left to suffer from hunger, and
-nakedness, and ignorance?”
-
-“You’re imaginative, Cousin Samantha,” said he; but I kep’ right on
-onbeknown to me.
-
-“Who will care for the destitute children left alone in the cold world
-with no one to care for ’em and help ’em?”
-
-“I’ll give ’em some money,” said little Adrian, who’d been leanin’ up
-aginst my knee and listenin’ to our talk, with his big, earnest eyes
-fixed on our faces.
-
-“I’ll give ’em the gold piece that papa gave me yesterday.”
-
-He had gin him a twenty dollar gold piece, for I see it.
-
-“I’ll give ’em all I’ve got--I’ll work for that poor woman who lost her
-little boy--I’ll work for her and help her.”
-
-“Who’ll work for me?” sez Martin. “You’re to be my partner, my boy;
-remember that. You’re my little partner now--half of all I own belongs
-to you.”
-
-“And I will give it all to them,” sez Adrian.
-
-But Martin went right on--“You are to be president of this company when
-I am an old man; you’re to work for me.”
-
-“But I’ll work for those poor people, papa,” sez Adrian, and as he said
-this he looked way off through his father’s face, as he sot by the open
-window, to some distance beyend him. And his eyes, jest the color of
-that June sky, looked big and luminous.
-
-“I’ll work for them, papa,” and as he spoke a sudden thrill, some like
-electricity, only more riz up like, shot through my soul, a sudden and
-deep conviction that he would work for ’em--that he would in some way
-redeem the old Smith name from the ojium attachin’ to it now as a owner
-of them Herod’s Chariots and a Massacreer of Innocents. But to resoom.
-
-All the next day Adrian kep’ talkin’ about it, how he wuz goin’ to be
-his papa’s pardner, and how he wuz a-goin’ to work for poor folks who
-had lost their little children, and wanted so many things.
-
-And the questions he asked me about ’em, and about poor folks, though
-wearisome to the flesh, wuz agreeable to the sperit.
-
-Wall, Martin called him so much from day to day--“My little partner,”
-that we all got into the habit on’t, and called him so through the day.
-
-And every evenin’ he would come to me and say--“Good-night, Aunt
-Samantha, good-bye till mornin’.”
-
-And I would kiss him earnest and sweet, and say back to him,
-“Good-night, little pardner, till mornin’.”
-
-And after he went home, Josiah and I would talk about him a sight, and
-wonder what the little pardner wuz doin’, and how he wuz lookin’ from
-day to day. And I would often go into the parlor, where his picter
-stood on the top shelf of the what-not, and stand and look dreamily at
-it. There he wuz in his little black velvet suit and a big bunch of
-English violets pinned on one side. The earnest eyes would look back
-at me dretful tender like and good. The mouth that held that wonderful
-sweet and sort o’ curous expression, as if he wuz thinkin’ of sunthin’
-beautiful that we didn’t know anything about, would sort o’ smile back
-at me.
-
-And he seemed to be a-sayin’ to me, as he said that day a-lookin’ out
-into the clear sky--
-
-“I’ll work for them poor people!”
-
-And I answered back to him out loud once or twice onbeknown to me, and
-sez I, “I believe you will, little pardner.”
-
-And Josiah asked me who I wuz a-talkin’ to. He hollered out from the
-kitchen.
-
-And I sez, “Ahem--ahem,” and kinder coughed. I couldn’t explain to my
-pardner jest how I felt, for I didn’t know myself hardly.
-
-Wall, it run along for some time--Martin a-writin’ to me quite often,
-always a-talkin’ about his little pardner and Alice, and how they wuz
-a-gittin’ along, and a-invitin’ us to visit ’em.
-
-And at last there came sech a pressin’ invitation from Alice to come
-and see ’em that I had to succumb.
-
-But little, little did I ever think in my early youth, when I ust
-to read about Solomon’s Temple and Sheba’s Splendor, and sing about
-Pleasures and Palaces, that I should ever enter in and partake of ’em.
-
-Why, the house that Martin lived in wuz a sight, a sight--big as the
-meetin’-housen at Jonesville and Loontown both put together, and
-ornamented with jest so many cubits of glory one way, and jest so many
-cubits of grandeur another. Wall, it wuz sunthin’ I never expected
-to see on earth, and in another sphere I never sot my mind on seein’
-carpets that your feet sunk down into as they would in a bed of moss
-in a cedar swamp, and lofty rooms with stained-glass winders and sech
-gildin’s and ornaments overhead, and furniture sech as I never see, and
-statutes a-lookin’ pale with joy, to see the lovely picters that wuz
-acrost the room from ’em; and more’n twenty servants of different sorts
-and grades.
-
-Why, actually, Josiah and I seemed as much out of place in that seen
-of grandeur as two hemlock logs with the bark on ’em at a fashionable
-church weddin’.
-
-And nothin’ but the pure love I felt for them children, and their pure
-love for me, made me willin’ to stay there a minute.
-
-Martin wuz good to us, and dretful glad to have us there to all human
-appearance; but Alice and Adrian loved us.
-
-And I hadn’t been there more’n a few days before I see one reason why
-Alice had writ me so earnest to come--she wuz in deep trouble, she
-wuz in love, deep in love with a young lawyer, one who writ for the
-newspapers, too--
-
-A man who had the courage of his convictions, and had writ several
-articles about the sufferin’s of the poor and the onjustice of rich
-men. And amongst the rest he had writ some cuttin’ but jest articles
-about the massacreein’ of children by them trolley cars, and so had got
-Martin’s everlastin’ displeasure and hatred.
-
-The young man, I found out, wuz as good as they make anywhere; a
-noble-lookin’ young feller, too, so I hearn.
-
-Even Martin couldn’t say a word aginst him, for, in the cause of Duty
-and Alice, I tackled him on the subject. Sez I, “Hain’t he honest and
-manly and upright?”
-
-And he had to admit that he wuz, that he hadn’t a vice or bad habit,
-and wuz smart and enterprisin’.
-
-I held him right there with my eye till I got an answer.
-
-“But he is a fool,” sez he.
-
-Sez I, “Fools don’t generally write sech good sense, Martin.”
-
-Sez he wrathfully, “I knew your opinions--I expected you’d uphold him
-in his ungrateful folly.
-
-“But he has lost Alice by it,” sez he; “for I never will give my
-consent to have him marry her.”
-
-Sez I, “Then you had never ort to let him come here and have the chance
-to win her heart, and now break it, for,” sez I, “you encouraged him at
-first, Martin.”
-
-“I know I did,” sez he--“I thought I had found one honest man, and I
-had decided on giving all my business into his hands. It would have
-been the making of him,” sez he; “but he has only himself to blame, for
-if he had kept still he would have married Alice, but now he shall not.”
-
-Sez I, “Alice thinks jest as he duz.”
-
-“What do women know about business?” he snapped out, enough to take my
-head off.
-
-“If wimmen don’t know anything about bizness, Martin, I should think
-you’d be glad to know, in case you left Alice, that she and her immense
-fortune wuz in the hands of an honest man.
-
-“And I want you to consent to this marriage,” sez I, “in a suitable
-time--when Alice gits old enough.”
-
-“I won’t consent to it!” sez he--“the writer of them confounded papers
-never shall marry my daughter.”
-
-“Why,” sez I, “there’s nothin’ harsh in the articles.” Sez I, “They’re
-only a strong appeal to the pity and justice of ’em who are responsible
-for all this danger and horrow!”
-
-“Well,” sez he, “I’ve made up mind, and I never change it.”
-
-Sez I, “I d’no whether you will or not.” Sez I, “This is a strange
-world, Martin, and folks are made to change their minds sometimes
-onbeknown to ’em.”
-
-Wall, I didn’t stay more’n several days after this, when I returned
-to the peaceful precincts of Jonesville and my (sometimes) devoted
-pardner, and things resoomed their usual course.
-
-But every few days I got communications from Martin’s folks. Alice writ
-to me sweet letters of affection, wherein I could read between the
-lines a sad background of Hope deferred and a achin’ heart.
-
-And Adrian writ long letters to me, where the spellin’ left much to be
-desired, but the good feelin’ and love and confidence in ’em wuz all
-the most exactin’ could ask for.
-
-And occasionally Martin would write a short line of a sort of hurried,
-patronizin’ affection, and the writin’ looked so much like ducks’
-tracts that it seemed as if our old drake would have owned up to ’em in
-a law suit.
-
-But Josiah and me would put on our strongest specks, and take the
-letter between us, and hold it in every light, and make out the heft on
-it.
-
-[Illustration: Josiah and me put on our strongest specks.]
-
-Till at last, one notable day, long to be remembered, there come a
-letter in Martin’s awful chirography. And when we had studied out its
-contents, we looked at each other in a astounded astonishment and a
-sort of or.
-
-“Would I go to Europe with him and his children as his guest?” He
-thought Alice seemed to be a little delicate, and mebby the trip would
-do her good, and he also thought she needed the company of some good,
-practical woman to see to her, and mother her a little.
-
-That last sentence tugged at my heart strings.
-
-But my answer went back by next mail--
-
-“I wuz afraid of the ocean, and couldn’t leave Josiah.”
-
-The answer come back by telegraph--
-
-“The ocean wuz safer than land, and take Josiah along, too. He
-expected he would go.”
-
-Then I writ back--“I never had been drownded on dry land, and didn’t
-believe I should be, and Josiah didn’t feel as though he could leave
-the farm.”
-
-Then Martin telegrafted to Thomas J.--
-
-“Arrange matters for father and mother to take trip. Send bill to me.
-Alice needs their care. Her health and happiness depend on it.”
-
-So he got Thomas Jefferson on his side. Thomas J. and Maggie loved
-Alice like a sister. But there wuzn’t any bill to send to Martin, for
-Thomas J. pinted out the facts that Ury could move right into the house
-and take care of everything. And sez he, “The trip and the rest will do
-you both good.”
-
-“But the danger,” sez I.
-
-And he said, jest like Martin--“Less danger than the land, better rates
-of insurance given,” etc., etc., etc.
-
-And Maggie put in too, and Josiah begun to kinder want to go.
-
-And we wavered back and forth, until a long letter from Alice, beggin’
-me and her Uncle Josiah to go with her to take care of her, tottled the
-balance over on the side of Europe.
-
-And Josiah and I began to make preperations for a trip abroad.
-
-Oh my heart! think on’t!
-
-I announced our decision to Martin in a letter of 9 pages of
-foolscap--Josiah writ half of it--describin’ our doubts and delays and
-our final reasons for decision.
-
-And he telegrafted back--
-
-“All right--start 14th. Send bill of expense to me.”
-
-But there wuzn’t no bill sent, as I said--no, indeed!
-
-I guess we didn’t want nobody to buy clothes for us--no, indeed!
-
-As for the travellin’ expenses of the trip, seein’ they thought we wuz
-necessaries to their comfort, and seein’ he’d invited us, and seein’
-his income wuz about ten thousand dollars an hour, why we laid out to
-let him have his way in that.
-
-It wuzn’t nothin’ that we’d ever thought on, and then, as I told
-Josiah, we could even it up some by invitin’ the children to stay all
-summer with us next year.
-
-So the die wuz cast down, and the cloth wuz soon bought for Josiah’s
-new European shirts, and my own foreign nightcap and nightgown.
-
-As for my clothes, by Maggie’s advice and assistance, aided by our two
-practical common senses, the work wuz soon completed.
-
-Maggie said that I must dress better than I usually did on my towers,
-for the sake of pleasin’ Martin and Alice. And she and Thomas J. made
-me a present of a good black silk dress, and she see to makin’ it, with
-one plain waist for common wear, and one dressy waist, very handsome,
-with black jet trimmin’ on it for my best.
-
-A good gray alpacky travellin’ dress, some the color of dust, with
-a bunnet of the same color, and a good brown lawn for hot days wuz
-enough, and didn’t take up much room. Plenty of good underclothes and a
-wool wrapper for the steamer completed my trossow.
-
-Thomas J. see to it that his Pa had a good-lookin’ suit of black
-clothes for his best, and a suit of pepper and salt for every day.
-
-I also made him 2 new flannel nightcaps. And I myself had two new
-nightcaps made. In makin’ ’em, I departed from my usual fashion of
-sheep’s-head nightcaps, thinkin’ in case of a panick at sea, and the
-glare of publicity a-bein’ throwed onto ’em, a modified sheep’s head
-would appear better than clear sheep.
-
-They wuz gathered slightly in the crown, and had some very nice egin’
-on ’em--7 cents per yard at hullsail--7 and ½ retail.
-
-It wuz good lace.
-
-They wuz very becomin’ to my style.
-
-[Illustration: It wuz very dressy when it wuz done.]
-
-I also made Josiah a handsome dressin’-gown out of a piece of rep goods
-I had in the house. I had laid out to cover a lounge with it, but I
-thought under these peculiar circumstances Josiah needed it more’n the
-lounge did, and so I made it up for him. I made a cord with two tossels
-to tie it with. I twisted the cord out of good red and black woosted
-and made the tossels of the same.
-
-It wuz very dressy when it wuz done. And he would have worn it out
-visitin’ if I had encouraged him in it. He wuz highly delighted and
-tickled with it.
-
-But I tutored him that it wuz only to wear in his state-room, and in
-case of a panick on deck.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-A HEATHEN MISSIONARY.
-
-
-Wall, I wuz a-settin’ in my clean settin’-room on a calm twilight,
-engaged in completin’ my preperations--in fact, I wuz jest a-puttin’
-the finishin’ touches on one of Josiah’s nightcaps and mine.
-
-I put cat stitch round the front of hisen, a sort of a dark red cat.
-
-When all to once I hearn a knock at the west door. I had thought as I
-wuz a-settin’ a-sewin’ what a beautiful sunset it wuz. The west jest
-glowed with light that streamed over and lit up the hull sky. All wuz
-calm in the east, and a big moon wuz jest risin’ from the back of
-Balcom’s Hill. It wuz shaped a good deal like a boat, and I laid down
-my sheep’s-head nightcap and set still and watched it, as it seemed
-moored off behind the evergreens that stood tall and silent and dark,
-as if to guard Jonesville and the world aginst the gold boat that wuz
-a-sailin’ in from some onknown harbor. But it come on stiddy, and as if
-it had to come.
-
-I felt queer.
-
-And jest at that minute I hearn the knock at the west door.
-
-[Illustration: A dark figger that riz up like a strange picter aginst
-the sunset.]
-
-And I went and opened it, and as I did the west wuz flamin’ so with
-light that it most blinded me at first; but when I got my eyesight agin
-I see a-standin’ between me and that light a dark figger that riz up
-like a strange picter aginst the sunset.
-
-His back wuz to the light, and his face wuz in the shadder, but I could
-see that it wuz dark and eager, with glowin’ eyes that seemed to light
-up his dark features, some as the stars light up the sky.
-
-And he wuz dressed in a strange garb, sech as I never see before, only
-to the World’s Fair. Yes, in that singular moment I see the value of
-travel. It give me sech a turn that if I hadn’t had the advantage of
-seein’ jest such costooms at that place, I should most probble have
-swooned away right on my own doorstep.
-
-He wuz dressed in a long, loose gown of some dark material, and had
-a white turban on his head. Who he wuz or where he come from was a
-mystery to me.
-
-But I felt it wuz safe anyway to say, “Good-evenin’,” whoever he wuz or
-wherever he came from; he couldn’t object to that.
-
-So consequently I said it--not a-knowin’ but he would address me back
-in Hindoo, or Sanskrit, or Greek, or sunthin’ else paganish and queer.
-
-But he didn’t; he spoke jest as well as my Thomas Jefferson could,
-and when I say that, I say enough, full enough for anybody, only his
-voice had a little bit of a foreign axent to it, that put me in mind
-some of the strange odor of Maggie’s sandal-wood fan, sunthin’ that
-is inherient and stays in it, though it is owned in America, and has
-Jonesville wind in it--good, strong wind, as good as my turkey feather
-fan ever had.
-
-Sez he, “Good-evening, madam. Do I address Josiah Allen’s wife?”
-
-Sez I, “You do.”
-
-Sez he, “Pardon this intrusion. I come on particular business.”
-
-Whereupon I asked him to come in, and sot a chair for him.
-
-I didn’t know whether to ask him to lay off his things or not, not
-a-seein’ anything only the dress he had on, and not knowin’ what the
-state of his clothes wuz.
-
-And after a minute’s reflection on it, I dassent venter.
-
-So I simply sot him a chair and asked him to set.
-
-He bowed dretful polite, and thanked me, and sot.
-
-Then there wuz a slight pause ensued and follered on. I wuz some
-embarrassed, not knowin’ what subject to introduce.
-
-Deacon Bobbett had lost his best heifer that day, and most all
-Jonesville wuz a-lookin’ for it, but I didn’t know whether it would
-interest him or not.
-
-And Sally Garvin had a young babe. A paper of catnip even then reposed
-on the kitchen table a-waitin’ until her husband come back to send it,
-but I didn’t know whether that subject would be proper to branch out on
-to a man.
-
-So I sot demute for as much as half a minute.
-
-And before I could collect myself together and break out in
-conversation, he sez in that deep, soft, musical voice of hisen--
-
-“Madam, I have come on a strange errand.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, in a encouragin’ voice, “I am used to strange
-errents--yes, indeed, I am! Why,” sez I, “this very day a woman writ to
-me from Minnesota for money to fence in a door-yard, and,” sez I, “Sime
-Bentley wuz over bright and early this mornin’ to borrer a settin’ hen.
-He had plenty of eggs, but no setters.”
-
-Sez I in a encouragin’ axent, for I couldn’t help likin’ the creeter,
-“I am used to ’em--don’t be afraid.”
-
-I didn’t know but he wuz after my nightgown pattern, and I looked
-clost at his garb; but I see that it wuz fur fuller than mine and sot
-different. The long folds hung with a dignity and grace that my best
-mull nightgown never had, and if it wuz so, I wuz a-goin’ to tell him
-honorable that his pattern went fur ahead of mine in grandeur.
-
-And then, thinks I, mebby he is a-goin’ to beg for money for a
-meetin’-house steeple or sunthin’ in Hindoostan, and I wuz jest
-a-makin’ up my mind to tell him that we hadn’t yet quite paid for the
-paint that ornamented ourn. And I wuz a-layin’ out to bring in some
-Bible and say, “Charity begun on our own steeple.”
-
-But jest as I wuz a-thinkin’ this he spoke up in that melodious
-voice, that somehow put me in mind of palm trees a-risin’ up aginst a
-blue-black sky, and pagodas, and oasises, and things. Sez he, “Will you
-allow me to tell you a little of my history?”
-
-I sez, “Yes, indeed! I am jest through with my work.” Sez I frankly, “I
-have been finishin’ some nightcaps for my pardner, and I sot the last
-stitch to ’em as you come in. I’d love to set still and hear you tell
-it.”
-
-So I sot down in the big arm-chair and folded my arms in a almost
-luxurious foldin’, and listened.
-
-Sez he, “My name is Al Faizi, and I am come from a country far away.”
-And he waved his hand towards the east.
-
-Instinctively I follered his gester, and his eyes, and I see that the
-gold boat of the moon had come round the pint, and wuz a-sailin’ up
-swift into the clear sky. But a big star shone there, it stood there
-motionless, as he went on.
-
-Sez he, “I have always been a learner, a seeker after truth. When a
-small boy I lived with my uncle, who was a learned man, and his wife,
-who was an Englishwoman. From her I learned your language. I loved to
-study; she had many books. She was the daughter of a missionary, who
-died and left her alone in that strange land. My uncle was a convert
-to her faith. She married him and was happy. She had many books that
-belonged to her father; he was a good man and very learned; he did my
-people much good while he lived with them.
-
-“I learned from those books many things that our own wise men never
-taught me, and from them I got a great craving to see this land. I
-learned from these books and my aunt’s teachings taught me when I was
-so young that truth permeated my being and filled my heart, that this
-land was the country favored by God--this land so holy, that it sent
-missionaries to teach my people. Then I went to a school taught by
-English teachers, but always I searched for truth--I search for God in
-mosque and in temple. These books said God is here in this land. So I
-come. Many of my people come to this great Fair, I come also with them.
-
-“But always I seek the great spirit of God I came here to find. I
-thought truth and justice would fill your temples, and your homes, and
-all your great cities.
-
-“I come, I watch for this Great Light--I listened for the Great Voice,
-I see strange things, but I say nothing, I only think, but I get more
-and more perplexed. I ask many people to show me the temple where God
-is, to show me the great mosque where Truth and Right dwell, and the
-people are blessed by their white shining light, for I thought He
-would be in all the customs and ways of this wise people, so good that
-they instruct all the rest of the world. I come to learn, to worship,
-but I see such strange things, such strange customs. I see cruelties
-practised, such as my own people would not think of doing. I keep
-silent, I only think--think much. But more and more I wonder, and grow
-sad.
-
-[Illustration: “I don’t love to hear that; that sounds bad.”]
-
-“I ask many men, preachers, teachers, to show me the place where God
-is, the great palace where truth dwells. They take me to many places,
-but I do not find the great spirit of Love I seek for. I find in your
-big temples altars built up to strange gods.”
-
-Sez I mildly, “I don’t love to hear that; that sounds bad. I can take
-you to one meetin’-house,” sez I, “where we don’t have no Dagon nor
-snub-nosed idols to worship,” sez I.
-
-But even as I spoke my conscience reproved me; for wuz there not
-settin’ in the highest place in that meetin’-house a rich man who got
-all his money by sellin’ stuff that made brutes of his neighbors?
-
-What wuz we all a-lookin’ up to, minister and people, but a gold beast!
-What wuz that man’s idol but Mammon!
-
-And then didn’t I remember how the hull meetin’-house had turned aginst
-Irene Filkins, who went astray when she wuz nothin’ but a little girl,
-a motherless little girl, too?
-
-Where wuz the great sperit of Love and Charity that said--“Neither do I
-condemn thee; go and sin no more”? Wuz God there?
-
-Didn’t I remember that in this very meetin’-house they got up a fair
-to help raise money for some charity connected with it, and one of the
-little girls kicked higher than any Bowery girl? Wuz it a-startin’ that
-child on the broad road that takes hold on death? Wuz we worshippin’ a
-idol of Expediency--doing evil that good might come?
-
-There wuz poor ones in that very meetin’-house, achin’ hearts sufferin’
-for food and clothin’ almost, and rich, comfortable ones who went by on
-the other side and sot in their places and prayed for the poor, with
-their cold forms and hungry eyes watchin’ ’em vainly as they prayed,
-hopin’ for the help they did not get.
-
-Wuz we hyppocrites? Did we bow at the altar of selfishness?
-
-Truly no Eastern idol wuz any more snub-nosed and ugly than this one.
-
-I wuz overcome with horrow when I thought it all over, and sez I--“I
-guess I won’t take you there right away; we’ll think on’t a spell
-first.”
-
-For I happened to think, too, that our good, plain old preacher, Elder
-Minkley, wuzn’t a-goin’ to preach there Sunday, anyway, but a famous
-sensational preacher, that some of the rich members wanted to call.
-Yes, many hed turned away from the good gospel sermons of that man of
-God, Elder Minkley, and wanted a change.
-
-Wuz it a windy, sensational God set up in our pulpit? I felt guilty as
-a dog, for I too had criticised that good old Elder’s plain speakin’.
-
-Al Faizi had sot me to thinkin’, and while I wuz a-meditatin’ his calm
-voice went on--
-
-“I came to a city not far away; there I saw some words you had
-written. I felt that you, too, desired the truth. I have come to ask
-you if you have found it--if you have found in this land the place
-where Love and Justice reign, and to ask you where it is, that I, too,
-may worship there, and teach the truth to my people.”
-
-I wuz overcome by his simple words, and I bust out onbeknown to me--
-
-“I hain’t found it.” Sez I, and onconsciously I used the words of
-another--“‘We are all poor creeters,’ but we try to worship the true
-God--we try to follow the teachin’s of Him who loved us, and give His
-life to us.”
-
-“The wise man who lived in Galilee and taught the people?” sez he.
-
-“No,” sez I, “not the wise man, but the Divine One--the God who left
-His throne and dwelt with us awhile in the form of the human. We try to
-foller His teachings--a good deal of the time we do,” sez I, honestly
-and sadly.
-
-For more and more this strange creeter’s words sunk into my heart, and
-made me feel queer--queer as a dog.
-
-“I have read His words. I loved Him when a boy, I love Him still. I go
-into your great churches sacred to His name. I find in one grand church
-they say He is there alone, and not in any other. I go into another,
-just as great, and they say He is there, and not in the one I first
-visited; and then I go to another, and another, and yet another.
-
-“All have different ways and beliefs. All say God is here within the
-narrow walls of this church, and not in the others. Oh! I get so
-confused, I know not what to do. How can I, a poor stranger, trace His
-footsteps through all these conflicting creeds? I grow sad, and my
-heart fills with doubt and darkness. Well I remember His words that I
-had pondered in my heart when a boy--‘That they who loved Him should
-bear the cross and follow Him,’ and love and care for His poor. In all
-these great, beautiful churches I hear sweet music. In some I see grand
-pictures, and note the incense floating up toward the Heavens; in some
-I see high vaulted roofs, and the light in many glowing colors falls
-on the bowed forms of the worshippers. I hear holy words, the voice of
-prayer, but I see no crosses borne, and all are rich and grand. I go
-down in the low places. I see the poor toiling on unpitied and uncared
-for. I see these rich people worship in the churches one day, and
-pray--‘Grant us mercy as we are merciful to others.’
-
-“And then the next day they put burdens on the poor, so hard that they
-can hardly bear them, the poor, starving, dying, herded together like
-animals, in wretched places unfit for dumb creatures.
-
-“And ever the rich despise the poor, and the poor curse the rich--both
-bitter against each other, even unto death.
-
-“I find no God of Love in this.
-
-“I go into your great halls where laws are made--I see the wise men
-making laws to bind the weak and tempted with iron chains--laws to help
-bad men lead lives of impurity--laws to make legal crimes that your
-Holy Book says renders one forever unfit for Heaven. I find no God of
-Justice in this.”
-
-“No,” sez I, “He hain’t nigh ’em, and never wuz!”
-
-“Well then,” sez he, “why do they not find out the way of truth
-themselves before they try to teach other people?”
-
-“The land knows!” sez I; “I don’t.”
-
-“Some of your teachers do much good,” sez he; “they are good, and teach
-some of my people good doctrines. But why ever are they permitted by
-your government to bring ways and habits into our land that cover it
-with ruin?
-
-“I was walking once with my own relation, Hadijah, unconverted, and we
-found one of our people lying drunken by the wayside, with bottles of
-American whiskey lying by his side. ‘Boston’ was marked on them, a
-city, I find, that considers itself the centre of goodness and lofty
-thought. The bottles were empty. Hadijah says to me--‘That man is a
-Christian.’
-
-[Illustration: “‘That man is a Christian.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘Because
-he is drunk.’”]
-
-“I said--‘No, I think not.’
-
-“‘Yes he is,’ said he.
-
-“‘How do you know it?’ said I.
-
-“‘Because he is drunk.’ Hadijah, not being yet converted, and judging
-from appearances and from the evidences of his eyesight, associated
-the ideas and thought that in some way drunkenness was an evidence of
-Christianity. That belief is largely shared by all heathen people.
-
-“And then I open your Holy Book and find it written, ‘No drunkard shall
-inherit eternal life,’ and I say to myself, What does it mean that
-these holy people over the seas, who try so hard to convert us, should
-send whiskey, and Bibles, and missionaries to us all packed in one
-great ship?”
-
-Sez I--“The nation don’t mean to do it.” Sez I, “It don’t want to do
-any sech harm.”
-
-“But I hear of the great power of this nation, could it not prevent it?
-If it could not prevent it, it must be a weak government indeed. And
-if truly this great country is so weak and so wicked as to set snares
-for the heathens--trying to lead them into paths that end in eternal
-ruin--I think why not keep their missionaries in their own land? They
-must need them even more than we do.”
-
-Sez I--“Don’t talk so, poor creeter, don’t talk so. Missionaries go out
-to your land fired with the deathless zeal to save souls--to bring the
-knowledge of the Christ to all the world.”
-
-“But if they bring the knowledge in the way I speak of, so the heathen
-honestly believes drunkenness is the sign of Christianity, is it not
-making a mockery of what they profess to teach?”
-
-I wuz dumbfoundered. I didn’t know how to frame a reply, and so I sot
-onframed, as you may say.
-
-“I heard the missionaries say, and I read it in your Holy Book, that
-the liar shall have his portion in the lake that burns forever. The
-same curses are on them that steal and on them that commit adultery.
-
-“I thought the country that sends these missionaries, rebuking these
-sins so sharply--I thought their country must be pure and peaceable and
-holy in its ways. I come here, as I say, seeking the Great Light to
-guide me. I come here to hear the Great Voice, so I could go back and
-carry its teachings to our own people. For I thought there must be some
-mistake, and that the lessons failed in some way to carry the idea of
-your great government. So I come, I study; and I find that not only
-was your great government willing to have my poor people enslaved by
-the drink habit, but it was a partaker in it. It sent over the accursed
-whiskey and brandy and took a portion of the pay--a portion of the
-money spent by my poor people for making themselves unfit for earth,
-and shutting them forever out of Heaven.
-
-“Again, this law that ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ that stands out
-so plain in the Holy Book, that divorce is only permitted for this one
-cause, I find this great government, which by its laws breaks even the
-holy marriage bonds by the committing of this sin--I find that this
-government makes this sin easy and convenient to commit. It grants
-licenses to make it lawful and right.
-
-“When I get here and study I see such strange things. Forevermore I
-wonder, and forevermore I say--Why are not missionaries sent to this
-people, who do such things?
-
-“And I, even I, so weak as I am and so ignorant, but fired as I am by
-the love of Christ Jesus--I say to myself, ‘I will tell this people of
-their sins. I will try to bring them to a knowledge of the pure and
-holy religion of Christ.’”
-
-“You come as a missionary, then?” sez I, a-bustin’ out onbeknown to
-me. “Often and often I have wanted a heathen to come over and try to
-convert Uncle Sam--poor old creeter, a-wadin’ in sin up to his old knee
-jints and over ’em,” sez I.
-
-[Illustration: “Uncle Sam a-wadin’ in sin up to his old knee jints.”]
-
-“Uncle Sam?” sez he; “I know him not. I meant your great people; I do
-not speak of one alone.”
-
-“I know,” sez I; “that is what we call our Goverment when we are on
-intimate terms with it.”
-
-“And,” sez I, “you little know what that old man has been through. He
-wants to do right--he honestly duz; but you know jest how it is--how
-mistaken counsellors darken wisdom and confound jedgment.”
-
-But the sweet, melodious voice went on--
-
-“Your missionaries preach loud to my people against the sins of
-stealing and gambling.
-
-“But I find that in this country great places are fitted up for
-gambling and theft.”
-
-Truly he spoke plain, but then I d’no as I could blame him.
-
-“In these places of theft and gambling, called your stock exchanges, I
-find that you have people called brokers, and some wild animals called
-bulls and bears, though for what purpose they are kept I know not,
-unless it is that they are trained for the Arena. I know not yet all
-your customs.
-
-“But this I know, that your brokers gamble and steal from the
-people--sometimes millions in one day. Which money, taken from the
-common people all over this country, is divided by these brokers
-amongst a few rich men. Perhaps then the game of bulls and bears,
-fighting each other for their amusement, begins. I know not yet all
-your ways.
-
-[Illustration: THE GAME OF BULLS AND BEARS.]
-
-“But I know that in one day five million bushels of wheat were bought
-and sold when there was no wheat in sight--when even during that whole
-year the crop amounted to only two hundred and eighty millions. There
-were more than two million, two hundred thousand bushels of wheat
-bought and paid for that never grew--that were not ever in the world.
-
-“As I saw this, oh! how my heart burned to teach this poor sinful
-people the morality that our own people enjoy.
-
-“For never were there such sins committed in our country.
-
-“I find your rich men controlling the market--holding back the bread
-that the poor hungered and starved for, putting burdens on them more
-grievous than they could bear. These rich men, sitting with their soft,
-white hands, and forms that never ached with labor, putting such high
-prices on grain and corn that the poor could not buy to eat--these
-rich men prayed in the morning (for they often go through the forms of
-the holy religion)--they prayed, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’
-and then made it their first business to keep people from having that
-prayer answered to them.
-
-“They prayed, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ and then deliberately
-made circumstances that they knew would lead countless poor into
-temptation--temptation of theft--temptation of selling Purity and
-Morality for bread to sustain life.”
-
-Sez I, a-groanin’ out loud and a-sithin’ frequent--
-
-“I can’t bear to hear sech talk, it kills me almost; and,” sez I
-honestly, “there is so much truth in it that it cuts me like a knife.”
-
-Sez he, a-goin’ on, not mindin’ my words--“I felt that I must warn this
-people of its sins. I must tell them of what was done once in one of
-our own countries,” sez he, a-wavin’ his hand in a impressive gester
-towards our east door--
-
-“In one of our countries the authorities learned that stock exchanges
-were being formed at Osaka, Yokohama, and Koba.
-
-“The police, all wearing disguises, went at once to the exchanges
-and mingled with the crowd. When all was ready a sign was given, the
-police took possession of the exchanges and all the books and papers,
-the doors were locked and the prisoners secured. Over seven hundred
-were put in prison, the offence being put down--‘Speculation in
-margins.’
-
-“I yearn to tell this great people of the way of our countries, so that
-they may follow them.”
-
-“A heathen a-comin’ here as a missionary!” sez I, a-thinkin’ out loud,
-onbeknown to me. “Wall, it is all right.” Sez I, “It’s jest what the
-country needs.”
-
-But before I could say anythin’ further, at that very minute my beloved
-pardner come in.
-
-He paused with a look of utter amazement. He stood motionless and held
-complete silence and two pails of milk.
-
-But I advanced onwards and relieved him of his embarrassment and one
-pail of milk, and introduced Al Faizi. Al Faizi riz up to once and made
-a deep bow, almost to the floor; but my poor Josiah, with a look of
-bewilderment pitiful to witness, and after standin’ for a brief time
-and not speakin’ a word, sez he--
-
-[Illustration: Al Faizi made a deep bow, almost to the floor.]
-
-“I guess, Samantha, I will go out to the sink and wash my hands.”
-
-Truly, it wuz enough to surprise any man, to leave a pardner with no
-companion but a sheep’s-head nightcap, partly finished, and come back
-in a few minutes and see her a-keepin’ company with a heathen, clothed
-in a long robe and turban.
-
-Wall, Josiah asked me out into the kitchen for a explanation, which I
-gin to him with a few words and a clean towel, and then sez I--“We must
-ask him to stay all night.”
-
-And he sez, “I d’no what we want of that strange-lookin’ creeter
-a-hangin’ round here.”
-
-And I sez, “I believe he is sent by Heaven to instruct us heathens.”
-
-And Josiah said that if he wuz sent from Heaven he would most probble
-have wings.
-
-He didn’t want him to stay, I could see that, and he spoke as if he wuz
-on intimate terms with angels, a perfect conoozer in ’em.
-
-But I sez, “Not all of Heaven’s angels have wings, Josiah Allen, not
-yet; but,” sez I, “they are probble a-growin’ the snowy feathers on ’em
-onbeknown to ’em.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-OFF INTO SIDE PATHS.
-
-
-Wall, the upshot of the matter wuz Al Faizi stayed right there for
-weeks. He seemed to have plenty of money, and I d’no what arrangement
-he and Josiah did make about his board, but I know that Josiah acted
-after that interview with him in the back yard real clever to him, and
-didn’t say a word more aginst the idee of his not bein’ there.
-
-(Josiah is clost.)
-
-As for me, I would have scorned to have took a cent from him, feelin’
-that I got more’n my pay out of his noble but strange conversation.
-
-But Josiah is the head of the family (or he calls himself so).
-
-And mebby he is some of the time.
-
-But suffice it to say, Al Faizi jest stayed and made it his home with
-us, and peered round, and took journeys, and tried to find out things
-about our laws and customs.
-
-Thomas Jefferson loved to talk with him the best that ever wuz. And
-Al Faizi would make excursions to different places round, a-walkin’
-mostly, a-seein’ how the people lived, and a-watchin’ their manners
-and customs, and in writin’ down lots of things in some books he had
-with him, takin’ notes, I spozed, and learnin’ all he could. One book
-that he used to carry round with him and make notes in wuz as queer a
-lookin’ book as I ever see.
-
-With sunthin’ on the cover that looked some like a cross and some like
-a star.
-
-There wuz some precious stuns on it that flashed. If it wuz held up
-in some lights it looked like a cross, and then agin the light would
-fall on’t and make it look like a star. And the gleamin’ stuns would
-sparkle and flash out sometimes like a sharp sword, and anon soft, like
-a lambient light.
-
-It wuz a queer-lookin’ book; and he said, when I atted him about it,
-that he brought it from a country fur away.
-
-And agin he made that gester towards the East, that might mean
-Loontown, and might mean Ingy and Hindoosten--and sech.
-
-After that first talk with me, in which he seemed to open his heart,
-and tell what wuz in his mind, as you may say, about our country, he
-didn’t seem to talk so very much.
-
-He seemed to be one of the kind who do up their talkin’ all to one
-time, as it were, and git through with it.
-
-Of course he asked questions a sight, for he seemed to want to find out
-all he could. And he would anon or oftener make a remark, but to talk
-diffuse and at length, he hardly ever did. But he took down lots of
-notes in that little book, for I see him.
-
-I enjoyed havin’ him there dretful well, and done well by him in
-cookin’, etcetery and etcetery.
-
-But the excitement when he first walked into the Jonesville
-meetin’-house with Josiah and me wuz nearly rampant. I felt queer and
-kinder sheepish, to be walkin’ out with a man with a long dress, and
-turban on, and sandals. And I kinder meached along, and wuz glad to git
-to our pew and set down as quick as I could. But Josiah looked round
-him with a dignified and almost supercilious mean. He felt hauty, and
-acted so, to think that we had a heathen with us and that the other
-members of the meetin’-house didn’t have one.
-
-But if I felt meachin’ over one heathen, or, that is, if I felt
-embarrassed a-showin’ him off before the bretheren and sistern, what
-would I felt if Josiah had had his way about comin’ to meetin’ that day?
-
-Little did them bretheren and sistern know what I’d been through that
-mornin’.
-
-Josiah wore his gay dressin’-gown down to breakfast, which I bore
-well, although it wuz strange--strange to have two men with dresses on
-a-settin’ on each side of me to the table--I who had always been ust to
-plain vests and pantaloons and coats on the more opposite sex.
-
-But I bore up under it well, and didn’t say nothin’ aginst it, and
-poured out the coffee and passed the buckwheat cakes and briled chicken
-and etc. with a calm face.
-
-But when church-time come, and Ury brought the mair and democrat up
-to the door, and I got up on to the back seat, when I turned and see
-Josiah Allen come out with that rep dressin’-gown on, trimmed with
-bright red, and them bright tossels a-hangin’ down in front, and a plug
-hat on, you could have knocked me down with a pin feather.
-
-And sez I sternly, “What duz this mean, Josiah Allen?”
-
-Sez he, “I am a-goin’ to wear this to meetin’, Samantha.”
-
-“To meetin’?” sez I almost mekanically.
-
-“Yes,” sez he; “I am a-doin’ it out of compliments to Fazer; he would
-feel queer to be the only man there with a dress on, and so I thought I
-would keep him company; and,” sez he, a-fingerin’ the tossels lovin’ly,
-“this costoom is very dressy and becomin’ to me, and I’d jest as leave
-as not let old Bobbett and Deacon Garvin see me appearin’ in it,” sez
-he.
-
-“Do you go and take that off this minute, Josiah Allen! Why, they’d
-call you a idiot and as crazy as a loon!”
-
-Sez he, a-puttin’ his right foot forward and standin’ braced up on it,
-sez he, “I shall wear this dress to meetin’ to-day!”
-
-Sez I, “You won’t wear it, Josiah Allen!”
-
-Sez he, “You know you are always lecturin’ me on bein’ polite. You know
-you told me a story about a woman who broke a china teacup a purpose
-because one of her visitors happened to break hern. You praised her up
-to me; and now I am actin’ out of almost pure politeness, and you want
-to break it up, but you can’t,” sez he, and he proceeded to git into
-the democrat.
-
-Ury wuz a-standin’ with his hands on his sides, convulsed with
-laughter, and even the mair seemed to recognize sunthin’ strange, for
-she whinnered loudly.
-
-Sez I in frigid axents, “Even the old mair is a whinnerin’, she is so
-disgusted with your doin’s, Josiah Allen.”
-
-“The old mair is whinnerin’ for the colt!” sez he, and agin he put his
-foot on the lowest step.
-
-[Illustration: Sez I, a-risin’ up in the democrat, “I’ll git out.”]
-
-“Wall,” sez I, a-risin’ up in the democrat, with dignity, “I’ll git out
-and stay to home. I will not go to church and see my pardner took up
-for wearin’ female’s clothin’.”
-
-He paused with his foot on the step, and a shade of doubt swept over
-his liniment.
-
-“Do you spoze they would?” sez he.
-
-“Of course they would!” sez I; “twilight would see you a-moulderin’ in
-a cell in Loontown.”
-
-“I couldn’t moulder much in half a day!” sez he.
-
-But I see that I wuz about to conquer. He paused a minute in deep
-thought, and then he turned away; but as he went up the steps slowly,
-I hearn him say--“Dum it all, I never try to show off in politeness or
-anything but what sunthin’ breaks it up!”
-
-But anon he come down clothed in his good honorable black kerseymeer
-suit, and Al Faizi soon follered him in his Oriental garb, and we
-proceeded to meetin’.
-
-As I say, the excitement wuz nearly rampant as we went in. And I spoze
-nothin’ hendered the female wimmen and men from bein’ fairly prostrated
-and overcome by their feelin’s, only this fact, that the winter
-before a Hindoo in full costoom had lectured before the Jonesville
-meetin’-house, so that memory kinder broke the blow some. And then some
-on ’em had been to the World’s Fair, and seen quantities of heathens
-and sech there.
-
-So no casuality wuz reported, though feather fans wuz waved wildly, and
-more caraway wuz consoomed, I dare presoom to say, than would have been
-in a month of Sundays in ordinary times.
-
-But while the wonder and curosity waxed rampant all round, Al Faizi sot
-silent and motionless as the dead, with his soft, brilliant eyes fixed
-on the minister’s face, eager to ketch every word that fell from his
-lips--a-tryin’ to hear the echo of the Great Voice speak to him through
-the minister’s words, so I honestly believe.
-
-For I think that a honester, sincerer, well-meanin’er creeter never
-lived and breathed than he wuz; and as days went on I see nothin’ to
-break up my opinion of him.
-
-Politer he wuz than any female, or minister, I ever see fur or near.
-Afraid of makin’ trouble to a marked extent, eager and anxious to learn
-everything he could about everything--all our laws, and customs, and
-habits, and ways of thinkin’--and tellin’ his views in a simple way of
-honest frankness, that almost took my breath away--anxious to learn,
-and anxious to teach what he knew of the truth.
-
-Though, as I said, after that first bust of talk with me he seemed
-inclined to not talk so much, but learn all he could. It wuz as if he
-had his say out in that first interview. Dretful interestin’ creeter to
-have round, he wuz--sech a contrast to the inhabitants of Jonesville,
-Deacon Garvin and the Dankses, etc.
-
-He didn’t stay to our house all the time, as I said, but would take
-pilgrimages round and come back, and make it his home there.
-
-Wall, it wuz jest about this time that a contoggler come to our
-house to contoggle a little for me. I wanted some skirts, and some
-underwaists, and some of Josiah’s old clothes contoggled.
-
-You know, it stood to reason that we couldn’t have all new things for
-our voyage, and so I had to have some of our old clothes fixed up. You
-see, things will git kinder run down once in awhile--holes and rips in
-dresses, trimmin’ offen mantillys, tabs to new line, and pantaloons to
-hem over round the bottom, and vests to line new, and backs to put into
-’em, and etcetery and etcetery.
-
-And, then, you’ll outgrow some of your things, and have to let ’em
-out; or else they’ll outgrow you, and you’ll have to take ’em in, or
-sunthin’.
-
-Sech cases as these don’t call for a dressmaker or a tailoress. No, at
-sech times a contoggler is needed. And I’ve made a stiddy practice for
-years of hirin’ a woman to come to the house every little while for a
-day or two at a time, and have my clothes and Josiah’s all contoggled
-up good.
-
-This contoggler I had now wuz a old friend of mine, who had made it her
-home with me for some time in the past, and now bein’ a-keepin’ house
-happy not fur away, had sech a warm feelin’ for me in her heart, that
-she always come and contoggled for me when I needed a contoggler.
-
-She had a dretful interestin’ story. Mebby you’d like to hear it?
-
-I hate to have a woman meander off into side paths too much, but if the
-public are real sot and determined on hearin’ me rehearse her history,
-why I will do it. For it is ever my desire to please.
-
-It must be now about three years sence I had my first interview with
-my contoggler. And I see about the first minute that she wuz a likely
-creeter--I could see it in her face.
-
-She wuz a perfect stranger to me, though she had lived in Jonesville
-some five months prior and before I see her.
-
-And Maggie, my son’s, Thomas Jefferson’s, wife, hearn of her through
-her mother’s second cousin’s wife’s sister, Miss Lemuel Ikey. And Miss
-Ikey said that she seemed to be one of the best wimmen she ever laid
-eyes on, and that it would be a real charity to give her work, as she
-wuz a stranger in the place, without much of anything to git along
-with, and seemed to be a deep mourner about sunthin’. Though what it
-wuz she didn’t know, for ever sence she had come to Jonesville she had
-made a stiddy practice of mindin’ her own bizness and workin’ when she
-got work.
-
-She had come to Jonesville kinder sudden like, and she had hired her
-board to Miss Lemuel Ikey’s son’s widow, who kep’ a small--a very small
-boardin’-house, bein’ put to it for things herself though, likely.
-
-I told Maggie to ask her mother to ask her second cousin’s wife to ask
-her sister, Miss Lemuel Ikey, to ask her son’s wife what the young
-woman could do.
-
-And the word come back to me straight, or as straight as could be
-expected, comin’ through five wimmen who lived on different roads.
-
-“That she wuzn’t a dressmaker, or a mantilly maker, or a tailoress. But
-she stood ready to do what she could, and needed work dretfully, and
-would be awful thankful for it.”
-
-Then feelin’ deeply sorry for her, and wantin’ to befriend her, I sent
-word back in the same way--“To know if she could wash, or iron, or do
-fancy cookin’. Or could she make hard or soft soap? Or feather flowers?
-Or knit striped mittens? Or pick geese? Or paint on plaks? Or do
-paperin’?”
-
-And the answer come back, meanderin’ along through the five--“That she
-wuzn’t strong enough, or didn’t know how to do any one of these, but
-she stood ready to do all she could do, and needed work the worst kind.”
-
-Then I tackled the matter myself, as I might better have done in the
-first place, and went over to see her, bein’ willin’ to give her
-help in the best way any one can give it, by helpin’ folks to help
-themselves.
-
-I went over quite early in the mornin’, bein’ on my way for a all-day’s
-visit to Tirzah Ann’s.
-
-But I found the woman up and dressed up slick, or as slick as she could
-be with sech old clothes on.
-
-And I liked her the minute I laid eyes on her.
-
-Her face, though not over than above handsome, wuz sweet-lookin’, the
-sweetness a-shinin’ out through her big, sad eyes, like the light in
-the western skies a-shinin’ out through a rift in heavy clouds.
-
-Very pale complected she wuz, though I couldn’t tell whether the
-paleness wuz caused by trouble, or whether she wuz made so. And the
-same with her delicate little figger. I didn’t know whether that
-frajile appearance wuz nateral, or whether Grief had tackled her with
-his cold, heavy chisel, and had wasted the little figger until it
-looked more like a child’s than a woman’s.
-
-And in her pretty brown hair, that kinder waved round her white
-forward, wuz a good many white threads.
-
-Of course I couldn’t tell but what white hair run through her
-family--it duz in some. And I had hearn it said that white hair in
-the young wuz a sign of early piety, and of course I couldn’t set up
-aginst that idee in my mind.
-
-But them white hairs over her pale young face looked to me as if they
-wuz made by Sorrow’s frosty hand, that had rested down too heavy on her
-young head.
-
-She met me with a sweet smile, but a dretful sad one, too, when Miss
-Ikey introduced me.
-
-[Illustration: She met me with a sweet smile.]
-
-But when I told my errent she brightened up some. But after settin’
-down with her for more’n a quarter of a hour, a-questionin’ her in as
-delicate a way as I could and get at the truth, I found that every
-single thing that she could do wuz to contoggle.
-
-So I hired her as a contoggler, and took her home with me that night on
-my way home from Tirzah Ann’s as sech, and kep’ her there three weeks
-right along.
-
-I see plain that she could do that sort of work by the first look that
-I cast onto her dress, which wuz black, and old and rusty, but all
-contoggled up good, mended neat and smooth, and so I see, when she got
-ready to go with me, wuz her mantilly, and her bunnet; both on ’em wuz
-old and worn, but both on ’em showed plain signs of contogglin’.
-
-She wuz a pitiful-lookin’ little creeter under her black bunnet, and
-pitiful-lookin’ when the bunnet wuz hung up in our front bedroom, and
-she kep’ on bein’ so from day to day, as pale and delicate-lookin’ as a
-posey that has growed in the shade--the deep shade.
-
-And though she kep’ to work good, and didn’t complain, I see from day
-to day the mark that Sufferin’ writes on the forwards of them that
-pass through the valleys and dark places where She dwells. (I don’t
-know whether Sufferin’ ort to be depictered as a male or a female, but
-kinder think that it is a She.)
-
-But to resoom. I didn’t say nothin’ to make her think I pitied her, or
-anything, only kep’ a cheerful face and nourishin’ provisions before
-her from day to day, and not too much hard work.
-
-I thought I’d love to see her little peekéd face git a little mite of
-color in it, and her sad blue eyes a brighter, happier look.
-
-But I couldn’t. She would work faithful--contoggle as I have never seen
-any livin’ woman contoggle, much as I have witnessed contogglin’.
-
-And I don’t mean any disrespect to other contogglers I have had when
-I say this--no, they did the best they could. But Miss Clark (that
-wuz the name she gin--Annie Clark), she had a nateral gift in this
-direction.
-
-She worked as stiddy as a clock, and as patient, and patienter, for
-that will bust out and strike every now and then. But she sot resigned,
-and meek, and still over rents and jagged holes in garments, and rainy
-days and everything.
-
-Calm in thunder storms, and calm in sunshine, and sad, sad as death
-through ’em all, and most as still.
-
-And I sot demute and see it go on as long as I could, a-feelin’ that
-yearnin’ sort of pity for her that we can’t help feelin’ for all dumb
-creeters when they are in pain, deeper than we feel for talkative
-agony--yes, I always feel a deeper pity and a more pitiful one for
-sech, and can’t help it.
-
-And so one day, when I wuz a-settin’ at my knittin’ in the
-settin’-room, and she a-settin’ by me sad and still, a-contogglin’ on a
-summer coat of my Josiah’s, I watched the patient, white face and the
-slim, patient, white fingers a-workin’ on patiently, and I stood it as
-long as I could; and then I spoke out kinder sudden, being took, as it
-were, by the side of myself, and almost spoke my thoughts out loud,
-onbeknown to me, and sez I:
-
-“My dear!” (She wuzn’t more’n twenty-two at the outside.)
-
-“My dear! I wish you would tell me what makes you so unhappy; I’d love
-to help you if I could.”
-
-She dropped her work, looked up in my face sort o’ wonderin’, yet
-searchin’.
-
-I guess that she see that I wuz sincere, and that I pitied her
-dretfully. Her lips begun to tremble. She dropped her work down onto
-the floor, and come and knelt right down by me and put her head in my
-lap and busted out a-cryin’.
-
-You know the deeper the water is, and the thicker the ice closes over
-it, the greater the upheaval and overflow when the ice breaks up.
-
-She sobbed and she sobbed; and I smoothed back her hair, and kinder
-patted her head, and babied her, and let her cry all she wanted to.
-
-My gingham apron wuz new, but it wuz fast color and would wash, and I
-felt that the tears would do her good.
-
-I myself didn’t cry, though the tears run down my face some. But I
-thought I wouldn’t give way and cry.
-
-And this, the follerin’, is the story, told short by me, and terse,
-terser than she told it, fur. For her sobs and tears and her anguished
-looks all punctuated it, and lengthened it out, and my little groans
-and sithes, which I groaned and sithed entirely onbeknown to myself.
-
-But anyway it wuz a pitiful story.
-
-She had at a early age fell in love voyalent with a young man, and he
-visey versey and the same. They wuz dretful in love with each other, as
-fur as I could make out, and both on ’em likely and well meanin’, and
-well behaved with one exception.
-
-He drinked some. But she thought, as so many female wimmen do, that he
-would stop it when they wuz married.
-
-Oh! that high rock that looms up in front of prospective brides, and on
-which they hit their heads and their hearts, and are so oft destroyed.
-
-They imagine that the marriage ceremony is a-goin’ in some strange way
-to strike in and make over all the faults and vices of their young
-pardners and turn ’em into virtues.
-
-Curous, curous, that they should think so, but they do, and I spoze
-they will keep on a-thinkin’ so. Mebby it is some of the visions that
-come in the first delerium of love, and they are kinder crazy like for
-a spell. But tenny rate they most always have this idee, specially if
-love, like the measles, breaks out in ’em hard, and they have it in the
-old-fashioned way.
-
-Wall, as I wuz a-sayin’, and to resoom and proceed.
-
-Annie thought he would stop drinkin’ after they wuz married. He said
-he would. And he did for quite a spell. And they wuz as happy as if
-they had rented a part of the Garden of Eden, and wuz a-workin’ it on
-shares.
-
-Then his brother-in-law moved into the place, and opened a cider-mill
-and a saloon--manafactered and sold cider brandy, furnished all the
-saloons round him with it, took it off by the load on Saturdays, and
-kep’ his saloon wide open, so’s all the boys and men in the vicinity
-could have the hull of Sunday to git crazy drunk in, while he wuz
-a-passin’ round the contribution-box in the meetin’-house.
-
-For he wuz a strict church-goer, the brother-in-law wuz, and felt that
-he wuz a sample to foller.
-
-Wall, Ellick Gurley follered him--follered him to his sorrer. The
-brother-in-law employed him in his soul slaughter-house--for so I can’t
-help callin’ the bizness of drunkard-makin’. I can’t help it, and I
-don’t want to help it.
-
-And so, under his influence, Ellick Gurley wuz led down the soft,
-slippery pathway of cider drunkenness, with the holler images of Safety
-and old Custom a-standin’ up on the stairway a-lightin’ him down it.
-
-Ellick first neglected his work, while his face turned first a pink,
-and then a bloated, purplish red.
-
-Then he begun to be cross to his wife and abusive to little Rob, the
-beautiful little angel that had flown to them out of the sweet shadows
-of Eden, where they had dwelt the first married years of their life.
-
-Finally, he got to be quarrelsome. Annie wuz afraid of him. And all
-of his money and all of hern went to buy that cider brandy (it makes
-the ugliest, most dangerous kind of a drunk, they say, of any kind of
-liquor, and I believe it from what I have seen myself, and from what
-Annie told me of her husband’s treatment of her and little Rob).
-
-[Illustration: Finally, he got to be quarrelsome.]
-
-And at last she begun to suffer for food and clothin’ for herself and
-the child.
-
-And as the drink demon riz up in Ellick’s crazy brain, and grew more
-clamorous in its demands, and he weaker to contend aginst it, Ellick
-sold all of the household stuff he could git holt of to appease this
-dretful power that had got holt of him, body and soul.
-
-Annie took in all the work she could do, did washin’ for the neighbors,
-who ust to envy her her happiness and prosperity--rubbed and hung out
-the heavy garments with tremblin’ fingers--sewed with her achin’ head
-a-bendin’ over the long seams, and her tear-filled eyes dimmed with the
-pain of unavailin’ agony.
-
-But heartaches and abuse made her weak form weaker and weaker, and then
-there wuz but little work to do, if she had been as strong as Sampson;
-so, bein’ fairly drove to it by Agony, and Fear, and Starvation, them
-three furies a-drivin’ her, as you may say, harnessed up three abreast
-behind her, a-goadin’ her weak, cowerin’ form with their fire-tipped
-lashes, she appealed to the brother-in-law.
-
-She told him, what he knew before, that she and little Robbie were
-starvin’, and she wuz afraid of her life, and she urged him to not sell
-Ellick any more of the poison that wuz a-destroyin’ him.
-
-He wuz to meetin’ when she went. He wuz dretful particular about his
-religious observances.
-
-No Hindoos wuz ever stricter about burnin’ their widders on the funeral
-pyre of the departed than he wuz a-follerin’ up what he called his
-religion.
-
-(Religion, sweet, pure sperit, how could she stand it, to have him
-a-burnin’ his incense in front of her? But, then, she has had to stand
-a good deal in this old world, and has to yet.)
-
-But, as I wuz a-sayin’, there never wuz a Pharisee in old or modern
-times that went ahead of him in cleanin’ the outside of his platters
-and religious deep dishes, and makin’ broad the border of his
-phylakricy. Why, his phylakricy wuz broader and deeper than you have
-any idee on.
-
-But inside of his platters and deep dishes wuz dead men’s bones!
-
-More’n one quarrel, riz up out of his accursed brandy, had led to
-bloodshed, besides achin’ and broken hearts without number, and ruined
-souls and lives.
-
-And his phylakricy ort to be broad, for it had to be used as a pall
-time and agin, and it covered, so he thought, a multitude of sins.
-
-Yes, indeed!
-
-Wall, as I say, he wuz to a church meetin’. There wuz a-goin’ to be a
-Association of Religious Bodies for the Amelioration of Human Woe. And
-he wuz anxious to be sent as a delegate, so he hung on to the last, and
-wuz appinted.
-
-But finally he got home, and Annie tackled him on the subject nearest
-her heart, talked to him with tears in her eyes and a voice tremblin’
-with the anguished beatin’s of her poor, achin’ heart.
-
-She begged him to not sell her husband any more drink, begged him for
-her sake and for the sake of little Rob. For she knew that if the man
-had a tender place in his heart it wuz for his little nephew. He did
-love him deeply, or as deep as a man like this could love anything
-above his money and his reputation as a religious leader.
-
-But he wouldn’t promise, and he acted dretful high-headed and hateful
-to her to cover up his meanness, for he felt that if he should refuse
-to sell his stuff, it would not only stop his money-makin’, but it
-would be like ownin’ up that he had been in the wrong.
-
-And he plumed himself, and carried the idee that cider wuz a healthful
-beverage, and very strengthenin’ in janders and sech. Why, he carried
-the idee to the world, and mebby in the first place he did to his own
-soul, so blindin’ is the spectacles of selfishness that he wore, that
-he wuz a-doin’ a charitable work a-keepin’ that old cider-mill and
-saloon a-goin’.
-
-So he wouldn’t pay no attention to her pleadin’s, only acted hateful
-and cross to her, his guilty conscience makin’ him so, I spoze.
-
-And then, too, he wuz in a hurry, for his church duties wuz a-waitin’
-for him, and his barrels of cider wanted doctorin’ with alcohol and
-sech.
-
-So he turned onto his heel and left her.
-
-And Annie went home more broken-hearted than ever, for his cold, cruel
-sneers and scorn hurt her on the poor heart made sore by her husband’s
-brutality.
-
-And Ellick went on worse than ever. And it wuz on that very day that
-his brother-in-law (and to make it shorter we will call him B. I.
-L.)--it wuz on the very day that the B. I. L. went to New York on his
-great Amelioratin’ Human Misery errent, that Ellick, crazy drunk with
-cider shampain, struck little Rob sech a blow that it knocked the child
-down, and he laid stunted for more’n a hour. And he threatened Annie
-that he would take her life, because she interfered between him and the
-boy.
-
-He raved round, like the maniac that he wuz. He said that he would
-throw her out doors if she didn’t git a good dinner, when there wuzn’t
-a mite of food in the house to cook. He raved about the house bein’ so
-freezin’ cold, when there wuzn’t a stick of wood nor a lump of coal.
-
-[Illustration: Ellick lay drunk in the office.]
-
-And finally he reeled off to his usual place of resort. And while the
-B. I. L. wuz a-raisin’ up in the great meetin’-house, and a-smoothin’
-out his phylakricy, and a-layin’ the border of it careful, so’s it
-would show off well, and then bustin’ out into sech a speech, on the
-duties of church-members to the sinful and the sorrowin’ round ’em--a
-speech that riz him up powerful in religious circles--Ellick lay drunk
-in the office of his cider-mill.
-
-Little Rob lay like a dead child in a cold, bare room, and a
-white-faced, half-starved mother bent over him with big, despairin’,
-anxious eyes--bent over him till life come back to his poor, bruised
-body; and then as darkness crept over the earth she stole away,
-a-carryin’ him in her arms.
-
-She got a ride with a passin’ teamster, got carried fur off, then got
-another ride, wuz fed and warmed by pityin’ hearts on the way; so she
-come to a place nigh Jonesville, onbeknown to anybody.
-
-When Ellick rousted up out of his drunken sleep he went back to a
-desolate, empty house. His surprise, his grief, sobered him. He flew to
-the B. I. L., woke him out of a sound sleep filled with visions of his
-triumphs.
-
-The B. I. L. wuz in a tryin’ place. He wuz about to be riz up to a
-high position in the meetin’-house. If this story got out, it might
-and probble would hurt him. Annie must be found and brought back. They
-jined forces to try to find her. They sot out that very day, but the
-quest wuz a long one.
-
-Annie stayed a spell with the family who took her in first out of the
-cold and the darkness.
-
-The man of the house, and the woman, too, wuz relations on the soul
-side to the good old Samaritan mentioned in Skripter. They did well by
-her.
-
-But little Rob never got over the effects of the cruel blow, and the
-fall on the hard floor, and the awful journey through the coldness
-of the midnight escape. They all sort o’ underminded his little
-constitution, and he wuz took sick a bed.
-
-And bein’ too tired out and hardly dealt with here on earth, he wuz
-promoted up to that higher home, where we may be sure that his True
-Father, the Helper of all the oppressed and burdened, accepted him
-right into His great heart of Love, and wuz good to the little, patient
-soul.
-
-Wall, Annie couldn’t tell me much about that time, when she had to let
-the child, a part of her own life, go out of her arms, and she wuz left
-alone--alone amongst strangers, helpless, despairin’, and poor.
-
-No, she couldn’t talk much about it, not in words, but I understood the
-language of her tremblin’ lips and her fallin’ tears.
-
-Wall, when little Rob wuz laid away under the dead grasses and the bare
-shade trees of that little country church-yard, Annie couldn’t stay
-long in the house where he had been and now wuz not.
-
-His little figger hanted every room, and her agonized Remembrance wuz
-a-walkin’ up and down with her. So she heard of a place in Jonesville
-where mebby she could git work, and she come there.
-
-But lately news had come to her that her husband and B. I. L. wuz
-huntin’ for her.
-
-Ellick really and truly loved his wife and child, so it wuz spozed,
-and hunted for Love’s and Anxiety’s sakes.
-
-The B. I. L. hunted ’em so’s to hush up the story; it wuz a-hurtin’ him
-dretfully in the eyes of the meetin’-house. And Anger and Selfishness
-and Hypocrocy wuz a-holdin’ up their blue-flamed torches to light him
-on his hunt.
-
-Wall, Annie wuz in deathly fear that they would find her. She had took
-another name--her mother’s maiden name--but she wuz afraid they would
-find it out.
-
-She said that she could not live to go through agin what she had gone
-through with. And yet when I pinned her right down on the subject (a
-calm, religious pinnin’) she owned up that she did love her husband
-yet. She cried when she said it.
-
-And I thought to myself that I would cry if I wuz in her place, if I
-loved such a thing as that.
-
-But she said, and mebby it wuz so, that he would have been all right if
-it hadn’t been for the influence of the B. I. L. and his bein’ gradual
-led back into drinkin’ agin by sunthin’ that he thought wouldn’t hurt
-him. She said that he never would have touched whiskey agin, havin’
-promised and broke off.
-
-But he thought, somehow, that the liquid sech a highly religious man
-wuz a-sellin’ under the name of cider must be sort o’ soothin’ to his
-insides; but instead of that it set fire to ’em, and his morals and
-all, and burnt ’em right up.
-
-Annie showed me Ellick’s picter, and it wuz a good-lookin’ face, or
-kinder good; it would have been handsome if it hadn’t been for a sort
-of a weak look onto it.
-
-But weak or strong, she loved him. And so I didn’t really know how she
-wuz a-comin’ out so fur as her own happiness wuz concerned. Wimmen are
-so queer.
-
-But I chirked her up all I could, told her to keep jest as calm as she
-could conveniently, and I would take care of her for the present.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-SAMANTHA’S SWORD OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE.
-
-Wall, if you’ll believe it, it wuz the very next day I had a occasion
-to go to Jonesville for some necessaries; and Josiah wuz busy a-makin’
-a new stanchil in the barn, so I sot off alone after breakfast with a
-large pail of good butter, and a cross-cut saw that Josiah had sent
-down to be filed, and the mair.
-
-Wall, jest about a mild from our house is a old tarvern that has
-been fixed up and is used now as a sort of a half-way house between
-Jonesville and Loontown. Teamsters and sech stop there a sight to git
-“Refreshments for man and beast,” as the sign reads.
-
-Wall, I had got most there when I see a man approachin’ me a-walkin’
-afoot. And I knew him the first minute I sot my eyes on him.
-
-It wuz Ellick Gurley.
-
-[Illustration: It wuz Ellick Gurley.]
-
-And the very minute I sot my eyes onto his face Duty and Principle both
-hunched me up hard to tackle him in this matter.
-
-Wall, most probble he had been hangin’ round for some time, for he knew
-me the first thing, and he come up to the side of the democrat wagon I
-wuz a-ridin’ in, bold as brass, and he sez:
-
-“Is this Josiah Allen’s wife?” sez he.
-
-“Yes, sir,” sez I, up clear and decided.
-
-“Is a woman calling herself Anna Clark at your house?”
-
-I wuzn’t a-goin’ to fight for Annie with any pewter weepons of untruth.
-No, I wuz a-goin’ to fight with the two-edged sword of Eternal Truth
-and Jestice, and I took ’em out and whetted ’em (as it were), and sez
-I, sharp and keen--
-
-“Yes, sir!”
-
-“Well,” sez he, lookin’ dretful defiant and mad at me, “she is my wife,
-and I hereby forbid you harboring her, for I will pay no debts of her
-contracting.”
-
-“Like as not,” sez I coolly, “as you never paid any of your own.”
-
-He kinder blushed up some, but he went on some as if he wuz
-a-rehearsin’ a piece he had learnt:
-
-“She has left my bed and board!”
-
-Then I waved that sword of Truth agin that I had been a-whettin’, and
-sez I--
-
-“It wuz her bed. Her mother gin it to her for her settin’ out, and
-picked every feather in it from her own geese and ganders. I got it
-from Annie’s own lips, and you sold it for drink. As for the boards,”
-sez I candidly, for even in the midst of the fiercest battle with the
-forces of wrong I must be jest to my foe, and so sez I--
-
-“As for the piece of board you speak of, I d’no whose it wuz, but I
-believe it wuz hern. Anyway, I know she earnt every mite of food and
-drink you took into your miserable body.”
-
-And the remembrance of Annie’s wrongs and woes so overmastered me, that
-I sez right out--
-
-“You drunken, low-lived snipe, you! how dast you be comin’ round that
-good little creeter, and tryin’ to git her back into her starvation and
-slavery, and peril of life and limb? How dast you, you drunken coot,
-you?” sez I, a-lookin’ two or three daggers at him and some simeters.
-
-He quailed. I d’no as I ever see signs of quail any plainer than I see
-it in him.
-
-But he muttered sunthin’ about--“A man’s having a right to his wife and
-child.”
-
-“A right?” sez I; “do you dast to look anybody in the face and talk
-of your right to wife and child, when it wuz your poor, abused,
-half-starved wife’s weak arms and mighty love that riz up between you
-and your child and murder? Riz up between you and the gallows?”
-
-He quailed deeper, fur deeper than he had quailed, and his lips
-trembled.
-
-And I see under the quail, come to look clost at him, that there wuz a
-kinder good-hearted look under all the weakness and dissipated look of
-his face. I see, or thought I see, that it wuz bad influences that had
-led him astray, and if he had kep’ under good influence and away from
-bad ones (the B. I. L. and his hard cider, etc.), I thought like as
-not, from the generous lay of his features, that he might have been a
-tolerable good-lookin’ feller and behaved middlin’ well.
-
-And that is why I spozed that Annie looked so heart-broken, that wuz
-why, I spoze, that, in spite of all she had underwent, my contoggler
-loved him.
-
-But anon he sprunted up some and said sunthin’ about bein’ bound to
-have his wife.
-
-And I waved my sword of Jestice agin (mentally) and sez--
-
-“Wall, I am bound that you shan’t have her, and you’ll see,” sez I,
-“who’ll carry the day!”
-
-And then he sez, “What right have you to interfere? What relation are
-you to her?”
-
-And sez I, a-liftin’ up my head in a very noble way--“The same relation
-that the Samaritan wuz to the man by the wayside. She’s my relation
-on the heart’s side, the Pity and Sympathy’s side. Closter ties than
-the false, shaky ones that bound her to a life of slavery and danger
-with you--bound her to you, who promised to protect her, and then
-half-murdered her. And you’ll find out so!” sez I, a-lookin’ as bold
-as brass, but in my heart I quaked considerable, not knowin’ but I wuz
-a-goin’ agin the hull statute and constitution and by-laws of the U. S.
-of America.
-
-But I spoze my mean skairt him. It had sech determination and courage
-into it, and he sez--
-
-“I will go and call my brother-in-law. He is a rich and respectable man
-and very religious. I will bring him to talk with you.”
-
-“Wall, do so!” sez I, bold as a lioness on the outside. “I’d love to
-set my eyes onto that creeter, jest out of curosity, jest as I would
-look at a menagerie of wild beasts and man-eaters.”
-
-So he went back into the tarvern and brung him.
-
-He wuz a mean-lookin’ creeter in his face, and he wuz short in statter,
-and his figger looked sort o’ sneakin’ under the weight of guilt he wuz
-a-carryin’ round under the cloak of religion.
-
-And his little black eyes looked guilty, and his hull face, under
-some kinder red hair, looked withered and hardened, as if his doin’
-for years what he knew wuz wicked had hardened his face into a cruel
-meanness. He looked mean as mean could be.
-
-But he tried to hold his head up, and he bust out the first thing
-about takin’ the law to me!
-
-“_You_ take the law to me! _you!_”
-
-And oh! how my simeter of Truth and Jestice jest flashed round that
-man’s short, meachin’ figger.
-
-“You take the law on anybody, you mean creeter you! who have brung all
-this sin and misery to pass for your own selfishness. You, who took the
-good-tempered, weak boy and poured your poison down his throat till you
-flooded out all his moral sense and husbandly and fatherly affection,
-and filled up the empty space with the demons of Hatred and Brutality
-and crazy quarrelin’s!
-
-“You talk of law, who stole away every mite of that poor girl’s
-happiness and every cent of her money for your cursed drink!
-
-“You, who drove out of their home the sweet angel of Happiness, who
-used to board with ’em stiddy, and drove in your beasts of prey!
-
-“You ruined her happiness, you starved her, you broke her heart, and
-now you want her back to torment her agin!
-
-“Wall, you won’t have her, unless you take her over my prostrate form!”
-
-The B. I. L. wuz half skairt to death, and he stood demute.
-
-But Ellick broke in with tremblin’ lips. He stopped talkin’ about Annie
-for a spell, bein’, I spoze, perfectly overcome by my eloquence. And
-he begun on another tack, and sez he in tremblin’ axents--
-
-“I want my boy,” sez he, “I will have my child!”
-
-And I see that he did have a deathly longin’ and hungry look in his
-eyes. I could see that he did love his wife and child, deep and
-earnest. And I felt a little mite tenderer towards him, not much, for I
-kep’ a-thinkin’ of how Annie’s face had looked as she come and throwed
-herself at my feet.
-
-The memory of that white face and them big, anguished eyes riz my heart
-up and kep’ it from meltin’ right down under the agony of that man’s
-look.
-
-The B. I. L., whose selfishness had done the hull work, he too looked a
-heartfelt anxiety about the boy. I see that he loved him too, and wuz
-proud of him.
-
-But, as I say, the memory of the Giant Wrong that had struck down Annie
-and the boy stood right by me and nerved me up, and I sez--
-
-“You can’t have the child!”
-
-Then Ellick flared right up, and sez he--
-
-“I will have the child, and I’ll let you know that I will! I am his
-natural guardian, and I’ll let you know that the law is on my side, and
-I can take him, and I will take him!”
-
-“No,” sez I, “you can’t take him!”
-
-“He can!” sez the B. I. L., speakin’ up sharp as a meat-axe--“he can;
-nobody loves the child as well as we do; and he is the child’s natural
-guardian, and we can take him away from any place you have put him in.”
-
-And agin I sez, “No you can’t, not from the place he is in now. The boy
-has got another gardeen now, a better one.”
-
-“Another guardian!” sez the father; “well, I will tear him right out of
-his hands; I will make him give him up!”
-
-He wuz jealous as a dog, I could see, of the gardeen.
-
-“No you won’t!” sez I.
-
-“Yes he will!” sez the B. I. L.; “we’ll teach him what the law is, and
-that a father can get his boy every time!”
-
-“Not this time!” sez I; “this gardeen is powerful and kind, too; and he
-has got him in a safe place. He wuz misused and kicked and beaten and
-half starved; but he has enough now; he has got a home of plenty and
-rest and happiness. He is safe,” sez I.
-
-“No matter how safe it is we will have him right out of it!” sez the B.
-I. L.
-
-“He is my child, and I _will_ have him!” says Ellick Gurley.
-
-“No,” sez I, “you can’t have him. You can’t pull that tender little
-body out of the grave to misuse it agin. You can’t draw the sweet
-little sperit out of God’s happy home to torment it agin. The Lord is
-his father and his gardeen now, and He will keep the boy!”
-
-“Dead!” cried the B. I. L., and he staggered back like a drunken man,
-and his face turned white as a bleached white cotton shirt.
-
-“Dead! my baby dead!” sez Ellick Gurley. “Then I am his murderer!”
-
-And he threw up his arms as if he had received a pistol shot right in
-his heart, and then he fell jest like a log right down in the road.
-Wall, I disembarked from my democrat, and by the time the B. I. L. had
-got him up in a more settin’ poster on a log by the side of the road, I
-wuz by him a-holdin’ his head and a-chafin’ his hands and his forward.
-
-When he come to and riz up and sot upright, his first words wuz--
-
-“Oh! poor Annie! poor girl! how did she bear it, all alone with our
-dead boy! Oh! my boy! my boy that I killed!”
-
-I see plain that there wuz good in the man, after all.
-
-But the B. I. L. had by this time sprunted up, and wuz a-thinkin’ of
-his phylakricy, and a-pullin’ it over himself and Ellick, and seemed
-anxious to sort o’ hush him up, and sez he--
-
-“It wasn’t your doings, it wasn’t the accident that killed the boy, it
-was probably something else.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I, lookin’ at the B. I. L. straight in the face--“yes,
-it _wuz_ sunthin’ else, it wuz _you_! You smooth-faced, selfish
-hyppocrite, you; it wuz your doin’s that killed the boy! If you had
-left his Pa alone, and not led him into a condition fit to murder, jest
-to put a few cents into your own pocket, the boy would have been alive
-and happy to-day, and so would Ellick and Annie.” Sez I, “It wuz your
-doin’s, and you don’t want to forgit it!” sez I.
-
-[Illustration: “Yes, it _wuz_ sunthin’ else; it wuz _you_.”]
-
-He quailed, he quailed hard, and sez he--
-
-“You talk like a fool!”
-
-“No,” sez I; “you are the fool, for it is the fool that hath said that
-there is no God, and you see there is,” sez I--“a God that punishes
-sin, who is even now a-punishin’ you; a God who said, “Cursed is he who
-putteth the cup to his neighbor’s lips.” Sez I, “You have prospered
-and grown rich in your bizness of beast-makin’, and you didn’t believe
-there wuz Eternal Jestice a-watchin’ over your sinful deeds, and you
-find now that you wuz a fool to believe it. For you find now that there
-is a God. You find now that you _are_ cursed for your sin in makin’
-murderers and assassins and wife-beaters and child-killers!”
-
-Sez I, “You loved little Rob; your bad heart is achin’ now this minute
-to think it wuz your hand that dealt out the poison that reached him
-through his father’s weakness and miserable vice!”
-
-He wuz demute. He didn’t say a word, but a look come over his face that
-I don’t want to see agin. He didn’t want to give up and own up his
-guilt and repent, and he wuz jest crushed right down about little Rob.
-He wuz jest tosted both ways, between agony and selfishness. He didn’t
-want to give up his profitable bizness of beast-makin’, and he wuz
-horrow struck to think that his own little idol had fell a victim.
-
-His face looked like a humbly fallen angel’s, or how I spoze they look.
-I never see one fall.
-
-He didn’t say another word, but turned on his heel and walked off.
-
-The last word he said to me, as I stated heretofore, wuz callin’ me “a
-fool.”
-
-But I didn’t care for that. I knew I wuzn’t.
-
-But still that broken-hearted father, that wretched, lonesome husband
-sot there by the side of the road. Finally he spoke----
-
-“Can I see Annie?”
-
-“No, sir!” sez I plain and square--jest as plain and jest as square
-as if my own heart wuzn’t a-achin’, and a-achin’ hard, too, for the
-miserable, broken-hearted man.
-
-My tears, if they fell, and I spoze they did from my feelin’s, fell
-inside of my head; for I wouldn’t let him have a chance to misuse and
-torment that good little creeter agin, not if I could help it.
-
-He trembled like a popple leaf. He wuz paler than any dish-cloth I
-ever see, and I see my advantage, and I hardened my heart, some like
-Pharo’s, only a more pious hardenin’, for it wuz done on principle.
-
-“You talk of wantin’ that poor girl to go back to your cold, naked
-home, to hardship, to starvation, to wretchedness--bodily wretchedness
-and heart wretchedness. For she loves you still, you poor snipe, you;
-she loves you, fool that she is, but wimmen are weak.”
-
-I see his face grow brighter for a minute, and then turn pale as death
-agin.
-
-“Will she forgive me?” sez he in axents weak as a cat, and weaker, too,
-and fur hopelesser than any cat I ever see.
-
-“Not if I can help it!” sez I heartlessly (on the outside) and boldly.
-
-“I’ll do better. I’ll promise her to not drink another drop!”
-
-“Promises are cheap,” sez I in a lofty way, a-lookin’ up into a tree,
-for his pale face weakened me, and I felt that I must be strong. So I
-looked up into the tree overhead. It wuz a slippery ellum, but I held
-firm.
-
-“Promises are cheap and slippery,” sez I. I spoze it wuz that tree that
-put me in mind of that simely. “She shan’t be led away by ’em agin, by
-my consent.”
-
-“If I don’t drink for a year will you help me to have my wife back
-again?”
-
-His voice trembled.
-
-“That is beginnin’ to talk like a human creeter,” sez I, and I looked
-down from the ellum sort o’ benignantly. And I sez in a more warmer
-axent, but not too warm--jest about milk warm--
-
-“You stop drinkin’ for a year. You git another home for her as good as
-you took her to at first, and I’ll advise her to talk with you about
-goin’ back, and not one minute before!” sez I.
-
-“Can I see her one minute?” sez he.
-
-Annie wuz to home. Josiah wuz away. All devolved on me, and I riz up to
-the occasion.
-
-“No!” sez I, “you can’t; you can’t see her to-day for a minute, or a
-secont!”
-
-(I knew putty wuz hard in comparison to her heart, and I wouldn’t run
-the resk.)
-
-“You stop drinkin’ for six months,” sez I, “and you may see her for
-one-half hour in my presence, and not a minute longer,” sez I, as
-resolute as iron. “I’ll take care of her, and when you’ve earnt the
-right to have her agin with you, I’ll give her up to you and not a
-minute before,” sez I--“not a minute!”
-
-He riz right up, the tears runnin’ down his face, and he ketched holt
-of my hand and kissed it. I d’no when I’ve been so kinder took back.
-
-But I knew that Josiah wouldn’t care on sech a occasion as this, there
-wuzn’t anything immoral in it, and I couldn’t hender it anyway, it wuz
-done so quick. And then he started right off, fast as he could go.
-
-And as sure as the world, that man went to work at his trade. Got two
-dollars a day. He didn’t drink a drop. He rented a little house with
-five acres of grass land round it and a paster. He kep’ two cows,
-milked ’em nights and mornin’s, sold his milk and laid up money.
-
-Workin’ with all his heart and soul to be worthy of his wife and home.
-
-And I writ to that man stiddy, jest as stiddy as though I wuz a-keepin’
-company with him, every week of my life.
-
-Josiah didn’t care. Good land! I writ on duty. I sent him good letters,
-all about how Annie wuz, and how she looked, and what she said, and
-a-holdin’ up his arms like Arun and Hur (specially Hur, it sounds some
-like a woman).
-
-She made it her home with me, but went out to contoggle here and there,
-and laid up money, bought sheets and piller-cases and sech. And I
-helped her to two comforters and a bed-spread.
-
-But she didn’t go back to him till the year wuz up.
-
-No, I see to that.
-
-And when that year had gone by, he wuz a sober man all the time,
-completely out from under the influences of the B. I. L. and cider and
-whiskey and saloons, and completely under ourn, Annie’s and mine and
-Temperance. And we a-doin’ our very best for him, and a-believin’ in
-him, and a-helpin’ him, all three on us.
-
-Why, then I ventered to let her go and live with him agin. And I even
-made a party for ’em on the occasion. Some like a weddin’ party, for
-we all brung presents to ’em. And the children and a few sincere
-well-wishers that she had contoggled for and Josiah and me all jinin’
-hearty in the prayer Elder Minkley put up after supper for the peace
-and prosperity of the new home.
-
-And they’ve prospered first-rate.
-
-Their sweet, cozy home is pleasant, as a home where Love is always
-must be. But it is a-settin’ down under a shadder, and always will set
-there. It can’t be helped.
-
-The shadder stands up behind it, some like a mountain; but the peace
-and happiness of the present is gradually a-makin’ a meller, tender
-haze in front on’t; some as the blue, luminous sky of Injun Summer
-floats in and softens the truth of the year’s decay.
-
-It is there, all the same, but time and that soft, tender mist wears
-off the sharp edges on’t, and sometimes the shadders fall some in the
-shape of a cross. The sun hits it in jest the right way.
-
-Annie and Ellick jined the meetin’-house the year after they come
-together agin, and the Elder and several of us bretheren and sistern
-gathered round ’em, and held up their courage and helped ’em along all
-we could.
-
-And though some are kinder mean and throw out hints, for human nater
-can’t be helped, and mean and small souls have got to act out what is
-inherient in ’em, and some, specially the B. I. L. and his family, made
-lots of talk about him and her, and poked fun at ’em, and acted. But
-Ellick is a-learnin’ to be patient and bear what he says he knows is
-“The Wages of Sin.”
-
-But, as naterally follers, he is now in the employ of another Master,
-and his wages is a-comin’ in better and better every day.
-
-And wuzn’t he happy when he held another little boy on his knee? Little
-Tom Josiah, named after my two best-beloved males.
-
-And Annie wanted to add “Sam” to it for me, but I demurred, sayin’,
-“They didn’t seem to go together smooth. Tom Josiah Sam didn’t seem to
-have the flow and rythm to suit my melodious idees.
-
-Sez I, “Save the Sam, it may come in handy in the futer.”
-
-[Illustration: “Save the Sam, it may come in handy in the futer.”]
-
-But the dimpled hands of that child seemed to draw Annie and Ellick
-nigher together than they’d ever been, and pull ’em both along,
-onbeknown to ’em, into the sunshiny fields of happiness.
-
-Thomas J. gin little Tom Josiah ten dollars to put in the Savin’s Bank
-at compounded interest, and Josiah gin him two lambs, which are a-goin’
-to be put out to double to the very best advantage for him.
-
-By the time he is twenty-one he will have considerable money, and a big
-flock of sheep to drive on before him down the path of the futer.
-
-But I might talk for hours and hours and not exhaust the fascinatin’
-subject of the peace and prosperity of the one who has left the paths
-of sin and hard cider and whiskey, etc., and is walkin’ in the paths of
-sobriety and success.
-
-But to them not interested so much in this cause, so dear to the heart
-of her whose name wuz once Smith, the subject may grow monotunous and
-tejus, so I will resoom and take up the thread of my discourse over my
-finger agin, and let it purr along on the spool of History.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-A HEATHEN’S STANDARD OF MORALITY.
-
-
-Wall, Al Faizi hearn this story about the contoggler’s sufferin’s
-and the doin’s of the B. I. L., and I never see him so riz up about
-anything as he wuz with that.
-
-Sez he--“This man who loved the child sold stuff to his father that he
-knew would make him liable to murder him? I cannot believe it possible
-that such a crime can be permitted.
-
-“To one coming from a heathen land it seems incredible.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I, “I’ve always said that it wuz a worse practice than any
-savages ever dremp of.”
-
-Said Al Faizi--
-
-“This is probably the one solitary instance that ever occurred where
-the death of a person much beloved was caused by a man for a few cents’
-gain.”
-
-“One instance!” sez I; “why, all over this broad country, day after
-day, and year after year, murders are brought about almost solely by
-this cause!”
-
-He sithed deep and seemed to be turnin’ in his mind some possible
-remedy for this dretful state of things.
-
-“Could not these men be persuaded to stop this trade that kills men in
-this world, and destroys their hopes of Heaven?”
-
-“No,” sez I, “they can’t be persuaded; it has been tried by good
-men and good wimmen for years and years; they will keep on, driv by
-Selfishness and Ignorance, that span of bloody beasts!”
-
-“Could not the law interfere?” sez he; “could not your great police
-force step in and punish these dreadful doings?”
-
-Sez I, “It could, if it wuzn’t spendin’ its hull strength on devisin’
-ways to protect the liquor traffic.
-
-“The police might bring some on ’em up if it wuzn’t a-sneakin’ into
-side-doors a-partakin’ on the sly of the poison!”
-
-Sez I, “It gits braced up in this way, so’s it’s ready to drag off to
-jail the poor, weak drunkards, made so by the saloons, and by the men
-who supply the saloons, and by the voters who make this thing possible,
-and by the goverment that sustains it.”
-
-“Why does not your great nation interfere and compel them to stop it?”
-sez he.
-
-“Because this great nation is in company with ’em,” sez I--“partakers
-in this iniquity, and takin’ part of the bloody gain.”
-
-And my feathers drooped and my face wuz as red as blood to have to own
-up these things to a heathen, that wuz a-contrastin’ our ways with his
-own, which wuz so much more superior and riz up on the liquor question.
-
-“Your holy church,” sez he, “why does not that, so great and powerful
-a force in this land, why does it not interfere and frown down these
-wicked ways? Why does it not pronounce its anathema on all those who
-commit this sin--this B.I.L., as I have heard him called, and men like
-him, who own saloons and supply the stuff that makes murderers?”
-
-“This B.I.L.,” sez I, “is a piller in his meetin’-house. He sets in the
-highest place,” sez I.
-
-“One of your holy men who take charge of the sacred things, permitted
-by your customs to carry on such iniquity? I cannot understand it,” sez
-he.
-
-Sez I--“Nobody ort to understand it!” Sez I, “It is a shame and a
-disgrace, anyway!”
-
-“Why,” sez he, “in my own country our men who take part in holy
-observances have to lead pure lives--to fast and pray continually.
-I cannot understand that one would be permitted to carry on an evil
-business six days during the week and touch the sacred things of your
-religion the seventh day.”
-
-Agin I sez--“Nobody ort to understand it; it would be a shame to
-heathen countries!” sez I.
-
-Sez he--“This very man who was the cause of all this wretchedness and
-crime and murder--he prays for the heathen, does he not?”
-
-“I spoze so,” sez I.
-
-“He carries round the vessel in which you gather the money to send to
-the heathen for charity and instruction?”
-
-“Yes,” sez I; “but we call it the contribution plate.”
-
-“Well,” sez he, “we refuse to accept his money; we refuse to take the
-money that man desecrates by touching.
-
-“And,” sez he, “I will tell him so.”
-
-And so I spoze he did--good, simple-minded creeter. He didn’t seem to
-have but two idees in his head--one to learn the will of God, and the
-other to do it.
-
-And from what I’ve hearn sence I guess he did impress the B.I.L.
-
-The idee of havin’ a heathen from heathen lands come to labor with him
-on religion kinder shook him up, from all I can hear.
-
-I shouldn’t wonder if he did leave off his dretful trade, and come
-part way up to a heathen’s standard of morality.
-
-But if he duz, no thanks are due to our own law or to our own gospel.
-They wuz both weighed in the balances and found wantin’.
-
-If things are ever put on a more religious and noble and riz up footin’
-it will all be caused by the missionary efforts of a heathen.
-
-But to resoom.
-
-Another thing about our contoggler interested Al Faizi dretfully. It
-wuz some talks he had with her about wimmen’s dress.
-
-Annie wuz sensible, and hated the tight girtin’s indulged in by some
-of our females. And Al Faizi expressed the greatest wonder at the
-ignorance and folly showed by civilized wimmen.
-
-The pressin’ in and destroyin’ all the vital organs by lacin’ in the
-waist. He expressed great wonder that a civilized people could commit
-this crime aginst the laws of health and the solemn laws of heredity.
-
-He said when he contrasted the loose, comfortable robes of his own
-wimmen with the deformities caused by tight lacin’, more and more he
-wondered at the strange sights of civilization.
-
-And then he said that in hospitals (for this strange creeter had peered
-round everywhere in search of knowledge), he had seen some of the
-terrible effects of tight lacin’ and high-heeled shoes.
-
-He said that he had seen cases of blindness, caused by the last, and a
-destruction of the nerves.
-
-In lacin’, he had seen dretful cases of internal diseases, incurable,
-and had seen terrible diseases in infants, caused alone by this
-destructive custom of the mothers--young infants who, if they lived,
-must carry a maimed body through life with ’em, caused alone by this
-habit.
-
-Sez he, “Compare these high-heeled shoes with the loose, comfortable
-sandals that our own women wear. And these painful steel waists, that
-compress the lungs and heart, with our own women’s loose, flowing
-garments,” and he wuz astounded at our ways.
-
-Wall, I agreed with him from the bottom of my heart, but sech is poor
-human nater that it kinder galded me to have my sect so sot down on
-and despised by a heathen. And I, kinder onbeknown to me, brung up
-their own veiled wimmen. “And,” sez I, “every country has its own
-shortcomin’s; I don’t like the idee of your wimmen havin’ their faces
-all covered up with veils.”
-
-My tone wuz kinder het up and agitated.
-
-But his voice wuz as sweet and calm as the evenin’ breeze a-blowin’
-over a bed of Japanese lilies.
-
-“Yes,” sez he, “perhaps we err in that direction, in veiling our women
-too much from the public gaze.
-
-“But,” sez he, “I went to a grand party once in your great city
-Chicago, and to one also in Washington, and I see the women’s forms
-almost entirely disrobed and nude, while great folds of cloth trailed
-after them down on the floor. I knew not where to look for shame, for
-even when I was a nursing babe in my mother’s arms, I could not have
-witnessed such sights.
-
-“And while we Eastern people may err in the direction of veiling the
-charms of our women-kind, methinks you Western people err still further
-in the opposite direction. At these public parties I saw the naked
-forms of the women, displayed with far more than the freedom of the
-courtesans in my own country, and my heart sank down with shrinking and
-wonder at the strange customs of civilization.”
-
-I felt meachin’. I felt small enough to have gone to bed through my
-bedroom key-hole. But I thought I wouldn’t. I only sez--“Wall, I guess
-it is about bed-time.”
-
-Josiah had already sought repose in our bedroom.
-
-And Al Faizi got up at once and took his night-lamp, and bid me
-good-night with one of his low, reverential bows.
-
-[Illustration: WITH ONE OF HIS LOW, REVERENTIAL BOWS.]
-
-I knew what he said wuz the truth. I had meditated on it. And in my
-own way I had tried to break it up--the tight-lacin’, train-dragglin’,
-high-heeled doin’s.
-
-But, as I say, it galded me deeply to hear these truths discanted on by
-a heathen.
-
-I love my sect, and wish her dretful well, and I can’t bear to see
-heathens a-lookin’ down on her.
-
-And then Al Faizi hearn about how little children are put to work at a
-tender age down in the damp, dark mines, shet away from Heaven’s light,
-through long, long days, until their youth is gone and old age dims
-their eyes.
-
-And he sot off for a distant part of the country to see the owners of
-the mines, and see for himself, and use his influence to have this evil
-abolished.
-
-And then he hearn about how young children are bought in the great
-stores of the big citys.
-
-He hearn all the tales of sin and woe connected with sech doin’s--worse
-than the Masacreein’ of the Innocents.
-
-He sot out to once to investigate, and to warn, and to rebuke.
-
-And he hearn with wonder and unbelief, at first, the story how children
-could sell their honor and all their hopes of the futer at a tender age.
-
-And how this great nation permits this iniquity, and makes laws to
-perpetuate it, and shield the guilty men who indulge in this sin.
-
-And all the horrows that gathers round them infamous words--
-
-“The Age of Consent.”
-
-As he talked with me about it, I could see by the deep fire that wuz
-lit up in his usually soft eyes his burnin’ indignation aginst this
-idee that had jest been promulgated to him.
-
-Sez he--“You Christians talk a sight about the car of Juggernaut that
-rolls on over living victims and crushes them down, but,” sez he,
-“death leaves the soul free to fly home to its paradise; but your
-Christian country has found the way to ruin the _souls_ of children, as
-well as their bodies. How can you sit down calmly and know that such a
-law is in existence? How can mothers happily watch their sweet little
-baby girls at play, and know that such a horrible danger lurks in the
-path their ignorant little feet have got to tread, such a snare is set
-for them?”
-
-“They don’t set calm and happy--mothers don’t!” I bust out; “their
-hearts and souls are full. They cry to God in their anguish and fear,
-but they can’t do nothin’ else, wimmen can’t; men made this law, made
-it for men. Men say they don’t want to put wimmen to the trouble of
-votin’, and so they hender ’em from the hardship of droppin’ a little
-scrap of paper in a small box once a year, and give ’em this corrodin’,
-constant fear and anguish to carry with ’em day and night, like a load
-of swords and simeters, every one of ’em a-stabbin’ their hearts.”
-
-“But how can men, fathers of young girls, make this law, or allow it to
-go on? Don’t they think of their own young daughters, who may be ruined
-by it?”
-
-“They don’t make this law and vote for this law for their own girls--it
-is to ruin other men’s girls that it is made.”
-
-“Don’t they know that the sword of retribution is two-sided--that it is
-liable to cut down their own beloved?”
-
-“No, they don’t think at all; their vile passions clog up their ears
-and blind their eyes.”
-
-“But your ministers, your holy men, what are they doing? I supposed
-their mission was to preach to sinners, and try to make the world
-better. I have heard them speak of many things in the high places where
-they stand to warn the people of their sins, and the judgment to come,
-but I never heard them allude to this. Why do they let this enormous
-crime go on unrebuked?”
-
-“The land knows!” sez I; “I don’t; they go on year in and year out,
-a-preachin’ about Job’s sufferin’s, and Pharo’s hardness of heart, and
-the Deluge, and other ancient sins and sufferin’s all healed up and
-done away with centuries ago.
-
-“Why, it is six thousand years sence Pharo’s heart hardened or Job’s
-biles ached, and the green grass of centuries has riz up over the
-sweepin’ swash of the Deluge, but they will calmly go on Sunday after
-Sunday for years a-preachin’ on that agony and that wickedness and that
-overflow, and not one word do they say about the hardness of heart of
-the men who make and permit this law, which makes Pharo’s hardness seem
-like putty in comparison, or the agony and dread this law brings to
-mothers’ hearts in the night watches, a-thinkin’ on’t, and thinkin’ of
-their own helplessness to protect the ones who they would give their
-life for. And the depths of wretchedness that overwhelms the souls this
-law wuz made to ruin! What are biles compared to these pains?
-
-“But the clergymen, the most on ’em, go calmly on a-pintin’ these
-old sins and pains out, and the overflow of the Deluge, and drawin’
-tenthlies and twentiethlies from ’em, and not one word about this
-cryin’ iniquity, so great that it seems as if it would open the very
-sluce-ways of Heaven and let a new flood down onto this guilty age that
-will allow sech crime to go on unrebuked.
-
-“And philosophers will moralize on old laws and new ones, and their
-cause and effects; on Heaven and earth, and not seemin’ly cast a eye
-of their spectacles on this law of sin and shame that rises up right
-before their eyes. And scientists rack their brains to discover new
-laws and utilize old ones, but don’t make a effort towards discoverin’
-a way to avert this enormous cause of woe and guilt, this fur-reachin’
-and ever-increasin’ anguish and crime. And law-makers, instead of
-tryin’ to overcome it, try their best to perpetuate it and make it
-permanent; bend all their powers of intellect, band together, and use
-the cunnin’ of serpents and the wisdom of old Lucifer to git their
-laws passed and git Uncle Sam to jine in with ’em. Poor misguided old
-creeter, a-bein’ led off by his old nose, and made to consent to this
-crime and help it along!”
-
-Al Faizi had been listenin’ in deep thought, and now he sez: “This
-uncle of yours I know him not; but your great Government, could it not
-interfere and stop this iniquity?”
-
-“It could” (sez I, mad as a hen)--“it could, if it wuzn’t jined right
-in with them law-makers and helpin’ ’em along; and,” sez I, “now
-they’re tryin’ to git the poor old creeter to consent to a new idee.
-Some big clergymen and other wise men are a-tryin’ to have these
-wimmen, ruined by the evil passions of men, shet up in a certain pen
-to keep ’em from doin’ harm to innocent folks, and not one word said
-about shettin’ up the men who have made these wimmen what they are. Why
-don’t they shet them up? There they be foot loose. If they have ruined
-one pen full of wimmen, what henders ’em from spilin’ another pen full?
-But there they be a-runnin’ loose and even a-votin’ on how firm and
-strong the pen should be made to confine these victims of theirn. And
-how big salaries the men who keep these pens in order shall have--good
-big salaries, I’ll warrant you. Wise men and ministers advocate this
-onjestice, and laymen are glad to practise what they preach.
-
-“There hain’t nothin’ reasonable in it; if a pen has got to be made for
-bad wimmen, why not have another pen, jest like it, only a great deal
-bigger, made for the bad man?
-
-“Why, this seems so reasonable and right I should think that Jestice
-would lift the bandage offen her eyes and holler out and say it must
-he done! But no, there hain’t no move made towards pennin’ bad men
-up--not a move.”
-
-Al Faizi sez--“I cannot understand these strange things.”
-
-And I sez--“Nobody can, unless it is old Belzibub; I guess he gits the
-run on it.”
-
-Wall, he took out that book of hisen and writ for pretty nigh an hour.
-
-And that is jest the way he went on and acted from day to day.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-A LITTLE FUN AND ITS PRICE.
-
-
-Al Faizi got acquainted with the Baptist minister at Jonesville, and
-Elder Dean took to that noble heathen in a remarkable way. He wuz
-a truly Christian man and deep learnt, and he and Al Faizi talked
-together right in my presence in languages, a good many of them dead, I
-spoze, and some on ’em, jedgin’ from the sound, in a sickly and dyin’
-state.
-
-Elder Dean wuz English, college bred. Been abroad as a missionary,
-broke down, and come to Jonesville with a weak voice and lungs, but
-a full head and a noble heart, for six hundred dollars a year and
-parsonage found.
-
-They’d always had a hard time, bein’ put to it for things and kinder
-sickly. But he and his heroic wife had one flower in their life that
-wuz a-bustin’ into full bloom, and a-sweetenin’ their hard present and
-their wearisome past, and the promise and beauty on’t a-throwin’ a
-bright, clear light clear acrost their futer--even down the steep banks
-where the swift stream rushes through the dark, and clear over onto the
-other side.
-
-This brightness and blessin’ that lightened up their hard and toilsome
-way wuz their only child, a youth of such manly beauty and gentle
-goodness that his love made up to ’em, so they said to me, for all they
-had suffered and all they had lost through their lives.
-
-He had been brought up on clear love mostly. His Pa and Ma had
-literally carried him in their hearts from the time his sweet, baby
-face had smiled up to ’em from his cradle.
-
-Nobody could tell the tenderness and love that had been lavished on
-him. His Ma jest lived in him and his Pa, too, but their devotion
-hadn’t spilte him, not at all--not mentally nor morally.
-
-Though there wuz them that did think that his Ma, bein’ so dretful
-tender of him and lookin’ out so for his health in every way, had
-kinder weakened his constitution and he would have been stronger if he
-had roughed it more.
-
-Bein’ watched over so lovin’ly all his days, he wuz jest about as
-delicate and couldn’t stand any more hardship than a girl; but he wuz
-stiddy and industrious, a good Christian, and dretful ambitious. And
-they looked forrered to him as bein’ an honor as well as a blessin’ to
-’em in the futer.
-
-The minister had learnt him all he knew, so he said, and for years
-back they’d been savin’ every penny they could, deprivin’ themselves
-of even necessaries to git the money to send Harry to college. From
-his babyhood they’d worked for this. And jest before Al Faizi come to
-Jonesville, the long looked-for and worked-for end had come--Harry had
-gone to college, a-carryin’ with him all his parents’ love and hope for
-the futer, and a small trunk full of necessaries, some Balsam of Fir
-for his lungs, and some plasters and things his Ma had put in.
-
-Wall, as I said, Elder Dean had took dretfully to Al Faizi, and he to
-him. So one day I invited the elder and his wife over to dinner. I went
-myself to gin ’em the invitation.
-
-I found the elder a carefully coverin’ a old book of poems he had
-bought, which wuz very rare, so he said, and jest what Harry had
-wanted. He had took the money he had been savin’ for a winter coat, so
-I hearn afterwards, to buy it.
-
-And she wuz knittin’ a african to put over the couch in his room. She
-had ravelled out a good shawl of her own to git the red for it, so I
-hearn.
-
-“But,” she sez, “when he comes into his room a little chilly, it will
-be so nice to throw over his feet, and he always liked that soft,
-crimson color. He gits cold real easy,” sez she, a-holdin’ up the
-african and lookin’ real affectionate at it. It wuz a good african.
-
-I asked ’em to come to dinner the next day, and they both demurred at
-first, sayin’ that it wuz the day for Harry’s long letter to come. He
-writ ’em long letters twice a week, and they both felt that they wanted
-to be right there by the post-office so’s to git it the minute it
-arrove.
-
-Wall, it wuz compromised in this way--I promisin’ that Ury should be
-at the post-office when the afternoon mail come in and bring it to ’em
-right to our house. And I mentioned that the old mair could go pretty
-fast when Ury and Necessity wuz a-drivin’ her; so they consented to
-come.
-
-And I cooked up dretful good vittles. I don’t think they’re ever than
-above well fed to home, and I did enjoy a-cookin’ up good, nourishin’
-food for ’em with Philury’s help.
-
-I had some good beef soup, two roast chickens, with garden sass of all
-kinds, cream biscuit, strawberry shortcake and jell, and rich, yellow
-coffee with cream and loaf sugar in it.
-
-I did well by ’em.
-
-And I had a real good visit with ’em; for I jest as lives spend my time
-a-hearin’ about Harry as not. I wuz a-knittin’, and of course could
-hear and knit. And Josiah and Al Faizi (good creeters both on ’em) had
-jest as lives hear the elder praise up his boy in dead languages as in
-live ones.
-
-And so they enjoyed themselves real well.
-
-As I say, when the elder would git tired of praisin’ him up in English
-he would try it in Greek, and when that language got tired out and
-kinder dead, he would try a healthier, stronger one, so I spoze. He and
-Al Faizi sot out in the porch some of the time, but I could hear ’em.
-
-Miss Dean and I got along first-rate in our own native tongues, though
-once in awhile I felt that, visitor or no visitor, I had to sprunt up a
-little and tell my mind about Thomas J., and what a remarkable boy he
-always wuz, and what a man he’d made.
-
-But I see they wuz so oneasy when they wuzn’t a-praisin’ Harry that
-I switched off the track as polite as I could and gin ’em a clear
-sweep. And from that time Happiness and Harry rained supreme in our
-settin’-room and piazza. And reminescenes wuz brung up and plans laid
-on and prophecies foretold, and all wuz Harry, Harry, Harry.
-
-Wall, I see Miss Dean kep’ a-lookin’ at the clock, though I told her it
-lacked three hours of train time. But in the same cause of politeness I
-had held up through the day I sent Ury off a hour before it wuz time,
-and in due time he come back bearin’ a letter.
-
-He brung it up to the stoop and handed it to the elder.
-
-[Illustration: As the Elder took it he turned pale.]
-
-As the elder took it he turned pale--white as a piece of white cotton
-shirt, and sez he--
-
-“This is not Harry’s hand!”
-
-Miss Dean jest leaped forward and ketched holt of his hand.
-
-“What is it? Not Harry’s writin’, what does it mean?”
-
-Wall, when the letter wuz opened, we found what it meant.
-
-Dead! dead! That bright young life, full of hope and beauty and
-promise, had been cut down like a worthless weed by the infamous
-practice of Hazin’.
-
-Gentlemen’s sons, young men who had had every means of civilization at
-their command, had committed the brutality of a savage. Young men of
-riches, education, culture, position, they had committed this murder
-jest for wanton fun. They had called him out of his bed at midnight on
-a false errent, locked him out of his room for hours, poured a lot of
-icy water on him; he, shiverin’ with his almost naked limbs, had plead
-in vain for help.
-
-Where wuz his Ma and Pa at this time? Asleep and dreamin’ of him,
-mebby.
-
-A congestive chill had attackted the weak lungs, and in two days he wuz
-dead.
-
-One of the pupils not engaged in it, in deep sympathy and pity, writ
-the hull thing out to the bereaved parents.
-
-We carried ’em home and helped ’em out of the democrat--helped ’em to
-walk into the house, for they couldn’t walk alone. We sot him down
-under a picter of Harry that had fresh flowers under it--laid her on a
-couch covered with the woosted work she wuz a-makin’ for him, and took
-care on ’em as well as we could while they waited for Harry to come
-home.
-
-Oh dear me! Oh dear suz!!!
-
-I can’t tell nothin’ about that time. My pen trembles, jest as my heart
-duz, when I try to write about it.
-
-I’m a-goin’ to hang up a black bumbazeen curtain between the reader and
-that seen for the next few days. Reader, it is best for you that I do
-it--you couldn’t stand it if I didn’t.
-
-The curtain ort to be crape, but crape, though all right in the line of
-mournin’, is pretty thin for the purpose--you might see through it.
-
-But I will jest lift up a corner on’t a few days later to show you
-another coffin, with the broken-hearted mother a-layin’ in it, with a
-broken-down old man bendin’ over it alone, waitin’ for the summons to
-jine ’em in another country.
-
-One victim buried, another victim layin’ in the coffin, another victim,
-most to be pitied of all, a-stayin’ on here alone in a dark world
-a-waitin’ for the end.
-
-Gay, light-hearted young man, havin’ a good time at college--sowin’
-your wild oats--havin’ royal good fun, what do you think of the end of
-that night’s jollity?
-
-Al Faizi couldn’t understand it. Sez he to me--
-
-“His murderers will be hanged, will they not?”
-
-“Hung!” sez I in astonishment; “oh, no! this is merely Hazin’--college
-fun for young gentlemen.”
-
-“Gentlemen!” sez he. “Do gentlemen murder in your country? Why, your
-missionaries tell our people that if they murder they must be hanged in
-this world and eternally punished in the next.”
-
-“But,” sez I, “these young gentlemen were simply havin’ a little fun!”
-My tone wuz as bitter as wormwood and gaul, and he see it.
-
-“Has such a thing ever been done before in this country?” sez he.
-
-“Oh, yes!” sez I (wormwood and gaul still saturating my axents); “it
-is very common--it is always practised. Sometimes the victims are
-only frightened to death and maimed and made idiots and invalids of;
-sometimes they don’t die so soon; but then, agin,” sez I, “they die fur
-quicker--sometimes, when the young gentlemen want to be extra funny,
-and use some deadly gas, their victim dies to once, right under their
-hands.”
-
-“But don’t the Government interfere to punish such dreadful deeds?”
-
-“Oh, no!” sez I; “the Government has its hands too full a-grantin’
-licenses and sech, sellin’ the stuff that helps to make these
-disgraceful seens.”
-
-“Well, do not men and women rise and punish such deeds themselves?”
-
-“Oh, no!” sez I; “wimmen are considered too feeble-minded to pass any
-jedgment on sech doin’s--they’re considered by the college professors
-and presidents, as a general thing, as too weak-minded and volatile to
-take in a college education, and men are kep’ pretty busy a-bringin’ up
-arguments to keep wimmen in their place.
-
-“Of course, no sech doin’s ever took place in a woman’s college. They
-generally spend their time in learnin’, and don’t riot round and act,
-and that itself is considered, I believe, an evidence that wimmen are
-inheriently weak and not really fitted for the higher education. It is,
-I believe, considered a damagin’ evidence agin her powers of mind to
-think she don’t have no hankerin’ to spend her college days a-gittin’
-up the reputation of a prizefighter and a boat-swain, and had ruther
-spend her time a-bringin’ out the strength of her mind and soul instead
-of her muscles.”
-
-Sez I, “Take that with her refusal to kill and maim and torture her
-fellow students by Hazin’, and her dislike to cigarettes, drinkin’,
-etc.--take ’em all together, though she carries off prizes right and
-left for learnin’ and good behavior, yet these weaknesses of hern in
-refusin’ to jine in such upliftin’ exercises, tells agin her dretfully
-in the eyes of the male world!”
-
-Oh! how the wormword showed in my axent as I spoke.
-
-“Of all the strange things which I have seen in your strange country,”
-sez Al Faizi, “this is one of the strangest--a civilized nation
-practising such barbarities!”
-
-And he took out that little book with the cross on’t and writ for a
-quarter of an hour, and I d’no but more.
-
-Wall, the days went along, one after another, as days will, droppin’
-off, droppin’ off the rosary Time counts its beads on, and the time
-pretty near elapsted for us to embark on our trip to Europe.
-
-The tickets wuz bought, the nightcaps wuz packed, and the time drawed
-near.
-
-But as the time aproached, the thought of the deepness of the water in
-the Atlantic growed more and more apparient to me.
-
-[Illustration: I took down my old Atlas.]
-
-I took down my old Atlas and Gography from the cupboard over the suller
-way and poured over ’em, and sithed, and sithed and poured.
-
-The distance looked fearful between shore and shore, and my reason told
-me, also experience, that the reality wuz jest as much worse as black
-water is worse than yeller paper.
-
-The ocean wuz painted on this old Atlas bright yeller.
-
-And the last time Al Faizi came back from quite a long trip he had took
-to Washington and New York he found me a-pourin’ over the old Atlas;
-while the nightcaps and dressin’-gown, all done up, lay on a stand by
-my side.
-
-As I mentioned more formally, I’d made a nice flannel dressin’-gown
-for myself, and it satisfied my desires for comfort and also my pride;
-though I didn’t act over it as my pardner did over hisen. No; a sense
-of dignity and propriety restrained me.
-
-I cut it out by my nightgown pattern and made it fuller--it looked
-well. It wuz a brown and red stripe, tied down in front with lute
-string ribbin, that I paid as high as 14 cents a yard for, and thought
-it none too good for the occasion; I thought in case of a panick at
-sea, and I had to appear in it, I wouldn’t begrech the outlay for the
-ribbin.
-
-And then, agin, seein’ we wuzn’t to any extra expense for the voyage,
-I thought it wuzn’t extravagant in us to lanch out in clothes, or that
-is, lanch out some in ’em, not too fur.
-
-For I didn’t believe in goin’ through Europe follered by a dray full of
-trunks.
-
-No; I felt that two large satchels, that we could carry ourselves, wuz
-what the occasion demanded.
-
-That wuz our first thought, though we afterwards decided to take a
-trunk.
-
-Of course I took my mantilly, with tabs. It wuz jest as good as it ever
-wuz, and a big woollen shawl to wear when it wuz cold on the steamer.
-And my good, honorable bunnet, with my usual green baize veil to drape
-it gracefully on the left side.
-
-My umbrell, it is needless to say, occupied its usual place in my
-outfit--protection from storms and tramps and other dangers, and it
-could also be used for a cane.
-
-Noble utensil! I would have felt lost indeed to have missed it from
-its accustomed place at my right hand.
-
-As I say, Al Faizi come back and found us engrossed in preperations and
-study.
-
-I with my Atlas, and Josiah carefully brushin’ his dressin’-gown,
-though there wuzn’t a speck of dust on it, and a-smoothin’ out them
-tossels.
-
-We wuz a-makin’ our last preperations, for it only lacked about six
-weeks of the time when we wuz to embark. Our satchels stood all
-unlocked, with the keys fastened to ’em with good strong weltin’ cord,
-so’s we wouldn’t have to hunt for the keys at the last minute. Some
-long letters for the relations on both sides lay on Josiah’s desk, to
-be sent after our departure; they wuz dretful affectin’ letters; we
-thought more’n as like as not they would bring tears.
-
-And as Al Faizi come in and witnessed our hasty preperations, he
-announced in that calm way of hisen that he would go with us.
-
-For a minute I wuz dumfoundered, and knew not whether I wuz tickled to
-death at the proposal, or felt sorry and meachin’ over it.
-
-I felt queer.
-
-Sez Al Faizi, “I come to your land expecting I hardly know what.
-
-“My heart had been touched by learning of your holy religion. I had
-accepted the teachings of the blessed Lord Christ with all my heart
-and soul; warmed by His love, I come to your country to learn what
-that Divine religion would be amongst the people who had followed His
-teachings eighteen hundred years, and had no false religion to paralyze
-its power----and now--”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, for Al Faizi paused for a good while, not a-lookin’ mad,
-nor pert, nor anythin’, but jest earnest and some sad, and very quiet.
-
-“Now what?” sez I.
-
-He didn’t say nothin’. He looked as if he wuz afraid of hurtin’
-somebody’s feelin’s; but at last he said in that soft, melodious voice
-of hisen--
-
-“Now, I should like to go to other lands.”
-
-I felt fearful meachin’, and showed it, I spoze, to have a Hindoo come
-here and git disgusted with our ways, for I mistrusted that he wuz,
-though he didn’t say so out plain. And there wuzn’t a shadder of blame
-on his face; jest calm and earnest, jest as he always had been, and
-always would be, so fur as I could tell.
-
-He couldn’t find Truth and Jestice here, and so he wuz for follerin’
-off on their trail over the Atlantic.
-
-I felt queer as a dog, but Josiah hailed the idee with joy. He seemed
-highly tickled to have one more ingregient of curosity added to our
-cavalcade.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-THE EMBARKATION.
-
-
-And so it wuz settled, and Martin bein’ writ to to git another ticket,
-he got it, and sent it in a letter to us. But what he would say when he
-see the passenger who wuz goin’ to use it I knew not, but I knew that
-Alice and Adrian wuz good-natered, and would feel as I did about usin’
-folks well. And then I remembered that complaint in Martin’s eyes, and
-felt that if he didn’t take to Al Faizi, he would most probble be so
-near-sighted that he couldn’t see him much, if any.
-
-And so it turned out (to go ahead of the wagon a spell, or, ruther, to
-paddle backwards a few furlongs), after the first conversation Martin
-held with him, and see what his bizness wuz over here in America and
-wuz a-goin’ to be in Europe--Martin’s eyes wuz so bad that he couldn’t
-see him hardly ever.
-
-But Alice wuz sweet and courteous to him, and Adrian liked him
-dretfully from the first. And Al Faizi, when he first see Alice’s sweet
-face, he stood stun still for more’n quite a spell.
-
-And on his dark, handsome face dawned a look sech as a man might have
-who had been walkin’ a considerable time through a underground way,
-who had come out full in view of the mornin’ sun a-risin’ up on a June
-world.
-
-I d’no as anybody noticed that look but jest me; I don’t believe they
-did, for Martin wuz talkin’ to Josiah in a dretful kind and patronizin’
-way, and Alice wuz all took up a-lookin’ with her heart’s eye on the
-land where her prince reigned.
-
-And Adrian wuz, as I say, dretful took up with Al Faizi, and see
-nothin’ in his dark, expressive face only what he looked for, and what
-he found in it from day to day all through our tower--the good nater
-of a patient comrade, who loved him for his own bright, winnin’ little
-self, and loved him more for the sake of another, whose heart’s joy
-Adrian wuz.
-
-Martin’s eye complaint seemed to be real bad so fur as the noble
-heathen wuz concerned.
-
-I guess Al Faizi, in the first conversation he had with him, tackled
-him in the everlastin’ cause of jestice, and pity, and mercy--subjects
-that Martin hain’t “_o fay_” in (that is French. I seldom use foreign
-languages, but I’ve hearn Maggie use it considerable, and know it is
-lawful).
-
-No; Martin and Al Faizi looked on this earth and the things of life
-with sech different pairs of eyes that I d’no as they could be said to
-look on this old planet on the same side.
-
-Al Faizi looked on the deep side of subjects. He looked fur down under
-the outside current to try to discern the hidden springs, from whence
-these clear and turbid torrents flowed.
-
-If he found a spring that yielded black water, his first thought wuz to
-give warnin’ and try to dam it up.
-
-Martin would try to keep it a-humpin’, so’s to utilize it--sell the mud
-that flowed from it, mebby.
-
-Al Faizi’s gaze pierced through the clouds of earth, and rested on the
-gold pinnacles of Heaven.
-
-Martin clutched handfuls of the gold ore of earth and held it clost to
-his eyes, and so shet out the sight of the Heavenly City.
-
-One wuz honestly a-tryin’ to sweep away utterly the vile sperits of
-ignorance, evil, and want, etc., etc. Martin wuz for catchin’ ’em and
-hitchin’ ’em to his lawn-mower, to keep the lawn smooth round the house
-of his earthly tabernacle.
-
-Curous extremes as ever met, I believe, and as interestin’ to witness
-from day to day as the most costly and curous menagerie of wild animals
-would be.
-
-But, as I said, Martin’s eyes bein’ formed in jest that way, he wuzn’t
-able to hardly see the noble heathen after that first interview.
-
-Wall, to go back to the wagon agin and proceed onwards with my history,
-or paddle back to the steamer.
-
-At last the last minute come--Ury and Philury had took us to the cars
-and been shooken by the hands, and amidst fervent good-byes had been
-adjured over and over about the necessity of keepin’ the cat out of the
-milk room, and the gate shet between the garden and paster, etc., etc.,
-etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.
-
-And they had promised faithfully to adhere to our wishes, and to advise
-us of the results in weekly letters.
-
-We let ’em move right in and have half of everything--butter, cheese,
-eggs, wool, black caps, etc. And they wuz highly tickled as well as we.
-
-Thomas Jefferson and Maggie had gone with us to the station, where
-Whitfield and Tirzah Ann put in a late appearance, on account of
-Tirzah’s bein’ ondecided whether to wear a thick or a thin dress; the
-day bein’ one of them curous ones when you don’t really know whether it
-will be hazy or warm.
-
-And they’d come in time to kiss us and clasp our hands in partin’.
-
-[Illustration: In time to kiss us and clasp our hands in partin’.]
-
-The girls both brought bokays with ’em, and Babe, the darlin’, brought
-a bunch of English violets to send to Adrian, knowin’ that he jest
-worshipped that posy--and it’s one of my favorites, too. Wall, the
-last words wuz said to us, Al Faizi had made his last low bow to the
-children, and said the last polite, melodious adieu, and we embarked on
-to the cars.
-
-But I looked back, and I see Tirzah Ann a-wrestlin’ with her polynay,
-that had got ketched into her parasol, and Whitfield a-helpin’ her to
-ondo herself.
-
-And I see Maggie’s sweet, upward look to the car winder, and met the
-clear, affectionate, comprehendin’ look of my boy, Thomas Jefferson.
-
-It is curous how well acquainted our sperits be with each other, hisen
-and mine, and always has been, from the time when he sot on my lap as a
-child. Our souls are clost friends, and would be if he wuzn’t no kin to
-me.
-
-He is a young man of a thousand, and he understands my mind without my
-speakin’, and I do hisen.
-
-But to resoom. It had been arranged that we should proceed directly to
-a hotel that wuz nigh to the Atlantic, and Martin should call for us
-there, his own residence bein’ in a opposite direction.
-
-We did so, and after a good meal--and we all did jestice to it, bein’
-hungry--a big carriage driv up, and Martin alighted from it and come
-in.
-
-Anon we embarked in it, and after a seen of almost indescribable
-tumult, owin’ to the screamin’ of drivers, the conflict of passin’
-wagons and carriages and dray carts, etc., etc., etc., etc.
-
-And after numerous givin’s up on my part that now indeed wuz the time I
-wuz to “likewise perish,” we found ourselves on the big steamer’s deck
-that wuz to bear us away from our own native land.
-
-Lots of folks wuz there a-takin’ leave of friends. Some wuz weepin’,
-some wuz laughin’, some wuz talkin’, and that las’ some wuz multiplied
-by hundreds and thousands, seemin’ly.
-
-And piles of flowers lay round, offerin’s to and from fond hearts that
-must sever.
-
-Adrian had his bunch of sweet blue violets, and the violets wuzn’t any
-sweeter than his eyes. And I, even at the resk of losin’ my umbrell,
-clutched my precious bokays--the frail links that seemed to connect me
-with my own native Jonesville and my loved ones there.
-
-Josiah seemed to be lookin’ round for somebody he could scrape
-acquaintance with.
-
-And Al Faizi stood in that silent way of hisen, with his dark, ardent
-face seemin’ly on the lookout for sunthin’ or other he could learn, and
-a-seein’ every move that Alice made, as I could see, though nobody else
-noticed it.
-
-Martin wuz a-flyin’ round, busy a-seein’ to everything. Alice wuz a
-little apart a-bendin’ over the side of the great ship. She seemed to
-be lookin’ intently on sunthin’ or somebody on the pier, and as we
-sailed off I see her snowy handkerchief wave out, and where she’d been
-a-lookin’ I see an arm lifted up and another white handkerchief wave
-out a farewell.
-
-[Illustration: Her big blue eyes wuz full of tears.]
-
-When I looked clost at her, I see that her big blue eyes wuz full of
-tears.
-
-As for me, I wuz tryin’ my best to keep my equilibrum, for the boat
-tosted some, and my equilibrum hain’t what it would be if it hadn’t had
-the rheumatiz so much.
-
-But my umbrell helped me some; I planted it down and leaned heavy on
-it, and in its faithful companionship and support I found some relief
-as I see the land sail swift away from me, seemin’ to be in a hurry to
-go somewhere.
-
-And I sez in my heart--“Good-bye, dear old Land! you no need to be in
-sech a hurry to go back and dissapear in the distance; no truer lover
-did you ever have than she who now witnesses your swift departure,” and
-even in my reverie wantin’ to be exact, I added--“she whose name wuz
-once Smith.”
-
-Quite a while did I stand there until Reason and also Josiah told me
-that I had better seek my state-room.
-
-I don’t find no fault with that room, it probble wuzn’t its fault that
-the narrer walls riz up so many times, and seemed to hit me in my head
-and stomach, specially the stomach, and then anon turn round with me,
-and teeter, and bow down, and hump up, and act.
-
-No; the little room wuzn’t to blame, and my sufferin’s with Josiah
-Allen for the three days when he lay, as he said, in a dyin’ state,
-right over my head--
-
-I a-sufferin’ twice over--once in myself and agin in my other and more
-fraxious and worrisome self.
-
-The wild demeanors, the groans, the frenzied exclamations, and anon the
-faint and die-away actions of that man can’t never be described upon,
-and if it could, it would make readin’ that no man would want to read,
-nor no woman neither.
-
-But after a long interval, in which, while I wuz a-layin’, a-tryin’ in
-a agonized way to think how I wanted my effects distributed amongst the
-survivors--I would be called away from that contemplation to receive
-my pardner’s last wills and testaments, and I heard anon or oftener,
-spoke in solemn axents--
-
-“Bury me in the dressin’-gown, Samantha.”
-
-He clung to that idee, even in his lowest and most sinkin’est moments.
-
-I reached up, or tried to, and took holt of his limp hand that dangled
-down over my head, and I sez--
-
-“You will live, Josiah, to wear it out.”
-
-And as feeble as he wuz, and as much as he had wanted to die, them
-words would seem to sooth him some, and be a paneky to him.
-
-I repeated ’em often, for they seemed to impress him where more
-affectionate and moral arguments failed.
-
-But I may as well hang up a double rep curtain between my hearers and
-the fearful seens that wuz enacted in our state-rooms for nearly three
-days and nights.
-
-I hang a rep curtain, so’s it would shelter the seens more; cretonne is
-too thin.
-
-But some of the seens are so agonizin’ and sharp pinted that they seem
-to pierce even through that envelopin’ drapery.
-
-One of them dagger-like episodes wuz of the fog horns.
-
-If Josiah’s testementary idees and our united wretchedness would have
-let me doze off some in rare intervals, the tootin’ of them horns would
-be sure to roust me up.
-
-Yes, they made the night dretful--ringin’ of bells, tootin’ of horns,
-etc.
-
-And once, it wuz along in the latter part of the night, I guess, I
-heard a loud cry a-risin’ above the fog horn. It seemed to be a female
-in distress.
-
-And Josiah wuz all rousted up in a minute.
-
-And sez he--“Some female is in distress, Samantha! Where is my
-dressin’-gown?” Sez he, “I will go to her rescue!” And he rung the bell
-wildly for the stewardess, and acted.
-
-Sez I--“Josiah Allen, come back to bed! no woman ever yelled so loud
-as that and lived! If it is a female she’s beyend your help now.” And
-I curdled down in bed agin, though I felt queer and felt dretful sorry
-for her; but felt that indeed that yell must have been her last, and
-that she wuz now at rest.
-
-But he wuz still wildly arrangin’ his gown, and hollerin’ for the
-tossels--they’d slipped off from it.
-
-“Where is them dum tossels?” he yelled; “must I hear a female yell like
-that and not fly to her rescue? Where is the tossels?” he yelled agin.
-“You don’t seem to have no heart, Samantha, or you’d be rousted up!”
-
-“I am rousted up!” sez I; “yes, indeed, I have been rousted up ever
-sence I laid my head onto my piller; but if you wuz so anxious to help
-and save, Josiah, you wouldn’t wait for tossels!”
-
-But at that minute, simultaneous and to once, the chambermaid come to
-the door, and he found his tossels.
-
-“Who is that female a-screamin’?” sez Josiah, a-tyin’ the cord in a big
-bow-knot.
-
-“That is the Syren,” sez she. And she slammed the door and went back;
-she wuz mad to be waked up for that.
-
-“The Syren!” sez Josiah; “what did I tell you, Samantha?” And sez he,
-a-smoothin’ out the tossels, “I wouldn’t have missed the sight for a
-dollar bill! How lucky I found my tossels!” sez he.
-
-“Yes, dretful lucky,” sez I faintly, for I wuz wore completely out by
-my long night watches, and I felt fraxious.
-
-“Yes,” sez he, “I wouldn’t have appeared before a Syren without them
-red tossels for no money. I always wanted to see a Syren!” sez he,
-a-smoothin’ out the few hairs on each side of his cranium.
-
-Sez he, “She wuz probble a-screamin’ for her lookin’-glass and comb;
-I’ll go to once on deck. It is a bad night; if she has missed her comb,
-I might lend her my pocket-comb,” sez he.
-
-“You let Syrens alone, Josiah Allen!” sez I, gittin’ rousted up; “you
-don’t want to meddle with ’em at all! and do you come back to bed.”
-
-“Not at all,” sez he; “here is the chance of my lifetime. I’ve always
-wanted to see a Syren, and now I’m a-goin’ to!”
-
-And he reached up to a peg and took down his tall plug hat, and put it
-on kinder to the side of his head in as rakish a lookin’ way as you
-ever see a deacon’s hat in the world; he then took his umbrell and
-started for the door.
-
-[Illustration: Then took his umbrell and started for the door.]
-
-Agin come that loud and fearful yell; it did, indeed, seem to be a
-female in direst agony.
-
-“But,” I sez, “I don’t believe that’s any Syren, Josiah Allen; we read
-that her voice lures sailors to foller her; no sailor would be lured by
-that voice, it is enough to scare anybody and drive ’em back, instead
-of forrered.
-
-“What occasion would a Syren have to yell in sech a blood-curdlin’ way,
-Josiah Allen?”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, put to his wits’ end, “mebby her hair is all snarled up
-by the wind and salt water, and in yankin’ out the snarls, it hurts her
-so that she yells.”
-
-I see the common sense of this, for the first night I had used soap
-and salt water my hair stood out like quills on my head, and it almost
-killed me to comb it out. “But,” sez I, “Syrens are used to wind storms
-and salt water. I don’t spoze their hair is like other folkses.”
-
-Agin come that fearful, agonizin’ yell.
-
-Agin Josiah sez--“While we are a-bandyin’ words back and forth, I am
-losin’ the sight,” and agin he made for the door.
-
-But I follered him and ketched holt of the tossels.
-
-He paused to once. He feared they would be injured.
-
-Sez I, “Come back to bed; how it would look in the Jonesville paper to
-hear that Josiah Allen had been lured overboard by a Syren, for they
-always try to drown men, Josiah!” sez I.
-
-“Oh, shaw!” sez he; “they never had me to deal with. I should stand
-still and argy with her--I always convince the more opposite sect,” sez
-he, lookin’ vain.
-
-But I see the allusion to drowndin’ made him hesitate, and sez he--
-
-“You don’t spoze there is any danger of that, do you, Samantha? I would
-give a dollar bill to tell old Gowdey and Uncle Sime Bentley that I’d
-interviewed a Syren!” sez he. “It would make me a lion, Samantha, and
-you a lioness.”
-
-“I shan’t be made any animal whatsoever, Josiah Allen, by follerin’ up
-a Syren at this time of night. They never did anything but harm, from
-their grandmothers’ days down, and men have always been fooled and
-drownded by ’em!” sez I; “you let Syrens alone and come to bed,” sez I;
-“you’re a perfessor and a grandfather, Josiah Allen, and I’d try to act
-becomin’ to both on em,” sez I.
-
-He fingered the red tossels lovin’ly.
-
-“Sech a chance,” sez he, “mebby I never shall have agin. I don’t spoze
-any man who ever parlied with ’em wuz ever so dressy in his appearance,
-and so stylish--no knowin’ what would come of it!” sez he. He hated to
-give up the idee.
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “it’s rainin’ as hard as it can; them tossels never
-would come out flossy and beautiful agin, they would all be limped and
-squashed down and spilte.”
-
-“Do you think so?” sez he anxiously.
-
-He took off his hat and put down his umbrell, and sez he--“It may be as
-well to not foller the investigation to-night; there will probble be a
-chance in fairer weather.”
-
-But the next day we found out that the Syren wuz a thing they fixed
-onto the fog horn for certain signals, and Josiah felt glad enough that
-he hadn’t made no moves to talk with her.
-
-I wuz glad on the side of common sense. He on the account of them
-tossels.
-
-But after we found out what it wuz, and all about it, that fog horn
-made us feel dretful lonesome and queer when we heard it, half
-asleep and half awake. It would seem as if one half of our life wuz
-a-hollerin’ out to the other half.
-
-Youth and middle age a-callin’ out to each other----
-
-“Loss! loss!” and “Gain! gain!” as the case might be.
-
-Jonesville and London, “Yell! yell!”
-
-Love! peace! death! danger! “Shriek! shriek!”
-
-Them you love who wuz here on earth, and them who’d gone over the Great
-Flood, “Shout! shout!”
-
-“Ship ahoy! What hail!”
-
-Queer sounds as I ever hearn floated in on them high yells, borne by
-the winds and the washin’ waves of ocean depths and the misty billows
-from Sleep Land, broken up some as they drifted and mixed with the
-billows of our own realm.
-
-But daylight would always seem to calm down this tumult and bring more
-lusid and practical idees.
-
-Wall, the time come when we tottered up on deck, two pale, thin
-figgers, to be confronted by other faces that wuz as wan, and some that
-wuz wanner.
-
-[Illustration: We tottered up on deck, two pale, thin figgers.]
-
-But after these days we begun to feel first-rate. Alice and Adrian had
-had a hard time of it, so I had learned before from the stewardess. And
-I’d sent ’em lovin’ messages time and agin, and they me.
-
-Martin, I don’t believe, had a minute’s sickness, nor Al Faizi. They
-both seemed to be real chipper; though they both seemed to be perfect
-strangers to each other; and I spoze they wuz and will be to all
-eternity--even if they wuz settin’ on the same seat on high.
-
-Their two souls hain’t made right to ever be intimate with each other.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-LANDING IN THE EMERALD ISLE.
-
-
-Wall, after all, as much as I wuz afraid of the deepness and length and
-breadth of the ocean, I had a pretty good time, after all.
-
-Somehow, I got to feelin’ that the ship wuz a big city, and I got to
-feelin’ as if it wuz about as safe as the land.
-
-We d’no what is a-goin’ on under us on land--no, indeed, we don’t, and
-if we git to forgittin’ it, we often git a shake-up and a hunch from
-old Mom Nater to let us know that we are entirely ignorant of what
-she’s a-doin’ down in the depths of the earth.
-
-Yes, we git shook up with earthquakes, or cyclones lift us up and sweep
-us off, and hurricanes and water-spouts are abroad, and cars break
-down, and horses throw us out of wagons, etc., etc.
-
-I’d bring up these consolin’ thoughts a sight when I’d be a-layin’ on
-my narrer piller and a-thinkin’ that only a few boards wuz between me
-and--what? And I’d kinder shudder and turn over, and try to forgit it.
-
-How cold the water wuz and how deep, and how lonesome it would be
-a-sinkin’ down, and down, and down, and how big the shark’s mouth wuz,
-and how the cold, bitter, chokin’ waves would wash anythin’ to and fro
-like a piece of weed, and sweep one so fur off and so fur down that it
-didn’t seem as if the Angel of the Resurrection could ever find us!
-
-But I spoze he could.
-
-It stands to reason that we could as well be found in a shark as in
-some poseys that grow up from the dust of our body, and whose perfume
-exhale in the mornin’ dew goin’ up to the clouds, fallin’ in rain, and
-goin’ through countless forms before the resurrection.
-
-Oh! did I not bring up all these thoughts anon or oftener? And did I
-not say to myself, time and agin, for my comfort and consolation, “The
-One who formed me out of nothin’ is able to reform me.” Yes, my best
-comfort wuz to ask the One who careth for ’em who go down to the sea in
-ships to care for me, and to rest in that thought.
-
-To lay down in the depths of that wide love and care and repose myself
-in it.
-
-Wall, we had a pretty good time on board. There wuz lots of different
-kinds of folks there, jest as there always is on land.
-
-I had hearn that there wuz a live English Lord on board, and Josiah
-picked him out the first time we went on deck.
-
-Yes, there he wuz, as we spozed, a tall, slim, supercilious-actin’ and
-lookin’ feller, who ordered round the ship’s crew, and wuz dissatisfied
-with his food, and snubbed the ocean, and felt that it hadn’t no need
-to breathe so loud, and looked askance at the Heavens if the day wuz
-dull.
-
-Yes, he looked down on everybody and everything. And Josiah sez--“He
-can’t help it, he wuz brung up that way; he is a Lord.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “Lord or not, he acts like a fool!” Sez I, “He might
-lower his nose once in awhile to rest it.”
-
-Truly, he held it right up in the air the hull of the time.
-
-But come to find out, that feller wuz a Grocer’s clerk, who wuz
-a-makin’ his first trip, and felt as if Heaven and earth wuz a-watchin’
-and admirin’ his move.
-
-And the Lord we found out wuz a short, square-built man, dressed in
-rough tweed, so jolly and full of fun that his wife had to hold him
-back all the time.
-
-She would have been glad to had him put on some dignity and things, but
-he wouldn’t.
-
-[Illustration: The lord with a pink paper suit on.]
-
-One night some pretty American girls give a dance, and they handed
-round some little favors that looked like big nuts, and when you opened
-’em a hull tissue-paper suit come out on ’em, and that Lord come out
-with a pink paper suit on, and went round through the dance half bent,
-for the skirt wuz but short, with a woman’s ruffled cap on, and a dress.
-
-His wife seemed to suffer agonies. Her pride ached, I spozed. But his
-didn’t; he wuz as happy as a lark, and didn’t put on any more airs than
-any common medder lark would.
-
-I liked him first-rate, but that clerk wuz austere and exclusive to the
-last. He wouldn’t mingle with us.
-
-He wuz a-travellin’ abroad. And, to use a common adage, usually applied
-to horses--“He felt his oats.”
-
-Wall, they got up a paper on board and printed it on a typewriter--the
-Lord furnishin’ most of the jokes for it.
-
-And then they had a peanut-party, and the Lord carried the most of
-anybody on the back of his hand and got the prize--3 long strings of
-glass beads, and he wore ’em all the evenin’, to his wife’s horrow.
-
-But the clerk, whose father kep’ a peanut-stand, and who had dwelt with
-’em all the days of his youth, he thought it wuz a vulgar party, and
-he looked at peanuts as if he knew ’em not.
-
-There wuz times when the sea wuz rough, and Josiah and I retired to the
-cabin, and for hours bemoaned our fate and wondered if we should ever
-agin see the cliffs of Jonesville.
-
-And on one heavey day, when the floor of our cell seemed to rise up and
-smite us in the pits of our stumicks, Josiah made his will, and handed
-it to me, with a face on which love and agony and fear appeared, about
-a third of each on ’em.
-
-Sez he, in a voice tremblin’ with emotion--“Take my last tribute of
-love, and,” sez he, “have it recorded, or it may be broke.”
-
-“But,” sez I, “dear Josiah”--for his love awoke my own; it had been
-havin’ a nap while I wuz a-wrestlin’ with the elements, and furniture
-that wuz a-tryin’ to upset me.
-
-Sez I--“If you die, I, too, shall perish. So what avails a will?”
-
-He hadn’t thought of that, and sez he, a-speakin’ out feebly from his
-bunk with his eyes shet--
-
-“You’re fat; you may float,” sez he; “my prize shoat did that slipped
-out of the wagon fordin’ the creek.”
-
-Sez I, in the same faint axents--truly our two voices wuz as feeble as
-a pair of feeble cats, and weaker--sez I, “I always said you would twit
-me of my heft on your death-bed if the subject come up, and you had
-your conscientiousness.”
-
-Sez he, “I’ve showed my love to you--I have left you everything
-onconditional. You can marry agin.” Sez he, “This is no time for
-selfishness and jealousy.”
-
-“Marry agin!” sez I feebly; “what do I want of another pardner? Heaven
-knows, I don’t know!”
-
-“Wall,” says he tenderly, for my words touched him--“you may feel
-different when you hain’t so sick to your stumick.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I, “and you may, too!”
-
-He had never made a will before that left me onhampered, and I felt
-that when his legs wuz firmer under him, and his stumick and head wuz
-steadier, that he, too, might undergo a change.
-
-And he did.
-
-It wuz a bright, calm day. He felt well, and I see him the next mornin’
-a furtively tearin’ up that will and a-strewin’ the torn bits out of
-the port-hole winder.
-
-As he did so his hands got entangled in a cord I’d made out of weltin’
-cord.
-
-And sez he, a-lookin’ down onto it--“In the name of the gracious Peter!
-what is this?”
-
-He thought in a minute of rope ladders and troubadors--he acted jealous.
-
-Sez I, “It is some handkerchiefs that I am a-washin’ in the Atlantic
-Ocean, Josiah.”
-
-He didn’t know I wuz awake, and it startled him. And sez he--
-
-“How did you ever come to think on’t?”
-
-“I d’no,” sez I; “but I thought it would be sunthin’ to think on, to
-say I had used the Atlantic for a washtub.”
-
-Sez he--“Wash one of mine, Samantha. I’d love to tell Deacon Garvin
-on’t.”
-
-Sez I--“Your second best bandanna is on the line.”
-
-He looked down onto the heavin’ billows with content, and sez he--“I’m
-as hungry as a bear.”
-
-That mornin’ the sea lay calm and beautiful. The sun riz up on it and
-flooded it with delicious waves of color; the east wuz a flame of
-color, and the crest of the heavin’ billows wuz aflame with gold and
-crimson and amethyst, and fur off some tall icebergs loomed up like
-cold, pale ghosts, a-hantin’ us with a vague sense of danger, like the
-undertone of sadness that underlays all things the most beautiful and
-grand.
-
-Then there wuz moonlight evenin’s, when the moon shone down full and
-clear, and the glorified sky and the glorified water seemed to be a
-part of each other, and the long and deep rythm of the waves seemed to
-bear us up with ’em in a grand hymn that all creation wuz a-chantin’.
-
-And then there wuz misty days, when clouds of fog settled down round
-us like gray, mysterious wings, a-holdin’ us clost in their folds of
-mystery, when we knew not what wuz a yard in front of us; when we
-sailed on, blind creeters, not a-knowin’ what we wuz a-comin’ bunt up
-aginst--a iceberg, or another ship, or jest the open space ahead. When
-the cries of the fog-horn seemed to be a-hollerin’ out--
-
-“Git out of the way, we’re a-comin’!”
-
-But how could a iceberg hear and wheel round? No, it hadn’t come down
-from the pole for no sech a purpose, it wuz a-goin’ straight ahead.
-
-Them wuz solemn times, and we would think that we couldn’t never forgit
-’em.
-
-But we did. When the sun shone bright agin, we wuz ready to forgit the
-sorrer and danger of the night and be happy agin. And at times, fur off
-on the fur, watery plain--fur off ahead, we would see a sail.
-
-Nearer and nearer it would come, and then go by us and dissapear in
-the horizen back of us--meetin’ and partin’ at some distance without a
-word; some like human bein’s goin’ by each other on the ocean of Life.
-Separate worlds full of human life and interest meetin’ and partin’,
-floatin’ by onbeknown.
-
-I took a strange and a mysterious comfort sometimes a-bendin’ over the
-sides of the ship and lookin’ fur down into the depths of the water and
-a-seein’ huge forms a-playin’ down in their strange, green depths, or
-imaginin’ I could. And I took a kind of dretful enjoyment a-ponderin’
-on what would foller on and ensue if I should fall off and plunge down
-into the liquid depths. But them thoughts wuz too full of or to indulge
-in long. They driv me back to the side of my beloved pardner, or the
-society of little Adrian and Alice.
-
-Adrian knew everybody on board, and everybody loved him. But, above
-all, he liked a sailor called Mike. From all I could learn, that seaman
-racked his brain to tell all sorts of wild sea stories to the child.
-
-I d’no as I’ve told about Josiah’s appetite durin’ that voyage.
-My pardner’s appetite wuz always a strong subject, but now it wuz
-exceedingly queer.
-
-After he got over his seasickness, most the first words he said, and
-they come right after his “good-by” and partin’ words to me, though
-some time after--he waked up out of a deep sleep, and the first words
-he said to me wuz, in middlin’ feeble axents--
-
-“Do you spoze, Samantha, I could git a little biled beef and cabbage,
-and some pork and beans?”
-
-He had been a-livin’ on water gruel, and the words almost startled
-me. But I obtained the ingregients with some trouble, and as I bore
-them in, a large platter full of each, he looked up dretful feeble and
-languishin’, and sez he--
-
-“Set ’em down by the bed, Samantha, and mebby I could eat a bean, or
-part of one.”
-
-“Part of one bean” didn’t sound very encouragin’, but I set ’em down,
-and the next time I see them platters, about ten minutes afterwards,
-they wuz both clean as though they had been swept and garnished.
-
-And from that minute he gained on’t. My own first hankerin’ after I got
-better wuz for a biled dinner. Of course, I couldn’t git that, but I
-exchanged milk porridge for roast pork, and sassige, and cabbage hot
-slaw the first thing, and felt satisfied and happy with the change.
-
-Curous, hain’t it? If I’d been on land I believe they would a-killed
-me, but I thrived on the diet.
-
-Wall, I never shall forgit how good the land looked to me as I looked
-fur forrerds over the heavin’ billows of blue, and see the beautiful
-green shores of Queenstown a-risin’ up ahead.
-
-Adrian said, “Auntie, is that the Emerald Isle, and are the hills all
-covered with emeralds, like Alice’s ring?” Sez he, “Mike told me they
-were.”
-
-Sez I, “Don’t you pay any attention to what Mike sez. The hills are
-jest covered with soft, green grass that would look enough sight better
-to me than any jewelled stuns would.”
-
-Al Faizi stood motionless, lookin’ on the fair seen ahead, as if he wuz
-a-lookin’ over the Swellin’s of Jordan into the Promised Land; part of
-the time that riz up look rested on Alice’s sweet face.
-
-Alice and Martin wuz a-walkin’ arm-in-arm up and down the deck, as much
-took up with the sight as we wuz, only Martin thought it looked more
-wise to not act tickled and enthuastick about it.
-
-That is the first rule in etiket with some folks, to not act tickled
-and glad about anything, but to look as stunny and onmoved at a
-masterpiece of Art, or a towerin’ Alp, as at a plate of cold ham.
-
-Josiah, he wuz a-worryin’ about the tug that wuz to take us on shore.
-
-“A tug!” sez he; “I don’t like that name, it don’t sound reliable. If
-it is a good convenience, why is it sech a tug to it to carry us?”
-
-Sez I, “Be calm, Josiah, everything will come out right.”
-
-And sez he, “One of the passengers called it a ‘tender.’ If it is so
-tender, I don’t believe it is safe. Tenderness means weakness,” says he.
-
-“Not always,” sez I, “quite the reverse.” But I see that it wuz no time
-to plunge into metaphysicks and prove to him what I knew well, that
-“the bravest are the tenderest--the lovin’ are the darin’.”
-
-Then sez he, “If we ever live to git into that tug, we have got to have
-our baggage all overhauled by the Custom House Officers.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “what of it? We hain’t nothin’ to conceal or cover up.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “that dressin’-gown of mine will jest as likely as not
-be all throwed round and mussed up. It worries me!” sez he.
-
-Sez I, “Don’t worry, Josiah Allen; it is good rep, and it will stand a
-good overhaulin’ and not hurt it.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “them tossels can’t be handled over by all Ireland and
-come out hull and sound. It is nothin’ but dum foolishness to have to
-go through all them performances.”
-
-But his worryin’ wuz worse than the reality. For anon we sailed into
-Cork harbor, and got into the tug that come out to meet us. The
-officers jest give our things the lightest examination possible. They
-didn’t throw things around at all, and they wuz real polite, only in
-one thing--they asked us if we had tobacco or sperits.
-
-[Illustration: With a stern look, calculated to wither him.]
-
-Josiah never took his eyes offen that dressin’-gown through the hull of
-the ordeal, and he wuz foldin’ them tossels lovin’ly as soon as they
-dropped his satchel, when I wuz lookin’ back and a-wonderin’ at the
-size of the steamer that loomed up above us some like a cliff.
-
-As I say, the man with the officers asked me if I had sperits or
-tobacco in my luggage.
-
-I confronted him with a stern look, calculated to wither him, and sez
-I--
-
-“Do I look like it, sir?”
-
-“Look like what?” sez he.
-
-“Like a old toper who carrys round whiskey and a pipe?” Sez I, “I never
-drink a drop stronger than coffee, half cream, and I never smoked a
-pipe in my life, only once I smoked a little mullen for asthma.”
-
-He felt ashamed, jest as I wanted him to. He see the power of
-principle, and he didn’t hardly touch my things.
-
-Wall, it wuz no wonder that Josiah worried some. These things were new
-to us. He and I wuz, as you may say, the only students and novices in
-travellin’ in the hull party, for Al Faizi had been everywhere, his
-conversation wuz enriched by allusions to every land.
-
-And Alice had been to Paris to school for three years. And Martin had
-took her over and went after her. He often spoke of his familiarity
-with foreign life and the exhaustive study he had made in foreign
-fields. “There wuz little left for him to see,” he claimed.
-
-He had took Alice over and went after her, but went with lightnin’
-speed only when he wuz bed-sick. So Alice told me with her own lips.
-
-He boasted a sight of his intimacy with foreign ways and customs.
-
-Wall, did it not seem good to set our feet on land once more! But I wuz
-almost ashamed to see the way my pardner reeled round, for he acted
-for all the world as if he had been a-drinkin’. I wuz jest a-goin’ to
-mention it to him when he whispered to me--
-
-“Hang on to me, Samantha,” sez he; “I will never tell on’t in the
-world.”
-
-“Tell of what?” sez I, as I made a effort to stand up straight and
-strong.
-
-“Why,” sez he, “if you took a little too much sling for that cold of
-yourn, I hain’t one to throw it in your face.”
-
-Sez he, “That Stewardess wuz always a-recomendin’ it.”
-
-“Sling!” sez I coldly; “I hain’t took a drop of anything stronger than
-tea, and,” sez I, “knowin’ my principles as you do, I should think
-you’d be ashamed of yourself to misuse a pardner in this shameful way!”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “you can’t walk straight to save your life! and,” sez
-he, “you grew so indignant on the tug at that man, that one would
-almost mistrust you.”
-
-I see that there wuz some reason in his talk, for too much indignation
-looks like guilt, lots of times.
-
-Sez I, “You talk about my reelin’ round; what are you doin’?” sez I, as
-his knees crooked and he crumpled down like one intoxicated.
-
-Wall, he gin up that it wuz the effects of the ship, and erelong we
-were in a good, clean tarvern and had breakfast.
-
-After breakfast we wuz indeed glad to lay down and rest for a little
-while, and then, as the rest of the party had all sallied out, my
-Josiah and me took a walk all to ourselves, or that is what we had
-lotted on.
-
-But of all the droves of beggars that follered us, I never see the
-beat--nasty and shiftless and talkin’ and teasin’ the very life out on
-us.
-
-I gin ’em a few cents in order to git rid on ’em.
-
-But the more I gin the more they follered on. So I jest shet up my
-portmoney and put it into my pocket.
-
-Josiah poohed at ’em and didn’t give a cent, and didn’t approve of the
-three cents I’d expended.
-
-Till one old woman whispered to him, and I hearn her say--
-
-“I see, young man, that you are good to your old mother; won’t you for
-her sake give me a shilling?”
-
-He wavered--he almost gin it to her. Sez she--“I will pray for
-blessin’s on your handsome young head.”
-
-He handed her the shillin’ with a happy, foolish look, which lasted
-till she come round to my side, and she whispered to me--
-
-“My pretty young lady, give me a sixpence. Your poor old father has
-give me a gift, and do not let your own young heart be harder nor his.”
-
-His liniment darkened rapidly, and he hurried me through the narrer
-streets, full of shops and tarverns; and he did not console himself
-as I did by lookin’ up on the steep hill and seein’ the handsome
-residences--no, he seemed cut to the heart.
-
-Wall, Martin said when we got back that we would go up to Cork at once,
-as he wuz anxious to see all he could in Ireland as rapidly as possible.
-
-He said that in a week at the outside he thought we could exhaust
-all the sight-seein’ in Ireland and git to the bottom of the “Irish
-Question.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “you’ll do well if you do that.”
-
-And I didn’t make no moves to break it up, and we wuz soon a-ridin’
-through the beautiful green country. And we seen on each side on us
-“sweet fields arrayed in livin’ green.”
-
-Never wuz there sech velvety grass, and the roads wuz as smooth and as
-hard as a pavement.
-
-Stun walls run along, with their soft, gray color, and anon a hedge,
-birds, and flowers would break the seen. And little, low cottages
-covered with vines dotted the landscape here and there; and now and
-then a chapel would point its spire up into the blue overhead.
-
-Once in awhile a queer rig with seats rigged out back to back, drawed
-by horses, and full of folks, and once in awhile a smaller cart drawed
-by a donkey, and once in awhile a woman with a red or blue cloak and a
-white cap, and a man with short pantaloons and coat.
-
-And so we rid on, green underneath, blue overhead, until we arrived in
-Cork.
-
-Wall, we put up at the Imperial Hotel. Everything wuz clean and sweet
-about the house, and we had plenty to eat, and that wuz good. It wuz
-indeed a comfort. And the waiters wuz dretful civil and eager to please.
-
-It beats all, the difference in their actions here and in Jonesville.
-
-I’ve had Irish wimmen work for me who seemed to look down on me, and
-accepted their dollar a day hautily; but here they would thankfully
-receive their sixpence a day, and treat you like a lady, too, which is
-more ’n half the battle.
-
-Queer, hain’t it? But human nater is human nater, and even a little
-child, if she has been tyranized over by her Ma, will misuse her dolly
-or the cat. I spoze that trait in nater can’t be helped from caperin’
-when it gits a chance.
-
-Wall, the next day Martin said he “wanted to go to Blarney Castle for
-several reasons.”
-
-He didn’t say what they wuz, but I spoze one of ’em wuz that old reason
-of hisen about wantin’ to do what other folks did. And then, mebby, he
-wanted to try to palaver better than he had palavered. Tenny rate, we
-all set out for the castle next mornin’ after breakfast.
-
-We went in what they call a “jauntin’ car.” The passengers sot back to
-back, but as my Josiah wuz placed by my side I did not mind it.
-
-[Illustration: We went in what they call a “jauntin’ car.”]
-
-On one side sot we two, and Al Faizi, on the other Martin and his
-children.
-
-Wall, the view wuz enchantin’ beyend description. The road wuz as
-smooth and level as smooth glass, bordered by hedges full of pure white
-and other colored poseys, a-fillin’ the air full of perfume, and the
-cottages and every old tower and ruin wuz covered with the glossy green
-of the ivy.
-
-It wuz a fair seen--a fair seen!
-
-Nater duz her best in Ireland, anyway. She seems to delight to
-cover the meanest things--old straw-thatched cabins, and stuns, and
-everything--with a robe of the richest, brightest green; mebby she
-wants to kinder make up to the Irish for what they hain’t got, Jestice
-and comfort and sech, and mebby, agin, it is the moist climate.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-A VISIT TO BLARNEY CASTLE.
-
-
-Anon we reached the old castle, for when anything gits to be six
-hundred years old you can well call it old. Why, I should call Josiah
-dretful old if he wuz over six hundred years old.
-
-It towers up considerable high--a hundred feet, anyway. Some of its
-walls are eight or ten feet thick. Al Faizi asked what they had sech
-thick walls for.
-
-And Martin told him it wuz built so to keep enemies from breakin’ in
-and killin’ the inhabitants of the castle.
-
-He looked dretful thoughtful, and then he asked what made them big
-holes in the walls.
-
-Martin said that Cromwell made ’em 200 years ago. Sez Martin, “Cromwell
-made the land red with blood.”
-
-“Was he not a great religious leader among your people?” said Al
-Faizi--“a Reformer?”
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“Did he not preach the doctrine of peace, love to your enemies, good
-will?”
-
-“Yes, of course he did,” sez Martin.
-
-“Why did he kill so many men, then?” sez Al Faizi.
-
-“To make the other men behave themselves,” sez Martin.
-
-“Kill them to make them act better?”
-
-“The Catholics and the Protestants both fought in the name of their
-religion, and tortured and killed and slaughtered thousands and
-thousands of men and women.”
-
-“For the sake of religion?” sez Al Faizi. And he took out his book and
-wrote rapidly for awhile, but he didn’t say nothin’.
-
-“It was a case of killing or being killed,” sez Martin. “It was a
-religious war.”
-
-“A religious war?” sez Al Faizi dreamily. “Where was His teaching, the
-divine Christ, ‘Love your enemies, do good to them that persecute you’?”
-
-“That won’t work,” sez Martin; “those words are good in peace, but in
-danger they don’t work worth a cent.”
-
-Al Faizi looked up slowly to Martin’s face; in his eyes wuz a shinin’
-light, a softness, a tenderness sech as made his face shine, and
-underneath it all wuz a sort of a innocent, wonderin’ look, which I
-spoze would be called primitive and oncivilized.
-
-Martin’s face looked commercial and successful, sharp and shrewd, and
-what he called civilized.
-
-I had quite a number of thoughts as I looked on the two men, over a
-dozen and a half, anyway.
-
-Alice and Adrian wuz pickin’ some of the green ivy sprays, and they
-brung ’em to me and wanted me to look at ’em.
-
-Sez Alice, “Some of this ivy that grows here so wild and
-luxuriant--acres of it, it seems to me--is just the kind that we see
-little slips of in our green-houses at home; do you see how beautiful
-it is?”
-
-And she held up a few of the glossy leaves to Al Faizi.
-
-He glanced at it, and then beyend into her sweet, uplifted face.
-
-“Yes, I see how beautiful it is,” he sez softly, and he ended his words
-with a deep sithe.
-
-And a shadder settled down over his face, and he turned to his writin’
-agin.
-
-As for Alice, she see nothin’, but kep’ a-gatherin’ her ivy sprays and
-a-singin’ to herself in her low, sweet voice--
-
-              “I give thee an ivy leaf,
-                  Only an ivy leaf,
-    Oh, wear it forever, love, nearest thy heart.”
-
-I knew very well who she wuz aposthrofizin’ in her own heart entirely
-onbeknown to her as she wuz hummin’ over little snatches of the song
-and a-pickin’ the glowin’ green sprays. And I knew that the affection
-and constancy that dwelt in her soul wuz as deathless as that ivy and
-fur more clingin’ and beautiful.
-
-Martin had climbed up to the elevation where the Blarney Stun hung
-suspended two feet below the surface, fastened by iron clamps.
-
-But he wouldn’t resk his neck by bein’ lowered down to that place, but
-he kissed a little chunk that layed on the ground inside the castle,
-for I see him.
-
-And so did Josiah, though I didn’t advise him to.
-
-Josiah, a-lookin’ up from below, had been makin’ calculations on how he
-could be lowered down to the big Blarney Stun on the ruff.
-
-Sez he, “It wuz a oversight in me not takin’ a rope; but,” sez he, all
-rousted up, as his ardent, impulsive way is, sez he, “I might take that
-mantilly you’ve got on.”
-
-It bein’ a cool day I’d worn it.
-
-“And you, and Martin, and Fazer could hang holt of one end, and tie the
-other end round my waist. I could be lowered down and kiss it and not
-git a hair of my head hurt.”
-
-I glanced pityin’ly at his bald head, and sez I coldly--
-
-“How would it be with the tabs?”
-
-“Oh,” sez he, “it might stretch ’em a little, but if a pardner wouldn’t
-be willin’ to resk a tab for her husband, she can’t think much on him.”
-
-And he prepared to mount the steep, a-holdin’ out his hand for the
-mantilly.
-
-I stood still, foldin’ my tabs round me more clost.
-
-Sez he, “You talk a sight about your feelin’s for me, and now you put
-a mantilly ahead of ’em. I hain’t equal in your mind to a tab,” sez he
-bitterly.
-
-A thought struck aginst me. “No, Josiah,” sez I, “you use my mantilly
-to-day, and to-morrer we will come back, and I will use the tossels on
-your dressin’-gown.” (They wuz stout ones--stout as a rope almost.)
-
-He looked dumbfoundered. “Use them tossels?” sez he.
-
-“Yes,” sez I; “you can’t think much of me if you put them tossels ahead
-of me.”
-
-Sez he, “Them tossels hain’t a-goin’ to be used to lift a ton’s weight.
-I might as well give ’em up to once as to misuse ’em so.”
-
-“Then I hain’t as much importance in your mind as a tossel?” sez I; and
-he admitted that I wuzn’t half so good lookin’.
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “less gin up the idee, both on us.”
-
-Sez he, “Didn’t you bring sunthin’ to eat with you? I’m as hungry as a
-bear.”
-
-So I gladly led him away from the stairs leadin’ to Danger and Blarney,
-and we found a good, clean spot, and spread out our refreshin’ lunch
-that we had brung with us to refresh ourselves with, and Josiah did
-indeed do jestice to it; but that dear man always duz do that, at home
-or in more foreign climes.
-
-Yes, indeed!
-
-Wall, the day passed away with no particular coincedences.
-
-We went home by another road that led through the valley, by
-meetin’-housen and horsepitals, jails, etc., and amongst the rest we
-see Father Mathew’s statute.
-
-And if you’ll believe it--but I don’t spoze you will--all round
-the statute of that man, who spent his hull life a-fightin’ aginst
-intemperance, is a hull lot of drinkin’ places. As if they calculate to
-keep right on a-tormentin’ even his statute.
-
-But they’ve no need to try it, good old creeter! He himself has
-got beyend the toil and the heart-aches caused by others’ sin and
-weaknesses.
-
-He has got to the place where he is not plagued and heart-broken by the
-sight of that sin and folly, for what duz it say--
-
-“There are no drunkards there.”
-
-Good old soul!
-
-Keep on a-sellin’ your accursed stuff right under the marble nose of
-his statute if you want to, or pour whiskey over it, you can’t git nigh
-to him, this hero, this martyr, who give his life, and has now found it
-in glory.
-
-But to resoom.
-
-Wall, the next mornin’ we sot off in a carriage for Killarney.
-
-There wuz some sort of a meetin’ that day, and the bells wuz a-ringin’
-as we rode along.
-
-Mebby amongst ’em wuz the Bells of Shandon.
-
-I shouldn’t wonder; I sort o’ listened to the sound of ’em with my
-soul, but I d’no as I could recognize ’em so’s to tell ’em from the
-other bells.
-
-Our souls hain’t learnt our mortal ears yet, as it would love to, as it
-will in the futer.
-
-But it seemed as though I could hear as we rode along the Bells of
-Shandon.
-
-And thoughts of what I’d seen in a face the day before kinder chimed in
-with the sweet, melancholy sounds.
-
-As it happened, Al Faizi sot by me, and I, a-feelin’ that I had a duty
-to do, and a-layin’ out to do it if I got a chance, I kinder brung the
-conversation round to Alice; and as I spoke of her sweetness and charm,
-the strangest look come into his eyes you ever see, and he sez to me,
-jest as though I wuz a-beholdin’ his secret thoughts onbeknown to
-him--“I have a vow--I am wedded to the cause of truth.”
-
-He said it with a deep shadder settlin’ down over his glowin’ eyes. And
-then with Duty and Pity a-bolsterin’ me up on both sides, I sez--
-
-“Alice is engaged to another feller.”
-
-He looked full at me as curous a look as I ever see in my life--what
-did I see in his eyes, or ruther what didn’t I see? I see Religion,
-Devotion, Deathless Human Love, warm, glowin’, eager Renunciation, Pity
-for himself (I could see plain that he wuz sorry for himself--sorry as
-a dog), Eager Zeal, Pity for the hull world layin’ in wickedness.
-
-It wuz a strange look.
-
-And I never said anythin’ to him, only the look I gin him in answer,
-where deep pity and admiration and respect blended about half and half.
-And a motherly look of full comprehension and sympathy a-shinin’ out
-a-tellin’ him that I knew all, and pitied all, and would never tell
-anybody what I knew.
-
-We had volumes of conversation in jest them two looks, and no one wuz
-the wiser--I told nobody.
-
-But, indeed, this secret knowledge added a ingregient of as deep
-curosity as wuz ever carried round by a menagerie as a side show, for
-me to transport round from place to place, or wherever we pitched our
-tent on our tower.
-
-Yes, truly, things wuz in as curous a state as I ever see, so fur as
-the affections and sech wuz concerned.
-
-Alice a-bein’ wropped up in the thoughts of her feller, and her father
-a-bein’ determined to not let her so much as think on him.
-
-Al Faizi wropped up in Alice, speakin’ to nobody only in the soul
-language of the eye, anon or oftener, and nobody but me a-knowin’ it,
-but I a-knowin’ it for certain.
-
-Alice a-bein’ adored by a heathen!
-
-Queer feelin’s it gin me and queerer still to read in that heathen’s
-eyes the knowledge that she had nothin’ to fear from him--she would
-never have even an appeal to her pity in futer days.
-
-As she sot by her husband’s side a-holdin’ a baby’s head on her bosom,
-she would never look down into its sweet eyes and think with pity of
-lonely, despairin’ eyes that wuz facin’ a lonely, empty futer.
-
-No; that heroic soul kep’ its own secrets. Why, you can be a hero in
-anything--even boots and galluses, and sech, if you bear pinchin’ from
-’em without complaint (Josiah never could, he groaned audibly and
-frequent unless his galluses wuz jest right).
-
-And Adrian, a happy little soul, pleased with everything, and
-a-praisin’ himself up jest as calm as he did castles and cathedrals,
-and jest as innocent.
-
-And Martin a-bearin’ himself up with dignity, near-sighted as ever when
-it come to recognizin’ American bores and curous tourists.
-
-And Josiah and I in our usual attitude of rapt devotion to each other,
-which is our two most striking traits (a good deal of the time they be).
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-KILLARNEY, DUBLIN, AND A WAKE.
-
-
-Martin said that he wouldn’t for the world have folks ask him if he had
-visited the Lakes of Killarney, and have to say no.
-
-And I believe that thought kep’ him up through all the long day’s
-journey and the two nights and one day we spent there.
-
-I don’t believe he had any deeper feelin’s and more riz up ones when he
-looked at them three beautiful lakes, with the mountains a-standin’ up
-all round ’em with bare heads.
-
-Yes, you’d think them old mountains had took their green caps off and
-wuz lookin’ down on ’em with deep reverence and respect. They wuz so
-exquisitely beautiful.
-
-[Illustration: Three beautiful lakes.]
-
-But Martin, mebby, can’t be expected to be as riz up and as elevated as
-them peaks; anyway, he acted out his nater, which wuz to see everything
-he could see, to stand round with his hands in his pockets if he felt
-like it, or if he wuz kinder tired, to lean back and shet up his eyes
-and rest and have his body dragged along through the places, so’s he
-could say he had been in ’em.
-
-And Al Faizi acted out his nater, which wuz to stand like a devotee
-before a shrine as the beauty of them seens busted onto him.
-
-And in noticin’ that the rich, highly cultivated lower lands layin’
-about the lakes wuz all fenced in with high walls, and that one or two
-men owned hundreds and thousands of acres, sacred to the use of some
-animals they wanted to hunt down for pleasure once or twice durin’ the
-year, while hundreds and thousands of poor human bein’s wuz starvin’
-all round the borders of these immense estates.
-
-Livin’ in miserable, rotten cabins, so poor that one of these rich men
-would not think of lettin’ one of his beasts stay in ’em for a night.
-Immortal souls for whom Christ died hungry, starvin’ for a crust and
-dyin’ for a bit of the luxury that wuz wasted upon dumb brutes.
-
-In noticin’ this, Martin sithed to think that them men wuzn’t to home,
-so that he could call on ’em.
-
-He said that he would love to say that he had met ’em.
-
-But Al Faizi, after askin’ all he could about the estates of the two or
-three wealthy men and the thousands of starvin’ ones round ’em, looked
-dretful thoughtful, and took out his little book with the cross and
-star on’t and writ a lot in it.
-
-And Martin spoke of its bein’ jest as bad in the north of Scotland,
-where the Crofters can hardly git enough food to keep from starvin’.
-And they live in sech huts as no man would keep his animals in.
-
-Big families of boys and girls huddled together like pigs in one small
-room, with a open fireplace in the middle, with no chimney and no ruff,
-nothin’ but rotten straw; the smoke blindin’ their eyes, and nothin’ to
-eat hardly.
-
-And as miserable as this hovel is, the landlord is liable to turn
-’em out at any time to make room for happier and better cared-for
-animals--sheep, deer, etc., etc.
-
-As Al Faizi hearn this his face looked sad and thoughtful, and he wrote
-down quick a good deal in that little book of hisen.
-
-I think Martin liked it. He thought he wuz takin’ notes of his
-conversation, and he felt big over it, but I don’t believe it wuz
-anything personal that Al Faizi writ. I believe it wuz sunthin’ as deep
-as jestice and as pure as love and pity that he wuz a-writin’ about;
-anyhow, his face wuz a study as I watched it. There wuz indignation in
-it and pity and love, and another look, that I felt instinctively wuz
-a-lookin’ forrered to jedgment.
-
-Lookin’ forrered not many years to the time when things would be
-different.
-
-Wall, we stayed there and went round part of the way in boats, and part
-of the way in wagons all of the next day, a-lookin’ at the beautiful
-gems of lakes in their settin’s of richest emerald, and in little walks
-about the country, and in comparin’ the heights of luxury to the depths
-of squalor and misery.
-
-Not fur from here wuz the cottage where Kate Kearney used to live. You
-know who she wuz, I spoze.
-
-    “For did you not hear of Kate Kearney?
-    She lives on the banks of Killarney;
-      From the glance of her eye
-      Shun peril and fly,
-    For fatal’s the glance of Kate Kearney.”
-
-Whether he flew from her I d’no, but presoom he didn’t, men are so sot
-in these things.
-
-Peril and danger hain’t a-goin’ to make ’em fly from a pretty
-woman--no, indeed!
-
-In the lower lake, on an island, wuz the ruins of a big castle,
-picturesque and ivy-covered. It wuz owned by the O’Donohues. And the
-boatman said that every seven years the chief of the O’Donohues come
-back for a night to see his castle.
-
-I thought to myself, mebby he come oftener than that, but didn’t say
-a word, not wantin’ to do anything to either make or break a legend
-hundreds of years old.
-
-Wall, we wuz a-layin’ out to leave there the next mornin’, but Martin,
-by his pryin’ round, found that there wuz a-goin’ to be a wake that
-night in a cabin not fur from the tarvern where we wuz a-stayin’, and
-by payin’ some money--I d’no how much--he got a chance to attend to it,
-and he said that Josiah and I could go if we wanted to. He told me he
-didn’t spoze that Al Faizi would care about goin’, and he wanted Alice
-and Adrian to rest, for the next mornin’ early we wuz to set out for
-Dublin.
-
-But I thanked him real polite, and told him that “I would stay with the
-children.”
-
-And afterwards, seein’ that Al Faizi wanted to go, them three men sot
-off.
-
-A old man had passed away, and they wuz a-makin’ a great wake for him.
-
-They didn’t stay long, for they said that the whiskey and drinkin’ and
-tobacco-smokin’ in the little hovel drove ’em out.
-
-[Illustration: Drinkin’ and tobacco-smokin’ in the little hovel drove
-’em out.]
-
-But Martin observed complacently that he would be glad to say that he
-had been to a real Irish Wake.
-
-Al Faizi spoke of the old wimmen wailers, and said that they had
-jest sech professional mourners in Egypt and parts of Africa, and he
-wondered quite a good deal how that custom come way off here in this
-fur-off Ireland, but he spozed that it wuz in some way brought here
-from the East. Mebby it come down from them old days nobody knows
-anything about, of which relics remains in them old round towers, etc.
-So old nobody knows who built ’em, or what for.
-
-He wondered a good deal, but didn’t take out that book of hisen with
-the star and cross on’t. No, he writ in another book with a plain
-Russia leather cover on’t.
-
-My pardner restrained himself until the others had departed to their
-couches, but I see that he wuz fearful agitated and excited.
-
-And sez he, the minute they went out--
-
-“I tell you, Samantha, it wuz a excitin’ seen, and,” sez he, “what a
-excitement it would make in Jonesville if we should have one!” Sez he
-dreamily--
-
-“Uncle Nate Bentley is over ninety; there might be one arranged easy.”
-
-Sez I, “Josiah Allen, don’t you go to lookin’ forrered to any sech
-doin’s!”
-
-“Why?” sez he; “if I should leave you, you could probble git the Widder
-Lummis up to Zoar and Drusilla Bentley to wail for a little or nothin’.”
-
-Sez I, “Josiah Allen, no widder or old maid is a-goin’ to wail over you
-by my hirin’ ’em to; if they wail, it will be at their own expense.
-
-“You will have one true mourner, Josiah Allen, whose grief will be
-too deep and heartfelt to display it before a crowd, with whiskey and
-tobacco as accessories.”
-
-“Oh! I didn’t expect you’d have any drinkin’ or smokin’. I knew your
-principles too well. They might smoke a little catnip, or sunthin’ of
-that sort, or pass round some lemonade.”
-
-Sez I, “There will be nothin’ of the kind done, Josiah Allen.”
-
-But he sprunted up and sez, “You seem to be settlin’ things all your
-own way. I should think that I ort to have some say in it. Whose
-funeral is it, I’d like to know, we’re talkin’ about?”
-
-But I sez, “I don’t want to hear another word of sech talk, and I
-won’t.” And I riz up and sallied off to bed, and in sweet slumber that
-man soon forgot all his stylish ambitions.
-
-Wall, the next day we sot off to Dublin, and havin’ arrived there
-with no casualities worth mentionin’, we settled down in a good-sized
-tarvern, and after a little rest we meandered around to see the sights
-of the place.
-
-Martin said that he wanted to visit the great manafacturys where Irish
-Poplin is made, as he had some friends who wuz interested in that
-trade, and that it would be expected of him.
-
-And I then mentioned to Josiah, seein’ that he wuz right here at the
-headquarters, perhaps it would be best for me to buy a gray poplin
-dress. I knew it would last like iron.
-
-But Josiah said with deep earnestness, that if I only knew how much
-better he liked my old gray parmetty dress to home I never would speak
-on’t. Sez he, “You look perfectly beautiful in it, and there is so
-many associations connected with it.”
-
-Sez I, “I should think there would be, seein’ I’ve worn it stiddy for
-upwards of eighteen years without alterin’ it.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “it is a perfect beauty, and you look lovely in it.”
-
-He hadn’t been so complimentary to me for upwards of fourteen years,
-and I wuz touched by it, and gin up the thought of gittin’ a new dress.
-
-Oh! how many, many wimmen have done the same thing under the same
-circumstances.
-
-But the numerous shops wuz full of the loveliest goods of all kinds,
-and politer creeters than them clerks I don’t want to see.
-
-St. Patrick’s Cathedral wuz of course one of the first places we
-visited. They say that this wuz built, in the first place, by St.
-Patrick himself about fourteen hundred years ago, but if that wuz so,
-I thought St. Patrick would feel sorry for the filth and wretchedness
-that surrounded the meetin’-house up to the very door.
-
-There wuz a magnificent carved marble sarcophagus of Archbishop
-Whateley, with his own marble figger stretched out on top of it.
-
-And a monument to that kinder queer, kinder mean, smart chap, Swift,
-and a tablet to poor Stella, who would a-done better if she had
-married some other feller, mebby not so smart, but better natered and
-a better provider.
-
-Poor creeter, I’m sorry for her!
-
-There wuz lots of other interestin’ monuments and memorials, but Time
-and Martin wuz in a hurry, so we did not delay.
-
-We visited Trinity College, the castle, the beautiful part of the city
-where the rich folks lived, and the Liberties, where it seemed as if
-all the liberty the poor creeters had wuz the liberty to be jest as
-poor and degraded and nasty as they could be.
-
-There wuz beautiful parks, one on ’em over eighteen hundred acres in
-it, full of beauty, and we see lots of statutes, erected to the great
-men who had been born in Dublin--the Duke of Wellington, the great
-orator, Daniel O’Connell, etc.
-
-The monument to Nelson, the hero of the Nile, is one hundred and ten
-feet high before he stands up on it, and he is 11 feet high.
-
-He is in a sightly place.
-
-If his sperit comes back in some still moonlight night, and looks
-over the world with him, I wonder if it ever looks over the mistakes
-he made? I wonder if the beautiful Lady Hamilton ever comes into its
-thoughts?
-
-She hain’t got any monument.
-
-I wonder if he’s sorry for it, that he stands up so high and she so low
-in the opinion of people--so low, when once he felt it his greatest
-glory and happiness to kneel at her feet?
-
-But such surmises are futile, futiler than there’s any need on.
-
-To resoom.
-
-Charles Lever, the novelist, wuz born in Dublin, and so wuz Tom Moore.
-
-We went to the birthplace of Moore.
-
-It wuz a common-lookin’ buildin’, though it had a bust of the poet in
-front up between the winders.
-
-The lower part of the house wuz used as a grocery store, and Josiah
-himself proposed that we should buy here some little souvenir of the
-poet.
-
-I wuz dumbfoundered. I never knew him to propose any outlay of the kind
-before, and I sez as much.
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “I knew you wuz always wantin’ to buy sunthin’ to
-remember sech romantic places by, and I thought here would be a good
-chance.”
-
-I wuz so touched by his thoughtfulness that I sez--“Dear Josiah, what
-had you got it into your head to buy?”
-
-And he said that he thought a few crackers and a little cheese and a
-herrin’ or two would be as good as anything.
-
-“Did you mean to keep ’em, Josiah?” sez I, for a dark suspicion swept
-over me.
-
-And he owned up that he layed out to nibble on ’em a little on the way
-back to the hotel.
-
-I see right through it, and I didn’t fall in with his overtoor.
-Somehow, herrin’s and cheese seemed incongrous with Lally Rooks, and
-Peris, and Paradises, and I told him so.
-
-And he sez, “Dum it all, they had to eat in Paradise if they kep’
-alive, and,” sez he, “a Peri, if she knew anything, wouldn’t object to
-a slice of good cheese and some soda crackers.”
-
-So I told him that if he wanted sunthin’ to eat to buy it; but, sez
-I, “never veneer a selfish thought with the fine gold of romance and
-tender memories.”
-
-And he said that he didn’t want nothin’ to do with varnish of any kind,
-he wanted some cheese and crackers. So he bought a few, I guess; I
-didn’t watch him.
-
-I myself wuz quite took up with lookin’ round the place, sanctified by
-genius of a certain kind, and I murmured almost onbeknown to myself the
-words I had hearn Tirzah Ann repeat. She always loved Moore fur better
-than Thomas J. did. Though Thomas J. thought well enough on him, but
-Tirzah Ann used to rehearse and sing him by the hour, so in spite of
-myself I had learnt lots of his poetry by heart.
-
-And as I looked round the room I found myself entirely onbeknown to
-myself a-hummin’ over the “Last Rose of Summer,” and the “Meetin’ of
-the Waters,” and the “Harp that once through Tara’s Halls.”
-
-That last one Tirzah Ann ust to sing a sight, and I always liked to
-hear it, though I never got it into my head jest who Mr. Tara wuz, or
-what line of business he wuz in.
-
-Wall, knowin’ that Tirzah Ann would prize it so high, I bought some
-choclate drops of candy to take home to her.
-
-They wuz as sweet as Moore’s poetry, and softer, some.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI.
-
-JOSIAH AS A BANSHEE.
-
-
-Wall, Martin said that he should probble be asked if he had visited the
-Giant’s Causeway, so he thought we had better proceed to it to once. So
-we went directly from Dublin to Port Rush. We stayed there all night,
-and the next day we all went out on the electric car, for Martin said
-that he wanted Adrian to go, for in futer years he would probble be
-asked if he had been there. Adrian wuz tired out and didn’t want to
-go--he wuz real cross about it.
-
-Alice told her Pa that Adrian said that he wouldn’t look at anything if
-he went, but Martin said that it would be better for him to go, even if
-he didn’t see anything, for then he could say that he had been there.
-So we all sot off--the way we went wuz a perfect sight and wonder in
-itself, for what power do you spoze it wuz that rolled the wheels that
-took us onwards?
-
-It wuz all done by a waterfall at Bush Mills, a few milds away. The
-water that poured down from the hills is harnessed, as you may say, and
-made to carry us along.
-
-Queer, hain’t it? And shows that you never can tell what will happen to
-you in the futer.
-
-Why, if anybody had told them little free, sparklin’ rivulets that leap
-along up in the hills, foamin’ and chatterin’ of liberty and freedom,
-and sech--if anybody had throwed it into their bright, sparklin’ faces
-that they wuz a-goin’ to be ketched and tackled up with some kind of
-riggin’ and carry Josiah Allen’s Wife and her pardner, and the world at
-large, them rivulets would have resented it--they would have laughed
-and gurgled and swept on indifferent and onbelievin’.
-
-But so it wuz, they had to come to it.
-
-And after they got broke in they didn’t seem to mind it, for they bore
-us on so smooth and easy and noiseless, that it wuz a perfect treat.
-
-No steamin’, no smokin’--they learnt that up in the hills. It wuz a
-comfort to ride after ’em.
-
-And we had nothin’ to hender us from thinkin’ of the Giants and talkin’
-about ’em.
-
-Josiah said that he had always approved of giants, and that he would
-love to see one or two of ’em.
-
-Adrian didn’t git real reconciled to goin’ till after we got started,
-then he got real excited, and got the idee that we wuz goin’ to see
-Jack the Giant Killer, and asked me quite a number of questions about
-it.
-
-Runnin’ sunthin’ like this--How big wuz the Giants, and where did they
-come from, and what wuz their names, and how long did it take ’em to
-build the Causeway, and--
-
-“What is the Causeway made of?”
-
-“Of rocks.”
-
-“What are the rocks made of, and who made the rocks, and when were they
-made, and how, and what for?”
-
-Good land! I wuz tuckered out, and told him I guessed I would look out
-of the winder a spell and take the air.
-
-And then he wanted to know what air wuz made of, and who made it, and
-if there wuzn’t any air out of the winder if I could make some air.
-
-He didn’t ask so many questions as a general thing--he seemed to be
-kinder fractious that day. Poor little creeter, he wuz tired out, and I
-knew it, and I encouraged him to kinder lean up aginst me and take all
-the rest and comfort he could.
-
-Alice wuz real happy. She’d got some letters that mornin’, and two big
-ones wuz in one handwritin’--I knew it. She read ’em over two or three
-times in the train.
-
-Al Faizi looked at her as she read ’em, and his face looked queer--he
-see the glow on her face, and I see that, like the sun, that bright
-light could cast a shadder. Sunshine and shadder, how they chase across
-the landscape of life! How clost they foller each other! What strange
-picters they make! What thoughts they give!
-
-But to resoom--we got to the Causeway in pretty good season, and we
-found it wuz a sight, a sight.
-
-It is made of high round columns, or pillows, and you can walk on it
-jest as you could on the walk Josiah made out to the hen-house out of
-bricks sot long end up.
-
-But this Giants’ walk is fur, fur immenser than Josiah’s. It is so
-extremely big that they say the Giants built it. It runs out into the
-sea in a kind of a curous shape, and is a sight to behold.
-
-I thought I wouldn’t go and see the caves that wuz nigh there. You had
-to go to ’em in a boat--and as I looked on that boat, and considered
-the size on’t, and then subtracted the size of it from the bigness of
-the Atlantic Ocean, I gin up that I wouldn’t tackle it.
-
-I had done some of my multiplyin’ and subtractin’ out loud, onbeknown
-to me, and Josiah hearn me, and said he guessed he wouldn’t go. He
-looked round the Heavens and earth as if to find a suitable excuse, and
-finally he sez--
-
-“It seems so kinder muggy to-day, I guess I won’t go, though I should
-enjoy the trip immensely if it wuzn’t for the clost atmosphere.”
-
-Wall, I wuz glad to have him gin it up on any account.
-
-Al Faizi didn’t seem to care about goin’, nor Alice, nor Adrian.
-
-But Martin said that he wouldn’t want it to be said that he hadn’t
-visited the caves.
-
-So he sot off with a couple of boatmen.
-
-There wuz a dretful sort of a heavey look to the Atlantic, and I wuz
-glad that I didn’t venter, for I felt truly that the Giants, if they
-ever heard on’t, would make allowances for my feelin’s in not dastin’
-to venter out on the Atlantic in a boat.
-
-As it turned out, glad enough wuz I that there didn’t none of the rest
-on us go, for there come up a sudden squall right when Martin wuz in
-the cave, and they had to hurry out for their lives. The rough waves
-wuz a-washin’ the boat up aginst them hard pillows of stun, and they
-wuz in sech danger of their lives that the boatmen had to jump out on
-the rocks the best way they could, and haul Martin, more dead than
-alive, up over the rocks.
-
-[Illustration: Drippin’ wet when he come back.]
-
-He wuz drippin’ wet when he come back to the hotel, and I sez, “Martin,
-how sorry I am you ventered out there!”
-
-And he sez, with his teeth a-chatterin’ and the water a-drippin’ off of
-him, that he wasn’t sorry, for a friend of hisen, a very rich and very
-influential man, had been caught in jest the same way.
-
-And he gin me to understand that he anticipated a great treat in
-talkin’ over the experience with him.
-
-Wall, there is sunthin’ in that--there is comfort in talkin’ over past
-troubles and dangers, and I couldn’t dispute it.
-
-But I sez: “For mercy sakes! do change your clothes and git dried off.”
-
-But he hadn’t any other clothes with him, and the upshot of it wuz, he
-had to go to bed while his clothes wuz dryin’.
-
-But Josiah wuz sorry for him, and blamed himself for not thinkin’ to
-bring along his dressin’-gown. Sez he, “I wouldn’t think of lendin’ it
-on a common occasion, but,” sez he, lookin’ round on sech big work as
-the Giants had done there, sez he, “I wouldn’t want to act small, and
-refuse to let Martin put it on for an hour or two.”
-
-Wall, as soon as Martin wuz dried off, we sot sail back to Port Rush,
-and it wuz there that night that I had a severe trial and fright.
-
-We had had a good supper, and Josiah had eat more than wuz good for
-him, I believe, and drinked too much coffee.
-
-He is used to tea at night, but bein’ so wore out and kinder chilly,
-Martin ordered strong coffee.
-
-And I believe that coffee wuz to the bottom of our trials that night.
-
-Bein’ kinder fagged out, Martin had gone to his room early, and the
-rest had follered his example, and my pardner and I had also sought the
-seclusion of our quiet bedroom.
-
-And I immegiately and to once begun my preperations for slumber.
-
-I onfolded my nightgown and laid it over a chair and ondone my
-sheepshead night-cap, and mekanically went to sort of flutin’ the
-border between my fingers, as I sot there, and I begun to feel real
-drowsy.
-
-But Josiah didn’t seem to be sleepy a mite. He had donned that
-dressin’-gown of hisen and tied the strings in a large bow-knot, that
-showed off the red tossels to the best advantage, and walked 2 and fro
-several times, and seemed to look and act real sentimental. He has sech
-spells--I guess all men do at times. And finally he leaned back in a
-big arm-chair and kinder hummed over some tunes--not sech tunes as I
-would approve of his singin’, but some songs--such as “Ben Bolt,” and
-“Lorena,” and “She’s all my Fancy painted Her.”
-
-And finally he broke out quite loud a-singin’--
-
-    “‘I’ll chase the antelope over the plains,
-        The tiger’s cub I’ll’--
-
-“What is it, Samantha, that he said he’d do to the tiger’s cub--‘with a
-chain’?”
-
-Sez I, “Choke it, mebby--I presoom he’d be skairt enough to want to.”
-
-“No; it wuz sunthin’ like harnessin’, Samantha. Do you know what it is?
-It comes right in the turn of the tune, and it hampers me to forgit it.”
-
-And then he begun agin--
-
-    “‘The tiger’s cub I’ll _tie_ with a chain--
-    I’ll tackle with a chain’--
-
-“No, that hain’t it--‘tie’ hain’t the word--
-
-    “‘The tiger’s cub I’ll, folderol, with a chain.’”
-
-He made the turn and went on to the next line--
-
-    “‘And the wild gazelle, with its silvery feet,
-    I’ll get thee for a playmate, sweet.’”
-
-Sez he, “I’ve got it all but that one word, and that--that will come to
-me,” sez he.
-
-Sez he, “I feel like singin’ to-night, Samantha.”
-
-“Sing!” sez I in icy axents; “I’d call it singin’, if I wuz you.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “if I dast to let my voice out, you’d hear singin’,
-but it would wake ’em all up. My voice is powerful, and I feel in full
-voice to-night.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “I’m glad that sunthin’ holds you back.
-
-“And,” sez I, “I am beat out and I am goin’ to bed.”
-
-And so I got ready and went to bed.
-
-The rest wuz all asleep, so I spozed.
-
-Wall, I fell asleep most the first thing, and I d’no how long I’d
-slept, when I hearn a knockin’ at my door, and I got up, and Alice
-stood there, white and tremblin’.
-
-[Illustration: Alice stood there, white and tremblin’.]
-
-“The Banshee!” sez she in tremblin’ tones; “I saw it myself, and heard
-it.”
-
-Sez she, “You know this is the very part of Ireland where they have
-them.”
-
-Sez I, “You’d been a-thinkin’ of ’em and imagined it.”
-
-“No, indeed!” sez she; “I was just falling asleep when I heard those
-awful wails of distress, and I got up and went to father’s room, which
-is next to mine, and he got up and looked out of the window, and he saw
-it and heard it too.” Sez she, “You know the Banshee always appears
-before some dreadful trouble comes to a family, and it seems as if
-it is meant for us, for it is only a little ways off.” Sez she, “You
-and Uncle Josiah get up and come into my room, and you can see it for
-yourselves.”
-
-At them words there seemed to come to me a realizin’ sense of my
-surroundin’s; bein’ jest waked up with news of a ghost, I’d overlooked
-the fact of my companion’s absence.
-
-But I sez, “I will come, Alice. Your Uncle Josiah has probble heard it,
-and gone out to investigate.”
-
-So I throwed on my flannel wrapper and slipped on my shoes and put my
-breakfast shawl round me and went into Alice’s room. There we found
-Martin wrapped in his Pegama, or whatever they call it.
-
-Alice’s winder commanded a better view than hisen, and he stood
-motionless by the winder.
-
-Al Faizi and Adrian wuz in the other side of the house, and so wuz the
-rest of the folks. These two rooms wuz kinder built out on the side by
-themselves.
-
-Sez I, “Martin, you don’t believe anythin’ of this kind, do you?”
-
-But Alice spoke up before he could answer, “Why, at Dunluce Castle that
-we saw to-day there is a Banshee that always foretells death to the
-family, and they have them all over Ireland.”
-
-Sez I, advancin’ towards the winder, “You don’t believe anythin’ of
-this kind, do you, Martin?”
-
-He answered evasively, “There is something dreadful queer-looking down
-there across the road--it is standing still now, but it has been giving
-the most blood-curdling sounds and wails that I ever heard.”
-
-“Yes,” sez Alice, “the Banshee always gives those same terrific
-screeches and harrowing yells. I know it is a Banshee, and it is for
-us, father, for it appeared to us.”
-
-And she commenced to cry. I guess her first thought was of somebody
-that wuz in her mind the hull of the time.
-
-Sez I, “Hush up, Alice--I don’t believe anything of the kind.”
-
-But as I looked out, follerin’ Martin’s solemn and silent pint, I did
-see a sight that made the cold chills run down my back in spite of
-myself, and goose pimples gathered freely down my shoulder blades.
-
-I see a dark figger a-standin’ up on a little rock that riz up there
-above the rest of the ground; it stood motionless, and, indeed, it
-looked skairful. And onbeknown to myself I sez--“For the land’s sake!
-what is it?”
-
-[Illustration: A dark figger a-standin’ up on a little rock.]
-
-My own voice wuz tremolous with fear, and Alice see it, and cried
-harder than ever. And Martin sez--
-
-“You ought to have heard the terrific screams the thing gave if you
-want to be scared--seeing it isn’t nothing at all to hearing it.
-
-“And,” sez he, “I’ll go and call up the hotel-keeper and find out what
-it is. Maybe it is a lunatic broken out of some asylum. I am going to
-know something about who and what it is.”
-
-But jest at this minute the creeter broke out in one of its wild cries,
-and Martin and Alice shuddered, and sez he, “Did you ever in your life
-hear anything so awful?”
-
-And Alice sez, “I cannot bear it, Aunt Samantha. It is too terrible.”
-
-But there wuz to me sunthin’ familiar in the sound, and I lifted the
-sash, and the words come in plain--
-
-              “Bind with a chain!
-    The tiger’s cub I’ll _bind_ with a chain
-    And the wild gazelle”--etc., etc.
-
-Sez I, “It is my own pardner with his dressin’-gown on, and a-singin’.”
-
-The words Martin said then I won’t never tell--no, indeed! besides the
-wickedness on ’em, it wuz too humiliatin’ to hear ’em applied to my own
-pardner. “Fool” wuz the last one of the three, and “The” wuz the first
-one, but I will not tell the middle word--you can’t make me.
-
-Alice went to laughin’ (partly hysterics); she felt dretful relieved,
-and as the figger seemed now to be aproachin’ the house, I went back
-into my room, into which it soon entered in a gay and jaunty manner.
-
-He had been enjoyin’ himself first-rate, and sez he--
-
-“Wall, Samantha, I’ve found the word, and I’ve been a-singin’;” sez he,
-“I sung the verse all over, and it sounded beautiful, and then I stood
-still a spell, and all of a sudden the right word come to me. It wuz
-‘bind,’” sez he.
-
-Sez I coldly, “You’ve skairt a woman almost into fits and made a
-church-member and a relation swear like a pirate.” Sez I, “I’ve seen
-you took for lots of things, Josiah Allen, from first to last, but I
-never thought I should ever live to see the day to see you took for a
-ghost--a Banshee. A common ghost would sound as good agin as that.”
-And I went on and related the facts. He acted mad and puggilistic like,
-and sez he--“I can’t help folks from makin’ dum fools of themselves.”
-
-Sez I, “I wish you’d kep’ yourself from it.”
-
-Sez he, “It is a pity if a man can’t sing a little durin’ the evenin’
-without his folks actin’ like perfect fools!”
-
-“Sing!” sez I; “I wonder how many more episodes you’ll have to go
-through without your learnin’ the truth about what you call your
-singin’.” Sez I, “You can’t sing, Josiah Allen, any more than a cow
-can play on the melodian, and I’ve told you so often enough for you to
-believe it.”
-
-“Wall, wall,” sez he, “it’s time to go to bed. When a man is
-a-travellin’ with a hull crew of loonaticks and fools, it stands him in
-hand to git what little rest he can, nights.”
-
-That man wuz ashamed of his conduct, and I knew it.
-
-Mortification works out sometimes in jest that way. It gaulded him to
-be took for a Banshee, for I hearn him mutter the word two or three
-times scornfully, as he wuz a-ondressin’.
-
-Sez he, “A Banshee!!! Dum fools!!! I’d love to be one a spell--I’d show
-’em some screechin’!”
-
-He didn’t mean me to overhear him, but I did, and I sez calmly from my
-piller--
-
-“You needn’t blame yourself, Josiah Allen; there hain’t a Banshee in
-Ireland but what would be proud to mate with you after hearin’ you
-to-night--there hain’t one on ’em that could outdo you.”
-
-“Keep on your aggravatin’,” sez he, and he didn’t say another word for
-as much as three minutes, when he begun to complain of bein’ chilly.
-
-And I took alarm to once, and made him some hot lemonade--I had the
-ingregiences, and a alcohol lamp with me.
-
-And I folded up my woollen shawl, and tucked him all up in it, and
-spoke real soothin’ to him, and affectionate. For sech is the mystery
-of human love, though pardners may mortify you, or anger you, yet
-their sufferin’ or danger shows how strong are the ties that bind two
-lovin’ hearts--nothin’ can break it. He answered me back in the same
-affectionate way, though terse, but showin’ the tender regard he had
-for my welfare. Sez he--
-
-“For mercy sake, do come to bed! your feet will be as cold as ice
-suckles.”
-
-And so sweet peace havin’ descended down onto us, we wuz both soon
-wropped in slumber.
-
-Wall, Martin concluded that we would go as soon as we could to
-Glasgow, “For,” sez he, “I feel that we have seen everything that there
-is to see in Ireland, and gone to the bottom, as you may say, of the
-‘Irish Question.’ So we might just as well go to Scotland as soon as
-might be.”
-
-So we proceeded to Glasgow, partly by train and partly by steamboat.
-
-Martin talked comfortably agin, on the train, of havin’ seen everything
-in Ireland, and of havin’ gone to the bottom of the “Irish Question.”
-“For,” sez he, “the land is governed admirably--splendid standing
-army, admirable police force, and as for the people,” sez he, “in good
-seasons, statistics show that there is half a ton of potatoes to each
-person. More than I consume,” sez he complacently, leanin’ back with
-his fingers in his vest pockets.
-
-Sez I, “Mebby you’d consume more potatoes if you didn’t consume nothin’
-else.” Sez I, “You take out your fowls, and fish, and beef, and lamb,
-and puddin’s, and pastry, etc., etc., etc., and eat nothin’ but clear
-potatoes, and how many do you spoze you’d consume, and how much comfort
-do you spoze you’d take consumin’ ’em?”
-
-He looked lofty, and sez he: “That isn’t a parallel case.”
-
-“And,” sez I, “when the potato crop failed, what then?”
-
-Agin he sez, “That isn’t a parallel case.”
-
-Sez I, “Parallel to what?”
-
-And he said, “Don’t you want the window shut awhile? Let me put your
-shawl round you; it is a little chilly.”
-
-And then he went on talkin’ to Alice as fast as he could about the
-seenery, and I wuz too well bread to say anything more.
-
-But I see that Al Faizi had took out his little book with the jewelled
-cross on it, and he wuz writin’ in it.
-
-And from the way the light from above fell on it as he held it, the
-rays streamed out from the jewelled cross some like the flashin’ rays
-from a sword.
-
-He had spoke to me before about the wretchedness and beggary of the
-people, and expressed wonder that one or two men should own hundreds
-of thousands of acres and keep it for idle pleasure grounds, while all
-round were men who couldn’t, no matter how sober and industrious they
-might be, buy enough land to build a shed on.
-
-He had looked dreamy and strange while he talked it over, but, as
-his usual way wuz, he didn’t blame nothin’ nor nobody--that wuz the
-difference between me and him.
-
-He would seem to ask about and find out about things, and then jest
-write ’em down in that book of hisen. His face a-lookin’ calm a most
-all the time, but dretful earnest and deep and sorrowful, a good part
-of the time. His writin’ wuzn’t nothin’ hard, I don’t believe, but
-comparin’ the doin’s here with the things in his own land, I spoze.
-
-I had noticed that he had wrote down quite a good deal after he had
-hearn this conversation on Home Rule, and how for hundreds of years a
-brave people had tried to git the rule of their own land. Not always
-makin’ wise efforts, I spoze, but brave ones every time, and how the
-grand old man in England had stood up for ’em aginst his own folks.
-
-I see Al Faizi had writ down quite a considerable, a-praisin’
-Gladstone, for all I know. He never told what he writ down or drawed
-our attention to it, no more than the sun duz as it photographs the
-pictures of the bendin’ trees and the flowers on the earth beneath.
-Jest duz it, and that’s all.
-
-The sun and Al Faizi did. That’s where I differed some--I talked
-more. Wimmen do have to talk once in a while--they’re made so, I
-guess, onbeknown to ’em. And I said quite a good deal aloud and found
-considerable fault, though I meant not to be too hard on either side.
-
-There’s always two sides to every story. Ireland hain’t always right, I
-don’t spoze, no more’n England. When two men git to fightin’ back and
-forth, there must be some fault on both sides before they git through,
-anyway, sech as swearin’, kickin’, etc., etc., etc.
-
-I hain’t got nothin’ agin Queen Victoria, and she knows I hain’t. The
-Widder Albert is a good woman and a good calculator, and has brung up
-her children well, and has laid up for ’em.
-
-And if ever any woman wuz a mourner for a pardner, she’s been and is
-now.
-
-But I can’t think she duz jest right in this case, not to let the Irish
-people rule their own country. It stands to reason that Josiah and I
-wouldn’t want Deacon Gowdy to rule our house and farm, though he’s a
-real likely man and a brother in the same meetin’ house, and a good
-calculator.
-
-But even if we didn’t do quite so well, we would ruther tend to our own
-house and affairs--everybody would. And I laid out to talk to Victoria
-on the subject the first time I had a real set-down visit with her.
-
-[Illustration: I laid out to talk to Victoria on the subject.]
-
-And then if Deacon Gowdy took all the money he could rake and scrape
-out of us, and spent it all on his own place, that would mad us, too.
-
-And like as not if he kep’ Josiah and me down so poor that we wuz most
-starved, and he should try to turn us out of our own house, and use
-that dear place, sacred to us, and the door-yard and orchard, for a
-home for his dogs and fightin’ roosters and sech, why, I d’no if Josiah
-see me barefooted and hungry, a-beggin’ Deacon Gowdy not to turn me out
-of the house I wuz born in, and on an empty stumick, too, I d’no but
-he’d knock him down and jump on him.
-
-And that would make trouble--Miss Gowdy wouldn’t like that, but if she
-should come to me with it, I should say to her, “Let him tend to his
-own business, then, and let us alone.”
-
-And if she should uphold him and say we hadn’t no jedgment, and wuz
-shiftless, and we couldn’t take care of our land, and they had to do
-it because we wuz too indolent, and slack, and sech--I’d tell her agin
-that it wuz none of her business. Sez I, “If we run through with our
-own property we can go to our own poor-house, can’t we?
-
-“But,” I’d say, “you needn’t worry; what encouragement do we have to
-work and git things ahead when we know you’d take all the profits of
-our labor? You go off and tend to your own business, and we’ll work
-hard enough, and lay up.”
-
-And then, after freein’ my mind to her, if old Gowdy wuz too bad off, I
-dare presoom to say I should offer him some wormwood to make a poultice
-of to show him that I didn’t have no malice towards him, only jest
-wantin’ to have my rights and be let alone. But to resoom.
-
-We arrove in Glasgow with no fatal results a-flowin’ from our voyage,
-and we put up at a good sizable tarvern, where we had plenty of things
-for our comfort and luxury.
-
-Amongst the things of luxury, I counted the water that I drinked from
-day to day, for I found that it wuz water brung from Loch Katrine.
-
-And when you remember Ellen’s Isle, as described by Sir Walter Scott,
-is right there in Loch Katrine--you may perhaps imagine the height and
-depth of my emotions.
-
-Why, the very water I sipped, and wet my front hair with mornings
-before my lookin’-glass, may have gurgled and murmured round the very
-isle where Ellen Douglas dwelt in her father’s hidden lodge, covered
-with ivy and Idien vines.
-
-[Illustration: Samantha and Ellen Douglas.]
-
-    “The rocky isle with copsewood bound,
-    Where weeping birch and willow round
-    With their long fibres swept the ground.”
-
-Where she dwelt and roamed, dreaming of Malcolm Graeme, and where she
-met the King of Scotland, onbeknown to her.
-
-Poor feller, poor young king! he thought more of Ellen than wuz good
-for him, but he acted like a perfect gentleman through it all, and that
-is better than bein’ a king.
-
-Or ruther it _is_ bein’ a king.
-
-He forgive her Pa, who had been rambellous, and with that gold chain of
-hisen, that he might have hung him with, he bound the girl he loved to
-another man forever. Good, generous creeter!
-
-But we are wanderin’ too fur back into the realm of poesy, accompanied
-by noble Warriors and Ladys of the Lake, and to come out into the
-hard-beat track of reality agin, and to resoom.
-
-Martin sot a great deal of store on visitin’ the great public buildin’s
-and the Cathedral, which is nine hundred years old, and the University,
-big enough for over a thousand scholars--I guess a thousand and a half.
-
-But I myself took more interest in visitin’ the Necropolous, as they
-call their buryin’ ground, and seein’ the monument riz up to John Knox.
-It towers up towards the sky dretful high; but not so high as John’s
-principles loomed up--not nigh.
-
-And I wuz dretful interested while in the city in lookin’ at the
-statutes of Sir Walter Scott, and James Watts, and David Livingstone,
-and Robert Burns.
-
-And seein’ the place where Sir John Moore wuz born.
-
-It wuzn’t any better place than Elder Minkley wuz born in, to
-Jonesville, or Deacon Blodgett up in Zoar.
-
-And as I looked onto the onpretentious walls I methought how it wuzn’t
-likely at all when he wuz a baby, his Pa a-puttin’ up pills and powders
-at the time, his Ma a-holdin’ his little helpless, dimpled form to her
-bosom, that he would grow up to be sech a hero and die fur from her,
-over in Spain, and “be buried darkly at dead of night.”
-
-And be left there cold and still, fur from kindred and loved
-ones--“Alone in his glory.”
-
-Wall, here in this city I had a great and welcome surprise--Martin made
-me a present of a Paisley shawl; they wuz manafectered in a place nigh
-here, and Martin got me and Alice one.
-
-Men don’t realize sech things, but I knew, and Alice knew, that she
-wouldn’t be old enough to wear hern for twenty years yet. But then, as
-I told her, she would grow up to it in time.
-
-But she kinder laid out, as I could see, on coverin’ a lounge with it
-in her _boodore_, which means her private settin’-room.
-
-I seldom use foreign languages, but when I do, I don’t think it is any
-more ’n right to translate it for the benefit of ’em who hain’t had my
-advantages. What would Philury, or she that wuz Submit Tewksbury, know
-about a _boodore_? They’d probble think it wuz jewelry or some kind of
-agin’.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.
-
-ROBERT BURNS AND HIGHLAND MARY.
-
-
-Wall, from here we took some excursions to places of interest in the
-vicinity. One of heart-thrillin’ interest wuz to Ayr, and lasted two
-days, for Martin said he wanted to see every spot connected in any way
-with Robert Burns. He said he didn’t care about readin’ his historys
-and sermons, but it seemed to be the stylish and proper thing to do, so
-he wouldn’t fail of doin’ it for anything. So we sot off one mornin’
-with great anticipations, and each on us a satchel, for the forty milds
-trip.
-
-Josiah wuz riz up in his mind about Sir William Wallace--more so than
-he wuz with Burns.
-
-For the “Scottish Chiefs” had been read by him with avidity in his
-boyhood, and permeated his fancy, and he still thought it wuz the most
-thrillin’ book that wuz ever wrote, exceptin’ “Alonzo and Melissa.”
-“_That_,” he said, “never will be equalled for heart-breakin’ interest.”
-
-So as we journeyed along he talked a sight about Wallace and that
-claymore of hisen. “Why,” sez he, “it must have weighed 4 hundred or 5
-hundred pounds. What a man he wuz to wield it as he did and cut down
-his enemies with it!
-
-“Why,” sez he, “it would take two common men to lift it, they say, and
-what a sight it must have been to see him swingin’ that round his head
-and mowin’ down his enemies jest as Ury would mow down oats!”
-
-Sez I, “Josiah, I hope you are too good to enjoy sech a blood-curdlin’
-sight, if it ever took place, but you must be careful about believin’
-everything you hear about Wallace. I suppose that, like King Arthur, an
-old Illiad that Thomas J. ust to read about so much, lots of things has
-been told about him that never took place.”
-
-“Take care, Samantha; I can stand a good deal from a pardner, but when
-you go to doubtin’ William Wallace, then is the time for a man to take
-a stand.
-
-“Why, you’ll be a-doubtin’ ‘Thaddeus of Warsaw’ next. I wuz brung up on
-them books,” sez he, “and on them books I take my stand. If I’d hefted
-that claymore myself, I couldn’t believe in it any more ’n I do.”
-
-Sez I, a-tryin’ to bring him back into the plains of megumness and
-reason--
-
-“You know history sez that Wallace wuz a sheep-stealer, in the first
-place. Don’t pin your faith onto him too much, Josiah Allen.”
-
-“A sheep-stealer!”
-
-Wall, I will pin up a heavy shawl between Josiah Allen and the public
-for the next few minutes. I guess I’ll hang up my Paisley shawl, that’s
-pretty thick, and I too will withdraw myself behind it.
-
-Suffice it to say when we emerged from behind it, I wuz a-sayin’--
-
-“Wall, wall, I spoze like as not he did own a claymore, Josiah Allen,
-and I dare say it wuz a pretty hefty one.” And then I turned the
-subject off onto Robert Burns, and bagpipes, and sech.
-
-Truly there is a time for pardners to stand their ground, and a time
-for ’em to gin in. When they see blood-vessels are on the pint of
-bustin’ and pardners are chokin’ with rage--gin in to ’em if you can,
-and keep your principles.
-
-I allers foller this receipt, and it has bore me on triumphant.
-
-Truly great is the mystery of pardners.
-
-Wall, Josiah got real sentimental a-talkin’ about Wallace’s first wife,
-Marion, and his second wife, Helen Mar. “You know,” sez Josiah, “Helen
-said in them last hours--‘My life must expire with his.’”
-
-And I sez, “Wall, it did at jest about the same time--she died of a
-broken heart,” sez I, bein’ willin’ to talk kind o’ sentimental with
-him, and soothe him down.
-
-“Yes,” sez Josiah, “and don’t you remember what Bothwell said ‘as he
-raised her clay-cold face from Wallace’s coffin’--
-
-“‘They loved in their lives, and in their deaths they shall not be
-divided’?”
-
-Josiah was dretful sentimental at them reminescences, but he gradually
-chirked up agin, and by the time we come in sight of that tower of
-William Wallace’s, in Ayr, more’n a hundred feet high, Josiah’s sperits
-riz up almost as high as that tower.
-
-Ayr is the seen of some of the most thrillin’ events of Wallace’s life.
-Here he would sally out aginst his enemies--here he wuz took by ’em and
-imprisoned. Here Robert Bruce and his troops made it their headquarters
-for a spell, and so did Cromwell and his army.
-
-It is a dretful interestin’ spot on lots of accounts, but on none of
-’em so much as bein’ the birthplace of Robert Burns.
-
-The humble cottage where the immortal flower of Genius sprung up like a
-tall white lily out of the dust of the wayside--
-
-This cottage is on the banks of Bonny Doon--
-
-    There Simmer first unfaulds her robes,
-      And there she langest tarries,
-    And there he took his last farewell
-      Of his sweet Highland Mary.
-
-The immortal tenderness and sweetness of that love meetin’ and partin’
-has made the waters of Bonny Doon ripple along full of the melodies of
-the past.
-
-In Nater there is a universal tendency to retain the good and
-beautiful, and forgit the commonplace and dreary. We forgit the
-steamin’ vats and big cheeses Mary must have had to turn and lift at
-her place of service, Gavin Hamilton’s, or, as Burns called it--“The
-Castle of Montgomerie.”
-
-We forgit all the toilsome labor that must have turned Mary’s pretty
-hands brown and hard, and made her slim back ache.
-
-We forgit the achin’ “Ploughman shanks” the laborer Burns must have
-carried sometimes to their trystin’ place beside the Bonny Doon.
-
-For though you may lighten the labor of ploughin’ by religious poems,
-like the “Cotter’s Saturday Night,” or brave, heroic ones, like “Scots
-wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,” or verses to “A Mouse” and “A Mountain
-Daisy”--
-
-    “Wee sleekit, cowerin’, tim’rous beastie,”
-
-and
-
-    “Wee modest, crimson-tippéd flower,”
-
-and “Brigs” and “Glens” and “Water-fowls--”
-
-And though he may have added a flavor to it by sarcastic verses to
-“Holy Willie,” and “The Deil,” and “The Unco Guid”--
-
-Yet to hold the heavy plough as it tore its long furrows in the flinty
-soil wuz weary work, and the back and arms of the poet must have ached
-as sorely as any other ploughman’s.
-
-But you forgit all that; they dwell here forever care free, serene in
-glowin’ youth and beauty.
-
-How near they seemed to me, these immortal lovers, as I stood there
-lost in thought by the ripplin’ waters of the Bonny Doon!
-
-The white clouds floated along in the same blue bendin’ Heavens; the
-bright waters dimpled and laughed along jest as gayly and crystal
-clear, and their memory dominated all things above and below.
-
-Here they stood, happy youth and maiden, beside the overrunnin’ Doon,
-that carries ’em on, and will carry ’em on forever, through the land of
-Love and of Fame.
-
-She is a-lookin’ up with blue, love-lit eyes into his eager, ardent
-face. He is sayin’ to her, as he did a hundred years ago--
-
-    “Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
-      And leave auld Scotia’s shore?
-    Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
-      Across the Atlantic’s roar?
-
-    Oh, sweet grow the lime and the orange,
-      And the apple on the pine;
-    But a’ the charms o’ the Indies
-      Can never equal thine.”
-
-And agin he is sayin’, as we imagine, with a smile and a tear in his
-half sad, half humorous way--
-
-    “Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing,
-      Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine,
-    I wad wear thee in my bosom,
-      Lest my jewel I should tine.
-    Wishfully I look and languish
-      In that bonnie face o’ thine;
-    And my heart it stounds wi’ anguish,
-      Lest my wee thing be na mine.”
-
-Wall, his forebodin’ wuz correct; Death, a more triumphant and constant
-lover than poor Burns would have been, bore off the bonny lassie into
-his icy but secure realm--mebby beyend the star her bereft lover
-apostrophized so long afterwards a-talkin’ to her “dear departed
-shade--”
-
-    “Thou ling’ring star, with less’ning ray,
-      That lovest to greet the early morn;
-    Again thou usher’st in the day
-      My Mary from my soul was torn.”
-
-[Illustration: This immortal pair of lovers.]
-
-But though Death bore her off in her first sweet youth, and him long
-years after, a sad, middle-aged man, with a big family of children, who
-called another woman mother--still they stand there by the Bonny Doon.
-
-
-The blue eyes and the brown eyes (that have been dust for a century)
-are still lookin’ love to each other.
-
-Warm, clingin’ hands, that can hardly be torn apart, love so great that
-it fills the universe--love! constancy! despair! heartache! flowin’ out
-from the rapt atmosphere that surrounds this immortal pair of lovers;
-it is a power that enfolds all feelin’ hearts.
-
-The deep emotions that sanctified that spot live on still in the heart
-of the world.
-
-Devotion! heart-breakin’ grief! death! eternity! they are all brought
-nearer as we stand by these sparklin’ waters that flow on forever,
-whisperin’ the names of Robert Burns and his Highland Mary.
-
-Other thoughts come to us anon, or a little later--thoughts of the
-labors and struggles of the poet to make a home and respectable livin’
-for his family.
-
-The warm poet nater, endowed, as all true poet souls are, with the
-fiery “love of love, and hate of hate, and scorn of scorn,” tryin’ to
-make its way in a practical, money-lovin’ age.
-
-It wuz some like takin’ an eagle down from the heights, and trainin’ it
-to become a barn-yard fowl, or breakin’ in a wild gazelle to churn in
-a treadle machine.
-
-It wuz hard work!
-
-And the fashionable world, that took him up with the interest it would
-give to a new toy of a novel design, soon grew weary of him, and turned
-away coldly from the strugglin’ poet, in his unequal conflict with poor
-land, high rents, misaprehension, poverty, and hardships.
-
-No wonder he turned away from the world at last and said to poor Jean
-(she that wuz Jean Armour), the wife who had been constant to him in
-evil and good report--
-
-    “I am wearin’ awa’, Jean;
-    Like snow in a thaw, Jean,
-    I am wearin’ awa’
-    To the Land o’ the Leal.
-
-    “And there I would be fain
-    In the Land o’ the Leal.”
-
-No wonder he said it, poor creeter!
-
-I spoze the gay world apoligized for its neglect and coldness by sayin’
-that Burns drinked and cut up.
-
-Wall, I spoze he did--some; but he wuz a good-hearted creeter.
-
-And anyway they overlooked it in the first place, and ’em who worship
-his memory now look calmly over them faults as if they were mere specks
-on a blazin’ sun.
-
-Why didn’t they do so then? Why didn’t they take a few of the posies
-they scatter on his cold tomb to-day (one hundred years too late) and
-lay ’em in the tired, hard-workin’ hands, toilin’ on at Nithsdale?
-
-Why didn’t they take a few bits from the banquets they spread now
-to his memory (one hundred years too late) and give it to the
-half-starvin’ poet and his wife and little ones, while it would have
-done some good?
-
-Why didn’t they take a little of the immense sums they spend in marble
-blocks and shafts to rear monuments to him all over the world, to buy a
-few comforts for himself and his loved ones?
-
-For what did almost his last letter state, he had writ to a friend
-askin’ some relief, for without it, he sez--
-
-“If I die not of disease, I must perish of hunger.”
-
-Heart-sick with the tyrrany of his employers, the little minds about
-him, who mebby rejoiced to tyrranize over and torment a soul so much
-above their own. Heart-sick with the neglect of the world, he fell
-asleep July 21st, 1795.
-
-About a month before his death he writ to a friend--
-
-“As to my individual self I am tranquil, but Burns’ poor widow and half
-a dozen of his dear little ones, helpless orphans. Here I am weak as a
-woman’s tear, ’tis half of my disease,” etc.
-
-I should think Scotland would be ashamed of herself. I honestly should,
-to let her greatest pride and glory die of a broken heart, caused by
-her neglect and heartlessness, and then praise him up so and spend sech
-sums of money on his tombstones, and things (one hundred years too
-late).
-
-But, then, it’s a trait in human nater. Scotland hain’t the only
-country that duz it.
-
-It is nateral to torment and torture the soarin’ bird of Genius, and
-pluck out the plumage from its quiverin’ flesh one at a time--cut its
-feathers down, hang weights to its wings, and act.
-
-And then when the agonized and heart-broken soul has took its flight
-out of the tortured body, to stuff that soulless effigy with the
-softest and warmest stuffin’ of praise and appreciation, put jewels in
-the blind eye sockets, cover the cold breast with diamond bright stars
-of praise, and lift it up on high, up on top of the soarinest monuments
-they can raise to its honor.
-
-Too late, _too late_!
-
-But I am indeed a-eppisodin’; and to resoom.
-
-Everybody in the village had sunthin’ to say of Burns. Everybody wuz
-proud of livin’ in the place his feet had once trod.
-
-Them who looked the coldest on him when livin’, or descendents of them
-who had wrung his sensitive soul while warm and beatin’, and achin’ for
-sympathy--
-
-Descendents of the big man of the village, “Holy Willie” himself, who
-once would not have spoken to his humble neighbor, or if he’d spoken at
-all, they’d been words of insult that would have rankled in the soul of
-the poet, now considered it their greatest pride and honor to live in
-the country that gave him birth.
-
-The cottage is a low, long buildin’ only one story high. And jest think
-of it, how many are born in five-story houses that nobody hears from
-afterwards. The roof is thatched, the floors are stun, clean and white.
-A cupboard full of dishes stood on one side of the room.
-
-There wuz some letters that Burns writ with his own hand. I thought
-more of seein’ ’em than any of the other relicks. Letters that his
-own hand rested on--his own ardent, handsome face had bent over. What
-emotions they gin me; I never can tell the heft and number on ’em.
-
-Yes, the thought of Burns filled the place, jest as some strong, rich
-perfume fills the hull room where it has been spilt.
-
-I didn’t hear much of anything said about Miss Burns (she that wuz Jean
-Armour), but I took quite a considerable spell of time and devoted it
-to jest thinkin’ about her. I didn’t think it wuz no more’n right that
-I should.
-
-I spoze she felt real proud to be the wife of sech a great man, and
-it wuz a great thing. But, then, she had her troubles. Poor thing!
-patient, hard-workin’ creeter! Washin’ dishes, mendin’ clothes, takin’
-care of the children, takin’ all the care she could of her husband. And
-then when she got him all mended up for the week, and as good vittles
-for him as she could with what she had to do with--then to have him
-a-writin’ verses to other wimmen!
-
-A-takin’ the strength her own pot-pies and puddin’s had gin him, and
-a-spendin’ it all on writin’ verses to other females.
-
-His heart a-beatin’ voyalent aginst the vest she had newly vamped for
-some other “Chloris” or “Clorinda” or etc., etc., etc., etc.
-
-A-walkin’ off in the stockin’s she had new heeled to catch a glimpse of
-some “lassie wi’ lint white locks,” so’s he could put her rustic beauty
-into rhyme.
-
-A-throwin’ himself down in a good coat that she’d jest washed and
-fixed up, to look up into the sky and apostrofize some other female up
-in Heaven.
-
-It must have been tough on Jean--fearful gauldin’ to her!
-
-But, then, mebby she wuz willin’ to have the fire of his genius catch a
-brightness and glow from any object. And woman’s beauty wuz always, to
-Robert Burns, what the very best kindlin’ wood is to me when vittles are
-to be produced in a hurry.
-
-Mebby she looked on it with a lenitent eye--most likely she did, or she
-couldn’t thought so much on him as she did.
-
-I guess he wuz a good, tender husband to her, and a good provider, so
-fur as his means went.
-
-But thinks I, here is another sample of the devotion and constancy of
-my own sect. I thought on her about 17 minutes.
-
-Other tourists may foller my example or not, jest as they think best,
-but I done it, and am glad on’t. But to resoom.
-
-We then went to see the old Bridge of Ayr, whose single arch connects
-each green shore. It wuz over this bridge that Tam o’ Shanter rode on
-the old mair Maggie, pursued by witches, “Wi’ mony an eldritch screech
-and hollow.”
-
-And I eppisoded some. I have to in the strangest places. I methought
-that the same furies that pursued the drunken Tam is still sold in the
-same old inn, and even in the very birthplace of the poet.
-
-[Illustration: The same furies that pursued the drunken Tam.]
-
-The same sperits of delerious fear, and senseless terror, are bought
-and sold at so much a glass. Poets live and poets die--empires rise
-and empires fall, but whiskey has to be sold jest the same. Drunkards
-race through their sottish lives, hag rid by the furies of drink and
-debauch. And mairs have to be rid to death, and have their tails cut
-off.
-
-Sez Josiah, “It wuz probble a witch that cut off the mair’s tail.”
-
-Till he answered me, I hadn’t mistrusted that I wuz a-eppisodin’ out
-loud.
-
-Sez I, “That is to tippify how drunkards abuse their animals, most
-likely,” sez I, “and to show that these foul sperits don’t have no
-power where pure water is in full sway.
-
-“The drink demon hates water,” sez I.
-
-But Josiah sez--“Wall, wall! I didn’t walk out here to hold a
-Temperance Meetin’!” Sez he sarcastickally, “This hain’t a Total
-Abstinence Society!”
-
-Sez I, “It’s a pity there wuzn’t one here a hundred years ago!” Sez I,
-“Probble it would have saved poor Burns from a good deal that he went
-through, and,” sez I, “it would be a-settin’ a different sample before
-young folks from the one that wuz sot, and is still a-settin’--a sample
-his genius, and noble qualities, and his light-hearted good nater tempt
-’em to foller.”
-
-Sez Josiah, “Hain’t you got a Temperance Pledge round you, Samantha, or
-some badges, or some banners, or white ribbins, or sunthin’?”
-
-Sez he ironacly, “I could carry a banner with ‘Temperance’ or ‘W. C.
-T. U.’ on it jest as well as not, and I’d ruther lug it round and be
-done with it than to have to everlastin’ly hear on’t.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I soothin’ly, “we will go back now and have a good lunch.”
-
-And as we wended along, I meditated that mebby I hadn’t gin enough
-thought to my pardner’s feelin’s. For truly mortals have not now any
-more than in the time of Burns the “gift to see oursels as ithers see
-us.”
-
-But I wuz upheld by thinkin’ I’d talked on principle, and that is a
-dretful upholdin’ thought.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII.
-
-EDINBURGH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.
-
-
-Wall, from Glasgow we went to Edinburgh, and we found that that wuz a
-beautiful city, beautiful, with the ancient castle perched up on the
-rocks four hundred feet above, and old Edinburgh a-lyin’ at its feet,
-like old Vassals that gathers round their Chieftan; all on ’em aged,
-but loth to part.
-
-The streets of old Edinburgh are so narrer that you can almost reach to
-both sides of ’em and touch the houses.
-
-The houses, with pinted ruffs and gabriel ends, are quaint and
-picturesque in the extreme, and interestin’.
-
-Between the new and the old is a gulf, as there often is, but partly
-filled up with a R. R. Station, and statutes and gardens and handsome
-bridges are throwed acrost it.
-
-New Edinburgh is laid out dretful handsome, with broad, wide streets
-and handsome buildin’s, and statutes and fountains and parks and
-everything else that it needs for its comfort; and it might have got
-along with less on ’em, it seemed to me. I rode through ’em, for Martin
-always said he wanted to view every city exhaustively.
-
-And we did it every time we rid out with him; I come home perfectly
-exhausted. He wanted to see so much, so much, in sech a short, sech a
-very short time.
-
-Yes, indeed!
-
-Oh, dear me suz!
-
-When Josiah and me went alone by ourselves we took as much agin
-comfort, for though mebby I didn’t see so many things, I see ’em much
-better. My brain didn’t reel nigh so much, nor my spectacles wobble so.
-
-Why, with Martin I would no sooner git them specs sot on anything,
-a steeple or anything, but them poor specs would have to do as poor
-little Joe did, that Dickens wrote about, “move along,” and move
-lively, too.
-
-I wuz sorry for ’em and for the eyes under ’em.
-
-Yes, indeed, I wuz!
-
-Half of the time Martin wouldn’t look at the different things at all.
-But he said that he had never visited Edinburgh before, and that he
-wanted to take in all the sights.
-
-And I believe my soul wuz raced through every solitary street that day
-we wuz out together.
-
-He seemed to feel well when we got back to the hotel, he seemed to sort
-o’ wake up or roust up. I d’no as he had been sound asleep, mebby he’d
-been in a deep study about sunthin’--about his money-makin’, I guess.
-But his eyes wuz shet a good deal of the time.
-
-But he said, with a happy look, that we had accomplished a great deal.
-
-I knew he’d accomplished one thing, he had jest about killed one female.
-
-And my poor pardner! poor creeter! wuz not his looks pitiful? He bore
-up in Martin’s sight (that man is kinder deceitful, but I wouldn’t want
-him to hear that I said it).
-
-But when we wuz alone, he would take on, and limp, more’n I believe wuz
-neccessary.
-
-Sez I--“You’ve no need to limp, Josiah; you rid most all the way.”
-
-“Rid! I should think I had rid! I’m bed rid, that’s what ails me! I
-never shall be good for nothin’ agin. We’ve been four hundred milds
-sence we sot out, if we’ve been a step!”
-
-And he sunk down onto the bed and groaned loud, so’s you could hear him
-quite a good ways.
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “let’s bear up under it the best we can--it’s all paid
-for.”
-
-“What good duz payin’ for a thing do that kills you?” Sez he, “When
-you’re killed, payin’ for things hain’t a-goin’ to help you! Oh! if I
-ever set foot on my farm agin,” sez he, “I’ll never leave it to go to
-meetin’, or anywhere.”
-
-No megumness here, as I could see, but I pitied him and sympathized
-with him deeply.
-
-Sez I, “It would seem dretful good, wouldn’t it, Josiah, to see you
-a-comin’ in with two pails of milk? It would be jest about this time
-you’d want the milk scum for the calves.”
-
-“Don’t mention it!” he groaned, “them happy times wuz too happy to
-last; we didn’t appreciate ’em.”
-
-“No,” sez I; “don’t you remember how you ust to dum the calves, and
-barn chores?”
-
-“I praised ’em always,” sez he stoutly, “and I’d ruther milk my hull
-herd of Jerseys now this minute than to eat!”
-
-Sez I, “I don’t believe I appreciated how happy I wuz a-standin’ by
-the buttery winder, calm and peaceful, a-washin’ dishes, or a-skimmin’
-milk, and a-seein’ the red sun a-sinkin’ low beneath Balcom’s hill;
-and the sweet south wind a-wavin’ the mornin’-glory vines, and my
-snow-white strainer spread on the blossomin’ rose-bush under the
-winder. And the sight of the barns lookin’ so good, and sort o’ settled
-down and at rest, and the hen-house, and the ash-house, and the
-garden--”
-
-“And how I ust to ketch the old mair,” sez Josiah, “and we’d ride over
-and see the children after the chores wuz done. Oh! happy days,” sez
-he, “we never shall see you agin!”
-
-“Yes you will, Josiah Allen,” sez I; “bear up, and we will anon be back
-in our own peaceful home.”
-
-And wantin’ to roust him up still further out of his despondency, I
-sez, “You will enjoy that home better than ever now, for how you will
-enjoy tellin’ Uncle Smedley all about what you see to-day, Josiah
-Allen.”
-
-He brightened up; “Yes, Samantha, if I ever live to get home, it will
-be a treat to tell what we went through, and,” sez he, “won’t Uncle
-Smedley open his eyes when I tell him of----”
-
-Alas! alas! I had done what I sot out to do. I had lightened my
-pardner’s gloom, but wearisome wuz the hours I spent a-hearin’ him
-rehearse what he wuz a-goin’ to tell the Jonesvillians.
-
-Oh, the peticulars, oh, the peticulars! It wuz hard to tread the ground
-over under the rain of a Martin, but it wuz harder still to hear ’em
-rehearsed by the voice of a Josiah.
-
-But of course I lived through it, or I wouldn’t be here to tell the
-tale.
-
-Martin always done the fair thing, so fur as gittin’ good places to
-stay wuz concerned, and we had a plenty of everything for our comfort,
-only jest that one thing--rest.
-
-But my onusual common sense learnt me that I mustn’t expect to be to
-home and on a tower at the same time.
-
-And I felt quite grateful to Martin for invitin’ us to go with him--a
-good deal of the time I did; and I tried to do my part as well as I
-could. I kep’ a eye on Adrian, and see that his clothes and feet wuz
-dry, and see that he learnt his Sunday-school lesson, and see that
-Alice took her cough medicine every day; and when Martin took it into
-his head to go off for a day or two, he felt easy about the children,
-knowin’ my love and care for ’em couldn’t be excelled and gone beyend
-by anybody. He said it wuz a great care offen his mind, and made him
-feel at liberty to go and come.
-
-He had to see certain men on business in these different countries
-where we went, and I presoom he did feel better to know that the
-children had some one with ’em that loved ’em while he was off milds
-away for days at a time.
-
-And Alice kep’ a-sayin’ every day that she couldn’t have got along
-without me anyway. And I presoom I wuz some company for her; anyway, I
-loved her, and she knew it. You can’t hide sech feelin’s under a bushel.
-
-And lots of times I gladly, _gladly_ stayed to home with Adrian while
-Alice went out with her Pa. She would say so sweetly that it wuz too
-bad to deprive me of the pleasure of goin’ out with her Pa.
-
-And I would say, “Don’t mention it, Alice; I am perfectly willin’ to
-stay to home with Adrian.” And Heaven knows I spoke the truth!
-
-She would come home, the horses covered with sweat, and Martin and
-herself all fagged out; but the fagness of 20 hain’t like the fagness
-of----more maturer and older years.
-
-And in the mornin’ she’d be ready for another start.
-
-Of course some of the excursions I gladly jined in. I wuz glad enough
-to go to see Holyrood Palace, once the home of Mary Stuart, Queen of
-Scots--Miss Darnley, she that wuz Stuart.
-
-The most interestin’ queen that ever walked down the pages of history.
-A-walkin’ along with her big, soft eyes bent kinder downwards under
-that cap of hern, and her sweet face a-drawin’ men’s hearts out of
-their bodies to foller her to the throne, or the scaffold, as she trod
-onwards. Heaven pity her for her sorrow! If she wuz true or false, she
-atoned for her sin, poor thing! by the hardness of her fate.
-
-Poor Mary! poor Miss Stuart that wuz! I wuz always sorry for her, and
-I always believed her cousin Lizabeth wuz jealous of her.
-
-You know Lib wuzn’t very good-lookin’, and she wuz as vain as a
-pea-hen, and it gaulded her to have her cousin praised up so to her.
-
-Relations are dretful mean sometimes, they’re dretful jealous of
-each other--cousins specially; and though they don’t make a practice
-of beheadin’ the ones they are jealous of, yet they stab ’em with
-the sharp, pizened daggers of detraction, lies, hatred, envy, mean
-insinuations, total incomprehension of their motives, etc., etc., etc.
-
-So if you have to live nigh ’em, you might jest about as well have your
-head cut off, and done with it.
-
-But to resoom. We see the rooms, not very big either, that poor Mary,
-Queen of Scots, ust to live in.
-
-It made me feel real bad to see in what a condition her rooms wuz kep’.
-Poor thing! it seems as if she went through with enough while she wuz
-alive to have some respect paid to her memory now, and her rooms kep’
-clean.
-
-But they wuz dusty and dingy lookin’. The curtains round the bed where
-that pretty head ust to lay a-dreamin’--what?--wuz all ragged.
-
-I wouldn’t have sech ragged things in my back chamber. But, poor thing!
-I didn’t lay anything to her; my rooms git out of order if I leave ’em
-for three days. And if I wuz away for three hundred years, mine would
-look jest as bad, and mebby worse.
-
-Josiah wuz dretful took up in lookin’ at them blood spots in the
-anty-room, but I wouldn’t look at ’em. Sez I--
-
-“If them stains are made new every few days from beef creeters, hens,
-or etcetery, I certainly don’t want to see ’em. And if they’re made by
-the blood of that Italian Rizzio, I wouldn’t give a cent to see ’em.”
-
-Sez I, “I’m sorry for him, but I don’t believe he wuz what he ort to
-be. Anyway, he ort to known he wuz a-makin’ trouble in a family; men
-ortn’t to make pardners jealous of ’em if they can help it. But,” sez
-I, after thinkin’ a minute, “I d’no as he could help it. That fatal
-power Mary wielded held him, poor creeter! and drawed him on to his
-fate, jest as it did the jealous pardner, when the time come.”
-
-Wall, I had sights of emotions in that palace and in the chapel
-adjoinin’, where we trod over the graves of so many kings and queens
-once so high and mighty, now nothin’ but dust.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-Curous, curous, hain’t it? Wall, I went with ’em to visit the castle
-of Edinburgh. And the view from them rampants wuz so wide and extended
-that Josiah vowed he could see clear over to Jonesville. I disputed
-him, but he said and stuck to it, that he recognized the steeple.
-
-I knew better, but it wuz a grand and sweepin’ view as I ever see, or
-ever expect to see. All Scotland lay spread out before us, some as our
-old map would if it wuz spread on the kitchen floor, and I looked down
-on it from the top of the kitchen table.
-
-We see the room here where poor Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to
-a prince, James VI., afterwards James 1st of England. What she went
-through in this room! For when her baby wuz only eight days old it wuz
-let down in a basket from the cliff. Jest think on’t, sech a little
-baby let down four hundred feet; but it wuz to save his life, and she
-stood it.
-
-Here we see the crown that they said rested on the head of Robert
-Bruce. And we see the place where so many, so many politicians had
-their heads cut off.
-
-I didn’t like to hear sech talk, and I showed that I didn’t by my
-mean. But I proposed that we should jine Martin. He wuz a-settin’ down
-in front of them rampants a-addin’ up a row of figgers in a account
-book.
-
-He said that it wuz some home business that had to be attended to. As
-he put the book back in his pocket, and proposed that we should start
-for somewhere else, I sez, “The view is enchantin’ from here, hain’t
-it, Martin?”
-
-“Yes,” sez he in a absent-minded way, without turnin’ his head--
-
-“Yes; there! I forgot to add that last five thousand dollars to the
-balance,” and he wrote it down as we walked onwards.
-
-But my remark wuz evidently a-hangin’ round in some by-place in his
-mind, for he presently remarked as he went down the path--
-
-“Yes, as you say, the view is perfectly enchanting.”
-
-And he gazed dreamily at the rocks that riz up before us and shet out
-every mite of view from that place.
-
-Al Faizi stood on the lofty eminence a-lookin’ off in silence, and it
-seemed as though he couldn’t hardly be tore from the seen; and the
-grandeur and beauty wuz reflected in his eyes, some as you can see
-your own face in a pardner’s orbs if you look clost and lovin’ into ’em.
-
-Alice and Adrian wuz a-walkin’ along, and seemed to be enjoyin’
-themselves first-rate.
-
-Adrian wuz a-askin’ her quite a number of questions about Robert Bruce
-and King James, etc., etc., and she wuz a-answerin’ him quite lusid;
-bein’ so late at school made her quite a adept in history, adepter than
-any of the rest of us wuz, by fur.
-
-Wall, we went to the Church of St. Giles, and we see the Heart of Mid
-Lothian. I had heard Thomas J. read the story, and I wuz interested in
-it.
-
-In the northwest corner of the church there is a heart cut in the
-pavement, and here the old Tolbooth, the city prison, first stood. In
-St. Giles Churchyard John Knox wuz buried.
-
-The grave-stun has nothin’ but his initial and the date of his death.
-As I looked at it, I thought what long epitaphs--and in poetry, too,
-some on ’em--failed to git any attention from posterity. But as long
-as posterity lives--and I spoze that will be a good while yet--this
-unasumin’ grave will be visited, for a Man lies buried here--a hero who
-wuzn’t afraid to speak his mind, and who follered the right, so fur as
-he see it, through good and evil report.
-
-Wall, in the Parliament House we see a copy of the first Bible that wuz
-ever printed. That gin me a sight of emotions--a sight; and I had quite
-a number of emotions a-seein’ the manuscript of the Waverley Novels,
-and in meditatin’ that Walter’s own hand rested on these pages.
-
-Kinder tired hands some of the time, no doubt, and the eyes above heavy
-from study and toil. And he (Walter) not a-dreamin’ how so many years
-after she who wuz once Smith would stand and look on ’em with respect
-and almost veneration.
-
-No; he didn’t have this to encourage him and make him happy, poor
-creeter!
-
-But how well he did; how much happiness he has gin, and how much
-valuable information has been took onbeknown from the pages of his
-stories, like powders of smartweed in a spunful of honey.
-
-Old Gray Friar’s Church and churchyard wuz dretful interestin’ to us on
-account of a good many things.
-
-Alice and I wuz extremely interested to learn that here wuz where
-Walter Scott ust to come to meetin’ in his young days. And to see the
-graves of his Pa and his Ma, and some of the rest of his folks in the
-old churchyard.
-
-In this meetin’-house the National Covenant wuz signed in 1638. After
-listenin’ to a heart-searchin’ sermon by Alexander Henderson this
-paper wuz signed by the Earl of Sutherland, and all the rest of the
-folks who wuz to meetin’ that day. It wuz then took out into the
-buryin’-ground outside, and spread out on a flat tombstone--a fittin’
-spot, jedgin’ from what come afterwards--and signed by crowds and
-crowds of the people. Some writ their names in blood, showin’ their
-willingness to die for the Faith.
-
-[Illustration: The National Covenant signed by the Earl of Sutherland.]
-
-This wuz the Confession of Faith of 1580, drawed up by the principal
-Presbyterian ministers of Edinburgh. Them that signed it agreed to
-protect and preserve their religion even to the death.
-
-And these Covenanters wuz persecuted and killed for their faith,
-and then, when they wuz in power, they wuz jest as cruel to their
-persecutors.
-
-And all in the name of Religion. Sweet sperit, how can she stand it?
-But I spoze she made allowances for ’em, a-thinkin’ they wuz mistook.
-
-Al Faizi looked down in silence on the stun with a railin’ round it
-where the Covenant wuz written. And finally he took out that book of
-hisen with a cross on it, and he writ quite a lot in it. What it wuz I
-d’no.
-
-And as he stood in front of that monument, riz up there to the memory
-of the martyrs put to death for their religion, he writ a hull lot more.
-
-I myself got a piece of paper from Josiah’s account book, and I had a
-pencil with me, and I copied this inscription, so’s to let Thomas J.
-see it.
-
-It wuz dretful readin’. As History held up her torch to light me as I
-writ it down, mournin’ weeds seemed to wrop her round and droop over
-her forward, and her face looked cold and pale and awful out from under
-them weeds. It read as follers--
-
-And I thought, I can tell you, as I read it of how Miss Argyll felt
-and Miss Renwick and the children, for though it is a good ways back,
-it hurt jest as bad to have your head cut off then as it duz now, and
-hearts of loved ones who wuz left ached jest as bad.
-
-It read as follers--
-
-“From May 27, 1661, that the most noble Marquise of Argyll was
-beheaded, to the 17th of February, 1668, that Mr. James Renwick
-suffered, were one way or other murdered or destroyed for the same
-cause about 18,000, of whom were executed in Edinburgh about 100 of
-noblemen, gentlemen, ministers, and other noble martyrs for Jesus
-Christ.”
-
-Al Faizi’s face wuz a deep study as he stood there.
-
-And he sez to Martin, who had sauntered up and wuz a-lookin’ round,
-with his hands in his pantaloons pockets--
-
-Sez Al Faizi--“This war was between Presbyterians and Catholics?”
-
-“Yes,” sez Martin.
-
-“Both of these religious sects thought they were right?”
-
-“Yes,” sez Martin; “I suppose so.”
-
-“They both send missionaries to my people?”
-
-“Yes,” sez Martin; “quite likely; of course they do.”
-
-Al Faizi didn’t say nothin’, but he writ down quite a lot more; what it
-wuz I d’no.
-
-But his face looked very thoughtful, and the light struck that jewelled
-cross on the back of his little book, and its rays streamed out as red
-as blood.
-
-But he kinder shifted it a little after awhile, and a pure and lambient
-light gleamed from it.
-
-Queer! I’d like to know what them stuns wuz.
-
-I d’no what Josiah did think as he looked at that monument, but I had a
-sight of emotions, and of great size. And I sez to my pardner--
-
-“One thing I am impressed by as I read of these dretful things done by
-men who thought they wuz doin’ right,” sez I, “it learns me to not be
-too set in my own way, even when I think I am right.”
-
-Sez Josiah, “I always knew you wuz too sot!”
-
-Somehow the words grated on my nerve. It is so much easier to run
-yourself down than to be run.
-
-But right here in front of so many martyrs I wuzn’t goin’ to be
-overcome by a muskeeter, for truly my sufferin’s wuzn’t bigger than
-that, compared to theirn.
-
-And I wuz jest a-goin’ to complete my self-conquest by speakin’ soft to
-him, when he whispered to me--
-
-“I’m as hungry as a bear, Samantha. Not a bear in a circus,” sez he,
-“but a Rocky Mountain bear.
-
-“I wonder if Martin hain’t about ready to go?”
-
-Wall, Martin wuz ready by that time; but I see lots of other things
-whilst we wuz there. Alice and Martin went to the Queen’s Drive. I d’no
-who the Queen wuz, nor who she driv, nor how fur.
-
-And they went to the ruins of St. Anthony’s Chapel, and Alice raved
-over the beautiful view from Arthur’s Seat. I d’no what kind of a seat
-it wuz, nor how long Arthur sot in it, but she said that the view from
-there wuz enchantin’. And we all went to the Antiquarian Museum, and
-see sights and sights of relicks. Autograph letters from Charles 2nd,
-Cromwell, Mary, Queen of Scots, and we see the old Scotch Covenant with
-the names of Montrose, Lothair, etc., signed to it. And one of the
-banners them Covenanters had bore in their battles.
-
-Here wuz the very glass that Prince Charlie drank from before the
-battle of Culloden. And then the pulpit of John Knox; out of which that
-man three hundred years ago thundered out sech burnin’ words agin the
-Church of Rome.
-
-Here is a piece of the last garments put on to Robert Bruce, and in
-which he was laid in his last sleep--a sound sleep. Poor creeter!
-disturbed not by the warlike bugles and sounds of fray.
-
-And here is the blue ribbin of the Knight of the Garter, wore by Prince
-Charlie, and the ring gin to him by Flora Macdonald as they parted.
-
-[Illustration: When Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald parted.]
-
-And then there wuz sights and sights of weepons, coins, medallions,
-seals, old implements, etc., etc.
-
-But one thing I see there madded me more’n considerable; it wuz a kind
-of a gullotine rigged up with a axe, that wuz held up between two
-posts, and let down on the necks of ’em they wanted to kill. This very
-thing took the life of the Earl of Argyll, Sir John Gordon, and lots of
-others.
-
-But what madded me most wuz the name of the creeter.
-
-“The Maiden.”
-
-It is a wonder they didn’t call it the “Old Maiden,” if they’d wanted
-to be a little meaner.
-
-It rousted me up fearfully to think a lot of men should rig up such a
-horrid, death-dealin’ thing to carry out their bloody and brutal idees
-and then call it--“Maiden.”
-
-Why didn’t they call it after their own selves, and call it--the “Old
-Man,” or “the Feller,” or sunthin’ like that?
-
-“The Maiden!!!”
-
-No woman would countenance sech cuttin’ off the heads of folks, and
-they knew it. They named it so to be mean.
-
-And Martin, sayin’ that it would be expected of him, and he should have
-questions asked him by influential parties which he should want to
-answer, went to see lots of Horsepitals, and Schools, and Universities.
-
-Josiah went with him one day, and come home and said Heriot’s
-Horsepital beat anything he ever see for architecture, and, sez he, “it
-wuz designed by Indigo Jones.”
-
-Sez I, “I don’t believe any woman ever named her babe ‘Indigo’ in this
-world.” And I inquired, and found out that it wuz “Inigo.”
-
-Josiah said I hadn’t made out much. It wuzn’t any better name. But it
-wuz.
-
-Indigo! the idee!!
-
-A little ways out of the town is the home where Doctor Guthrie lived,
-and one of the most beautiful and interestin’ houses I see in Scotland
-or anywhere else. It wuz the one his brother, Mr. Thomas Nelson, built.
-Every American who goes to Scotland ort to walk by it and meditate out
-a spell, anyway, if they don’t go in.
-
-Durin’ our late war, when foreign nations thought our great republic
-wuz a-totterin’ over to ruin, this man had faith in us, and invested
-thousands of pounds in goverment bonds.
-
-And the rise in them bonds paid every cent this palace of hisen cost. I
-didn’t begrech it to him, not at all.
-
-Them in England who invested so largely in Confederate bonds, and lost
-every cent, wouldn’t be so happy in ridin’ by that noble structure and
-lookin’ at it, mebby.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV.
-
-MEMORIES OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
-
-
-And one excursion I took part in with the greatest delight and one
-small satchel--for we wuz to stay one night--wuz to Melrose Abbey and
-Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott.
-
-[Illustration: “I could sing to you,” sez he.]
-
-Josiah said he wanted to see Melrose Abbey by moonlight. He said it
-would be so romantic, and, sez he, “I wish I could have a guitar. How
-stylish and romantic it would be for you and me, Samantha, to visit it
-by moonlight, and I could sing to you,” sez he.
-
-But I sez, “A old couple a-viewin’ that seen by moonlight, with thick
-blanket shawls on, and heavy overshues--and I should wear ’em, Josiah,”
-sez I, “and make you wear ’em, for our rumatizes is bad, and lookin’ up
-at the moon through spectacles hain’t what it would be in younger and
-less bundled-up days.”
-
-“Throw a blanket onto it!” sez he; “wet a blanket wet as sop, and throw
-it onto my plan. I never can git you to foller up any idees of mine
-that are stylish and romantic.”
-
-“I’ll foller ’em,” sez I, “but I’ve got to foller ’em with an eye on
-azmy and rumatiz. And as for your singin’,” sez I, “it don’t seem as if
-I can bear it.” And I shuddered imperceptibly; I thought of the near
-past.
-
-But the rubber strings that men’s memories and consciences are strung
-on a good deal of the time had sprung back, and he wuz jest as ready
-to be sentimental and bust out in song as if he hadn’t been took for a
-Banshee.
-
-But we visited the Abbey in broad daylight, which wuz better for our
-two healths at our age. We went to the Abbey Hotel, close by the Abbey,
-and after a comfortable dinner we went through the little iron gate
-that leads into the grand and wonderful ruin.
-
-It must have been a sight, a sight, in its early days. But bein’ built
-in the first place in 1136, it hadn’t ort to be expected to be in the
-order it would have been if it had been built in 1836, and we’d call
-that bein’ pretty old in our young country.
-
-Wall, we walked all round amongst the ruins, and the waves of the past
-swashed up aginst me in a powerful manner.
-
-Here, sez I to myself, is the place where the heart of Robert Bruce
-is buried. That eager, restless heart that dared so much, and endured
-so much. Strange, passing strange that that great heart lays dumb and
-mute, and Samantha Allen and her pardner are a-walkin’ over it.
-
-Here is the grave of the wizard that bold Deloraine visited, as I told
-Josiah, and he looked down with scornful mean, and sez he--
-
-“He has stopped his wizardin’ now!”
-
-Josiah has no veneration for the occult.
-
-And here lies the Earl of Douglas, and here is the tomb of King
-Alexander 2nd.
-
-Hero, king, and wizard, all dust, and through the tall, ruined arches
-the blue sky smiles down on all on ’em alike, and sweet Nater drops
-on their restin’-places; on grave and monuments the same posies, and
-flowers, and long sprays of ivy.
-
-Nater is the true democrat; she treats all alike.
-
-But what richness of carvin’ and design is to be seen on every side;
-every ornament that wuz ever carved, it seems to me, wuz here on the
-tall pillows and arches. And that east winder--wall, I wake up in
-the night now, and think on’t, the perfect wonder and symetry of its
-design, and the marvels of its stun sculptur.
-
-But how different folks look at things! Al Faizi, as he looked up and
-around him, took in the beauty and majesty of the seen in every pore,
-as you may say--you could see that in his liniment.
-
-Alice wuz took up with some of the marvellous statutes and sculpturs
-of wreath and blossom. And Adrian wuz a-pickin’ some flowers. It
-beat all what a case that child wuz for flowers. And Josiah wuz took
-up, I guess, with musin’ on the failure of his romantic idees, as he
-sauntered about. But Martin, when he’d been there about an hour, he
-come up to me, and sez he--
-
-“Now, having seen everything there is to see here, I think we had
-better go. I expect some letters and telegrams,” sez he, “and I’ve seen
-sufficient to reply to any inquiries that could be made of me at home.”
-
-Everything we could see! Why, I could have hung right round there for a
-week and discovered some new wonder and beauty every hour.
-
-But it wuz compromised in this way: Martin went back to the hotel, and
-Josiah and Adrian went with him. And Al Faizi and Alice and I stayed
-till night wuz a-drawin’ down her mantilly previous to puttin’ it on.
-
-The soft linin’ on’t of crimson and gold wuz turned over in the west as
-we walked back to the little hotel.
-
-Wall, the next mornin’, bright and early, Martin got a carriage, and
-we drove three miles to Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott.
-
-By Martin’s advice (that man has good practical idees) we took our
-waterproofs and umbrells. And glad enough wuz we that we did; why, in
-all our trips almost waterproofs wuz neccessary companions; for short,
-quick showers would descend upon us at any time seemin’ly, and then
-pass away jest as quick.
-
-Three showers come up that very day, but two on ’em took place when we
-wuz inside, and the third jest before we got home at night, so umbrells
-and waterproofs saved us from damage.
-
-Wall, we found it wuz a beautiful place, castle and mansion, about half
-and half. It stands in well-kep’, handsome grounds and sets down in a
-sort of a valley amongst the hills which stands round it, as if proud
-on’t and glad to shelter and protect it all they could.
-
-Home of industrious talent, so hard-workin’ and constant as to be as
-good if not better than genius.
-
-The mansion and all round it is full of relicks of the past.
-
-The big entrance hall is panelled with dark wood, and all along the
-cornice the different Coats of Arms of the Border is painted in rich
-colors and shields, on which is this inscription--
-
-“These be the coat armories of the clans and chief men of name wha
-keepit the marchys of Scotland in the auld tyme for the kynge. True men
-were they, in their defence. God them defendyt.”
-
-Here you see battle-axes and breastplates and weepons of all kinds.
-Most all on ’em with a tragic history. Here wuz several suits of armor:
-one on ’em holdin’ a big sword in its hand, captured at Bosworth’s
-Field. Another holds a immense claymore took from the battlefield of
-Culloden.
-
-Josiah wuz took up with the looks of that, and he said he wished he
-owned one, and, sez he, “how nice it would be if I only had a coat of
-armor!
-
-“Why, Samantha,” sez he, “how economical! When a man got one suit, he
-never would have to be measured for another suit of clothes--never be
-cheated by tailors or pinched by ’em. Cool in the summer,” sez he--“how
-cool and good they would feel in dog-days, when broadcloth jest clings
-to you; and warm in winter. The cold wind couldn’t blow through them
-collars,” sez he, alludin’ to the helmets.
-
-“And then,” sez he, “when your clothes got dirty, jest wet a towel and
-clean ’em off--you could do it in half an hour, and then they’d be good
-for another twenty years. I wonder,” sez he, “if I could dicker with
-the Widder Scott for one of them suits? Scott’ll never wear ’em agin,”
-sez he.
-
-[Illustration: “When they got dirty, jest wet a towel and clean ’em
-off.”]
-
-But I hastened to set him right, and, sez I, “Scott never wore one of
-’em. He knew too much. How do you spoze,” sez I, “you could git round
-and do your spring’s work a-luggin’ round a ton of old iron?” Sez I,
-“You couldn’t lift one of the legs on’t with both your hands, and how
-could you plough with one on ’em on?”
-
-Sez Josiah dreamily--he wuzn’t hearin’ a word I said--
-
-“If I could git it cheaper without that head-piece, I might use our
-coal scuttle.” Sez he, “I believe its shape is more stylish. Oh!” sez
-he, “what a excitement I would make a-walkin’ into the Jonesville
-meetin’-house with the hull thing on! how stylish and uneek it would be!
-
-“Where is the Widder Scott?” sez he; “I’ll tackle her about it.”
-
-Sez I, “She’s with her noble husband in a land where style and folly
-have no home.”
-
-And then with deep argument I made him see that a suit of armor was not
-suitable for farm work or meetin’-house duties.
-
-But he gin it up reluctant, and at the last he sez--“How it would clank
-and rattle as I passed round the contribution plate--how all the other
-deacons would open their eyes!”
-
-But I silently led him away to where there wuz a suit of Scott’s
-clothes, the last ones he wore.
-
-And I had a very large variety of emotions as I looked on the clothes
-that had wropped round the magician who had the power to charm the
-hull world with his magic pen. My emotions drownded out the talk of
-the guide and the remarks of Martin and Josiah. And on one side of the
-fireplace stood the famous mistletoe trunk, as it’s called, that poor
-Genevra hid herself in on her weddin’ night. The Baron’s daughter, you
-know, the one that her Pa called “The star of that goodly company,”
-meanin’, I spoze, that she looked better than any of the rest of the
-young folks that he’d invited in to the weddin’. Poor, pretty, young
-creeter! I wuz always dretful sorry for her.
-
-You know what she said to Lovell, the young feller she wuz married to
-(he worshipped the very ground she walked on).
-
-    “I am weary of dancing now, she cried;
-    Here tarry a moment, I’ll hide, I’ll hide;
-    And, Lovell, be sure thou’rt the first to trace
-    The clue to my secret hiding-place.”
-
-And you probble remember how the crazed young bridegroom, and the old
-Baron, and all the rest of the weddin’ guests hunted for the pretty,
-young creeter all night and all day, and for weeks and months and
-years--all in vain, in vain.
-
-Till at last, when Lovell (poor, broken-hearted creeter!) wuz a old
-white-headed man, a old chest wuz found in the castle, and they see, on
-liftin’ up the led--
-
-    “A skeleton form lay mouldering there
-    In the bridal robes of the lady fair.
-    Oh, sad was her fate! In sportive jest
-    She hid from her lord in the old oak chest;
-    It closed with a spring, and her bridal bloom
-    Lay withering there in a living tomb.
-        Oh, the mistletoe bough!
-        Oh, the mistletoe bough!”
-
-But I don’t have any idee that it wuz the mistletoe that caused the
-trouble. I spoze that it would have been jest the same if it had been
-red cedar hung up there, or dog-wood.
-
-It wuz more likely a lack of common sense and lookin’ ahead. Genevra
-ort to tried the lock and see how tight the led shet down, and had a
-little forethought afore she got into it.
-
-But poor, young creeter! I don’t spoze she thought of anything, only
-jest her light-hearted happiness and gayety, and wuz carried away by
-the thought of foolin’ Lovell a little and havin’ a good time.
-
-Poor, pretty young thing, how she must have felt when the realizin’
-sense come to her that she wuz trapped in a death-trap, and should
-never see the light of day agin, and, what wuz worse, should never see
-the light of love a-shinin’ in her Lovell’s eyes!
-
-Oh, dear me! I wiped my eyes as this heart-searchin’ thought come to
-me--what if it had been my Tirzah Ann. And I couldn’t help thinkin’
-that it would be jest like Tirzah to be ketched in that way. Maggie, my
-son’s wife, would have looked at the ketch before she let the led down,
-and she’d never wrinkled up a long white dress in that contracted place.
-
-But I am indeed a-eppisodin’ and to resoom.
-
-The entrance hall and the rooms leadin’ out of it are jest as Mr. Scott
-left ’em, and that made me feel curous as a dog to look round me, and I
-meditated and eppisoded to extreme lengths, to myself mostly.
-
-The library is a large and handsome room, lined with books, twenty
-thousand in all. And underneath its deep, big winders runs the river
-Tweed.
-
-How many times, when he got tired of writin’ down his rushin’ thoughts,
-did Walter stand and lean up aginst the winder, and look down into the
-rushin’ river!
-
-I leaned up aginst the side of the winder where he had leaned, and on
-lookin’ down, I see that the river wuz still a-flowin’ along jest the
-same. But the eager, active mind wuz--where?
-
-The dead water, with no soul, rushed and flowed on; the rocks couldn’t
-stop it--no, it made a leap downward and flowed on more free and
-placider.
-
-And I sez to myself--“Death’s rocky portals is jest the same; after
-the leap down into the oncertainty--the darkness, it goes on in the
-Certainty and the Light, fuller and freer than ever.”
-
-I didn’t say anything of these thoughts to my pardner. He wuz a-lookin’
-round at one thing and another, and not havin’ the deep feelin’s that I
-had, as I could see.
-
-But Al Faizi wuz a-lookin’ down into the water or at the beautiful
-landscape from another winder. And I’ll bet if I’d atted him about it
-his idees would have been congenial to mine and inspirin’. I jedged so
-from the looks of his liniment.
-
-But I knew he didn’t care about talkin’ much, so I restrained my tongue.
-
-The rest on ’em wuz a-prowlin’ round and a-lookin’ at
-relicks--priceless ones, some on ’em--and I methought to myself volumes
-as I looked on ’em.
-
-The clock of Marie Antoinette wuz there--what hours, what hours that
-clock ticked off for Marie!
-
-And then there wuz the inkstand of Lord Byron--and what black, gloomy
-ink and sometimes kinder nasty, that poor creeter dipped his pen in a
-good deal of the time--but lofty and riz up, too, at times, very.
-
-And then there wuz two gold bees took from Napoleon’s carriage--what
-bees buzzed and hummed in his ambitious brain as the carriage whirled
-him on! Then there wuz a crucifix that belonged to Mary, Queen of
-Scots; most probble held clost to her poor, frightened heart as the
-pretty creeter walked away to have her head cut off.
-
-A miniature portrait of Prince Charlie, a box from Miss Edgeworth, a
-purse made by Joanna Baillie, a little case from Miss Martineau, a
-snuff-box of George IV., and lots, and lots, and lots of relicks from
-Egypt and Italy and everywhere else. But I d’no as I see any from
-Jonesville. But oversights will take place, and _contrarytemps_ will
-occur.
-
-Wall, in the armory we see bows, and arrers, and spears, and muskets,
-and rifles. A musket that belonged to Rob Roy, a sword gin by Charles
-1st to the Marquis of Montrose, a pair of pistols that belonged to the
-1st Napoleon, found after the battle of Waterloo. Poor creeter, how he
-must have felt! No wonder he lost ’em! James VI. hunting flask, the key
-of old Tolbooth prison. And then we see thumb-screws, and a gag for
-scoldin’ wives--I looked on that with scorn.
-
-But Josiah jest peered and squinted at it, and walked all round it, and
-took out a piece of string out of his pocket and tried to measure it,
-and I sez, “What on earth are you a-doin’?”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “I believe I could make one of ’em after I got home,
-with a little of Ury’s help.”
-
-“What do you want of one, Josiah Allen?” sez I coldly.
-
-[Illustration: “I never should think of usin’ it.”]
-
-“Oh, nothin’, nothin’ in the world, only I thought it would be uneek to
-own one. I never should think of usin’ it,” sez he, as I looked still
-more stonily at him.
-
-“I should think not!” sez I, and my axents wuz about the temperture of
-five ice suckles.
-
-But after we’d all turned away and wuz a-lookin’ at other relicks, I
-see him furtively apply that string to it, and mark down the dimensions
-on’t in his account book.
-
-I d’no what under the sun the man wuz a-thinkin’ on, and I don’t
-believe he did.
-
-Wall, we wandered round through the rooms for a long time, I with
-memories a-walkin’ tight to my side--what a host of ’em wuz a-follerin’
-me of them shadow shapes--
-
-Sweet Ellen Douglas, and Ivanhoe, and Rebecca, Marmion, Rob Roy, Guy
-Mannering, Rosamond, Nigel, the Wild Huntsman, Meg Merrilies, etc.,
-etc., etc.
-
-Oh, what a crowd of phantoms, and what different lookin’ creeters they
-wuz that wuz a-walkin’ up and down that room with me, onbeknown to
-Josiah and the rest!
-
-And what curous words they wuz a-pourin’ out into my ears--words that I
-only could hear--some on ’em wuz in poetry--
-
-    “Charge, Chester, charge--
-    On, Stanley, on”--
-
-or--
-
-    “Oh, mother, mother, what is bliss,
-      Oh, mother, what is bale--
-    Without my lover, what is Heaven?
-      And with him, what were Hell?”
-
-And noble, practical idees, and solemn, historical ones wuz a-soundin’
-in my ears. And figgers of noble knights and heroes and fair ladies wuz
-by my side, up and down the room they walked with me and in and out.
-
-Some of the picters on the walls of the different rooms wuz dretful
-interestin’--dretful. The one on ’em that gin my heart and mind the
-deepest shock wuz the head of poor Mary, Queen of Scots, said to have
-been took a few hours after her execution. The mournful, noble beauty
-of that white, still face gin me feelin’s I couldn’t express, and I
-didn’t try to.
-
-It seemed as if the home where her soul had so lately sojourned had a
-dignity and peace gin it, a-flowin’ out from the seens that soul wuz
-a-beholdin’ after it had cast off the tribulations and persecutions of
-earth.
-
-It wuz a dretful interestin’ picter to me.
-
-Then there wuz Charles XII. of Sweden, Charles II. and Cromwell, and
-lots of picters by Turner and other great artists.
-
-The house from top to bottom wuz full to over-flowin’ with objects of
-interest. I could have stayed there for days and not seen half, but
-Time and Martin wuz a-hastenin’.
-
-And we went from there to Dryburgh Abbey, to see the spot where Scott
-wuz buried.
-
-We see his tomb and the place where his ancestors are buried. His
-son-in-law, Mr. Lockhart, who wrote Scott’s biography, is buried here.
-
-In Dryburgh Abbey we see the winder where the White Maid of Avenal ust
-to appear.
-
-But she didn’t appear to us, much as I’d loved to seen her (right there
-in broad daylight, with my pardner with me).
-
-The Abbey is said to be hanted, mebby by them who have been imprisoned
-and tortured in the dungeons onderneath.
-
-There are holes in the walls where the hands of prisoners were held by
-heavy wedges.
-
-It don’t seem right to have a meetin’-house used to torture folks in,
-and so I told Josiah.
-
-But he said that he didn’t know about it; he thought once in awhile it
-would do good to jest pinch Deacon Garvin’s thumb a little, to make
-him do right, or to make Deacon Bobbett come to terms, when he got too
-rambunktious to business meetin’s and wanted his own way.
-
-“Yes,” sez I, “or to make Deacon Josiah Allen more willin’ to give to
-charitable objects.”
-
-His liniment fell.
-
-“Oh, the Charitable Object has more done for him than I do, they’re
-always raisin’ money for him.”
-
-That wuz his favorite mode of puttin’ off from givin’ to charity.
-
-“And,” sez I, “you see from Loyola and Cromwell down to Josiah Allen
-the carnal mind wants to punish somebody else for doin’ suthin’
-different from what you want ’em to do.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “I wonder if Martin hain’t a-goin’ back? I believe it’s
-a-goin’ to rain, and you ort to have sunthin’ to eat, Samantha. It
-worries me to have you see so much on an empty stumick.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, for his thoughtfulness touched me, “some dinner would
-taste good.”
-
-Sez he, in a low, thrillin’ voice--“Samantha,” and tears wuz almost in
-his eyes as he spoke, “imagine I am in the barn door, and the smell
-of roast chicken, and baked potatoes, and lemon puddin’, and cream
-biscuit floats out, a-wroppin’ you all round, as you are a-standin’ in
-the back door a-callin’ me in to dinner. As you stand there a-lookin’
-perfectly beautiful,” sez he.
-
-Agin my heart wuz touched, and sez I, “And roses under the winders,
-and voyalets, and the blossomin’ trees, and the new-mown grass in
-the orchard a-smellin’ sweet as the scent comes in on the warm south
-breeze.”
-
-“Yes,” sez he, “and the good, rich coffee, and cream cheese, and honey,
-and things.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I, “and after dinner we could set down, and set there as
-long as we wanted to.”
-
-“I wouldn’t stir in over three days!” sez he, “not an inch from my good
-old rockin’-chair.
-
-“But,” sez he, with a deep sithe, “them days wuz too happy to last.”
-
-“No,” sez I, “Providence permittin’, we will see agin the cliffs of
-Jonesville; and home never seemed so sweet as it will when troubles and
-toil and foreign travel is all past, and our two barks are moored once
-more in our own peaceful door-yard.”
-
-“Never to be _on_moored!” sez he, with a almost fierce mean. And my own
-longin’ heart and achin’ back and tired-out eyeballs gin a deep assent
-to his remarks.
-
-Sweet, sweet is the fruits of foreign travel, but lofty and precipitus
-are the thorny branches it hangs on, and wearin’ in the extreme is the
-job of pickin’ ’em offen foreign fields and bringin’ ’em home in our
-mind basket.
-
-And happy are they who carry ’em back fresh and hull and sound--some
-folks carry ’em home in a sort of a jell or a jam--dretful mixed up and
-promiscus like.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV.
-
-OLD YORK AND ITS CATHEDRAL.
-
-
-Wall, as we got back to Edinburgh it was on the first edge of the
-evenin’, and I had the chance of hearin’ a real Scotch ministrel; not
-one of them bagpipes of theirn, which sounds perfectly awful to me, but
-which Josiah wuz dretful took with (of which more anon), but this man
-had a violin, or fiddle, and sung in a sweet, high voice some of the
-best ballads of the country.
-
-[Illustration: Josiah wuz dretful took with it.]
-
-I shed tears and wept to hear some on ’em.
-
-“Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.”
-
-And “Auld Joe Nickleson’s Bonnie Nannie.”
-
-My heart sort o’ listened as I hearn the words. I had hearn our
-Tirzah Ann sing ’em in the melancholy stillness of a June evenin’,
-when through the open winder the distant sounds of the frogs and
-the tree-tuds would come in from the cedar swamp, fur off, and the
-moonlight throw all over her and the organ the long shadders of the
-mornin’-glories.
-
-This is one of the verses--
-
-    “There is mony a joy in this world below,
-      But sweet are the hopes that to sing were uncanny;
-    But of all the joys I aer hae known,
-      There is nane like the love of my Bonnie Nannie;
-    Oh my Nannie, my sweet little Nannie,
-    My dear little niddlesome, noddlesome Nannie.
-      There naer was a flower,
-      In garden or bower,
-    Like auld Joe Nickleson’s bonnie Nannie.”
-
-And then he sung “John Anderson, my Jo, John,” and my mind
-onconsciously reverted to my beloved pardner, as he sung words tellin’
-how he looked--
-
-    “When they were first acquent.”
-
-And then--
-
-    “John Anderson, my Jo, John,
-      We clamb the hill thegither,
-    And mony a canty day, John,
-      We’ve had wi’ ane anither:
-    Now we maun totter down, John,
-      But hand in hand we’ll go;
-    And sleep thegither at the foot,
-      John Anderson, my Jo.”
-
-There wuzn’t hardly a dry eye in my head as I heard it, and I looked
-round to see how my Josiah wuz a-takin’ it.
-
-But right behind that sweet singer wuz a man with a bagpipe, and after
-the melodious warbler had moved away he piped up, right under our
-winder, that screechin’, awful sound; and Josiah’s attention wuz all
-took up with him.
-
-And there wuz a distant, dreamy look to my pardner’s eyes as he gazed
-onto him, of which I did not git the full meanin’ till bime-by--of
-which more anon.
-
-After we had had our supper and had gone to our room Adrian come
-a-runnin’ in and told us that a company of Scotch soldiers wuz marchin’
-through the place on their way to Sterling.
-
-So we quickly made our way out onto a balcony, where we could git
-a good view of ’em, with their short kilt skirts, bare legs, plaid
-stockin’s, and feathers. If it hadn’t been for their whiskers and
-mustaches, you’d most thought they wuz wimmen.
-
-Sez Alice, “Oh, how picturesque they look! don’t they?”
-
-And I sez, “More picturesque than comfortable!” Sez I, “What clothes
-them must be to wear into a battle-field, or to pick rosberrys in! What
-would hender thorns and bullets from stickin’ right into them bare
-legs?”
-
-Sez I, “They don’t use no reason; we see to-day that they ust to dress
-in iron all over, when they ust to go into battle, but now they go half
-naked.”
-
-Sez I, “Oh, the beauty of megumness! They wore too much in old times,
-and now not enough, which, I’ll bet, their cold legs would testify to,
-if they could speak up.”
-
-As I said of the bagpipes--but more anon.
-
-It wuz that night, jest as I wuz preparin’ my body for rest, that
-Josiah’s dreamy study a-lookin’ at the bagpipes become manifest. I see
-my companion foldin’ up two handkerchiefs kinder queer and a-measurin’
-’em by his arm, and anon kinder layin’ his jack-knife between ’em, and
-actin’.
-
-And I sez, “What are you a-doin’, Josiah Allen?”
-
-“Why,” sez he, “I wuz a-thinkin’ of makin’ a bagpipe.”
-
-“Out of two handkerchiefs!” sez I mockin’ly.
-
-“No; I wuz jest a-layin’ out the work and gittin’ a view of its nater;”
-sez he, “I wuz a-layin’ out to use two bags.”
-
-“Bags?” sez I.
-
-“Yes, meal bags,” sez he; “take them bags, and dip ’em into starch
-to stiffen ’em, and then paint and varnish ’em, and there you are as
-fur as the wind is concerned; the music,” sez he, “I believe could be
-rigged up some way with a mouth-organ or sunthin’, or mebbe our old
-accordeun; fix the bags onto both ends on’t and then draw ’em out, or
-shet ’em up, with wind accordin’.
-
-“What a sensation it would create in Jonesville! How it would stir the
-people up!” sez he.
-
-[Illustration: “What a sensation it would create in Jonesville!”]
-
-“And I might on occasions, on 4th of July and sech, wear the Tarten
-costume. I could take that old plaid overskirt of yours, Samantha, it’s
-dressy, you know--red and green--cut it off a little above my knees,
-and my own red stockin’s would look all right. And the old rooster
-would furnish very stylish feathers--I should look beautiful! And of
-course,” sez he, “I should sing with it.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I, “your rumatic old knees would look beautiful bare naked,
-and them bags and accordeun, and your singin’ would empty Jonesville as
-soon as a cyclone would, or a water-spout.” And, in the name of duty,
-I said further, “Your singin’ is like thumb-screws and gullotines, and
-with that bagpipe added, it would cry to Heaven!”
-
-“There it is! there it is!” sez he! “throw cold water on it.”
-
-“Better that,” sez I, “than the hot water you would be deluged with if
-you should try it in public. Nobody would stand it, and you’d find it
-out they wouldn’t without scaldin’ you.”
-
-Wall, from Edinburgh Martin said that we would start for London, and so
-we took the train goin’ south and sot off in the early mornin’ and in
-pretty good sperits.
-
-We only made one stop on our way to London, and that wuz at York--the
-quaint, old, walled city, in which Americans take an interest on
-account of their own New York bein’ named after it.
-
-Our New York is some younger--about seventeen hundred years younger,
-and that is a good deal of difference between a Ma and a young child.
-But, then, it hain’t common to have the youngster about twenty times
-bigger than its Ma.
-
-Wall, we went to a good tarvern and recooperated a little durin’ the
-night from the fatigues of travel, and the next mornin’ bright and
-early we sot out to see the sights of the city, knowin’ that our stay
-there wuz to be but short.
-
-Martin engaged a guide, though he didn’t often want one, sayin’, as he
-did, that he felt that he wuz so familar with history and all those
-places that a guide was “an unnecessary outlay and a drug.”
-
-But bein’ in a hurry to git on to-day, we went first to see the great
-wall that has stood for centuries, and seems able to stand quite a
-number more of ’em. I got out of the carriage and laid my hand on the
-wall, feelin’ that it would be a satisfaction to put my hand on the
-stun.
-
-Josiah said, “That looks foolish, Samantha; you have never tried once
-to put your hand on to the stun wall between our paster and Deacon
-Gowdy’s.”
-
-“But,” sez I, “that wall has never been looked upon by Adrian and
-Constantine the Great; it has never been trod by Britons, Picts, Danes,
-and Saxons, each on ’em a-warrin’ for and defendin’ their native land.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “our wall is a crackin’ good one.” Josiah looked kinder
-scorfin’ at me for my enthoosiasm, but I didn’t mind it any.
-
-And Martin, seein’ my enthoosiasm, and though he didn’t share it, not
-at all, he asked me if I didn’t want to go up and walk on the great
-wall--which I did. So we had the carriage stopped at one of the gates,
-and he and I and Alice and Al Faizi went up and walked on the parapets.
-
-And I probble had as many as 70 or 80 emotions as I felt that
-eight-foot wall under my feet and looked up at the solid, round
-watch-towers, with narrer slits in the stun, for arrers to be shot out
-of onto the enemies, and way up above ’em the little turrets for the
-sentinuls to look out.
-
-I wonder how that sentinul felt there on cool moonlight nights twelve
-or fourteen hundred years ago--I wonder what century old grief or pain
-hanted his lonely heart through the night-watches--Love, Hope, mebby
-they lightened his lonely watch jest as they do in 1900.
-
-Tenny rate, the same sun and moon looked down on him, and Love and Hope
-is as old as they be--as old as the world.
-
-Al Faizi, I believe, had a sight of emotions, too. He stood still and
-looked off with a dreamy look on his face.
-
-Martin thought the stun wuz good and solid, and might be utilized for
-buildin’ depots and grain elevators and sech.
-
-Alice looked good-natered and didn’t say much.
-
-Josiah wuz a-makin’ a cat’s cradle with Adrian when we went back to
-the buggy. And I told him I didn’t see how he could be a-playin’ with
-weltin’ cord at sech a time as this, when he could see this wall.
-
-And he sez, “Dum it all! mebby you wouldn’t take so to stun walls
-if you had broke your back, and got so many stun bruises as I have
-a-layin’ ’em.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I soothin’ly, “do jest as you feel, Josiah. But I wouldn’t
-have missed the sight for a dollar bill.”
-
-Yes, it rousted up sights of emotions in me.
-
-Another thing that endeared York to me: here in this city wuz Christmas
-celebrated for the first time by King Arthur, fourteen hundred years
-ago.
-
-[Illustration: That sentinul twelve or fourteen hundred years ago.]
-
-I don’t spoze he ever gin a thought at that time of what a train of
-turkeys, Christmas presents, trees, plum puddin’s, bells, stockin’s,
-Santa Clauses, etc., etc., etc., would foller on his wake. But it
-wuz a good idee, and he wuz quite a likely creeter--buildin’ up the
-meetin’-housen the Saxons had destroyed.
-
-Wall, we thought we would leave the Cathedral, or Minster, as they call
-it for the last. And anon we see a almost endless procession of anteek
-gate-ways, and housen, museums, churches, the ruined cloisters of St.
-Leonard founded by Athelstane the Saxon, and the ruins of St. Mary’s
-Abbey, with its old Norman arch and shattered walls.
-
-But from most every part of the city where we might be we could see
-the Cathedral towerin’ up above us, some like a mountain of sculptured
-turrets and towers. And anon we found ourselves within its walls, and
-its magnificent and grand beauty almost struck us dumb with or.
-
-The guide said that it wuz the most gorgeous and beautiful in the
-world. But I considered it safe to add a word to his description, which
-made it _one_ of the most gorgeous and magnificent cathedrals in the
-world--and that I spoze is true.
-
-It wuz about two hundred years a-buildin’, and I don’t believe there is
-a carpenter in Jonesville that could have done it a day sooner. Seth
-Widrick is a swift worker on housen, but I believe Seth would have been
-a week or two over that time at the job.
-
-The guide said that it wuz 500 and 24 feet long, and 250 feet broad--24
-feet longer than St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and 145 feet longer
-than Westminster Abbey, and the most magnificent minster in the world.
-The greatest beauty of the hull interior is, I spoze, the immense
-east winder. Imagine a great arched winder 75 feet high and 30 feet
-broad all aglow and ablaze with the most magnificent stained-glass. A
-multitude of saints, angels, priests, etc., all wrought in glass, the
-colors of which are so soft and glowin’, so harmonious, that they can’t
-be reproduced in this day by the most cunnin’ workmen; the secret is
-lost.
-
-This winder is known as The Five Sisters; the pattern bein’ took, it is
-said, from embroideries these maiden wimmen made.
-
-Josiah said, when the guide mentioned it, “Good for the old maids! they
-done well.”
-
-But as I looked upon that marvellous poem of glowin’ color, I felt
-beyend words, but I could still think. And I thought proudly of the
-exquisite work my sect had wrought, and I wuz glad for the moment
-that I too wuz a woman; and though seven hundred years lay between
-them noble sisters and myself, yet I felt that our hearts, our souls,
-touched each other in that pleasant day of 1895.
-
-Wall, Passin’ Time and Josiah tore me away from the contemplation of
-that glory, that wonder, that delight--unequalled, I believe, in the
-hull world.
-
-And at Martin’s request, for he said that he should be asked about it
-probble, and would wish to be prepared with answers, we went out on a
-little stun platform or bridge outside, from which we had a view of the
-hull glowin’ interior--a vista of leafy gothic arches, and sculptered
-columns, more’n five hundred feet in length, and at the end the great
-west winder, with the figgers of the eight earliest Archbishops of
-York, and to keep ’em company, eight saints and other figgers.
-
-All seemin’ly a-standin’ in the glowin’ light took from the most
-gorgeous western sunset. They wuz put up about five hundred years ago,
-and I can’t begin to describe the beauty and richness of colorin’, and
-design, nor Josiah can’t.
-
-There wuz lots of other winders, too, that would be remarkable anywhere
-else. And among ’em wuz one over the entrance that they called the
-Marygold winder, circles of small arches in the form of a wheel, the
-color of which makes it look some like that flower.
-
-Though, as Josiah well said--“Nobody ever hearn before of a marygool
-thirty feet acrost.”
-
-In the vestries we see some historical relicks. One of the oldest is
-the great Saxon Drinkin’ Horn, by which the church holds valuable
-estate near York.
-
-The old chieftain, Ulphus, knelt at the altar and drinked out of the
-horn, and by this act gave to the church all his land, housen, etc.,
-etc., givin’ to the fathers this horn as a title-deed.
-
-Josiah wuz dretful took up with it, and vowed that he would save the
-horns from the next beef creeter he killed and make out his next deed
-with it.
-
-“So strong and safe,” sez he; “no ‘whereasis’ and ‘to wits’ and
-‘namelys,’ and runnin’ up to a stake, and back agin, to wit.”
-
-Sez he, “It would be a boon to git rid of all that nonsense. That
-would use up one horn, and then I might make my will with the other.
-I could will you all my property with it, Samantha, and then we could
-both drink root-beer, or sunthin’, and you could jest keep the horn,
-and there would be no way to break the will. 2d. Wives have lots of
-trouble, but how could anybody break it, Samantha, when you had the
-horn locked up in the tin chest?”
-
-It wuz thoughtful in him, and showed a deep kindness to me, but I felt
-dubersome about it.
-
-Then there wuz another drinkin’ cup presented by Archbishop Scrope. But
-it wuz bigger than I love to see--I am afraid that Mr. Scrope drinked
-too much. But as he had his head cut off in 1405, I couldn’t labor with
-him about it.
-
-Then there wuz the chair in which the Saxon kings wuz crowned. And a
-old Bible presented by King Charles II., and one gin by Charles 1st. A
-old communion plate 500 years old and oak chests, etc., etc., etc.
-
-[Illustration: “With the ends of the fingers a-hangin’ down.”]
-
-When we looked at the communion plate Josiah nudged me, and sez he,
-“Don’t that make you think of she that wuz Sally Ann Plenty?” Sez he,
-“You know she bought a old communion service once because she could git
-it for a little or nothin’.” Sez he, “That wuz the same day that she
-bought a crosscut saw, and a box of gloves 4 sizes too big for her,
-and wore ’em with the ends of the fingers a-hangin’ down, jest as if
-they wuz onjointed.”
-
-Sez I, “Hush! This is no place to bring up sech worldly and foolish
-eppisodes.”
-
-Wall, Martin clim up into the Lantern Tower, two hundred and thirteen
-feet high, for he said that he would wish to say that he had been there.
-
-But Al Faizi wuz the most took up with lookin’ at the monuments in
-the Cathedral. They wuz beautiful in the extreme, and some on ’em wuz
-saints, some on ’em Archbishops, but the most on ’em wuz riz up to men
-who had made themselves famous by killin’ lots and lots of folks--some
-in England, some in Russia, and in India, and in Burmah, etc., etc.,
-etc.
-
-As I stood in front of them bloody records, and meditated that a common
-murderer, who had only killed one or two men, couldn’t never git a
-statute, but it wuz those that killed hundreds and thousands who had
-’em built through foreign lands, and my own native country--as I wuz
-a-meditatin’ on this and a-considerin’ on how the more a man killed the
-higher his monument wuz riz up, and the nigher he wuz buried to saints,
-I see Al Faizi take out that little book with the cross on’t and
-write down quite a lot--what it wuz I d’no, but I presoom it wuz good
-writin’. His idees are congenial to mine, very.
-
-And then another place where I see Al Faizi a-writin’ down quite a lot
-in that book of hisen wuz at Clifford’s Tower, in the castle enclosure,
-where two hundred Jews were masicreed in 1490. From what the guide
-said, I made out as follows: When the Crusaders got back from fightin’
-the Infidels they wuz kinder mad to see that the Jews wuz better off
-than they wuz--had better clothes, more money, etc.--so they begun to
-kill ’em off.
-
-There wuz so many fightin’ Christians the Jews couldn’t defend
-themselves, so they come to the castle with their wives and children.
-And all the soldiers in York come to help the Crusaders kill the Jews.
-And when the poor Jews found that they couldn’t stand it any longer,
-they did jest as the Rabbi told ’em.
-
-They killed the wives and children that wuz left, to keep ’em from
-fallin’ into the hands of their persecutors, and sot fire to the
-castle, and then killed themselves, so’s they shouldn’t burn to death.
-
-This massicre of these onoffending Jews by Christians wuz one of the
-most barbarous acts that ever took place on earth. Lots of folks now
-have their souls massicreed in the same way--out of envy and jealousy.
-
-I d’no what Al Faizi writ in his book as he looked at this place where
-this dretful deed wuz done in the name of Religion. But his face wuz
-a sight to see as he writ--solemn and awful; not mad, but sunthin’
-of the expression of the Avengin’ Angel, or as I mistrust he would
-look--dretful sorry, but sot, awful sot.
-
-Wall, we went back to the tarvern and got a good dinner, and I laid
-down for a nap--I wuz clean used up.
-
-When I waked up it wuz sunset, and Josiah sot by the little casement
-with the panes of glass about four inches big, a-readin’.
-
-And I asked him if Martin laid out to go to London in the mornin’, and
-he said that he guessed he did. “But,” sez he with a tone of regret--
-
-“I did want to visit Scarborough; there’s no need hurryin’ so to
-London,” sez he.
-
-“Who and what is Scarborough?” sez I in a weary axent as I got up and
-wadded up my back hair.
-
-“Why, it is the fashionable waterin’-place of England,” sez he; “it
-is only a little more than forty milds away,” sez he; “we could go
-jest as well as not, and it would be so genteel. I would,” sez he,
-a-smoothin’ out the folds of his dressin’-gown, and bringin’ the
-tossels forred in a more sightly place--“I would love to mingle in
-fashionable circles once more, Samantha.”
-
-I looked down at his old bald head in silent disaprobation. He wuz too
-old to hanker after fashion and display, and too bald, and I knew it.
-
-But I knew that I could not make him over, after he had been made
-so long--no, I should have to bear up the best I could under his
-shortcomin’s.
-
-But I sez mekanically, and to git his idees off--“I would kinder love
-to visit Whitby, Josiah; that hain’t much further away, and that is
-where all the most beautiful jet is made. I thought like as not that
-you would want to buy me a handkerchief pin, Josiah Allen.”
-
-He looked injured, and sez he, “Where is the black pin you mourned in
-for Father Smith?” His tone wuz sour and snappish in the extreme.
-
-Sez I, “That pin wuz broke over twenty years ago.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “I can glue it together with Ury’s help, or we could
-tie it up, so’s it would be jest as good as a new one. It don’t come to
-any strain on your collar,” sez he anxiously.
-
-“No, Josiah; but I shouldn’t like to wear a pin that you and Ury had
-contoggled up. But let it pass,” sez I; “I can do without it, if my
-companion don’t think enough of me right here in the headquarters of
-black breastpins and beads to buy me anything.”
-
-My tone touched him. He sez--“I’d look round and see about it, but I
-hain’t no time, for we’ve got to be a-pushin’ right on to London; if we
-ever lay out to git home agin we’ve got to be on the move.”
-
-I didn’t say nothin’ only what my liniment spoke, and anon he sez--
-
-“If worst come to worst, Ury and I could make you a crackin’ good
-one out of coal. All of this jet in Whitby is made out of coal. And
-how much less it would cost--we could make you a hull set in one
-evenin’--earrings and all.”
-
-I gin him one look, and that wuz all the argument that I would dane to
-waste on the subject.
-
-Alice kinder wanted to go to Robin Hood Bay, which wuz not far from
-Scarborough. She said that she would love to see the place where the
-hero of Sherwood Forest had lived once--the bold outlaw who took from
-the rich with one hand and gave to the poor with the other.
-
-But her Pa laughed at her for believin’ that there ever wuz sech a man,
-or if there wuz, he wuz nothin’ but a common robber, who deserved
-hangin’.
-
-[Illustration: Robin Hood.]
-
-I believe Martin would favor drivin’ Santa Claus out of the country and
-killin’ his reindeers. His imagination hain’t, I really believe, not
-much bigger than a pea--not a marrowfat one, but a common field pea.
-
-So Martin decided at first that we would go direct to London, but
-finally he concluded to go a little out of our way to visit the estate
-of the Duke of Devonshire--the grandest home in England. And he wanted
-to stop a little while at Sheffield on business--property matters, I
-spoze, or mebby he wanted to buy a jack-knife--I d’no what his business
-wuz.
-
-I knew he could git a good jack-knife here, for they’ve been makin’
-knives and sech right here for five or six hundred years.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI.
-
-EDENSOR AND THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE.
-
-
-So anon we found ourselves in the smoky, grimy, dirty city. A heavy
-black cloud seemed to hang overhead, seemin’ to shade the hull spot;
-but then I didn’t want to lay it up agin ’em, for I knew we had our
-own cities, that had to set down under a cloud of smoke jest as they
-did--Pittsburg, and others, etcetery.
-
-I can’t say that I took sech a sight of comfort here in Sheffield, but
-Josiah and Martin seemed to enjoy themselves a-goin’ round and seein’
-all they could.
-
-Martin said it wuz a sight to see how perfectly each workman did his
-work, and how faithful they wuz to their employers; he said he wished
-he had sech men to work for him.
-
-And it wuz curous to think on. As nigh as I could make out, generations
-of one family would work on and on, a-workin’ at one part of a
-jack-knife, for instance, a-keepin’ right on--a grandpa, and his son,
-and his son’s son, and etcetery--all contented and industrious and
-awful handy, as they would naterally be, a-workin’ on at one thing
-year after year, year after year; mebby a-makin’ a rivet to put into a
-handle of a knife.
-
-It stands to reason that they would learn to do it well after workin’
-at the same thing over and over for hundreds of years. And these
-workmen seemed to be sot on doin’ jest the best work that they could,
-and stay right on in the same place.
-
-“And,” sez Josiah, “I wonder if Ury’s boy and grandson and
-great-grandson will be willin’ to keep right on workin’ for me?”
-
-Sez I, “Do you expect to outlive Ury’s grandson, Josiah Allen?”
-
-Sez he, “They did in Bible times.” Sez he, “I wouldn’t be nigh so old
-then as Methusler,” and he went on--“I use my help as good agin as they
-do here. If I should put Ury to work in sech a dark, dirty, onhandy
-place as these workmen have, he’d kick in a minute and leave me; but
-here they work, generations of ’em, all in one place.”
-
-[Illustration: “It don’t pay to tussel with ’em.”]
-
-Sez I feelin’ly, “I wish I could git sech a generation of hired girls;
-but no sooner duz an American housekeeper git a hired girl broke in, so
-she can bile a potato decent, or make a batch of bread, than off she
-trapes somewhere else to better herself. It don’t pay to tussel with
-’em,” sez I.
-
-“Wall,” sez Josiah, “you ort to go into some of these factories; it is
-a sight to see how perfect everything is done. One part of a knife, for
-instance, done in one house, and then another house doin’ another part,
-and then another another, and every part done jest as well as it can
-possibly be.”
-
-And then Josiah went on about that wonderful knife they make here, with
-a new blade added for every year.
-
-And bein’ we wuz alone, and I hadn’t nothin’ else on my mind, I
-moralized some, and sez I--
-
-“Old Fate is makin’ her knife pretty stiddy, and seems to add a new
-blade every year for us to cut our feelin’s on, and jab ourselves with.”
-
-And sez I, “They don’t hurt any the less because we dig the metal
-ourselves and shape the sharp blades with our ignorant hands, not
-knowin’ what we’re a-workin’ on, and some on ’em,” sez I, “handed down
-from foolish, ignorant workmen who have gone before--queer!” sez I,
-“passin’ queer!”
-
-“Yes,” sez Josiah, “it wuz quite a sight; Martin and I enjoyed it.
-
-“But the drinkin’ here in Sheffield,” sez Josiah, “is sunthin’ dretful
-to witness.” Sez he, “I thought we had drinkin’ habits in America, but
-I never see nothin’, nor I don’t believe anybody else did, to compare
-with some of the places we visited to-day. Why,” sez he, “it would do a
-W. C. T. U. good to jest look at ’em.”
-
-“Good?” sez I sternly.
-
-“Wall, yes,” sez he; “it would set ’em to kinder soarin’ and wavin’
-them banners of theirn and talkin’--you know jest how they love to
-talk,” sez he.
-
-Sez I, “You better stop right where you are.” Sez I, “Do you realize
-that you are talkin’ about your pardner?”
-
-“Wall, yes,” sez he; “that’s what I wuz kinder figgerin’ on--Heaven
-knows you love to talk, you can’t dispute that.”
-
-I wouldn’t dane to argy with him.
-
-But, indeed, it wuz a sight to walk through some of the low, dingy,
-filthy streets, with saloons on every side flauntin’ their brazen
-signs, and men and wimmen with bloated, sodden faces, that strong drink
-had almost changed into the faces of animals.
-
-The same sin--the same useless, needless sin, parent of _all_ other
-vices--jest as bad on this side of the Atlantic as in Jonesville and
-America, and worse.
-
-I left it there a-performin’ and cuttin’ up, and I found it here actin’
-jest the same. You’d think after crossin’ the Atlantic it would git
-sobered up a little--seein’ so much water and everything.
-
-But it hadn’t. It wuz jest the same reelin’, disgraceful, foolish,
-leerin’, bloated Shame--
-
-Jest as bad in Sheffield as it wuz in Jonesville and Chicago, and worse.
-
-It wuz enough to melt a stun with pity, and make hard eyes weep
-with sorrer and flash with a righteous indignation, at the Nations
-that don’t devise some means of wipin’ out this gigantic cause of
-wickedness, woe, and want.
-
-They can connect worlds together with chains of lightnin’, they can
-make roads through the earth and on top of it, and in all ways; then
-why can’t they keep a man from drinkin’ a tumbler full of whiskey? They
-could if they wanted to, and all put in together.
-
-Wall, wuzn’t it a change to leave this smoky, grimy city and find
-ourselves in the open, beautiful English country, and in the most
-beautiful part of it, too?
-
-We went by railroad to Matlock Bath, and from there went in a carriage
-to the little village of Edensor, the loveliest little village I ever
-sot eyes on. Its housen are all built in some quaint, beautiful style
-of architecture, and it looks like a picter, and a great deal handsomer
-than lots of picters I’ve seen--chromos and sech.
-
-This village belongs to the Duke of Devonshire, and is on his estate,
-which is the finest in England, and I guess on this hull earth.
-
-And I d’no whether they’ve got any on any other planet that goes ahead
-on’t. Mebby Jupiter has, but I don’t really believe it.
-
-Why, jest its pleasure park--the door-yard, as you may say--has two
-thousand acres in it.
-
-This estate, known as Chatsworth, is twelve milds from Edensor, and
-nobody could describe the beauty of the landscape all about us as we
-passed onwards.
-
-As we went acrost a corner of this immense door-yard, through the most
-beautiful pieces of woodland, and the verdant slopes covered with
-velvety sward, great, beautiful pheasants and herds of deer would
-look round at us and then walk off, not a mite afraid, fearless as
-they will be if they’re used well. Anon we would ketch a glimpse of
-some enchantin’ vista, with herds of contented cattle, makin’ picters
-of themselves aginst the background of green grass and noble trees
-centuries old.
-
-From a little hill top we could see twelve milds in every direction,
-and not a foot of land that this man didn’t own.
-
-Twelve milds! the idee! It seems more’n he ort to have on his mind.
-
-Anon we reached a beautiful stun bridge, designed by Michael Angelo,
-and crossin’ the little river, went up to the great iron and gilt
-entrance gates.
-
-[Illustration: Martin sent his card in.]
-
-Martin sent his card in to somebody that takes care of the premises,
-I guess (and how he dast to ask any favors of this gorgeous-dressed
-creeter in knee-breeches, I d’no, but he did, bold as brass), and word
-come back that we could look over the place, and one of the hired men
-wuz sent to go with us and show us round. It wuz well he come; we
-should have got lost, sure as the world. But lost in sech a place--sech
-a place! Why, I’d read the Arabian Nights quite a good deal, and a
-considerable number of fairy stories about enchanted castles, and sech.
-But never did I ever hear, in a book, or out on’t, of sech magnificence
-as I see here.
-
-First we went through a great courtyard into the splendid entrance
-hall, seventy feet long if it wuz a inch; the wall and ceilin’s
-ornamented with frescoes, all representin’ the life and death of Cæsar.
-We went up a majestic staircase, with all the richly ornamented columns
-and statutes it needed for its comfort, and more, too, it seemed,
-though they wuz beautiful beyend tellin’; and here we went into the
-State Apartments of the house.
-
-I spoze they are called State Apartments because in every room there’s
-enough of beauty and grandeur to supply a hull State, if it wuz
-scattered even, and I don’t mean Rhode Island either, but New York and
-Maine and sech sizable ones.
-
-Why, every one of these lofty ceilin’s is painted with picters
-handsome enough for the very handsomest handkerchief pin, if they
-wuz the right size. The hired man told us what some of the picters
-represented--Aurora (and, oh, how beautiful Aurora wuz!), and one wuz
-the “Judgment of Paris.”
-
-I hadn’t no idee before that Paris jedgment wuz so perfectly beautiful;
-I spozed it wuz kinder triflin’. They seemed, as fur as I could make
-out, to be a-samplin’ apples--lovely creeters they wuz that wuz
-standin’ round.
-
-And then there wuz “Phaeton in the Chariot of the Sun.”
-
-It didn’t look a mite like our phaeton--fur more magnificent.
-
-Room after room opened into each other, all different as stars differ
-from each other, but every one full of glory; all full of the treasures
-of every land--Persia, Egypt, and every other.
-
-The hired man drawed our attention to the presents of kings and
-princes, and all the rare objects of art and virtue.
-
-But I sez, “As fur as virtues is concerned, I d’no as kings would be
-any more apt to git hold of ’em than common men, or so apt, but,” sez
-I, “call ’em perfectly beautiful, and I agree with you.”
-
-In them magnificent and immense rooms are picters by Landseer, Holbein,
-Salvator Rosa, Raphael, Rubens, Claude Lorraine, Correggio, Hogarth,
-Titian, Michael Angelo, etc. A great many with the autographs of the
-painters--priceless, absolutely beyend price, are these works of art.
-
-And if I should talk a week, I couldn’t describe all the beautiful
-objects we see there, so valuable that one on ’em would make a man rich.
-
-In one room wuz a clock of gold and malachite--a present from the
-Emperor Nicholas, worth a thousand guineas, and a broad, shinin’ table
-of one clear sheet of transclucent spar, and a great table of clear
-malachite. I’d be glad to git enough of it for an earring for Tirzah
-Ann.
-
-In one room we see a picter by Holbein of Henry VIII., and a rosary
-belongin’ to him. I wondered as I looked on’t what that poor, misguided
-creeter ust to pray about as he handled them beads. He couldn’t want
-any more wives than he had, it seemed to me. Mebby he wuz a-wishin’
-some of the time that he wuz back with Katharine, that noble creeter
-who said--
-
-    “Weep, thou, for me in France, I for thee here;
-    Go count thy way with sighs, I mine with groans.”
-
-And when they had that lawsuit of theirn (he gittin’ after another
-woman, and wantin’ to git rid of her), after he’d bought off the jedge,
-Katharine sez to Henry--liftin’ her right arm up towards Heaven--
-
-“_There_ sits a Jedge no king can corrupt.”
-
-Noble, misused creeter! I’ll bet if them beads could have told what
-wuz said over ’em, they would have said that Henry thought of her, his
-lawful wife, when his memory wuz sick of recallin’ Anne Boleyn, Anne of
-Cleves, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. But to resoom.
-
-We see the bed that George II. died in. The chairs and footstools
-used by George III. and his queen. And the two chairs used by William
-IV. and Queen Adelaide at their coronation. And then we see the most
-beautiful tapestry that ever wuz made, and busts and statutes. Richly
-colored, priceless old china filled the splendid cabinets inlaid with
-finest mosaic work--in fact, the hull length of these rooms, openin’
-into each other so that you could see their hull length of 550 feet,
-wuz full of the most costly and beautiful objects man ever made.
-
-The oak floor wuz polished, and shone like a mirror.
-
-The library wuz one hundred feet long of itself, with columns risin’
-from floor to ceilin’ and a gallery runnin’ round it, and two more
-openin’ out of it, with alcoves of Spanish mahogany, these full of
-picters by Landseer and others, and medallions, etc., etc., etc., and
-full of the choicest literature of every land.
-
-And then there wuz a private chapel that went ahead of any
-meetin’-house I ever see or ever expect to, all marble and spar and
-wonderful wood-carvin’s, and picters from the old masters filled it
-full of beauty and glory. Faith and Hope wuz there all carved out
-beautiful, so’s you could see ’em right before you, as well as feel ’em
-in your heart.
-
-In the sculpter gallery is the most wonderful treasures, busts and
-statutes and mosaics, relicks from every land and age, and beautiful
-figgers, almost alive, by Canova, Powers, Thorwaldsen, Gibson,
-Bartolini, etc., etc. Some wuz presented by emperors and kings,
-and some on ’em bought by the Duke and his folks. The hull room,
-one hundred feet long, is full of the rarest treasures that can be
-collected; it made my brain fairly reel beneath my best bunnet to see
-the wealth of glory and beauty, and Al Faizi turned away from it a
-spell and looked thoughtfully out of the winder.
-
-But I see that here, too, wuz a picter that no artist could reproduce,
-and so it wuz in every winder that you could look out of. A green,
-velvety lawn a hundred feet wide and over five hundred long, bordered
-by most beautiful colored flowers, and out of another winder you
-could see the velvety slopes, with walks and river and bridge, and
-way off the noble trees and terraces, one risin’ above another, all
-full of beautiful plants and shrubs. And in the centre from the top
-down, hundreds of feet, wuz a great flight of stun steps, thirty feet
-wide, down which flows and sparkles a sheet of water, reflectin’ in
-its mirror-like surface all the white statutes on its margin, till it
-reaches the edge of the broad gravel walk, when it disapears right
-down into the earth and flows off in some curous, underground way to
-the river.
-
-Josiah wuz all rousted up when he see this, and, as is the way of my
-dear, ardent-souled companion, he tore a page out of his account-book,
-and begun to make calculations on’t.
-
-And I sez with a sithe--“What are you a-figgerin’ on now, Josiah Allen?”
-
-“Oh! I’m plottin’ out a lovely addition to the beauty of our home,
-Samantha--I’m a-plannin’ sunthin’ so uneek and fascinatin’ that it will
-make the Jonesvillians open their eyes in astonishment and or.”
-
-“What is it?” sez I.
-
-“I’m a-plannin’ on how we can have a waterfall on our back doorsteps.”
-Sez he, “I hain’t seen anything so perfectly beautiful and strikin’ as
-this sence I come to the Old Country, and we can have one jest as well
-as not. You know our back steps are quite high, and how beautiful they
-would look with the sparklin’ water flowin’ down ’em--how refreshin’
-it would be in hot weather to have a waterfall right on your own
-doorsteps, and set in the open back door, right on its banks, as it
-were, and hear the murmur of the water, and see it a-glidin’ down
-towards the smoke-house. We might have it dissapear,” sez he, “between
-the smoke-house and the ash-barrel.”
-
-[Illustration: Josiah’s home-made waterfall.]
-
-“Where would you git your water?” sez I coldly.
-
-“Wall,” sez he, a-holdin’ up the paper with quite a lot of figgers and
-marks on it, “I figgered it out that we might have a pipe go from the
-kitchen pump, cut a little hole in the thrasholt to let it go in, and
-there you would be.”
-
-“And did you lay out,” sez I in frigid axents, “to have me stan’ there
-a-pumpin’ all day to supply your waterfall?”
-
-His mean begun to fall a little--it had been triumphant--and he sez
-kinder meachin’--“You have to throw out your dish-water anyway, and you
-might’s well throw it on the steps as to throw it in the dreen.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “a fountain a-runnin’ dish-water would be a beautiful
-spectacle, wouldn’t it, Josiah Allen?
-
-“I guess it would astonish the eyes of the Jonesvillians, and their
-noses, too!”
-
-“I didn’t mean that!” he hollered quite loud.
-
-“What did you mean, then?” sez I.
-
-He agin murmured sunthin’ about the pump, the cistern, and the old mair.
-
-And I sez, “That poor old mair agin!” Sez I, “If I hadn’t broke it up,
-that mair wouldn’t live three days after we got home, with all you’d
-put on her, a-apein’ foreign idees, Josiah.”
-
-“I hain’t been a-apein’, and you know it!”
-
-But I went right on--“Even if you could make it work, how could we git
-into the house if the doorstep wuz turned into a waterfall?”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, a-lookin’ up kinder cross, “I’ve hearn lots of times of
-havin’ the bottom sash of a winder hung on hinges, and goin’ in and out
-by ’em.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “after you’d clumb up through the buttery winder onct
-or twict with a pail of milk in both hands, I guess you’d git sick of
-doorstep waterfalls!”
-
-He see by the light of my calm, practical reasonin’ that his idee
-wuz visionary and couldn’t be carried out, but he wouldn’t own up to
-it--not he.
-
-He jest jammed the paper down into his vest pocket, and snapped me up
-real sharp the next words I said to him.
-
-He acted awful growety; but I didn’t care, I knew I wuz in the right
-on’t.
-
-Wall, after goin’ through the brightest and most lovely garden you can
-imagine, you come into a place with huge rocks and cliffs, romantic
-shrubbery, massive ledges, and a waterfall fallin’ into a deep, dark
-basin, caverns, etc., and as you go round a corner, you come face to
-face with a huge rock that you think must have fell there. You think
-you will have to go back; but no! Do you think you will have to turn
-back for anything in this enchanted place? The hired man touches the
-rock, and it turns right away and lets you pass, and then you see that
-not only is the enchantin’ beauty of the place made, but the rough
-wildness of this spot.
-
-One of the curous things in this place wuz a tree with kinder
-queer-lookin’ branches, and the hired man touched it somewhere, and
-water flowed out of every leaf and twig, turnin’ it into a fountain.
-
-The conservatory is from one end to the other two hundred and
-seventy-six feet long, and broad enough to drive through it with a
-carriage and four horses, so you can imagine the wealth of beauty in
-it--orange-trees full of their glossy fruit, lemon-trees, feathery
-palm-trees fifty feet high, bamboos, cactuses, bananas, queer, broad,
-velvety leaves of every shape and color, and all of the flowers that
-ever wuz hearn on, and never wuz hearn on, it seems to me.
-
-There are thirty other greenhousen, all runnin’ over with beauty of
-various kinds. Graperies seven hundred feet long, with the rich white
-and purple clusters hangin’ down in every direction. Peach housen,
-strawberry housen, apricot, mushroom, vegetable housen, in which every
-kind of vegetable is raised. Why, the kitchen-garden and greenhousen
-covers twenty acres. But there is no use of talkin’ any more--like
-Niagara, and the World’s Fair, you have got to see it to understand its
-vastness and its perfect beauty.
-
-I wuz glad I’d seen it. I believe that even Martin wuz kinder took down
-off from the Mount of Self Esteem he always sets on, as he wandered
-through it.
-
-He’d always prided himself quite a good deal of his home in the city,
-and it is palatial and grand. But what comparison would it bear to
-this? Not even--
-
-    “Like moonshine unto sunshine,
-    Or like water unto wine.”
-
-No; it wuz like a small kerosene lamp unto sunshine. And he felt it,
-Martin did. He didn’t patronize anybody for as much as three quarters
-of an hour after he left there. He give the hired man a good-sized
-piece of money, for I see him. It wuz so big that the man turned fairly
-pale, and called Martin “Your Highness.” He sez--
-
-“When will Your Highness return again?”
-
-So we come off with flyin’ colors, after all.
-
-Wall, seein’ that we wuz so near, Martin thought we’d ride over to
-Haddon Hall, only a few milds away. This is one of the fine old
-buildin’s of the Middle Ages. It stands on a rocky eminence above the
-River Wye; over the great arched entrance is the arms of the Vernon
-family, who occupied it for three hundred and fifty years.
-
-[Illustration: Her common-sense shoe.]
-
-As we passed in through a little door, cut in one of the broad sides
-of the gates, we see, on the rough stun thrasholt, the impression of a
-human foot, wore there by the innumerable feet of warriors, pilgrims,
-ladies, troubadors, children, kings, and queens, for all I know.
-Anyhow, she who wuz once Smith put her own common-sense shoe right into
-the worn footprint, and stood there, kinder on one foot, and had more’n
-eighty-seven emotions as she did so, and I d’no but eighty-nine or
-ninety.
-
-I had a sight, anyway, as we went into the stun courtyard, ornamented
-with stun carvin’, into the interior.
-
-Josiah didn’t take to it at all.
-
-But, then, as I told him, what could you expect of a house where the
-folks had been away for several hundred years--any place would look
-kinder dreary.
-
-But he sez, “Dum it all! when it wuz new, who’d like to have sech rough
-stun floors? And look at that fireplace in the kitchen, big enough to
-roast a hull ox. How could a man cut wood enough to keep that fire
-a-goin’?”
-
-Sez I, “The man of the house didn’t have to do it at all, his vassals
-did it, Josiah.”
-
-“Wall, he had to tend to it, and I’d ruther do the work any time than
-to keep a vassal a-goin’, that is, any vassal that I ever hired by the
-month, or day.”
-
-But in the great banquettin’ hall, with its oak rafters and long table,
-where they feasted, at one end a little higher--for the quality, I
-spoze--he ketched sight of the minstrels’ gallery at one end. And sez
-he, his face lightin’ up, “The man of the house could git up there and
-sing while the rest wuz eatin’, if he wanted to, and nothin’ said about
-it.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I pintedly, “if he _could_ sing; but,” sez I, wantin’ to git
-his mind offen this unpleasant theme, sez I--
-
-“I’d love dearly to see this table set out as it ust to be, and the
-noble and beautiful a-settin’ round it, with boars’ heads on the table,
-and great sides of beef, and gilded peacocks.”
-
-“And jugs of ale and wine,” sez Josiah.
-
-But I waved off that idee, but couldn’t wave it fur, for the beer
-cellars wuz a sight to behold. They must have been drunk a good deal of
-the time, jedgin’ from the accommodations for drinkin’.
-
-Up the massive stun stairway we went into another big room, used as a
-dinin’-room by the later occupants of the Hall.
-
-Here over the fireplace are the royal arms, and under them, in old
-English letters, the motto--
-
-“Drede God, and honor the king.”
-
-Goin’ up six heavey, oak, semicircular steps, we go into the ball-room,
-over a hundred feet long, with great bay-winders, out of which you
-see picters more beautiful than any that could be painted by the hand
-of man--perfect landscape of quiet country, silvery stream, rustic
-bridges, grand old parks, and the spire of the church from the distant
-village pintin’ up to the blue sky.
-
-Then through other rooms with Gobelin tapestry on the walls, still
-holdin’ skripteral stories in its ancient folds.
-
-Then through other rooms that are modern compared with the others, and
-have been used in the present century. Here, agin, in one of ’em we see
-Gobelin tapestry drapin’ the State bed.
-
-Follerin’ the guide through a anty-room we come out into the garden on
-Dorothy Vernon’s Walk.
-
-Under the tapestry is concealed doors and passages, as the guide
-showed us by pushin’ the folds aside, through which many a man or
-woman, drove by Fear or Love, or some other creeter, had rushed for
-refuge or secret meetin’.
-
-The garden of Haddon Hall is picturesque and beautiful in the extreme.
-
-Dorothy’s Walk, shaded by noble old trees, leads to the massive flights
-of marble steps, down which she hurried with beatin’ heart and flyin’
-steps to meet her lover, Sir John Manners, while her friends were
-merry-makin’ in another part of the Hall, and never dreamed of her
-flight.
-
-Haddon Hall by this means passed into the family of Rutland, who lived
-here till the first of this century. The Duke of Rutland keeps the
-place in its ancient form, much to the delight of those who love the
-old ways.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII.
-
-JOSIAH HAS AN ADVENTURE.
-
-
-Wall, Martin, who sometimes changes his mind, but don’t think he duz,
-always a-sayin’ that it shows weak-mindedness and is a trait belongin’
-to wimmen (which I never feel like disputin’, knowin’ that my sect has
-in time past been known to be whifflin’; but so have men, too)--so
-it didn’t surprise me much when he said that instead of proceedin’
-directly to the Lake District from here he thought we would go first to
-the home of Shakespeare. Sez he:
-
-“I may be called to London any minute on business, and I feel that it
-will be expected of me to visit Shakespeare’s birthplace anyway.”
-
-Sez Martin, with a thumb in both vest pockets, and a benine,
-patronizin’ look on his liniment--
-
-“Shakespeare wrote a number of very creditable productions, and though
-I never had the time to spare from more important things to peruse his
-works--poems, I believe, mostly--yet I always love to encourage talent.
-I think it is becoming for solid men, for progressive, practical men,
-to encourage writers to a certain extent; and Shakespeare, as I am
-aware, has been very much talked of. I would be sorry to miss the
-chance of saying to those who inquire of me that I had been there, so I
-believe we will proceed there at once.”
-
-“Wall,” I sez, “I shall be glad enough to go;” and Al Faizi looked
-tickled, too. He had read him, he said, in his own country.
-
-And sez he to me, with his dark eyes all lit up, “To read Shakespeare
-is like looking into clear water and seeing your own face reflected in
-it, and earth, and mountain top, and over all the Heavens. And it is
-more than that,” sez he, “it is looking into the human mind and reading
-all its secrets--all the wonder and mystery of the soul; it is like
-looking at life, and death, and eternity.”
-
-He wuz dretful riz up in his mind a-talkin’ about it, and he quoted
-Shakespeare quite often on our way to Stratford, and always in the
-right place, and he is generally so still, that I see, indeed, how he
-felt about him. Alice talked, too, quite a good deal about Shakespeare.
-And Al Faizi listened. Yes, he listened to Alice--poor creeter! And
-everybody blind as a bat but jest me.
-
-Wall, we got there anon or a little before, and put up to the Red Horse
-Inn, a quaint, old-fashioned tarvern, but where we had everything for
-our comfort, and wuz waited on by as pretty a red-cheeked girl as I
-want to see.
-
-[Illustration: A quaint, old-fashioned tarvern.]
-
-A sight of emotions wuz rousted up in me as I sot in that tarvern, or
-walked through its old-fashioned, low-ceiled rooms and meditated on who
-had been under its ruff.
-
-When rare Ben Jonson, and Drayton, and Garrick, and all of
-Shakespeare’s friends come down from London to visit him, of course
-they stopped here, and of course Shakespeare himself often and often
-come here--mebby too often for Miss Shakespeare’s feelin’s.
-
-Much as I honor Shakespeare, I have to admit that he did stimulate
-a little too much--but, then, who hain’t got their failin’s? Why,
-Solomon, the very wisest man, had more wives than he ort to had.
-
-Seein’, I spoze, that we wuz Americans, our supper that first night
-wuz served in Washington Irving’s room, as they call the room that he
-occupied, our own genial wit and poet. Mebby his words didn’t come in
-rhyme, but they had the soul of poetry, and quaint, sly wit, and good
-sense and good manners and everything.
-
-I always sot store by Washington Irving. (I had got acquainted with him
-through Thomas J.)
-
-Alice quoted a lot from Irving, and a lot from Shakespeare, while we
-wuz to the table, and I felt their presence in my heart.
-
-Wall, I wuz so kinder beat out that night, that, as poets say, “I
-sought my couch” to once, a good-lookin’ oak bedstead, with a teester
-cloth overhead, and some curtains hangin’ down on each side.
-
-The weariness I had gone through with that day, mixed in with the
-powders Mr. Morpheus keeps by him, brung on a sleep almost imegiately
-and to once. And I wuz sweetly a-dreamin’ of seein’ the Jonesville
-steeple a-pintin’ up through a ile paintin’ of cows and calves. Philury
-wuz a-peacefully milkin’ one of the cows, while Ury, a-settin’ on the
-steeple with a pail of skim milk, wuz a-tryin’ to bagon one of the
-calves to him, but a Madonna with a long beard poked at the calf with a
-sceptre and made it kick.
-
-It wuz a sweet, tender dream of home, tinged slightly with the
-surroundin’s we had been surrounded by on our tower.
-
-But anon as the Madonna and Philury changed into two gorgeous altar
-pieces, and Ury leaned near the calf and fed it out of a stained-glass
-winder--
-
-Even at that very minute a sharp scream cut through the silence of
-night, like the ragged thrust of a bread knife through a loaf of light
-bread.
-
-Once, twice, three times, did that cry ring out, and then I heard
-the sounds of rapid footsteps, and anon the door busted open, and my
-pardner rushed in and slammed it shet and clicked the bolt to.
-
-And then he sunk down in his chair and almost buried his face in his
-hands.
-
-I riz up on my piller, and sez I in agitated axents--
-
-“What is the matter, Josiah?”
-
-Sez he from out from under his hand, “I’ve done it now!”
-
-“Done what?” sez I.
-
-“Don’t ask me!” sez he, a-shudderin’ visibly; “it is nothin’ you want
-to know.”
-
-But his words made me more and more determined to know the worst, as
-wuz nateral they should. And finally he said in a surly, cross way--
-
-“Wall, if you must know, I’ve been into a woman’s room.”
-
-“Been into a woman’s room!” sez I coldly; “what did you want in a
-woman’s room?”
-
-“I didn’t want nothin’--Heaven knows I didn’t, only to git out agin.”
-
-“Who wuz it?” sez I in stern axents.
-
-“I d’no--she wuz a perfect stranger to me,” sez he, with his face still
-hid in his hand.
-
-“Wuz she good-lookin’?” sez I in the same stern tones. I hain’t a mite
-jealous, as is well known, but I felt that I wanted to know the worst.
-
-“Don’t ask me,” sez he; and he continued fiercely, “What business has a
-woman to be up a-ondressin’ herself at this time of night? Why wuzn’t
-she to bed and covered up?”
-
-Sez he, a-growin’ more and more excited and fierce actin’--“I’m a-goin’
-back and tell that woman that it is a shame and a disgrace to be up and
-ondressed at this time of night. Why wuzn’t her door locked, if she had
-to ondress?”
-
-“What business wuz it of yours?” sez I. “Do you spoze she expected you
-to be a-prowlin’ round her room and a-prancin’ in, onbeknown to her?”
-
-“Gracious Peter!” sez he in pitiful axents; “duz she think I wanted to
-be there?”
-
-“Why did you go in, then?” sez I.
-
-“Because I made a mistake!” he thundered out. “I thought it wuz our
-room. How should I know that there wuz a dum, red-headed fool there
-a-ondressin’ herself at this time of night? Why wuzn’t she abed--up,
-and skairin’ a man half to death?”
-
-“If you’d kep’ out, Josiah, you’d have escaped,” sez I more softer
-like, for I see by his axents that he wuz a-sufferin’ from fear and the
-effects of the shock.
-
-Sez I, “Be calm; accidents will happen, Josiah. Come to bed, and try to
-forgit it.”
-
-[Illustration: Sez he, “I’m a-goin’ back--it is my duty.”]
-
-“I won’t try!” sez he. “I’m a-goin’ back and give that dum fool and
-loonatick a piece of my mind. What henders some other man from walkin’
-in?” Sez he, “I’m a-goin’ back--it is my duty!”
-
-I riz up and laid holt of him, and sez I, “Do you stay where you be,
-Josiah Allen. I should think you’d done enough for one night.”
-
-Sez he, “What henders Martin and Fazer from walkin’ in jest as I did,
-and bein’ skairt to death?”
-
-Sez I, “Martin and Al Faizi know enough to take care of themselves, and
-it is your place to go to bed and behave yourself.”
-
-“A-ondressin’ herself at this time of night!” he kep’ a-mutterin’ as he
-put his vest down on a chair.
-
-“What are you a-doin’?” sez I.
-
-“Wall, there hain’t a lot of strange wimmen round, is there?”
-
-I see it wuz vain to dispute the pint. He acted deeply injured, and as
-if the woman had made a plot to skair him, and I had to gin up the idee
-of wringin’ any jestice out of his words and demeanors in the case.
-
-But the next mornin’ he felt calmer, and didn’t seem to blame her so
-much, and admitted that she had to ondress, and said of his own accord
-that mebby he had been too hard on her.
-
-But he wuzn’t quite reconciled, I could see, and felt deeply that he
-might have escaped the shock if she hadn’t ondressed.
-
-Wall, our first visit wuz to Shakespeare’s birth-place. We sot out
-bright and early.
-
-It is a long, old-fashioned-lookin’ house, with three gabriel ends in
-the ruff on front, and kinder criss-cross-lookin’, some like a big
-checker-board, the cross pieces of oak filled in with plaster, I should
-jedge.
-
-We first went into the kitchen, with its wide, open fireplace, and how
-I felt when I thought that here, right here, in this spot, the immortal
-Shakespeare had often sot, with his feet and face burnin’ hot, and his
-back a-freezin’, as is the way with them old fireplaces!
-
-But no matter how his body felt or didn’t feel, think of that mind,
-that soul that wuz caged in here between these narrer and queer-lookin’
-walls. What visions them eager, bright eyes ust to see in the burnin’
-flames! What shadders and shapes the clouds of smoke took as they
-floated up and away! How his soul follered ’em! How he sailed off into
-strange heights and depths, sech as no other writer ever did, or can,
-foller and explore! How the mind of the Infinite must have brooded over
-that little sleeper that lay over three hundred years ago in that low,
-shabby room upstairs--a small, dreary-lookin’ apartment, with the walls
-covered with the names of visitors and verses, etc.
-
-We went up to it on a steep, narrer stairway. Martin had to take off
-his tall hat or he couldn’t have got in--I d’no whether he would or not
-if he hadn’t had to. I wuz proud to see that my pardner took off his
-hat the minute we got inside; I wuz proud of the reverence he showed
-for genius, and told him so.
-
-But he said he forgot that it wuzn’t meetin’, it seemed some like
-it, he said, all dressed up at ten in the mornin’, and goin’ off all
-together.
-
-After I spoke he wuz a-goin’ to put his hat on agin, but I sez--
-
-“If you’ve blundered into reverential and noble ways, Josiah Allen,
-don’t, for pity sake, break it up.”
-
-Of course my pardner always takes off his hat when goin’ into housen,
-visitin’, or callin’, or sech, or in our own residence. But on our
-travels, goin’ through big, cold buildin’s, dungeons, etc., he’s made a
-practice of keepin’ it on, bein’ bald, and sufferin’ in his scalp from
-cold.
-
-But here, in this place, this hant of genius, I felt for about the
-first time sence I had been huntin’ antiquities, that I’d love to take
-off my own bunnet and dress-cap, but I spozed that the move would draw
-attention and call forth remarks, so I kep’ ’em on.
-
-But my sperit knelt bareheaded and bowed itself down before this shrine
-of Wisdom and Genius, this earthly abode of one who showed what a grand
-and divine thing the human mind may be; who held the secret of all
-things common and transcendent--all things “that are dreamed of in our
-philosophy” and more--
-
-This magician, who showed “what fools we mortals be,” and showed to
-what heights of wisdom men may attain--
-
-Who held up his wonderful microscope and let mortals look through it
-into the inside of their own hearts and feelin’s and emotions. And who
-held up a lookin’-glass to Mom Nater, so she could see her old face in
-it, every beauty and every deformity--
-
-Who plunged us into the depths of sorrerful and heart-breakin’
-experience, bewitched us with his wit, and brung us up so clost to the
-divine good that we almost feel the beatin’ of the great heart of love.
-
-Wonderful magician, indeed, and havin’ sech feelin’s for him for years
-and years (ketched a good deal from Thomas J., who admires him beyend
-any tellin’), I felt that it wuz strange indeed that she who wuz once
-Smith should stand right here in the place where he had once lived.
-
-Al Faizi felt jest as I did, only more so--jest as still waters run
-deepest. I could talk with my companion yet, and the others, but he
-stood reverent and silent, and walked through the rooms like one in a
-dream, in which sech visions come that it “give us pause.”
-
-But, as I say, I could still talk some--I seem to be made that way that
-conversation is hard to smother in my breast. Lots of wimmen are made
-jest so, and men too.
-
-Martin wuz talkin’ fluently to Alice and Adrian as they went from spot
-to spot in the old house, and Martin wuz, I spozed, a-layin’ up a fount
-of memories that the public could tap, and valuable information would
-flow for their refreshin’.
-
-But anon I missed my pardner; but even as my Thought wuz a-reachin’
-after him, as it always must while it is yoked to my constant Heart, he
-come up to me with joy in his mean and a piece of paper in his hand,
-and sez he, with a glad and joyous axent, in which, too, pride wuz
-blendin’, about a third of each ingregient a-makin’ up his hull mean.
-
-Sez he, “I have been a-writin’ a poem in the visitors’ book, Samantha,
-and I copied it off for you on a leaf out of my account book--I knew
-that you would want to see it, and then I shall keep the copy in my tin
-trunk with my money and deeds.”
-
-I groaned instinctively, but suppressed it all I could as I sez--
-
-“Let me know the worst to once! What have you writ?”
-
-He proudly ondid the paper, and I read--
-
-    “I, Josiah,
-      Am settin’ by the fire,
-      Am right on the spot
-      Where Shakespeare sot;
-      I’m proud to be there,
-      Though I spoze, from what Samantha sez,
-        that it hain’t the same chair.”
-
-“There,” sez he proudly, as he folded up the paper, and put it into his
-portmoney. “There hain’t a verse here on these hull walls or on the
-visitors’ book that will compare with that.”
-
-“No,” sez I coldly, “there hain’t--Heaven knows there hain’t.”
-
-Sez he proudly, “It has three great qualities, Samantha--it is terse,
-melodious, and truthful. Shakespeare’s chair wuz sold two hundred years
-ago to a Russian princess, and they’ve kep’ on a-sellin’ the original
-chair several times sence, so how could it be here? If I’d been writin’
-in prose, I should a said that it wuz a dum humbug!”
-
-And here he paused reflectively and dreamily.
-
-“I might have said sunthin’ strong and strikin’ here--
-
-    “‘It makes me mad as a June bug
-    To see ’em try to humbug.
-
-                             ‘Josiah.’
-
-“You know that June bugs hum,” and he murmured dreamily, “humbug, and
-bughum; it would have been very ingenious, and I might say sunthin’
-strong about ‘tire,’ to rhyme with ‘Josiah,’ about relicks bein’ made
-to order. ‘It makes me tired,’ you know, only have it come all in
-poetry,” sez he; “it would be dretful appro_poss_.”
-
-Sez I coldly, “What you mean by that, I don’t have any idee.”
-
-“Why,” sez he, “I see it in _The World_; it is French, and it means to
-have anything come in appropriate--appro_poss_, you know. I should have
-used it in my poem, but I couldn’t think of anything to rhyme with it
-but hoss.”
-
-Sez I, “_Tire_ is a good word to use in connection with your poetry.
-Everybody would appreciate it, and hail it with effusion.”
-
-“But,” sez he with a wise air, “you have to be so careful in poetry.
-You can’t use strong phrases much, if any. And then, knowin’ that I
-wuz writin’ in the same book with kings, etc., I felt that it must be
-genteel and stylish. And I knew you always loved to be remembered, and
-so I brung your name in, Samantha.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I, “you brung it in in sech a way as to hurt his folkses
-feelin’s as long as they make them chairs of hisen.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “it looks well for pardners to remember each other, and
-it’s a rare quality, too.”
-
-I felt that he wuz right, and didn’t dispute him, and sez he--
-
-“Samantha, I wanted you to be jined with me on the pillow of fame. I
-don’t want to be anywhere where you hain’t, Samantha.”
-
-His tenderness touched my heart, and I kep’ still and let him go on,
-only I merely remarked--
-
-“As for its bein’ melodious, Josiah, your first line has got 2 words
-in it, and your last one seventeen.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “that’s the way with great writers--they warm with
-their subject as they go on, and git all het up with inspiration. Jest
-think of Browning and Walt Whitman.”
-
-Sez I, “Don’t go to comparin’ that verse of yourn with Browning. Why,
-folks know what you wuz a-writin’ about! Don’t compare yourself with
-Robert Browning.”
-
-He see in a minute his deep mistake--he see that folks could find out
-what he’d undertook to write about.
-
-“Wall, Walt Whitman,” sez he, “he writ jest as long and short lines.
-I’ve seen ’em to home in that ‘Leaves of Grass’ Thomas J. owns.”
-
-“Wall, I wish your grass wuz to home, too,” sez I; “but,” sez I,
-a-sithin’ hard, “I’ve got to stand it, I spoze. But,” sez I warmly,
-“there hain’t a spot, from Egypt to Jonesville, but what I’d ruther had
-you broke out into poetry in than in this house.”
-
-And I turned onto my heel and left him, feelin’ cheap as dirt about it,
-though I comforted myself with the thought that his poetry wuzn’t the
-only foolish lines writ there.
-
-[Illustration: Shakespeare’s ghost reading the effusions on the walls
-of his house.]
-
-I believe that if Shakespeare’s ghost comes back and hants this old
-spot--as it seems likely to spoze it duz--about the hardest thing it
-has to bear is to read the effusions writ all over the walls and in
-the visitors’ book, though some on ’em are quite good.
-
-Prince Lucian writ a very good verse. But, then, he writ in it that--
-
-    “He shed jest _one_ tear.”
-
-How under the sun anybody can make calculations ahead on sheddin’ jest
-_one_ tear, no more, no less, is a mystery to me, and it must have been
-jest out of one eye, and not the other.
-
-But bein’ a Prince, I spoze he done it; but I never could. I couldn’t
-calculate closter than a dozen or twenty before I begun to cry, and I
-couldn’t cry with one eye and keep the other dry to save my life.
-
-Our own Washington Irving writ quite a good verse, and so did the
-American Hackett--the best actor of some of Shakespeare’s characters.
-
-Lots of actors have left their names in the room where the poet wuz
-born--Edmund Kean, Charles Kean, and a great many others. And in the
-visitors’ book you see writin’s from kings to chore-boys, and lines
-in every language--English, German, French, Chinese, Hebrew, Persian,
-Turkish, etc., etc., etc.
-
-The Poet of the World has the world come to do honor to his memory.
-
-Next to the thought that I wuz under the ruff that bent over the head
-of Shakespeare wuz to see the writin’ of some who had writ their names
-on the low walls.
-
-Charles Dickens! Why, jest to look on that one name, writ by his own
-hand, would have been enough, if I had been to home, to furnished me
-with deep emotions for ten days. Nobody knows what my feelin’s have
-always been for that man.
-
-It hain’t quite so fashionable to love Dickens now as it ust to be. The
-world has grown older and more genteel, and seems to prize more the
-writin’s it can’t understand--the vaguer ones and more cross like, and
-morbid, “Is Life Worth Living”--“No, it hain’t.”
-
-“How to be Happy though Married.”
-
-Ibsen, Tolstoi, etc., etc., etc., and so forth and so on.
-
-But I lay out to like Dickens till, like Barkis, the high water comes,
-and--“I go out with the tide.”
-
-So his name, the Master, I laid my hand on’t, and had ninety-seven
-emotions durin’ that time, and I presoom more, though truly I didn’t
-count ’em.
-
-And Thackeray, who laughs with us over the weaknesses of humanity, yet
-once in a great while strikes sech a hard and onexpected blow onto our
-hearts and feelin’s, that we look right under that cynical veil he
-chose to wear, and see the great, tender heart of the man. His name,
-writ by his own hand, gin me powerful emotions, and sights on ’em.
-
-Lord Byron’s name rousted me up some. Poor, onhappy, restless creeter!
-I wuz always sorry for him--sorry he wuz so mean and grand too--dretful
-grand. I spoze he wuz so onhappy that he couldn’t help lettin’ it run
-off the ends of his fingers sometimes onto the paper.
-
-Some of his poetry uplifts you, like bein’ on a mountain-top in a
-storm, and some is like a calm moonlight night in the tropics, and
-still there is some on’t that I never felt willin’ that Josiah Allen
-should read--I felt that it would be resky to allow it. As I looked
-at his signature I instinctively sez over to myself a verse of
-hisen, that always seemed to be kinder open-hearted, and ownin’ up,
-and had a good deal of human nater in it. Some despair and some plain
-curosity--they always seem to touch a chord in everybody’s nater--I
-guess that most everybody sometimes feels jest about so, jest so kinder
-curous to know what is comin’ next--
-
-    “My whole life was a contest since the day
-      That gave me being--
-      And I at times have found the struggle hard,
-    And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay;
-      But now I fain would for a time survive,
-      If but to see what next can well arrive!”
-
-Wall, he see the last thing arrive that we know anything about here.
-What come next, after he shet his eyes in Greece (dyin’ nobly, anyway)
-we can’t tell. But probble the one who formed that strange soul knew
-jest what it needed the most, and deserved.
-
-Probble that was the--“The next thing that arrived.”
-
-But I am indeed a-eppisodin’, and to resoom--
-
-Then there wuz Sir Walter Scott, and Tennyson, and Longfellow, and
-everybody else, as you may say, who have distinguished themselves in
-literature and art, and lots of Lords and Ladies, but them I didn’t
-mind so much, knowin’ that for the most part that they had been born
-into their lofty places onbeknown to ’em, but the others had made the
-high pinnacles for themselves, and then stood up on ’em.
-
-In another room we see lots of relicks of the past. Josiah nudged me
-once or twict a-lookin’ at ’em, I spoze to call attention to his poetry
-and his doubts. But I declined to be nudged, and never looked up at him
-at all, but kep’ my eye on the relicks.
-
-One is a seal ring of Shakespeare’s, with his initials, W. S., tied
-together with a true lover’s knot. It wuz found near Stratford
-meetin’-house, twenty years ago and over, and is spozed to be really
-his ring, as he said sunthin’ in his will that shows that he had lost
-his seal ring.
-
-Then there is a letter writ to Shakespeare by Richard Quincy, askin’
-the loan of some money.
-
-I sez to Josiah, “Whether he got it or not, if he could come back now
-he could sell that letter of hisen for enough to make him comfortable.”
-
-“Yes,” sez Josiah; “I would give fifty cents for it myself, or
-seventy-five, if he would take it in provisions.”
-
-“Hush!” sez I, “you couldn’t git it for that, for this letter, I feel,
-is genuine. It seems so nateral, borrowin’ money of a writer. Why,” sez
-I, “truth is stomped onto it.”
-
-Then there wuz the desk that Shakespeare sot at when a boy. A rough,
-battered desk it wuz, with the lid lifted by leather hinges.
-
-I sot down to it and leaned my head onto my hand and
-thought--thought--of how he felt when he wuz a-settin’ at it, and
-wondered if he had boyish joys or boyish sorrers jest like the rest of
-children. And if he scribbled poetry when he ort to be studyin’ his
-rithmetic, and whether old Miss Shakespeare, his ma, sent him off to
-school happy, with fond words and a kiss, or kinder mad from a spankin’.
-
-To spank Shakespeare! My soul revolted from the thought.
-
-Or whether, while he sot here, he studied his schoolmates and teachers
-with eyes that must have held some fur-seein’ wisdom in ’em even at
-that age, or whether his mind wuz all took up with goin’ in a-swimmin’
-in the clear waters of Avon, or a-goin’ a huntin’, or a-nuttin’ in
-his rich neighbor’s woods, Sir Thomas Lucy, who looked down with sech
-disdain on William when a boy and a young man, and now whose only
-earthly chance of bein’ held in any remembrance is the fact that he
-misused Shakespeare.
-
-But then mebby William wuz tryin’, boys are sometimes.
-
-I wondered if while he wuz a-settin’ here where I sot any dreams of
-Anne Hathaway begun to come into his brain. She must have been about
-eighteen, allowin’ that William wuz ten; mebby some dreams of the
-pretty young girl hanted the boy’s vision, edgin’ themselves in between
-thoughts of play and study. But before long them little dreams wuz
-a-goin’ to rise up and push every other vision out of his mind.
-
-And then there wuz Shakespeare’s jug, and the old sign of the Falcon--I
-hated to see ’em.
-
-And some old deeds and documents relatin’ to his father’s property,
-from John Shackspere and Mary his wyffe, and a deed with Gilbert
-Shakspere’s autograph on it.
-
-And lots of engravin’s of different places about Stratford, and a great
-many portraits of Shakespeare.
-
-[Illustration: A great many portraits of Shakespeare.]
-
-Poor creeter! if he and Columbus have got acquainted with each other
-where they be now, as I spoze it is nateral to think they have, how
-they must sympathize with each other over the numerous faces they wuz
-said to have had on this planet! Noble creeters, it wuz too bad, when
-they only had one apiece, and good, noble-lookin’ ones, I most know,
-or they wuz, anyway, when they got older, for Time, the sculptor, must
-have sculped some of their noble traits into their faces.
-
-Martin and Alice bought quite a number of steroscopic views, and I
-bought a few, and would, though Josiah looked askance at me as I did
-it, and we left the cottage. But I laid my hand on the doorway as I
-went out, as though it wuz a shrine, as indeed it wuz.
-
-Wall, havin’ seen the place where he wuz born, we naterally wanted to
-see the place where he is a-layin’, where “After life’s fitful fever
-he sleeps well,” havin’ “Ended the heartache, and all the natural ills
-that flesh is heir to.”
-
-So we sot out for Holy Trinity Church. New Place, as it wuz called,
-where Shakespeare spent the last days of his life, and where his girl
-entertained Queen Henriette, wuz torn down in 1757 by its owner, who
-had moved away, and didn’t want to pay the heavey taxes levied on it.
-While livin’ there, he had cut down the mulberry-tree Shakespeare
-planted, because folks thronged into his garden so, and cut off twigs,
-etc., for relicks; so he cut it down.
-
-It seems mean in him, and then, on the other hand, it would be hard for
-us to be broke in on any hour of the day, sometimes when we had a hard
-headache, and wanted to set quiet under our own vine and mulberry-tree,
-to have a gang of enthusiastick tourists come, and not only break up
-your quiet, but break off your branches over your achin’ head, and
-mebby recite Shakespeare right there in broad daylight, and declaim,
-and elocute, and act.
-
-It would be tuff--tuff both ways. But the young folks of Stratford
-wuzn’t megum--they didn’t try to see on all sides, as she who wuz once
-Smith tries to do, so they used to pelt his winder with stuns and
-things, so he moved out. And much as I honor and revere Shakespeare,
-I feel kinder sorry for the man, mebby because nobody else seems to
-say a decent word for him. But I believe he see trouble, with taxes,
-tourists, elocution, and sech. And because our eyes are sot on a
-blazin’ sun that is shinin’ high in the Heavens, it hain’t no sign that
-we ort to kick over every kerosene lamp and candle that we come acrost.
-No; less be jest to all, and respect what is respectable in ’em, and be
-sorry for humble trials, as well as proud of lofty glories.
-
-But to resoom--The house that stands on the spot now is owned by the
-town, and is a museum of Shakespeare’s relicks and souvneirs. It is
-needless to say how many emotions I had as I walked onwards towards the
-tomb of the greatest writer who has ever appeared on our planet--in
-fact, I couldn’t count ’em or begin to, if there wuz any need on’t.
-
-Nor nobody couldn’t see the crowd that walked with me--King
-Lear, with sweet Cordelia a kinder holdin’ him up; eloquent
-Portia, Lady Macbeth--the Henrys and Richards--the bright-faced
-Shrew that wuz tamed--Prince Hamlet--Ophelia a-babblin’ her love
-ditties--Imogene--poor Desdemona, and her folks, and etc., etc., etc.,
-etc., etc. How they pressed round me!--a great deal nigher to me than
-Adrian wuz, though I wuz a-leadin’ him by the hand.
-
-The church stands near the banks of the sweet Avon. And we went up to
-it by a avenue of trees, and through a great Gothic door, into a porch
-that led into the church itself. The old sexton, who had onlocked the
-door for us, at our request led us right up to the monument, which is
-in a niche in the chancel, and is spozed to be a perfect likeness, as
-it wuz made by a sculptor who wuz acquainted with Shakespeare, and who
-had a death mask to work from.
-
-There he stands or sets, as the case may be, for a sort of a marble
-cushion comes up in front of him, and you can’t see quite to the bottom
-of his vest.
-
-He stands (or sets) with that high, noble forward and good-lookin’
-featers, and eyes that look clear through your soul, and that deep
-collar of hisen on, under a arch that has some cupids up on each side
-on top, and coats-of-arms, and skulls, and things.
-
-And there he has stood (or sot) through the centuries, jest as I spoze
-he would wanted to, with a paper in one hand and a pen in the other, to
-all appearance a-writin’, and the hull world a-readin’ it.
-
-In front of the altar rails are the marble slabs over the graves of the
-Shakespeare family, among them his wife, Anne Hathaway; it reads as
-follers--
-
-    “Here lyeth interred the body of Anne,
-    Wife of William Shakspere, who depted this life the
-    6 day of Aug. 1623, being of the age of 67 years.”
-
-Another slab marks the grave of Susanna, the poet’s daughter.
-
-But, of course, the slab that gin me the biggest sized emotions, and
-the greatest number on ’em, wuz the one over the poet, which has these
-mysterious and immortal lines on’t--
-
-    “Good friend, for Jesu’s sake forbeare
-    To digg the dust encloased heare;
-    Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones,
-    And cursed be he yt moves my bones.”
-
-I had a immense emotions of or as I read these words, and dassent
-hardly lay my hand on’t. But made up my mind that as I didn’t have no
-idee of movin’ his bones, and laid out to spare the stuns, I might
-venter.
-
-There are them that think that some great secret wuz buried with
-Shakespeare--them are the ones that are so sot on thinkin’ that Bacon
-wuz the one who writ the great plays, and they say in this very
-inscription is hid in cypher a confession that Bacon writ ’em.
-
-But I didn’t seem to think so, nor Josiah didn’t, though he wuz all
-took up with the idee of the cypher, as Martin broached it.
-
-Sez he, “How beautiful it would be, and how stylish, to write to you
-when you’re off on your towers with a cypher! I could write it in
-poetry, and it would be so uneek, and if I wanted to complain to you
-about the children, or Ury, or anything, how handy it would be!”
-
-“But,” I sez, “in answer to that idee of yourn, I can quote to you the
-first line of Shakespeare’s epitaph, and I feel it, too,” sez I.
-
-He went back and read it over agin, and come back lookin’ real puggicky.
-
-But I see that other folks had felt jest as I did about disturbin’ the
-slab, for it looked fresh and new, while the other ones near it wuz all
-worn with the footprints of time and the tourists; and when the poet’s
-wife and daughter died, they wanted dretful to be laid by William, but
-they dassent open the grave. The curse he threatened held ’em back.
-
-Queer! I wish I knew what he meant by it, but can’t; the silence of
-three hundred years can’t be broke by one small woman’s voice, or
-ruther one woman’s small voice. No answer comes to our deep wonder and
-curosity.
-
-In this church is the font where Shakespeare wuz baptized--this wuz
-in the church at the time of his birth, but wuz took out in the
-seventeenth century, and replaced by a new one; this old one lay for
-years in a heap of rubbish, and wuz used for a pump trough for a
-spell--jest think on’t!
-
-[Illustration: The font in which Shakespeare was baptized.]
-
-There is other interestin’ things in the church, but we didn’t wait to
-see ’em. We went out and wandered for a spell around the quaint streets
-of Stratford. Every shop almost has souvneirs to sell of the great
-man--busts and medallions and picters of him and his home, and his
-tomb, and carvin’s, engravin’s, etc., etc. I _would_ buy a plate with
-his birthplace on’t, though Josiah demurred.
-
-Sez he, “I always thought you wuz so peticular, Samantha, what you
-eat on, and the idee of eatin’ on Shakespeare--cow-slop greens, for
-instance, or pork and beans.”
-
-I sez, “It hain’t Shakespeare’s face.”
-
-“Wall, eatin’ cabbage and onions on a meetin’-house.”
-
-“It is _his_ house,” sez I.
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “custard and Shakespeare’s birthplace.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “what of it--what of custard and Shakespeare?” My tone
-wuz cold--cold as ice, and it danted him, and he sez--“Oh, wall, if you
-can reconcile ’em, and bring ’em together, buy it.”
-
-It wuz the money he begreched, though you could git ’em from a sixpence
-up. I gin a shillin’ for mine. It wuz a good plate.
-
-Wall, we went acrost the old bridge, over the clear waters of the Avon.
-And we visited the Memorial Hall, a big buildin’ built in honor of
-the poet’s three hundredth anniversary. It has a theatre to act out
-Shakespeare’s plays on Memorial days, and a library filled with the
-volumes that have been writ about him, and the picter gallery is filled
-with picters, some on ’em different faces of hisen, and them relatin’
-to his life and writin’s. It wuz a interestin’ spot, and I would have
-loved to lingered in it longer, and so would Alice and Al Faizi, but
-Josiah wuz tired out, and he sed to me aside--
-
-“It is most night and I am starved to death!” Sez he, “I hain’t most
-starved, but starved.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “we shall have to do what Martin sez.”
-
-“Martin!” he whispered enough to take my head off--“Martin! Can he
-suffer and die for me, do you think?”
-
-And then he reviled me for not havin’ some cookies and cheese with me.
-
-And I asked him if I could be expected to make a restoraunt of myself,
-and lug round cookies and cheese for him all over Europe. And we had
-some words.
-
-But the expression of his face wuz pitiful in the extreme when Martin
-come up, and sez he--
-
-“Without doubt it would be expected of me to visit Shottery and see
-Anne Hathaway’s cottage. And as my time is limited, and I have already
-wasted nearly a day of my valuable time in noticing Shakespeare, I
-think that we had better do up the whole of this weary job to-night; so
-I propose that we go at once from here to Shottery.” And he hurried out
-to the carriage.
-
-Josiah whispered to me in a feeble voice, “He needn’t use any Shottery
-on me or stabbery or any other killery, I shall fall dead without ’em.
-I cannot stand it, Samantha!” sez he.
-
-He did indeed look wan; weariness and hunger had made sad inroads on
-his mean, and my heart melted, and I hurried out to see if I could
-gain Martin’s consent to wait till mornin’ before we went. But no! He
-said he knew that he should be asked if he had seen the cottage, and
-he could not waste another day on a writer of books and the girl he
-married.
-
-Alice come out jest then a-lookin’ considerable pale, and I sez, “It is
-goin’ to be pretty hard on Alice and Adrian; they are pretty tired now.”
-
-“Are they?” sez he. That man would have jumped into the Avon if it
-would have pleased either of ’em. He worships ’em. And then he sez, “I
-suppose I can stay over another day.” Sez he, “They are of the _first_
-importance.”
-
-[Illustration: The supper that man eat wuz enormous.]
-
-Josiah sez to me aside--“Dear Samantha, you have saved my life!”
-
-And the supper that man eat wuz so enormous that I whispered--
-
-“Have I saved you, Josiah, to lose you now? saved you on the road and
-relicks, to lose you on a plate and deep dish?” And he didn’t like it.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII.
-
-SHOTTERY AND WARWICK CASTLE.
-
-
-Wall, the next mornin’ we sot out bright and early for Shottery, Josiah
-feelin’ as peart as you please, and the two children’s faces lookin’
-like roses. Al Faizi’s eyes wuz bent on the biggest and sweetest rose,
-as you may say, with a worshippin’ look, that nobody noticed but she
-who wuz once Smith.
-
-We found the cottage a long, low buildin’, lookin’ as old as the hills,
-though, like ’em, there didn’t seem to be no signs of fallin’ down and
-decayin’.
-
-They say it is in jest the condition it wuz when gentle Anne Hathaway
-lived here, and drawed William over here so often by the strong
-magnetism of love.
-
-The walls wuz kinder criss-crossed, lookin’ some like Shakespeare’s
-cottage, and the ruff wuz kinder histed up in places, down towards the
-eaves, into gabriel ends. And some birds wuz playin’ and wheelin’ round
-the chimblys. They might have been to all appearance the very same
-birds that sang round the latticed winders of Anne’s room, and waked
-her up on summer mornin’s, a-sayin’ to her, as they wheeled round and
-round it, in the rosy dawn--
-
-“Will is coming to-day to see you! Will loves you! Will loves you!”
-
-I presoom the birds wuz relations to them very ones--grandchildren,
-“removed” a great number of times.
-
-If birds keep a family tree and plume themselves on their ancestors
-(and trees and plumes comes nateral to ’em), I presoom they talk this
-over amongst themselves; mebby that wuz jest what they wuz a-talkin’
-about that day, a-twitterin’ about legends a-flyin’ down from the past--
-
-How the happy, eager-faced lover ust to come to see their pretty Anne,
-and how her heart wuz won, and she went out of the old house a happy
-bride with the man of her heart, who wuz not an illustrious man to her
-at all, but only Will, Will Shakespeare, the man she loved, and who
-loved her.
-
-How they did chirp and talk sunthin’ over! I d’no what it wuz.
-
-Inside wuz some old-fashioned furniture, amongst the rest a bed that
-ust to belong to Miss Shakespeare, she that wuz Anne Hathaway. Mebby it
-wuz the same bedstead that her pardner left her in his will.
-
-“His second-best bed and bed furniture.”
-
-It seems as if he hadn’t ort to done it; it seems as if she ort to had
-the best one. Howsumever, there might be reasons that I don’t know
-nothin’ of that influenced him. Mebby they’d had words over it; mebby
-she’d told him that she wouldn’t take it as a gift, and that he needn’t
-give it to her; mebby she thought it wuz extravagant in him to buy
-it, and throwed it in his face that as much as he paid for it, it wuz
-nothin’ but hens’ feathers, and the second-best bed, the one her ma had
-gin her, wuz as good agin and softer layin’.
-
-I d’no, nor nobody don’t. Anyway, he willed it to her, and I presoom it
-wuz on this very bedstead it wuz put; it gin me queer emotions to look
-on’t, and a sight on ’em.
-
-Wall, Martin sed that as the day wuz partially wasted, we might jest as
-well drive over and see Warwick Castle; it wuz only eight milds’ drive.
-
-The old town of Warwick is about eighteen hundred years old, and dates
-back to the time of the Romans.
-
-But, as Martin well sed, “Think of a town over eighteen hundred years
-old with only ten thousand inhabitants, and then,” sez he, a-leanin’
-back in the carriage and puttin’ his thumbs in his vest pockets
-a-pityin’ and a-patronizin’ the Old World dretfully--
-
-“Think of Chicago, about fifty years old and with a population of
-about forty hundred thousand”--he spread out the population a purpose.
-He owns lots of real estate in Chicago, and is always a-puffin’ it up.
-
-Sez he, “They haven’t got public enterprise and push over here, as we
-have.”
-
-But his tone kinder grated on my nerve somehow, and I spoke up and sez--
-
-“They don’t base their reputation on a mob of folks, and beef and pork;
-they have sunthin’ more solider and more riz up like.”
-
-But I’ll be hanged if I didn’t have to change my mind a little
-afterwards, of which more anon.
-
-You see I had heard Thomas J. read a sight about the old Saxon earls
-of Warwick, and specially Guy Warwick in the time of Alfred the Great
-(you know the man that fried them pancakes and burnt ’em, and had other
-great reverses, but come out right in the end, as men always do who are
-willin’ to help wimmen in their housework).
-
-I always bore strong on this great moral when Thomas J. would be
-a-readin’ these deeds to me (I thought he might jest as well wipe a
-few dishes for me once in a while as well as not). And he’d read “how
-Guy killed a Saxon giant nine feet tall, and a wild boar, and a green
-dragon, and killed an enormous cow.”
-
-At the porter’s lodge we see the rib of that cow, and Josiah said, “You
-sed that they didn’t date back any of their greatness to beef; what do
-you call this? Why,” sez he, “Ury and I kill a cow almost every fall;
-nothin’ is said in history of it; you don’t set any more store by me.”
-
-I see that I had done the man onjestice, and I sez tenderly, “You
-are a good provider of beef, Josiah, and always have been; but,” sez
-I, “this cow wuz probble twice the size of one of your Jerseys. You
-couldn’t wear that breastplate, or swing that great tiltin’-pole, or
-the enormous sword that hangs up there,” sez I, “you couldn’t move ’em
-hardly with both hands, and,” sez I, “look at that immense porridge-pot
-of hisen; you couldn’t eat that full of porridge, as he probble did.”
-
-[Illustration: “You couldn’t eat that full of porridge.”]
-
-“Try me!” sez he, earnestly--“jest try me, that’s all.” Sez he, “I
-could eat every spunful and ask for more.”
-
-And there it wuzn’t much after noon. That man’s appetite is a wonder
-to me and has been ever sence I took it in charge. And foreign travel,
-which I thought mebby would kind o’ quell it down, only seems to whet
-it up to a sharper edge.
-
-The way to the castle is through a large gateway, and then we go
-through a roadway which is cut through solid rock for more’n a hundred
-feet, and then when you come out, you suddenly git a full view of the
-grand old castle, with its strong walls and noble old Round towers.
-
-The first is Guy’s Tower, one hundred and twenty-eight feet high, and
-has walls ten feet thick--jest think on’t! the walls further acrost
-than our best bedroom.
-
-Then there is Cæsar’s Tower, eight hundred years old and one hundred
-and fifty feet high, and between these towers the gray, strong old
-castle walls, with slits in ’em for the bowmen to shoot their arrers
-out of, and portcullises and old moat, showin’ that the castle in its
-young days had everything for its comfort and defence. Enterin’ one of
-the arched gateways in the wall, you find yourself on the velvet grass
-and amongst the stately old trees of a spacious courtyard, with the
-ivy-covered walls and towers and battlements risin’ on every side of it.
-
-We walked round up on them walls--clumb up into Guy’s Tower and looked
-off on a glorious landscape, as beautiful as any picter, and went down
-below Cæsar’s Tower into some dungeons; gloomy places of sorrer, filled
-even now with the atmosphere of pain and agonized memories.
-
-The great hall, sixty-two feet by forty, with oak ceilin’ and walls
-darkened by time and covered with carvin’s, has firearms of all kinds,
-and splendid armor of all ages--English crossbows, wicked-lookin’
-Italian rapiers, weepons of all kinds inlaid with gold and silver in
-the most elegant workmanship.
-
-We see Prince Rupert’s armor, Cromwell’s helmet, a gun from the
-battlefield of Marston Moor. And, in fact, all round you you see the
-most elegant and curous curosities, and can look down the hull length
-of the grand apartments that open into each other, a length of three
-hundred and thirty feet--the red drawin’-room, the gilt drawin’-room,
-the cedar drawin’-room, etc., etc.
-
-At the end of a little hall leadin’ from the great hall I see the noted
-picter of Charles 1st on horseback, with one hand on his side.
-
-I declare, it actually seemed as if he wuz a-goin’ to ride right
-in here amongst us, it wuz so perfectly nateral. It wuz painted by
-Vandyke. I don’t see how Vandyke ever done it--I couldn’t.
-
-The apartments are all furnished beautiful--beautiful. Cabinets,
-bronzes, exquisite old china, magnificent anteek furniture, and the
-most rare and beautiful picters are on every side--by Rubens, Sir
-Peter Lely, Hans Holbein, Salvator Rosa, Rembrandt, Vandyke, Guido,
-Andrea del Sarto, Teniers, Murillo, Paul Veronese. And beautiful marble
-busts by Chantrey, Powers, etc. There wuz a lovely table that once wuz
-owned by Marie Antoinette. And others had rarest vases on ’em, and
-wonderful enamelled work of glass and china, with raised figgers on
-’em, made by floatin’ the metals in glass; nobody in the world knows
-now how to make ’em. One dish we see wuz worth one thousand pounds.
-
-As I see this I nudged Josiah, and sez I, “When you think of what this
-dish is worth, hain’t you ashamed of standin’ out about that plate?”
-And he said--
-
-“It wuz the sperit of the thing I looked at, mixin’ Shakespeare up with
-vittles; though,” sez he, “I would gladly eat now offen a angel or a
-seraphin; why,” sez he, “St. Peter himself wouldn’t dant me.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “we’ll be havin’ dinner before long.” We laid out to eat
-at Warwick before we went back.
-
-Sez I, “Look round you and let your soul grow by takin’ in these noble
-sights.” Sez I, “Look at them bronzes and tortoise-shell and ivory and
-mosaic.”
-
-Sez he, “I’d swop the hull lot of ’em, if they belonged to me, for
-a plate of nut cakes or a bologna sassige. And I’d ruther see a good
-platter of pork and beans than the hull on ’em!”
-
-I knew he wouldn’t complain so much alone, so I left him and sauntered
-round to look at the beautiful objects on every side.
-
-In the state bedroom is the bed that belonged to Queen Anne, and the
-table and trunks that she used, also her picter.
-
-In the grand dinin’ hall is a great sideboard, made from a oak that
-grew on the Kenilworth estate, so old that they spoze it wuz standin’
-when Queen Elizabeth come here to the castle a-visitin’.
-
-The carvin’s on it show the comin’ of Queen Elizabeth and her train,
-her meetin’ with sweet Amy Robsart in the grotto, the queen’s meetin’
-with Leicester, etc., etc.
-
-Jest as I wuz a-lookin’ at this and a-standin’ before it in deep
-thought, Martin come on out of the drawin’-room, and sez he--
-
-“A wonderful display of art and virtu!” sez he.
-
-My eye wuz bent on that sideboard, and I sez--
-
-“I d’no as I’d call it a display of virtue--I don’t believe I would.”
-
-I wuz sorry for Miss Leicester--sorry as a dog.
-
-Though when I see the epitaph she put above that handsome, fascinatin’
-mean creeter (her husband), put it over him her own self, when he
-wuzn’t by her to skair her and make her stand up for him as pardners
-will sometimes--I d’no as I wuz very sorry for her. Thinkses I, She
-either didn’t know enough to know what her pardner wuz up to, or else
-she wuz sech a fool she didn’t care about it. In either case I felt
-that my sympathy wuz wasted--of which epitaph more anon.
-
-Wall, we went through a place in the wall they called a portcullis, and
-over a bridge called a moat.
-
-[Illustration: “The more I see of moats, the more determined I be to
-have one round our house.”]
-
-And Josiah nudged me here, and sez he, “The more I see of moats, the
-more determined I be to have one round our house.” Sez he, “How stylish
-it would be and how handy! When you see company comin’ you didn’t want,
-or peddlers or agents or anything, jest pull back your drawbridge, and
-there you’d be safe and sound.” Sez he, “I’ve wanted one for years, and
-now I’m bound on havin’ one.” Sez he, “Ury and I will start one the
-minute I git home.”
-
-Sez I, “You won’t do any sech thing.”
-
-“Why,” sez he, a-arguin’, “it would be a boon to you, Samantha; hain’t
-I hearn you groan when onexpected company driv up, and you wuz out
-of cookin’ or cleanin’ house or anything? All you’d have to do would
-be jest to speak to Ury or me, and jest as they wuz a-comin’ along,
-a-thinkin’ of dinner mebby, a-wonderin’ what you’d have--bang! would go
-the drawbridge, and they’d jest have to back up, and turn round and go
-home.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I; “how could I face ’em the next Sunday in meetin’? It
-hain’t feasible,” sez I.
-
-“Face ’em?” sez he; “if they said anything, tell ’em to start a moat of
-their own; tell ’em you couldn’t keep house without one.”
-
-“Oh, shaw!” sez I; “come and look at this vase.”
-
-And, indeed, we had entered a greenhouse full of the most beautiful
-flowers and rare plants, and wuz even then in front of the famous
-Warwick vase. It is a huge, round, white marble vase that holds one
-hundred and thirty-six gallons, with clusters of grapes and leaves and
-tendrils; and vine branches, exquisitely wrought, run round the top
-and form the two large handles, with other designs full of grace and
-beauty all wrought in it. How old this vase is nobody knows, but it wuz
-used by somebody probbly centuries before old Warwick Castle wuz ever
-thought on.
-
-Who wuz it that drinked out of it? How did they look? How come it sunk
-in the bottom of the lake? I d’no, nor Josiah don’t.
-
-It wuz found at the bottom of a lake near Tivoli by Sir William
-Hamilton, Ambassador then at the court of Naples.
-
-I gazed pensively on the vine-clad spear of Mr. Bacchus carved on it,
-and sez I to Josiah--
-
-“How true it is that that sharp spear that Mr. Bacchus brandishes is
-covered with beautiful vines and flowers at first; but it stabs,” sez
-I--“it stabs hard, and,” sez I, “who knows but somebody that had been
-pierced to the heart by that spear of hisen, a-reachin’ ’em mebby
-through the ruined life of some loved one--who knows but what he got so
-sick of seein’ them symbols of drinkin’ revels that he jest pitched it
-into the lake?”
-
-“Keep on!” sez Josiah, “keep on! I believe you’d keep up your dum
-temperance talk if you wuz on the way to the scaffold.”
-
-“That would be the time to preach it,” sez I; “scaffolds is jest what
-drinkin’ revels lead to, and if it wuz my last words, mebby folks would
-pay some attention to what I said.”
-
-“Wall, wait till then,” sez he. “I have got to have a little rest. I am
-dyin’ for a little food, and if I git through this day alive I have got
-to be careful, and let my _ears_ rest anyway.”
-
-He did indeed look quite bad, and I sez soothin’ly--
-
-“Wall, Martin will be for goin’ back before long now. He is gittin’
-hungry himself; I heard him say so.”
-
-We didn’t stop to but one more place on our way back to the tarvern
-where we had dinner, and that wuz to that old horsepital founded by
-Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in 1571. It wuz meant in the first
-place for one Master and twelve bretheren, the bretheren to be of
-the Earl’s servants, or his soldiers who had been injured in battle.
-But now they are appointed from Warwick and Gloucester, and have a
-comfortable livin’.
-
-It wuz quite likely in Robert to build this horsepital--a
-old-fashioned-lookin’ place enough in 1895. But sech likely deeds as
-this couldn’t cover up his black performances.
-
-The chapel is an elegant buildin’, built for a memorial to the great
-Earl of Warwick, the first in the Norman line, and his elaborate tomb
-is here.
-
-But it wuz in this chapel where I see the epitaph of which I spoke
-more formerly. It is over the tomb of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
-the one Queen Elizabeth thought so much on. There I see the epitaph I
-despised.
-
-On the tomb are the recumbent figgers of Leicester and his pardner, the
-Countess Lettice. Probbly about the only time they wuz ever so nigh to
-each other without quarrellin’, and this epitaph sez, after givin’ all
-his titles--more’n enough of ’em--
-
-“His most sorrowful wife Letitia, through a sense of conjugal love
-and fidelity, has put up this monument to the _best_ and _dearest_ of
-husbands.”
-
-She must have been a _fool_, for besides his goin’s on with the
-queen--which would made me as jealous as a dog--a learned writer says--
-
-“According to every appearance of probability, he poisoned his first
-wife, disowned his second, dishonored his third before he married her,
-and in order to marry her, murdered her first husband, while his only
-surviving son was a natural child by Lady Sheffield.”
-
-“The _best_ of husbands!” What wuz Lettice a-thinkin’ on? She’d no need
-to put his actin’s and cuttin’s up on a tombstun. I wouldn’t advised
-her to; but I should say to her--“Now, Lettice, you jest put onto
-that gravestun a good, plain Bible verse--‘The Lord be merciful to me,
-a sinner,’ or, ‘Now the weary are at rest,’” or sunthin’ like that--I
-should have convinced her. But, then, I wuzn’t there--I wuz born a few
-hundred years too late, and so it had to be; but it made me feel bad to
-see it. I want my sect to have a little self-respect.
-
-Al Faizi is dretful well-read in history, and he took out that
-little book of hisen, and copied off the hull of the inscription on
-Leicester’s tomb, all the glowin’ eulogy of his glorious deeds, which
-he knew wuz false. He didn’t say nothin’, as usual, but looked quite a
-good deal as he writ.
-
-I didn’t say nothin’ to him, but Josiah will att him once in a while
-about his writin’, and he sez now--
-
-“What are you a-writin’ about, Fazer?”
-
-He turned his dreamy, pleasant eyes onto us, and seemed to be lookin’
-some distance through us and beyend us, and the light from the East
-winder fell warm on his face as he sez evasively--
-
-“Your missionaries tell our people to always tell the truth--that we
-will be lost if we do not.”
-
-“Wall,” sez Josiah, “that is true.”
-
-Al Faizi didn’t reply to him, but kep’ on a-writin’.
-
-Wall, a happy man wuz my pardner as we returned to the tarvern, and a
-good, refreshin’ meal of vittles wuz spread before him. He done jestice
-to it--full jestice--yes, indeed!
-
-Wall, the next mornin’ we sot out for the Lake Deestrict, accordin’ to
-Martin’s first plan, which he’d changed some. Sez Martin, as we wuz
-talkin’ it over that evenin’--
-
-“It would, perhaps, be expected of me to go on and visit Oxford.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I warmly, “Thomas J. has read so much to me about Tom Brown
-at Oxford, it would be highly interestin’ to see the places Tom thought
-so much on.”
-
-“Yes,” sez Alice with enthoosiasm, “and where Richard the Lion-hearted
-was born, and where Alfred the Great lived.”
-
-Sez Josiah, “I wouldn’t give a cent to see where he lived. I despise
-fryin’ flap-jacks, and always did, and if a man undertakes to fry ’em,
-he ort to tend to ’em and not let ’em burn.”
-
-But Alice went right on, “And think of being in the place which William
-the Conqueror invaded!”
-
-“And,” sez Al Faizi, “where Latimer, and Ridley, and Cranmer were
-burned at the stake for their religion by Bloody Mary.”
-
-It beat all how well-read that heathen is--he knows more than the
-schoolmaster at Jonesville, enough sight.
-
-But sez Martin, with his thumbs inside of them armholes of hisen--
-
-“It is not for any such trifling reasons that I would visit Oxford,
-but, as I say, it undoubtedly would be expected of me, if it was known
-at Oxford that I was so near, that I would give a little of my valuable
-time to them; for there, I have thought hard of sending my son to
-finish his education.
-
-“For as you know, Cousin Samantha, my boy is to have the best and
-costliest education that money can give. His future is in the hands of
-one who will look out sharply for the very best and most valuable means
-of education. It is not as if he were a common child. But he is my
-little Partner--are you not, Adrian?” sez he fondly to the little boy,
-who wuz lookin’ dreamily out of the winder.
-
-Adrian turned, and the gold of the settin’ sun wuz on his sweet face.
-
-“Your father will look out for your future, little Partner; we will
-work together for your good, will we not, my boy?”
-
-Mebby it wuz because I sot there so nigh--mebby it wuz the perfume of
-the English voyalets Alice had pinned into the front of my bask, jest
-like ’em I wore that day, but, anyway, some recollection seemed to take
-him back to that time at Jonesville, for he sez, jest as he did then--
-
-“I am going to work for the poor.”
-
-[Illustration: “I am going to work for the poor.”]
-
-“Ah, indeed!” sez Martin, smilin’, “and how will you do it, little
-Partner?”
-
-Agin he turned his sweet face towards us, and agin the big, earnest
-eyes and sweet, serious mouth wuz gilded by the glowin’, yet sad smile
-of the sinkin’ sun.
-
-And he sez simply, “I don’t quite know how, Father, but I know I shall
-work for them, and help them in some way.”
-
-Wall, Martin dismissed the matter with a laugh, but I kep’ the words in
-my heart, and believed ’em. I believed truly that the Lord would lead
-him, and make him do His work.
-
-Wall, I kinder wanted to visit Mugby Junction, as Dickens named Rugby
-Junction. It wuzn’t fur from Warwick, and I’d loved to seen it, and eat
-one of them sandwitches, and been glared at by the female in charge
-there, and her help, and seen her poor, browbeat husband and the _Boy_,
-but didn’t know as they wuz all alive.
-
-And if they wuz, as Josiah well sed, sez he, “My stumick is bad enough
-now, without eatin’ leather sandwitches.”
-
-And I sez, “I’d love to give ’em my recipe for good yeast bread, and
-I’d willin’ly tell ’em how to make delicious sandwitches, and not ask a
-cent for it.”
-
-Sez I, “Take good minced chicken, or lamb, and a little mustard and
-sweet butter, and a pinch of minced onions and--”
-
-But Josiah interrupted me, “They’d only look stunily at you if you
-offered your services; why,” sez he, “they always look as if they feel
-so much above you at our railroad stations to home, that you want to
-crawl into your hand-bag and git out of their way. They’d despise your
-overtoors.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “my conscience would be clear, and travellers’
-nightmairs wouldn’t be so frequent.”
-
-But a bystander observed that they had good sandwitches there now.
-
-Havin’ been turned round in their stuny and leather course, by
-Dickens, I spoze.
-
-So we packed up our things and started in pretty good sperits for the
-Lake Deestrict.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX.
-
-THE LAKE DISTRICT AND ITS POETS.
-
-
-We went to Windermere, and from there took the omnibus for Bowness--
-
-One of the charmin’est little villages I ever sot my eyes on, as clean
-as my kitchen is when I git it all swept out. The housen are all built
-of stun, and some on ’em have little porches built out on ’em, but all
-on ’em overrun with ivy. And flowers and pretty climbin’ plants make
-every house attractive, and not a mite of dust or dirt--I wonder what
-they do with it?
-
-The little tarvern where we stayed wuz so clean and comfortable that
-I wondered what the tarvern-keeper and his wife would say if they wuz
-sot down in some of our own small hotels. It wuz a lesson in perfect
-neatness and order, the hull place wuz.
-
-And the landscapes all round the little village wuz pretty enough to
-frame, and we see ’em more or less all the while we stayed there; we
-made our headquarters there, and sallied out for excursions, a-lookin’
-on picters on every side on us--green grass and foliage, high,
-tree-covered hills, little, lovely, clean, picturesque villages like
-them I have described, magnificent country seats, with grand entrances
-and porters’ lodges, and stately green parks, and fountains, and deers,
-and sleek herds of cattle walkin’ through on the velvet grass and
-green tree aisles, and cottages, and quaint old bridges, and dark stun
-churches half covered with ivy.
-
-Bowness is on the shores of the lake. As I say, we put up at a good
-tarvern, and the next day we sot out on our sight-seein’.
-
-The waiter at the tarvern told us as we sot out on our first excursion
-that we had better take our waterproofs and umbrells.
-
-It is needless to say that I had my faithful umbrell in my hand, but
-the rest hadn’t, so they got theirn, and I went back for my waterproof,
-and glad enough we wuz, for before night we wuz ketched out in four
-different showers--good drivin’ ones, but short.
-
-Martin, who had been ust to fur bigger lakes--Michigan, Ontario,
-Superior, and sech--wuz bitterly dissapinted in ’em, and sez he--
-
-“A trout out of Lake Superior would die of thirst in one of these
-lakes.”
-
-And Josiah, who had been up on our lakes on a tower, sed that those
-lakes would make a pretty good waterin’ trough for American cattle; sez
-he, “There would be in each one of ’em as much as an ordinary Yankee
-cow would want to drink.”
-
-I see the driver a-lookin’ on in deep surprise, and sez I, “Josiah
-Allen, remember you are a deacon; let it be known to once that you are
-talkin’ in parables.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “I would want to be took in that way, but they’re dum
-small potatoes compared to our lakes.”
-
-“But they’re beautiful,” sez I, “and are full of tender associations.”
-Sez I, “Look at the poets that have hallowed these sacred
-spots--Coleridge, and Southey, and Wordsworth, and Mrs. Hemans, and--”
-
-“Wall,” sez Josiah, interruptin’ me, “on our lakes there is me, and--”
-
-But I turned away in silent scorn, and looked out on the beauty of the
-seen. Lovely picters lay round us on every side--wooded shores, lovely
-islands, glowin’ waters--a paneramy of beauty never to be forgot.
-
-Dove’s Nest, which wuz once the home of Mrs. Hemans, I looked on with
-a deep interest, for though Felishy and I didn’t think alike about
-little Casey Bianky, who “stood on the burnin’ deck,” and I should have
-approved of his runnin’ away before he got burnt up, still I respected
-her for quite a number of things, and as I meditated on the poets who
-had loved this beautiful place, and lived here and wrote their songs,
-I instinctively thought, in the words of Felishy--
-
- “Where are these dreamers now?”
-
-The biggest of these lakes are Windermere, Ullswater, Conoston and
-Durwentwater, but there are a good many others. And they are all, like
-our Niagara Falls and Thousand Islands, been turned into money-makin’
-shows.
-
-Wall, of course we wanted to see--
-
- “How the waters come down to Lodore.”
-
-But we wuz dretful dissapinted, for the water didn’t come a-sweepin’
-down with the force and fury Mr. Southey described--not at all. Josiah,
-who had hearn Thomas J. read the poem, wuz mad to think it wuzn’t so.
-“And,” sez he, in a threatenin’ way--
-
-“I could tell Mr. Southey that we didn’t know none the better for _his_
-tellin’ ‘How the waters come down to Lodore.’
-
-“Why,” sez he, “the mill-dam to our buzz-saw mill in Jonesville is
-furious agin as this, and more noble and impressin’ lookin’ by fur,
-and,” sez he, gettin’ all het up, “I’d love to tell Mr. Southey so.”
-
-Sez I, “Josiah, don’t git nerved up and talk about jawin’ a man who
-has been dead for more’n fifty years.” Sez I, “It don’t sound decent in
-you--he meant well.”
-
-Sez I, “He wuz good to his own family, and then think of how dretful
-good he wuz to Coleridge’s wife and children; though, to be sure,” sez
-I, “they wuz relations on _Her_ side.”
-
-“I understand that,” sez Josiah; “he could do _that_ and not deserve
-any particular thanks to _himself_. I know how _that_ is.”
-
-I see he wuz insinuatin’ sunthin’ or ruther, but I wuzn’t browbeat, nor
-wuzn’t led off by him. Sez I--
-
-“He writ first-rate prose, and wuz Poet Lauerate.
-
-“That wuz what might be expected,” sez Josiah.
-
-I don’t exactly know what he did mean by that, and I don’t believe he
-did.
-
-“Then,” sez I, “he wuz the greatest talker that ever talked. He would
-talk for hours and hours, without gittin’ up, or those gittin’ up that
-heard him.”
-
-“I know what that is,” sez Josiah; “that don’t raise him in my
-estimation; no, Heaven knows it don’t!”
-
-I hain’t the _least_ idee what he meant by _that_, but he found
-immegiately that I wouldn’t multiply any more words with him.
-
-But, as I sez, it wuz a comfort to visit this hant of Southey, and I
-wuzn’t goin’ to see him run down too much for enlargin’ a little mite
-about the power of that waterfall; as I sez to Josiah--
-
-“Sunthin’ ort to be allowed for a poet’s license.”
-
-“Oh, yes, that is so; I didn’t think of it,” sez he. “I thought it wuz
-a barefaced lie. I see,” sez he; “I make use of one of them poet’s
-licenses myself sometimes; I forgot.”
-
-Wall, the waters did meander down in a very languishin’ and thin sort
-of a way, and I couldn’t deny it, but the surroundin’s wuz beautiful
-and the associations hantin’ and powerful in the extreme.
-
-Wall, while we wuz in that neighborhood I see everything I could of the
-remains of the Lake School of Poets. I told Josiah I wanted to, and he
-sez--
-
-“Wall, I d’no as I’m a-goin’ to make much of a effort to see their
-hants.” Sez he, “Probble they got that name, Lake Poet, because their
-poetry hain’t no bigger accordin’ than the lakes be, and if that is so,
-I don’t want to patronize ’em.”
-
-“Patronize!” sez I, lookin’ several icy cold daggers through him. “I
-have to stand Martin’s demeanors and acts, though they are harrowin’ to
-my soul and sickenin’ to the stumick, but I _won’t_ stand by and have
-my own pardner talk about patronizin’ Coleridge and Wordsworth.” Sez I,
-“Talk about patronizin’ the man that wrote ‘The Ancient Mariner.’”
-
-[Illustration: My tone chilled him to the veins.]
-
-My tone chilled him to the veins, and he walked off some distance away.
-And my mind roamed on that weird and matchless poem I had heard Thomas
-J. read so much, that I wuz as familiar with as I wuz with the Almanac.
-
-How the Ancient Mariner--
-
-    “Held the wedding guests with his glittering eye.”
-
-And how that belated guest “beat his breast” as he heard the weddin’
-guests pass in, and he havin’ to set out on a stun by the side of the
-road, and _had_ to hear this “gray beard loon” tell his story. For the
-old Mariner knew the one he had to tell it to when the fit come on, and
-so that weddin’ guest had to set and hear that most weird and wonderful
-story ever told.
-
-And at last, jest as he released that poor, tuckered-out guest (when
-the weddin’ wuz all over, poor dissapinted creeter!), how he ended with
-these lines, so noble they must have mollified that poor, belated
-creeter--
-
-    “He prayeth best, who loveth best
-      All things, both great and small,
-    For the dear God, who loveth us,
-      He made and loveth all.”
-
-And then there is the poem of Christabel, another one of my very
-primest favorites. How many times the truth of some of them lines have
-been brung up to me in my own native land of Jonesville!
-
-    “Alas! they had been friends in youth,
-    But whispering tongues can poison truth.”
-
-Alas! for the whisperin’ tongues that carry the poison of asps with
-them. Alas! for the hearts and lives that through their malice and
-whisperin’s are torn apart, and nothin’ can atone for their evil
-effects--nothin’, _nothin’_
-
-    “Can free the hollow hearts from paining,
-    They stand aloof, the stars remaining.
-    Like cliffs that have been rent asunder,
-    A dreary sea now flows between.”
-
-Yes; my mind jest dwelt on Mr. Coleridge all the time while I wuz in
-the Lake Deestrict. But we see while we wuz there lots of other places
-of great interest to me. Though, as I sed, the Falls of Lodore didn’t
-fall quite so much as he had depictered ’em, yet Rydal Falls wuz a seen
-of beauty and enchantment, with the water flowin’ down through the
-rocks and overhangin’ trees. It wuz a picter to always remember, to
-frame round with admiration and hang up in your memory.
-
-And then there wuz a promontory called Storr’s Point, which had a
-observatory built on it. Here wuz where Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth,
-Southey, and Conway met in 1825 to see a regatta gin in Scott’s honor.
-
-It must have been a pretty sight, the scenery around it wuz so
-beautiful.
-
-And then we see Miss Martineau’s handsome residence, called the Knolls.
-I spoze on account of its being built on quite a rise of ground.
-
-I spoze she wuz quite a likely poetess, and wrote most probble twenty
-books on every subject, from religion and politics to mesmerism and
-handicraft. But Thomas Jefferson couldn’t never git over sunthin’ she
-said to Charlotte Brontë in a kind of a fault-findin’ way; it jest
-gaulded Charlotte dretfully. Poor little creeter! with the mind of a
-giant and the body of a child--a glowin’ soul of fire and the shrinkin’
-weakness and tenderness of heart of a young child.
-
-Harriet hadn’t ort to said it--she ort to known that God don’t send a
-genius any too often onto this dull earth, and folks ort to prize ’em
-and guard ’em when He duz; but folks don’t; they pick at ’em, and they
-have to stan’ it, and build up a stun wall of endurance and constant
-anguish of patience between these tormentors and their own souls and
-sensitive feelin’s. And then set behind that barricade and try to
-write. And folks only see the stun work, and don’t see what it wuz
-raised for, and they call ’em cold, and cross, and unfeelin’, and etc.,
-etc., etc.
-
-But they hain’t cold, nor etc., etc., etc.--no sech thing.
-
-But I am a-eppisodin’, and to resoom.
-
-I presoom that one thing that made Harriet sour and kinder hard
-sometimes wuz she wuz so deef; not a-knowin’ any of the time what other
-wimmen wuz a-sayin’ about her--behind her back, or to her face either;
-it’s enough to sour any disposition, only the very sweetest ones.
-
-Wall, we went to Hawkeshead, where Wordsworth went to school, Martin
-sayin’ he should probble be asked if he had seen the old school-house.
-
-It wuz a old schoolhouse a hundred years ago, when Wordsworth went to
-school there.
-
-It is a little, old-fashioned place, and Martin put his fingers in his
-vest pockets, and leaned back, and looked round him some as if he wuz
-a-patronizin’ them old memories with which the place wuz filled.
-
-Good land! he’d no need to; them memories towered up and filled the
-hull place, and floated off round it into the serene, beautiful English
-landscape, and up towards the blue heavens above.
-
-[Illustration: Martin with his patronizin’ ways.]
-
-Martin couldn’t quell ’em down with his leanin’s back, and thumbs in
-his armholes, and patronizin’ ways.
-
-I sot down to the poor, shabby old bench to which he had sot, and
-see the very spot where the boy Billy had cut his name in the rough
-old desk. Mebby he got licked for it--I shouldn’t wonder a mite. The
-teacher not knowin’ that though he might be slapped in youth, and
-laughed at by Reviewers in early manhood, yet a great man--a man of
-simple manners, and a soul of genius sot there at that desk, jest as
-the great oak wuz hid in the heart of the acorn in Billy’s pocket,
-mebby, at the time.
-
-I had quite a large number of emotions as I sot there--probble upwards
-of seventy-five.
-
-Wall, of course we went to Rydal Mount, the home where he lived and
-worked, and to Grass-mere, where he lays asleep with his kindred.
-
-The south wind waved the branches of the trees that stood jest a little
-ways from the simple slabs.
-
-Not fur off wuz the grave of Hartley Coleridge, son of Wordsworth’s
-friend--a son who inherited all the splendor and weakness of his
-father’s nater.
-
-He drinked!
-
-But some of his sonnets are upliftin’ in the extreme.
-
-“Poor creeter! what he could have been if he had left stimulants
-alone,” I sez to my pardner, as we looked down on his quiet grave.
-
-And he sez, “There you be agin--meetin’-housen and castles can’t stop
-you, nor buryin’-grounds skair you out; I’m sick of your dum W. C. T.
-U. talk!”
-
-I felt too riz up to argy with him, but I felt deeply the truth of
-what whiskey had done in his case. And as to his pa, I said to myself,
-“Weakness of will, and opium, mebby, stood in the way of the world’s
-seein’ another Shakespeare--not _jest_ like him, but a new and uneek
-type of poet; jest as great and dazzlin’, but different as one big star
-differs from another--all on ’em a-flashin’ out light onto a dark, dull
-world.
-
-Alice felt deeply the sweet sadness of the spot--the quiet beauty of
-the landscape round us, the bird’s song in the green branches overhead,
-and the low, sweet song of the little stream, the south wind amongst
-the trees.
-
-She stood under a tree lookin’ up through it into the sky overhead,
-followin’ the flight of a bird. Her face looked so sweet--so sweet that
-I thought if Wordsworth was here he would be reminded of his own lines,
-and think that--
-
-    “Beauty born of murmuring sound
-    Had passed into her face.”
-
-Her face had a good look to it, too, that made me think that she wuz
-a-goin’ to make--
-
-    “A perfect woman, nobly planned,
-    To warn, to comfort and command,
-    And yet a spirit still and bright,
-    With something of an angel’s light.”
-
-Al Faizi felt this, I see--I could see that by his face. But _I_ knew,
-havin’ seen her tired out and kinder fraxious when her shoes hurt her
-feet or a hairpin pierced her, or her cosset pinched her, etc., I knew
-she wuz a creeter--
-
-    “Not too bright or good
-    For human nature’s daily food,
-    For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
-    Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.”
-
-But he see her only as a “lovely apparition,” a “phantom of delight.”
-
-I felt that as he stood there in that rapt moment he see all the beauty
-of nater through her--he see rock and plain, earth and Heaven, glade
-and bower. I methought he wuz sayin’ to himself as he looked at her--
-
-    “The floating clouds their state shall lend
-    To her; for her the willow bend;
-      Nor shall she fail to see,
-    Even in the motions of the storm,
-    Grace that shall mould the maiden’s form
-      By silent sympathy.
-
-    “The stars of midnight shall be dear
-    To her; and she shall lean her ear
-      In many a secret place,
-    When rivulets dance their wayward round,
-    And beauty, born of murmuring sound,
-      Shall pass into her face.”
-
-[Illustration: A livin’ poem bound up in a girl’s sweet body.]
-
-And I felt, too, in view of what I knew, that all that would be left
-of Al Faizi in the futer would be the memory of what had been and never
-more would be. Yes, all took up as he wuz with the poets of the western
-world, he wuz more heart interested in the livin’ poem bound up in a
-girl’s sweet body. And he turned away from the hants of poets to look
-in her sweet face.
-
-Poor creeter! I see what he didn’t spoze I did, and all the rest wuz
-deef and dum--deef as posts and dum as adders.
-
-But I am a-eppisodin’ and to resoom.
-
-We sot out for London the next day.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX.
-
-THE ARRIVAL IN LONDON.
-
-
-Martin, who owned, or pretty nigh owned, several railroads, wuz dretful
-talkative about the superior merits of our cars, etc. And, to tell the
-truth, these English cars did seem quite a good deal like ridin’ in
-a wagon, or a old-fashioned coach, where you set facin’ each other,
-and they wuz pretty low, made so as to not bump our heads when goin’
-through covered bridges, I guess.
-
-Of course, Martin paid for the best there wuz, and we had a hull car to
-ourselves, all cushioned and fixed off in the nicest manner, and after
-we all got in we felt very comfortable all alone by ourselves if we’d
-wanted to. And ever and anon a basket of good refreshments to refresh
-ourselves would be handed in to us. But it filled me with horrow to
-see bottles of beer, wine, etc., in every one of ’em, and I sez to
-myself--“Who and what did they spoze I wuz?”
-
-I wuz indignant to think that they should dast to offer she that wuz
-once Samantha Smith bottles of intoxicants.
-
-Josiah kinder hefted the bottle in our basket, and said dreamily
-sunthin’ about when you wuz in Rome of doin’ as the Romans did. But I
-sez to him coldly--
-
-“Be you a deacon or be you not? Are you a member of the Temperance
-Society in Jonesville, or are you not?”
-
-And he kinder wriggled round oneasy in his seat and laid the bottle
-down. If it hadn’t been for me, I tremble to think what would have been
-the result to Jonesville and the world at large.
-
-Ever and anon the guide would walk along sideways by our winder and go
-the hull length of the train, for all I know a-seein’ to us. I don’t
-see what hendered him from fallin’ off. It wuz sunthin’ I wouldn’t have
-done for a dollar bill. I never wuz any hand to walk sideways, even on
-the ground.
-
-But, howsumever, there wuzn’t any casualties reported.
-
-Another thing that did seem strange to us wuz that we didn’t have any
-checks for our baggage to take care on. That seems dretful queer to
-Americans to have to go out and hunt round and find our own trunks.
-Though we had no trouble with ourn, for it wuz a very valuable one, and
-easy to be recognized with the naked eye. It wuz a trunk that belonged
-to Father Allen, and made on honor, and it lasted him through his life,
-and then descended onto Josiah--and will, we think, descend, as good
-as new, onto Thomas Jefferson.
-
-One reason it has wore so well is, I spoze, that Father Allen never
-took but one trip in his life with it, and that wuz up to Canada. That
-journey lasted him for a story all his days; he wuz looked upon with
-considerable or as a highly travelled man.
-
-The trunk is covered with hair of a good gray color and trimmed off
-handsome with brass nails. And Josiah, to make sure of its not bein’
-stole, writ our names in bright, brass-headed tacks. It took him quite
-a spell. He sed he believed in doin’ the fair thing by me, so it reads--
-
-“Josiah and Samantha Allen.
-Jonesville,
-U. S.”
-
-[Illustration: Them letters wuz a stroke of genius.]
-
-Them last letters he sed wuz a stroke of genius. He sed the English
-people would be so tickled when they see it, for they would see in
-a minute that he and me had really come over! We wuz there! “us!”
-Samantha and Josiah! and then, too, it would stand for the United
-States.
-
-He made them two letters of a little bigger nails, but they wuz all
-good sized, and a very bright brass color.
-
-And truly it did seem as if England wuz glad to have us there, for I
-don’t remember of seein’ a single Englishman that looked at that trunk
-that didn’t laugh when he see it, or smile warmly. Yes, they wuz glad
-enough to have us there.
-
-Martin didn’t see the trunk until we arrove at the steamer, and it
-affected him different. He looked fairly stunted and browbeat when he
-sot his eyes on it; evidently he thought it wuz a pity to run the resk
-of jammin’ it, or gittin’ the nails rusty, for sez he:
-
-“Good Heavens! let me get you a new trunk! It isn’t too late!” And he
-rushed off like a man half distracted.
-
-But it wuz too late, for the bell rung in a minute, and we sot sail.
-
-But Martin never see it durin’ that hull trip but he looked on it with
-that same look of or--a kind of a dark, questionin’ or.
-
-Alice jest laughed when she see it. She liked its looks, we could see,
-though she didn’t come right out and say so.
-
-But Adrian sed it wuz the most beautiful thing he ever saw in his life.
-And he beset Josiah to put his name on one of their trunks with the
-same kind of nails.
-
-And Josiah, who had took a few along to repair damages in ourn, in case
-we should lose some of the nails, or some envious Englishman should
-steal ’em out, stood ready to do it.
-
-But Martin broke it up. I guess he thought that Adrian wuz too young
-to go into sech extravagances. They had four trunks between ’em, but
-not so much luggage as the English carry round with ’em. They beat all,
-baskets, bundles, portmantys--as they call their trunks--and hat-boxes
-and rugs and bath-tubs.
-
-The idee! What would we be thought on in America if we lugged round
-sech things. Josiah, who always hankers after style, sed he was most
-sorry we didn’t take our enamelled wash-dish. Sez he, “It would have
-looked dretful genteel;” sez he, “We could have lashed it to our trunk
-with some red cord, and it would have looked so stylish.”
-
-“Oh, shaw!” sez I.
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “when you’re in Rome, do as the Romans do, and,” sez
-he, “I’d love to let the English that carry round their bath-tubs see
-that ‘U. S.,’ the ones that own that trunk, know what gentility is and
-what style is.”
-
-But I wouldn’t gin in to the idee, though he as good as sed that he
-stood ready to buy a new wash-dish for the venter.
-
-But economy prevailed, not common sense, but jest closeness. I see in
-his mean that he wuz givin’ up the idee, as I told him that with the
-care I would give it the wash-dish we had would last for years and
-years.
-
-Wall, we got to London in what ort to be the daytime, but it wuz as
-dark as pitch with fog, and how we wuz ever goin’ to git through them
-streets, full of blackness and roar, roar and blackness, wuz more’n I
-could tell.
-
-I leaned back in that omnibus time and agin durin’ that trip, truly
-feelin’ that my hour had come.
-
-As Josiah told me afterwards, in talkin’ it over--I wuz a-dwellin’ on
-my feelin’s durin’ the epock, and he wanted to outdo me, I guess, and
-sez he--
-
-“I know jest how you felt, Samantha; I too felt, in the words of
-another, as if ‘every breath I drawed would be my next.’”
-
-Sez I, “You meant your last.”
-
-“Yes,” sez he, “my last; it wuz a dretful time.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “I put my trust in Providence--a good deal of the time I
-did.”
-
-“Yes,” sez he, “so did I. I wuz jest ground down to it that I had to.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “less be thankful that we got out alive--out of that
-black, movin’, rumblin’ roar.”
-
-We wuz talkin’ it over in our room that night, a good, comfortable
-room, with all the modern improvements. It wuz a hotel for Americans
-that Martin had gone to, and it wuz jest like the best of our American
-tarverns.
-
-Josiah sez, when he see the bright lights in our room, “Thank Heaven, I
-won’t have to use my candles!”
-
-He had hearn that folks had to furnish their own lights in England, so
-he’d lugged round a couple of taller candles, run in our own candle
-moulds to home.
-
-[Illustration: A hull soap-box full.]
-
-I told him not to, but he sed he wuzn’t goin’ to pay no high price for
-lights when we had a hull soap-box full under the suller stairs. So he
-had took ’em at the resk of spilin’ his dressin’-gown, as I told him.
-
-“No, I don’t resk that,” sez he; “that is to the top of the trunk. The
-candles are packed down with my Sunday suit to the bottom of the trunk.”
-
-I changed their position.
-
-But his feelin’s for that dressin’-gown are simply idolatrous, as I
-tell him--specially the tossels.
-
-And he said he “never thought of makin’ idols of ’em--worshippin’ a
-tossel!” sez he, scorfin’ly. But he duz think too much on’t.
-
-Wall, the next mornin’ the fog seemed to be lowered a little. I could
-see the sun, or pretty nigh see it, which I felt wuz indeed a blessin’;
-and after a good breakfast we sot off on a excursion.
-
-I had sed from the first minute London wuz talked on, that Westminster
-Abbey wuz my first gole, and the rest seemed to feel a good deal as I
-did. Al Faizi and Alice wuz dretful anxious to see it, and Martin sed--
-
-He thought it wuz probble what would be expected of him, and if he wuz
-summoned home on account of his business, he said he _must_ be able to
-say that he had been to Westminster Abbey, anyway.
-
-So he engaged a big carriage, and we sot off, Josiah kinder laggin’
-back and actin’ onwillin’. He had found a New York _World_ in the
-readin’-room for the first time sence he left home, and he sed openly--
-
-That he had ruther stay to home with his dressin’-gown on and read that
-paper than to see any Abbey that ever wuz born.
-
-He thought it wuz some noted woman, and I wuz deeply touched by his
-preference, and cast-iron principle; but I explained, and would make
-him go. So we sot off.
-
-Wall, the first view I got of that imposin’ edifice looked jest as
-nateral as could be; for Thomas J. has got a big photograph of it
-framed in his office, with the two great, high towers, 225 feet high,
-and the big Gothic winder between ’em, and the great Gothic door below.
-The buildin’ is a immense one; it is built in the form of a cross, and
-is more’n five hundred feet long.
-
-I can tell you, I had a sight--a sight of emotions, and about as large
-sized ones as I ever had, as I stood inside, under them lofty arches,
-full of the mellow light of the stained-glass winders, and looked off
-down, down that long colonnade of pillows, at the end of which, fur
-off, is the chapel of Edward the Confessor.
-
-This chapel is full of the tombs of kings and queens--Henry III., in
-brass, lyin’ on top of a huge porphery tomb; Edward I. and his queen,
-Eleanor, who sucked the poison from her husband’s wound in Palestine;
-and Queen Philippi, who put down a insurrection in Scotland, while her
-pardner, Edward III., wuz away from home.
-
-Noble creeters! I wuz proud on ’em as I thought over their likely,
-riz-up deeds. I couldn’t have done more for my Josiah, and I felt it as
-I looked on ’em.
-
-Wall, I said that the very first place I wanted to see wuz the place
-sacred to the Great Dead. So I went off kinder by myself, as I spozed,
-led by a guide, but the rest follered on after me.
-
-Martin said that if a telegram should recall him home sudden, he spozed
-it would be expected of him, anyway, to say that he had stood by the
-monuments to Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, etc., in Westminster
-Abbey. Sez he, “I have never read the poems of the last two gentlemen,
-but I hear that they are very creditable; so much so, that I have heard
-their names mentioned often, and I would like to say that I have stood
-by their remains.”
-
-I didn’t say nothin’ to Martin, but the feelin’s as I stood right by
-the side of that man made a deep gulf that swep’ him fur off away from
-me, and swep’ me back into a life that seemed more real, almost, than
-my own.
-
-Little fingers plucked at my gown, as it were, and, lookin’ down, I
-see the brave, patient face of Little Nell, and Tiny Tim, and David
-Copperfield, and the old-fashioned looks of little Paul Dombey, and
-Little Rowdey, Becky Sharp’s neglected boy; and little Clive Newcome’s
-sturdy figger wuz pushed away anon by the tall, slender figger that
-walked by his cousin Ethel Newcome’s side with a achin’ heart. I
-seemed to hear the Old Colonel saying “adsum” to the Heavenly roll-call.
-
-Mrs. Gummidge’s melancholy voice, recallin’ the “old un’,” mingled with
-Peggotty’s comfortin’ talk and tender words to “Little Em’ly;” Mrs.
-Micawber, bearin’ the twins, passed on before me; Micawber, Dombey,
-Pecksniff, Little Dorrit’s patient form, Bella Wilfer’s handsome,
-wilful face went by me, a-lookin’ up, coquettish, but lovin’, into the
-sad, reasonable eyes of “Our Mutual Friend.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI.
-
-WESTMINSTER AND PARLIAMENT HOUSES.
-
-
-I see Captain Cuttle and Bunsby fleein’ from Mrs. McStinger, and Wall’r
-Boy and his uncle, and Susan Nipper and Toots, and Mrs. Pipchin, and
-sweet Florence a-walkin’ by the Little Brother where the wild waves
-were talkin’ to him and the silver sails a-beckonin’ him over into a
-fur country--David Copperfield; Dora, the child wife; Agnes Wickfield,
-with her finger on her lips, and a-pintin’ upwards; dear Aunt Betsy
-Trotwood, and Oliver and Nicholas Nickleby; Mrs. Jellaby, with her
-dress onhooked and droppin’ papers with absent eyes, and Esther and
-Guardy, and Skimpole and the little Pardiggles--
-
-How the crowd swep’ by me! It wuz a sight.
-
-Ophelia passed by with her apron full of flowers, and she said to me,
-with a sad look out of her sweet dark eyes--
-
-“Here is rosemary, I pray you, love, remember.”
-
-Truly, I didn’t need her reminder--my soul wuz all rousted up and
-a-rememberin’.
-
-I remembered the young feller she kep’ company with--yes, indeed!
-Hamlet, “the expectancy and rose of the fair state.” His shadder
-follered her clost, and I almost said to him with Horatio, “Good-night,
-sweet prince.”
-
-But he looked kinder curous--he wuz a little off and acted, and, poor
-creeter! so wuz she, too; I felt to pity ’em both, and anon she seemed
-to be singin’ the song that Hamlet ust to sing to her when he wuz
-a-waitin’ on her:
-
-    “Doubt that the stars are fire,
-      Doubt that the sun doth move;
-    Believe that truth is a liar,
-     But never doubt that I love.”
-
-She believed still in his constancy. She wuz a good deal out of her
-head.
-
-Then Rosalind and Queen Catharine’s stately figger glided by; and
-eloquent Portia and Lady Macbeth a-holdin’ up her lamp, a-lightin’ her
-on to crime--the light a-shinin’ back into her dark, evil face--
-
-And old King Lear, with faithful Cordelia a-holdin’ his tremblin’ old
-arms, and a-helpin’ him along.
-
-Then, feelin’ pensive--Il Penseroso, I seemed to see John Milton’s
-blind eyes lookin’ into Paradise, and the Fairy Queen seemed to look
-down on us from the tablet of Spenser, and “Rare Ben Jonson,” Chaucer,
-John Dryden, Thomas Gray--
-
-I wuz a-walkin’ back with him in the old church-yard--“Where the rude
-forefathers of the hamlet sleep”--
-
-When Martin interrupted me, and sez he--“Gray, Thomas Gray, I suppose
-that is the father of Lady Jane Gray.”
-
-I didn’t dispute him, but as I looked at him a-leanin’ back and
-a-feelin’ big, I allegored to myself--
-
-“We don’t need to remember Micawber or Dombey; we’ve got a livin’
-curosity with us.”
-
-Al Faizi wuz deeply interested in the Poet’s Corner. He stood long
-and silently by the graves of the great dead, and his face wuz a deep
-mirror of his thoughts.
-
-[Illustration: We stood long and silently by the graves of the great
-dead.]
-
-Alice wuz very much interested in ’em, too.
-
-But as I stood by Goldsmith’s grave--a-seein’, with my mind’s eye, Mrs.
-Primrose and Olivia and the good Vicar a-moralizin’ at em--
-
-I hearn Josiah say to Adrian--
-
-“Oliver, goldsmith.” Sez he--“I spoze Mr. Oliver wuz the best goldsmith
-in England, or he wouldn’t be layin’ here. He probble made the crowns
-and septers they all have to wear in these monarkiel countries.”
-
-I turned round, and sez I, “The metal that Goldsmith used wuz purer
-gold than that--it wuz the rare wealth of a faultless style.”
-
-“That’s what I said,” sez Josiah--“stylish jewelry, and septers, and
-sech.”
-
-But I explained it all out to Adrian, and kep’ him by me all I could.
-
-Alice drawed my attention to the bust of Longfellow, our own poet, and
-my emotions swep’ me off quite a long ways, clear from this old Abbey
-to--
-
-    “Where descends from the Atlantic
-    The gigantic
-    Storm winds of the equinox.”
-
-Yes, he seemed to bear me clear to the musical murmurs of Minnehaha,
-Laughing Water, and from Acadia to Spain. I travelled fur and wide.
-
-And then there wuz the tomb of Thomas Campbell and Matthew Prior and
-James Watt and Mrs. Siddons. Not all in one place are these tablets and
-busts and monuments, but my mind seems to kinder gather ’em in together
-as I look back.
-
-The most elegant chapel in the Abbey is that of Henry VII. Its noble
-arched ceilin’ is exquisitely ornamented and carved--flowers, vines,
-armorial designs, etc., etc., in almost bewilderin’ richness and
-profusion. Henry and his wife Elizabeth the last to rain of the House
-of York.
-
-In this chapel is also the tomb of poor Mary, Queen of Scots, with her
-figger in alabaster on top of it.
-
-If it wuzn’t in alabaster--if she wuz alive, and if the kings and
-queens wuz also alive and actin’--what a time there would be in that
-old Abbey!
-
-If that exquisite body had agin that rare gift of magnetism--or, I d’no
-what it wuz, anyway, it wuz sunthin’ that drawed men to her despite
-their own will, and, it is needless to say, aginst their pardners’
-wishes--what a time, what a time there would be!
-
-How the emperors and kings and princes that now stood so still and
-demute would gather round her! How the wives would draw back and glare!
-And mebby some on ’em, bein’ quick-tempered, would throw their septers
-at her.
-
-Poor creeter! mebby it’s jest as well that she is made of alabaster;
-for not fur from her is the tomb of Queen Elizabeth, a-layin’ down
-guarded by four lions.
-
-She’d a-needed ’em, Lib would, if she’d a-expected to keep her lovers
-from a-follerin’ after Mary. She wuz a jealous creeter, and vain,
-although a middlin’ good calculator.
-
-But Raleigh, and Leicester, etc., etc.--lions couldn’t a-kep’ ’em from
-the prettiest woman--no, indeed!
-
-In the same vault is Bloody Mary, who burnt up about seventy folks a
-year durin’ her rain.
-
-Al Faizi took out his little book with a cross on’t, and wrote quite a
-lot here, and he also did before Mary, Queen of Scots. I d’no, mebby
-he, too, bein’ a man, felt some of the subtle charm that surrounds her
-memory, even to-day, and keeps men from ever doin’ plain jestice to
-her, and always will, I spoze.
-
-Not fur off is the restin’-place of the little princes murdered in the
-Tower by Richard III.
-
-Al Faizi writ sunthin’ here, too, in his book--quite a lot.
-
-There are nine chapels in the Abbey, each one full of the tombs of ’em
-whom the world has delighted to honor; and the guide told us that many
-a king and prince lay here who had not any memorial to mark his last
-sleep.
-
-One of these wuz the “Merry Monarch,” Charles II. Among the great crowd
-who surrounded him, like a swarm of hungry insects, feedin’ upon him,
-and buzzin’ out their praise and compliments and loyalty to him, and
-flatterin’ his vices and weaknesses, not one of ’em thought enough of
-him to rare up the least little mark to his memory--
-
-A deep lesson of the worthlessness of worldly praise or blame. A great
-contrast to this is the monument to Charles and John Wesley. They
-worked on all their lives, a-preachin’ and a-warnin’ aginst the vices
-of the great, as well as the humble, and here they have their monument
-amongst the royal dead.
-
-Another thing that interested me in the Abbey wuz the Coronation Chair,
-in which every sovereign in England, from Edward the Confessor down to
-Queen Victoria, has been crowned.
-
-[Illustration: An immense chair, the four legs bein’ four animals.]
-
-It is a immense chair, the four legs bein’ four animals--lions, I
-guess, though they looked kinder queer. But mebby they wuz a-thinkin’
-who and what they wuz a-holdin’ up that made their hair stan’ out so
-kinder queer, and their tails curl up so.
-
-Under the seat wuz a queer-lookin’ slab of stun, and they said it wuz
-the very stun Jacob had his head pillered on. It wuz carried back and
-forth by his descendants, and finally got to Ireland, where it wuz used
-at the Coronation of the Irish Kings.
-
-Some say that if the one who wuz a-bein’ crowned wuz unworthy royal
-honors, the stun would groan, but kep’ still if it wuz the right one in
-the right place.
-
-I should have thought it would have done considerable groanin’ in the
-centuries gone by--in the case of Henry VIII., for instance, etc., etc.
-
-I don’t believe it groaned the last time it wuz used. No; as a female
-a-thinkin’ of a female, I wuz proud to contemplate the fact that most
-probble it never gin a single groan, or even a sithe, at that time.
-
-Some say that wimmen can’t rule good, but hain’t Victoria rained well
-and rained long?
-
-Yes, indeed!
-
-Wall, we lingered in this venerable and intensely interestin’ place
-for a long time, and until the gnawin’s of hunger woke in my pardner’s
-inside, and he gin pitiful expressions of his inward oneasiness.
-
-But Martin sed he must visit the Housen of Parliament. He sed that it
-would certainly be expected of him; so we went through Westminster Hall
-to the new Palace of Westminster, as the buildin’ is called.
-
-The laws made here ort to be noble and big-sized, indeed, to correspond
-with the place they are made in. It covers eight acres of ground, has
-eleven hundred rooms, one hundred stairways, and eleven courts. It cost
-over fifteen millions, so they say.
-
-But I d’no, I didn’t feel ashamed of our own Capitol at Washington when
-I see it. That is a good sizable buildin’, and made on honor, good
-enough and big enough to correspond with the laws made in it.
-
-Yes, indeed!
-
-Wall, Westminster Hall, that we went through to go to the House of
-Parliament, wuz dretful interestin’.
-
-The great Hall of William Rufus wuz built first in 1097. Rufus wanted
-a great Hall, where he could hold banquets, and not feel crowded, and
-feel that he had air enough, and wuzn’t in any danger of hittin’ his
-head on the ceilin’, so he built this Hall.
-
-It wuz partly burnt up once, but it has been repaired, so that it is
-a room now good enough for anybody, and big enough so’s the World and
-his wife and children could eat dinner here if they wanted to, or so it
-seemed.
-
-It is three hundred feet long, seventy feet wide, and ninety feet high.
-The ruff overhead is carved into many beautiful forms, and is one of
-the largest in the world that has no columns or supports from below.
-
-Glorious seens have been enacted in this Hall, as well as dretful
-ones. After the Hall wuz built over and beautified by Richard II., the
-very first public meetin’ held in this Hall wuz to take away his crown
-and septer and send him to prison.
-
-Poor thing! after all he’d went through buildin’ it. I should thought
-them old timbers and jices would have creaked and groaned to have seen
-it go on.
-
-I know well how I should have felt after we got our house altered over,
-and I’d jest got the parlor papered and carpeted and new curtains up,
-if I’d had to be dragged off and shet up, and let Sister Bobbett or
-Sister Henzy move in and take the comfort of it.
-
-And I spoze Richard had feelin’s as well as myself, and the splendor
-of my parlor would mad me all the more to leave it, even if it shed a
-glory over the seen.
-
-Charles I. wuz tried in Westminster Hall and condemned to death, and a
-few years later Oliver Cromwell was inaugerated in it Lord Protector of
-England.
-
-He sot in that Royal Chair, which wuz took out of Westminster Abbey for
-the first and last time. The chair never groaned or took on any as I’ve
-ever hearn on, but I should have thought it would, not for reproof,
-but for sorrer. For only five years after that Cromwell died, and wuz
-buried in Westminster Abbey amongst its royal dead, and then three
-years later his body wuz took up and hanged on Tyburn by command of the
-king, and his head wuz displayed on the pinnacles of Westminster Hall
-with Bradshaw and Ireton.
-
-Hangin’ a man who had been dead for three years, and for doin’ what he
-thought wuz right!
-
-Al Faizi wrote quite a lot in his book here. He looked queer as he
-meditated on a civilized country committin’ sech barbarities.
-
-They laid out to have the skulls remain up there on them pinnacles for
-thirty years, and some say they did, and some say Cromwell’s blew down
-durin’ a hard storm, and some of his descendants have got it to this
-day, and several of his skulls are in other places, so we hearn.
-
-Poor creeter! He seemed to have as many heads as Columbus had faces. It
-beats all what them poor old fourfathers went through.
-
-In this Hall Charles I. wuz condemned to die, and also Sir William
-Wallace, that Josiah and I felt so well acquainted with, havin’ formed
-his acquaintance and loved him through Thomas Jefferson and “The
-Scottish Chiefs.”
-
-And Sir Thomas More, that witty, smart creeter--philosopher, statesman,
-and everything else--the favorite of Henry VIII., and who succeeded
-Cardinal Wolsey as Lord High Chancellor, but who lost Henry’s favor
-in his life, by not approvin’ of Henry’s stiddy practice of marryin’
-wimmen and then cuttin’ their heads off, and marryin’ another and
-another, and so on and so on. Here the poor creeter had his trial.
-
-Robert, Earl of Essex, wuz tried here and condemned; and so wuz Guy
-Fawkes, and the Earl of Stafford, and many, many, many others.
-
-Wall, in the House of Parliament we see Parnell, the great helper for
-Irish rights. And it did my soul good to look on Joseph Arch, who wuz
-elected to Parliament as a representative of agricultural laborers.
-
-He wuz a plough-boy, and his mother learnt him to read and write.
-She wuz a earnest Christian. Later he become a local preacher in the
-Methodist Meetin’-House. Afterwards, meditatin’ on their wrongs, he
-organized a union of agricultural laborers, and finally wuz elected
-to Parliament. He wuz sent from that deestrict where the Prince of
-Wales lives. And you would have thought that some richer and more
-aristocratic man would have been chose to stand for that place, so nigh
-to the British throne.
-
-But no, a good man, a man of the people, wuz chose. The Prince of
-Wales never done a thing to break it up, so they say. He is quite a
-sensible, good-hearted creeter, the Prince is. Though, like the rest of
-the world, he has his failin’s.
-
-Here we see Gladstone, that noble creeter. A man that will be revered
-and beloved and held dear to grateful hearts when lots of contemporary
-emperors and kings are forgot.
-
-Yes, indeed!
-
-The House of Lords is made up of lords temporal and lords
-spiritual--twenty-six lords spiritual, which are the Archbishops of
-Canterbury and York, and twenty-four Bishops, Dukes, Earls, Barons,
-etc., make up the lords temporal--they come into their places by the
-right of their titles, which fell onto ’em onbeknown to ’em. Here they
-set makin’ laws with their hats on.
-
-Josiah drawed my attention to it, and sez he, “You’ve always tutored
-me so about takin’ off my hat everywhere and in every season. I’ve had
-sun-strokes and froze my scalp a number of times in carryin’ out your
-orders; but,” sez he, “I’ve made up my mind, Samantha, as to one thing,
-and you can’t change me.”
-
-I have a deadly fear of his plans, and can’t help it--in fact, I have
-reason to, as dire experience has often showed me the dretful results
-flowin’ from ’em anon or oftener; so I waited with breathless dread to
-hear him expound his plan.
-
-Sez he, “I’m bound on it. When I’m elected to Congress I’m goin’ to
-wear my hat the hull time I’m there; I hain’t a-goin’ to take it off
-only to go to bed; I calculate to have a good warm head the rest of my
-life.” Sez he, “If it’s proper for ’em, in their high station, it’s
-proper for me, when I git there.”
-
-[Illustration: “When I’m elected to Congress I’m goin’ to wear my hat
-the hull time.”]
-
-I thought a minute, and then sez I, “Wall, I guess I’m safe in not
-objectin’ to it.”
-
-Sez he, “You mean by that, that I won’t git there, but you’ll see,
-mom. The minute I git home I’m a-goin’ to organize the farmers. I’ll
-organize Ury the first one, and then I’ll organize old Gowdey. Uncle
-Sime Bentley I can depend on.” Sez he, “If Arch and Burt and Macdonald,
-all on ’em workin’ men, can git into Parliament, what is to hender
-Josiah Allen from shinin’ in Congress?”
-
-Sez I mildly, “Nater broke _that_ up from the start.”
-
-Sez he, “Do you mean that I can’t git in?”
-
-Sez I, still more tenderly, “I alluded to shinin’, Josiah; but,” sez
-I soothin’ly, for I see that his liniment begun to darken--sez I, “I
-won’t say a word agin your wearin’ your hat under them circumstances.”
-Sez I in affectionate axents, “Mebby I’ve been too harsh with you
-about takin’ it off in cold weather; mebby I hain’t made allowance as I
-should for the weakness of the place exposed; mebby etiket has ruled me
-too clost.”
-
-Sez he, “You and etiket has been almost the death of me time and agin.”
-
-One thing that is sure to strike the tourist and beholder with wonder
-is the extreme smallness of the House of Commons.
-
-How five hundred and sixty folks could ever git into that room is a
-wonder to me, and the guide told us that there had been as many as that
-a-standin’ there time and agin--a-standin’, of course, for there wuzn’t
-no room for ’em to set.
-
-It struck Josiah, too, though, as usual, our meditations wuz fur
-different.
-
-I methought, “No wonder laws hain’t what they ort to be, made in sech a
-tight place, by folks jest crowded and squoze in together like sardeens
-in a box.”
-
-And Josiah methought out loud, “You thought, Samantha, that I didn’t
-allow half room enough in my new hen-house, and my brood of fowls have
-as much agin room accordin’ as these law-makers do.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “there both on ’em kep’ in too clost quarters to do
-well.”
-
-But truly I couldn’t break it up, for time and Martin didn’t give me no
-chance.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII.
-
-SAMANTHA SEES A DOCTOR.
-
-
-I hadn’t been in London for more’n a short time before I wuz attacked
-with a queer feelin’ and pain in my back. It seemed to be the worst on
-my right shoulder blade. It wuz a pain and a soreness all together, and
-the surface indications pinted to more trouble if I didn’t tend to it.
-
-Josiah rubbed it with assiduity and camphire, and in hours of solitude
-bathed it in anarky.
-
-But to no purpose--it grew worse and worse, and I feared it wuz a bile,
-but didn’t know.
-
-It kep’ me awake nights, and I spoze it made me fraxious and restless,
-for Josiah urged me warmly to have a young man, who wuz a doctor in the
-hotel, look at my back and see what ailed it.
-
-And I sez, “I hain’t a-goin’ to have that young man foolin’ round my
-shoulder blades.” Sez I, “It would make me feel queer as a dog to
-think he wuz a-lookin’ at it through that eyeglass of hisen.” Sez I,
-“Neuralgy hain’t to be fooled with.”
-
-“I thought you said,” sez he, “it wuzn’t neuralgy; you said it wuz
-sunthin’ mysteriouser.”
-
-“Wall, so I do say,” sez I; “it is sunthin’ I d’no anything about. It
-is sore as a bile, and anarky don’t seem to relieve it a mite. If I had
-some good lobely and catnip,” sez I, “I believe I could make a poultice
-that would relieve it; but where would I git lobely and catnip here?”
-sez I.
-
-“Wall,” sez he--willin’ creeter always when I am sick--“Martin and I
-had made a agreement to ride to Hyde Park this mornin’, and I shouldn’t
-wonder a mite if I could find some lobely and catnip growin’ there
-idegenus. I will look for some, anyway.”
-
-“Catnip in Hyde Park!” sez I mournfully; “you might as well look for a
-angel at a dog fight, or a saloon in Paradise!”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “if I can’t find any myself, I’ll ask the policeman
-if he knows of any little corner or shady place where I’d be apt to
-find a few sprigs for you.” Sez he, “I’d go to Windsor Park for you in
-a minute if I thought I could git sunthin’ to relieve your pain--I’d
-go to Langly Marish.” (Marish is marsh writ long.) Josiah thought
-that he would spell his old marsh in the beaver medder “marish,” for
-style--Jonesville Marish--but I told him that that wuzn’t goin’ to
-make him any nearer the royal family, or make him act any more royal. I
-guess I broke it up.
-
-But to resoom--
-
-Sez I, “It is good of you to think on’t, but I wouldn’t want to tackle
-Victoria the first thing for catnip. I d’no as she has put up any more
-herbs than she wants to use herself--her family is big, and she has
-frequent calls for catnip, anyway.”
-
-Sez he, “I wuzn’t a-layin’ out to tackle Victoria for it. I wuz a-goin’
-to hunt round myself for it in the park.”
-
-Sez I, “You’d only tire yourself out for nothin’; you wouldn’t find a
-sprig. And if you found any, I wouldn’t want you to pick it without
-Victoria’s consent--it would like as not be some she had saved for the
-children or grandchildren; no,” sez I, “I will suffer and be calm,” and
-I sithed.
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “I’m goin’ to be minded in this matter--I am goin’ to
-have you see a doctor, and I hain’t a-goin’ to put it off another day.
-You might put it off too long, and then what would the world be to me?
-What would life be without Samantha?”
-
-His tender tones touched my heart considerable, and I promised I would
-see a doctor that very day; so he went away, quite contented, with
-Martin.
-
-[Illustration: That little dude doctor, with his cane and his eyeglass.]
-
-Wall, after he had went away, and I wuz left alone with my promise,
-I rumineated in deep thought. And the more I thought on’t, the more I
-hated to have that little dude doctor, with his cane and his eyeglass,
-a-reconoiterin’ round my back and a-laughin’ at me, for all I knew--for
-I felt instinctively that he wuz one that would laugh at a person’s
-back, and I felt that in this case I should be the means of lurin’ him
-into that wickedness and deceit.
-
-He looked conceited and disagreeable in the extreme, anyway, and I
-didn’t put any dependence at all on his jedgment.
-
-But then my promise confronted me; what should I do? But as I mused
-I happened to think--besides this little dandy doctor, with his case
-of medicine, a-goin’ to and fro, I had noticed a tall, dignified,
-good-lookin’, middle-aged man a-goin’ up and down the halls with his
-case of medicine.
-
-He usually went up the stairs as we wuz a-goin’ out--about 10
-A.M.--and, thinkses I, here is a chance to keep my promise, and mebby
-git relief. For it stood to reason that I had ruther display my right
-shoulder blade to a middle-aged, sober man, with a wife and children
-and grandchildren, and other things to stiddy him down, than to a
-little snickerin’, supercilious young chap, who hadn’t any wife, or
-children, or any other trouble.
-
-So I left my door on a jar, and waited for his comin’. I got my dress
-waist so’s I could slip it off in a minute, and throwed a breakfast
-shawl gracefully round my figger, and waited calmly the result.
-
-Anon I heard a step approachin’, and I looked out, and I see that it
-wuz the young doctor. He had a posey in his buttonhole and he wuz
-a-hummin’ a light tune and a-swingin’ his cane in his right hand, and I
-felt more and more relieved to think it wuz not my fate to tackle him.
-
-Anon a hall-boy went by slowly, a-bearin’ a pitcher of ice water; anon
-a chambermaid, and then I recognized a messenger’s slow, haltin’ step.
-
-And then I see the doctor’s benine face, framed in gray hair and
-ornamented with whiskers of the same color, approachin’.
-
-I folded my breakfast shawl closter around my form and advanced to the
-door, and sez I--
-
-“Can I speak to you for a moment, sir?”
-
-“Yes,” sez he.
-
-Sez I, “I would like to employ you for a few minutes.”
-
-“Yes,” sez he, a-enterin’ the room willin’ly, as if it wuz the way of
-his business, as doctors always do.
-
-He looked round the room enquirin’ly as he entered, and as if mentally
-in search of sunthin’. And I spozed mebby it wuz to see if he could see
-signs of any other doctor’s medicine or sunthin’. And I spoke up, and
-sez I:
-
-“I have had some trouble with my back lately, and I want you to look at
-it and see what is the matter;” sez I, “I want to know whether it is
-neuralgy or a bile.”
-
-[Illustration: “I have had some trouble with my back lately, and I want
-you to look at it.”]
-
-He looked dretful surprised--I spozed he wuzn’t ust to havin’ a
-complaint so queer and mysterious.
-
-And I rapidly made my preperations, and presented my left shoulder
-blade for his consideration.
-
-And as I did so, I said anxiously--
-
-“Is it a bile?”
-
-I dreaded his answer. Neuralgy I felt I could face, but a bile seemed
-dretful if met by me on foreign shores, far from catnip and a quiet
-home.
-
-Sez he, “I can’t tell what is the matter; if I were in your place I
-would have a doctor.”
-
-Mekanically, and like sheet lightnin’, I seized the breakfast shawl and
-drawed its voluminous folds about my figger and faced him.
-
-“Hain’t you a doctor?” sez I.
-
-“No,” sez he; “I am a piano tuner. I thought you wanted me to tune an
-instrument,” sez he.
-
-I sunk into a chair and waved my hand towards the door.
-
-He bowed and vanished.
-
-And I, a not knowin’ whether to laugh or to cry, I did both at the
-same time. I felt meachin’, and small, and provoked, and shamed, and
-tickled, and mad, and everything.
-
-But anon I thought I must not let this _contrarytemps_ (French)
-vanquish me. So I called on all the common sense I had, and all the
-rectitude I had, and I had a real lot of it when I got holt of all of
-it.
-
-For I realized that my motives wuz as pure as rain water in a new cedar
-barrel, and so, bein’ dragged up to the tribunal of my own jedgment, I
-could not find myself to blame; so I determined to keep calm and not
-let the World or Josiah know what I had been through.
-
-For it wuz a hard blow onto both my jedgment and pride, lookin’ on
-it with a nateral eye, and I felt that Josiah and the World would
-be apt to look at it through nateral eyes, and not through the rapt
-vision of jestice that made me say and say calmly that Josiah wuz the
-one to blame; for if he hadn’t extracted a promise from me, this
-_contrarytemps_ would not have occurred.
-
-These large-sized emotions lifted me up quite a good ways, and so I
-spoze it made the next notch up come easier to me. For as I sot there I
-moralized--I have been a-relyin’ on mortal ingregients to help me and
-a-leanin’ on a pardner’s jedgment.
-
-Ingregients have failed, pardner’s jedgment has proved futile--futiler
-it did seem to me than anything ever had before sence the world begun,
-as futile as I have found ’em anon and oftener.
-
-So sez I to myself, “What if I should branch out and try the faith
-cure--turn aside from doctors and pardners, reeds that have broke under
-my weak grasp?”
-
-I will! I will!
-
-So I at once made my preperations for faith cure. I het some Pond’s
-Extract in a little cup on the gas--I had brung a little contrivance
-from home that fitted the burner.
-
-I het that extract as hot as I could bear it, and bathed that shoulder
-blade in the soothin’ mixture; I then wet a cloth in anarky, and rubbed
-it for a quarter of a hour by the clock; I then put on a strong poreus
-plaster I had by me, made from healin’ herbs; and then I het some more
-Pond’s Extract, and put in some tincture of wormwood--I had a little in
-a bottle--and I wet a woollen cloth in it and laid it over the blade.
-I then filled my hot-water bag with water and laid myself down on the
-bed, with the warm, soothin’ rubber bag pressed clost to the achin’
-blade.
-
-And then, havin’ completed these simple preleminaries, I leaned on
-the Faith Cure--I leaned heavy, and anon I felt that I had hit on the
-right plan. The pain grew lighter and lighter, my thoughts of the
-_contrarytemps_ grew more peaceful and as if I could bear it. I felt
-that I could forgive Josiah, and then I knew nothin’ further for a long
-time.
-
-[Illustration: Samantha’s Faith Cure.]
-
-Anon I seemed to be back in Jonesville; Philury and I wuz down in our
-back paster a-pickin’ rossberrys. The sun shone down warm as I stooped
-over the pink, laden boughs.
-
-The crick under the hill tinkled melogiously--somebody wuz tunin’ it,
-I thought. It seemed to be playin’ melogious cords I had never hearn
-before. A bird flew out of the deep, green depths of Balcom’s woods; it
-flew up in front of me and lighted on my forward, and said--
-
-“How do you feel, Samantha? Are you worse?”
-
-I had layed there for five hours by the clock, and it wuz my own
-pardner’s hand on my forward that rousted me up.
-
-“No,” sez I, “Josiah; I am much better than I wuz.”
-
-“Did you git the doctor?” sez he.
-
-That wuz a tender subject to me, but I wuz able to meet it. I sez--
-
-“I thought I would try the Faith Cure, Josiah, and,” sez I, “I truly
-feel like a new creeter--the pain has almost all gone.” And it had, and
-from that minute I gained on it fast.
-
-At bedtime I tried the Faith Cure agin, after goin’ through with the
-same simple preleminaries I had went through, and the next mornin’ the
-cure wuz almost complete, which made the trials that begun as soon as I
-opened my eyes some easier to bear.
-
-I heard my pardner’s voice the first thing, out in the hall, through
-the half open door. I hearn him a-sayin’--
-
-“Dum it all, don’t you never have day here? Is it always night?”
-
-“It is day now,” sez the voice of a agitated chambermaid; “it is
-between 8 and 9 o’clock.”
-
-“Pretty day!” sez Josiah. Sez he, “Look out of the winder and see if
-you can see daylight; a pretty day this is--dark as a stack of black
-cats, and darker, for you could see the cats if they wuz a inch from
-your nose.” Sez he, “We have been here three days, and I hain’t seen
-daylight yet.”
-
-He had a air of blamin’ the girl, and I interfered and called him in;
-but the girl wuz waywised, and she said, “It is very unusual weather,
-sir--very unusual. We have never had such a fog before.”
-
-They always say that, from Chicago and London to Egypt--they “never had
-it before.”
-
-It always happens dretful onfortunate jest whilst you are there.
-
-Josiah wuz jest preparin’ to blame the girl agin, I dare presoom to
-say, when I hearn another voice on the seen.
-
-It wuz the voice of a Englishman that Josiah had got some acquainted
-with, and who had disputed warm with him about their two different
-countries, each one on ’em a-praisin’ up his own native land to the
-skies.
-
-And Josiah made a derisive remark to him right there in that untoward
-place about his “dum climate.”
-
-I wuz mortified, but couldn’t walk out and interfere, not bein’ dressed.
-
-After passin’ a number of sentences back and forth, I hearn the
-Englishman say--
-
-“This is a great country, sir--the sun never sets on it.”
-
-And Josiah sez in a real mean axent--
-
-“Good reason for that! the sun never rises on’t--it can’t go down where
-it hain’t riz! I hain’t seen a ray of sunshine sence I come to England!”
-
-Thinkses I, “Dressed or ondressed, I’ve got to interfere,” and I
-hollered out agin, “Josiah--Josiah Allen!” And he see in my axent a
-need of haste.
-
-And he come into the room, and I sez--
-
-“Don’t run down a man’s country on a empty stumick, when it is as dark
-as pitch.”
-
-And he sez, “Then I can’t run it at all.” His axent wuz pitiful.
-
-And it wuz indeed a fearful time.
-
-The winder presented a black, murky appearance, the gas wuz lit in the
-house and outside, and away from the light the streets wuz as dark as a
-black broadcloth pocket in a blind man’s over-coat.
-
-We felt gloomy at the breakfast-table, but Martin sed we must be
-gittin’ round some. So we concluded to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral. So
-after awhile we ventered to sally out. We wuz about two hours a-goin’ a
-distance that ort to took us about fifteen minutes--a-movin’ on through
-the dense blackness, and not knowin’ what we wuz a-comin’ up aginst,
-or who, or when, or what.
-
-It wuz a fearful time, very.
-
-We went in two handsomes (though their handsomeness didn’t do us any
-good, for we couldn’t see a speck on’t). Josiah and I and Al Faizi went
-in one, and Martin and Alice and Adrian in the other. A strange and
-mysterious journey as I ever took, a-hearin’ anon or oftener a voice
-up on top of our vehicle a-shoutin’ out replies to the frenzied cries
-of cabmen on every side on him, and a not knowin’ who or what we wuz
-a-goin’ to run into, or be run in by. And the faint glow of the street
-lights a-shinin’ through the black mists like suns that wuz a-bein’
-darkened, as the Skripters tell on.
-
-It wuz a fearful seen; my Josiah wuz well-nigh prostrated by it, and
-sez he--
-
-“If I ever git where the sun shines in the daytime agin, I’ll stay
-there.”
-
-“So will I!” sez I, and I felt it, Heaven knows! I wuz fearful agitated.
-
-Sez Josiah, as a loud, skairful cry from the top of our handsome wuz
-answered from others all round us--
-
-“Jest think on’t, Samantha, how bright and pleasant it is this minute
-in our back yard to Jonesville; how plain you could see the side of the
-barn; how the sun is a-shinin’ down on the smoke-house, and hen-park,
-and leech barrel.
-
-“Why did we ever leave them seens!” sez he.
-
-“Why, indeed!” sez I.
-
-Sez he, “Ury is mebby at this minute goin’ in to the house, happy
-creeter!” Sez he, “A-walkin’ out a-seein’ every step he takes; and
-Philury a-standin’ in the back door a-watchin’ him, and a-lookin’ at
-the Loontown hills milds off, and the Jonesville steeple.
-
-“And we a-gropin’ along in perfect blackness at 12 M., and can’t see
-our noses. Why,” sez he bitterly, “my nose is a perfect stranger to me;
-it might be changed to a Roman or a Greecy one, and I not know it.”
-
-“You’d feel the change,” sez I.
-
-“I d’no whether I would or not. I feel all lost and by the side of
-myself,” sez he; “three more days of these carryin’s on would make my
-brain tottle.”
-
-“Wall, it couldn’t tottle fur,” sez I. I said it to comfort him, but it
-wuzn’t took so--no, fur from it.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIII.
-
-ST. PAUL’S AND THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
-
-
-Wall, after a seen of almost inexpressible wretchedness we reached St.
-Paul’s Cathedral.
-
-Josiah a-gittin’ it into his head that it wuz fashionable to read up
-about places of interest, had flooded his brain almost beyend its
-strength to bear about the Cathedral. And that information oozed and
-drizzled out of the instersises of his brain all the time we wuz there.
-As for me, when we entered the great central western door I wuz almost
-lost and by the side of myself as I ketched sight of the vast interior.
-
-As I looked down the immense, soft gray yeller depths of distance, I
-felt almost as though I wuz lookin’ down some of Nater’s isles, with
-shadders of blue mist a-lurkin’ in the corners.
-
-After my senses come back gradual I could pay some attention to the
-rich, dark carvin’, the crimson cushions, the big organ towerin’
-up, etc., etc. I felt lifted up considerable by the grandeur of the
-spectacle.
-
-But Josiah wanted to show off.
-
-Sez he, a-wavin’ his hand down the long aisle--
-
-“There is the place for knaves! See, Samantha, the beautiful
-arrangement--they’re set apart from good folks. It sez the ‘knave runs
-down that way.’ He is made to run so’s to separate him still more from
-Christians that go slow.”
-
-“Where did you git that information, Josiah Allen?” sez I.
-
-“Right here,” sez he, and he took out his guide-book and pinted to the
-words--
-
-“The long nave runs down through the centre.”
-
-Sez I, “How do you spell your vile person, Josiah?”
-
-“N-a-v-e, nave,” sez he--“the easiest way.”
-
-I groaned, and sez I, “I would shet up that book, Josiah Allen, and go
-back to Webster’s old spellin’-book.”
-
-He acted real pudgiky.
-
-But Alice wanted to go into the North Chapel, where the short service
-for business men wuz a-goin’ on, it bein’ almost noon when we got
-there. It wuz a impressive sight to see these busy men takin’ a
-breathin’ space from the hard labors of the day to give thought to the
-Better Country and the best way to git there.
-
-A beautiful sculptured head of the Christ looked down on these busy,
-careworn men, as if He wuz sorry for ’em and wanted to give ’em a
-breath of peace and love to go with ’em through the hot, feverish
-toils of the rest of the day.
-
-After lookin’ up into the ineffible beauty and love of that face, it
-didn’t seem as if those grocers could put so much sand into their sugar
-and pepper, or the merchants pay so little to the poor wimmen who make
-the garments they sell.
-
-But I d’no.
-
-Wall, the chapel on the south side wuz meant to be a place to
-administer jestice at different times, affectin’ meetin’-housen and
-sech--what they call a Consistery Court.
-
-And here Josiah agin tried to explain things to me.
-
-Sez he, “This is called a Consistery Court--here is where they try to
-be consistent when they attend to affairs of the meetin’-house.”
-
-And sez I in a dry axent, about as dry as a corn-cob, sez I, “It’s a
-pity they don’t have sech a court in American meetin’-housen.”
-
-Sez I, “They’re needed there,” and my mind roamed over the pressin’
-need of consistency in sech cases as Dr. Briggs, Parkhurst, Beecher,
-Heber Newton, Felix Adler, Satolli, etc., etc., etc.
-
-“And even in Jonesville,” I sez to myself, “is it not possible to even
-now have one built in the precincts of the Jonesville meetin’-house,
-where the members could go in half a day or so a week and try to be
-consistent?”
-
-Thinkses I, If they did honestly try to live up to the buildin’ they
-wuz in, and be consistent, there wouldn’t be so much light talk aginst
-religion as there is now, and more young folks brung into the church.
-
-Howsumever, whether Josiah got it right or not, one thing I do know,
-right in the midst of this court is a elaborate monument to the Duke of
-Wellington, that almost fills it up, so jestice is fairly scrunched up
-and squoze for want of room.
-
-That noble old Duke wouldn’t wanted it so. But how little can we tell
-what people will do with our memories when we have left ’em! But
-probble most of us won’t have no sech immense memorial riz up to us
-after we have passed away.
-
-But my reflections wuz agin cut short, for Josiah wanted to agin
-show off. Sez he, “The man that that wuz riz up to wuz made of iron
-mostly--lost his legs and arms, I spoze, and had iron ones made to
-replace ’em.”
-
-“Iron legs!” sez I; “how could he git round?”
-
-“By main strength.” Sez he, “He wuz a powerful man; he wuz called the
-‘Iron Duke.’”
-
-I gin him a pityin’ glance, but strangers wuz by, and I wouldn’t
-humiliate him by disputin’ him. I merely sez, “If I wuz in your place I
-would keep still for the rest of the day, Josiah Allen.”
-
-But Adrian, who took it all in good part, and with immense interest,
-sez--
-
-“How funny it must be to shake hands with him, but how it would hurt to
-have him strike you over the ear!”
-
-Sez I, “Adrian, you keep with Alice and me.” Sez I, “We’re a-goin’ to
-look at General Gordon’s statute.”
-
-This noble life and noble death are kep’ in memory by a beautiful
-statute, recumbient and a-layin’ down. The face, they say, is a good
-likeness. And as I looked at it, the thought of that noble and manly
-creeter almost brung tears to my eyes.
-
-Wall, we proceeded on eastward to the dome. Here is the pulpit and the
-place where the bigger part of the congregation sit.
-
-Lookin’ up, we see glitterin’ spaces filled with beautiful mosiacs, and
-up there are the benine figgers of the Evangelists, and the four great
-Prophets--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.
-
-Agin that thought of what would be done with our memories hanted me.
-They wandered about in goats’ skins here--afflicted, persecuted; did
-they think they would ever be throned in sech gorgeous places? No,
-indeed.
-
-Above Daniel, Isaiah, etc., is the whisperin’ gallery, where the lowest
-whisper, clost to the wall, goes all round the entire distance--a
-sight, hain’t it?
-
-And way up in the dome we see paintin’s of the life of St. Paul and his
-deeds.
-
-Wall, down on the floor to the south are immense statutes to Lord
-Nelson and Cornwallis. Good creeters, both on ’em, I believe, though
-mistook in jedgment. And a great monument to Major-General Dundas.
-There wuz lots of monuments to other eminent men. Most of the statutes,
-as is nateral, as is done in our own country, wuz mostly riz up to
-men who had been famous for fightin’--them who had been successful in
-killin’ off thousands and thousands of men, leavin’ trails of agony
-and blood behind ’em, clouds of black gloom, under which widders and
-orphans groped, seekin’ for bread, and fallin’ down hopeless in the
-quest.
-
-Wall, it’s nateral; I couldn’t say a word--America duz it.
-
-I also see, as in America, the skurcity of female statutes. We see
-the absolute dearth on ’em. Why, if a inhabitant of Mars should light
-down there some day and take a fancy to go through the cathedral, he
-wouldn’t have a idee that there wuz ever sech a thing as a woman in the
-world. He would go back to Jupiter and say: “One peculiarity of the
-planet Earth wuz, there wuz no wimmen there--only a race of men.”
-
-And if they questioned him too clost how they wuz born, he would say
-that most probble they growed jest like trees.
-
-And then the old Mars would gather round him and congratulate
-themselves on bein’ on a planet where equal jestice wuz awarded to men
-and wimmen both, and where there wuz no more war.
-
-The red lights on the planet don’t mean war, I don’t believe; it means
-the rosy glow of the strange foliage that the Mars gather for their
-children, and the Pars, too, for all I know.
-
-But I am indeed a-eppisodin’.
-
-But a few centuries from now let that same visitor come down and look
-into our great cathedrals, on both sides of the Atlantic, and he will
-see statutes to wimmen risin’ up jest the same as to men. Under the
-benine faces of some on ’em he will read--
-
-“There is no more war, for the former things have passed away.”
-
-The former things wuz what made war--injestice, intemperance, brutality,
-licenses for prostitution, drunkenness, and infamy, etc., etc., etc.
-
-But I am a-eppisodin’ too fur, too fur.
-
-The stained-glass winders we see on every side wuz beautiful in the
-extreme. But if you’ll believe it, this meetin’-house hain’t finished
-yet. Seein’ there has been a meetin’-house here for thirteen hundred
-years or so, you’d a-thought they’d ort to got it finished; but, then,
-they’ve been burnt out several times.
-
-I don’t want to brag over ’em, I didn’t feel like it at the time,
-though I couldn’t help a-thinkin’ that we built the Jonesville
-meetin’-house in three months. But, then, this one is bigger and has
-more work on it.
-
-Though the steeple on our meetin’-house is _very_ much admired.
-
-Wall, we went down into the crypt. It is called one of the finest in
-Europe. It is the same size as the cathedral.
-
-Here are some more warriors buried--Lord Nelson, the Duke of
-Wellington, etc. But to give credit to those who got up the
-buryin’-ground, there are some ministers buried there--sech as Dr.
-Liddon, Dean Milman, and eminent painters, sculpters, etc.
-
-Here lies the great architect of the cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren.
-
-Josiah read the tablet on his grave, and then went to explainin’ it to
-us.
-
-Sez he, “It tells the date of his birth and his death, and then it sez
-sunthin’ about spice--allspice, I guess. Christopher wuz probble fond
-of it.”
-
-Sez I, for I knowed the words by heart--
-
-“Reader, if you ask where is his monument, look about you.”
-
-Sez Josiah, “You’re wrong, Samantha. There’s the word spice all writ
-out.”
-
-Sez I, “It’s a dead language, Josiah--I’ve translated it. And,” sez I,
-“if you felt as I did a-lookin’ round on his matchless monument, sech
-as no man ever had before, you wouldn’t talk about allspice.”
-
-He acted real huffy, and moved on.
-
-Here are many monuments to illustrious people who are buried somewhere
-else.
-
-Down here in the east end is a chapel where they have early service
-every week day.
-
-In the west end is kept the funeral car on which the body of the Duke
-of Wellington wuz carried to the grave--
-
-“To the sound of the people’s lamentation.”
-
-It is a handsome structer of gun metal. One gun took at each of the
-Duke’s victories bein’ melted to make it. Twelve horses wuz needed to
-draw this car--it broke through the pavement in many places.
-
-As I wuz a-explainin’ this to Alice, I hearn Josiah say to Adrian:
-
-“On account of his legs and arms bein’ so heavey, I spoze, and his
-bein’ so great.”
-
-And then I had to explain to that child agin that his greatness wuz not
-his heft by the steelyards, nor his bein’ called iron wuzn’t because he
-wuz made of cast iron.
-
-I guess Adrian understood it--I guess he did. But Josiah Allen wuz a
-drawback to correct information--indeed, he wuz.
-
-For as we wended on I hearn him explain how this cathedral wuz sot on
-fire in 1590 by a woman called Anne Domono.
-
-Sez Adrian, “She was a bad woman, wasn’t she?”
-
-[Illustration: “Yes,” sez Josiah, “old Domono probble had his hands
-full with her.”]
-
-“Yes,” sez Josiah with a deep sithe, “old Domono probble had his hands
-full with her--she wuz a fiery creeter.”
-
-But here I interfered and explained it all out to Adrian, much as I
-hated to go agin my pardner’s words.
-
-Strange doin’s has been done in this old meetin’-house durin’ the long
-centuries that it has stood here. It almost made my brain reel to think
-on ’em.
-
-Councils of the church wuz held here, the Bishop of Exeter sought
-refuge here from a mob--wuz proclaimed a traitor and beheaded. Here
-Wyckliffe wuz tried for his religious opinions. Here popes sent out
-their legates. Here kings held their councils, and here men and wimmen
-sold their goods. And some with stuns and arrers killed the pigeons who
-made their nests in the ornaments of the walls. Here, too, they played
-ball and other games. Queer doin’s for meetin’-housen, but it wuz true.
-But what would the world say if my Josiah and Deacon Bobbett should
-take to playin’ ball in the Jonesville meetin’-house, or Sister Gowdy
-and I should play tag round the pulpit? Why, how foreign nations would
-be all rousted up and sneer at us!
-
-Here the leaders in the War of the Roses acted and carried on. Here
-Richard, Duke of York, took a solemn oath to uphold Henry VI., and
-then tried his best to shake him off the throne--lyin’ and actin’ in a
-meetin’-house. Here the dead body of Henry lay in state.
-
-After the Reformation had begun it wuz desecrated by the very meanest
-kind of doin’s. All kinds of business wuz carried on, all kinds of
-amusements. Busybodys and gossips made it their resort, and the Holy
-Evelyn said--
-
-“It was made a stable of horses and a den of thieves.”
-
-Then, if you’ll believe it, some of the reformers, or them who called
-themselves sech (queer creeters, I guess), stole the beautiful altar
-clothes, communion plate, candleabra, etc.--jest carried ’em off under
-the mantilly of religion they’d put on.
-
-Curous! curous! but, then, that old mantilly covers up lots of stolen
-things to-day, and meanness of all sorts.
-
-After this the grand old meetin’-house wuz completely burnt down.
-I should thought it would have expected lightnin’ to strike it, or
-sunthin’. Anyway, it all burnt down to ashes. The present buildin’
-hain’t been misused in that way--the services are carried on decently
-and in order.
-
-Wall, we hung round there for more’n a half day. Josiah had took the
-precaution to eat a hearty lunch before we sot out, so he remained
-considerable quiet till the nawin’s of hunger overtook him agin. And we
-left at sunset.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIV.
-
-“THE WIDDER ALBERT.”
-
-
-I’d told Martin when we’d first come to London that I must see the
-Widder Albert whilst I wuz there.
-
-A few days had run by, and I sez to Martin--“Like as not Victoria will
-be a-wonderin’ why I hain’t been to her house.”
-
-Of course when I first arrove I had sent her word to once, and asked
-her in a friendly way to come and see us jest as quick as she could,
-knowin’ that it wuz etiket for me to do so, and it wuz nothin’ but
-manners for her to make the first visit.
-
-And a-takin’ it right to home, that if she had come over to Jonesville,
-and wuz a-stoppin’ to the tarvern there, it would be my place to make
-the first call. I hain’t over-peticular in sech matters, but still I
-set quite a store by etiket, after all, and havin’ made the overtoor
-and sent the word that I wuz here, I didn’t want to demean myself by
-actin’ too over-anxious to make her acquaintance, though I did in my
-heart want to neighbor with her, thinkin’ quite a lot of her as a
-woman who had rained long and rained well.
-
-It wuz Martin that I sent the word by. He argued quite a spell about
-the onproperness of my sendin’ sech word to a Queen. But I argued back
-so fluent about the dissapintment it would be to her if she didn’t know
-I wuz here, and my onwillin’ness to hurt her feelin’s by my not makin’
-myself known to her, that I spoze he wuz convinced, for he sez--
-
-“Leave it right in my hands; don’t say a word to anybody else on the
-subject, and I will tend to it in the right way.”
-
-So I gin my promise, and as he hurried right out of the room, I spoze
-he tended to it imegiately and to once. And I sot in my room the
-rest of that day in my best waist and my shiniest collar and cuffs,
-expectin’ some that she would be to see me before night.
-
-And the next time I went out sight-seein’, though I didn’t say a word
-about her, accordin’ to my promise, yet I expected to go back and see
-the benine face, mebby a-lookin’ over the bannisters a-waitin’ for me.
-
-I didn’t spoze she would have her crown on at this time--no, I expected
-to see that good, likely face surrounded by a widder’s bunnet, or mebby
-a crape veil throwed on kinder careless like.
-
-I knew we should be very congenial. We both wished so well to our own
-sect--we wuz both so attached to our pardners; and though hern had
-passed on and mine wuz still with me, still I knew we had so many
-affectin’ incidents of our early days of our wedded love, before our
-perfectly adorin’ affection for Albert and Josiah wuz toned down by
-time and walkin’ round in stockin’ feet, and throwin’ crowns and
-bootjacks down in cross and fraxious hours, when meals wuz delayed, or
-the nations riz up and kicked, or the geese got into the garden, or
-slackness about kindlin’ wood, or the shortness of a septer, or etc.,
-etc., etc.
-
-Yes, I spozed we both had had our domestic trials. I spozed that
-Albert had his ways jest as Josiah has. Every pardner has ’em--they’re
-fraxious, touchy at times, over-good at others, and have mysterious
-ways. Men are dretful mysterious creeters at times--dretful.
-
-Yes, I felt that we could find perfect volumes to talk over on this
-subject, for if ever there wuz two wimmen devoted to their pardners
-with a devotion pure and cast iron, them two wimmen wuz Samantha and
-Victoria.
-
-And then, too, we wuz both Mas. I spozed she would tell me the good
-pints of Albert Edward, and I laid out to tell her of the oncommon
-smartness of Thomas Jefferson. And the more she would enlarge on
-Bertie, the more I would spread myself on Tommy.
-
-And then the girls; how she would tell me about Louise and Beatrice,
-and how I would tell her about Tirzah Ann--how we’d praise ’em up and
-compare notes about ’em.
-
-I presoom her boys and girls didn’t always come up to her idees of
-what girls and boys should do, and should not do. And if she told me
-in confidence anything of this sort, I wuz a-layin’ out to confide in
-her about Tirzah Ann, and how her efforts to be genteel wore on me, and
-how she would love to flirt if it wuzn’t for religion and a lack of
-material. And if she made any confidences to me about Bertie--anything
-relatin’ to the fair sex, and playin’ games, etc., I wuz a-goin’ to
-tell her, as much as I love Thomas Jefferson, I thought he did play
-checkers too much; and sence he wuz riz up so as a lawyer, the wimmen
-jest made fools of themselves and him, too, a-follerin’ him up and
-a-makin’ of him; but, then, Maggie didn’t care a cent about it, and
-that he wuz perfectly devoted to his wife and children, jest as her boy
-wuz.
-
-I wuz a-goin’ to say that I would never mention these things to a
-single soul but her, anyway, but I knew she would keep it, for she wuz
-jest like me--if her boy didn’t please her, she went right to him
-with it, and that ended it. She stood up for him to his back, jest as I
-stood up for Thomas J.
-
-Yes, I spozed we should take solid comfort a-confidin’ in each other,
-and mebby a-givin’ each other hints that would be helpful in the futer.
-
-And then we wuz both grandmas. How happy we should be a-talkin’ over
-the oncommon excellencies of our grandchildren!
-
-For though we are both too sensible to act foolish in sech matters and
-be partial, yet we both knew there never wuz and probble never would be
-sech grandchildren as ourn wuz.
-
-And then I had some very valuable receipts I laid out to gin her in
-cases of croup and colic, sech as young people don’t pay much attention
-to, but which I knew would jest suit her, and which might come handy
-for her grandchildren or great-grandchildren. I laid out to write ’em
-off for her. One or two of ’em wuz in poetry--
-
-    “A handful of catnip steeped with care,
-    With a little lobelia throwed in there,
-    Mixed with some honey more or less,
-    Will mitigate the croup’s distress.”
-
-And this--
-
-    “Some mustard seed,
-    Some onion raw,
-    Applied to chests--
-    I never saw
-    A thing more strong
-    To draw, to draw.”
-
-The grammar wuzn’t quite what I would have liked it to be in this last
-verse of poetry, but I made it in a time of pain, and I knew that when
-croup and colic wuz round, she nor I wuzn’t a-goin’ to stand on a verb
-more or less.
-
-And then I had another one:
-
-    “Some spignut roots
-    Steeped on the fire
-    Is always good
-    For my Josiah.
-    And a little Balm
-    Of Gilead flowers
-    Is good to calm
-    In fraxious hours.”
-
-I laid out to gin her all these receipts, and offer to send her the
-ingregients for makin’ the mixtures.
-
-Of course her pardner had passed away, but the world is full of men and
-wimmen, and sickness and fraxiousness are rampant, and good receipts
-like these don’t grow on every gooseberry bush.
-
-And then, I had a lot of other receipts I thought she’d like. And I
-wuz a-goin’ to ask her for her receipt for makin’ milk emptin’s bread;
-somehow, mine had seemed to run out and not be so good as usual. And I
-had a receipt for corn bread that wuz perfectly beautiful--
-
-    “Two measures of meal and one of flour,
-    Two of sweet milk and one of sour,
-    And a little soda and molasses.”
-
-Besides the literary treat of this poem, the excellence of the bread
-wuz fenominal.
-
-And then, how we both would love to talk about the interests of the
-world at large! I wuz a-goin’ to compliment her by sayin’ that though
-the sun never set on her property, while it sot every day on ourn, yet
-she couldn’t welcome the blazin’ sun of Righteousness and Enlightenment
-any more gladly than I did. And how first-rate I thought some of her
-moves had been, and how highly glad and tickled I’d been over ’em; and
-then I wuz layin’ out to draw her attention to some tangles in the mane
-and tail of the old Lion of England, a-tellin’ her at the same time
-that I realized only too well the dirt and onevenness in the feathers
-of our American Eagle.
-
-I wuz a-goin’ to talk it over with her about the opium trade, and the
-dretful intemperance and horrible cuttin’s up and actin’s, and the
-dretful crimes bein’ perpretated way out in Injy.
-
-Dretful thing, indeed, takin’ a woman and ruinin’ her body and soul for
-time and eternity, and then the goverment a-drawin’ money out of this
-eternal shame and ruin. I spozed we should talk a sight about that
-and draw lots of morals from it, too--draw ’em a good ways. And the
-horrible doin’s in Armenia--I thought more’n as likely as not we should
-both shed tears over it.
-
-But, as I say, time had went on, and she hadn’t come to see me yet. I
-asked Martin anxiously what he spozed wuz the reason, and he gin me
-various and conflictin’ answers.
-
-Once he sed she wuz sick a-bed; and the next hour, in answer to my
-anxious inquiry, he told me she had gone on a visit to a fur country.
-And when I reminded him of the descripency in his statements, he come
-right out and sed she’d broke her legs--both on ’em.
-
-“But,” sez he, “don’t make it public--it’s a State secret.”
-
-Wall, then I worried considerable about her, and sed I ort to go and
-see her, and carry her some Tincture of Wormwood.
-
-And then Martin sed she wuz entirely well and comfortable and happy,
-but couldn’t walk.
-
-But I sez, “She might send me word.”
-
-“She did,” sez he; “she tells you that the next time you visit England
-she hopes to see you.”
-
-“The next time!” sez I--“there won’t be no next time. If I ever git
-acrost the ocean agin I shall stay there.”
-
-“Yes,” sez my Josiah; “if we ever see home agin we shall probble never
-step our feet outside the house agin, or the back door-yard.”
-
-But I sez, “I shall probble walk round some in the front yard, and
-mebby visit the children.”
-
-Sez he, “Not for years, if ever.” Sez he, “I want to set down on our
-back steps and set there for over a year without gittin’ up.”
-
-I felt that along in January he would be willin’ to move round a little
-and git into the house, but that dear man can’t be megum.
-
-Wall, with deep dissapintment I realized that the Widder Albert and I
-wuzn’t a-goin’ to meet. If she wuz in the state Martin said she wuz, of
-course I knew she couldn’t take no comfort a-visitin’, and I hain’t no
-hand to go and visit sick folks if I can’t help ’em.
-
-And I spoze, as Martin sed, that she had good hired girls and
-everything done for her comfort.
-
-But I worried about her quite a good deal.
-
-But it wuz a comfort to me to think of what a big house she had--it
-wuz big enough to hold plenty of help, and it must have good air in
-it--yes, indeed! The house itself is as big as from our house over to
-Deacon Gowdey’s, and I d’no but bigger.
-
-Martin made a great pint on goin’ to see the Bank of England. I believe
-he jest loves to walk round the outside of buildin’s that has immense
-wealth in ’em, if he don’t go inside. He and Josiah went and wuz gone
-all the forenoon. I spozed it would take a week to go through all
-the rooms. Why, there is nine different door-yards right inside the
-buildin’; they call ’em courts, and the rooms open into ’em; so you can
-form a idee of how big it is. But I didn’t seem to care so much about
-goin’, so I stayed to home. I had quite a talk with Al Faizi about it.
-He’d been a-huntin’ up facts and idees, as his way is.
-
-He didn’t condemn the ways of England at all--he simply told the facts
-and left ’em, jest as the ’postles did. He sed he found that in the
-Bank of England wuz the greatest wealth heaped up in the smallest space
-that the world had ever known sence the creation. And with the same air
-of simply tellin’ a fact, and then leavin’ it, in the New Testament
-way, sez he--
-
-“Almost in the shadow of this building, holding the world’s wealth, I
-find the greatest want and wretchedness and crime existing that I have
-ever looked upon, and I believe the worst the world has ever seen.”
-
-[Illustration: “Almost in the shadow of the Bank of England, I found
-the greatest want and wretchedness.”]
-
-He didn’t say that there must be a screw loose somewhere in the
-great revolvin’ wheel of Humanity to make sech a state of things
-possible. He jest writ down sunthin’ in that book of hisen--mebby
-it wuz expressions of wonder about our boasted civilization havin’
-accomplished so little in eighteen hundred years, when the richest
-place on earth should have its dark shadder of the greatest want and
-crime clost to its side. No; he jest stated the facts and let us draw
-our own morals, and as fur as we wanted to. Martin didn’t notice his
-remarks, nor see Al Faizi at all, so fur as I could observe. He went on
-a-talkin’ with Josiah about the bank, and about Rotten Row; he sed he
-wanted us to see that, and wanted us to set off to once.
-
-And I told Alice out to one side, when we wuz gittin’ ready, that I
-didn’t know as I wanted her to go into any sech a nasty place, or
-Adrian either. I take good care of the children--yes, indeed I do!
-
-But we found out when we got there that Rotten Row wuz a elegant place,
-fixed off for ridin’ and drivin’. Beautiful ladies and grand-lookin’
-gentlemen, and if there wuz anything Rotten about ’em, it wuz on
-the inside of their phylackricies; the outside of ’em wuz clean and
-brilliant.
-
-Some say that the place where these great folks congregate is well
-named, but I don’t believe everything that I hear.
-
-Martin enjoyed the seen dretfully, though he sed, on commentin’ on the
-ladies ridin’, that none on ’em could come up to an American woman in
-grace, and he sed that the best ridin’ that he ever see wuz by cow-boys
-on a Dakota ranch.
-
-Wall, I couldn’t dispute him, never havin’ neighbored with cow-boys.
-But let Martin alone for findin’ out all the attractions of U. S. A.
-No; U. S. A. won’t suffer in Martin’s hands, not at all.
-
-As I sed, Martin and Alice went round quite a good deal to see her
-friends--Lords and Ladies some on ’em; she got acquainted with ’em to
-school, when she wuz a-boardin’ with that Miss Ponsions, a good likely
-school-teacher she wuz, so fur as I could make out.
-
-But owin’ to the Widder Albert enjoyin’ sech poor health, and not bein’
-able to git to see me, I didn’t seem to want to go round so much. I
-didn’t want to go to parties--no, indeed!
-
-Alice come home from one gin by Lady L----, and, if you’ll believe it,
-her pretty dress wuz all crushed and torn, fairly spilte. Alice sed
-there wuz sech a jam she couldn’t breathe hardly.
-
-And I sez, “Sech doin’s don’t speak well for the woman of the
-house--lady or no lady; and,” sez I, “I’d love to advise her; I’d tell
-her that when I give a quiltin’ or a parin’-bee I never invite more’n
-can git round the quilt and the parin’ machines handy and without
-crowdin’.”
-
-Sez I, “I could probble put idees into Lady L----’s head that would
-help her all her life in futer parties.” But I didn’t happen to see
-her, poor thing! and so I spoze she’ll keep on in the old way.
-
-I have known ’em who lived in the country, fur back from the delights
-and advantages of Jonesville--I have known them creeters, when they
-come in on a saw log or on a load of calves to ship, I have seen ’em
-look with perfect or at the commotion and life in the Jonesville
-street, where, right in front of the tarvern, I have seen with my own
-eyes as many as five teams and two open buggies, besides walkers on the
-sidewalk. This sight to ’em, fresh from country wilds, where one wagon
-along the road a day wuz a fair average, wuz as good as a circus to ’em.
-
-[Illustration: Right in front of the tarvern, I have seen with my own
-eyes as many as five teams and two open buggies.]
-
-But the Jonesvillians wuz ust to the rush and bustle of them seven
-teams, and acted calm and self-possessed and hauty through it all.
-
-But I have seen the pride of them very Jonesvillians took down when
-they visited New York. There I have seen ’em stand with or on lower
-Broadway, when they see the rush, and jam, and push, and pull, and
-I’ve hearn their remarks, full as wonderin’ and as agitated as the
-backwooders from way behind Jonesville.
-
-That makes two ors, as I figger on’t.
-
-Wall, here is another one jest as big or bigger; set them New Yorkers,
-them very Broadwayers, down in a London street, and you’ll have another
-or jest as big to add as the two foregoin’ ones.
-
-The crowd is jest as much immenser, the roar jest as much louder, the
-jam, and push, and pull, and drive, and yell, and crash, and scramble,
-and roar, and rattle jest as much more enormouser.
-
-Why, imagine the slate stuns down to the Jonesville creek all springin’
-up into men and wimmen, and horses and wagons, and carriages and drays,
-etc., etc., etc., and you may have a faint idee of the countless number
-on ’em; and then imagine over all that seen a deep, black curtain of
-fog descended down sudden, and out of that roar the crowds of vehicles
-of all kinds, the yells of drivers, and most probble the yells of
-skairt-out females a-blendin’ in it--imagine it if you can; wall, that
-is a London street.
-
-I wuz considerable interested in the bridges of London that crossed the
-Thames, and I meditated every time I crossed one on ’em on Old London
-Bridge, and what a seen, what a seen that wuz for centuries; with
-houses built on each side on’t, merchants and dealers in everything,
-and artists and preachers, for all I know. I know, anyway, one on ’em
-wuz a good preacher--the immortal Bunyan. How he must have meditated as
-he see the throng surge past him--old and young, beggars and princes,
-velvet and rags!
-
-How he must have thought of the hard journey to the Celestial City, and
-what a hard tussle it wuz to git there!
-
-Hogarth lived here at one time, and mebby got the idee of his “Rake’s
-Progress” from some of the endless crowd he see go past. Anyway, he
-probble see rakes enough, if that wuz all, for they have permeated
-every field of life, a-rakin’ up all that is vile, and leavin’ the
-flowers and sweet blades of grass as they raked on.
-
-Holbein lived here.
-
-Life on that old bridge must have been a sight to contemplate, havin’
-a good time on it some of the time, most probble, jest as we do in
-America and Jonesville. But in times of highest prosperity a-knowin’
-that under ’em wuz a deep, black current a-flowin’, jest as we know it
-in Jonesville, only the current of Human Life is more mysteriouser and
-vague.
-
-Poor William Wallace had his head stuck up here--good creeter, it
-wuz a shame after all he went through: a-losin’ his first wife and
-a-fightin’ so for freedom. And Thomas More, and Bolingbroke, and lots
-of others--middlin’ good creeters, all on ’em. And then there wuz
-traitors, Jack Cade, etc., etc., etc. I d’no but their heads did less
-trouble here than when they wuz on their bodies, so fur as the world
-wuz concerned, but I spoze it come tough on ’em, a-seein’ these heads
-wuz the only one they had.
-
-And Martin took us to parks so beautiful and grand that they took down
-Martin’s pride considerable, and us Jonesvillians, whose grassy acre in
-front of the meetin’-house had looked spacious to us, laid out as it
-wuz with young maples and slippery ellums--
-
-But where wuz our pride, and where wuz Martin’s? Think of four hundred
-acres all full of beauty: that is Hyde Park. And Windsor Park, Queen
-Victoria’s door-yard, as you may say, has five hundred acres in it.
-Jest think on’t.
-
-And there we’ve called our door-yard big, specially sence we moved
-the fence and took in the old gooseberry patch. I had boasted to
-neighborin’ wimmen that it must be nigh upon a quarter of a acre--but
-five hundred, the idee!
-
-Wall, I’m glad I hain’t got to tend to it, and weed the poseys, and see
-that the grass is cut. But, then, she’s forehanded; she can afford to
-hire.
-
-But, amongst all the parks we went to, Josiah and I seemed to like the
-Kew Gardens about as well as any.
-
-I had deep emotions, for wuz it not there that Clive Newcome walked
-with Ethel? Her sweet form clost to him, but the dreary sea of Hopeless
-Despair a-surgin’ through his heart, a-seemin’ to wash her milds away
-from him, and she also, visey versey.
-
-Poor young creeters! poor young hearts!
-
-I seemed to see ’em a-walkin’ before me, with downcast heads and sad
-eyes, all up and down them lovely walks, jest as in Windsor Park
-I seemed to see the Merry Wives of Windsor, and poor old Falstaff
-a-settin’ out to meet ’em.
-
-I seemed to look out with my mind’s eye for that poor, foolish, vain
-old creeter more’n I did for Victoria’s clothes, which I might have
-expected would be hung out to dry that day--it bein’ a Monday, and she
-sech a splendid housekeeper.
-
-I have said what emotions rousted up in me as I went through Kew
-Gardens; as for Josiah, he liked ’em because he could git provisions
-here of all kinds--good ones, too, and cheap.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV.
-
-A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
-
-
-Wall, we went to the British Museum.
-
-To give any idee of what we see in that museum would take more time,
-and foolscap paper, and eyesight, or wind and ears than I spoze I will
-ever be able to command.
-
-It is seven acres of land full of everything rich and rare and
-beautiful from our time back to the year one, and further, for
-all I know. The marbles, engravin’s, picters, coins, manuscripts,
-curosities--if I had the wealth of ’em in money--if I could have the
-worth of jest one article out of the innumerable multitude of ’em, I
-could jest buy out the hull town of Lyme, and live on the interest of
-my money.
-
-The museum holds everything and more too. And the library, why, it
-is most too much to believe what we see there. Now, I’ve always had
-a Bible and a New Testament, and have never gin much thought whether
-there wuz any other different ones; but I see with my own eyes
-seventeen hundred different kinds of Bibles.
-
-And good land! everything else accordin’--everything else a-swingin’
-out jest as regardless of cost and space. The Egyptian Gallery wuz a
-sight to see, and statutes and slabs older than the hills. Who writ
-them words on ’em? Did the heads ache, and hearts, jest as they do now?
-I spoze so.
-
-Roman, Grecian, Assyrian galleries, galleries of all sorts, birds and
-beasts and fishes enough to stock the world, it seemed to me.
-
-But most of all the relicks; some on ’em filled my tired-out brain with
-or and wonder and admiration.
-
-Milton’s contract with his publishers for “Paradise Lost” (he got five
-pounds down, and wuz goin’ to git five dollars more when the first
-edition wuz sold, and so on).
-
-They took the advantage on him; you know he wuz blind, and couldn’t
-skirmish round and look into things; so Paradise or not, they got the
-better of him.
-
-And then his widder; why didn’t they try to do as they ort to by Miss
-Milton? She sold out root and branch for eight dollars--the idee! Why,
-how many copies have been sold of that book? Enough to build up a
-mountain as high as the Catskills.
-
-8 pounds for ’em--what a shame!
-
-The publishers are dead, I spoze; yes, I spoze Samuel Symon passed
-away years ago, but he left quite a big family, and they all seem to
-foller the old gentleman’s plans, and are doin’ first-rate and layin’
-up money real fast.
-
-And I see Hogarth’s receipts for some of his picters. And there wuz the
-very prayer-book used by Lady Jane Grey on the scaffold.
-
-“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place for all generations,” and
-“though I walk through the valley and the shadow of death” I will be
-with thee. I wonder if she heard the words when the shadders lay so
-dark on her pretty head?
-
-Then there wuz letters writ in their own hands from Martin Luther,
-Oliver Cromwell, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth, Peter the Great,
-Dudley, Leicester, Francis Bacon. And there wuzn’t a word in Francises
-letter, so fur as I see, as to whether he wuz Shakespeare or not, or
-whether Shakespeare wuz him.
-
-I wish I knew how it wuz!
-
-And there wuz papers and letters from all the kings and emperors, and
-George Washington right amongst ’em--it kinder tickled my pride to see
-George there, but he deserved it.
-
-Then there wuz the old bull that gin Henry the VIII. the name of
-Defender of the Faith. What kind of faith did he act out--the faith
-that he could marry more wimmen and chop their heads off than any
-other old creeter this side of Blue Beard.
-
-I should have been ashamed if I wuz him. If he had been a woman
-a-marryin’ and a-killin’ and a-marryin’, and etc., etc., etc., they
-wouldn’t have stood it half so long--they would have broke it up; it
-wouldn’t have been any worse in a female for anything I know.
-
-And then there wuz the message from Julius Cæsar a-sayin’ that he had
-“Veni, vidi, vici.”
-
-I spoze Thomas Jefferson would know jest what that meant. Josiah
-thought it wuz sunthin’ about some wimmen--Nancy somebody, but I
-d’no--I wouldn’t ask.
-
-And then there wuz letters from good riz up creeters, sech as John
-Knox, Sir Isaac Newton, Cardinal Wolsey, Cranmer, Erasmus, etc., etc.,
-etc., etc., etc., etc., and so forth.
-
-Josiah wuz perfectly beat out when we got home that night, and so wuz I.
-
-But we found letters from home, and they seemed to refresh us and take
-our minds offen our four legs and our two dizzy and tired-out heads.
-
-Babe, sweet little creeter, she writ that she prayed for me every
-night, and for her grandpapa, too. I wonder if that is one reason why
-our legs didn’t give out completely that day, as they threatened to
-time and agin?
-
-Thomas J. and Tirzah Ann writ affectionate letters--Thomas J. a-tellin’
-us to be careful and not overdo, and Tirzah Ann sent a heart full of
-love, and a request to git a yard and a half of lace with deep pints
-on’t to trim a summer waist.
-
-Ury and Philury wanted to know when we wuz a-comin’ home, and whether,
-with deep respects, they should take up the parlor carpet, that seemed
-threatened with carpet bugs, and whether it wuz best to break up the
-8-acre lot.
-
-Oh, sweet and tender missives, how near they seemed to bring the old
-home to us--drag it right along over the glassy bridge of the Atlantic
-and land it at our feet!
-
-Wall, Martin sed he wouldn’t fail to see Madame Tussaud’s wax figgers.
-He sed undoubtedly he would be asked if he’d seen ’em. And Adrian wuz
-anxious to go, thinkin’ it wuz sunthin’ like a circus.
-
-But we found it wuz a sight, a sight to see how nateral they wuz.
-Why, some of the figgers almost breathed, and you can see ’em--some
-machinery rigged up inside, I spoze. And then we see kings, and
-queens, and princes, and warriors, and everybody else--we got fairly
-light-headed a-seein’ ’em all, and I spoze Josiah got kinder excited
-and wrought up, or he wouldn’t have done as he did.
-
-There wuz a old man a-holdin’ a programme in his hand, and every little
-while he would lift up his head and look round. He favored Deacon Henzy
-quite a good deal, and Josiah sez to me--
-
-“I believe that is Deacon Henzy’s cousin; you know he sed he had one
-here in London. Don’t you see he has got the real Henzy nose? I believe
-I’ll be neighborly and scrape acquaintance with him.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “he duz favor the Henzys, but,” sez I, “don’t be too
-forred; the Henzys are big feelin’.”
-
-“Big feelin’!” sez Josiah; “don’t you spoze he will be glad to see
-a neighbor of his own blood relation?” Sez he, “He will be glad to
-neighbor with me.”
-
-I felt dubersome, but he advanced onwards, and sez he in his most
-polite axents--
-
-“Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of Jonesville?”
-
-[Illustration: “Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of Jonesville?”]
-
-The old man never moved, but read away, and occasionally lifted his
-head and looked round, and Josiah spoke agin a little louder--
-
-“Be you any relative of Bildad Henzy?”
-
-He never noticed my pardner any more’n as if he wuz dirt under his
-feet, and my pardner got his dander up, and he fairly yelled in the old
-man’s ears--
-
-“Be you a Henzy?” And bein’ mad, he added, “Dum you! I believe you can
-hear if you want to.” And he put his hand on the old man’s shoulder to
-draw his attention to him. And for all the world! if that man wuzn’t
-wax! Josiah looked meachin’ for as much as four minutes, and I sez--
-
-“I told you to look ahead.”
-
-“You didn’t, nuther,” he snapped out.
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “it wuz words to that effect, and I wouldn’t try to be
-neighborly agin to-day.”
-
-Sez he, “If I see a man afire I wouldn’t tell him on’t.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “he would probble find it out himself; but now,” sez I,
-“you’d better keep right by me.”
-
-Wall, as I said, we see every noted woman from Queen Victoria back to
-Eve, I guess; and from the Prince of Wales and his wife and children
-back to little Cain and Abel--or I presoom Adam’s little boys wuz
-there, though I don’t remember of seein’ ’em. But there wuz Knights,
-Barons, Crusaders, Kings, and Emperors, all dressed up in royal robes;
-the Black Prince, as good a lookin’ young man as I want to see, and
-Kings Edward and Richard and Henry, and Queens Mary and Elizabeth,
-and Mary, Queen of Scots, all ready to have her head cut off; and her
-rosary, on which she had told her prayers those dretful days, slipped
-through her fingers as much as to say, I am goin’ into a country where
-I sha’n’t want you any more. And there wuz Marie Antonette--poor
-creeter! and Anne Boleyn, poor thing! she’d better not married a
-widdower. And Joan of Arc, noble creeter! I felt real riz up a-lookin’
-at her--I always liked her.
-
-And I wuz dretful interested in the Napoleon rooms, full of the relicks
-of the great kingmaker.
-
-There he lay, jest as nateral as life, on a bed, with his cloak wropped
-round him--the very cloak he wore at the battle of Marengo, and which
-he wropped round his body some like a pall when that heart had stopped
-its ambitious throbbin’s; and the world breathed freer.
-
-Then there wuz his coronation robe--and if you’ll believe it, the
-coronation robe of poor Empress Josephine right by.
-
-I’d a-gin ten cents cheerfully if I could have got a little piece of
-both on ’em for my crazy quilt. But I didn’t spoze they’d be willin’ to
-have me cut ’em off, so I didn’t tackle the guide about it.
-
-And mebby it wuz jest as well, I d’no as I could have slept much
-under them two robes and meditated on what they had covered up. Love,
-triumph, doubt, jealousy, heartaches, despair would permeate the
-Josephine crazy block, and wild passions, and burnin’ ambition, and
-cold, remorseless neglect, and desertion would most likely surround the
-Napoleon crazed block.
-
-I d’no but I should have the nightmair every time I tried to sleep
-under it.
-
-Then there wuz his watch, stopped the minute he died, his ring,
-camp knife and fork, coffee-pot, snuff-box--if I hadn’t seen it, I
-wouldn’t believed he used snuff, the idee is somehow so incongrous of
-the hero of the Nile, the conqueror of Europe a-takin’ snuff. Why,
-all Jonesville kinder looks down on old Miss Moody because she takes
-snuff--black snuff, too, scented high with bergamot.
-
-[Illustration: Napoleon’s tooth.]
-
-Wall, one of the most life-like relicks wuz one of his teeth; that wuz
-a part of the great emperor, or wuz once, before it wuz pulled out.
-
-I spoze it ached jest like anybody’s tooth, and I presoom he wuz hard
-to git along with, and talked rough, jest as any ordinary man duz,
-durin’ its worst twinges.
-
-I presoom he sed “Dum it!” repeatedly before he made up his mind to
-have it out.
-
-I jedge him by Josiah, and I spoze that is a good way to jedge men.
-
-Yes, I spoze you ketch any one man and study him clost, and you have a
-good idee of the hull male race.
-
-And then there wuz a lock of hair, took right from his scalp, so I
-spoze. Oh, what burnin’ thoughts and plans and ambitions once permeated
-the spot on which that grew!
-
-My emotions wuz a perfect sight as I looked at it.
-
-And we see clothes and relicks of every other great man, it seems to
-me, that ever lived--Lord Nelson, Henry of Navarre, etc., etc., etc.
-
-And we see figgers--lookin’ jest as nateral as if they could walk up
-and shake hands with you, if they wuz a-mind to--of Shakespeare and
-Macaulay and Scott and Byron, Calvin and Knox and Luther, Lincoln’s
-homely, good face, and Grant, Henry Ward Beecher, etc., etc., etc.
-
-I wouldn’t give a cent to see all the figgers of criminals and
-murderers, but Martin thought it advisable to walk through it, so he
-could say he’d been there, I spoze.
-
-And there wuz one thing among everything else that gin me more than
-seventy emotions, and that wuz the very axe, the very old guillotine
-that cut off the heads of twenty-two thousand folks durin’ the Rain of
-Terror in Paris.
-
-I looked at the piece of iron with feelin’s, as I say, beyend
-description.
-
-And I wondered out loud if the iron wuz now dug out of the sile that
-would make jest sech a horrible instrument for America.
-
-I groaned deep as I wondered it.
-
-And Josiah sez, “You talk like a fool, Samantha!”
-
-And I sez, “I hope I do, Josiah--I hope so!
-
-“But what hammered this piece of iron out to its terrible use wuz the
-fiery hammers of jealousy, and fury, and hunger, and want, and the gay
-multitude went on in its gayety and extravagancies, and didn’t heed
-the sullen hammerin’s onto that iron, and laughed at ’em that called
-attention to it--jest as you are a-doin’ now, Josiah Allen.”
-
-Sez he, “You can talk about my extravagancies if you want to, Samantha
-Allen, but I hain’t half the clothes you have, and they hain’t trimmed
-off anywhere nigh as high as yourn are.”
-
-But I went on, not heedin’ his triflin’ words.
-
-Sez I, “The same furies are loose in the streets of our American
-cities to-day--foolish suspicion driv by mistaken zeal, jealousy,
-heartburnin’, honest want, and need on one side; injestice, wrong,
-oppressions, extravagance, indifference, anger, contempt, etc., etc.,
-etc., on the other side, all a-flamin’ up and a-holdin’ up a light
-for jest sech a axe to be ground out. How long will I hear the sullen
-thunderin’ of the silent hammerin’s on the forge of ignorant malice and
-hatred and jest anger--how long?” And I sithed deep and heavey.
-
-And Josiah sez, “What you hear is the thud of folks a-walkin’ through
-the Chamber of Horrows.”
-
-And sez he agin, “You talk like a fool! America is good to the poor.
-Look at So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so,” sez he, a-bringin’
-my attention to some of the most shinin’ lights in the field of
-philanthropy and jestice.
-
-Sez I, a-drawin’ his attention to the good philanthropic works in
-France--sez I, “Paris had also her So-and-so, and So-and-so, and
-So-and-so before the Rain of Terror.”
-
-And agin I gin several sithes and a few groans.
-
-But my pardner looked cross as a bear, and dog tired.
-
-So, as allegorin’ and eppisodin’ must yield to the powers of affection,
-I mekanically follered him in silence through the halls, Martin and the
-children bein’ in another part of the buildin’ and Al Faizi somewhere
-a-lookin’ or a-takin’ notes in a noble way--I hain’t a doubt of it.
-
-But we all rejoined each other, and sot off home to dinner amid
-Josiah’s great rejoicin’.
-
-Wall, Martin took us to the Zoological Garden, where we see all the
-dumb creeters that ever wuz made, it seemed to me; and all used so
-first-rate that it wuz a comfort to me to see ’em. Great big cages,
-where they could roam round some and enjoy themselves.
-
-[Illustration: Josiah at the London “Zoo.”]
-
-And wuzn’t it a pleasure to see all the beautiful birds, of every color
-and plume, from every country from Eden down, a-playin round in the
-trees and in the ambient air? The cages as big as a door-yard, with
-trees in ’em, where they can fly round in the branches. And water birds
-with their own ponds to float in; and sea birds with real sea-shores
-fixed up for ’em.
-
-And so it wuz with every animal from a elephant down, wild or tame. And
-I should have took a sight of comfort here if I had had a pair of iron
-ear pans, or even gutty-perchy. But bein’ but flesh and blood, them
-pans ached with the fearful noise the animals made.
-
-Josiah wanted the worst way to go to the Parliament of Cogers, which
-wuz established over two hundred years ago, and still meets in Fleet
-Street.
-
-Sez Josiah, “A public man in America naterly depends on cogers and sech
-for his election.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I; “Heaven knows that is so. Saloon-keepers and whiskey and
-beer and cider manafacturers, and whiskey drinkers, and the raw foreign
-element, and other cogers, elect more politicians to office, specially
-in our big towns, than any other element; and pure men and Christian
-wimmen have to stand back and be ruled by ’em.”
-
-“Yes,” sez he, blandly; “and so it stands anybody in hand who has
-political aspirations and wants to be popular with the masses to
-ingrashiate himself with all the cogers he can. I would love to see
-what means these men take to endear themselves to the cogers, besides
-buyin’ ’em, and makin’ ’em drunk, and sech other ways as I’m familar
-with.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “you’ll go alone for all of me; I see cogers enough in
-my own country without huntin’ ’em up here, and I’d advise you to keep
-away from ’em.” Sez I, “Your head hain’t strong enough, Josiah, to
-hold only jest so much, and I’d advise you to fill it up with the noble
-and grand objects we see here on every side, and let cogers alone.”
-
-“But,” sez he, “my futer depends on ’em; I must keep up with other
-statesmen if I’m ever to amount to anything.”
-
-But I wouldn’t listen to any more of his arguments, and waved off the
-subject almost hautily.
-
-But I found out afterwards that the Parliament wuzn’t cogers as
-Josiah looked on ’em, and they wuz particular to be called _co_gers,
-with the emphasis on the _co_. I found they wuz a sort of mock
-debates--patronized by lawyers, political men, newspaper men, clerks,
-etc., where they debate on every subject, and drink beer and smoke
-pipes and talk, talk, talk.
-
-Daniel O’Connell and Curran and John Wilkes and many others eminent in
-debate wuz members of this club.
-
-I had always pictered the Tower of London as a tall tower a-shootin’
-up, some like a steeple, only more of a size all the way up; more,
-mebby, like a very tall pillow. But, anyway, I’d always depictered it
-in my mind as steeple or pillow shaped.
-
-But, to my surprise, I found that what is called the Tower of London
-is a hull lot of buildin’s that cover nigh upon fourteen acres of
-ground, though there are, of course, a number of towers throwed
-in--thirteen of ’em in all--Bloody Tower, Bell Tower, Jewel Tower,
-etc., etc. They date back to the time of Cæsar.
-
-There wuz a Roman fortress on this spot when the Romans held London.
-One tower is called Cæsar’s Tower now. William the Conqueror founded
-the Tower of London as we see it. When he wuz alive it wuz a great
-palace, with thick walls for safety or defence; it wuz used as a prison
-for prisoners of state mostly, and now it is used as an arsenal. Piles
-of rifles and cannons are kep’ here in some of the buildin’s.
-
-The principal entrance is the Lion’s Gate, but there are three other
-gates. The Traitor’s Gate wuz the one through which prisoners wuz took
-into the Tower. I don’t spoze they recognized the way they wuz took
-out. Then there is the Water Gate and the Iron Gate.
-
-One of the most interestin’ sights there wuz the guards who had charge
-of the place. They had on velvet hats, with a kind of a wreath on ’em,
-some like Tirzah Ann’s last winter’s hat, and a deep ruffle round their
-necks, and a blue sort of a polenay or overskirt, with a belt all
-embroidered with roses and thistles and shamrocks and crowns, and,
-etc., and short pantoloons, with stockin’s comin’ up to the knee, and
-rosettes on their knees and rosettes on their shues.
-
-Josiah sez to me, “Never before sence I wuz born have I seen a man
-dressed up as he ort to be to carry out my idees. You can see for
-yourself, Samantha, jest how perfectly beautiful, and how dressy and
-stylish a man can be if he sets out; why,” sez he, “a dress like that
-would take twenty years offen my age, and I d’no but twenty-one, and
-I’m bound to have one jest exactly like it if I ever live to git home.
-What a sensation it will create in Jonesville!” sez he dreamily.
-
-I gin a deep sithe, but before I could reply the company started
-on their rounds of observation, led by one of them gay-dressed
-individuals. They go the rounds every half hour.
-
-Wall, we got some guide-books, and payed our sixpence apiece for our
-tickets, some as if we wuz goin’ into a menagerie, and follered the
-guide over the moat bridge into the different towers.
-
-Martin and Josiah wuz dretful interested in the place where the weepons
-wuz kep’, bayonets and swords and rifles and pistols enough to equip
-all the armies of the earth, it seemed to me.
-
-But I wuz more interested, a dretful heart-sickenin’ interest in the
-place where the wretched captives wuz imprisoned and wore the long
-hours away (jest as long hours as we have now) in vain dreams of the
-happy and brilliant past. A-lookin’ forred to the sure approach of a
-awful death, or, perhaps, in ellusive hopes of escape and flight to
-other shores.
-
-But the shores they reached, poor things! wuz up a steep the livin’ has
-never climbed.
-
-We see on the walls of these prisons words they carved in the hours
-they waited execution. Arthur Poole, who tried to help Mary up onto the
-English throne, left these words--
-
-“I. H. S. A passage perillus makethe a port pleasant--1568.--A. Poole.”
-
-I wonder jest how he felt when he writ them words--jest what a
-heartache and heartbreak spoke through ’em. I dare presoom to say he
-thought too much of Mary, but I can’t help that now; it’s three hundred
-years too late.
-
-There wuz elaborate carvin’s of flowers, leaves, figgers, etc., and
-the names of their unhappy designers, who seemin’ly tried to light up
-their captivity by formin’ the shapes of the flowers they would never
-see a-growin’ in freedom agin--poseys without perfume, cold stun rosys,
-indeed.
-
-And then in one room wuz jest that one word:
-
- “Jane.”
-
-That touched me more’n the more elaborate ones. That wuz spozed to mean
-Lady Jane Grey, and wuz carved by her pardner, Lord Dudley. It seemed
-as if Love wuz a-callin’ out to her--“Jane!” jest that one cry acrost
-the silences of death and eternity.
-
-Then there wuz the autograph of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, who had
-his head cut off in 1572 for wantin’ to marry Mary Queen of Scots.
-
-What a havock that woman did make amongst the men!
-
-Then in the White Tower we see the place where Essex wuz killed and the
-rooms occupied by Sir Walter Raleigh, and in the Brick Tower we see
-the prison where Walter spent the last days of his life. I wondered if
-through the long, dreary hours them real good words of hisen wuz any
-comfort to him:
-
-    “Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
-      My staffe of faith to walk upon;
-    My scrip of joye--immortal diet--
-      My bottle of salvation,
-    My gown of glory, hope’s true gage;
-    --And thus I take my pilgrimage.
-
-    “Blood must be my body’s balmer,
-    While my soul, like peaceful palmer,
-    Travelleth toward the land of Heaven.
-
-           *       *       *       *       *
-
-    “There will I kiss
-    The bowle of blisse,
-    And drink mine everlasting fill
-    Upon every milken-hill;
-    My soul will be a-dry before;
-    But after that will thirst no more.”
-
-Them lines ort to have been a comfort to him--mebby they wuz. But lines
-writ in a pleasant room to home, with the door shet up, don’t mebby
-sound jest the same on the scaffold or to the stake--dretful echoes
-sound all round ’em, loud voices that mebby drown out the words.
-
-I spoze he thought sometimes durin’ them long days of his friends
-Shakespeare and Bacon. Mebby if there wuz any secrets between them two
-about the plays, he knew it. I wish I knew what it wuz--I’d give fifty
-cents freely if it could be made known to me.
-
-I wonder what he thought of Elizabeth in them days. I wonder if he wuz
-sorry he throwed his cloak down for her to walk over. He tried to keep
-her from jest dampenin’ her feet a little, and she willin’ to cut his
-head off.
-
-I’ll bet if he’d had his way them last ten days here, he would have let
-her sloshed right through the mud, and not offered to throw his cloak
-down for her.
-
-Poor, capricious, jealous creeter, Lib wuz; but I believe that big
-collar she always wore choked her and kinder rasped her neck, and made
-her ugly. It would make me cross as a bear, it seems to me.
-
-But I d’no what his feelin’s wuz, nor what hern wuz, when she knew the
-man who wuz once her lover, and beloved by her, wuz spendin’ the long
-days alone with despair and death.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVI.
-
-PARIS AND ITS BEAUTIES.
-
-
-Wall, Martin felt and sed that France must be took in by him. He sed
-that a full knowledge of the French character, the country and the
-customs and habits of the people, wuz positively imperative to any one
-who laid any claims to fashion, and so he laid out to go to France and
-give it a exhaustive study. He laid out, he sed, to stay in the country
-not less than three days, and he might possibly stay four.
-
-Thinkses I, with a deep inward sithe, I guess it will be a exhaustive
-study; it exhausted me even to think of bein’ raced so through a
-country, whirled on by the influence of Fashion and Martin.
-
-But he wuz the conductor of the enterprise, so to speak, and we had to
-foller his rules blindly, as it wuz.
-
-Wall, travellin’ at the rate of speed we did, my memories are apt
-to run together, some like the colors of a calico dress after it is
-washed--the blacks and reds are apt to mingle, dark eppisodes and
-lighter complected ones--but some memories stand out vividly, too
-deeply printed to fade out.
-
-One is my Josiah’s feelin’s at not havin’ his breakfast till ’leven
-o’clock.
-
-In vain the waiter told him that at any time he could have his
-“calf-o-lay” (French).
-
-“Lay!” sez he; “that’s jest what I want to get rid on--lay! Do you
-spoze that after gittin’ up at five o’clock all my life, I’m a-goin’ to
-lay abed till noon?” And then the waiter murmured sunthin’ agin about
-“calf-o-lay.”
-
-[Illustration: “Calf-o-lay! I hain’t a calf or a ox!” he shouted.]
-
-And that madded Josiah agin, and sez he, “What of it--what if calves do
-lay! I hain’t a calf or a ox!” he shouted. “You think,” sez he, “that
-because I come from the country that you can go on with your insultin’
-talk about calves, and intimate that I’m a calf. But I’ll let you know
-that you’ve got holt of the wrong individual to impose upon. Keep your
-dum breakfast till noon if you want to and starve a man to death, but
-you shall not call me a calf.”
-
-I interrupted him and told him that he meant coffee with milk.
-
-“Coffee and milk!” he hollered; “what is that to feed a starvin’ man?”
-Sez he, “I want pork and beans and potaters and slap-jacks.”
-
-Wall, the waiter wuz skairt most to death, but I quieted my pardner
-down, and the next time I had a chance I bought two paper bags of
-cookies and sech, to appease the worst cravin’s of hunger, and
-administered ’em to him as I had need.
-
-Another memory is seein’ the bathers goin’ in at Havre, and the trials
-I had with my pardner a-keepin’ him out of the briny surf.
-
-[Illustration: “How stylish I would look.”]
-
-Sez he, “Samantha, I will go in a-bathin’; jest see,” sez he, “how
-gayly they swim and float through the water, all dressed up in bright
-colors; how stylish it would look, what a air it would gin us to see
-you and me a-floatin’ and a-bobbin’ up and down in that element! It
-would be sunthin’ so uneek to tell to Deacon Gowdey and Ury.
-
-“And then,” sez he, “we could lead the fashion to home, we could turn
-the buzz saw-mill dam into a perfect carnival of delight.”
-
-I looked coldly at him, and sez I, “You’re not goin’ to make a fool of
-yourself at your age by bathin’ and foolin’ round in the water.”
-
-“Why,” sez he, “you’re always preachin’ up bathin’ to me; you’ve
-lectered me more times than I’ve got fingers and toes about bathin’;
-and now that I’m willin’ to foller it up, you draw me back.”
-
-And agin he looked longin’ly at the dancin’ surf and the gay-robed
-bathers and the funny bathin’ housen.
-
-But I sez, “A big pail of water and some soap and towels and the
-seclusion of your bedroom are very different from makin’ a spectacle of
-yourself here in this hant of display.”
-
-I broke it up.
-
-And then at Trouville, though I spoze nobody would believe it, and he
-denies it now, yet sech is the force of custom and fashion on the mind
-of my beloved pardner that I d’no but that man would have played cards
-and won money mebby up as high as 25 cents, if I’d allowed it.
-
-He denies the awful charge, and mebby he’s right. But he talked
-strange, strange for a deacon and a grandfather.
-
-But while engaged in these purile thoughts while journeyin’ through
-France his pardner wuz thinkin’ of what we owed the country, and how
-it sent the flower of its youth and bravery to help us in our troublous
-time.
-
-I thought of the young Marquis De Lafayette leavin’ his fair France,
-his ease, his luxury, and his sweetheart, to sail out fur away into
-the midst of privations and dangers to help a strugglin’ colony to
-independence.
-
-And then I thought of how another Frenchman, Jacques Cartier, wuz the
-first white man to navigate our king of rivers, the St. Lawrence. Why,
-my thoughts soared and sailed along as I thought of them idees, most as
-surgin’ and deep as that noble river at its widest pint, and my pride
-and glory in my native land stood up above that sweepin’ current some
-like its Thousand Islands, only mebby not ornamented off so much as
-they be with palaces, bridges, cupalos, torchlights, etc., etc.
-
-But I felt dretful riz up. And a-musin’ on Lafayette and the debt we
-owed France, I wondered if they got in a tussel with England or Russia
-or etc.--if Uncle Sam would lay to and help her in return.
-
-But I d’no as there is any danger of our havin’ the job, seein’ she has
-got about six millions of defenders in her army and navy; and we about
-20 or 30 thousand.
-
-Queer, hain’t it, when the United States is so much bigger than she is?
-
-But the fact speaks well for our republic and all the law-makers, from
-its President and Governors down to its Pathmasters and School Trustees.
-
-In Havre, Alice wuz some interested in seein’ the birthplace of Sara
-Bernhardt. She had seen her act, and they do say, though she is
-considerable bony in figger and gittin’ along in years, she is a marvel
-of grace, and acts out all sorts of lives, and dies so nateral that
-you’d almost appint the day for her funeral and pick out her barriers.
-
-I don’t spoze I could ever git to be nigh so graceful as she is, and
-Josiah don’t think I can; he wuz real sot on it when we talked it over.
-
-[Illustration: I don’t spoze I could ever git to be nigh so graceful as
-she is.]
-
-Al Faizi wuz interested in seein’ the birthplace of Alphonse Karr--he
-had read his works.
-
-Wall, there wuz one place I wanted to see dretfully on our journey to
-Paris, and Al Faizi and Alice wanted to see it too. And that wuz the
-place where the Maid of Orleans wuz executed in 1431. I mentioned to
-Martin our desires.
-
-And he sez, “Joan of Ark? What Ark,” sez he, “is that? I am not
-familiar with any such personage,” sez he.
-
-Sez I, “You can call her that, or you can call her Jennie Dark; you can
-call it either way.”
-
-“I don’t know any Ark or Dark,” sez he. “Was she a woman of any note?
-Was her calling a high one?” sez he.
-
-“About as high as you git here below,” sez I. “She heard voices from
-above; angels talked with her and guided her on her way.” And I went on
-and related her history, brief though impressive, comin’ to me through
-Thomas J.
-
-Sez Martin, “I don’t approve of following up any such impostors; I
-don’t believe in any such doings. Common sense don’t bear them out.”
-
-Sez I mildly, “Mebby Oncommon Sense is needed to comprehend it, Martin.”
-
-But he wuz obdurate, till Alice told him in her sweet way that she
-would really love to go there.
-
-And then he gin in to once.
-
-And we did go to the Place De Pucelle, where she wuz burned to death
-for bein’ more speritual and riz up than her burners.
-
-I had a sight of emotions as I stood on that spot--sights on ’em.
-
-You see, I had her story at my tongue’s end, Thomas J. had read it
-to me so much. She wuz a common country girl, whose parents wuz day
-laborers. She herself couldn’t read or write. Into this sile, prepared,
-as you may say--speakin’ from the laws of heredity--for only coarse
-labor, coarse thoughts, common desires and hopes--
-
-In this sile sprung up the consummit flower of speritual communion.
-Angels talked with her. She held communion with the Exalted One. From
-her thirteenth year she heard voices speakin’ to her. They did not tell
-her to go forth to labor like her brothers and sisters; no, they told
-her to free France from the English, put her young king on the throne.
-The onseen one that talked with her enabled her to know her troubled
-young king, amidst a crowd of his own age and dressed jest as he wuz.
-
-She had hard work to even see him to tell her mission, so sure wuz
-the Common Sense about her that the Oncommon Sense she had wuz only
-imposter.
-
-But she headed the army, made that wicked, dissolute body of soldiers
-some like Christian Endeavorers, so ardent and sincere wuz her piety.
-
-She won the battle. Agin and agin she defeated the enemy. She saw
-her young king crowned. Then she wanted to go back into her quiet
-home--into the garden where in the cool of the evenin’ she heard the
-heavenly message. She said her work wuz done. But they wouldn’t let her
-go. And wuz it because she didn’t foller the Voice that told her to go
-back to her old home--did a little personal pride, gratified ambition,
-ozze in and flavor the human mandate to make her stay?
-
-I d’no, nor Josiah don’t. But she begun to make mistakes after
-this--lost battles, and at last her own countrymen, though allies of
-the English, called her a sorceress. The Common Sense found her guilty;
-the same C. S. burnt her up root and branch.
-
-But the Oncommon Sense didn’t desert her. The heavenly influence that
-the multitude wuz blind as a bat to, and as deef as a adder, made her
-say in them last supreme moments--
-
-“I _did_ hear the voices.”
-
-Wall, the feelin’s I had as I stood in that spot couldn’t be
-counted--no, not on a typewriter.
-
-The Common Sense felt that a statute to her ort to be useful, as well
-as ornamental, so they made it into a sort of a waterin’ trough. And
-the statute hain’t what it ort to be, but my imagination filled out
-the details, and I see as I look at it the rapt face of the little
-maiden of thirteen a-lookin’ up with illumined eyes as she received the
-message; I see her a noble conqueror, clad in armor, stand by her young
-king as she see him crowned; I see her noble face uplifted to Heaven as
-the flames mounted about her; I hearn her say--
-
-“I _did_ hear the voices.”
-
-But my reflections wuz cut short by the words:
-
-“Well, I believe tourists usually make a short stay here; it is
-comparatively uninteresting. This combination of trough and monument is
-remarkably uninteresting, and not to be copied by Americans.
-
-“Though considering the small water power France possesses, compared
-with our own great water-courses, I can’t perhaps criticise their
-methods so much.” This I heard on the right of me, then on the left of
-me Josiah’s voice--
-
-“This has put a crackin’ good idee into my head, Samantha. You know the
-trough out east of the horse barn, Ury might kinder chop out a statute
-of me and nail it on top of it; it would be highly esteemed by my
-fellow-townsmen. He could put on it, you know, ”Deacon and salesman in
-the cheese factory.“ They’d praise the trough highly, and I’ll have Ury
-begin it jest as quick as I git home; I’ve got a good block of hickory
-over to the saw-mill.”
-
-I sithed deep and turned away, and I see Al Faizi’s rapt face a-lookin’
-beyend the statute--fur beyend, on sunthin’ that Martin and Josiah
-couldn’t see if they lived to be as old as Metheuseleah.
-
-Alice looked real sweet and dreamy, too. Adrian wuz playin’ in the
-water.
-
-And so each one on us wuz pursuin’ our own peticular fantoms, some on
-’em as thin shadders as the materials dreams are made of, and some on
-’em as real and practical as horse-blocks and anvils.
-
-Martin sed he should make only a brief visit to France, as he had
-studied the country so exhaustively when he brung Alice over here to
-school and went after her (in all, he wuz in France about 48 hours); he
-sed he could spend but very little time there.
-
-But he sed that he felt that the proper thing to do would be to visit
-Paris, so he could say on our return that we had come straight from
-Paris. I d’no why he felt so, but I spoze he did.
-
-But we did, indeed, find Paris a beautiful city.
-
-Martin put up at a first-class tarvern, as he always did. But I hearn
-him tell Josiah that they cheated him on every side. It madded Martin,
-for though he always duz things on a large, noble scale, and is willin’
-to pay large, yet he don’t want to be cheated--nobody duz.
-
-I found that they spoke English at the tarvern, so my worst fears wuz
-squenched; for how I wuz goin’ to git along and feed Josiah in a land
-where bread wuz “pain” and water wuz “oh” wuz more than I could tell.
-Besides, other things accordin’, what wuz I to do? I wildly questioned
-my soul.
-
-How could I git my pardner dressed, and warmed, and git him from place
-to place wuz more than I could tell; but my fears wuz vain, for though
-jabberin’s wuz on every side on us, and rapid vocifiration in senseless
-brogue wuz in voge, yet plenty wuz found who spoke our good, honest,
-Jonesville tongue.
-
-How clean Paris is! how gay and bright the streets look! what pretty
-wimmen, and what neat, smart-lookin’ men, and pretty children, too,
-with their smart nurse-maids! elegant carriages, splendid housen,
-magnificent buildin’s, and arches, and towers, and monuments, and
-meetin’-housen, and around everything and over everything the gay,
-bright atmosphere of good feelin’ and politeness.
-
-No wonder folks love to come here, and don’t want to go away. Why, I
-enjoyed myself first-rate in Paris, and Paris enjoyed my bein’ there,
-so fur as I know; they acted as if they did, anyway; most always
-a-smilin’ at me and my pardner in a most agreeable manner.
-
-Yes, they wuz glad we had lanched out and come, I hain’t a doubt on’t.
-
-Alice had lots of school friends here, and wuz out a good deal a-seein’
-’em, and Martin and Al Faizi wuz each on ’em a-pursuin’ their own
-favorite fantoms--as different as any two fantoms ever wuz, from first
-to last.
-
-But Josiah and me shacked round quite a good deal, Adrian a-goin’
-with us quite considerable. About the first thing that strikes you as
-you venter out-doors is the wideness and beauty of the streets, with
-their double row of trees and their elegant housen, lookin’ so sort o’
-finished--not put in anyhow, like a palace and a hovel, but all kinder
-of the same style and make, handsome as picters, and the sidewalk is
-as wide as from our house to the barn, and I d’no but wider. They are
-twice as wide as the main street in Zoar, some on ’em, where they have
-the most gay and beautiful stores of different kinds; and, if you’ll
-believe it, they have tables set out-doors in the most handsome style,
-and folks a-eatin’ at ’em, all dressed up and a-jabberin’ away, and
-a-laughin’, and havin’ a first-rate time.
-
-Josiah wuz dretful impressed by it all.
-
-Sez he, as if he wuz a-usin’ real big words, sez he--
-
-“France is impressive and edifyin’ in many ways. What improvements
-we can witness and inaugerate to home! One thing I shall immegiately
-proceed to arrange; henceforth, Samantha, we shall always partake of
-our food out by the side of the road.”
-
-I looked real cold at the idee, and he went on--
-
-[Illustration: Josiah, “cultered and travelled,” schemes for
-Jonesvillian out-door dinner parties, à la Paris, and how Samantha
-foresees the result.]
-
-“Jest think of the gayety, the life it will bring to Jonesville to
-have all the neighbors a-eatin’ out by the highway, for of course
-they will foller the example of those who are cultered and travelled;
-imagine,” sez he, a-wavin’ his hand and enjoyin’ himself first-rate in
-futer retrospects ahead on him--
-
-“Imagine Deacon Henzy and Drusilly, and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury
-and her husband, Simon Slimpsey and Betsy, all on ’em a-eatin’
-out-doors, a-minglin’ their voices with ourn as we set to our table;
-I with my dressin’-gown on, and you, if you wanted to, a-playin’ on a
-accordeon in a gay, light manner befittin’ the happy occasion.”
-
-Sez I, “It would be a lot of fun to set down in a lot of burdocks and
-mullin full of dirt; and what would happen when Deacon Small driv
-his big herd of cows by? You know they always will go a-prancin’ and
-a-kickin’ up the dust and a-actin’ because he wants ’em to eat the
-grass along the side of the road.
-
-“How would you like to have the table overturned by his critters, and
-you prostrated by a kick in the stumick as you tried vainly to protect
-the teapot? How would you like to have that Jersey entangle his huffs
-in the tossels of your dressin’-gown, and drag you at his heels?” sez I.
-
-“And who’d bring the food out there and bear it in agin? And if you
-think I’m a-goin’ to learn the accordeon at my age and with my rumatiz,
-you’re mistakened.”
-
-He see it wuzn’t feasible, but he wouldn’t gin in.
-
-He drawed my attention off by pintin’ down the magnificent vista of
-broad avenues, three hundred feet wide, smooth as glass, and full of
-gay vehicles, and beyend, risin’ up like a dream of beauty and grandeur
-and strength, the great Arch d’Etoile.
-
-This can never be described by Josiah or me; it must be seen to be
-appreciated. It is the grandest monument Napoleon has left, and cost
-over two millions of dollars.
-
-But as you go on you see fountains and columns and gardens and arches
-and booths and groves and singers and amusements of all kinds for the
-people, and everything else that is beautiful and impressive and etc.,
-etc., etc., etc.
-
-The Place Vendôme, where memories of the great king-maker hover round
-the tall columns that picters out his grand, melancholy career; the
-Tuileries and the Louvre.
-
-How be I a-goin’ to make the public and Betsy Slimpsey git any idee
-of them palaces, adorned with all that is most beautiful in art and
-sculpter, and that cover sixty acres of ground!
-
-Mebby I could gin Drusilly Henzy a little idee on’t, for that is jest
-the number of acres of solid ground that fell onto ’em from her father.
-
-It jest about crushed ’em--the wealth seemed to ’em overwhelmin’.
-
-Imagine a big farm all risin’ up into palaces, beautiful as you ever
-see rise up into the cloudy Heavens.
-
-The Gallery of the Louvre--wall, if Drusilly and I should undertake
-to pick up every little grain of dirt that goes to make up them
-sixty acres of hern, and have each separate one branch out into some
-beautiful, be-a-u-tiful form, some delicate, exquisite fancy, or some
-exalted figger of impressive beauty--why, wouldn’t we be tuckered out
-before we got through? though at the same time so riz up and inspired,
-that we wouldn’t know, some of the time, whether we wuz in the body or
-out on’t.
-
-Wall, that may gin the public and Betsy some idee of what everybody
-must make up their mind to go through when they tackle the Louvre.
-
-From the beginnin’ of time till now every land has contributed its
-choicest treasures to this hallowed place, from Nineveh and Egypt to
-Jonesville (for was not Jonesville’s choicest treasures of humanity
-represented there when Josiah Allen and I stood there, some like
-statutes, only more comfortably dressed, and lookin’ round us more?).
-
-What poems in marble bust onto our visions, and what sights on ’em!
-
-What marvels of ancient art!
-
-What picters! what picters!
-
-Oh, dear me! it lifts me up, and tuckers me out to think on ’em now.
-Some of the galleries wuz a quarter of a mild long.
-
-Jest think of it here, as fur as from our house over to Old Grout
-Nickleson’s; and I never ust to think, when his mother-in-law was
-bed-rid, that I could walk it; no, I always had Josiah hitch up. And
-then think of that immense distance full on each side of the best of
-the world.
-
-Picters by Guido, Murillo, Titian, Rembrandt, Vandyke, Leonardo da
-Vinci, Wouverman, etc., etc., etc.--picters that them immortal old
-masters had their own hands on, and bent their own glowin’ inspired
-eyes on.
-
-My soul, jest think on’t!
-
-Relicks of all the sovereigns--spurs of the old conquerors (and how
-they did spur things up and make ’em fly!).
-
-Relicks of kings without number--and queens, too, and princes.
-
-Marie Antoinette’s shues--I’m glad I didn’t have to walk in ’em, for
-though they trod through pleasant, luxurious places at first, they had
-to climb up the scaffold.
-
-Poor creeter!
-
-[Illustration: There wuz the clothes he wore that he ust to button over
-that restless, ambitious heart.]
-
-The Napoleon Room gin me a sight of emotions, and I didn’t care who see
-’em. I jest about cried when I looked on that old flag he kissed in a
-sad hour. There wuz the clothes he wore that he ust to button over that
-restless, ambitious heart. Yes, and there wuz some of the hair that riz
-up over that ambitious brain, that wuz the terror and admiration of all
-Europe.
-
-He used Josephine mean--mean as a dog, and he wuz too high-sperited
-and ambitious; but yet what a man, what a man he wuz! Sunthin’
-good and noble must have been in him to make his soldiers love him
-so. How they totter up to-day to lay wreaths on the railin’ round
-his statute--layin’ at his marble feet the poseys of their hearts’
-devotion, their highest love, and their deepest sorrer. No man not
-naterally noble could call forth sech affection in his dependents.
-
-I have wished a hundred times I could have been there, and neighbored
-with him and Josephine, and kinder kep’ ’em together, and quelled him
-down some in his ambitious views--things would have been different, no
-doubt; I presoom she wouldn’t have died of a broken heart--years in
-dyin’, but so much the harder.
-
-He wouldn’t have had to be shet up in a lonesome island a prisoner, and
-all Europe would have fared better.
-
-But it wuzn’t to be--it wuzn’t to be.
-
-Pa Smith at that time wuzn’t married, and I wuz--wall, I don’t really
-know where I wuz at that time, nor Josiah don’t know; it looked kinder
-dubersome and vague about my ever bein’ born at all, and things had to
-go on jest as they did.
-
-Wall, as I have said heretofore, that gallery of the Louvre is full,
-full to overflowin’ of the richest treasures of art, as my riz-up brain
-and my four weary legs testify--my own two extremities and my Josiah’s
-pair on ’em.
-
-Hisen ached like the toothache, so he sed.
-
-He didn’t bear his weariness silently and oncomplainin’ly, as I tried
-to--no, with groanin’s that couldn’t be uttered hardly he kep’ by my
-side through them interminable galleries.
-
-Adrian asked a sight of questions--a sight of ’em. And when I proposed
-to go to the Bois de Boulogne, my poor pardner asked me feelin’ly if in
-the name of the gracious Peter I wanted another boy a-traipsin’ at our
-heels a-askin’ enough questions to tire out a regiment of soldiers.
-
-But I explained it all out to him, and we took considerable comfort
-there.
-
-The place wuz more beautiful than tongue could tell. Jest as a French
-woman always looks better dressed up than an American or an English
-woman, and their cities more brilliant and beautiful, jest so are these
-woods fur more beautiful than Jonesville or New York woods.
-
-Why, jest compare our sugar bush and the woods between Zoar and
-Jonesville with these woods of Boulogne--where be they? Further off
-than the golden sunset is to the vision of Josiah.
-
-And the Elysian Fields--tongue would fail to give any idee of what we
-see there.
-
-Notre Dame, perfect indeed duz it look, a-risin’ up with its two towers
-a-dwarfin’ the housen about it, though they are sizable ones.
-
-The Egyptian Obelisk of Luxor, that rises up in the air one hundred
-feet, all full of strange writin’, I wish it could speak and tell what
-it had seen all through the past centuries--what its old red face must
-have looked down on from first to last.
-
-Curous to even think on. I presoom it must have looked down on
-Cleopatra and seen her a-cuttin’ up and a-actin’, a-flirtin’ and
-a-carryin’ matters altogether too fur with Antony, Cæsar, etc., etc.
-
-I wonder if the old obelisk sees any sech doin’s now in Paris in 1894?
-
-I dare presoom to say she duz. Human nater has always capered sence the
-days of Adam and Eve.
-
-It hain’t never talked on much, but I always blamed Antony jest as
-much as I did Cleopatra and Cæsar too; they all ort to been ashamed of
-themselves--and sech good wives as they had, too. Aurelia and Calpurnia
-wuz real good wimmen, so fur as I ever hearn on.
-
-Wall, the big fountain, which stood not fur off, are a sight to see and
-are ornamented beautifully, besides havin’ immense water priveliges,
-and they ort to have, for right here on this spot stood that dretful
-thing, the guillotine.
-
-Oh, what doin’s, what doin’s took place right here! Angels must have
-veiled their faces with their feather wings as they flew over the spot
-in them dretful days of the French Revolution. Twenty-eight hundred
-wuz killed here--had their heads cut right off--trompled on by men
-risin’ aginst tyrants, killin’ ’em off; and then they, too, turned into
-tyrants, wuz overthrown and killed off like sheep.
-
-Louis XVI., Charlotte Corday, Marie Antoinette, Danton,
-Robespierre--oh, what dretful things to think on! But the murmur of the
-water as it spouted up and fell back in murmurs whispered of happier,
-more peaceful times.
-
-In a place where stood the old prison of Bastille, a sile steeped with
-the tears and blood of the thousand and thousands of prisoners and
-victims, stands Liberty, a-standin’ upon a monument one hundred and
-fifty feet high. She always had to wade through blood, and always will,
-for all I know. She had a broken chain in one hand--the past is behind
-her, the chains are broke. She lifts up a torch in the other hand, its
-light streams into the futer. She don’t lay out to have any more sech
-deeds of darkness done if she can possibly help it--you can see that by
-the looks of her.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVII.
-
-NAPOLEON AND OTHER GREAT FRENCHMEN.
-
-
-One day I told Josiah that I must go to see the Invalides.
-
-And he sez, “You better keep away, Samantha; you may ketch sunthin’.”
-
-But I explained that I wanted to see the tomb of Napoleon, so he gin
-in, and we went there and stayed some time.
-
-The big gilded dome of this meetin’-house towers up three hundred and
-fifty feet, and can be seen all over the city, and would be apt to
-keep Napoleon in memory if France wuz inclined to forgit him, which it
-hain’t. Here he lays, jest as he wanted to, by the banks of the waters
-he thought so much on, and with the French people he loved.
-
-As you go in, you see under a gold and white canopy the form of our
-Lord upon the cross lookin’ down, down into a splendid tomb surrounded
-by a great laurel crown and twelve giant statutes of Victories
-a-towerin’ up all about it--you see the grave of the Great Conqueror.
-My emotions wuz a sight to behold; I couldn’t count ’em, nor did
-Josiah.
-
-All the thoughts I had ever had about the Hero--and they’d been
-soarin’ ones and a endless variety on ’em seemin’ly--all seemed to be
-crystallized and run together as I stood in that spot. But how could
-I tell my feelin’s? I couldn’t no more’n them twelve marble figgers
-could, who lifted their grand colossial figgers all round his coffin;
-their great noble faces expressed a sight, and so I spoze mine did, but
-it would have been jest as vain for me to have told my emotions as it
-would for them to open their marble lips and told theirn.
-
-You might probble thought that they had their own idees about Napoleon,
-and so had I.
-
-He waded through seas of blood and sufferin’, personal sufferin’ as
-well, up from obscurity to the topmost pinnacle of worldly glory. He
-left achin’, bleedin’ hearts on all sides on him, from Josephine’s down
-to the widders and sweethearts of dead soldiers, as he stalked along
-with his arms folded, and that old hat of hisen on, and his inscrutable
-eyes fixed on the heights, so I spoze; but he loved his country, and
-there wuz sunthin’ about the man that drew hearts to him, that turned
-grizzled old soldiers into babies when they spoke on him, that made ’em
-willin’ to live for him, to die for him.
-
-[Illustration: With his arms folded, and that old hat of hisen on, and
-his inscrutable eyes fixed on the heights.]
-
-I d’no, I spoze some of that resistless charm rested on the sublime
-magnificence of that place, and always will, so fur as I know.
-
-I felt queer.
-
-But Martin could not pause long even in this place, and for all I know
-all the while we wuz there he wuz a-pricein’ in his mind the marble and
-porphry and all the matchless splendor of the tomb, and a-calculatin’
-on how much the money invested there would bring if he had the handlin’
-of it. Anyway, we wuz probble milds and milds apart in our minds,
-though the left tab of my mantilly brushed aginst him.
-
-Josiah observed as we turned away that he wuz “hungry and dog tired.”
-
-Al Faizi wuz deep in thought, and Alice and Adrian took up in lookin’
-about ’em, and wonderin’ at the grand and solemn magnificence of the
-interior.
-
-One day we went to the cemetery of Père La Chaise. Alice and Al Faizi
-and Adrian went with us that day; Martin had got to go to see some big
-man or other, who owned a ranch in Montana, in the neighborhood of some
-of Martin’s friends.
-
-Wall, what a quiet, lovely spot that cemetery is, what a sweet place to
-rest in when our little life here is rounded by a sleep!
-
-Over two hundred acres of graves--what glowin’ hopes and joys, what
-miseries and despairs found a rest here! Wealth and Poverty, Ambition
-and Love, all asleep.
-
-Rothschild a-droppin’ his money bags as the sleep come on, as well as
-the baby who reposes under the simple stun marked--“Our Own Darling
-Baby.”
-
-Hearts ached when he dropped to sleep.
-
-The Countess Demidoff rests under the costly Mausoleum built above
-her. And Rachel, the great actress, wonderful creeter, how she moved
-the hearts of the world! But at last the curtain fell and she retired.
-No _encore_ from friend or lover can call her before the World’s
-footlights agin--no, she has got through actin’; has gone from the
-Make-Believe into the Real.
-
-Talma, too, has gone to sleep in that quiet place, and Béranger and
-Racine and Bernardin St. Pierre.
-
-It seemed almost as though Paul and Virginia ort to be here by him.
-
-And La Place and Arago. I wonder if they hain’t havin’ a good time
-up amongst the stars; I presoom they have discovered lots of new
-worlds--hosts of ’em. And General Massena, Marshal Davoust, and Marshal
-Ney, the bravest soldier. And Chopin, what music that man must have
-hearn by this time--more melogious than he ever dreamt on here!
-
-And Alice wanted to visit the graves of Abelard and Heloise. They are
-restin’ under a canopy, havin’ got past all the tribulations that beset
-’em here below.
-
-Alice wanted to see ’em for Love’s sake--so I spoze. Poor creeters
-that thought so much of each other and seemed to be so clost to each
-other that nothin’ earthly could separate ’em, and then he a-dyin’ in a
-monastery and she a-passin’ away in a nunnery; separated in body, but
-united in sperit--so I spoze.
-
-Wall, their memories are close linked together, anyway, and will walk
-down the ages together.
-
-Al Faizi’s dark eyes dwelt on Alice, and the marble forms of the
-lovers, at about the same time and for quite a long spell.
-
-His look seemed to take ’em all in--Alice’s sweet young beauty and the
-idee of the sad fate of the lovers.
-
-The hull sad story seemed to be writ out in his melancholy, but glowin’
-eyes.
-
-Poor creeter!
-
-Wall, Martin and Alice went to lots of places that I hadn’t no idee of
-wantin’ to go to--receptions and parties and theatres and sech. And
-Martin come home from the theatre with his big feelin’s kinder trompled
-down for once, I guess.
-
-They wouldn’t let him in.
-
-He probble could have bought out the hull theatre, root and branch, and
-not felt it a mite; and to home they would have strewed flowers in his
-path up the aisle, if he had jest hinted at it.
-
-But he wuz turned out here, neck and crop, because he hadn’t a
-dress-suit on.
-
-He felt meachin’ about it, I believe, though he wouldn’t say much. But
-the next night they went agin. He put on a coat with pinted tails and
-kinder low necked in front, and they let him in quick as a wink. Josiah
-said, when I told him about it, that if he had known it he would have
-gin Martin the loan of his dressin’-gown.
-
-Sez he, “Of course that would’ve opened the doors to once.
-
-“The French love beauty, and that dressin’-gown, when the tossels are
-combed out and looped up as they ort to be, would set off any buildin’
-and ornament it.” Sez he, “I wouldn’t lend it on any common occasion,
-but Martin has done so much for us I would make the venter.”
-
-It wouldn’t have been let in, but it showed Josiah’s good sperit,
-anyway.
-
-But, if you’ll believe it, Alice had to leave her bunnet out in the
-anty-room and go in bare-headed.
-
-I wouldn’t have done it for nothin’ in the world--no, you wouldn’t have
-ketched me a-reskin’ my bunnet by leavin’ it out-doors. Why, the ribbin
-on that bunnet cost twenty-five cents per yard, besides the bunnet
-itself, and that wuz only four years old, a-goin’ on five.
-
-When Alice told me on it I sez, “It is a shame to make wimmen go in
-bareheaded, and,” sez I, “what would Paul say? He said it wuz a shame
-for wimmen to appear in public without bunnets on.”
-
-“But I thought,” sez Josiah, “that you always thought Paul wuz
-a-meddlin’ with what didn’t concern him, and he’d better kep’ to morals
-and let millinery business alone. You’d never let me bring up them
-texts.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I impressively, “there is a time to quote and a time not to
-quote.
-
-“I should have argued with that doorkeeper, anyway, and, if necessary,
-brung up the Bible to him.”
-
-And Alice bought lots of fine things while we were there--her Pa wanted
-her to. He bought a lot, too.
-
-He said that he could git the same things through a dealer he knew in
-New York considerable cheaper, “but,” sez he, “it doesn’t have the same
-name. Anything brought from Paris is so dreadful distinguished.”
-
-And I spozed that he wuz in the right on’t, and I felt that I too would
-love to branch out and buy sunthin’ that I could tell the neighbors
-come right from Paris, France.
-
-And I beset Josiah to buy me a summer shawl, but he said that he’d seen
-my summer shawl for so many years wropped round the form he loved so,
-that the idee of seein’ me in any other shawl wuz repugnant to him.
-
-Wall, then I laid to and tried to git him to buy me a handkerchief pin;
-but he said that old cameo that I had on looked so beautiful. He said
-so many memories hung round that shell face on it that he couldn’t bear
-to see me with any other on.
-
-And so it wuz with my winter bunnet. Sez he, “Oh, the times I have seen
-that bunnet a-frontin’ up to me when I’ve stood by the meetin’-house
-door a-waitin’ for you, and it looked so perfectly lovely to me, as I
-stood there with cold legs and I ketched sight on it a-hallowin’ your
-face round as I see it a-comin’ towards me! No other bunnet could ever
-look to me as that did.”
-
-And so with my shues, and my gloves, and every other article; they wuz
-all so dear to him, and he showed his affection to ’em and me so plain
-that I couldn’t bear to hurt his feelin’s by gittin’ any new ones.
-
-[Illustration: A-wipin’ my face on sech genteel towels.]
-
-But I sez, “I need some towels, and have got to have ’em.” So he give a
-reluctant consent, and I swung out and bought two new huckabuck towels,
-and I spoze Miss Gowdey and Sister Ganzey will be surprised and sort
-of envious to see me a-wipin’ my face on sech genteel towels, brung
-from sech a fashionable place, for I lay out to use ’em and not lay ’em
-up--for, as the Sammist sez, slightly changed--
-
-“You may lay up towels, but how do you know who shall gather ’em?”
-
-Wall, when the time come for me to leave France I felt bad, for besides
-all the reasons I have named, lots of thoughts hovered over the land
-and made it dretful interestin’ to me.
-
-Victor Hugo, brave old exile, trompled on, but like a rich flower, the
-tromplin’ brought out their rarest odor.
-
-Who knows whether we should ever had “Les Miserables” if he had stayed
-to home and been made much on?
-
-Mebby the sentences of that incomparable book, that stun our minds and
-hearts, like the quick, sharp echoes of artillery at sea--mebby they
-would have been longer drawed out, and less apt to strike the mark, if
-he hadn’t been sent into exile.
-
-And Josephine, and Napoleon, and Louis, and Eugenie, and the poor
-young Prince Louis--memories of all on ’em jest walked up and down the
-bright, beautiful streets with me, and cast a sort of a melancholy
-shadder on the brightness, some like the soft, deep shadders of a
-cypress-tree on a clean flower-bed.
-
-Yes, I had emotions enough while I wuz in France, if that wuz all--I
-didn’t suffer for _them_--not at all.
-
-Martin, from the first to the last, through every country we visited,
-drawed up comparisons between ’em and America--to the great advantage
-to America.
-
-He boasted over our country on our tower as eloquent as a Fourth of
-July oriter ever did from the wilds back of Loontown.
-
-I hated to hear him callin’ every other country all to nort, and told
-him so. And in the cause of Duty I told him of several things these
-countries went ahead of ourn in; but he waved ’em off, and sez he, with
-a dignified sort of scorn:
-
-“Bring up one, if you can.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, a-lookin’ round on the inside of my mind, and takin’
-up the first idee that happened to be in sight--“look at that great
-society, that seems like the mission of angels, to help relieve the
-wants of the wounded and dyin’ on the battle-field--the Red Cross, the
-gleam of which, a-fallin’ on the dyin’ soldier, lights up his face
-with hope and courage. The foreign nations protect that insigna--they
-keep it sacred to this sacred cause; while the Goverment of the United
-States allows it to be used on liquor casks, and cigar boxes, and etc.,
-etc., a-trailin’ its glorious beams in the mud and dirt for a little
-money.
-
-“Why, the noble woman who stands a-holdin’ up the Red Cross, a-tryin’
-to have its pure rays fall only on the victims of war, pestilence,
-famine, and other national calamities--she has to see it a-shinin’ jest
-as bright on the causes of national crime and shame. How must she feel
-to see it go on?
-
-“Uncle Sam has been urged year after year to protect this insigna,
-and I should think that he would feel a good deal as if somebody
-wuz a-urgin’ him to not stun meetin’-housen, and whip grandmas
-and babies--I should think that he would sink down with shame for
-permittin’ sech things to go on.
-
-“I declare I d’no what that old creeter will do next. I believe he’d
-sell the steelyards that Jestice weighs things in, if he could git a
-few cents for ’em; and I d’no but he’ll use that bandage of hern that
-she wears over her eyes to stop up bung-holes in whiskey barrels; he
-seems to be bendin’ his hull mind on helpin’ the liquor traffic.
-
-[Illustration: “I believe he’d sell the steelyards that Jestice weighs
-things in, if he could git a few cents for ’em.”]
-
-“He tries me dretfully. But mebby he’ll brace up and do right in this
-matter of the Red Cross. I mean to tackle him about it, anyway, when I
-git a good chance.
-
-“And then,” sez I, “our country is jest as much behind these European
-countries in beauty and art as Josiah’s new wood lot is that he is
-jest a-clearin’ off, with stumps and brushwood a-lyin’ on every side,
-compared with what that lot would be after centuries of improvements
-and culter had smoothed the ground off into velvet lawns, with posey
-beds, like rainbows and fountains a-sparklin’ on it, etc., etc.
-
-“America, to foller out the metafor, has only jest got her giant
-trees chopped down--the stumps stand thick, the brushwood lays round
-in fallers.” Sez I, “It will take years and years and years to give
-America the beauty and perfection these countries have been growin’
-gradual for centuries.
-
-“We’ll do it, Martin,” sez I; “we’ll git even with ’em, and then go
-ahead on ’em--as fur ahead as Lake Superior is bigger than their
-inland lakes--”
-
-“Lakes!” sez Martin scornfully--“ponds, you mean.”
-
-But I went on in not mindin’ him.
-
-“Or the St. Lawrence is bigger than the Rhine, but it will take a
-long, long time. And then in a lot of other things these countries are
-superior to ourn. They train their children better in some of these
-countries. Their children have as much agin reverence and respect
-for parents and gardeens, and them who are in authority, as American
-children have. Why, a English or a German mother would faint away with
-horrow to see a lot of American children behave, and boss round their
-folks, and act. And then look at--”
-
-I wuz jest on the pint of bringin’ up a lot more of things in which
-these countries excelled ourn, when Martin looked at his watch, and
-sed that he must be in a distant part of the city in ten minutes by
-the clock; so he went out. I presoom he hated to lose my eloquent and
-instructive remarks; but he had to go.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVIII.
-
-GERMANY AND BELGIUM.
-
-
-Martin sed he shouldn’t think of travellin’ in Germany, as he had made
-a very exhaustive study of the country on a visit he’d paid it some
-years before. I knew Alice had been there two years, a-stayin’ with a
-Miss Ponsione, a music-teacher, as nigh as I could make out, a kind of
-foreign creeter, I guess.
-
-Sez he, “I gave more exhaustive attention to Germany than to any other
-country in Europe, and I would not wish to make a needless expenditure
-of time there.”
-
-Sez I, “Martin, how long a time did you stay in Germany?”
-
-“Over a week,” sez he.
-
-Wall, thinkses I, accordin’ to his idees that is considerable of a
-time. Alice, of course, didn’t care to stay there long, as she had
-stayed there all durin’ her vacations, and took excursions all over the
-country with that Miss Ponsione and her folks; there seemed to be a
-hull lot of ’em, all girls, as nigh as I could make out.
-
-And it wuz from her that I learnt that her Pa had fell and sprained
-his ankle and hurt his head, and wuz bed-sick all the time he wuz in
-Germany; he wuzn’t able to lift his head from the piller, and so I
-guess it wuz ruther exhaustin’ study he gin to it. But I wanted to see
-the Rhine--I wanted to see “Fair Bingen on the Rhine,” I wanted to like
-a dog, and I told Alice so.
-
-But she said Bingen looked jest about like any other city. And come to
-think on’t, I spoze it wuz the homesick longin’ for his own country
-that made the “Soldier of the Legion” want to see it so bad, and made
-its seenery seem fairer and lovelier, and made its moonlight fairer
-and brighter than that which looked down on that fur-off battle-field,
-where his body lay, and his homesick sperit a-wanderin’ off to “Fair
-Bingen on the Rhine.”
-
-I eppisoded this to Josiah, and he sez with a sad look on his face--he
-wuz awful beat out, and his corns ached fearful--“Yes, that is it, I
-feel jest so; I could talk jest as melogious and affectin’ this minute
-about ‘Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.’”
-
-Sez I, “You may feel jest as bad, Josiah, but you can’t write sech
-poetry as that.”
-
-“Whattle you bet?” sez he, a-settin’ the bottle of liniment on the
-stand; he’d been tryin’ to irrigate them corns of hisen and quell ’em
-down some. “Whattle you bet I can’t?”
-
-Sez I mildly, “That Soldier of the Legion wuz dyin’ in Algiers.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “I’m a-dyin’ in France; what’s the difference?”
-
-Sez I, “His talk about his distant home is enough to make anybody weep.”
-
-“Home!” sez he. “Can’t I talk about home? Why,” sez he, “if I should
-swing right out into poetry and describe my feelin’s, nobody would look
-at that soldier’s verses agin, if I should let myself out and tell the
-beauties of Jonesville, and what we’ve been through sence we left its
-blessed presinks; why that soldier didn’t begin to know what trouble
-wuz. He wuz a single man,” sez he.
-
-[Illustration: “No attention paid to rumatiz, or meal times, or corns.”]
-
-I looked coldly at him, and he hastened to add with a deep groan, “Oh,
-what hain’t we been through, in verse or out on’t--what hain’t we been
-through! two old folks snaked through Europe by a Martin and Fashion;
-no attention paid to rumatiz, or meal times, or corns, or anything, and
-one of them dum old fools,” sez he impressively, and in a kind of a
-rhymin’ axent, “wuz born in Jonesville--‘fair Jonesville on the Lyme.’”
-
-I wuz born myself pretty nigh the town of Lyme, jest over the line, but
-I wouldn’t contend.
-
-Sez he, “I could make up hull books of poetry on our tower better than
-hisen, enough sight.”
-
-“No you can’t, Josiah,” sez I; “jest think of them beautiful messages
-he sent back to them distant friends of hisen; it hain’t in you to
-write like that.”
-
-“Wall, it _is_ in me, mom; and messages! Gracious Peter! couldn’t I
-send messages back? Couldn’t I send heart-breakin’ messages to the
-children, and Ury, and Philury, and Deacon Henzy, and Uncle Sime
-Bentley, and the rest of the meetin’-house bretheren--couldn’t I send
-word to ’em--
-
-    “When they meet and crowd around
-    The horse-block by the meetin’-house, that dear old talkin’ ground?
-
-“Couldn’t I warn the hull caboodle on ’em to stay where they be, in
-that beautiful, beautiful place; to never traipse a million milds
-from home on a tower? Let ’em hear my dyin’ words to stay where they
-be. Oh, what volumes I could say to them companions and friends if
-I could git holt of their ears once! I wouldn’t want ’em to think I
-wuz rambelous and back slid--no, I would want ’em to know I felt like
-sayin’ in these last hours that--
-
-    “‘I am a married man and not afraid to die.’”
-
-I looked dretful cold at him; I hain’t no idee what he meant, if he
-meant anything, and he hastened to add--
-
-“If they hain’t dum loonaticks and crazy as loons they’ll stay where
-they be,” sez he, in that same rhymin’ axent--
-
-“They’ll stay right there in Jonesville, fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”
-
-Sez I, “That hain’t poetry, Josiah.”
-
-“Wall, it’s good solid horse sense, the hull of it, and the last line
-is poetry.”
-
-Sez I, “One line don’t make poetry.” I wuz sorry I said it, for he
-turned his eyes up towards the ceilin’ in deep thought a minute, and
-then he kinder recited out in blank verse, or considerable blank,
-though it rhymed some--
-
-    “A leadin’ man of Jonesville lay dyin’ in--”
-
-He hesitated for a minute, and seemed to be lookin’ round the room for
-a word, and finally his eye fell onto his feet--he had jest drawed his
-boot on agin, and I spoze the pain wuz fearful, but it seemed to gin
-him an idee--and he begun agin--
-
-    “A leadin’ man of Jonesville lay dyin’ in his boots,
-    There wuz dearth of rest and intment, or food, or healin’ roots;
-    But his pardner sot beside him--”
-
-Here he gin me a witherin’ look; I spoze I wuz a-smilin’ some. He can’t
-write poetry, that man can’t, and mebby I showed my knowledge of the
-fact in my mean.
-
-    “His pardner sot beside him, a-jeerin’ at his woe,
-    And unto her he faintly sed, in axents wan and low,
-    ‘I’ve a message and a groan or two, to send most any time,
-    To distant friends in Jonesville, fair Jonesville on the Lyme.’”
-
-Yes, I wuz sorry enough I mentioned that poem, for before night that
-man had a hull string of verses writ off, and he recited ’em to me
-anon, or oftener. They went on a-recountin’ all the peace and beauty
-of Jonesville, and the delights of stayin’ there and takin’ solid
-comfort and happiness, and the tribulations two old folks went through
-away from that blissful spot, with their bodies moved round from place
-to place on a tower, and the verses most all on ’em ended with these
-lines, some like the melancholy accompaniment of a trombone--
-
-    “And one old fool wuz born in Jonesville,
-    Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”
-
-And some on ’em wuz stronger--
-
-    “And one dum old fool wuz born in Jonesville,
-    Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”
-
-His axents on these last words wuz affectin’ in the extreme, and he
-seemed to think I ort to shed tears when he said ’em, and I didn’t know
-but I _had_ ort to, but I wuz in sunthin’ of a hurry a new bindin’ a
-petticoat, and I thought I wouldn’t.
-
-One verse wuz as follers, and I presoom his feelin’s about the delights
-of our home wuz powerful as he writ it:
-
-    “Tell Ury and Philury to joyous wash the pan,
-    To worship all the barn chores, adore the milky can,
-    The Jerseys, oh, in happier hours I driv ’em through the crick,
-    Oh, angel calves, oh, did I e’er hit one on ’em with a stick?
-    The lovely, sweet young critters might kick me time and time,
-    If I wuz back in Jonesville, fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”
-
-And there wuz one to Thomas J., and one to Tirzah--
-
-    “Tell Tirzah Ann that other Pars must comfort her young age,”
-
-etc., etc., etc., all put down jest as if he wuz in a dyin’ state; no
-regularity or symetry in the lines, but powerful in feelin’s. There wuz
-more’n twenty-one on ’em. I didn’t hear all on ’em--I wouldn’t, and we
-had some words.
-
-Wall, Martin wuz sot on not goin’ to Germany, till Adrian sed he would
-love to see the Rhine. That settled it--the Rhine wuz seen. That man
-would go through fire and water if his little pardner jest motioned him
-that way.
-
-And that very fact, I felt, shed a perfect halo round Martin Smith. It
-showed that deep down in the nater of the man, all covered up by layers
-of pride, worldiness, fashion, ambition, etc., there wuz a fount of
-pure water a-springin’; but few indeed could pierce down to it. Alice
-can, and Adrian can, but nobody else, so fur as I know; but that love
-permeates everything he sez and duz.
-
-As wuz nateral on French sile, we got to talkin’ about poor young
-Prince Louis, the pride of the third Napoleon--the very heart and soul
-of his beautiful Ma. His sad fate seemed to impress Adrian dretfully.
-He wuz dretful sorry for him, and sed he wuz. Good little creeter!
-Any tale of sadness and sorrer found a ready sympathy in his tender,
-generous young breast. But Martin seemed to draw a different moral from
-it, and sez he, when I wuz a-tellin’ how sorry I wuz for his poor Ma,
-sez he--
-
-“She ought to have looked ahead, she never ought to have allowed him to
-go into such danger, she ought to do as I do. I always surround my boy
-with safeguards to keep him out of danger’s way entirely, and therefore
-he is safe.”
-
-But I sez, “Martin, in this world it is hard to tell always where
-danger is, and who is really safe.”
-
-“But I know,” sez he, “because I am right with him. If he was a child
-of poor parentage, now, one of the masses, why, then, I grant you I
-could not surround him with such safeguards, but as it is Adrian is
-perfectly safe.”
-
-I felt that here it wuz a good place to gin a little hint. Sez I,
-“Speakin’ of safeguards, Martin, have you ever put them fenders on that
-line of cars of yourn that they wanted you to?”
-
-“No!” sez he, speakin’ up pretty sharp.
-
-Sez I, “Don’t you feel that you ort to, for the sake of children whose
-Mas and Pas love them jest as well as you do Adrian?”
-
-But he waived off that idee, sayin’, as usual, that it wuzn’t expected
-that he wuz a-goin to spend his life and fortune for the sake of the
-children of the masses, who, two thirds on ’em, wuz better off dead
-than alive.
-
-I _hate_ sech talk.
-
-But he went on to prove by statisticks how they grew up to be
-criminals, and paupers, and Coxeyites, and the world wuz well rid on
-’em if they died in childhood.
-
-I _hate_ sech talk. He see my feelin’s, and he went on jest as if
-nothin’ had been sed, and repeated that Adrian wuz perfectly safe, and
-that his futer wuz assured.
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “I hope so, for he is a dretful good little boy, and
-smart, and I hope he will make a useful man.”
-
-“There is no other child in the world like him,” sez Martin, “and he
-will have a great and successful future. I shall attend to that.”
-
-“Wall,” I sez agin, “I hope so,” and I truly did. But I felt dubersome
-about thinkin’ that Martin had it all in his own hands--this is sech a
-queer world, and so kinder surprisin’ and changeable.
-
-Wall, Martin wuz as good as his word, we didn’t stay long in Germany,
-but seein’ that Adrian wanted to see the Rhine, we sot out for it. We
-went through Valenciennes on the night train, which Josiah sed wuz
-indeed a blessin’, and he sed that Martin, in some things, did show
-great tax.
-
-Sez I, “What do you mean?”
-
-“Why, you’d been a-wantin’ to git some of that lace of theirn for a
-nightcap, or sunthin’, if you hadn’t been sound asleep and a-snorin’.”
-
-I never snore, and he knows it. He is the one. I may sometimes breathe
-a little hard, that’s all. And I sez, willin’ to give him a woond for
-the onmerited snore eppisode, sez I--
-
-“I can git some in Brussels; their lace wears like iron.”
-
-He wuz earnest in a minute, deeply earnest. Sez he--
-
-“If you knew, Samantha, how becomin’ your nightcaps are, and how
-perfectly sweet you look with the plain muslin ruffles round your dear
-face, you wouldn’t speak of lace.”
-
-That “dear” touched my heart. He hadn’t used the adjective in some
-time. But I wouldn’t promise not to git any. I think he worried all
-the time we wuz in Brussels, but he needn’t. I am a good economizer, I
-didn’t lay out to git any--I had above a yard of good Torchon to home.
-I didn’t need any lace.
-
-Godfrey D. Bouillon stood up in plain sight jest as he has been
-a-standin’ for a number of years, a-holdin’ up the banner of the Cross.
-Good, determined creeter he wuz.
-
-Wall, we went to see public buildin’s and towers, from them one to
-three or four hundred feet high to more megum ones, and galleries of
-paintin’s, and parks and statutes; and one little statute rigged up
-as a kind of a fountain, I won’t say nothin’ about--the least sed the
-soonest mended. But it wuz a shame and a disgrace, and if I’d had my
-way the poor little creeter would have had at least a shirt put onto
-him, or I would know the reason why.
-
-A perfect shame to behold!
-
-In the Museum of Paintings Josiah got real skairt. He wuz kinder
-prowlin’ round, and he happened to see a door partly open, and it wuz
-nateral, so he sez, to kinder look in. But he shrunk back in extreme
-perterbation, and sez he--
-
-“By Jehoshaphat, what have I done?”
-
-Sez I, “What is it, Josiah?”
-
-Sez he, his face as red as anything, “A woman jest dressin’
-herself--she seems all broke up.”
-
-[Illustration: “A woman jest dressin’ herself--she seems all broke up.”]
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “you keep out of there; you stay right by me.”
-
-“Wall, I lay out to!” he snapped out.
-
-Wall, I looked in myself. I had no curosity, but I felt that I had
-better see if my pardner had done any harm. And I see a young woman all
-kinder crouched together a-holdin’ her clothes round her, and I sez--
-
-“Mom, you needn’t be afraid, my pardner wouldn’t hurt a hair of your
-head.”
-
-She didn’t move a mite, but jest held her clothes, what she had on,
-round her, and looked at me kinder skairt. And I spoke up some louder,
-thinkin’ mebby she wuz deef; sez I--
-
-“He is a deacon in the Jonesville meetin’-house, mom, and though
-fraxious a good deal of the time, a likely man.”
-
-But jest at this junkter Martin come up behind me, and told me that it
-wuz a picter. I wuz dumbfoundered, but so it wuz. The artist, Wiertz
-by name, made quite a number considerable like it; dretful curous and
-surprisin’, but it is a sight to see ’em.
-
-The meetin’-house of St. Gudale, with its stained glass winders, wuz
-extremely interestin’ to see; it is most a thousand years old, but no
-one would mistrust it. It looks fur better than our meetin’-house, that
-hain’t over fourteen years old, if it is that. But, then, it cost more.
-
-Martin and Josiah and Al Faizi driv out to see the battlefield of
-Waterloo, only about six milds away. They went in a English coach with
-a half a dozen horses, and a bugle a-caracolin’ high and clear. I never
-see Josiah in better sperits.
-
-I would have gone, too, but Alice wuzn’t well, nor Adrian nuther, and I
-stayed with ’em; and I wuz glad of a chance to rest my lower legs.
-
-I spoze they had a number of emotions as they stood on that field
-where the Star of Austerlitz sot. I did, where I wuz a-layin’ down or
-a-settin’ to home. Truly to a feelin’ heart, who contemplates what
-high ambitions tottled over that day, and what powerful interests
-wuz involved, they may say truly that they carry the battlefield of
-Waterloo in their hearts.
-
-I thought on’t a sight. I had read what Victor Hugo said about that
-battle, and Alfred Tennyson and others had said about the Duke of
-Wellington, a-praisin’ him up, and I had numerous feelin’s and
-emotions, very powerful ones, indeed, very; but I took good care of the
-children all the same.
-
-There wuz one place in Brussels that I wanted to see as much as
-any other place I could look on offen my tower, and that wuz where
-Charlotte Brontë had spent those years, those quiet but dretful tragic
-years of her life.
-
-So one day, when we wuz on our way home from some big palace or
-monument--Martin wanted to show off before us--I persuaded him to
-go a little out of our way to that quiet street, to the kinder
-old-fashioned house where the Professor ust to teach school, and some
-of his folks live now and keep a small school. They let us in when they
-found out that we wuz Americans; truly that name opens all sorts of
-foreign doors.
-
-It wuz a half holiday, and they let us walk through the room where she
-ust to set and study, and the old-fashioned garden where she ust to
-walk and dream them strange dreams of hern, that afterwards charmed the
-world.
-
-Though the folks here didn’t seem to think of her as I did--no, indeed!
-They seemed to kinder blame her for reflectin’ on ’em in her books.
-Still they must respect to a certain degree the memory of one that
-leads so many from distant lands to their out-of-the-way home, jest to
-stand on the floor she trod on; jest to look on the walls that rared up
-around that great soul.
-
-What emotions Charlotte did have here! She had more to bear than most
-folks knew of--yes, indeed!
-
-What wuz that hantin’ grief that rung her soul so that year in
-Brussels, that drove her, a devout Protestant, into a Catholic church,
-to pour out her agony in confession? Longin’ to give vent to the sorrer
-that without that relief wuz mebby a-urgin’ her to forgit it all in the
-long quiet.
-
-Why, a pint bottle full of sweet turned bitter, must have vent gin to
-it or else bust.
-
-Poor creeter! poor, little, lonesome creeter! with her intense power of
-lovin’, and her intenser tenderness of conscience.
-
-Gray old city, never did one tread your streets with more need of heart
-pity than she who wuz swept along by her emotions that day into an
-alien temple, a strange altar, and a strange worship, seekin’ for rest,
-for help to live, which is so much harder than to die.
-
-I know what the matter wuz--it come to me straight, but I sha’n’t tell
-it, it has got to be kep’.
-
-Wall, I had a large white handkerchief with me, I took it a purpose,
-for I thought more’n as likely as not I should be melted into tears
-a-meditatin’ on her life and all she had done to delight the world, and
-how after her life-long struggles and her brief wedded happiness she
-passed away.
-
-[Illustration: I thought more’n likely I should be melted into tears.]
-
-But no, this last thought kinder boyed me up--I wuz glad to know that
-she lay asleep by the lonely moors of Haworth. Its long purple wastes
-hanted by her shade forever, a sleep never to be distracted agin by
-her brother Patrick’s actin’ and behavin’, or her pa’s morbid idees and
-ways, or her own private heartache.
-
-Little, small-boneded, great-minded creeter! how often I’ve pictered
-her lonesome life in that little village, shet up in oncongenial
-surroundin’s, her noble sperit beatin’ agin the bars of her
-environment; a-settin’ on lonesome evenin’s in a bare, silent room,
-a-pinin’ mebby for a word of sympathy, and the clasp of a comprehendin’
-hand, and the great world a-praisin’ her fur off--_too fur_.
-
-Or else a-walkin’ up and down in the twilight with her sisters
-a-plannin’ them strange stories of theirn.
-
-And then I come back to the bare walls of the school-room at Brussels,
-and I presoomed that on these very bare walls we wuz a-lookin’ on
-Charlotte had seen stand out vivid the strong, dark face of Rochester,
-and the elfin figger of Jane, Shirley, Caroline, Louis and Robert
-Moore, the Professor--yes, indeed, she see _him_, I hain’t a doubt
-on’t--and all these wonderful characters of hern, who seemed more real
-friends and neighbors to me than them who live under the chimblys I can
-see from my own winders to home.
-
-Good, little, bashful creeter! sech genius as you had the world will
-seek a good while for before it finds agin.
-
-While these thoughts wuz a-goin’ on under my best bunnet, Martin looked
-round sort o’ indifferent, and sez he--
-
-“Who wuz she, anyway--some kind of a writer?”
-
-And I sez, “Yes.”
-
-“Historical or poetical?” sez he.
-
-And I sez, “Both.”
-
-I couldn’t bring my emotions down in that place to explain, and I
-told the truth, anyway. Historys she wrote that always will be true
-as long as hearts beat and suffer. Poetry wuz in ’em, whose great
-rythm hants the hearts of ’em whose ears are tuned to understand the
-strange melodies. For no two people can ever find the same things in a
-book--what inspires you, and thrills your heart almost to bustin’, will
-slip over the head and heart of somebody else, and make no impression.
-
-Curous, hain’t it?
-
-[Illustration: A-leadin’ Adrian and a-plannin’ sunthin’ with him
-relatin’ to a whistle.]
-
-Wall, we looked round for a long time--Josiah not enjoyin’ himself
-a bit, so fur as I could see, but a-leadin’ Adrian and a-plannin’
-sunthin’ with him relatin’ to a whistle he could make out of a stick.
-
-Alice’s soft eyes held sweetness and compassion, but she owned that
-she’d never read the books.
-
-Al Faizi, too, wuz a stranger to ’em. But he would have enjoyed ’em if
-he had--he’s made in jest the right way.
-
-Wall, Martin wuz in haste, and we left the sacred spot, leavin’ a
-little gift, too, in the hands of the old servant who showed us round.
-
-Antwerp, Düsseldorf, Cologne, how they kinder swim along in my mind
-as I think of ’em--picters, picters, church towers, bells, gardens,
-steeples, music, stained-glass winders, quiet seenery, grand,
-impressive ditto, big carriages, dorgs harnessed up as horses.
-
-As we noticed the number of these latter, my companion begun to lay on
-plans agin. Sez he--
-
-“Take our brindle, and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury’s yeller dorg--and
-she’d lend her in a minute--and what a team I could rig up with a
-little of Ury’s help. I could take you to meetin’ to Jonesville as
-easy as nothin’, and how uneek we would look drawed along by a brindle
-and yeller dorg-team. It will, perchance, inaugerate a new era in
-navigation in Jonesville, and dorg-teams will be in voge.
-
-“What a sensation we will create amongst the Jonesvillians: you in your
-parasol and I in my dressin’-gown, mebby. What a uneek spectacle!”
-
-“Yes,” sez I, coldly, “when you ketch me a-ridin’ in that way, Josiah
-Allen, it will indeed create a sensation, for I shall be no more. It
-will be when my corse is senseless and cold.”
-
-“Oh, shaw! What comfort could I take then, Samantha? It wouldn’t look
-very well for me to be a-enjoyin’ myself a-swingin’ out in fashion
-then, and I couldn’t wear the dressin’-gown or the tossels, anyway.
-It beats all how you love to break up all my plans for astonishin’
-the Jonesvillians. You know well enough that folks when they git back
-from European towers always act different--more riz up like, and
-reminescent, and astonishin’, and everything. And you frown down all
-my plans, every one on ’em”; and he sithed bitterly. But I wouldn’t gin
-in to him, for I felt that Samantha and a dorg-team wuz not synonomous
-terms; no, fur from it.
-
-Wall, in Cologne I’d been glad to bought a hull bottle of cologne, but
-Josiah said to his mind there wuz nothin’ on earth so sweet as the
-smell of caraway.
-
-I most always do up a little sprig on’t in my handkerchief when I go
-to meetin’, to kinder chirk me up in my head some as the minister and
-my mind are a-wanderin’ up from the 12thlies to the “Finally, my dear
-hearers.”
-
-“But,” sez I, attacktin’ the weakest jint in his armor, “cologne is so
-stylish.”
-
-“But,” sez he, and I couldn’t scold him for sayin’ it--sez he, “don’t
-you remember how the caraway grew amongst the roses in the old front
-yard to Mother Smith’s?” Sez he, “You had a sprig of caraway in your
-hand the very minute I asked you to be my bride--I had a little snip
-on’t in my pocket when I led you to the altar, and a big vase of the
-white blows kinder riz up above the June roses like a halo, right there
-on the altar.”
-
-He meant the cherry stand that we stood by, with curly maple draws.
-
-Sez he, “Oh, them beautiful, holy memories! And then,” sez he, with a
-look of deep content, “to think of the cookies you’ve garnished with
-it durin’ the beautiful years of our union.” Sez he, “Nothin’ like the
-scent of caraway to me.”
-
-I wuz deeply moved by the sweet and tender memories he invoked.
-
-Oh, summer hours! oh, old front garden, lit by the settin’ sun
-a-shinin’ through the maples! I see it agin, I almost feel the shadders
-of the tall lilock bushes; I see the June roses a-shinin’ like rosy
-stars above the deep lush grass, and the delicate white tracery of the
-caraway a-hoverin’ over ’em like a snowy mist.
-
-Oh, summer garden! oh, summer hours of life! oh, beauty and bloom,
-divine sadness and rapter, and rich promise of the glowin’ futer
-a-layin’ fur off in the distance, like the sun in the glowin’ west.
-
-My Josiah had brung ’em all back to me. What wuz cologne or bergamot in
-them rapt hours?
-
-Men are deep.
-
-The cathedral is a sight to see. It is called one of the most beautiful
-cathedrals in Europe, and they don’t lie about it when they say it
-is. It wuz begun eight or nine hundred years ago, and two hundred men
-wuz to work at it. I wonder if they are slack. Anyway, I don’t have
-any idee when they lay out to finish it. I guess they are to work by
-the day. I know jest how they acted when they wuz to work at Josiah’s
-horse-barn. I believe it is better to let barns, or cathedrals, or
-anything else out by the job.
-
-Wall, if I should describe jest that one enormous old meetin’-house,
-and what we see in it and about it, it would take a book bigger than
-Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs.”
-
-I won’t try, but it wuz a sight, a sight to see--carvin’s, statutes,
-picters, towers, canopies, arches, altars, relicks, etc., etc., etc.
-
-Among the most interestin’ of the relicks wuz the skulls of the three
-Wise Men who came to worship the infant Christ. Here their old skulls
-wuz shown--they sed they wuz theirn. I d’no, nor Josiah don’t, whether
-they wuz the Wise Men or not, and of course it wuz eighteen hundred
-years too late to ask ’em. No, wise as they wuz, their bones wuz on a
-par with the bones of the ’leven thousand virgins that we see there in
-another meetin’-house.
-
-I d’no as they wuz virgins or not, or wuz massacreed, as they sed.
-Martin sed it wuz a perfect fraud. But I d’no either way. Anyway, there
-the bones wuz, a real lot of ’em.
-
-Wall, I guess the hull on us wuz glad to git onto the little steamer
-that wuz to take us up the beautiful Rhine. And we found that it wuz
-indeed beautiful, though after bein’ on sech intimate terms as I had
-been with the St. Lawrence and the Hudson, I wuzn’t a-goin’ to say I
-had never seen any river so grand--no, indeed!
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIX.
-
-SAMANTHA CLIMBS THE RIGHI.
-
-
-Our noble St. Lawrence could have took the Rhine in if she had been in
-need and adopted her, and let her run along with her, a-murmurin’ and
-a-babblin’ as children will, and nobody would have been the wiser only
-the old Saint herself.
-
-And the Hudson is jest as beautiful. No old castles on the Rhine tower
-up so grand as Nater’s old homesteads, the Palisades, where she has
-dwelt, with Majesty, and Strength, and Sublimity, and Beauty for hired
-help, for so many centuries, and is a-livin’ there still in the same
-old place with the same help. Them who have eyes to see, can see her
-there right along day by day, and night by night, with her help all
-round her. Sometimes the risin’ and settin’ sun a-gildin’ their calm
-brows. And sometimes the big, serene moon a-standin’ over ’em as if
-lovin’ to linger with ’em. Their serene forwards a-shinin’ with the
-love they have for him--or her (I d’no whether to call the moon a him
-or a her. It is so kinder changeable, my first thought wuz to call it a
-him).
-
-But to resoom. Yes, we found the Rhine beautiful. It runs along in my
-memory now like a beautiful paneramy right when I’m round the house
-a-doin’ up my mornin’s work, or night-times when I wake up ever or
-anon or oftener that fair picter onfolds in front of me--the ripplin’
-waters, the shores sometimes smooth and grassy, with orchards and
-vineyards; fields of grain, with wimmen a-workin’ in ’em, as well
-as men; high rocky shores, with grim old castles perched up on the
-cliffs, tree-embowered; anon a wayside shrine, with the image of the
-Virgin a-lookin’ calmly on us tired voyagers, or the face of our Lord
-hallowin’ the spot, or the baby Christ in his Ma’s arms. It made the
-spots where we see ’em more lifted up, and made me feel kinder safer,
-though I knew it wuz only some wood and paint and glass it wuz made of.
-I spoze it wuz the memories and thoughts they invoked that seemed to
-hover over us some like wings.
-
-How it sweeps onward in my mind--high cliffs three or four hundred feet
-high, with a picteresque old castle perched on it; anon a bridge of
-boats more’n a thousand feet long!
-
-Then I see, a-lookin’ onto the paneramy, dog-teams, peasants, soldiers,
-beautiful towns, queer little villages, lovely villas, humble cottages,
-green grass, wavin’ trees, blue murmurin’ river. Ah, how it floats
-along in front of my foretop! Coblentz--Thurnberg--then the high cliff
-where the Siren ust to set and sing. I wonder if she sets there now? I
-mistrusted she’d kinder moved down into the vineyards. She sings there
-a sight, lurin’ the wine lovers right along to destruction.
-
-Oberwesel, Castle Schonberg, and right acrost, like a faithful old
-pardner who has kep’ company for centuries, the towerin’ old walls of
-Gutenfels.
-
-Right under my head-dress or nightcap the seen moves along. Anon I see
-the splendid old castle of Rheinstein way up above the river. Ehrenfel,
-vineyards, vineyards, with Lurlei hid amongst ’em, whether they believe
-it or not, and on the other, fur up, the Mouse Tower, where selfishness
-got its pay if it ever did.
-
-Bingen we found, jest as Alice sed, a quiet little town, its marvellous
-beauty born in the homesick longin’ of the soldier who lay dyin’ in
-Algiers.
-
-Johannesburg Castle would be dretful interestin’, standin’ up as it
-duz three or four hundred feet high, but the sights and sights of
-vineyards all round it made me feel bad, dretful. But I’ve had my say
-about that--sirens, etc., etc. What crazy acts would the wine make
-these surroundin’ folks do! That wuz a question I couldn’t answer,
-nor Josiah. I wish they wouldn’t make so much; I wish they would
-stop the mouth of Lurlei with good water, or cold tea, or sunthin’ or
-other--she’d act like another creeter if they did.
-
-But truly I couldn’t make ’em stop by eppisodin’ or allegorin’.
-
-On, on we went by islands, fortifications, palaces, villages.
-
-I didn’t want to see Wiesbaden, I didn’t want to see card-playin’ and
-gamblin’ goin’ on--no, indeed.
-
-But I did want to stop at Frankfort-on-the-Main, the birthplace of
-Goethe. And in thinkin’ on’t, I mekanically repeated over the words
-I’d heard Thomas J. rehearse a number of times--the homesick words of
-Mignon--
-
-    “Knowest thou the land where citron apples bloom,
-    And oranges like gold in leafy bloom?”
-
-She wanted to go back home, Mignon did, she wanted to like a dog.
-
-But Martin sed he didn’t know as anybody had ever made a specialty of
-visitin’ the birthplace of Goethe.
-
-“And as for citron apples,” sez he, “your friend evidently made a
-mistake in writing about them; citrons grow on a vine; but,” sez he,
-“perhaps Goethe was in the grocer line and was recommending some new
-fruit.”
-
-And I let it go so. Truly the author of “Wilhelm Meister” would have
-advised me to let it pass and go by.
-
-But when Martin learned that Rothschild wuz born there, he sed that if
-he had had time he would have loved to visit that hallowed spot.
-
-Martin thought he would stop and take a kind of a rest at Heidelberg,
-and my two legs and my pardner wuz glad enough of the rest--yes, indeed!
-
-Martin sed that any traveller of note made a pint of visitin’ that
-spot, so it wuz on that account, I spoze, that we stopped. He sed he
-had seen a number of engravin’s of the place, and I told him I had too.
-
-We stayed all night to a comfortable tarvern, and had a good supper and
-breakfust. Josiah admitted we had, though he sed--
-
-“Samantha, it don’t taste like your breakfusts; oh, shall I ever
-partake of ’em agin in that blessed, blessed home?”
-
-He suffers dretfully, that man duz. But I told him that we should soon
-be to home agin now, and to bear up.
-
-Wall, Heidelberg Castle is a sight, a sight to see. All the picters we
-see of it in chromos and almanacks and sech don’t give you any idee of
-how grand, how vast it is.
-
-Why, imagine a buildin’ all covered with carvin’s, and towers,
-and pinnakles, and with moats, and drawbridges, and dungeons, and
-courtyards, and banquet-halls, and decorations of all kinds, as big
-as from our house over to Deacon Henzy’s, and back round by Solomon
-Bobbettses, and acrost to Seth Shelmadine’s, and so on around the two
-cross-roads and back to our house.
-
-Wall, reader, whether you believe it or not, it covers as much ground
-as that, and you well know how much ground that covers. Good land! it
-is enough to make anybody’s back ache to think of the days’ work it
-took to build it. But, then, it wuzn’t all done all in one job--it wuz
-begun a good many hundred years ago. They didn’t shirk their work, them
-old carpenters didn’t; the makers of summer hotels could take lessons
-of ’em in the matter of walls. It would make one of them paper wall
-makers swoon away to think of buildin’ a wall twenty feet thick.
-
-I wish I had one of them rooms to take round with me summers on my
-towers. It would be impossible for the sound of snorers to penetrate
-into the apartment where one wuz vainly tryin’ to woo the Goddess of
-Sleep. And midnight snickerers would be futile to kill that Goddess
-with their giggle-pinted arrers.
-
-Of course, a big part of this immense buildin’ is in ruins.
-
-A handsome old stone platform or piazza that them old builders made
-half way up the castle walls I did want to see. It had everything it
-needed in the way of sculpters, vases, carved seats, etc. And the view,
-oh! my poor head-dress, it almost rises now as the paneramy sweeps
-through my foretop, it gives sech elevatin’ thoughts and emotions.
-
-How fur off, how fur off you could see--towns, country, the blue Rhine,
-the mountains--oh, my soul! wuz it not a fair seen, a fair seen!
-
-But the barrel, or, ruther, hogsit, to hold wine in, it jest madded
-me to see it. Would you believe it that the very worst old drunkard
-you ever see or hearn on would make a hogsit as big as the Jonesville
-tarvern to hold his liquor in?
-
-[Illustration: A hogsit as big as the Jonesville tarvern.]
-
-Wall, it is, sir, full as big as Seth Widrigses tarvern. I won’t
-compare it to a meetin’-house, no, you can’t make me; the idee would be
-too sacrilegious to me.
-
-It wuz as big as Seth Widrigses tarvern, barrooms, parlor, dinin’-room,
-bedrooms, ruff and all. It holds two hundred and thirty-six thousand
-bottles of wine.
-
-The idee! it’s a burnin’ shame! How many fights can be shet up in it at
-one time--broken hearts, broken heads, murders, etc., etc., etc.!
-
-I won’t talk about it another minute.
-
-Wall, Martin sed that he spozed that it would be expected of him to go
-and see the Righi.
-
-(I spozed that he thought that in his high, prominent position in
-society he ort to see some of the most riz-up places, so he settled on
-that.)
-
-Mont Blanc he sed he should not endeavor to ascend, which wuz, indeed,
-a comfort to me; for how I wuz a-goin’ to git up on that steep, icy
-pinnakle with my heft and my rumatiz, to say nothin’ of my umbrell and
-my pardner, wuz more’n I knew. But if Martin had put his ultimatum on
-that we must go, I knew that we should have to make the venter.
-
-But he gin up the idee. He is a-gittin’ kinder short-winded himself,
-though he don’t own up to it. So we clumb the Righi. We rid up on that.
-
-Josiah wuz all carried away with the idee of goin’ up that mountain,
-because the engine that took us up, instead of bein’ hitched on ahead
-to pull us up, wuz tackled on behind a-pushin’ us.
-
-Sez he, “Samantha, it will be sech a uneek ride. What will Uncle Sime
-Bentley say to it, and the other Jonesvillians, when they hear on’t?”
-
-There it wuz--fashion, fashion and display. From different standpints,
-he and Martin wuz jest alike.
-
-But I knew that Josiah had some reason to be sot up by it, for that way
-of goin’ up mountains wuz a American idee at first.
-
-Josiah took considerable comfort a-goin’ up (owin’ to the feelin’s I
-have depictered). But bein’ of sech a restless temperament, he soon
-announced that he wuz a-goin’ to git out and walk up. “For,” sez he, “I
-want to git there some time to-day, and I hain’t a-goin’ to creep along
-like a snail.”
-
-But I seized him by his vest, and sez I--“Do you set still; it will
-tucker you all out to walk up six thousand feet!”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “I want to git there some time or ruther.”
-
-We did indeed go slow, but sure; for in two hours’ time we arrove on
-the summit, and wuz ensconsed in a comfortable tarvern, from which,
-after Josiah had satisfied his yearnin’s for food, and the rest on us
-had refreshed ourselves with some refreshments, we sallied forth to
-see the grandeur as well as beauty of Nater; to behold what she can do
-when she humps herself, so to speak, and makes glory.
-
-[Illustration: We did indeed go slow, but sure; for in two hours’ time
-we arrove on the summit.]
-
-Wall, the view from the top of that mountain I can’t never describe.
-I stood perfectly spellbounded, and looked fur off down the
-mountain-side, and see cities, and villages, and farm-housen, and
-sparklin’ streams, and, fur down below, beautiful Lucerne and eight
-other lakes.
-
-And on the off side the chain of snowy Alps a-meltin’ upwards into the
-blue of the summer sky, twelve thousand feet high, and on the nigh side
-forests, hills, mountains.
-
-Oh, wuz it not a fair seen--a fair seen!
-
-I stood perfectly lost and by the side of myself. The grandeur and
-beauty of the seen wuz so overwhelmin’ that, entirely onbeknown to
-myself, my bunnet had fell backward on my neck, and I stood bareheaded,
-jest as men do before a great heroine or hero. (I spoze it is jest
-as proper to call the Righi a female as a male; anyway, she stood up
-so dretful calm and serene it didn’t seem as if a male could hold
-that poster and calmness so early in the mornin’. You know, males are
-dretful restless and oneasy early in the mornin’. The work of the day
-kinder takes the tuck out of ’em, and they grow more sedater.)
-
-But, anyway, I stood there bareheaded, jest as anybody ort to before
-the great Presence. The on-matchable grandeur of the seen--the sun
-a-beatin’ down onnoticed on my gray “crown of glory,” when I hearn a
-voice clost beside me, and the words kinder brung me back, for I had
-been quite a distance away from the real world of trouble and tourists
-and things.
-
-The voice said--“For the land’s sake! I wouldn’t run the risk you do of
-tanning myself all up, for anything in the world.”
-
-I wuz brung clear down, and I looked round, and I see standin’ clost
-to me a female, jedgin’ from her matronly form and her gray hair, that
-kinder meandered down on the neck of her ulster behind, of about my own
-age, or a little older, mebby. Yes, she wuz probble a number of years
-older, and though our hefts wuz jest about alike, she hadn’t got nigh
-so noble a figger.
-
-She had two veils over her face besides a lace one--two braize veils, a
-green and a brown one, and carried a big umbrell, histed up to its full
-height, the umbrell a-lookin’ firm and decided, as if it calculated to
-shet off all the grandeur the braize veils didn’t make out to.
-
-Sez she, as I slowly turned round and brung my spectacles to bear on
-her with a gray flame of wonder and surprise a-shinin’ through each one
-on ’em--
-
-Sez she, “I wouldn’t tan my nose as you’re tanning yours for worlds
-like this.”
-
-I sez mekanically, “Why, why not tan your nose?”
-
-“Why, it would detract so from my looks; a nose adds so much to the
-looks of a human face,” sez she.
-
-That sounded reasonable, and I sez, “Yes, that is so; a nose is
-necessary, both for beauty and for use; but,” sez I, “at our age a nose
-or two more or less, or a little tan on some on ’em hain’t a-goin’ to
-either make or break us--they won’t draw much attention,” sez I. “And
-even if they did, I expect to enjoy the society of my nose for quite
-a number of years yet, on towers and off on ’em, but this seen of
-grandeur I’m a-biddin’ good-bye to,” sez I, sadly--
-
-“It is hail, and farwell, to me--I never expect to see it agin with
-these mortal eyes.” And I looked off on the lovely seen agin with all
-the rapter and sadness sech thoughts carry with ’em, when agin my rapt
-emotions wuz brung downward by the voice--
-
-“Well, I know I wouldn’t run the risk you do of spoiling my complexion
-for thousands of worlds like this.” I felt that she needed roustin’ up
-and improvin’ upon, and I sez--
-
-“Mom, I believe you’d enjoy Nater as much agin, if not more, if you’d
-forgit your complexion. Let your nose retire into the background, so to
-speak, and open the winders of your soul to the divine influences--look
-about and soar away, so to speak. And how you can do that under three
-veils and that umbrell is more’n I can tell.”
-
-Sez she, confidentially, “I am dead tired of seeing things, anyway--I
-love to rest my eyeballs.”
-
-“Then,” sez I, pityin’ly, “what be you up here on the Rigi for? What
-made you climb up so fur?”
-
-“Well,” sez she, “I came with a party of Cook tourists, and you know
-just what they are for boasting; I’m not going to have them crow over
-me because they have been where I haven’t. Three of them are bed-sick
-at the hotel, but they can say with truth that they have been here. Two
-of the girls have to wear bandages over their eyes, and can’t see a
-thing, but they both have emulative Mas, who are bound that they shan’t
-be out-travelled by the rest of the girls, and so they are leading them
-round through Europe; blind as bats, but full of the true Cook fervor
-of travel.”
-
-[Illustration: “They have emulative Mas, who are bound that they shan’t
-be out-travelled.”]
-
-“Oh, dear me!” sez I, “how bad it is for ’em!”
-
-“No; they enjoy it. The doctor says all they need is quiet and rest
-to restore their eyesight, and they will have it when this cruel war
-is over and they get home. One of them is my own girl,” sez she, in
-a burst of confidence, “and I’m out here unknown to the rest; so my
-girl has outdone them, so to speak, for of course it is just the same
-as if she stood here where her Ma stands, in this be-a-u-ti-ful place,
-looking at this magnificent scenery.”
-
-And she turned her wropped-up face towards the tarvern door, and faced
-round towards Josiah.
-
-But truly she wuzn’t to blame, she couldn’t see through that envelopin’
-drapery. The tarvern might have been a waterfall, and my Josiah a Alp
-for all she knew.
-
-I felt quite curous, but consoled myself a-thinkin’ they wuz
-a-follerin’ their own goles, and would all set on ’em when they got
-home.
-
-Wall, it wuz that very afternoon that I heard my first yodellin’--the
-melogious cry of the Alpine shepherds to one another. Clear and sweet
-it rung through the still air--Ye-o-lo-leo-leo-leo--
-
-[Illustration: Ye-o-lo-leo-leo-leo--the melogious cry of the Alpine
-shepherds.]
-
-Melogious as any music you ever hearn, only sort o’ bell-like, and
-pecular. And while you stand spellbound and wantin’ to hear it agin
-the answer comes, sweet, fur away, clear--
-
-Ye-a-oo-ye-ho-oo--
-
-It wuz like nothin’ I ever hearn in my life, and yet seemed sort o’
-familar to me, after all, as all true beauty in sight and sound duz
-seem to its devotees, he or she.
-
-Wall, I wuz so lost in my own feelin’s of delight, and so carried away
-some distance by ’em, that I clean forgot that I wuz still in the flesh
-and still had a earthly pardner by the name of “Josiah.” But I wuz too
-soon fetched back to a realizin’ sense on’t.
-
-For even as the sweet echoes wuz a-floatin’ back from peak to peak
-lingerin’ly, as if they wuz loth to let go on ’em, a voice spoke beside
-me--
-
-“You’ll hear yodellin’ when we git home, Samantha Allen. Hereafter I
-shall never say ‘co-boss, co-boss’ to cows, or ‘co-day, co-day’ to
-sheep; after this I shall always yodel to ’em. Why,” sez he, “what a
-stir it will make in Jonesville! how the inhabitants will gather round
-me as I stand on the blackberry hill and yodel acrost to the creek
-paster! Why,” sez he, all carried away with the subject, as his nater
-is, “mebby I can learn Uncle Sime Bentley, so he can yodel back to me;
-mebby,” sez he, growin’ ambitious, “I shall yodel to Sister Bobbett and
-she that wuz Submit Tewksbury.”
-
-Sez I coldly--“Do you confine your yodellin’ to dumb brutes, Josiah,
-who hain’t got sensibilities nor feelin’s to be woonded.”
-
-“Mebby you hain’t willin’ I should yodel to Ury; but I’ll let you know
-I shall anyway, mom!”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “he is used to your performances; he won’t mind ’em so
-much.”
-
-I knew it wuzn’t best to draw the string too tight; I knew I couldn’t
-break up his yodellin’ out to the barn, or round, when I wuzn’t in
-sight, and I felt that I would be glad to confine it to dumb brutes,
-and Ury, and sech.
-
-Wall, anon, after passin’ through lovely seens--lovely ones, we found
-ourselves on beautiful Lake Lucerne, the most beautiful lake in
-Switzerland, or the hull world, for all I know--beautiful, beautiful
-for situation it is. You could spend weeks a-admirin’ the lovely views,
-and then begin agin and keep it up for years.
-
-And before long we found ourselves, much to my pardner’s relief, in a
-good tarvern with a long Swiss name, that I always forgit, and called
-it to myself “The Swizzler,” which wuz jest as good so fur as I wuz
-concerned.
-
-We didn’t stay here long, owin’ to Martin’s pecular views. But we hearn
-the organ in the old cathedral, and I wuz carried fur away from myself
-into the land of happiness, love, and peace, into the realm--where is
-it?--that lays so nigh to us, that a burst of glorious music will sweep
-us right into its gates, but so fur off that we hain’t never ketched a
-glimpse of its glorified mountains with our nateral eyes.
-
-Al Faizi wuz carried into that same realm, too, I could see by his
-mean, and the rest on ’em wuz carried off wherever their nateral bent
-lay--Alice into the land of Love and Hope, Martin into the Stock
-Exchange mebby, where the roar of its bulls and bears drownded out the
-sound of the organ’s grand, melancholy voice.
-
-[Illustration: Listening to the organ’s grand, melancholy voice.]
-
-And Josiah, wall, mebby he wuz a-settin’ agin to a full dinner table
-in Jonesville, with Deacon Sypher and Drusilly and some of the other
-bretheren and sistern a-hangin’ breathless onto his adventers.
-
-I d’no, I’ve only guessed at their emotions, but mine wuz a sight to
-see as the liquid waves of melody swep’ round me, and swep’ me along
-with it.
-
-And then we see the Lion of Lucerne, a-layin’ there carved out of solid
-rock, in memory of the Swiss Guard, who fell defendin’ the Tuilleries
-in 1792. It wuz carved by Thorwaldsen, the great Danish sculptor, and
-is a noble and impressive sight. There it lay in a beautiful grotto,
-with water tricklin’ all round it, some as if the hull country wuz
-a-sheddin’ tears over them poor young men that perished in their prime.
-It lay stretched out, its hull length of twenty-eight feet, a-holdin’
-in its paws the shield of France and some flower de luce--France is
-jest sot on them poseys, and I always liked them myself; I’ve got a big
-root of ’em under my bedroom winder at home in Jonesville.
-
-I thought considerable in our short sojourn at Lucerne about William
-Tell, whose exploits with Gessler, apples, etc., took place in that
-vicinity (though I’ve hearn tell that Tell hain’t the creeter they tell
-on).
-
-[Illustration: I thought considerable about William Tell and his
-exploits with Gessler, apples, etc.]
-
-But I always loved to read about him, and I always did kinder love to
-believe in things that ort to be true, if they hain’t--about liberty,
-freedom, and sech. Anyhow, he has got a high chapel built to him--mebby
-like some other popular idees, that haint got no greater foundation in
-solid truth.
-
-Though, agin, what is truth?
-
-Hard question.
-
-Wall, our way on to Lake Geneva wuz like a dream of glory and grandeur,
-full of mountain peaks, green and snow-clad, and flashin’ waterfalls,
-with little side dreams of sweet green valleys--“sweet fields arrayed
-in livin’ green”--quaint villages, cosey little housen, swift dashin’
-waterways, and gently flowin’ rivers.
-
-Interlaken, Freiburg, Lausanne, how they look out of the paneramy at me
-when I shet my eyes in the Jonesville meetin’-house or anywhere, and
-onto the blue lake that Byron writ so much about.
-
-Alice had beset her Pa to take her to Castle Chillon. And I had
-strange feelin’s, I can tell you, as I walked down the road with
-Josiah Allen by my side--from Jonesville meetin’-house to the Castle
-of Chillon--what a leap! Could Fancy cut up any stranger? I spozed we
-should have to take a boat to reach it, and so they did in old times,
-but now the water has filled in so, that, like the Israelites, we
-passed over dry shod.
-
-The castle is over a thousand years old. Some say the Lake Dwellers
-built it, and in talkin’ about them queer creeters, who dwelt a
-thousand years ago in housen built up on posts stuck in the water, I
-had another trouble with my too ardent and susceptible pardner. Sez he--
-
-“Samantha, what a beautiful way of livin’ that would be--how cool and
-pleasant in summer weather, and so handy; no luggin’ in water to fill
-the tank, no pumpin’, jest lean right out of the buttery winder and
-draw in a pailful, and then how easy to lower the milk in the water to
-cool. Why, we could have the milk-room built jest below the surface,
-and set the milk pans right into the lake, as it were. What butter we
-could make, how it would be sought for! And then the idee of settin’ in
-your own back door and fishin’ for pike and sturgeons, draw ’em right
-up and land ’em on the kitchen table, not a foot off from the briler.
-How convenient! And bathin’ now, you’re always a-tewin’ at me about
-it--washin’ my feet, it’s always a job--but now jest cut a little hole
-in the bedroom floor, and with a towel there you are. I’ll commence a
-house out on our pond the minute I git home for a summer retreat, no
-mowin’ door-yards, no fences to keep up, no gates to be onhingin’; why,
-I’d renew my age there, Samantha. And then think of the profit in the
-extra butter, etc.”
-
-“How would it be about milkin’ the cows?” sez I. I see he hadn’t
-thought of that or anythin’ else practical, but he’d been jest carried
-away by the novel and the new.
-
-But he wouldn’t give in, men have such doggy obstinacy. Sez he--
-
-“Why, learn ’em to swim; begin when they’re yearlin’s, learn ’em to
-strike right out and swim up to the milk-house, hitch ’em to the post,
-and jest set in the back door and milk ’em.”
-
-“Under water?” sez I; “milk under water?”
-
-I see he wuz gittin’ sick of the idee--sick as a dog, but he sez--
-
-“Yes, milk ’em under the water in rubber bags, jest as Ezekiel did, and
-Malachi, and all the rest on ’em.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “you’ll keep bachelder’s hall then, and cook your own
-vittles and make your own butter for all of me. I hain’t a-goin’ into
-any sech enterprise.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “that don’t surprise me at all; I never yet got up a
-uneek idee but what you backened it all you could.”
-
-Wall, we hung round here for some time, and I meditated on how the
-prisoners must have felt, condemned to
-
-    “Fetters and the damp vault’s dayless gloom.”
-
-And as I see how they had wore the very stuns away, a-pacin’ back and
-forth in their narrer bounds like caged lions, I felt like sayin’ with
-Byron:
-
-    “May none these marks efface,
-    For they appeal from tyranny to God.”
-
-And it wuz with quite saddened emotions that we wended our way back to
-the tarvern Byron.
-
-I see Al Faizi wuz dretful mournful-lookin’. It always affected that
-good creeter to see how Truth and Liberty and Jestice have always been
-trompled on by Error and Ignorance all through the ages and in all
-countries, and always would, so fur as I could tell.
-
-Geneva! Chamouni, how they glide past the roused eye of my mind, that
-don’t need spectacles--no, indeed! For never on earth, it seems to
-me, was there sech grandeur of seenery as wuz here in Chamouni. And
-the hull world seemed to have found it out, for folks from all the
-countries of the earth seemed to be represented here.
-
-Here we wuz set down like little grains of sand in a high pine forest,
-and that don’t carry out my idee at all, for what is a pine-tree
-compared to Mont Blanc--grand old giant standin’ up there lookin’ down
-on the hull world, and seemin’ to be kinder guardin’ it. I believe that
-even Martin’s pride wuz kinder crumpled down a-beholdin’ that wonder
-and glory.
-
-On, on we went by wild and magnificent seenery, by sweet sheltered
-spots, castles, farm-housen, bridges, waterfalls, valleys, towerin’
-hills, lofty mountains, etc., etc.
-
-Martigny--the wonderful Rhone valley, the magnificence of the Simplon
-Road, straight up the mountain-side, under waterfalls, over wild
-waters, along abysses, through tunnels seemin’ly milds long, openin’
-out into new seens of beauty--oh, what a time, what a time!
-
-How many bridges did we cross? Josiah said, groanin’, “Over ten
-thousand.” But I believe there wuz only six hundred odd; but what would
-Miss Gowdey and Sister Bobbett think of that, who have always looked
-with some or at the thought of goin’ to North Loontown, because they
-had to pass over three bridges to git there, and go up a considerable
-steep hill? What would these sistern do under the circumstances that
-I wuz placed in? So my almost crazed but riz-up brain would wildly
-question me anon or oftener.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXX.
-
-MILAN, GENOA, VENICE.
-
-
-Wall, at last, under the fosterin’ care of Martin, we wuz conveyed
-along into Italy and put up to a place called Milan. But one memory
-of our way thither stands out as plain in my mind as our centre-table
-duz in my parlor; it is of beautiful Lake Maggiore. A more beautiful
-piece of water I don’t believe moistens this old earth. Them sweet
-blue waters, with lovely Isola Bella terraced into hite after hite of
-verdure and beauty, and other islands a-standin’ out like clear blue
-stars in a clear blue sky, and the Italians in their picteresque dress,
-priests, peasants, etc., etc., wuz a seen of enchantment, and even
-Martin looked kindly on it, and admitted that it looked well. “But,”
-sez he--
-
-“What is it compared to our own Thousand Islands? Why, nothing at all.
-Our own St. Lawrence would take in the whole of Lake Maggiore at one
-mouthful, and not know the difference.”
-
-Sez I, “Martin, don’t run down the beauty of another country a-praisin’
-up your own.”
-
-“Well,” sez he, “do you find such perfection here as in our own
-country?”
-
-Sez I reminescently, “I find better telegraph poles.” Sez I, “Think of
-the clear granite shafts, good enough for monuments, and then think of
-the humbly, crooked wooden poles that disfigger our American landscape.”
-
-“Well,” sez he, “you don’t often find them here.”
-
-Josiah sed if I wuz so bent on havin’ stun telegraph poles, he and Ury
-could build up one out of loose stuns in front of the house. Sez he,
-“We might make it sort of a monument shape, and Ury might kinder block
-out my figger on top.”
-
-Sez I, “I guess it would be a work of art if Ury did it.”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “I might have a tin-type or sunthin’ fixed on, or a
-lock of my hair. It would be real uneek, and my fellow-townsmen would
-think the world on’t.”
-
-Mebby he’ll forgit the idee, and mebby I’ll see trouble out on’t yet.
-
-Wall, in Milan our first move wuz, of course, to see the cathedral.
-I’d seen so many picters on’t that it looked as familar as Betsey
-Bobbettses liniment, only fur grander and more impressive lookin’.
-
-Yes, after lookin’ at that wonderful buildin’ on the outside and
-inside, I felt as if I wuz a heathen creeter who had never seen a
-cathedral or a meetin’-house in my life. Why, to make it clear to
-everybody jest how grand and extensive it is, I will say that if the
-pine woods on the hill back of Deacon Henzy’s wuz all turned into
-pinnakles and monuments and arches, and every pine needle on ’em wuz
-ornaments of delicate tracery and carvin’ and beautiful design, it
-could not be more impressive, and to anybody who has seen them woods
-that is sufficient. It is a dream to remember in still nights when you
-lay on your piller and can’t sleep. I think on’t time and time agin.
-Why, it is so big that you could carry on a Stock Exchange meetin’ at
-one end and a funeral at the other, and not interfere with each other
-in the least; you couldn’t hear the bulls and bears yellin’ or the
-mourners a-weepin’ and wailin’, not at all.
-
-And you climb up five hundred steps to the top, and look down on all
-the beauty and glory of the world--it is a sight, a sight.
-
-Wall, Martin sed that he must make all haste possible a-travellin’
-through Italy, as business wuz a-callin’ him home, but he must go to
-Genoa, the birthplace of Columbus. Sez he, “Of course, considering what
-he discovered and where he was of late celebrated, that is by far the
-most important place in Europe.”
-
-Wall, I wuz glad enough to visit the birthplace of that good, misused
-creeter. So we anon found ourselves in Genoa, the Superb, as some call
-it, and in good rooms in a big, comfortable tarvern.
-
-The first thing we went to visit wuz the statute of Columbus. It
-towers up, a poem in white marble; and in a settin’ poster, on the
-four sides on’t, are Religion, Gography, Strength, and Wisdom, and all
-round ’em and between ’em are carved the leadin’ events of Columbuses
-life. Every one of them symbols carved out there--Religion, Strength,
-etc.--Christopher had, and the world realizes it at last.
-
-I should think the world would have been ashamed of itself after
-picterin’ out his grand doin’s, his discoveries in the New World, to
-have sculped him out in chains; it wuz a burnin’ shame, but his memory
-is a-walkin’ down through the ages now free and soarin’, no chains on
-it--no, indeed!
-
-But, poor creeter! how he would have enjoyed bein’ made sunthin’ on,
-and used well while he wuz here in the body! How he would have enjoyed
-havin’ enough to eat, and hull clothes!
-
-But sech is life.
-
-Wall, Martin renewed his strength a-lookin’ on Columbuses statute
-and a-realizin’ what it wuz he discovered and how his discovery is
-a-branchin’ out and spreadin’ itself. He felt well.
-
-Right acrost from the statute stands a big house, which has writ on it,
-“Christopher Columbus Discovered America.” Martin didn’t need to be
-told on’t--no, indeed!
-
-As nigh as we could make out, Columbus wuz born in that house. They
-showed us the very room where he wuz born; but my lofty emotions in
-viewin’ the spot wuz quelled down with the thought that he wuz born in
-seven or eight other places. Poor creeter! what a time he did have from
-first to last!
-
-In the Municipal Palace, among other curous and valuable relicks, we
-see lots of relicks of Columbus--amongst ’em some autograph letters
-that he had his own hand on.
-
-Josiah sez, “He’s some like you, Samantha--ducks’ tracks is plain
-readin’ compared to ’em.”
-
-I looked coldly at him, but did not dane to argy.
-
-In a glass case, amongst lots of other things, we see the violin of
-Paganini, the greatest violinist that ever lived.
-
-He, too, wuz a discoverer; divine realms of melody wuz brung to view by
-his heavenly vision. He wafted his hearers into that realm on the flood
-of melody. I took sights of comfort a-lookin’ at that old fiddle.
-
-[Illustration: Divine realms of melody wuz brung to view by his
-heavenly vision.]
-
-When my thoughts git started back to Italy, as thoughts will, no matter
-where your body is--a-settin’ in the meetin’-house or out to the barn
-or anywhere--they always linger sort o’ lovin’ly on Venice--Venice that
-stands out in my mind all by itself amongst cities, jest as prominent
-as Thomas J. duz amongst boys.
-
-My Josiah wuz dumbfoundered when we emerged from the depot to think
-that he had got to go to our tarvern in a boat; but so it wuz.
-
-Then he demurred agin about the convenience we wuz a-goin’ in.
-
-He sez, “Dum it all, I hain’t a-goin’ to be drawed by a hearse whilst I
-am alive!”
-
-But I soothed him down by pintin’ out that the boats wuz all painted
-black.
-
-But wuzn’t it a curous sensation to drive along on streets of water,
-instead of good, honest dirt. Bein’ kinder skairy of water, I whispered
-to Josiah--
-
-“As bad as our roads in Jonesville be durin’ the worst of Spring mud,
-I’d ruther navigate ’em with our wheels up to the hubs in mud than to
-ride down these water streets.”
-
-Sez he, “Samantha, we didn’t realize our priveliges then, we made light
-on ’em.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I, “you used language on them roads that you wouldn’t use
-now if you wuz set back on em.”
-
-“I didn’t talk any worse than the rest of the Jonesvillians!” he
-snapped out. “And how these streets smell--dead cats and pollywogs!”
-sez he, turnin’ up his nose real high.
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “less count over our blessin’s. We can hold our noses
-while we are a-countin’,” sez I. “Look at them towerin’ marble palaces;
-see the carvin’ on them tall pinnakles and the arched winders and the
-fretted ruffs,” sez I.
-
-“The ruffs don’t fret no worse than my mind duz!” sez he. “Oh,” he
-whispered with a low groan, “shall we ever see the cliffs of Jonesville
-once more!”
-
-“Don’t give up, Josiah,” sez I, “here right in the dream of the world,
-Venice, the beautiful.”
-
-Sez Josiah, “I hearn there wuz a sayin’, ‘See Venice and die,’ and I
-can tell ’em that if this smell keeps on, and if the dum muskeeters
-keeps on a-bitin’, there’s one man who will foller their advice.”
-
-[Illustration: “If this smell keeps on, and the dum muskeeters keeps on
-a-bitin’, one man will ‘see Venice and die.’”]
-
-Sez I, “They hain’t muskeeters, they’re nats, and it wuz Naples that
-wuz said on; and,” sez I, wantin’ to roust him up, “they say Venice is
-perfectly beautiful by moonlight.”
-
-That kinder nerved him up, bad as he felt--he seemed to look forrered
-to it, and after a good meal and a good rest, when we did set off by
-moonlight, hirin’ a gondola jest as we would a express wagon to home,
-he admitted the beauty of the seen.
-
-And it wuz like a journey through fairyland. The long, glassy streets,
-all lit up by lights from the tall, white palaces on each side on us,
-and by the lanterns of the passin’ gondoliers; the soft, sweet voices
-of the gondoliers as they called out to each other in their melogious
-Southern tongue; the glidin’ boats movin’ past us like shadder craft,
-with the handsome, graceful forms of the gondoliers a-drivin’ ’em, and
-anon or oftener the sweet strains of a guitar, and some divine voice in
-song; and the admirin’ surprise when you’d turn a corner and look down
-another street of beauty, differin’ in form of glory.
-
-Oh, it wuz a seen to be remembered as long as Memory sets up on her
-high-chair under my foretop! And what hantin’ thoughts kep’ company
-with me and filled the gondola to overflowin’! I seemed to see Titian
-with his artist’s eyes and inspired pencil--the old Doges with their
-embroidered and jewelled robes--sad-eyed Beatrice Cenci, Antonio,
-Shylock, Wise-eyed Portia--I seemed to hear her sayin’,
-
-    “The quality of mercy is not strained,
-    It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven....
-    It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”
-
-The gondola wuz crowded by the fantom crowds that set round me onheeded
-by my Josiah, jest as sperit crowds may be cramped all round onbeknown
-to us.
-
-Wall, I expected that about the most interestin’ thing in Venice to
-me would be the Bridge of Sighs, that stands, as Byron so eloquently
-observes, with a palace on the nigh side, and a prison on the off side
-(I may not have got the exact words, but it is the same meanin’). And I
-had more emotions there than I could count, as I looked at it.
-
-Al Faizi wuz dretful interested in the old prison and dungeons and in
-the relicks of the infamous Council of Ten.
-
-He writ pages in that book of hisen, and didn’t come no more nigh
-depicterin’ all their atrocities and abominations than one drop of
-water would to exhaustin’ the ocean.
-
-In the palaces we see the height of luxury and richness of beauty. In
-the prisons and dungeons we can see the black depths of terror and
-cruelty of the time when the Council of Ten ruled Venice.
-
-The Doge’s palace is a dream of magnificence. You look up the Giant’s
-Staircase, way up--up to the great statutes of Mars and Neptune, where
-them mean creeters wuz crowned--the Doges, I mean. And then you can’t
-help meditatin’ that whilst they clumb to the very top of magnificence,
-they didn’t do well, they didn’t die peaceable in their beds, none on
-’em.
-
-No, they wuz pizened, or had their heads cut off, or sunthin’ or other,
-that interfered with their comfort.
-
-I wouldn’t want Josiah to be a Doge--not if he could be jest as well
-as not. No, Dogein’ seemed to be resky business in them days, and I
-presoom that it would be now.
-
-And then they wuz so awful mean some on ’em--jest read what they done,
-it’s enough to skair you to death almost. I had dretful emotions as
-I looked at that long table where the Ten ust to set in silence, and
-condemn men and wimmen to death.
-
-They ort to be ashamed of themselves.
-
-And then the Lion’s Mouth, where the papers accusin’ folks wuz dropped
-by the people. The paper dropped down into a chest so’s the wicked old
-Ten could git holt of ’em.
-
-Miserable creeters! I’d love to gin ’em a piece of my mind.
-
-But Josiah wuz all took up with the idee; sez he--
-
-“How convenient, how charmin’ it would be to have a complainin’ box
-rigged up in the barn over the manger or by the side of the haymow, so
-when I wanted to complain of Ury I wouldn’t have to jaw him and have
-him sass back! How much easier it would be than jawin’! He’d like it
-better, too. And you can have one, Samantha, to complain of Philury;
-you could jest drop ’em in, and then you wouldn’t have to tell ’em
-over to me when she wuz wasteful or slack, or acted. Jest put ’em down
-on paper, drop ’em into the box, and nobody but Philury would be the
-wiser.”
-
-Sez I, “Do you spoze I’m a-goin’ to be feelin’ round writin’ complaints
-while a batch of cookies are bein’ spilte, or a lot of good vittles
-throwed to the hens? No, indeed! My tongue is good yet, and active.”
-
-“Yes, indeed, it is!” sez he with a deep groan (I d’no what he meant by
-it).
-
-“But,” sez he, “it would be good for it to rest a spell, and it would
-be a good thing for me, anyway, specially nights when I wuz sleepy,”
-and agin he sighed (he acted like a fool).
-
-“And if you say so,” sez he, “we could have one rigged up together for
-both on us--we ort to be able to complain of our hired man and woman
-in one complainin’ box. We might have it over our back door, or on the
-smoke-house.”
-
-But I waived off his idee, and mebby he gin it up, and mebby, agin,
-he’ll try to rig up some contrivance that won’t do no good, and take
-time and money.
-
-Another one of the queer things them old Doges ust to do wuz to marry
-the Adriatic to the city at a certain time every year.
-
-What did they want to marry water for?
-
-But Josiah wuz all worked up with the idee, when he hearn us a-talkin’
-about it, and about the magnificent ceremonies they went through with
-at the weddin’.
-
-Sez he, “How uneek it would be for me to marry the creek to Jonesville
-and perform the ceremony out to our mill-dam! It would be beautiful,
-and it would be as cheap as dirt, too; Ury could fix up a raft, and I
-could take one of the curtain rings out of the spare bedroom to wed it
-with.”
-
-“What do you want to be weddin’ the creek for?” sez I coldly.
-
-“Oh, for fashion,” sez he--“style. Old-fashioned things are so stylish
-now,” sez he. “You know how them old, long, black clocks, humbly
-things in the first on’t as they could be--you know how they’re set
-up in the boodores of luxury now, a-lookin’ like a coffin on end. And
-spinnin’-wheels and sech that our grandmas ust to hustle out of the
-room, if company come, now they’re sot up on velvet carpets, and made
-sights on. And this manoover would be dretful stylish. Oh, how the
-Jonesville bridge would be crowded! how the Jonesvillians would look on
-in admiration to see the sight!
-
-“Of course I should wear my dressin’-gown. The public has never had a
-chance to see it on me yet, you have always been so sot on keepin’ me
-to home in it. This would be a very agreeable treat to have on Fourth
-of Julys, or any national holiday, and I could carry it out perfectly
-and dog cheap, with a little of Ury’s help.”
-
-But I sot my foot right down on the idee to once. Sez I, “It looks
-silly as anything in them wicked old Doges, and you hain’t a-goin’ to
-import any of their tricks into Jonesville. Next thing I’d know you’d
-have a inquisition a-goin’ on, and a secret tribunal of Ten.”
-
-[Illustration: “Next thing I’d know you’d have a inquisition a-goin’
-on.”]
-
-“I’d like it first-rate,” sez he, “if I could be the 10. I’d like to
-shake some of the sins and foolishness out of Brother Gowdey and Deacon
-Henzy,” sez he, “and bring ’em into my way of thinkin’.”
-
-“There it is!” sez I. “Intolerance, bigotry, persecution, how fresh
-they be to-day in the human heart! Jest as ready to spring up and act
-in 1895 as a thousand years ago.”
-
-“Wall, I hain’t said I wuz a-goin’ to start it up agin,” sez he, kinder
-cross like; “I only spoke on’t.”
-
-I expected trials when I sot out to take my pardner through Europe, and
-I wuzn’t dissapinted in it. But if it hadn’t been for his ambition for
-display, and his bein’ carried away by novelties, and his appetite, he
-would have acted real well. But, anyway, act or not, he’s the one man
-in the world for me, and visey versey.
-
-But, as I wuz a-sayin’, the palaces of them old Doges rousted lots of
-emotions in my brain, and the fantoms of their victims seemed to hover
-round them old palaces as thick as the pigeons that come with a rush of
-wing down into the great square of St. Mark at jest two o’clock, where
-they are fed by order of the government.
-
-The grand old Church of St. Mark interested me dretfully. It is built
-in the form of a Greek cross, with a big dome in the centre, and full,
-full to overflowin’ with glory of mosaic, precious stuns, picters,
-monuments, altars, pillars, colenades, gold, silver, and splendor of
-all sorts.
-
-Josiah sez to me, “Our Jonesville meetin’-house wouldn’t show off much
-compared to this.”
-
-But I wuz some consoled in this by thinkin’ that if our meetin’-house
-wuzn’t so gorgeous, there wuz jest as big a lack of beggars and poor
-people of all kinds a-hoverin’ on the outside on’t, and sez I--
-
-“If they should sell off some of their costly things and try to improve
-the condition of these poor beggars, they would raise themselves as
-much as twenty-five cents in my estimation, and I d’no but more.”
-
-And Josiah sez, “It is hard to make a rotten string stand up
-straight--it is hard to brace up laziness, and dissipation, and
-improvidence, and make anything on’t.”
-
-I couldn’t dispute him, nor didn’t try to. But I did love to prowl
-round in those old meetin’-housen and see the wealth of interestin’
-things in ’em.
-
-In the Church of Santa Maria d’Frari, the beautiful monument to
-Titian took my admirin’ interest. It has angels, lions, all sorts of
-sculptered figgers in elegant carvin’, and beautiful bas-reliefs of
-his greatest works--“The Assumption,” “Martyrdom of St. Lawrence,” and
-“Peter Martyr.”
-
-Then the monument to Canova is a sight to see in its beauty. Wall, he
-ort to had it; he did enough work to make the world more beautiful.
-
-In the Academy of Fine Arts we see sech sights of beautiful picters
-that my brain almost reels now, a-tryin’ to recall ’em. But Titian’s
-“Assumption of the Virgin” is one that you can’t forgit, no matter how
-clost other idees press around it and squooze aginst it.
-
-Great picters by Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, and other great
-masters--the walls are jest seens of beauty.
-
-I wouldn’t want it told on--it ort to be kep’, but Josiah told me right
-there in that sacred spot, that he wuz sick of Madonnas--sick as a
-snipe.
-
-But I told him that I wouldn’t own up to it, if I wuz.
-
-And he said he didn’t care who hearn him.
-
-I wuz kinder sick on ’em myself, but didn’t want to own up to it
-right there in a meetin’-house. But, truly, anybody will see enough
-Holy Families, Virgins, Madonnas, etc., to last ’em a long life,
-unless they’re extravagantly fond of ’em. And every artist seems to
-have painted his own idees of the Holy Mother--mebby from his own
-sweetheart; anyway, no two of ’em are alike. Most of ’em are real fat
-and healthy lookin’. I never spozed she enjoyed sech good health as
-they depicter; I thought she wuz more kinder spindlin’ lookin’. And
-then I imagined there wuz a ineffible look to the face of the Mother of
-our Lord, sech, as it seems to me, they hain’t none of ’em ketched.
-The Mother of our Lord! What a face she ort to have to fit my idees
-of her! It’s resky work, paintin’ divine things. I wouldn’t want to
-undertake it, or have Josiah. Now I see the picter of the Deity once
-painted with a hat on.
-
-I didn’t love to see it.
-
-Why, even to Moses the Great Presence wuz surrounded by a flame of
-fire; and St. Paul fell to the ground, struck by the blindin’ glory
-on’t, and he wuz never able to put in mortal words the sights he
-see--“Whether in the body or out of the body, God knoweth.”
-
-He wuz reverent. And it don’t seem quite the thing to try to paint
-ineffible glories with chrome yeller and madder. Howsumever, I spoze
-they meant well.
-
-And, indeed, some of the picters we see as we journeyed through the
-Italian cities are all placed in rows around the inside of my brain,
-and can’t never be moved from there--no, the strings must break down
-first that they hang up on.
-
-In Florence the Beautiful, oh, the acres and acres and acres of
-beauty that I walked through, full to overflowin’ with beauty and
-glorious conceptions and the white splendor of marble poems! The
-works of Michael Angelo I hain’t a-goin’ to forgit them--no, indeed!
-nor Lorenzo Ghiberti, nor the picters by Titian, Raphael, Rembrandt,
-Tintoretto, Veronese, Van Dyke, Rubens, etc., etc., etc., and so forth,
-and so forth, and so on, and so on.
-
-I walked through the long picter galleries with my brain and heart all
-rousted up, and enjoyin’ themselves the best that ever wuz, and my
-legs all wore out and achin’ bad. And Josiah groanin’ audibly by my
-side. And Martin patronizin’ the marvels of ancient and modern art, and
-havin’ a good time. Al Faizi with his hat off, reverent and devout in
-the presence of so much divine beauty. And Alice, I spoze, thinkin’ of
-the past and the futer, and Adrian eatin’ candy, etc.
-
-Time fails to tell what we see. It seems to me it would be easier to
-tell what we didn’t see; I guess it wouldn’t take so long, but I will
-desist.
-
-But a few memories stand out shinin’ amidst the bewilderin’ maze. One
-of ’em is standin’ in the cell of Savonarola, that noble creeter,
-raised up to the pinnakle of saintship by the fickle populace, who
-knelt and worshipped him, and then so soon crucified him. And he all
-the time a-keepin’ on stiddy, jest as good and noble and riz up as he
-could be. Yes, his last words to his persecutors gin a good idee on
-him--
-
-“You can turn me out of earthly meeting-houses, but you can’t keep me
-out of the Heavenly one.”
-
-I may not have used the same words he did, but it wuz to that effect.
-I had a sight of emotions as I stood in that narrer place that once
-confined the form of that kingly creeter.
-
-And then the tomb of Galileo. I always liked him the best that ever
-wuz. He wuz also persecuted for knowin’ things that them round him
-didn’t know, and thinkin’ thoughts and seein’ sights that they didn’t.
-And in order to git along with ’em round him, he had to promise to
-stop teachin’ the truth. The Majority had to be appeased by the old
-Ignorance. It has to now, time and agin. But he kep’ on a-sayin’ to
-himself, and out loud, when he got a chance to--“The world duz move.”
-Men and wimmen to-day, who feel some as Galileo about men’s and
-wimmen’s rights--licenses, the higher spiritual knowledge--they keep on
-a-sayin’ all the time, every time that they can git a chance to edge
-a word in between Ignorance and Bigotry and shaky-kneed Custom, who
-stand all shackled together with mouldy old chains of prejudice, every
-time they can git a openin’ between these tattlin’, but hard-lived old
-creeters, they keep on a-sayin’--“The world _duz_ move.”
-
-Folks will fall in with ’em after a time, jest as they fell in with
-the idees of Galileo; now they persecute ’em.
-
-But more interestin’ to me than the glories and marvels of the Medician
-Chapel, the Pitti and Uffizi galleries, the Boboli Gardens, the
-monument to Dante (smart creeter _he_ wuz, and went through a sight
-from first to last; he and she both--Beatrice, I mean)--
-
-But of fur more interest to me it wuz to stand in the house where
-the slender little English woman dwelt while her soul was slightly
-imprisoned in her frail body, while she held “The poet’s star-tuned
-harp to sweep.” And where at last “God struck a silence through it all,
-and gave to His beloved sleep.”
-
-    “Sleep, sweet belovéd, we sometimes say,
-    Yet have no tune to charm away
-      Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep;
-    But never doleful dream again
-    Shall break their happy slumber when
-      He giveth His belovéd sleep.”
-
-Yes, she sleeps well now. All the melancholy and charm of Italy, all
-its magnificence, all of its splendor, its ruins--all seem to be
-centred in that one little room. I had emotions there that it hain’t no
-use dwellin’ on.
-
-Figgers seemed to start up and bagon to me from every side. Aurora
-Leigh, with her sad, sweet smile, stood in front of me with that lover
-of hern; the Portuguese lovers, with hearts of fire and dew too; the
-“Poet Mother” holdin’ her two boys to her heart, knit to that heart
-by ties of iron; Nino and Guido, little babies, teaching ’em to--“Say
-_first_ the word country,” after that mother and love. Then I see her
-alone in the house--_alone_.
-
-“God, how the house feels!”
-
-While Guido and Nino lay dead, shot down by the balls of the
-enemy--“One by the East Sea and by the West”--then she remembered that
-she had learnt ’em to say _first_ the word “country,” puttin’ it before
-“mother and home.”
-
-She wuz kinder sorry she’d done it at first, I guess. She forgot Glory
-and Patriotism, for this woman--this “Who was agonized here, the East
-Sea and West Sea rhymed on in her head, forever instead.”
-
-She couldn’t think of anything else, only the mightiness of human love
-and grief.
-
-I don’t blame her; I should felt jest so myself if it had been Thomas
-Jefferson shot down. What would the glory of Jonesville be to me, if
-his bright, understandin’, affectionate eyes wuz closed in death? I,
-too, should think that everything else wuz “imbecile, hewin’ out roads
-to a wall.”
-
-How black that wall would look to me!
-
-And then the cry of the Human, how it rung in my ears--
-
-    “Be pitiful, O God!”
-
-Yes, indeed, in how many crysises have I felt the hite and the depth of
-that cry!
-
-I had powerful emotions, powerful, and sights of ’em--so did Al Faizi.
-He jest doted on Mrs. Browning’s poetry, and he sot a good deal of
-store by the poetry of her relict--her widderer. And Robert duz write
-first-rate, but pretty deep, some on ’em. I’ve grown real riz up and
-breathless a-hearin’ Thomas J. read about “How they brought the good
-news from Ghent to Aix.” And I love to hear Thomas J. read about the
-“Lost Leader,” and beautiful “Evelyn Hope,” and etc., etc. But, on the
-hull, I sot more store by the poems of his wife.
-
-But, as I say, I always respected and admired Elizabeth’s widderer. He
-insisted on marryin’ the woman he loved, no matter how poor health she
-enjoyed. I presoom his folks objected and thought that Robert would do
-better to marry a woman that wuz enjoyin’ better health. But he never
-thought of doctors’ bills or poultices--things that fill up littler
-minds--no, indeed! nor she didn’t either. They felt only the supreme
-joy of congenial minds and hearts, and love that lifts the soul up to
-the divinest hites mortals can ever stand up on.
-
-She says, and it seems almost like liftin’ a veil before the Holy of
-Holys, and as if I ortn’t to speak of it, but I will venter--
-
-She sez:
-
-    “First time he kissed me, he but kissed
-    This hand wherewith I write,
-    And ever since it grew more fair and white,
-    Slow to world greetings, quick with its Oh, list!
-    When the angels speak.”
-
-How the words fell from her innocent soul, and how they must always
-reach the same place in ’em who hear ’em, if they have got souls!
-
-Yes, in readin’ her poetry you can see that, as she sed about the dead
-baby and its sorrerin’ ma, that “The crystal bars shine faint between
-the souls of child and mother.” You can see that the veil wuz but thin
-indeed between her soul and the Heaven she writes of--yes, you can
-almost see its light a-shinin’ through the words, and its music almost
-throbs through her sweet thoughts.
-
-But to resoom. It seems almost like a beautiful dream to look back
-on’t, with, of course, some shadders to make the brightness seem more
-bright, the time we spent in Florence. One day while we wuz there we
-rid out to see the Tower of Pisa--Martin sed it would be expected of
-him to see it.
-
-We found that Pisa wuz a dretful noisy place--dretful, and, somehow,
-yellin’ in a foreign language seems worse than the same yellin’ in
-Yankee. Howsumever, I spoze these yellers and jabberers knew their own
-business.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-Josiah sed, as we looked up at the tower, sez he--
-
-“You’ve always took me to task, Samantha, about my corn-house bein’
-built kinder tippin’ and tottlin’. Now what do you think? This tips as
-much agin, and folks can’t think too much on’t, so it seems.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “it has a different look to it from your edifice. I
-believe that will fall on you some day, Josiah Allen, and be the death
-on you.”
-
-“Wall, they hain’t either on ’em fell yet; they both stand kinder
-tippin’, but I don’t worry about either on ’em--we knew what we wuz
-about when we built ’em.”
-
-He ranked ’em both right in together, I see that he did. But this tower
-goes fur ahead of his edifice--fur, though it is some seven hundred
-years older.
-
-It is perfectly round, the sides all fixed off in rows of pillows, and
-the hull thing most two hundred feet high.
-
-I didn’t hanker for goin’ up to the top on’t--no, indeed! It tuckers
-me enough to go up into our wood-house chamber, about twenty odd steps.
-I wuzn’t goin’ to trail up three hundred steps--no, indeed!
-
-But Martin sed that he would like to say that he had been there. So
-he toiled up the ascent, and so did Alice. And she sed that the view
-from the top wuz perfectly wonderful, takin’ in the beautiful country
-all round--cities, picteresque villages, and the blue waters of the
-Mediterranean twelve milds away.
-
-And Martin sed that if that tower wuz in Chicago, with a outside
-elevator let down from the top to take folks up, and a cigar-stand
-and saloon on top, a man ort to clear five thousand dollars a year
-from it. And he sed the white marble it’s built on would make splendid
-mantlepieces, and he told how many it would make--I can’t remember, but
-a immense lot on ’em.
-
-He’d figgered ’em up on the tower; he took his pencil out and figgered
-it up on the pinnakle, so, for all he realized, the entrancin’ view
-below might have been our four-acre paster or a huckleberry patch.
-We didn’t stay here long. Of course, we had to see the cathedral and
-Baptistery, great buildin’s built of white marble, and all ornamented
-off on the outside to as great an extent as I ever see, or ever expect
-to, and the Campo Santa has got frescoes in it that are beautiful
-beyend any tellin’ on.
-
-There is lots of other things there that is worth seein’--the Museum,
-the University, the Aqueduct, etc.--but we didn’t stay to see em all,
-Martin, as usual, a-bein’ in a great hurry; but he sed that he wanted
-to say, of course, that he had paid proper attention to this city,
-which wuz one of the oldest in Europe. Before John the Baptist came
-preachin’ in the Wilderness this wuz a Roman town. It beats all! No
-wonder it’s a noisy old place--it has seen lots of trouble.
-
-In goin’ out of it we went through so many tunnels, it skairt me most
-to death, and Josiah wuz skairt, too, though he wouldn’t own up to it,
-but I heard him sithe repeatedly; otherwise I wuz glad to go.
-
-Wall, as I say, what I see in beautiful Florence can’t be told, and the
-enchantin’ seenery in the Valley of the Arno. The beautiful Casino,
-which even Martin admitted come almost up to Central Park (it is fur
-bigger and handsomer, though I wouldn’t want the Central Park folks to
-know I sed it, for it would be apt to mad ’em. It made Martin mad as a
-hen when I suggested it).
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXI.
-
-COLOSSEUM AND CATACOMBS.
-
-
-It wuz jest as beautiful in Rome--magnificent palaces, cathedrals,
-picters, statutes, tapestry, mosaics, articles of virtue of all kinds,
-and immense gateways leadin’ into new seens of beauty, fountains,
-monuments, tombs, parks, wells, etc., etc., etc.
-
-My head-dress almost rises up on my head now as I contemplate the
-seens. But specially the Colosseum almost lifts up the ribbins on
-it--now, when I meditate on’t.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-Why, when the Loontown Opera House wuz finished, we Jonesvillians hung
-our heads considerable before the Loontowners, they wuz so hauty over
-it. Two hundred could set down in it all to one time.
-
-It danted us. We envied ’em. But what would them proud Loontowners
-think of a theatre that would seat eighty thousand, and probble
-twenty or thirty thousand more could have squoze in while they wuz
-a-performin’.
-
-One hundred thousand all assembled, mebby to look down on the dretful
-sight of seein’ men kill each other. That wuz the thought that riz up
-my head-dress, and almost busted my bask waist. To think that men and
-wimmen could meet for amusement, and witness sech agony and sufferin’,
-and probble laugh at it. Why, in one of their meetin’s, twelve hundred
-men wuz killed, wimmen lookin’ on, too, jest as well as men, and
-probble snickerin’ over it.
-
-I would be ashamed of myself if I wuz in their places--heartless
-creeters! If I’d been there at the time nobody could kep’ me from givin’
-’em a piece of my mind. But I wuz eighteen hundred years too young;
-they kep’ right at it.
-
-Al Faizi wuz dretful interested in this place. He writ down lots
-in that book of hisen. He see sights here he never see in his own
-land--religion or no religion.
-
-Christians throwed round to let lions and tigers devour ’em! The idee!
-He looked curous as a dog while he talked with me about it.
-
-Martin wuz kinder calculatin’ on how many grain elevators the stun
-would build if they wuz landed in Chicago.
-
-And Josiah and the children were wanderin’ round, and he acted tired
-and fagged out. He wuz, as usual, hungry. He sed prowlin’ round amongst
-them stun heaps gin him a appetite. And I spoze it did. But, then, I’ve
-known settin’ still to whet up his appetite, and barn chores, and
-everything.
-
-But we prowled round here for some time, and there is one big, vivid
-memory that I brung away from Rome; it stands up in my foretop some as
-in Naples Mount Vesuvius stands, with the Bay of Naples a-layin’ placid
-and fair at its treacherous old feet.
-
-The treasures of the Vatican (which makes my brain reel and my feet
-kinder ache to this day when I think of ’em), the biggest palace in the
-world, so I spoze. And then St. Peter’s Church, more’n five times as
-big as the big Catholic Cathedral in New York--two hundred and twelve
-thousand feet; we can’t hardly understand it, it is so big.
-
-But Martin kep’ us there more’n half an hour; for, as he sed, he wanted
-to git a thorough idee of it, so that he wouldn’t have to come agin.
-Sez he:
-
-“I travel as I do everything else; I do it laboriously and thoroughly.”
-
-Wall, mebby he did, but I carried away from St. Peter’s and the
-Vatican, which is jest by the side on’t, a sort of a dizzy, achin’
-memory of pillows and picters and statutes and illimitable space,
-and picters and carvin’s and statutes, and statutes and carvin’s and
-picters--a few of which stands out prominent--the Laocoon, the Apollo
-Belvidere (he wuz as handsome as Thomas Jefferson, and that is sayin’
-all I can say), and the Annunciation, and the Transfiguration by
-Raphael, and great picters by Da Vinci and Murillo. Picters, statutes,
-mosaics, carvin’s, chapels, altars, picters, etc., etc., etc., etc.,
-etc., and I might go on so all day, but I won’t.
-
-Why, the treasures of art in the Vatican is the finest collection in
-the world, and when you realize how big the world is--take it from
-Jonesville to Chicago, and so by New York to Ingy, and back agin by the
-North Pole to Loontown and Zoar, you can git a faint idee on’t.
-
-There is everything in it besides the glorious picters and statutes
-made by the greatest artists and sculpters that ever lived. There are
-ancient coins and household utensils of every age, tapestry, mosaics,
-jewels, embroideries, carvin’s, etc., etc.
-
-Why, imagine what treasures of art could be put into these ten thousand
-rooms by onlimited wealth and power through hundreds of years, and then
-see if you expect anybody is a-goin’ to describe ’em; specially if they
-are hurried on by a Martin, and goaded on the right and the left by the
-hungry groanin’s of a Josiah, and the endless questions of a child of
-eight.
-
-Al Faizi got considerable good out on’t, I guess.
-
-He writ down a lot, I see, in that delicate, small handwritin’ of
-hisen--I d’no but it is shorthand.
-
-Alice, I spoze, see on every side a face, jest as young eyes will, when
-young hearts are full of love and hope.
-
-Wall, Martin sed he must see the catacombs, and I felt, too, that I
-must go, although I knew it wuz resky. I felt that with his ardent
-temperament and his eager search after ontried paths, I more’n
-mistrusted that I should lose Josiah Allen for good in them catacombs.
-But I ventered, after layin’ stringent rules onto that small, but
-ambitious man.
-
-Sez I, “Don’t you lose sight of me through the day, Josiah Allen!”
-
-“How can I see you in the dark?” sez he.
-
-“Foller my voice!” sez I.
-
-“That’s an easy job,” sez he; “I could foller that for years and years,
-and not lose a minute.”
-
-I d’no what he meant; he wuz excited and kinder wanderin’ in his mind,
-I believe.
-
-[Illustration: “The guides went ahead with flarin’ lights.”]
-
-Wall, when we descended into the bowels of the earth, I felt queer,
-queer as a dog. The guides went ahead, with flarin’ lights held up to
-guide us, and as we proceeded onwards through what seemed to be milds
-and milds of underground rooms and halls and windin’ ways, the thought
-come, and I couldn’t keep it out of my mind--
-
-“What if the light should blow out, as I’ve seen so many lights do in
-my day, and we should be doomed to forever more wander here, and die at
-last fur from Jonesville, and the light of day. But as I whispered to
-Josiah--
-
-“We shall die together at least, which will be a comfort.”
-
-He, too, felt the pathos and danger of the seen, and sez he--
-
-“Hurry up, or the guide will be out of sight!” and he added almost
-tenderly, “You’re too fat, Samantha, to take many sech trips.”
-
-And I sez, “Wall, I don’t expect to travel habitually under the ground.”
-
-And we had some words. It madded me considerable to be twitted of my
-heft both on top of the ground and in the bowels of the earth, till I
-recollected where I wuz and what had once gone on here; then a deep or
-took holt on me, and I sez to myself--
-
-“What must the Christians have felt who fled here for safety from
-persecution and death! What did the saints and martyrs think on as they
-jined in their hymns of praise and victory? A few pounds of flesh, more
-or less, what would they have thought on’t, or the teasin’ words of
-their pardners? No, lions and tigers and the headsman’s axe wuz what
-wuz before their eyes, and, what wuz worse, before the eyes of ’em
-they loved best.”
-
-Endless rooms, so it seemed to me, we went through, narrer passages
-and chambers, arched overhead, and the walls lined, some on ’em with
-dead bodies. Mummies, tombs, picters, windin’ ways, Josiah, Martin,
-torches--them wuz the idees that come back to me as I think on’t now.
-
-Wall, Josiah wuz dretful impressed with the Holy Staircase, up which
-the members of the meetin’-house went on their knees, a-sayin’ their
-prayers as they went, and it wuz a impressive sight to look way up the
-stairs and see the bretheren and sistern a-creepin’ up and a-fingerin’
-their strings of beads and a-prayin’ to the Virgin Mary or some other
-saint or ’postle, mebby.
-
-And here I had another trial with my dear, but too ardent and
-impressible pardner. He looked on in deep thought for anon or a little
-longer, and then he sez--
-
-“Samantha, wouldn’t it be uneek for you and me to climb up the steps
-of the Jonesville meetin’-house a-sayin’ over some hymn, or one of
-the Sams? And you could take your mother’s gold string of beads, and
-I could buy a string of glass ones for two or three cents, or I could
-make a string with a little of Ury’s help--whittle ’em out of wood. And
-how impressive it would be! how it would attract attention to us! how
-foreign it would look, and show plain how travelled and cultivated
-we wuz! You know, folks that come home from Europe always bring lots
-of strange ways with ’em and airs; and this would be one of the most
-uneekest and impressive that wuz ever brung into Jonesville or America.”
-
-Sez I, “Gin up that idee to once, Josiah Allen, for I will never jine
-in with it in the world. The idee!” sez I, “that you and me, with
-our age and our rumatiz, should go a-creepin’ up on our knees into
-the meetin’-house. Why, to say nothin’ of spilein’ our clothes, our
-knee-pans wouldn’t be good for nothin’ after one venter.” Sez I, “The
-pans would be perfectly useless forever afterwards, and,” sez I, “what
-good would it do? The aid we invoke hain’t bought with beads. The
-God we worship hain’t reached by creepin’ up a pair of stairs; He is
-right with us to the foot of the stairs or anywhere. Give up the idee
-immegiately and to once.”
-
-He acted real fraxious, but I drawed his attention off, and mebby he’ll
-forgit it.
-
-The beauty of Naples has been sed and sung in so many different words
-and tunes that it don’t need the pen or voice of a Samantha, specially
-as I hain’t much of a singer, nor wuzn’t even in my young days, so I
-will be content with singin’ to myself at times a rapt sort of a soul
-song, as I look back on the enchantin’ beauty of the Bay of Naples.
-
-Beautiful for situation indeed is Naples! clusterin’ round the clear,
-blue waters, that sweep round in a sort of a crescent.
-
-The city occupies the centre--the inside on’t, little villages and
-tree-embowered castles and villas a-linin’ the shores on each side, and
-on the off side, addin’ the one touch of mystery that gives a vivid but
-dark charm to the picter, rises Mount Vesuvius, a-standin’ there all
-the time as if protestin’ aginst the poor wisdom of the ages.
-
-Who knows what’s a-goin’ on in her insides? Who knows what she’s mad
-about? Who knows what makes her act so puggicky, and every now and then
-bust out into blood-red indignation, that carries death and ruin all
-round her? Queer, hain’t it?
-
-Queer, that havin’ in mind jest what she’s done and is liable to do any
-time agin, that men and wimmen go on, gay and happy, and lean up aginst
-her old feet, and nestle down in her shadder, and build homes of love
-there, liable any minute to be swep’ away by her red-hot wrath!
-
-Passin’ strange! jest as singular as it is to think all of us in
-Jonesville and the world at large will build fair homes of love and
-content, and anchor ’em to livin’ hearts alone, in the same world where
-Death is.
-
-But to resoom. My recollections of this city, like so many others, is
-one vast paneramy, framed in by the blue Mediterranean, and ornamented
-on top by Vesuvius, of picter galleries, tall palaces, broad avenues,
-narrer streets, in which we see many seens that in Jonesville is kep’
-under cover, and stately castles--sights and sights of castles, and
-immense ones; seems as if they wuz immenser and more numerous than in
-any other city I see on my tower, and fountains, and aqueducts, and
-churches, and colleges, and theatres, and operas, etc., etc., etc.
-Plenty of chances for bein’ good, and plenty of modes of recreations,
-the Neapolitans have, and they seem to take advantage on ’em all. But
-it seemed as if I couldn’t never forgit that tall, warnin’ figger that
-looms up forever in the background. But, then, agin, mebby I should; I
-forgit the graveyard in Jonesville lots of times, though I ride by it
-every Sunday to meetin’.
-
-The guide wanted us to go up Vesuvius. He said she wuz lookin’ very
-mild and pleasant, and it would be perfectly safe.
-
-But I didn’t like her looks, or that is, I thought I’d ruther admire
-her at a distance, some as I would a striped tiger right out of the
-jungle. But Vesuvius did indeed look beautiful, a-risin’ up above the
-incomparable Bay of Naples. But I felt for all her good looks I didn’t
-want to tackle her.
-
-I knew what she’d done in the past to ’em that trusted her too much.
-Pompey won’t forgit her--no, indeed! After eighteen hundred years
-have gone don’t memories hant the House of Pansa and the hull of that
-devoted city of what Vesuvius can do when it gits to actin’? Yes,
-indeed, indeed! No, I didn’t want to venter.
-
-But I did want to visit that city that has lain buried up in the earth
-for so many years. And Martin sed that most all of his inflooential
-friends made a practice of goin’ there. So we all sot off one pleasant
-mornin’--my Josiah in pretty good sperits, for we had had an oncommon
-good breakfust, and Alice lookin’ sweet as a flower, and Al Faizi
-a-knowin’ she did, a-realizin’ her sweetness through all his bein’, as
-I could see from his big, dark, sad eyes, that wuz bent on her all the
-way, and her heart all filled up with another’s image and drawin’ her
-radiant looks from that sun of her heart.
-
-O human hearts; O glory and sadness and rapter that fills ’em! How many
-jest sech gay young sperits, sech souls, full of the glowin’ rapter of
-love, the divine sadness of love, went out in darkness on that dretful
-day, a thousand and a half years ago!
-
-I had fearful riz-up emotions before I got to Pompey, jest a-thinkin’
-on’t, and so what could they have been when I at last stood in the city
-on which fell sech a sudden doom.
-
-To see the silent forms struck down, jest as full of life and love and
-happiness as Alice and Adrian wuz to-day. There wuz a woman clingin’
-to a bag of gold--gold couldn’t help her. A young man and young girl
-clasped in each others’ arms--love couldn’t save ’em. A priest of Isis,
-who knew all the secrets of the Mystic Religion--his wisdom couldn’t
-save him, or what he called his wisdom. A giant form full of courage
-and defiance--strength couldn’t save him, nor courage. A high-born lady
-covered with jewels--wealth and high station couldn’t save her.
-
-They all had to bear the common fate, as well as the little maid
-who died runnin’ away from death, and had covered her face with her
-garments, she wuz so ’fraid. Poor little creeter! what if it had been
-Babe?
-
-No; the prisoners shet up in jail, riveted to the rock, the dogs,
-horses, goats, even the poor little dove, that wouldn’t leave her nest,
-pretty, little affectionate thing!--all, all had to bear the doom that
-come down upon ’em on that dretful day.
-
-All on ’em a-doin’ their usual work, jest as if the Heavens should
-open and pour down a avalanche of ashes and bury us up in our home in
-Jonesville--Josiah a-doin’ his barn chores, and I a-washin’ dishes,
-and both on us full of life and joy of livin’. Besides Ury and Philury.
-
-Oh, dear me! oh, dear me suz!
-
-Wall, I went through them streets, so many centuries buried and forgot,
-in a state of mind I can’t describe. It seemed some like goin’ through
-any city. The streets wuz middlin’ narrer, but the housen stood on each
-side; good roads wore down by the steps of the multitude. So wuz the
-fountains that stood on every hand; you could see where the lips of
-the public had wore ’em away. Palaces, little housen, shops, temples,
-amphitheatres. One house we went through looked as though it had been
-built yesterday for some rich American; it wuz over three hundred feet
-long and over a hundred feet broad, and all ornamented off beautiful
-with statutes and mosaics and things good enough for a Vanderbilt.
-
-In some things the old inhabitants did better than they do now. They
-had sidewalks--pretty narrer, but fur better than none--and more
-facilities for gittin’ water. I wish the Italians used more now--they
-would feel as well agin for it, jest as Josiah duz when I can git him
-to use it free.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXII.
-
-FASHIONABLE WATERING-PLACES.
-
-
-[Illustration: Mr. Goldwind, one of Martin’s business rivals.]
-
-Wall, in the streets of Naples Martin met a man that he knew at home--a
-man most as rich as Martin--a Mr. Goldwind, a sort of a rival in
-business, I guess, and he had jest been travellin’ through Spain.
-
-And what should P. Martyn Smythe do but proclaim it to us that evenin’
-that we wuz to go to Spain.
-
-I hearn him say to Alice--“It will be asked of me if we have been
-there. Gertrude Goldwind will ask you if you have been there. Alice, we
-must be able to say ‘Yes.’ So we will start immegiately. I have got to
-go back to Paris anyway on important business.”
-
-So the next day we started for Paris.
-
-As I have sed heretofore, Martin wuz a very enthusiastick and ambitious
-traveller; that is, he wanted to tell what he’d seen in foreign lands,
-whether he’d seen ’em or not; but he wuz ambitious to have his body
-trailed through ’em. And it made it very good and instructive for me,
-though wearisome, for, of course, the more you see, the more you know,
-and he had to take the hull circus with him wherever he went. And when
-he promulgated the wild idee that we wuz to go to Spain, I acquiesced
-immegiately and to once, and after a private interview I held with
-Josiah, he did.
-
-Sez Martin--“We won’t make a long stay there; but we will go over the
-Pyrenees anyway, and step onto the soil; and when we go back to America
-it can’t be said by any one that we did not see Spain.”
-
-Oh, how different folkses key-notes is! Now, the key-note to his
-character wuz--what would folks say?--the outside of the platter;
-while, as for me, my key-note wuz--what I could see and learn, and what
-wuz inside of the platter. And that wuz Al Faizi’s key-note, only his
-key wuz stronger and deeper even than mine. Josiah and the children had
-their own keys and notes, which it is needless to peticularize.
-
-Wall, I had become some acquainted with Spain through my friend,
-Washington Irving, and Mr. Bancroft, and then I wuz quite familar with
-its literature. I had learned at a early age one of its poems, runnin’
-thus:
-
-    “When it rains,
-    Do as they do in Spain--
-    Let it rain.”
-
-I had often hearn and repeated this national epick to my relief and
-consolation on stormy days. And though I felt that our trip bid fair to
-be a hasty and sweepin’ one, yet I felt that if I could jest stand on
-the top of the Pyrenees, and look down into the land, I would like it,
-even if I did not step my foot into it.
-
-So, after stayin’ a short time in Paris--for Martin to do his errents
-there, I spoze--we sot sail for Spain, and the first night come to the
-river Garonne, and acrost the long bridge into Bordeaux.
-
-We stayed all night there, and the next mornin’ bright and early sot
-out agin. A little after noon we come to Pau. The train stopped down by
-the river Gave, a river that rushes right out of the mountains. Above
-that, a hundred feet high, on a terrace lookin’ south, stands the city.
-
-And what a view busted onto my vision as I looked out of the winder at
-the hotel! Them gleamin’, silent peaks of snow are camped round Pau
-like tall, silent, white-robed pickets a-guardin’ Pau from danger.
-
-What a sight! what a sight!
-
-But Martin, anxious to see everything that could be seen, sot off most
-the first thing to see the castle--one of the grandest in France--where
-Henry IV. wuz born, and I spoze they enjoyed it, for Josiah went with
-him.
-
-But what I wanted to see wuz the fountain of Lourdes. And though Martin
-and Josiah kinder made light of me, they seemed willin’ enough to go
-with me the next day. It is only a two hours’ ride from Pau to this
-most famous place of pilgrimage in Europe. And we sot off in good
-sperits. It lays down at the foot of the mountain, in a deep valley.
-At one end of the village is a grotto where a young girl, years ago,
-received a visit from the Virgin Mary, or she sez that she did. She
-told the story to her folks and to all the neighbors, and she stuck to
-the same story all her life till she died.
-
-Of course ’em that went to the same place and didn’t see nothin’--they
-didn’t believe her.
-
-I d’no as Abraham’s folks believed him when he sed that he had had
-a visit from angels. I dare presoom to say some of his relations
-didn’t--his cousins now, and his mother-in-law’s folks; I dare say
-they sed they wuz a-lookin’ right that way at the very time and didn’t
-see a thing--Abraham must have been mistaken; and they would add most
-probble--
-
-“Abraham’s eyes are a-failin’; he ort to wear stronger specs.”
-
-Not a-thinkin’ that their stronger specs could never give ’em a glimpse
-of the things that he see; for speritual things are speritually
-discerned, and we all have gifts differin’. Why should a propheysier
-try to dream dreams and see visions?
-
-Wall, finally the priests gin out that the story wuz true, but whether
-their consciences wuz good in ginin’ it out I d’no--I don’t keep their
-consciences in a box in my bureau draw.
-
-But tenny rate, the first six months one hundred and fifty thousand
-pilgrims visited the spot and partook of the healin’ water of the
-spring that flowed out of the grotto.
-
-And pretty soon a lofty meetin’-house riz up over that grotto. The
-grounds round it are laid out like a immense waterin’-place that must
-prepare for the comin’ of a multitude without number. In the season of
-pilgrimage the meetin’-house is crowded all day and way into the night,
-and round it the way is blocked with the pilgrims, and way up onto the
-hillside their kneelin’ forms are massed.
-
-What a seen it must be in still nights, that immense kneelin’ throng
-and vast procession a-movin’ up the hill and a-carryin’ torches and
-a-singin’ thrillin’ hymns!
-
-Inside, the meetin’-house wuz richly decorated, its high arches
-festooned with banners, and the walls covered with memorials of
-gratitude for cures performed there.
-
-Martin walked round with his hands in his pockets and his head up. I
-don’t believe he sensed anything of the sperit of the place, nor Josiah.
-
-Nor down in the grotto either, as we stood by that miracolous fountain
-and see a-hangin’ all round us the crutches of the paryaletics and
-cripples who had been cured here and walked off with no use for ’em any
-more.
-
-I don’t believe them two men took any more realizin’ sense of what they
-wuz a-seein’.
-
-Josiah drinked a cup of the water, and sez he in a pert tone--
-
-“That is the best water I’ve drinked sence I left Jonesville. I wish I
-could take a kag with me--it tastes like the spring down by the Beaver
-Medder in Jonesville.”
-
-And Martin drinked his cupful, and sed he preferred Apollinaris water.
-
-Neither of them men realized its virtues.
-
-But I sez to my pardner--“Josiah Allen, don’t you know that this water
-heals the sick, makes the lame walk, and the blind see? Don’t you
-realize it as you ort to, Josiah Allen?”
-
-“Oh,” sez he, “I don’t feel any peticular difference in my feelin’s; I
-feel jest about the same.”
-
-And Martin sed he thought it wuz imagination mostly. Sez he, “You know
-in sudden danger cripples have been known to walk off; it is the power
-of their religious fervor that performs the cure.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “you can call it what you please, but it is a good thing
-anyway that cures ’em.” Sez I, “I dare presoom to say that they feel
-like sayin’ as they walk off and look round--‘One thing I know, whereas
-I was blind, now I see,’ and they feel like leapin’ and praisin’ the
-power that has healed ’em.”
-
-Martin kep’ his hands in his pockets and looked onbelievin’, but I see
-that my talk wuz impressin’ my beloved companion, and he whispered to
-me while Martin’s back wuz turned--“Do you spoze, Samantha, that it
-would be apt to cure that corn of mine? I’m most tempted to try it.”
-
-I sez, “Have you the faith, Josiah Allen?”
-
-And he sez, “I have faith that it aches like the old Harry this minute.”
-
-[Illustration: “I have faith that it aches like the old Harry.”]
-
-Sez I, “Do you believe that the water could heal it? If you hain’t got
-faith I wouldn’t take off my shue;” for my ardent companion wuz even
-then a-onbuttonin’ the top button.
-
-He paused. “But,” sez he, “would I have to leave my shue here if I
-got cured--would it be fashionable and stylish to do so, and go home
-barefooted?”
-
-And I swep’ right by him, and sez I, “Come on, Josiah Allen; all the
-water of Lourdes can’t cure a soul whose highest aim is to be stylish.”
-
-And he come on a-mutterin’, “You complain if I don’t look ahead, and
-you complain if I do. How did I know whether it would be expected of me
-to go home in my stockin’ feet or not, and you’d complain if I got a
-hole in my stockin’.” Sez he, “If I hain’t healed you complain, and if
-I be healed you find fault with me.”
-
-Sez I soothin’ly, “Dear Josiah, you might git cold in your stockin’
-feet--it is all for the best, and I d’no its power over corns anyway,”
-sez I.
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “it would look queer to Pau to see me mount the hotel
-steps with one shue and one red stockin’ on.”
-
-For he had worn his dressiest pair that mornin’.
-
-And he murmured, “If I had my dressin’-gown on, it would droop down
-over my feet some.”
-
-Al Faizi had been all this time a-lookin’ round and notin’ down things
-in his note-book, and seein’ everything with his deep, strange eyes,
-but sayin’ little about it, and a-thinkin’ a lot, as wuz his general
-way.
-
-The next mornin’ we left Pau, and in the afternoon we found ourselves
-in the “Bay of Biscay, Oh!”
-
-That is a quotation from a poem--in common talk the “Oh” can be omitted.
-
-We had to wait a spell at Bayonne for the train to take us into Spain,
-though Martin proposed that we should take a carriage and drive out to
-Biarritz.
-
-For Martin sed that so many of his acquaintances went there for the
-winter that it would sound better for us to say that we had passed some
-time there--it would be far more stylish and fashionable to say it.
-
-“How long a time can you pass there,” sez I, “to git back to ketch the
-train?”
-
-“Wall,” sez he, “we shall have time to stay three fourths of an
-hour--ample time to see everything of interest there.”
-
-Good land!!!!!
-
-But Martin wuz the head of the procession, as you may say, and we had
-to foller on where he went and halt when he halted.
-
-And I felt that one thing wuz favorable to me, I always had a faculty
-for seein’ a good deal in a short space of time by the clock.
-
-Biarritz is a pleasant place in the winter, and you could see that a
-good many have discovered it by the number of big hotels perched up on
-the bluffs, their open winders lookin’ south.
-
-Of course Martin had to drive by the Villa Eugenia, occupied by her who
-once had a empire to command, and beauty, youth, and love, and now sits
-and looks over the tombs and the ruins of the hull on ’em.
-
-Poor creeter! I always felt onreconciled to that bright young boy of
-hern bein’ struck down as he wuz by a savage in a savage place, fur
-from a mother’s love.
-
-Oh, dear me!
-
-But here Napoleon came often in the mild September, and happiness
-rained in the beautiful villa, with its gay pleasure grounds.
-
-Wall, Martin see a sight, I spoze, and as he sed a-goin’ back:
-
-“I am so glad we stayed here some time, for I know a lot of men who
-bring their families here winters, and it will be interesting to
-converse with them about the beauties of the place; I’m glad I brought
-all my family with me,” sez he, lookin’ complacently at Alice and
-Adrian.
-
-“But, papa, we never sat down at all,” sed Adrian.
-
-“Never mind, my boy--you have been there, and it is a great
-watering-place. And when Mr. Goldwind’s boy talks about Biarritz, you
-can mention to him that you have been there and stayed for some time.”
-
-“But Billy Goldwind stays there all winter, papa.”
-
-“Well, we do not want to stay so long; we want to get back home before
-winter. We merely wanted to go there and stay some time, and we have.”
-
-Wall, I don’t spoze it wuz a real lie--we had been there and had stayed
-some time.
-
-Josiah sed he had stayed as long as he wanted to, and he should be glad
-to git into Spain with his dressin’-gown on, and set down a spell.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIII.
-
-CATHEDRALS AND CASTLES IN SPAIN.
-
-
-I wuz not sorry to be on the train agin on our way to Irun, which wuz
-the first town of Spain we entered, and here we wuz ushered into the
-Custom House.
-
-Our baggage wuz all took into the station and spread out on long
-counters and examined.
-
-Politer creeters I don’t want to see than them Spaniards wuz. And the
-language they spoke amongst themselves wuz as soft as silk and as
-kinder soothin’ and sweet. And they didn’t hurt our baggage a speck,
-though Josiah’s anxiety as they opened his satchel wuz extreme.
-
-He sez to me, “Like as not they’ll spile that dressin’-gown.”
-
-“How could they spile it?” I whispered back.
-
-“Why,” sez he, “them tossels could be hurt easy. I shall have to comb
-’em out agin as quick as we stop.”
-
-He had a awful coarse comb with him, and he did spend hours a-combin’
-out them red tossels that he ort to spend on his own head, or on his
-Bible.
-
-So, as I say, he jest hovered over that satchel and heaved 2 or 3 deep
-sithes of relief as the Custom House officer released it from his hand.
-
-And, oh! how lovin’ly he folded the rep folds, and laid the tossels
-down caressin’ly.
-
-My baggage was soon and hurridly gone through--in the words of a old
-adage concernin’ a horse, changed to suit the occasion--“A short
-satchel is soon hurried.”
-
-The Spaniards are a lazy set--I guess they would have examined our
-things closter, if they wuzn’t so slow and slack.
-
-[Illustration: I see one of the officials take up my sheep’s-head
-nightcap.]
-
-[Illustration: A smile of admiration swep’ over his dark visage.]
-
-I see one of the officials take up one of my sheep’s-head nightcaps
-that lay on top--so’s to not muss the agin’--he took it up, and a smile
-of admiration swep’ over his dark visage. I believe, if he hadn’t
-been so lazy, he would have asked me for the pattern on’t. More’n as
-likely as not, so lackin’ is Spain in some of the first elements of the
-ingregiencies of civilization, I shouldn’t wonder a mite if them two
-wuz the only sheep’s-head nightcaps in Spain.
-
-But this last fact (his laziness) conquered his gropin’s after sunthin’
-new and better than he and his companion had known in the way of
-nightcaps. He laid it down with another smile of admiration, and closed
-up my satchel.
-
-Wall, after we got on the cars agin, bag and baggage, and I thought,
-my soul, owin’ to the utter shiftlessness and slowness, that we never
-should git fairly to goin’.
-
-After Josiah wuz set at rest agin concernin’ his dressin’-gown, and I
-settled down about my nightcap, little did I think that we should have
-to go through the hull performance agin in a few hours.
-
-But we did--the hull seen was enacted agin, my pardner’s anxiety
-and all. Only these new officials hadn’t the sense to appreciate my
-nightcaps--they turned ’em over as if they wuz common apparel.
-
-Martin and Alice took everything of the sort with composure and good
-nater; they wuz ust to it, I spoze, travellin’ round all the time. And
-Al Faizi looked on the faces of the men with that searchin’, enquirin’
-gaze of hisen, and didn’t say nothin’. Adrian wuz tired, I could see,
-and when we got into the carriage to take us to our hotel, he kinder
-laid down in my lap and went to sleep.
-
-Good, pretty little creeter!
-
-San Sebastian is situated on sech a beautiful little bay that they
-have named it the Concha, or shell, as we would call it. It is a noted
-waterin’-place, and Queen Isabella ust to come here summers and water
-herself, and bathe, and act. If I’d been here I should have gin her a
-talkin’ to; I dare presoom to say I could have got her to turn right
-round in her tracts and got her to behavin’; I presoom, in all the
-crowds around her, there wuzn’t one well-wisher to walk up and tell her
-what wuz what. No; praise to her face and back-bitein’ to her back.
-
-I’d ort to been there! She had a hard time all her life, and I’m real
-sorry for her, and she would have read it in my mean, and took my
-advice as it wuz meant to be took.
-
-Wall, we stayed here two days, and I wuz glad, indeed, of the rest. I
-wuz willin’ to spend my time with St. Sebastian, while the rest spent
-their time a-meanderin’.
-
-Martin and Josiah and the rest made lots of excursions to all the
-castles and cathedrals in the vicinity, but I felt middlin’ satisfied
-to see the most on ’em from the outside. The ruffs of ’em, viewed from
-my bedroom winder, seemed to satisfy my mind as I looked out on ’em
-dreamily, as I applied arnaky to my knee jints. I wuz real lame, but
-recooperated a good deal while here.
-
-I did take one or two drives, when I wuz charmed with the strange and
-picteresque scenery. In some places to see the mountains a-standin’ up
-all round us in the fur blue distance, and the queer little hamlets
-nestled down in the deep green valleys.
-
-We went to Pasages, less than a hour’s drive, to see the very place
-where Lafayette sot sail to help us git our freedom.
-
-I had so many emotions here, as I viewed this spot, that I breathed
-hard, and had to restrain myself to keep a composure on the outside.
-
-On the way back we met lots of their heavey, rough carts, drawed by an
-ox and a cow lashed together by ropes wound round their horns, and then
-hitched to the cart.
-
-[Illustration: Heavey, rough carts, drawed by an ox and a cow lashed
-together by ropes wound round their horns.]
-
-As Josiah see this, he sez, “There, Samantha, you can see the practical
-workin’s of wimmen’s rights.” Sez he, “I say a cow has done all she ort
-to when she’s gin a good pail of milk; she ortn’t to plough and reap
-too.”
-
-That speech kinder dumbfoundered me for a spell. It wuz the smartest
-thing my pardner had sed for over a year and a half. But, after
-considerin’ on’t for a spell, I sez--
-
-“Josiah, that hain’t so deep a speech as you’d think it wuz from
-considerin’ it from jest on the outside. The cases are different,” sez
-I. “The cow helps draw the cart, both equal; but the cow don’t have to
-pay taxes and the ox can’t make laws that hang her and rob her, etc.”
-
-But still, in my own mind, I did admire my pardner’s observation, and
-admired him considerable for thinkin’ on’t. It showed high gallantry,
-too, and devotion to females; I felt quite proud on him for pretty nigh
-half a day.
-
-On one excursion that Martin wanted to make I wuz more’n willin’ to
-accompany and go with him--that wuz to Azpeitia, a little village 25
-miles from San Sebastian; but its bein’ a mountain road, it took us
-about all day to go and come.
-
-But Martin didn’t begrech the time. “For,” sez he, “I want to see the
-spot where the man was born who has exerted the greatest power of any
-man on earth--Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order of Jesuits.”
-Sez he--
-
-“I shall be asked if I went there, and I want to be able to say yes.”
-
-How different I felt on the subject, and how different Al Faizi felt!
-I see in that heathen’s rapt eyes as we talked about it on the way the
-same emotions I felt--a deep admiration for the grand, heroic character
-of Loyola, a deep horrow of the power he sot to goin’, not knowin’ how
-fur it wuz a-goin’ to move, nor how much blood it wuz a-goin’ to wade
-through.
-
-I’d hearn his history rehearsed a number of times by Thomas Jefferson,
-and I knew all about it. He wuz a favorite at court, with beauty and
-wit and good sense, a brave warrior, brought down to death’s door by
-the enemy’s sword. When he wuz thirty years old, as you can see by the
-inscription over his front door, “He gave himself to God.”
-
-In that same hour he wuz converted, there hain’t a doubt of that;
-nobody ever had more faith than he had. Why, he see for himself the
-water and the wine changed right before his eyes into the blood and
-body of our Lord.
-
-Some say it wuz a vision caused by his religious ecstasy. But _he
-saw it_, and forevermore he doubted not--he _knew_ what he believed,
-and with all the ardor of his immortal faith, with all the brave
-generalship learnt by his warlike trainin’, he led on his countless
-troops aginst the Wrong as he see it.
-
-Nobody can doubt the sincerity and single-mindedness of Loyola; he
-give proof of it in his life of self-denial and fastin’ and prayer. He
-changed his clothes with a beggar, eat the most loathsome food, and to
-mortify his pride begged from door to door. Why, he who wuz ust to the
-soft couches of a court dwelt a hull year in a cave in plain sight of
-a convent built to the Virgin Mary. He lay here on the ground a hull
-year, three hundred and sixty-five nights, so that he could show that
-he wuz indeed a worm of the dust in sight of his Maker.
-
-Havin’ prepared himself thus, he went to the shrine of the Virgin Mary
-and spent a hull night in prayer before the altar, then laid his sword
-upon it to show that he laid aside all dreams of earthly honor. And
-here he took his vows--to give his heart’s deepest love, and his hull
-life’s devotion.
-
-These vows he kep’ to the last minute of his life. In a church built to
-his honor are those words that ruled him:
-
-“To the Greater Glory of God.”
-
-There can be no doubt of his sincerity and no doubt of the fatal power
-he wielded and wields yet. For that strong, inexecrable hand holds
-empires in its grasp, blood drippin’ through the firm, cast-iron
-fingers. A well-meanin’ grasp in the first place, nobody doubts, and as
-time has passed, a-snatchin’ many savages from their barbarous lives
-and savage beliefs into better ways of livin’, and bringin’ ’em into
-the shelter of the Cross.
-
-Good and evil, evil and good. Loyola is not the only Leader who has
-waded through seas of blood, and all to “The Greater Glory of God.” And
-what will be the end?
-
-Onlimited power is a dangerous weepon to handle. Believin’ as he did
-firmly, onalterably, that his way wuz the only right way, he proceeded
-to make people walk in it. He went to work jest as the Puritans did
-when they hung witches and whipped Baptists. Only as his power reached
-by powerful organizations into all the countries of the earth, so the
-streams of bloodshed flowed down all the mountains of the earth, and
-reddened all the valleys.
-
-And he, shet up to home a-fastin’ and a-prayin’ and a-seein’ visions of
-his Lord, and heads a-bein’ cut off and flames a-cracklin’ round the
-martyrs that he caused to be put to death in the name of his religion.
-And St. Francis Xavier, the best and sweetest soul that ever lived,
-he too become a general in this great army. By its swift, silent,
-mysterious power Kings wuz put to death, a Pope wuz poisoned, and some
-say that the Massacree of St. Bartholomew wuz caused by it. By its
-power Queen Isabella, the sweet, tender-hearted soul who sold her own
-earrin’s and things to help Columbus discover us--jest think of her,
-for what she wuz made to think wuz for “The Greater Glory of God,” she
-give her consent to have the dretful Inquisition established in Spain,
-causin’ half a million of Christians to be tortured and put to death.
-
-Curous, hain’t it, what actin’ and behavin’ mortals will take on
-themselves to do in the name of Religion!
-
-And she, so sweet, so peaceable, so holy--rejoicin’ not in Iniquity,
-but rejoicin’ in the Truth; forgivin’ her enemies, blessin’ ’em that
-persecute her, lovin’ all men and wimmen, blessin’ the world.
-
-Queer, hain’t it!
-
-Wall, from San Sebastian we went to Bruges and put up at a hotel built
-in honor of a Emperor. But I wuz dissapinted; a hotel in honor of a
-tramp ort to have more conveniences and smell sweeter. But I got a
-chance to set down and rest, anyway, which wuz indeed a panaky to my
-legs and to me.
-
-I’d been quite rousted up about comin’ to Bruges, for here Cid wuz
-born, as I told Josiah.
-
-“Syd who?” sez he.
-
-“Why, the Cid,” sez I, “who led the armies aginst the Moors and freed
-Spain.”
-
-“Wall,” sez Josiah, “I should think if he done all that it would look
-better for you not to nickname him and call him Syd. You never wuz
-intimate with Sydney,” sez he.
-
-Sez I, “That hain’t his name; it is C-i-d, Cid. Hain’t you hearn Thomas
-J. read about him--all the great things he did, and how after he wuz
-dead he rode into Bruges clad in armor? And when a Jew approached his
-dead body to offer it some insult his mailed hand come up and knocked
-him down.”
-
-Sez Josiah, “I don’t approve of Syds doin’ that anyway--I should go
-aginst it; it would be apt to make queer funerals if sech things wuz
-encouraged.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “I don’t say it is so, but I’ve hearn tell it wuz.”
-
-Anyway, we found in the town-hall his bones wuz nothin’ but dust.
-Josiah kinder sheered away from the box where they wuz kep’, but
-nothin’ took place and ensued.
-
-The cathedral is a sight--a sight. I felt a good deal as I stood under
-its walls as a ant would feel if she wuz sot down under Bunker Hill
-Monument. And inside the buildin’ my emotions wuz still more various
-and lofty. The interior is exquisite, grand beyend any idee almost,
-and the proportions are so perfect, the harmony of it affects one a
-good deal as the most melogious music would, and the colorin’ is jest
-as perfect as the architecture. Take it all in all, it is a sight--a
-sight. Even Josiah wuz affected by it; his local pride wuz lowered
-imperceptibly, and sez he--
-
-“I’ve cracked up the Jonesville meetin’-house everywhere I’ve been, and
-it is a comogious structure, but this goes ahead on’t, and I will own
-up that it duz.”
-
-Martin sed, “I’m glad I’ve been here; a good many of my friends have
-spoken of it to me. I shall be glad to say that I have studied this
-much-talked-of cathedral at length.”
-
-We wuz there about half a hour.
-
-Al Faizi showed in his ardent face, lifted in reverence and admirin’
-or, jest how he felt about it. The lights from the stained-glass winder
-gleamed on’t, and made it look almost inspired. He nor I didn’t seem
-to want to talk much about it. I never do when I see Niagara. No, I’m
-willin’ to let that do the talkin’ to my rapt soul.
-
-It wuz so here. When I stood in these cathedrals, the grandeur and
-might of their silent oratory preached to me so loud that I wuz almost
-overwhelmed and by the side of myself, and carried some distance by the
-power of the sperit that carried out these grand results.
-
-But anon, when I got outside, other emotions got into my sperit; they
-come in onbid, and I had to use ’em well.
-
-I thought how on great days the congregation who meet here would
-worship God all day and wave banners and anon fire cannons in honor of
-some saint or other, and then end up with a bull-fight.
-
-Jest as if Josiah and Deacon Bobbett should pass the Holy Communion,
-bread and wine, and then withdraw into the horse-shed, and have a dog
-or rooster fight.
-
-It took off a number of my soarin’ emotions to think on’t, probble as
-many as 80 or 85. I had had over a hundred right along--I know I had.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIV.
-
-JOSIAH’S DEVOTION.
-
-
-Wall, another day we went to see the Carthusian Monastery, founded
-four hundred years ago by Queen Isabella--Christopher Columbuses
-Isabella--the intimate friend of America (owin’ to jewelry, discovery,
-etc.).
-
-Josiah and I thought we would branch out this day and go alone, so he
-secured the gayest-lookin’ rig he could find, drawed by three mules
-hitched side by side. It attracted all the beggars in town, so they
-follered us as a dog with a bone is follered by other dogs.
-
-But Josiah took it as a tribute to our style, and he leaned back in
-perfect delight, and sez he, a-wavin’ his hand with a kind of hauty
-wave--
-
-“Drive by Alameda!”
-
-Come to find out the reasons he gin his orders wuz he’d heard Alameda
-talked about, and he thought she wuz a woman, and mebby a American, and
-he wanted to show off before her.
-
-But it wuzn’t a woman. It wuz a pretty park, and we driv along and
-crost the river, and went through a long avenue of ellum trees each
-side on’t, and anon we found ourselves on top of a noble hill in front
-of a Monastery.
-
-Here we rung the bell at a gate for admission, and a small grated
-winder wuz opened and a man’s face appeared with a dark-colored
-nightcap on.
-
-He asked if there wuz wimmen in the party. If there wuz we couldn’t
-come in.
-
-I guess he wuz fraxious, bein’ waked up sudden. I jedged from his
-nightcap. But little did I think it would have sech a effect on my
-pardner.
-
-He could not at first comprehend the indignity offered to his beloved
-pardner. But the driver repeated it; sez he--
-
-“The Friar says you can come in, but no woman could be admitted.”
-
-Then I see the power of cast-iron devotion made harder by the hammers
-of Joy and Sorrer a-hammerin’ down on the anvil of Time. That noble but
-too hasty man riz right up in the vehicle and shook his fist at the man
-with the nightcap, and hollered out--
-
-“I’ll give that fryer a piece of my mind!” and before I interfered he
-yelled out:
-
-“You may keep right on with your fryin’; I won’t stir a step inside if
-Samantha can’t come too. I’ll let you know that any place that’s too
-good for her is too good for me. Keep right on with your fryin’, your
-bull beef will probble spile if it hain’t cooked!”
-
-I ketched him by his vest, and sez I: “Pause, Josiah Allen. He hain’t a
-cook; it is a F-r-i-a-r.”
-
-“How do you spoze I care how you spell it? You can spell their
-bull-fights b-o-u-l if you want to; that don’t hender ’em from havin’
-to take care of their fresh beef. Keep right on a-fryin’!” sez he in
-bitter mockery. “My Samantha hain’t probble good enough to see a little
-beef a-fryin’; but,” sez he, waxin’ eloquent, as, animated by the power
-of love, he stood up nobly for me--
-
-“You can fry all day and think you go ahead of any woman, and be too
-proud to let ’em see you at it; but Samantha’s cookin’ is as fur ahead
-of yours as the United States is bigger than Spain. And I’d ruther have
-one of Samantha’s steaks that she cooks than all the beef that you ever
-killed at your dum bull-fights. And don’t you forgit it!” he hollered,
-as the driver drove away by my almost frenzied directions.
-
-He sunk back exhausted on his seat as we swep’ on. And you can jedge of
-his agitation when I say that he threw out three copper cents all to
-one time to the swarm of ragged beggars that run along by the side of
-the carriage. He threw ’em out mekanically, and as if he didn’t know
-what he wuz about. Ah! the insult to me rankled deep in his noble but
-small-sized frame. He didn’t git over it all that night. I always knew
-he loved me deeply--I knew it in Jonesville, and I knew it in Spain.
-But oh! how touchin’ the proof wuz that he gin to me as his voice rung
-out in the vast, lonesome bareness of our chamber in Bruges, Spain, as
-he lifted his hand in mockery, and cried out:
-
-“Keep right on with your fryin’; you won’t git me to eat a mou’ful
-while Samantha is hungry!”
-
-Oh, the power of love! How it gilds with its rosy rays the quiet ways
-of Jonesville! How it still shone on and shed its ambient light in a
-foreign land! But I gently hunched him and woke him up, for I see it
-wuz endin’ in nightmair.
-
-I wuz too overcome by a deep sense of his nobility of sentiment in my
-behaff to argy with him that day. I felt that it would be ongrateful in
-me; and then, agin, I felt that he wuz too overcome by the greatness of
-his emotions--I knew his frame wuz but small, and his devoted affection
-and his righteous anger mighty. I dassent add another single emotion
-to them he wuz already a-carryin’--no, I dassent venter. But I talked
-soothin’ly all the evenin’, and said not a upbraidin’ word when his
-nightmair snorted and waked me up with its prancin’ huffs.
-
-No; I, too, am a devoted pardner, and know when to talk and when to
-keep silence. That is a great nack for pardners to learn--one of the
-greatest and most neccessary.
-
-But the next mornin’, when all wuz calm, and a not knowin’ how fur his
-emotions might lead him agin into twittin’ them Spaniards about their
-national custom of bull-fights, etc., and fearin’ he might git into
-serous trouble by it when I wuz not near to soothe and assuage the
-ragin’ tumult, I sez--
-
-“Josiah, you made a mistake yesterday; that man in the nightcap wuzn’t
-a-fryin’ the beef slaughtered in their bull-fights. They don’t eat
-that; why,” sez I, “sech mad beef wouldn’t be fit to eat--it would make
-’em sick.”
-
-“Wall, don’t they look sick?” sez he; “a little, under-sized, saller
-set, caused almost entirely,” sez he, “by eatin’ that beef.”
-
-Wall, I see that I couldn’t change his mind, and I sez--
-
-“Wall, anyway, they’re about the politest creeters I ever see, and how
-soft and melogious their voices are! Their words seem as soft as velvet
-and silk.”
-
-“Yes,” sez he; “if they wuz a-goin’ to spell ‘cat’ or ‘dog,’ they would
-pronounce it c-a-t, cattah, or d-o-g, doggah,” sez he. “I’m kinder sick
-on’t, but most probble they can’t help it--it is caused by their diet;
-and,” sez he, lookin’ wise--
-
-“That bull beef hain’t the worst on’t. Don’t history tell of that Diet
-of Worms that they wanted Martin Luther to partake on and he wouldn’t?”
-
-Sez I, “Josiah, that wuz the name of the meetin’ he wuz dragged before.”
-
-Sez he, “I take history or the Bible as it reads, and I know I have
-read a sight of that Diet they couldn’t git Martin to jine in with ’em
-and partake of.”
-
-Mekanically I disputed him, for my thoughts wuzn’t there. No, as I
-thought on’t, the form of my companion a-tyin’ his necktie before the
-small lookin’-glass, and a-tryin’ to edify me, faded away, and I seemed
-to look back through the centuries and see that brave Monk a-standin’
-up for the Holy Truth, revealed to him in his cloister, as it has been
-through all time revealed to chosen, prophetic souls. I seemed to see
-the angry-faced assemblage surroundin’ him. The cold, gloomy face of
-Charles V., King of Spain and Emperor of Germany, a-lookin’ frownin’ly
-on him as he pleaded for liberty and conscience. And I seemed to hear
-Luther’s voice say the words that have echoed down through all these
-centuries and are a-echoin’ still:
-
-“Here I take my stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me!”
-
-But anon the voice of my pardner drawed me back down the long aisle of
-the years wet with blood, black with the Inquisition, with little oases
-of Peace scattered along, shinin’ through the lurid battle clouds.
-
-His voice rousted me as it sed, “Hain’t you never goin’ to git that
-nightcap off, Samantha? I’m almost starved to death, though what I’m
-goin’ to eat, goodness knows.”
-
-And as I hastily took off my nightcap and wadded up my back hair, he
-resoomed--
-
-“I never wuz any case to eat clear pepper and ginger for any length of
-time, or allspice.” Sez he, “I am slowly wastin’ away, Samantha; I’ll
-bet I weigh five or six ounces less than I did when I left home.” Sez
-he, pitifully, “It seems to me, Samantha, if I could set down once more
-quiet in our own home and eat one of your good breakfusts, I would be
-willin’ to die.”
-
-“Wall,” sez I, “less try to bear up and lot on gittin’ back home agin.”
-Sez I, “One of the noblest fruits of travel, Josiah, is the longin’ it
-gives us to be back home agin and settle down and rest.”
-
-He assented with a deep sithe, and at my request hooked up my dress
-skirt in the back.
-
-[Illustration: At my request he hooked up my dress skirt in the back.]
-
-Wall, knowin’ Martin’s pecular, but, as I found out afterwards, popular
-idees of travel, I didn’t expect to remain long in Spain; but we did
-stay there several days, for, as Martin sed, after comin’ so fur he
-wanted to make a exhaustive study of the country; so we stayed most a
-week.
-
-Wall, so far as exhaustion wuz concerned I felt that we wuz havin’ a
-success, for I wuz as tired as a dog from day to day, and tireder than
-any dogs I ever see from all appearance.
-
-But Martin sed that we would visit Madrid before we left the country,
-for he sed that he wouldn’t want to be asked if he had been to the
-capital of Spain and be obliged to say no. Al Faizi spoke of wantin’
-to see the Alhambra, and I myself, havin’ been introduced to it by
-Washington Irving and my boy, had a sort of a longin’ to explore its
-wonders. But Martin sed that he had studied the Alhambra exhaustively
-at Chicago, and he felt, seein’ he had got all the information that
-could be got on the subject, it wuz useless to prolong our trip by
-goin’ there.
-
-Sez he, “If there was anything new to learn I would go, for it is my
-way to go to the very bottom of things in exploration or discovery;
-but,” sez he, “I spent over half an hour in the Alhambra in Chicago,
-and I have no more to learn.”
-
-I had been in that place myself, and had got lost, and felt like a fool
-there. I remembered well how I roamed through them curous labrinths,
-and had been brought up standin’ in front of myself repeatedly, and had
-bowed to myself real polite, thinkin’ that I recognized some familar
-form from Jonesville.
-
-And there it wuz myself, in one of them countless lookin’-glasses. I
-felt cheaper than dirt.
-
-Sometimes I would think it wuz two or three somebody elses, and I’d
-wonder how so many other wimmen could look so much like me as these
-several ones did, a-appearin’ right up in front and on both sides of me.
-
-Only I would always give up every time that there didn’t none on ’em
-look nigh so well as I did. They didn’t somehow have sech a noble
-look to ’em, and their clothes didn’t hang so well as mine did, and
-their bunnet strings wuz more rumpled up, and their front hair wuzn’t
-so smooth, and they looked fur more tired out than I ever looked, and
-bewildered like, and kinder wan.
-
-Yes, I’d been through them labrinths. I had enough of Moorish palaces
-by the time I got out, a plenty.
-
-And if, as Martin sed, there wuz nothin’ more to see in Grenada, I
-didn’t care a cent to go. And I thought more’n as like as not I should
-lose Josiah in a labrinth--lose him for good and all.
-
-So I gin a willin’ consent to proceed onwards to Madrid. The children
-wuz willin’ to go anywhere, and so wuz Al Faizi, for, as he sed to me:
-
-“Truth makes her home in all lands. I seek the light of her face under
-every sky.”
-
-And, poor creeter! not findin’ it time and agin, I’m afraid. Though
-in our long talks about this country, which in tryin’ to stomp out
-Protestantism, had stomped out her own life; and in tryin’ to drownd
-out Religion in the blood of her saints, had drownded out her own
-civilization and progress--
-
-Al Faizi and I talked this all over, but took comfort in thinkin’,
-after all, that good can be found in every country by them that seek
-her benine face. We took sights of comfort in talkin’ back and forth
-about the Archbishop of Grenada, and his self-sacrificin’, heroic
-doin’s in the great cholera plague of 1885.
-
-No Methodist could have done any better than he did, no deacon or
-minister or anybody. I d’no as John Wesley could have come up to it.
-
-Wall, as I sed, I felt well to think that we had saved a journey to
-Grenada, though I had kinder lotted on walkin’ under the Gate of
-Jestice that I knew had to be gone through to visit the Alhambra. But I
-sort o’ comforted myself by the thought that mebby it wuz only a name,
-after all.
-
-I got real soothed for my dissapintment in not walkin’ through it by
-thinkin’ of our own Halls of Jestice, and a-meditatin’ that Jestice
-never sot her foot in ’em from one year’s end to the other, as nigh as
-I could find out.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXV.
-
-THE QUEEN, ULALEY, AND A BULL-FIGHT.
-
-
-Wall, we had a very fatiguin’ journey, durin’ which I will pass
-over the sufferin’s of my pardner from the hot, dry climate, the
-ever-present pangs of hunger, that wuz always with him, and the
-fraxiousness, that, alas! always overcomes him at sech tuckerin’ times.
-
-I will draw a curtain of cretonne over the incidents of our tegus,
-tegus journey, and only draw it back agin, on its hot, dry, brass
-rings, when we are once more settled down in a middlin’ good tarvern
-at Madrid--I a-settin’ by the winder and Josiah a-layin’ on the bed
-fast asleep, the dressin’-gown folded lovin’ly round his small-boneded
-figger.
-
-Martin and the children and Al Faizi went out a good deal to see all
-the strange, new sights of the Spanish capitol.
-
-But I took considerable comfort a-settin’ still in as comfortable a
-chair as I could find, a-lookin’ down on the Spaniards and their kinder
-queer-lookin’ housen, and the strange costooms and ways of another
-country--
-
-The tall, hauty-lookin’ Dons a-walkin’ along as if the ground wuzn’t
-quite good enough for ’em to walk on, and the dark-eyed wimmen, and
-the children, and the beggars, and the splendid carriages, some on ’em
-drawed by six horses apiece, and their harnesses all glitterin’ with
-gold, and the humbler vehicles drawed by mules, and these mules trimmed
-off beautiful, too, and, etc., etc., etc.
-
-Wall, it wuz on the third day after we arrov in Madrid, and I wuz
-a-walkin’ in the Public Garden with little Adrian and my Josiah, when,
-on turnin’ the corner of a leafy avenue, who should I see, right face
-to face a-comin’ towards me, but my intimate friend, Ulaley.
-
-I wuz tickled most to death. It is always happifyin’ in a strange and
-foreign country to meet anybody you’re intimate with, and when that
-friend is a Infanty, and one you’ve advised and neighbored with, your
-happiness is still greater.
-
-[Illustration: She knowed me to once--a happy smile curved her pretty
-lips.]
-
-I advanced and held out my hand, my Josiah and Adrian a-bringin’ up my
-rear. She knowed me to once--a happy smile curved her pretty lips, and
-sez she--
-
-“Madam, I’m pleased to meet you. I remember seein’ you in your own
-country.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I, “we met in Chicago, Ill., and had a first-rate visit
-there.” Sez I, “How have you been ever sence I see you, and how is all
-your folks? How is Antonio?” Sez I, “Did he git through the winter all
-right? Sickness and the grip has been round lots, and if it has spared
-our two pardners we ort to be thankful. And that makes me think,” sez
-I, “let me introduce my pardner, Josiah Allen.
-
-“Josiah,” sez I, “this is the Infanty--Ulaley, you’ve hearn me speak
-on.”
-
-Josiah made his best and lowest bow, and murmured sunthin’ about havin’
-read about her in the _World_.
-
-“Yes,” sez I, “and you’ve hearn me talk about her a sight.”
-
-But he had a sort of a obstinate streak come over him, sech as pardners
-will have in the strangest and most onconvenient times, and he never
-assented to that at all, but sed agin that he had read about her in the
-_World_.
-
-And I had to let it go. Truly, pardners, though agreeable at times,
-yet how clost do they clip off the wings of your pride and ambition at
-other and more various times!
-
-Ulaley see it. Wimmen know only too well how often sech _contrarytemps_
-occurs, and she helped me out, as I’ve helped many a woman out of the
-mud-puddle of embarrassment a pardner’s words have throwed her into.
-
-Sez she, “I have such warm recollections of your country--it is so
-great a country,” sez she.
-
-“Yes,” sez I, “our country is a middlin’ big one, but I thought I
-wouldn’t speak of the size on’t to you, Ulaley, thinkin’ that you might
-think mebby that I’d come over here to kinder twit you of the smallness
-of yourn.” And wantin’ to be real polite, sez I--
-
-“The value of anything don’t always depend on its size.”
-
-“No, indeed!” sez Josiah.
-
-He wuz alludin’ to his own small weight by the steelyards. But I
-waved off his speech--I felt quite cool towards him, about as cool as
-rain-water, and I wouldn’t fall in with his hint and gin him my usual
-compliment.
-
-Wall, jest as the Infanty and I wuz a-talkin’ back and forth, a woman
-and a little boy, who had been a-lingerin’ a little behind, come
-up, and I see in a minute who they wuz; and though I’m bashful by
-nater--very, yet knowin’ that I had the honor and politeness of my own
-country and Jonesville to uphold, I advanced towards her in a very
-admirin’, respectful way.
-
-Yes, I see it wuz the Queen Regent and little Alfonso himself. I wuz
-tickled, and still hampered, by the duties that devolved onto me, but
-above all of my emotions riz the thought of how glad I wuz to meet ’em,
-and how glad they would be afterwards a-thinkin’ it over to think that
-they had a chance to meet me.
-
-Ulaley didn’t make no move to introduce us. And I see in a minute how
-it wuz. There wuz the Queen pardnerless and alone, there wuz I with my
-livin’ pardner; it would roust up too many sad memories to bring us all
-closter to each other.
-
-But she’d no need to hesitated on that account; I could have told the
-Queen that though a pardnerless state had its trials, havin’ a pardner
-brings afflictions also--Heaven knows it duz!
-
-But I see how it wuz, and havin’ the sole glory of Jonesville and
-America in my eyes, I advanced forwards with quite a lot of dignity and
-made a deep curchy.
-
-I took holt of each side of my brown alpaca dress and held out the
-skirt a very little. They wuz good curchys, and I made about three
-on ’em--two to the Queen Regent and one to Alfonso. I thought one wuz
-about right for him, considerin’ his age.
-
-I then advanced and held out my hand, and sez I--“I am glad to meet
-you, Julia, and tell you how well I think on you.” Sez I, “A young
-woman who has done as well as you have with what you have had to do
-with deserves to be encouraged, and I’m glad to encourage you.”
-
-She looked awful surprised at my good manners and politeness; she bowed
-her head in almost dumbfounder, as I could see, and I went on--
-
-“You’ve had a hard time on’t, Julia--real hard. It’s always hard
-to leave your own folks when you’re married and go and live with
-his folks, and I presoom you’ve had days when you thought his folks
-didn’t treat you well--it is nateral. And I presoom he cut up more or
-less--pardners will. And you, fur away from your own folks, made the
-cuttin’ up and actin’ seem worse. I persoom you’ve had days when you
-would have willin’ly swapped off five or six Spanish palaces for one
-free, onfettered hour beyend the Alps. And you would have willin’ly
-swapped the most flatterin’ words addressed to you in a strange tongue
-to listen to the swashin’ waves of the blue Danube, the ripplin’ waves
-that beat up agin the shores of home--you had a real hard time.
-
-“And then, to cap all, your pardner wuz took from you, before even
-the catnip wuz put to steepin’--before his baby’s eyes could look any
-comfort into yours. Poor creeter! what a hard time on’t you did have.
-
-“But when the baby wuz born, he brung a new life to you--you see your
-dead-and-gone pardner’s first tender love a-shinin’ through the little
-face, all the passion and dross and dissapintment of a pardner’s love
-filtered through the divine and satisfyin’ sweetness of a child’s love.
-
-“Oh, he has made life and Spain different things to you, and you’ve
-sprunted up and done well--you’ve done first rate! You are a-bringin’
-up little Alfonso jest as well as I could, and I d’no but better, for,
-bein’ younger, you can git round spryer and find out new things to
-teach him. His little hands, too, have drawed you and Spain nigher to
-each other; you think as much agin of each other as you ust to, and I’m
-glad on’t.
-
-“And how do you do?” sez I, a-holdin’ out my hand to little Alfonso.
-
-Sez I, “Are you pretty well, Bub?”
-
-He answered real pretty, and I then and there introduced little Adrian
-to him, and I sez--
-
-“I wish I had both of you children to Jonesville for a month in
-strawberry time or blackberry time--it would do you both lots of good.”
-And I sez to his ma--
-
-“It seems to me he looks ruther pimpin’; have you gin him any smartweed
-lately?” Sez I, “A syrup of smartweed and catnip, half and half,
-sweetened with honey, would set him right up agin, and if you’d like
-to try it, I will write and have Philury send you over a bundle of the
-herbs.”
-
-She hesitated--I see she felt a delicacy about makin’ me so much
-trouble.
-
-But I sez, “It won’t be no trouble at all--we’ve got more’n a floursack
-full up in the woodhouse chamber.”
-
-She didn’t reply, but still looked sort o’ wonderin’ and queer.
-
-And I sez--“I will write to-day to Philury to send you a paper bag
-full of the herbs, and a handful of spignut--that is dretful good for
-a cold, if he happens to git one, and boys will, goin’ barefooted and
-actin’.” Sez I, “Pour bilein’ water on ’em, and let ’em stand, and be
-sure the water biles.”
-
-But at this minute their carriage driv up--they’d been a-walkin’ for
-exercise, I guess. And though I presoom they hated to leave me--hated
-to like dogs, they had to tear themselves away.
-
-But they bowed real polite to me, and Ulaley held out her hand and
-shook hands. The Queen wuz busy with the little boy, but they both
-bowed real polite after they got into the carriage. And then they driv
-off.
-
-The carriage wuzn’t nigh so showy as some we see, and the Queen Regent
-wuz dressed real plain.
-
-I believe she’s a real likely woman, and if anything happens to her,
-and she should lose her property, I’d love to have her come and settle
-down in Jonesville--I’d love to neighbor with her first rate.
-
-But I truly hope she won’t never have to make the move--I hope the
-little King will have his Pa’s good nater, and his Ma’s good sense and
-Christian sperit, and that Spain and he won’t have no fallin’ out, but
-do well by each other.
-
-Wall, Martin and Alice went to a bull-fight. I waved off coldly
-Martin’s request to accompany and go with ’em, though Josiah wuz, for a
-minute, rampant to go.
-
-But I didn’t encourage him in it.
-
-He sez it would be sunthin’ to talk over with Ury and Deacon Bobbett
-when I got home.
-
-This wuz his best argument, and I sez, “If I couldn’t talk over
-anything but this I wouldn’t talk at all. The idee,” sez I, “of human
-bein’s with hearts in their bosoms a-settin’ to see a wild animal kill
-a human bein’, and visey versey.” Sez I, “If I should see it goin’ on I
-should be so shamed on’t that I shouldn’t want to speak agin at all for
-some time.”
-
-But sez Josiah, “It’s a national recreation; it’s fascinatin’; probble
-you’d like it.”
-
-“Mebby,” sez I; “mebby my heart would git so hard that I could enjoy
-it--I, that in days of pig and beef killin’ have always run into the
-parlor bedroom and put my fingers in my ears to escape the sounds of
-agony the poor brutes make.” Sez I, “Spozen if in them days I should
-invite the minister and his folks and the Jonesvillians, and have high
-seats built up aginst the side of the barn, and let ’em witness the
-gory spectacle?”
-
-[Illustration: The Matador.]
-
-Josiah sot a minute in deep thought. “Wall,” sez he, “I’ll be hanged if
-it wouldn’t be stylish. You could drape some turkey-red calico over the
-top, kinder canopy style, and I and Ury could dress like them Spanish
-Matadors with knee-breeches and a long sash, and some feathers in our
-hats.”
-
-Sez he, growin’ enthused with the new idee, “We could use our winter
-scarfs--they’re very gay colored; and I could take that long feather
-out of your winter bunnet, and have it hang down gracefully over my
-left shoulder, and I guess Tirzah Ann would lend me a couple to stand
-up in front. I declare, it would be sunthin’ new and uneek, and we’ll
-have it next fall.”
-
-I glared at him with a stuny look, and sez I--“And while you’re all
-dressed up and enjoyin’ yourself, what of the poor dumb brutes who
-are made to suffer the agony of death?” Sez I, “What happiness could
-come to you built up on a custom of pain and sufferin’, bloodshed and
-terrer? Let me hear no more about sech a seen.”
-
-“But,” sez he, “it would make talk; it would be the topic in all the
-genteel circles of Jonesville and Loontown.”
-
-“If you should brain me with a tommyhawk it would make talk,” sez I.
-
-[Illustration: His Victim.]
-
-“The idee of your follerin’ sech a custom as this. I scorn and despise
-sech doin’s, and I don’t see what a nation can be thinkin’ on to allow
-it to go on.”
-
-Al Faizi writ down quite a lot in that book of hisen about the
-bull-fightin’, and he seemed to be lookin’ for a peticular page to jot
-down his notes.
-
-And Josiah sez (he hain’t no scruples about questionin’ the noble
-heathen), sez he, “What are you lookin’ for, Fazer?”
-
-He sez calmly, “I am looking for the page where I wrote down the doings
-of John Sullivan and other American prize-fighters. I wish to put
-public exhibitions of this nature together.”
-
-His tone wuz as calm and serene as a cool afternoon in June. He hadn’t
-a shade of sarcasm or irony in his axent; no, he simply grouped similar
-occurrences together.
-
-And where wuz my feathers that had stood up hautily on my foretop
-as I condemned another country’s doin’s and cuttin’s up? Where wuz
-they? They wuz droopin’ and hangin’ down limp on my foretop as I sot
-and meditated how we in America allowed prize-fighters to knock and
-bruise and maim each other in public for the delight of the throngin’
-multitude. Then fill hull sides of our American newspapers with
-minute details of their punchin’ and knockin’ down and actin’, for
-the eyes of our youth to peruse and emulate. Deeds of religion and
-science and philanthropy all pushed into the background, amongst the
-advertisements, while the papers were flooded with the deeds of men
-fighters and men killers.
-
-The idee! What wuz I, to talk about the doin’s of Spain or the doin’s
-of a Josiah, and look down on ’em? Truly, folks who live in glass
-housen mustn’t throw stuns; how many, many times I realized this deep
-truth when I witnessed doin’s I didn’t like in foreign countries!
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVI.
-
-A SPANISH FUNERAL AND A JONESVILLE ONE.
-
-
-While we wuz in Madrid we felt that we ort to anyway visit the
-Escuriel, that immense palace and monastery built by Philip II. He got
-skairt, so I wuz told, and made a vow to St. Lawrence (it wuz on that
-saint’s day) that if Lawrence would help him git the victory, he would
-build a monastery and name it after him. So havin’ won the victory,
-he did as he agreed. He built this immense structure; it took him
-twenty-one years to do it. Out of compliment to Lawrence, who perished
-on a gridiron, it wuz built in that form.
-
-I hearn Josiah a-explainin’ it that day. Sez he, “It wuz built in the
-form of a gridiron because that is the best way of cookin’ beef.” Sez
-he, “After their bull-fights they have immense quantities of beef, so
-this takes its shape from that national characterestick.”
-
-But it hain’t no sech thing--he gits things wrong.
-
-Wall, it wouldn’t took us but a little while to git to the Escuriel if
-the train had sprunted up and gone as fast as an American hand-car.
-
-
-But we crept along so slow that it took us three hours. Before we got
-there we see the buildin’ loomin’ up so vast, so gloomy, that it looked
-like a mountain itself--a low, big mountain without much of a peak to
-it.
-
-We had to approach it with some dignity, it bein’ a royal palace,
-so we got into a big covered omnibus, drawed by four mules and two
-horses. Though what peticular dignity there is in a mule I never see
-before, unless it is in their ears. But we got there all right, the
-driver a-yellin’ and whippin’ the mules as if he wuz crazy. If you want
-beauty, you won’t git it in the Escuriel, but if you want size, there
-you are suited. It takes up as much room as one of the pyramids; it has
-two thousand rooms in it and five thousand winders, and the winders
-wuzn’t very thick together, neither.
-
-There is a big meetin’-house in it, a palace and a monastery and a
-Pantheon, where the dead kings and mothers of kings sleep and forgit
-the troublesome days when they sot on thrones, and worried about their
-children who wuz settin’.
-
-This meetin’-house is grand and imposin’; you can look down inside a
-long, clear space of four hundred feet. Then there is a library, one of
-the finest in Spain, and picters that are dretful impressive in number
-and beauty. We wanted to see the private room of Philip II., and so we
-wuz led up grand staircases and through apartment after apartment hung
-with the costliest tapestry.
-
-And havin’ seen sech glory on the outside, what did we imagine must be
-the splendor of the inner room, sacred to his majesty, where he sat
-alone and sent out orders that ruled half or three quarters of the
-world.
-
-Wall, I d’no as you’ll believe me when I say the floor wuz brick--not
-even a strip of rag carpet on’t, sech as I spread down often in my back
-kitchen.
-
-Poor creeter! I’d gin him a breadth of my best hit-or-miss carpet in
-welcome if I’d lived in his day, and known how cold his feet must have
-been as he stepped out of bed cold mornin’s onto that hard brick floor.
-
-[Illustration: How cold his feet must have been cold mornin’s.]
-
-And there wuzn’t a picter on the walls--not one, only a picter of the
-Virgin.
-
-I’d a-gin him one of my chromos in welcome. I had two throwed in at
-Jonesville with the last chocolate calico dress I bought.
-
-He should have had one on ’em, and I’d a-gin ’em both to him if it
-would a-made that gloomy, mysterious creeter any happier; and most
-probble they would have had their influence--they wuz very bright
-colored.
-
-One hard wood chair and two stools wuz the only settin’ accommodations
-he had. I’d made him a barrell chair, if I’d been there; if he’d wanted
-to go in for cheapness, that would have suited him. Saw a seat out of
-an old salt barrell and cushion it with a old bed-quilt and cover it
-with cretonne.
-
-He could a-sot easy in it. Poor creeter! it made me feel bad to think
-he always sot on that hard board chair--not a sign of a cushion in
-it. I could have made a good cushion for it anyway out of hens’
-feathers. And mebby he wouldn’t been so hard on the nations if he’d sot
-easier--it makes a sight of difference. Josiah wuz as hard agin on Ury
-when he had a bile on his back, and couldn’t set easy. I didn’t know
-but Ury would leave.
-
-Wall, Philip lived here fourteen years, and when he come to die, he
-died hard, so they say. Mebby the oceans of blood he had caused to be
-shed kinder swashed up aginst his conscience; if it did, I hope the
-prayers he had knelt on the hard floor and prayed all night long sort o’
-lifted him up some.
-
-Queer creeter! strange and mysterious doin’s! A-prayin’ and a-fastin’
-and a-killin’, a-prayin’ and a-killin’ and a-fastin’! I am glad I
-hain’t got to straighten out the dark and tangled skein of his life
-and git the threads a-runnin’ even, and sort out the black threads and
-the lighter ones and count ’em.
-
-No, it takes a bigger hand than mine to hold ’em, and a eye that looks
-deeper into the soul of things.
-
-Wall, when he wuz dead at last they laid him in the Pantheon. We
-visited the spot. We went down first into the big, eight-sided room, a
-sort of annex, where princes and princesses lay, and then we went down
-a long flight of steps with walls of jasper, into the room where kings
-and queens lay asleep.
-
-This is a smaller room, but eight-sided, like the other. The dead lay
-in black marble coffins, piled up on top of the other, the kings to
-the right, the queens to the left. Wimmen have to take the second-best
-place even down there in the grave, but then they wuz in a condition
-where they couldn’t argy about it, and where it wouldn’t hurt their
-feelin’s.
-
-It must have been a sight to see a king buried. No funeral in
-Jonesville ever approached it in solemnity or mystery.
-
-You know they don’t give up that a king is dead till they go through
-with certain performances, but they treat the dead body with all the
-honor that they would give the livin’ monarch. When the procession gits
-up to the door, the new-comer has to be announced.
-
-A voice sez, “Who would enter here?”
-
-They reply, “King Philip.”
-
-Then the door is thrown open, and all the long, illustrious procession
-of the noblest in the land enter, and they lay the body of the king on
-a table, for he has got to give his own consent, as it were, before
-they will admit that he is dead--silence gives consent, they say.
-
-So after all are gone the Lord Chamberlain lifts the heavey,
-gold-embroidered pall, and kneelin’ down by the side of his royal
-master, looks long in his face to see if he recognizes him. But he
-don’t. He lays cold and still as marble.
-
-Then he cries, “Señor! Señor! Señor!” and waits for a reply. But as no
-answer comes, he sez--
-
-“His Majesty does not answer! then indeed the king is dead!”
-
-So he takes the wand of office--the septer, I spoze--and breaks it over
-the coffin in token of a power that has ceased to be. Then he locks the
-marble coffin, hands the key to the Prior of the Monastery, and they go
-up the long steps and leave the king to sleep with his own folks.
-
-It must have been a sight to see it go on.
-
-Why, a mourner who undertook sech doin’s in Jonesville or Loontown
-would find himself lugged off to the loonatick asylum, or have threats
-on’t. But the ways of countries differ--I didn’t make any moves to
-break it up. I am very liberal minded, and then I meditated that it
-wuzn’t my funeral.
-
-What made me say that a mourner in Jonesville couldn’t do sech a thing
-wuz owin’ to a incident that came under my own observation.
-
-A man that lived in the outskirts of Jonesville, havin’ moved down
-there from Zoar, got it into his head that he wuz goin’ to die on a
-certain day at two o’clock in the afternoon.
-
-So what should that creeter do but write his own funeral sermon, and
-gin out the word that he would preach it at one o’clock sharp. Because
-he wuz to die at two precisely.
-
-He got his coffin made, his wife got her mournin’ clothes all done,
-for he wuz so dead sure of the result that he had converted her to his
-belief. So at one o’clock exactly the crowd gathered to see the corpse,
-as you may say, preach its own funeral sermon.
-
-The coffin wuz in the parlor, the mourners come down from upstairs,
-some on ’em weepin’ bitterly, and headed by the body, dressed in its
-shroud, bearin’ its own funeral sermon.
-
-The mourners wuz arranged in orderly rows round the room (he wuz wide
-connected), and the body stood by the head of the coffin and preached a
-long sermon.
-
-He touched on the sins of his hearers, and of course they couldn’t
-resent it in him, bein’ a corpse’s last thoughts, as you may say.
-
-He bore down hard on ’em, specially his relations--the more distant
-ones, cousins and sech, and kinder rubbed up his bretheren and sistern
-some.
-
-But to his wife he spoke words of tenderness, and in a touchin’ and
-fervent manner spoke of what she had lost. He praised himself up to the
-highest notch, and his wife sobbed out loud, and she had to be fanned
-on both sides by a circuit minister and his wife, who wuz present; and
-she sed to ’em that she had never mistrusted before what a prize she
-had in her pardner.
-
-He then warned his children to grow up as nigh like their father as
-they could conveniently, and he got ’em to sniffin’ and wipin’ their
-noses. He then addressed the community, tellin’ ’em of their sinful
-ways, and exhorted ’em to turn round and do better, and sed to ’em a
-few words of consolation about the great blessin’ they had lost.
-
-And then he folded his shroud around him with one hand, and with quite
-a lot of dignity he stepped up into a chair, and so into his coffin.
-Then he laid down, arranged the folds of his shroud and crossed his
-hands on his bosom and shet his eyes up. As he did so the clock struck
-two. He laid a minute, while a dumbfoundered look swep’ over his
-liniment, and anon a sheepish one. And then he lifted up his head and
-looked round, and sez he--
-
-“There must be some mistake.”
-
-And one of the cousins, one he had rasped down the hardest (they wuz at
-swords’ pints anyway, caused by line fences), he hollered out--
-
-“Yes, I should think there wuz, you dum fool you! gittin’ us all here
-right in hayin’ time to hear your dum funeral sermon.”
-
-And another one he had reviled yelled out--
-
-“Why didn’t you do as you agreed, you consarned loonatick, you!”
-
-And still another cried--“We’ll have the law on you for this! You
-agreed to die, and we all got together for that purpose, and we’ll see
-if we’re goin’ to be bamboozled and fooled in this way. It is all a
-contrived plan to abuse us and make fun on us. But I’ll see if I can’t
-make you sick of sech dum nonsense,” sez he. And he rushed for the
-live body with sech vengeance in his eyes and a wooden stool in his
-hand that the body’s wife precipitated herself onto the coffin, and sez
-she--
-
-“I will perish with this noble man, if die he must” (you see he’d
-worked her all up about his worth).
-
-Wall, suffice it to say, the cousin wuz overmastered, and etiket
-prevailed, and decorum wuz established, and the crowd dispersed,
-leavin’ him still in his coffin, for he sed he wuz tired, and would lay
-there for a spell.
-
-I believe he wuz ’fraid to git out. It kinder protected his lims and
-body. But then mebby he told the truth; the sermon wuz a powerful one,
-and delivered loud--it must have used up considerable wind.
-
-Wall, they talked hard of sendin’ Jake Bilhorn to the asylum. He
-escaped it jest by the skin of his teeth, as the sayin’ is. His wife
-testified to the last minute that his mind wuz weak, and he couldn’t
-help it. But she would watch him, she sed, and take care on him. So it
-wuz agreed that he should be let off on the Idiot Act, and she promised
-to let him go to the loonatick asylum if he ever tried to git up any
-sech performance agin.
-
-But I am a-eppisodin’, and a-eppisodin’ too fur, too fur.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVII.
-
-AL FAIZI SAYS GOOD-BYE.
-
-
-Wall, the very next day, follerin’ and ensuin’ after our visit to the
-Escuriel, Martin gin orders for the march.
-
-We wuz to git back to London at the rapidest rate possible, and from
-thence embark for home.
-
-Home! sweet sound! No word ever did, or ever can, sound so sweet as
-that word “home” duz hearn on a foreign shore. And though the journey
-seemed long and perilous and full of fatigue and danger, yet Josiah and
-I hearn it with joy.
-
-So after a journey that seems, to look back on’t, like a confused
-dream of wonderful sights, and strange ones, rumatiz, car whistles,
-big hotels, cold beds, dyspeptic food, groans, sithes, beautiful views
-seen from flyin’ trains, talk in a strange language goin’ on round
-me, murmured words from a pardner, better left onsaid, dreams of home
-sot in a frame of foreign seenery, tired eyes and lims, dizzy flyin’
-through space, headache, etc., etc., etc., after this dream we found
-ourselves in London.
-
-We parted with Al Faizi in London. It wuz on the eve of our departure.
-Our tickets reposed in Martin’s vest-pocket, so I spoze, and our ship
-wuz to sail on the morrer.
-
-The lamps wuz lit in our room, and their meller glow lit up the form of
-my companion, clad in his dressin’-gown and layin’ outstretched on the
-couch.
-
-I myself wuz a-rubbin’ my spectacles with shammy-skin.
-
-I see the minute that Al Faizi come in that he looked sort o’ agitated
-and riz up like. And anon I understood the reason--he had come to bid
-us good-bye.
-
-I felt mean--mean as a dog. I hated to have him go, though Common Sense
-told me, and, of course, I didn’t spoze that I could in the common
-nater of things lug round a heathen with me everywhere I went all my
-life; but still I felt bad.
-
-After the first compliments wuz spoke, and he told us that he wuz
-a-goin’, and we told him that we hated to have him go, and, etc., he
-sez:
-
-“I have sought for the ways of love and truth all through these Western
-lands--and now--”
-
-He paused, and only his dark, sad eyes spoke for quite a spell. Finally
-I sez:
-
-“And now?”
-
-“I go back to my own country--I have many things to teach my people.”
-
-“Then you _have_ learnt some good things in my country and on our
-tower?” sez I, glad and proud to hear him say so.
-
-But his soft voice resoomed--“I have to teach them many things--to
-avoid.”
-
-[Illustration: “I go back to my own country--I have many things to
-teach my people--to avoid.”]
-
-I felt deprested agin. “But,” sez I, wantin’ to git some closter view
-of his mind--wantin’ to like a dog, for I hadn’t had, I can truly say,
-any more clear view on’t than if we had lived some milds apart, sez
-I, “you must have seen some things in this land worthy your approvin’
-of--these lofty cathedrals built to the honor of the Lord. To be sure,”
-sez I, “the poor are a-flockin’ round ’em like a herd of freezin’ and
-starvin’ animals. But look at the free schools and the great charities,
-mighty and fur reachin’ in their influence.”
-
-“Yes,” sez Al Faizi, “I have seen some things in your land that I
-will teach them to do. I have seen sweet charities--the sick and
-unfortunate cared for; great free schools; crowds of little children
-helped to better lives.”
-
-“Yes,” sez I, “a great many rich men and wimmen give their money like
-water to help the poor and unfortunate. To be sure,” sez I, “the
-poverty and the crime is caused, most of it, by ourselves, and Uncle
-Sam bein’ so sot on that license business of hisen.” Sez I, “We cause
-the evils we relieve in a great measure--but then--”
-
-I see that Al Faizi wuz a-lookin’ at me with that same calm, sweet
-smile, and I’ll be hanged if it seemed as if I could go on a-drivin’
-them metafors right in front of it. It made me feel curous as a dog,
-and curouser to think on’t.
-
-There it wuz, he a-settin’ right by me, and I couldn’t git a full,
-clear view of what wuz a-goin’ on in his mind, his idees and emotions,
-no more’n I can see the high trees in our orchard in a heavey
-snow-storm.
-
-I spoze I showed my deep chagrin in my face, for he hastened to add:
-
-“Everywhere I see strivings after the Good--the Perfect Life. The
-nations are feeling after God. But I see His truth covered up by a
-network of man-made lies; and shadows of darkness, cast from human
-comprehension, veil and shadow the sweet, just face of the Good. But
-evermore my heart burns within me, and I long for the perfect way.”
-
-Right here my Josiah spoke up in this unappropos moment, and sez:
-
-“I hate to say good-bye, Fazer, but if you ever come up our way from
-Hindoostan, or Egypt, or Africa, or wherever you are a-stayin’, you
-must be sure to stop and stay overnight with us.”
-
-Adrian come in at that minute, and when I told him that Al Faizi was
-a-biddin’ us good-bye, and wuz a-goin’ away, he put both arms around
-his neck and nestled his head aginst him. Al Faizi pressed him clost
-to his heart and bent his head low over him, and when he let him
-go, sunthin’ bright shone amongst the curls and waves of Adrian’s
-gold-brown locks, that Alice loved so well.
-
-Custom and pride makes folks reticent and keep their griefs to
-themselves, but as long as human hearts are made as they be now, they
-will ache. Love’s arrers are sharp winged; when they fly they don’t
-take any note of where they are a-goin’, and the pain is keen and sharp
-when they hit--bittersweet at any time, and sometimes bitter without
-the sweet. The good Lord go with Al Faizi and comfort him, so I sez to
-myself.
-
-He took both of my hands in his little brown ones, and it seemed as if
-he would never let ’em go.
-
-“I will never forget you!” he cried; “you have had for me the kind
-heart and kind deeds of a mother.”
-
-I thought to myself that he might jest as well sed a “sister” while he
-wuz about it, but then I laid it to the excitement of the occasion--I
-wuz excited myself and felt bad. I hated to have him go, and when he
-wuz a-goin’ to let go of my hands I didn’t know. I wuz a-thinkin’ that
-if he offered to kiss me I didn’t know what I should do--it wuzn’t
-nothin’ I wanted, leavin’ Josiah out of the question, but I didn’t know
-what he would take it into his head to do. But he didn’t offer nothin’
-of the kind, which I wuz glad enough on. But he gin my hands a long,
-hard clasp, and sez he:
-
-“Farewell!” And then he let go. He looked bad, sorrerful as death. And
-I sez, onbeknown to me:
-
-“Won’t you wait and bid good-bye to Alice?”
-
-“No,” sez he; “I leave with you my farewell to her. May heaven bless
-her!” sez he.
-
-“Amen!” sez I.
-
-It wuz some as if we wuz to protracted meetin’, only more strange-like,
-and mebby not quite so protracted, but curouser.
-
-Sez I, with a real good axent--“My heart will go with you, Al Faizi;
-I shall think of you when you’re fur away, some as I do of my own
-boy--knowin’ that you are doin’ your best for your own soul, and for
-everybody round you.”
-
-“I go to my own people,” sez he sadly. “Forevermore will I work to help
-them to the right way--help them to understand the teachings of the
-Lord Christ. Nowhere else do I find such a pure religion as His. In my
-own home, far away beyond the dark waters”--and he made that gester of
-his towards the East--“I will work till I die to bring my people to
-know this great love, this mighty King. And there also I will pray that
-your people, too, may follow His teachings, and the people in the great
-countries I have visited with you, that these lands may renounce their
-false ways, and follow His gentle and lovely guidance, and be led into
-His truth. I will give my life for this,” sez he.
-
-His tone wuz sweet and tender. It sounded to me sunthin’ like the
-autumn winds a-rustlin’ the leaves over the grave of the one you love.
-
-I wuz almost a-cryin’, and sez I:
-
-“Shan’t we ever see you agin?”
-
-He pinted upwards, his eyes wuz full of the love and passion of
-devotion, of Christian feelin’.
-
-“We will meet in that great land,” sez he.
-
-I wuz dretful riz up and glad and deprested and sorry all to one time.
-I felt queer.
-
-But Josiah had to holler most the last minute. Sez he, “What are you
-a-goin’ to do with that book of yourn, Fazer?”
-
-“I will use it to help teach my people--to avoid the mistakes of
-civilization.”
-
-Josiah sez, “Good for you, Fazer!”
-
-And I sez, “I always felt that we ort to have missionaries come over
-here to teach us how to behave.”
-
-But his face had no triumph in it--no look of reproach, only that sweet
-smile rested on it that made his face look better than any face I ever
-see, or ever expect to see.
-
-And agin he took my hand in his little brown one; agin he said
-“Farewell,” and he wuz indeed gone.
-
-I didn’t git over it all day.
-
-I felt some as if the meetin’-house to Jonesville should dissapear
-mysteriously, as if sunthin’ good had vanished, and some as if my boy
-Thomas J. should go off out of my sight for some time.
-
-Adrian mourned for him several hours. Alice wuz writin’ a letter home,
-and didn’t hardly seem to know that he wuz gone, and Martin wuz glad, I
-believe. He had never took to him for a minute.
-
-Wall, I will hang up a thick moreen curtain between my readers and the
-voyage homewards.
-
-It needs a thick curtain to hide the fraxious, querilous complaints and
-the actin’s of my pardner, the howlin’s of the wind and waves, and the
-usual discomforts of a sea voyage.
-
-There are times when Heaven knows I wuz glad to hide behind it myself.
-
-Yes, I will cower down behind the thick folds, knowin’ that I am doin’
-the best I can for myself and the world at large. Yes, I will let ’em
-droop down over our voyage through the wild waves, our arrival in our
-own dear native land, our feelin’s when we see the shore we loved dawn
-on us out of the mist, and when we sot our feet on the sile of the
-Continent that wears Jonesville like a pearl of great price on its
-tawny old bosom.
-
-I will also let its thick folds screen us in our partin’ from Martin
-and the children, and our lonely but short journey by our two selves.
-
-And I will only loop that curtain back in graceful folds as we draw
-nigh to Jonesville--Mecca of our hearts’ hopes and love.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVIII.
-
-HOME AGAIN, FROM A FOREIGN SHORE.
-
-
-Jonesville wuz bathed in the rosy hue of sunset when Ury let down the
-bars and we passed up into the lane leadin’ to our dear home--that
-sweet, restful haven, into which Josiah and me truthfully felt that our
-barks would sail in and be moored forever and ever.
-
-Yes, we both felt that nothin’, nothin’ could tempt us agin to spread
-our sails and float out of that blessed Home Harbor.
-
-How soft the light fell onto the white curtains with lace agin’! How
-sweet the rosy glow illumined the piaza and front yard, and how it
-played round the red chimblys and Philury’s collar, as she stood in the
-front stoop to welcome us home! Inside the house wuz all lit up, and
-when we entered, there wuz the children all come to surprise us, and
-welcome us home. They had sent Philury out, like the dove, on the front
-doorstep, while they stayed in the ark to surprise Ma and Pa when we
-come.
-
-[Illustration: They had sent Philury out, like a dove, on the front
-doorstep to meet us.]
-
-Oh, how glad they wuz to see us, and visey versey. Yes, indeed, I
-guess it wuz visey versey--the children and grandchildren almost eat us
-up, and we them.
-
-A beautiful supper wuz a-waitin’ the tired-out travellers. The girls
-had laid to and helped, and it wuz a supper long to be remembered, and
-the children’s and the grandchildren’s demeanors to us wuz as tender
-as the briled chicken and cream biscuit, and the ties of love that
-united us all together wuz as strong as the coffee, and stronger, too,
-and mellered down by our happiness, jest as that wuz with lump-sugar
-and rich cream. And, oh, how good! how good it did feel to be to home!
-Josiah the first thing pulled off his boots and went round in his
-stockin’ feet.
-
-I sez, “Why do you do that, Josiah?”
-
-“Oh, for no reason, only to swing out and do jest as I’m a-mind to.
-After bein’ cramped and hampered for months, I’m a-goin’ to act and
-feel to home, and I’m a-goin’ barefoot for a spell,” sez he, “as soon
-as the children go.”
-
-And, sure enough, he did, for all I could do and say, and he sung
-several pieces while I wuz ondressin’--he sung ’em loud. I remember he
-sung the hull of “Robert Kidd” and “André’s Lament,” besides some hymns.
-
-Sez he, “I’ve been pent up and bound down so long that I’m a-goin’ to
-swing right out and act all I want to.”
-
-And happy--why, happy is no name for the feelin’s of that man, and I
-felt the same--yes, indeed! Only, as my nater is, I acted more megum,
-though I did kinder jine in with him in the chorus--
-
-    “My name is Robert Kidd,
-    As I sailed, as I sailed.”
-
-I wuz so perfectly happy that I had to.
-
-And when he struck into the hymns I jined in strong, right there in my
-nightgown--“On Canaan’s happy banks I stand,” and “Long time I have
-wandered,” and etcetery.
-
-Why, Josiah sung the most of the time for days and days.
-
-When Deacon Henzy come to see him, instead of advancin’ and shakin’
-hands dignified, as a foreign traveller ort to, he jest advanced onto
-him, a-singin’ loud--
-
-    “Home agin, Deacon, home agin, from a foreign shore.
-      And, oh! it fills my soul with joy
-    To greet Deacon Henzy and the rest of the Jonesvillians once more.”
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-It spilte the meter, but he didn’t care. He acted fairly crazed with
-joy to be home.
-
-The first thing he done the next mornin’ when he got up wuz to throw
-his best clothes in a sort of a scornful heap behind his closet door.
-He throwed ’em some as if he hated the very sight on ’em. When I found
-’em afterwards, all tumbled in together, we had a number of words.
-
-But, as I say, he throwed his best clothes there, and specially his
-stiff collars and cuffs--them looked some as if they’d been trompled on.
-
-And then that man got on the worst-lookin’ pair of pantaloons and vest
-you ever see--holes in the knees, and the vest ripped up in the back,
-and the pockets hangin’ outside. I’d been a-savin’ ’em for carpet rags.
-
-And he went down suller and took a old coat offen the apple-ben. We had
-used it for two winters to cover up the apples in extra cold nights.
-And the land knows where he got the hat he put on--a old straw, the rim
-a-hangin’ half off, and the crown all jammed in. I guess he found it up
-in the woodhouse chamber.
-
-But, anyway, his looks wuz sech, so onbecomin’ to a deacon and a
-pathmaster, let alone a cultered gentleman of foreign travel, that I
-took him to do sharply about it.
-
-[Illustration: His looks wuz so onbecomin’ to a deacon and a
-pathmaster.]
-
-Sez I, “I won’t have you a-goin’ round lookin’ worse than any old
-scarecrow, Josiah Allen.”
-
-He took up a position in front of me, where his rags showed off to the
-most plainest advantage, and sez he--
-
-“As you see me now, Samantha, you will see me henceforth. I
-shall never, never be dressed up agin as long as I retain my
-conscientiousness.”
-
-He spoke so firm, I felt some browbeat and skairt.
-
-Sez I faintly, “Do you expect to go through your life a-lookin’ as you
-do now?”
-
-“Always, always, Samantha; only worse, if I can manage it.” Sez he
-bitterly, “I am a man that has been dressed up too long; the iron
-has entered too deep into my soul--the worm has turned,” sez he. “I
-calculate to go in rags the rest of my life. And I wish,” sez he in a
-pleadin’ axent, “I wish that you would promise that you would bury me
-in this suit--that you would take a vow that I shall not be dressed up.”
-
-I wuz at my wits’ end; he looked as determined as any old hen turkey
-ever did on her nest.
-
-But by a happy inspiration I sez--
-
-“Wouldn’t you ruther lay in your dressin’-gown, Josiah? Think of them
-beautiful tossels,” sez I.
-
-I see a change come over his mean; he wavered and turned onto his heel,
-and went out-doors.
-
-And I may as well tell the end on’t. It wuz that dressin’-gown that
-gradual won him back into decenter clothin’.
-
-I lured him into that at first, and then gradual into pepper-and-salt,
-and so on to broadcloth; but it wuz a hard tussle! Collars and cuffs
-wuz my worst battle-field, but I got the victory over ’em at last.
-
-Oh, dear me, dear me, suz! what hard times female pardners do have anon
-or oftener; but yet I believe that pardners pay, after all.
-
-And it did seem so good to walk round the house, free and ontrammelled,
-and see the old bureaus and tables once more, and sasspans and things;
-and go out into the garden and see the garden-truck, and walk out to
-the barn and gather the eggs, and count the chickens.
-
-And plunge into all the sweet delights that make home a perfect Eden.
-
-Yes, we both felt that we should never want to move a inch from our own
-fireside. But how little--how little we can tell what is ahead on us in
-the onseen futer.
-
-In this case Alice wuz ahead.
-
-We hadn’t been to home more’n several weeks when that sweet creeter
-wrote to me, urgin’ me hard to come and see her.
-
-She didn’t make no open complaints, but all through the letter I could
-read between the lines, as it wuz, the echoes of a sad heart.
-
-I felt, as I read it, that I ort to go right away and see her.
-
-But I hated to leave home agin--I hated to like a dog.
-
-So I writ her back as lovin’ a letter as I could, and I kinder waved
-off the subject of my comin’, sayin’ I’d come jest as soon as I could.
-
-A week or more passed, then come a letter from Martin, sayin’ Alice
-wuzn’t very well, and had sot her heart on seein’ me--wouldn’t I come?
-
-I went.
-
-Alice wuz dretful glad to see me, and in my lovin’ sympathy her white
-face seemed to git a little more color and brightness into it.
-
-Good land! I see what ailed her jest as well as though I had took our
-big parlor lamp and walked through her mind.
-
-Her father wuz jest as determined as ever that she should have nothin’
-to do or say to Richard Noble.
-
-And bein’ right here by his side, as it were, and forbid to see him or
-speak to him made it fur worse than it wuz when they wuz seperated by
-a ocean. Her Pa had planned in his own mind that this trip should ween
-her from him. But how mistook he wuz!
-
-She had carried a faithful, lovin’ heart over the Atlantic, and had
-brung it back with her.
-
-Distance had only drawed the ends of the love-knot, unitin’ their souls
-all the tighter. They couldn’t be ontwisted now by the hands of a
-Martin--no, indeed!
-
-Martin wuz dretful good to me. He see that Alice loved me and
-brightened up considerable in my presence. And that would have made
-Miss Belzebub welcome.
-
-And Adrian, how he did hang round me, sweet little creeter that he wuz!
-
-Yes, Alice wuz the same, and Martin wuz the same as before his trip. He
-kep’ right on in the same old roteen of money-makin’, and money-savin’,
-and obstinacy, and sotness, and ambition, and etcetery.
-
-I found that out only a few mornin’s after I got there.
-
-I happened to take up a daily paper, and I read a piece in it about
-a horrible axident that had took place right there in the city a
-few days before--two children killed, and the driver of the car had
-died from the effects of the horrow and remorse he had experienced in
-causin’ the death of the two children.
-
-_Died!_ when the poor creeter wuz no more guilty than a babe for it. He
-wuzn’t no more guilty than the spokes in the wheels. They all wuz run
-by another’s orders.
-
-As I sed, I wuz so horrified by it, that I felt that mad him or not, I
-must tackle Martin about the matter.
-
-And I found that he wuz as stiffnecked and rambellous as a iron-clad
-about it.
-
-And we had a number of words.
-
-And in the course of our conversation I atted Martin agin about
-Alice’s lover. For her big, sad eyes had follered me all the time I’d
-been there, and I had vowed in my heart that I would help her to her
-happiness if I could.
-
-As I sed, the pretty creeter had took her faithful heart over the
-Atlantic, and carried it round with her all the time she wuz there, and
-had brung it back with her.
-
-Movin’ the body round don’t change the soul.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIX.
-
-MARTIN’S TERRIBLE LESSON.
-
-
-Wall, I found that Martin wuz as immovable and sot as a rock. “As for
-Alice,” sez he, “I told you six months ago what I should do, and I
-never change my mind.”
-
-And agin I sez, “Sometimes folks are made to change their minds when
-they don’t mean to or want to.”
-
-But before I could multiply any more words with him a servant come in
-to say that a paintin’ had come that Martin had ordered while he wuz
-abroad. And he asked me quite polite to go in and see it.
-
-He wuz glad of the interruption. He wanted to change the subject--he
-wanted to like a dog.
-
-The picter had been onpacked, and wuz standin’ in the big hall, waitin’
-for Martin to decide where to hang it.
-
-It wuz called “The Mother’s Sacrifice,” and wuz the picter of a Eastern
-mother, who wuz a-throwin’ her child under the wheels of a juggernaut
-to insure its everlastin’ salvation.
-
-Her face wuz torn with love and duty. It wuz a impressive picter. He
-gin twenty thousand dollars for it, for he told me so.
-
-Sez Martin as we looked at it, full of the rich Oriental glow of forest
-and landscape, and the dark, frenzied beauty of the mother’s face and
-the innocent beauty of the child, who trusts to her love and care and
-don’t mistrust its impendin’ doom--
-
-Sez Martin, “What a struggle is going on in that woman’s breast! how
-her heart is torn between her love for the child and her religious
-belief! What a masterly handling of the subject!” sez he.
-
-“Yes,” sez I; “but what of the hearts of the mothers who see their
-children crushed down under jest as murderous wheels, and don’t have
-her religious zeal to hold ’em up? That Eastern mother thinks that this
-will insure her child’s eternal well-bein’--she thinks the wheels move
-on in the cause of eternal good. What would she think if she wuz a
-American mother, and knew these wheels murdered her child jest to save
-a little money--jest out of wicked, graspin’ avarice?”
-
-Sez Martin coldly, “I don’t know what you mean.”
-
-Sez I, “Yes you do, Martin; I mean your trolley cars, that move on and
-crush down childhood and age, when a little bit of money you spend for
-this ficticious woe would relieve the real agony which is goin’ on
-right before your front gate through your own neglect.”
-
-I would gin him some sech little delicate hints, whether he liked it or
-lumped it, as the sayin’ is. Agin he sez in that dretful dignified way
-of hisen, “I don’t know what you mean,” and turned away.
-
-But jest as I wuz withdrawin’ myself from the seen, for I felt that
-these little blind hits I gin him wuz enough for the present, Adrian
-come in, and Martin called out--
-
-“Well, dear little Partner, what do you want?”
-
-And Adrian sez, “Alice and I are going out driving, and I wanted to say
-good-bye to you.”
-
-Martin kissed the pretty face, with his adorin’ love for the child
-a-showin’ plain in him. And then Adrian come and kissed me, his gold
-curls fallin’ back from his little, earnest face, and his black velvet
-cap a-settin’ ’em off first rate, and he sez to me, “Good-bye;” and I
-hadn’t any way of knowin’ that that good-bye would echo through the
-long futer and die out only at the Dark Portal.
-
-Martin took out his purse and took out a roll of bills and handed ’em
-to Adrian, and sez he, “Hand that to your sister; I was going to give
-it to her last night--it is for a necklace she wanted. Be careful of
-it,” sez Martin as Adrian took it; “it is five thousand dollars, and
-that is worth taking care of, little partner.”
-
-Wall, they sot off, and I went back into a little settin’-room acrost
-the hall from Martin’s study and took up a book and went to readin’.
-
-It wuz a interestin’ book, and I wuz carried away--some distance away
-from the big city and trolley cars.
-
-When I heard a hum of a good many voices in Martin’s room, and the door
-bein’ open, I couldn’t help hearin’ what they wuz a-sayin’. It seemed
-to be a deputation of some kind a-askin’ Martin for some favor or other.
-
-For I heard him say out loud, “I am sick of these complaints.”
-
-His tone wuz cold--cold as a iceberg. There wuz one man amongst ’em who
-seemed to be the speaker; he sez, “We are workingmen; we have homes and
-families. We work hard every day. We leave our children, that we may go
-away and earn food and clothing for them; our houses are the best that
-we can afford, but the best that we can pay for lay in the populous
-region where so many lives are lost by these cars. I know you are the
-owner of that line, and we have come to appeal to you.”
-
-Sez Martin agin, “I am sick to death of these everlasting complaints.”
-
-[Illustration: Sez Martin agin, “I am sick to death of these
-everlasting complaints.”]
-
-His tone wuz cold--cold as a frog, and I see from his voice that he wuz
-mad--mad as a wet hen.
-
-The man that answered him I could see from where I sot wuz evidently
-jest a plain workin’-man, jest like ’em that you meet in droves at 7
-o’clock in the mornin’ and six at night.
-
-But I liked his looks--he looked rugged and honest, and his voice had a
-uncultured ring of common sense and honesty, and at times a deep sorrer
-and sense of wrong touched it to a rude eloquence.
-
-Martin sez, and his tone wuz cold and smooth as a icesuckle in a
-January mornin’--
-
-“What is it that you want me to do, anyway--tell me as briefly as you
-can, for my time is valuable.”
-
-Sez the man agin, “We are workingmen and poor, and we do not expect to
-have many things that rich people have, but we do want our children
-to be educated. They must go out alone to their schools while their
-mothers are at home working to make a decent home for them, and they
-cannot follow them only with their thoughts and prayers.
-
-“These cars going with the swiftness of lightning through these
-thronged streets, with no safeguard to protect them, are the means of
-making fathers’ and mothers’ hearts ache with fear and dread.
-
-“One of my own children, a bright little lad, my only son, dear to me
-as my own life, was crushed down by them on his way to school.” The
-man’s voice broke here, for a rush of feeling swep’ up agin his voice,
-and stopped it.
-
-“Another of these men lost a child, another saw an old mother crushed
-down before his eyes as she tried to cross the street, another--”
-
-“There is no need of repeating all this to me. What do you want me
-to do?” I see by Martin’s voice that he wuz madder than that wet hen
-a-settin’, and obstinate.
-
-“We want to have you give orders to go more slowly through crowded
-places and put fenders on the cars, so as to lessen the peril as much
-as may be, so we poor people, who have to live and labor in these
-dangerous places, can carry a lighter heart to our hard daily toil.”
-
-“Leave me your address,” sez Martin sharp and cold, “and I will
-communicate with you.” Then sez he, “James, show these men to the
-door. Good-morning,” sez he. The door closed on the men, and Martin
-crossed the hall with a quick step, and come right into the room where
-I sot. In his haste to git out of their sight he had, as the sayin’ is,
-“jumped from the fryin’-pan into the fire.”
-
-For I sez, and tears wuz in my eyes as I sed it--
-
-“You will grant their request, Martin?”
-
-“No, I will not grant their request;” and he went on sarcastically, “I
-don’t know what you people want. Do you want to do away with cars and
-railroads and go back to ox-teams and pillions? Here a few men take a
-big risk, put all their capital into an enterprise, doing the public
-an incalculable good, and then they have to be badgered night and day
-by the very ones they have benefited, and by a set of philanthropic
-fools.” I guess he meant me by that last term, but I didn’t care; I
-wouldn’t have cared if he’d called me a plain fool--I knew I wuzn’t.
-When you are out a-ketchin’ a tiger you don’t care for a muskeeter’s
-bite; no, your mind is sot on the tiger.
-
-I sez, “The cost is but triflin’ to one of your means. Why not do it?”
-
-“Because I am capable of attending to my own business, and I am not
-to be bossed by a lot of workingmen and wild-eyed reformers and
-sentimental idiots--I’ll do what I please.”
-
-Sez I, “Mebby you will, Martin, and mebby you won’t.”
-
-Jest as I said these words a cry come up from the streets--“A child run
-over! a lady killed! a child and a lady killed!”
-
-“There,” sez Martin, actin’ impatient and mad as anything--“there is
-another text for you, Cousin Samantha; and probably the whole car full
-of people, who have rode all over the city for five cents, will all
-join in and shriek at me as a murderer and a villain, because a couple
-of fools have started to cross the track just in front of a car; in
-nine cases out of ten the fault is their own.”
-
-But the cries outside grew louder and louder, and finally Martin went
-to the winder, kinder flingin’ himself along in a sort of a impatient
-way; and he had been nagged considerable--I had to admit it.
-
-He went to the winder, which looked down onto the broad street below.
-He looked a minute; then shriekin’ out--
-
-“My God! my God!”
-
-He fell down jest like a log at my feet.
-
-[Illustration: He fell down jest like a log at my feet.]
-
-And what wuz the sight that struck him down like a arrer?
-
-Two men of the very deputation that had jest left the house wuz
-bearin’ between ’em the crushed form of a little boy--gold curls wuz
-hangin’ back from the velvet cap. A kind hand had covered the little
-disfiggered face with a handkerchief. Behind, two more of the men and a
-policeman wuz carryin’ the crushed, senseless form of Alice.
-
-I hearn all about it afterwards. There wuz a florist jest acrost from
-Martin’s, where a little bend in the road made it impossible to stop.
-Little Adrian had jumped out of the carriage and run to choose a bokay
-of flowers to gin to me. They wuz the English voyalets he loved so
-well. One of ’em wuz in the buttonhole of the little velvet coat.
-
-Dear little creetur!
-
-And as he ran back the flowers fell; he stopped to pick ’em up, and the
-car swep’ down on him. Alice see his danger, she jumped to save him,
-only to be struck down herself.
-
-Wall, what tongue of men or angels shall describe the seen that
-follered and ensued.
-
-Martin layin’ in a dead faint, like death to all appearance--and it is
-blood relation to it. Little Adrian layin’ white and cold on a couch in
-the reception-hall, where the men had reverently laid him, right under
-the picter of that Eastern mother.
-
-The agony in her dark face seemed to be for him, too--the fair-haired
-child of the race who condemn their barbarity, and practise worse.
-
-And Alice a-layin’ white and onconscious, but breathin’ still, in her
-own room. One round, white arm a-hangin’ broken by her side, and blood
-streamin’ from a cruel gash in her head.
-
-Wall, the best doctors in the city wuz there in a few minutes. But all
-their genius and wisdom and learnin’ could not bring back the spark of
-life that had flown away from little Adrian’s body.
-
-And then afterwards the clergyman come and whispered consolin’ words to
-Martin in his darkened chamber.
-
-But not all the preachin’ since Adam can make death other than death.
-
-Martin didn’t want the clergyman--he wanted to be alone. He wouldn’t
-see anybody, and he lay still and cold after his senses come back--so
-still and cold that the doctors feared for his sanity, and even for his
-life.
-
-The first glimpse of interest he showed wuz when they told him that
-there wuz a chance for Alice to live.
-
-He turned his face towards the wall (so the nurse told me, a good,
-faithful creeter with a strong breath, caused by stimulants, I believe).
-
-[Illustration: A faithful creeter with a strong breath, caused by
-stimulants, I believe.]
-
-Sez she, “I went to the foot of the bed and looked up, and see tears
-a-streamin’ down his white face. But I dare not speak to him,” sez
-she--“no, I dare not.”
-
-Sez she, “His face had that look on it that it frightened me, and it
-gave me such a turn that I feel weak yet. I guess,” sez she, “I will
-take a drop to nerve me up. Don’t you want a drop of stimulant, too?”
-sez she.
-
-“No, indeed,” sez I, “I don’t!”
-
-“But,” sez I, “poor creeter, do everything you can for him, for the
-hand of the Lord has dealt sorely with him. And,” sez I, “I would
-gladly help him if I could, but I can do nothin’ but pray for him.”
-
-Wall, there wuz a big funeral in the church where little Adrian had
-been baptized when he wuz a baby.
-
-The minister, a very eloquent and high-priced one, preached a beautiful
-sermon about the inscrutable mysteries of our lives, and the mystery of
-the Providence who should take, in sech a onforeseen and onheard-of way
-the child of sech a man, who had spent his hull life for the good of
-the people--that angelic man, who wuz a-layin’ now in his palatial home
-at the pint of death.
-
-These last words affected the congregation dretfully. A maiden jest
-behind Martin’s pew and a widder jest in front (who both had hopes)
-sallied away and partially fainted, and the widder had to be borne out
-by the sexton.
-
-And as she wuz heavey, it bore hard on him. The old maid revived in
-time to see the widder carried out. Widders always will go further and
-resk more than the more single ones.
-
-And the maiden wuz wroth for fear that Martin should hear of it that
-she didn’t go so fur herself as the widder did.
-
-I myself didn’t faint nor shed tears. I sot up straight in that
-luxurious pew and kep’ a-sayin’ in my heart--
-
-“Oh, God help that wretched man! God help and comfort him, for nothin’
-else can!”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XL.
-
-“GOOD-NIGHT, LITTLE PARDNER.”
-
-
-Wall, that night after the funeral I wuz called down into the parlor to
-see a stranger--a good deal devolved on me in that awful time; I kep’
-calm, or tried to, and that calmness wuz like a paneky to ’em round me,
-and they didn’t see the tumult of pity and grief that wuz a-goin’ on
-inside of my heart onbeknown to ’em.
-
-I went down into the hall, and there I found a handsome, noble-lookin’
-young man, whose face wuz so white with anguish and dread that I knew
-before he spoke who he wuz, and sez I right out the first thing,
-a-holdin’ out both my hands--
-
-“Alice is better.”
-
-He grasped holt of my hands as if he wouldn’t never let go.
-
-Sez he, “God bless you for saying that!” He wouldn’t go into the
-parlor, nor set down, or nothin’. But it got to be my stiddy practice
-to go down into that hall two or three times a day to gin him news, and
-as the news grew brighter every day, jest so his face grew brighter,
-till it got luminous with joy and gratitude the day I told him that
-Alice wuz out of danger.
-
-Wall, there come a day, long to be remembered, when Martin sent for me.
-I wuz the first one he asked to see. He couldn’t talk much, and I jest
-grasped his hand and sez--
-
-“I have been prayin’ for you, Martin.”
-
-“I knew it,” he whispered, “I knew you would.”
-
-And that wuz about all I could say. But I spoze he felt the pity and
-sympathy that oozed out of my sperit onbeknown to me as I looked down
-onto that broken-hearted man, and he seemed to like to have me round
-his room.
-
-Wall, it wuz weeks before I could go home, Josiah a-bearin’ up nobly,
-aided by Philury, and a-bravely eatin’ pancakes in her hours of too
-burdened haste, and a-writin’ to me to stay if I could be of any
-comfort to ’em.
-
-Noble man that he is, though small boneded I am proud of him--a good
-deal of the time I am.
-
-Wall, there come a time when Martin, a-settin’ up in his study and
-a-lookin’ over his papers, sent for me, and spoke to me for the first
-time of Adrian.
-
-He didn’t cry. His speechless grief wuz beyend that relief, but he gin
-me to understand that his life wuz a blank to him now.
-
-Sez I, “Martin, remember that Alice is left to you--you have one child
-left.”
-
-“Yes,” sez he, “but I want my boy!!” and he busted right out into
-tears, and buried his face in his hands.
-
-[Illustration: He busted out into tears and buried his face in his
-hands.]
-
-Sez I, “Martin, do you remember what the dear little boy said--he wuz
-a-goin’ to be your pardner?”
-
-He groaned, “Why do you speak of that? Do you want to kill me?”
-
-“I want to help you, Martin.”
-
-“Do you ever think that Adrian can be your pardner now, better than he
-ever could if he wuz on earth--as much better as the glorified sperit
-is above our common humanity?”
-
-But agin he groaned out, “I want my boy!”
-
-“It is hard, Martin,” sez I, a-layin’ my hand on his bowed-down
-shoulders.
-
-“It is hard to know that the sweet little voice is silent on earth, but
-he can hear you--he is a-hearin’ you this minute; he hears the language
-of your sperit as you vow to ondo the past so fur as you can--to go on
-in the futer and work for the poor, as he wanted to.
-
-“You can’t go agin these strong desires of your little pardner,
-Martin--you’ve got to hear to ’em. He is your pardner now jest as much
-as he ever wuz, and more, only he has gone over the deep waters into
-another country to tend to the interests of the firm there. It is a
-country where the Right is always done, where things that are wrong
-here are made right--he will help you, Martin. He wanted to work for
-the poor; why not let him?”
-
-He lifted his white face, tears a-streamin’ down it, but as my meanin’
-dawned on him his mean grew a little mite brighter.
-
-Sez I, “He is a-workin’ now for ’em.” Sez I, “I see in the new look in
-your eyes the divine work of your pardner.
-
-“He is helpin’ you this minute to think softer thoughts. He is helpin’
-you to remember that you are to spend your money and his--for you told
-him that it belonged to you both equally--in helpin’ the poor, in
-helpin’ to surround their lives with safeguards,” sez I, a-wantin’ to
-strike while the iron wuz hot.
-
-“You are a-goin’ to git some fenders right off, Martin.”
-
-“Order five hundred of them right off--send for a thousand of them.”
-
-“No,” sez I, “Martin, be megum. You’ve got to be megum in fenders
-as well as any other goodness. Why order a thousand fenders for one
-hundred cars?
-
-“But,” sez I, “Martin, I will send for ’em.” And I did, that very day,
-not knowin’ but he would be some like Pharaoh, and his heart would
-be hardened before night. I told his secretary within a hour, and he
-ordered ’em before sundown on my word. Oh, they think high on me--all
-on ’em! He dassent refuse to take my orders.
-
-But I’d no need to have worried--no, indeed! I felt ashamed to think I
-had let my mind sally back to that old Egyptian Pharaoh.
-
-Martin’s repentance didn’t prove to be short-lived and evanescent--no,
-indeed!
-
-He divided his property equally between himself and his little pardner.
-He invested his pardner’s money to the best of his knowledge, and every
-cent of the interest of that money, and it is a immense sum--millions
-of dollars. He uses it only as the steward of his pardner. It all goes
-to help the poor--to try to defend ’em from dangers, temporal and
-speritual, from want, and from the worst of all dangers--Ignorance and
-Crime.
-
-Dear little Silent Pardner! I wonder if you know it? I wonder if, when
-grateful hearts rise in prayer, callin’ you the saviour of their lives
-and happiness--I wonder if them prayers and grateful thoughts bloom out
-in some divine way, as they reach the Heavenly country, so you can see
-the desire of your little heart, and know that it is granted?
-
-Are you ever permitted to come down in the stillness of a Summer
-evenin’ and stand clost by the side of that white-haired old man,
-who grew old so fast after you left him, whose heart yearns for you,
-and who is a-tryin’ so faithfully to carry out his little pardner’s
-wishes? He sez that sometimes he feels that you are so near to him that
-he almost expects to see your face blossom out of the dark, like the
-evenin’ star out of the misty twilight. And so he can live, he sez.
-
-Did you stand in the church when Alice wuz married to the man she
-loved? A ray of gold light shone out sudden and luminous and lit her
-sweet face as she took her solemn vows.
-
-Wuz it you, little Pardner? wuz the joy and glory in your face
-permitted to shine for a moment on the one you loved, in the supreme
-hour of her life?
-
-We can’t tell this, little Adrian, but we see your work goin’ on from
-day to day, and we bless you for it.
-
-We see it in the safety and protection thrown around the masses,
-protectin’ ’em from physical and moral ills; in the great free school
-which bears your name; in the Adrian Home, where sick and poor children
-find a home and tender care; in the University, where your picter hangs
-over the doorway--a doorway where any poor, ignorant boy may enter,
-and go out a scholar; in the large, plain church, whose best ornament
-is the stained-glass winder bearin’ your name in gold letters, where
-a pure Christianity is taught to all, rich and poor, and the Blessed
-Master is brought near to sad lives by the anointed lips of consecrated
-genius--where rich and poor worship the God man together. The poor
-givin’ their strength and good-will, the rich givin’ their wealth and
-learnin’, and so becomin’ a strong bulwark, protectin’ society from the
-high flood of undisciplined passions--Ignorance and Crime.
-
-Do you see it all, little Pardner? Sometimes I think you do.
-
-I am writin’ this at the open winder you looked out of as you sed you
-would work for the poor.
-
-And as I think how you have worked for ’em, and are still a-workin’, my
-heart is as full of the thought of you, little Adrian, as the voyalets
-you loved are filled with their strong, onseen perfume.
-
-And as I set askin’ these questions, the twilight shades are fallin’,
-the evenin’ star shines bright above the golden west.
-
-And wuz that the odor of English voyalets that swep’ by the open winder
-on the night breeze? There’s a bed of ’em down in the garden. Did the
-soft breeze come from that way--or further off?
-
-But I stop and lean out of the winder and say--
-
-“Good-night, little Adrian--good-night, little Pardner--till mornin’.”
-
-And wuz that a soft, fur-off echo, or wuz it my own thoughts that
-repeated--“Till mornin’”?
-
-[Illustration: FINIS.]
-
-
-
-
-Other Works by Josiah Allen’s Wife.
-
-
-Poems.
-
- A Charming Volume of Poetry. By “Josiah Allen’s Wife.”
- Beautifully Illustrated by W. H. Gibson and other Artists.
- Beautifully bound. Square 12mo, 216 pp. Cloth, $2.00.
-
- “Will win for her an honorable place among American
- poets.”--_Chicago Standard._
-
-
-Samantha Among the Brethren.
-
-By “Josiah Allen’s Wife.” 100 Illustrations. Square 12mo, 452 pp.
-Cloth, $2.50.
-
- “It is irresistibly humorous and true.”--_Bishop John P.
- Newman._
-
- “It is full of meat as an egg.... Calculated to do immense
- good in that department of women’s rights which relates
- to her participation in the great work of the Church
- of Christ, _beyond the scrubbing and papering of the
- meeting-house_.”--_Ex-Judge Noah Davis._
-
-
-Sweet Cicely;
-
-Or, Josiah Allen as a Politician. A Fascinating Story. Square 12mo, 390
-pp. 100 Illustrations. Cloth, $2.00.
-
- “The interest of the book is immense.... Never was such
- a defender of women’s rights, never was such an exponent
- of women’s wrongs! In Samantha’s pithy, pointed, scornful
- utterances we have in very truth the expression of feelings
- common to most thoughtful women, well understood among them,
- but rarely finding voice except in confidential intercourses
- and for sympathetic ears.... Alongside of the fun are
- genuine eloquence and profound pathos; we scarcely know
- which is the more delightful.”--_The Literary World, London,
- Eng._
-
-
-Samantha at the World’s Fair.
-
-By Josiah Allen’s Wife. Over 100 Illustrations by C. de Grimm. 8vo, 700
-pp. Elegantly Bound. Cloth, $2.50; Half Russia, $4.00.
-
- “There is no brighter literary outgrowth of the great event
- of 1893 than this volume (‘Samantha at the World’s Fair’)
- from the pen of one of America’s happiest humorists.”--_The
- Union Signal, Chicago, Ill._
-
- “Aside from the fun of the book, it recites multitudes of
- facts of positive value.”--_The Daily Inter-Ocean, Chicago,
- Ill._
-
-
- FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
- PUBLISHERS
- LONDON      NEW YORK      TORONTO
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Notes
-
-
-A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.
-
-Cover image is in the public domain.
-
-Augmented Table of Contents with “Other Works by Josiah Allen’s Wife”.
-
-Added caption “His Victim” to an illustration based on List of
-Illustrations table.
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA IN EUROPE ***
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-<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Samantha in Europe, by Mariettta Holley</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
-are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this eBook.
-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Samantha in Europe</p>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Mariettta Holley</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 19, 2021 [eBook #66972]</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: hekula03, sf2001, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</div>
-
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA IN EUROPE ***</div>
-
-  <div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_cover" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Cover" />
-  </div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</span></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</span></p>
-<h1><i>Samantha in Europe</i></h1>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_frontis" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_frontis.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">
-  He riz right up and shook his fist at the man with the nightcap.</span>”
-  (<span class="smcap">See <a href="#Page_641">page 641</a>.</span>)</p></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp71" id="title" style="max-width: 25em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/title.jpg" alt="" />
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="bbox center" style="max-width: 25em;">
-<p class="center">
-<i>Samantha<br />
-in<br />
-Europe</i><br />
-</p>
-
-<p class="center">
-<i>by</i><br />
-<i>Josiah Allen’s Wife</i><br />
-(Marietta Holley)<br />
-</p>
-
-<p class="center">
-Illustrated<br />
-by<br />
-C DeGrimm<br />
-</p>
-
-<p class="center"><i>Printed in the United States</i></p>
-
-<p class="center"><i>New York · Funk and Wagnalls Company 1896</i><br />
-<i>London and Toronto</i>
-</p>
-</div>
-
-<p>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</span>
-</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p class="center">
-<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1895, by</span><br />
-FUNK &amp; WAGNALLS COMPANY</p>
-</div>
-<hr class="r5" />
-<p class="center">
-Registered at Stationers’ Hall<br />
-London, England
-</p>
-<p>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</span>
-</p>
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2>Dedication.</h2>
-<p class="h2sub">
-TO THE WEARY TRAVELLER WHO YEARNS TO SEE
-UNDER STRANGE SKIES THE LIGHT OF THE<br />
-OLD HOME FIRE,<br />
-THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY
-</p>
-<p class="center">
-<span class="smcap gesperrt">Samantha and Josiah</span>.
-</p>
-</div>
-
-<p>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</span>
-</p>
-<p>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</span>
-</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="r5" />
-
-<p>Sez Josiah, as he see me writin’ this preface:</p>
-
-<p>“Seems to me, Samantha, you’ve writ enough
-prefaces.”</p>
-
-<p>(He wanted me to start the supper; but, good
-land! it wuzn’t only half past five, and I had a
-spring chicken all ready to fry, and my cream biscuit
-wuz all ready for the oven, on the kitchen table.)</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “It seems to me you’ve writ enough on
-em.”</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “Wall, Josiah, I’d hate to sadden the
-world by sayin’ I wouldn’t write any more.”</p>
-
-<p>And he sez, “How do you know it would sadden
-the world&mdash;how do you know it would?” And
-he continued: “Samantha, I hain’t wanted to
-dampen you, but I have always considered your
-writin’s weak; naterally they would be, bein’ writ
-by a woman; and,” sez he, as he looked longin’ly
-towards the buttery door and the plump chicken,
-“a woman’s spear lays in a different direction.”</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “I thought I’d write some of our adventures
-in our trip abroad&mdash;that happy time,” sez
-I, lookin’ inquirin’ly at him.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</span></p>
-<p>“Happy time!” sez he, a-kinder ’nashin’ his teeth&mdash;“happy!
-gracious Heavens! Do you want to
-bring up my sufferin’s agin, when I jest lived
-through ’em?”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, a-gittin’ up and approachin’ the
-buttery, and takin’ down the tea-kettle and fryin’-pan
-and coffee-pot, “I have writ other things in the
-book that I am more interested in myself.”</p>
-
-<p>He sot kinder still and demute as I put the
-chicken on to fry in butter, and put the cream biscuit
-in the oven, and poured the bilein’ water on the
-fragrant coffee; his mean seemed to grow softer,
-and he sez:</p>
-
-<p>“Mebby I wuz too hash a-sayin’ what I did
-about your writin’s, Samantha; I guess you write
-as well as you know how to; I guess you <i>mean</i>
-well;” and as he see me a-spreadin’ the snowy table-cloth
-on the little round table, and a-puttin’ on some
-cream cheese and some peach sass, he sez further:</p>
-
-<p>“Nobody is to blame for what they don’t
-know, Samantha.”</p>
-
-<p>I looked down affectionately and pityin’ly on
-his old bald head and then further off&mdash;way off
-into mysterious spaces no mortal feet has ever trod,
-and I sez:</p>
-
-<p>“That is so, Josiah.”</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS">TABLE OF CONTENTS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<table summary="Table of Contents">
-<tr><td class="chapnum"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span></td>
-    <td />
-    <td><span class="allsmcap">PAGE</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum"></td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#PREFACE">Preface</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">vii</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum"></td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">List of Illustrations</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">xi</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">I.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Trains of Retrospection</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">1</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">II.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">A Heathen Missionary</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">32</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">III.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Off into Side Paths</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">57</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">IV.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Samantha’s Sword of Truth and Justice</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">85</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">V.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">A Heathen’s Standard of Morality</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">105</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">VI.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">A Little Fun and its Price</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">119</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">VII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">The Embarkation</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">135</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">VIII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">Landing in the Emerald Isle</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">153</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">IX.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">A Visit to Blarney Castle</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">173</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">X.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">Killarney, Dublin, and a Wake</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">183</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XI.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">Josiah as a Banshee</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">197</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">Robert Burns and Highland Mary</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">223</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XIII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">Edinburgh and Mary Queen of Scots</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">241</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XIV.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">Memories of Sir Walter Scott</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">262</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XV.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">Old York and its Cathedral</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">281</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XVI.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">Edensor and the Duke of Devonshire</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">300</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XVII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">Josiah has an Adventure</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">322</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XVIII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">Shottery and Warwick Castle</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">354</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XIX.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">The Lake District and its Poets</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">374</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XX.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">The Arrival in London</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">389</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXI.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">Westminster and Parliament Houses</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">400</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">Samantha Sees a Doctor</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">418<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXIII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">St. Paul’s and the Duke of Wellington</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">433</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXIV.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">“The Widder Albert”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">445</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXV.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">A Visit to the British Museum</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">464</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXVI.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">Paris and its Beauties</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">486</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXVII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">Napoleon and other Great Frenchmen</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">510</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXVIII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">Germany and Belgium</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">525</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXIX.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">Samantha Climbs the Righi</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">548</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXX.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">Milan, Genoa, Venice</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">574</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXXI.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">Colosseum and Catacombs</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">602</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXXII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">Fashionable Watering-Places</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">616</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXXIII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">Cathedrals and Castles in Spain</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">627</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXXIV.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">Josiah’s Devotion</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">640</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXXV.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">The Queen, Ulaley, and a Bull-Fight</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">651</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXXVI.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">A Spanish Funeral and a Jonesville One</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">664</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXXVII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">Al Faizi Says Good-Bye</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">674</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXXVIII.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">Home again, from a Foreign Shore</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">683</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XXXIX.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">Martin’s Terrible Lesson</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">693</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum">XL.</td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">Good-Night, Little Pardner</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">707</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="chapnum"></td>
-  <td class="title"><a href="#Other_Works_by_Josiah_Allens_Wife">Other Works by Josiah Allen’s Wife.</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">715</td></tr>
-</table>
-
-<p>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</span>
-</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<table summary="List of Illustrations">
-<tr><td /><td class="pageno"><span class="allsmcap">PAGE</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_frontis">“He riz right up and shook his fist at the man with the nightcap”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno"><i>Frontispiece</i></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_001">Twilight on the broad ocean</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">1</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_004">Asleep in his narrer bunk</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">4</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_009">Two prettier, winnin’er creeters never lived than them two</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">9</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_012">“Aunt Samantha, where is Heaven? Is it up in the sky?”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">12</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_016">He sassed him and yelled out, “You dum fool, you, throw me a board!”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">16</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_018">“It depends on whose lives they be”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">18</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_027">Josiah and me put on our strongest specks</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">27</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_031">It wuz very dressy when it wuz done</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">31</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_034">A dark figger that riz up like a strange picter aginst the sunset</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">34</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_039">“I don’t love to hear that; that sounds bad”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">39</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_045">“‘That man is a Christian.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘Because he is drunk’”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">45</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_049">“Uncle Sam a-wadin’ in sin up to his old knee jints”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">49</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_052">The game of Bulls and Bears</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">52</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_055">Al Faizi made a deep bow, almost to the floor</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">55</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_061">Sez I, a-risin’ up in the democrat, “I’ll git out”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">61</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_068">She met me with a sweet smile</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">68</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_075">Finally, he got to be quarrelsome</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">75</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_080">Ellick lay drunk in the office</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">80</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_087">It wuz Ellick Gurley</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">87</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_097">“Yes, it <i>wuz</i> sunthin’ else; it wuz <i>you</i>”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">97</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_102">“Save the Sam, it may come in handy in the futer”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">102</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_112">With one of his low, reverential bows</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">112</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_125">As the elder took it he turned pale</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">125<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_131">I took down my old Atlas</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">131</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_139">In time to kiss us and clasp our hands in partin’</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">139</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_142">Her big blue eyes wuz full of tears</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">142</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_147">Then took his umbrell and started for the door</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">147</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_151">We tottered up on deck, two pale, thin figgers</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">151</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_157">The lord with a pink paper suit on</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">157</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_166">With a stern look, calculated to wither him</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">166</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_171">We went in what they call a “jauntin’ car”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">171</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_184">Three beautiful lakes</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">184</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_189">Drinkin’ and tobacco-smokin’ in the little hovel drove ’em out</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">189</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_201">Drippin’ wet when he come back</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">201</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_206">Alice stood there, white and tremblin’</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">206</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_209">A dark figger a-standin’ up on a little rock</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">209</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_217">I laid out to talk to Victoria on the subject</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">217</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_219">Samantha and Ellen Douglas</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">219</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_230">This immortal pair of lovers</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">230</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_238">The same furies that pursued the drunken Tam</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">238</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_250">Edinburgh Castle</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">250</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_254">The National Covenant signed by the Earl of Sutherland</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">254</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_259">When Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald parted</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">259</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_263">“I could sing to you,” sez he</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">263</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_268">“When they got dirty, jest wet a towel and clean ’em off”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">268</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_274">“I never should think of usin’ it”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">274</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_281">Josiah wuz dretful took with it</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">281</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_285">“What a sensation it would create in Jonesville!”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">285</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_289">That sentinul twelve or fourteen hundred years ago</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">289</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_294">“With the ends of the fingers a-hangin’ down”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">294</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_299">Robin Hood</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">299</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_301">“It don’t pay to tussel with ’em”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">301</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_307">Martin sent his card in</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">307</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_313">Josiah’s home-made waterfall</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">313</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_319">Her common-sense shoe</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">319</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_322">A quaint, old-fashioned tarvern</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">322<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_328">Says he, “I’m a-goin’ back&mdash;it is my duty”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">328</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_337">Shakespeare’s ghost reading the effusions on the walls of his house</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">337</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_344">A great many portraits of Shakespeare</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">344</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_350">The font in which Shakespeare was baptized</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">350</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_353">The supper that man eat wuz enormous</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">353</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_359">“You couldn’t eat that full of porridge”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">359</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_362">“The more I see of moats, the more determined I be to have one round our house”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">362</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_370">“I am going to work for the poor”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">370</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_379">My tone chilled him to the veins</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">379</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_384">Martin with his patronizin’ ways</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">384</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_386">A livin’ poem bound up in a girl’s sweet body</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">386</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_391">Them letters wuz a stroke of genius</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">391</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_395">A hull soap-box full</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">395</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_401">We stood long and silently by the graves of the great dead</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">401</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_407">An immense chair, the four legs bein’ four animals</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">407</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_415">“When I’m elected to Congress I’m goin’ to wear my hat the hull time”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">415</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_421">That little dude doctor, with his cane and his eyeglass</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">421</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_424">“I have had some trouble with my back lately, and I want you to look at it”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">424</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_427">Samantha’s faith cure</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">427</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_442">“Yes,” sez Josiah, “old Domono probble had his hands full with her”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">442</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_455">“Almost in the shadow of the Bank of England, I found the greatest want and wretchedness”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">455</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_459">Right in front of the tarvern, I have seen with my own eyes as many as five teams and two open buggies</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">459</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_468">“Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of Jonesville?”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">468</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_472">Napoleon’s tooth</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">472</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_477">Josiah at the London “Zoo”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">477</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_486">“Calf-o-lay! I hain’t a calf or a ox!” he shouted</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">486</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_489">“How stylish I would look”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">489</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_492">“I don’t spoze I could ever git to be nigh so graceful as she is”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">492<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_500">Josiah, “cultered and travelled,” schemes for Jonesvillian out-door dinner parties, à la Paris, and how Samantha foresees the result</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">500</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_505">There wuz the clothes he wore that he ust to button over that restless, ambitious heart</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">505</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_512">With his arms folded, and that old hat of hisen on, and his inscrutable eyes fixed on the heights</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">512</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_518">A-wipin’ my face on sech genteel towels</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">518</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_523">“I believe he’d sell the steelyards that Jestice weighs things in, if he could git a few cents for ’em”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">523</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_526">“No attention paid to rumatiz, or meal times, or corns”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">526</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_537">“A woman jest dressin’ herself&mdash;she seems all broke up”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">537</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_540">I thought more’n likely I should be melted into tears</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">540</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_543">A-leadin’ Adrian and a-plannin’ sunthin’ with him relatin’ to a whistle</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">543</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_553">A hogsit as big as the Jonesville tarvern</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">553</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_556">We did indeed go slow, but sure; for in two hours’ time we arrove on the summit</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">556</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_561">“They have emulative Mas, who are bound that they shan’t be out-travelled”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">561</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_563">Ye-o-lo-leo-leo-leo&mdash;the melogious cry of the Alpine shepherds</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">563</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_566">Listening to the organ’s grand, melancholy voice</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">566</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_568">I thought considerable about William Tell and his exploits with Gessler, apples, etc.</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">568</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_579">Divine realms of melody wuz brung to view by his heavenly vision</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">579</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_581">“If this smell keeps on, and the dum muskeeters keeps on a-bitin’, one man will ‘see Venice and die’”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">581</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_588">“Next thing I’d know you’d have a inquisition a-goin’ on”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">588</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_599">The Tower of Pisa</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">599</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_602">The Colosseum</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">602<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_607">“The guides went ahead with flarin’ lights”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">607</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_616">Mr. Goldwind, one of Martin’s business rivals</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">616</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_623">“I have faith that it aches like the old Harry”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">623</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_628a">I see one of the officials take up my sheep’s-head nightcap</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">628</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_628b">A smile of admiration swep’ over his dark visage</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">628</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_631">Heavey, rough carts, drawed by an ox and a cow lashed together by ropes wound round their horns</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">631</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_647">At my request he hooked up my dress skirt in the back</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">647</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_653">She knowed me to once&mdash;a happy smile curved her pretty lips</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">653</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_661a">The Matador</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">661</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_661b">His victim</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">661</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_666">How cold his feet must have been cold mornin’s</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">666</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_675">“I go back to my own country&mdash;I have many things to teach my people&mdash;to avoid”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">675</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_684">They had sent Philury out, like a dove, on the front doorstep to meet us</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">684</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_687">His looks wuz so onbecomin’ to a deacon and a path-master</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">687</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_698">Sez Martin agin, “I am sick to death of these everlasting complaints”</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">698</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_701">He fell down jest like a log at my feet</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">701</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_704">A faithful creeter with a strong breath, caused by stimulants, I believe</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">704</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_709">He busted out into tears and buried his face in his hands</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">709</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toi-title"><a href="#i_714">Finis</a></td>
-  <td class="pageno">714</td></tr>
-</table>
-
-<p>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span>
-</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="SAMANTHA_IN_EUROPE">SAMANTHA IN EUROPE.</h2>
-
-<hr class="r15" />
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">TRAINS OF RETROSPECTION.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp91" id="i_001" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_001.jpg" alt="" />
-</div>
-
-<p>Twilight on the broad
-ocean! Smooth, wild
-waste of blue-gray waters
-stretchin’ out as fur
-as the eye could reach on
-every side.</p>
-
-<p>In the east a silvery
-moon hangin’ low and a shinin’ path leadin’ up to
-it. In the west Mars a-dazzlin’ bright over a pale
-pink sky, with streaks of yeller and crimson a-layin’
-stretched acrost it, like bars put up by angel hands
-a-fencin’ in their world from ourn.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span></p>
-
-<p>Now in a sunset in Jonesville it might seem as if
-you could put on your sun-bunnet and stride off
-over hills and valleys and at las’ reach the Sunset
-Land, and peek over the bars and ketch a glimpse
-of what wuz beyend.</p>
-
-<p>It would seem amongst the possibles.</p>
-
-<p>But here&mdash;oh! how fur-off, illimitable, unaproachable,
-duz that fur-off glory look!</p>
-
-<p>And Mars seemed to wink that red eye of hisen
-at me mockin’ly as I strained my eyes over the long
-watery plain, as if to say&mdash;“The time has been when
-you wuz free to roam round, a-walkin’ off afoot;
-you may have gloated over me in your free thoughts
-and said&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You are fixed and sot up there, while I am free
-to soar and sail. Now, haughty female mortal,
-your wings are clipped&mdash;the time has come when
-your walkin’ afoot and roamin’ round is stopped.”</p>
-
-<p>To think that I myself, Josiah Allen’s Wife,
-should find myself on the Atlantic a-hangin’ onto
-the gunwale of the ship with one hand, and a-lookin’
-off over the endless waters below and all
-round me, and a-thinkin’ if I should trust myself to
-step out onto its heavey, treacherous surface where
-should I go to, and when, and why! I, Samantha,
-who had ever been ust to slippin’ on my sun-bunnet
-and runnin’ into Miss Bobbettses, or out
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>
-into the garden, or out to the hen-house for eggs,
-or down into the orchard, or the wood paster for
-recreation or cowslips.</p>
-
-<p>To think that I wuz thus caged up as it were,
-my restless wings (speakin’ in metafor) folded in
-such clost quarters, with no chance (to foller up the
-metafor) of floppin’ ’em to any extent.</p>
-
-<p>Oh! where wuz I? The thought wuz full of or.
-Why wuz I? This thought brung on trains of
-retrospection.</p>
-
-<p>As I sot in my contracted corner of the aft fore-castle
-deck, and Night wuz lettin’ down, gradual,
-her starry mantilly over me and the seen, as erst it
-did over me as I sot in the sweet, restful door-yard
-at Jonesville. (Dear seen, shall I ever see thee
-agin?)</p>
-
-<p>I will rehearse the facts that led to my takin’
-this onpresidented step.</p>
-
-<p>My pardner is asleep in his narrer bunk, or ruther
-on one of the shelves in our cell, that are cushioned,
-and on which our two forms nightly repose.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_004" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_004.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Asleep in his narrer bunk.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>He is at rest. The waves are asleep, or pretty
-nigh asleep, the night winds are hushed, and all
-Nater seems to draw in her breath and wait for me
-as I tell the tale.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span></p>
-<p>I will begin, as most fashionable novelists do, with
-a verse of poetry&mdash;&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Backward, turn backward (as fur as Jonesville), Oh Time, in thy flight&mdash;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Make me (a trusty, short-winded, female historian) jest for to-night.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>It wuz now goin’ on three years sence Uncle
-Philander Smith’s son, Philander Martin, named
-after his Pa and his Uncle Martin, writ a line to
-me announcin’ his advent into Jonesville. And in
-speakin’ of Philander I shall have to go back, kinder
-sideways, some distance into the past to describe
-him.</p>
-
-<p>Yes,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>
-I will have to lead the horse fur back to
-hitch it on properly to the wagon of my history, or
-mebby it would be more proper, under the circumstances,
-to say how fur I must row my little personal
-life-boat back to hitch it onto the great steamer
-of my statement, in order that there shall be direct
-smooth sailin’ and no meanderin’.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, with the first paddle of my verbal row-boat,
-I would state&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>(And into how many little still side coves and
-seemin’ly wind-locked ways my little life-boat must
-sail on her way back to be jined to the great steamer,
-and how I must stay in ’em for some time! It can’t
-be helped.)</p>
-
-<p>Yes, it must have been pretty nigh three years
-ago that we had our first letter from P. Martyn
-Smythe.</p>
-
-<p>He is my second cousin on my own side. And
-he sot out from Spoonville (a neighborin’ hamlet)
-years ago with lots of ambition and pluck and
-energy, and about one dollar and seventy-five cents
-in money.</p>
-
-<p>Uncle Philander, his father, had a big family, and
-died leavin’ him nothin’ but his good example and
-some old spectacles and a cane.</p>
-
-<p>He wuz brung up by his Uncle Martin, a good-natered
-creeter, but onfaculized and shiftless.</p>
-
-<p>Young Martin never loved to be hampered,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> and
-after he got old enough to help his uncle, he didn’t
-want to be hampered with him, so he packed up
-his little knapsack and sot out to seek his fortune,
-and he prospered beyend any tellin’, bought some
-mines, and railroads, and things, and at last come
-back East and settled down in a neighborin’ city,
-and then got rid of several things that he found
-hamperin’ to him. Amongst ’em wuz his old name&mdash;now
-he calls it “Smythe.”</p>
-
-<p>Yes, he got rid of the good, reliable old Smith
-name, that has stood by so many human bein’s even
-unto the end. And he got rid, too, of his conscience,
-the biggest heft of it, and his poor relations.</p>
-
-<p>For why, indeed, should a Bill or a Tom Smith
-claim relationship with a P. Martyn Smythe?</p>
-
-<p>Why, indeed! He got rid of ’em all in a heap, as
-it were, a-ignorin’ “the hull kit and bilein’ of ’em,”
-as Aunt Debby said.</p>
-
-<p>“Never seen hide nor hair of any of ’em, from
-one year’s end to the other,” sez Aunt Debby.</p>
-
-<p>As to his conscience, he got rid of that, I spoze,
-kinder gradual, a little at a time, till to all human
-appearance he hadn’t a speck left, of which more
-anon.</p>
-
-<p>But there wuz a little of it left, enough to leven
-his hull nater and raise it up, some like hop yeast,
-only stronger and more spiritual (as will also be
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>
-seen anon).</p>
-
-<p>Wall, he never seemed to know where his cousin,
-she that wuz Samantha Smith, lived, and his neck
-seemed to be made in that way&mdash;kinder held up by
-his stiff white collar mebby&mdash;that it held his head
-up firm and immovable, so’s he didn’t see me nor my
-Josiah when he’d meet him once in a great while at
-some quarterly meetin’ or conferences and sech.</p>
-
-<p>I guess that neck of hisen carried him so straight
-that he couldn’t seem to turn it towards the old
-Smith pew at all.</p>
-
-<p>And then he wuz dretful near-sighted, too; his
-eyes wuz affected dretful curous.</p>
-
-<p>Uncle Mart Smith, the one P. Martin wuz
-named after, atted him about it, for he wuz his
-own uncle, and dretful shiftless and poor, but a
-Christian as fur as he could be with his nateral laziness
-on him.</p>
-
-<p>As I say, he partly brung Martin up. A good-natered
-creeter he wuz. And one day he walked
-right up and atted P. Martyn Smythe as to why he
-never could see him.</p>
-
-<p>And P. Martyn sed that it wuz his eyesight; sez
-he, “I’m dretful near-sighted.”</p>
-
-<p>It made it all right with Uncle Martin, but his
-wife, Aunt Debby, she sed, “Why can he see bishops
-and elders so plain?”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span></p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez Uncle Mart, “it is a curous complaint.”
-And she sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“’Tain’t curous a mite; it’s as nateral as ingratitude,
-and as old as Pharo.”</p>
-
-<p>And she and Uncle Mart had some words about it.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, his eyesight seemed to grow worse and
-worse so fur as old friends and relations wuz concerned,
-till all of a sudden&mdash;it wuz after my third
-book had shook the world, or I spoze it did; it
-kinder jarred it anyway, I guess&mdash;wall, what
-should that man, P. Martyn, do, but write to me
-and invite me to the big city where he lived.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Relations ort to cling closter to each
-other;” sez he, “Come and stay a week.”</p>
-
-<p>I answered his note, cool but friendly.</p>
-
-<p>And then he writ agin, and asked me to come
-and stay a month. Agin my answer wuz Christian,
-but about as cool as well water.</p>
-
-<p>And then he writ agin and asked me to come
-and stay a year with ’em. And he would be glad,
-he said, he and his two motherless children, if I
-would come and live with ’em always.</p>
-
-<p>This allusion to the motherless melted me down
-some, and my reply wuz, I spoze, about the temperture
-of milk jest from the cow.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p>
-<p>But I said that Duty and Josiah binded me to
-my home and Jonesville.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the next summer what should P. Martyn
-do but to write to me that he and Alice and
-Adrian, his two children, wuz a-comin’ to Jonesville,
-and would we take ’em in for a week? He
-thought his children needed fresh air and a little
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>
-cossetin’.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, to me, Josiah Allen’s wife, who has brung
-up almost numberless lambs and chickens by hand
-as cossets, this allusion to “cossetin’” melted me so
-and warmed up my nater, that my reply wuz about
-the temperture of skim milk het for the calves.</p>
-
-<p>So they come.</p>
-
-<p>And indeed I said then what I say now, and I’ll
-defy anybody to dispute me, that two prettier, winnin’er
-creeters never lived than them two children.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp58" id="i_009" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_009.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Two prettier, winnin’er creeters never lived than them two.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Alice wuz about sixteen then, and Adrian wuz
-about five, and wuzn’t they happy! My hull heart
-went out to ’em, and mebby it wuz that love
-atmosphere that wropped ’em completely round
-that made ’em grow so bright and cheerful and
-healthy.</p>
-
-<p>There hain’t no atmosphere that is at the same
-time so inspirin’ and so restful as the heart atmosphere
-of love.</p>
-
-<p>You can always tell ’em that breathe its rare,
-fine atmosphere by the radiance in their faces and
-the lightness of their step.</p>
-
-<p>I loved them two children dearly. They wuz
-both as handsome as picters, Alice fair and slender
-and sweet as a white day lily, with big, happy blue
-eyes, and hair of the same gold color that her
-mother had had.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p>
-
-<p>Adrian had long curls of that same wonderful
-golden hair, and his eyes wuz big, inspirin’, blue
-gray, and his lips always seemed to hold a happy
-secret. He had that look some way.</p>
-
-<p>Though what it could be we couldn’t tell, for he
-talked pretty much all the time.</p>
-
-<p>And the questions he asked would more’n fill
-our old family Bible, I’m sure, and I thought some
-of the time that the overflow would fill Foxe’s
-“Book of Martyrs.”</p>
-
-<p>Why, one day we got old Uncle Smedley to
-mow our lawn while Adrian wuz there, and I felt
-sorry that I didn’t put down the questions that
-Adrian asked that perfectly deaf man as he trotted
-along in his little velvet suit by the side of the lawn
-mower.</p>
-
-<p>But then I d’no as I’m sorry, after all, for paper
-is sometimes skurce, and I don’t believe in extravagance.</p>
-
-<p>And how he did love poseys, most of all the English
-violets! We had a big bed of ’em, and he always
-had a bunch of ’em in his little buttonhole, and be
-a-pinnin’ ’em to my waist and Alice’s. And he would
-have a big bunch in his hand, and jest bury his face
-in ’em, as if he wuz tryin’ to take in their deep,
-sweet perfume through his pores as it wuz. And
-always a little, low vase that stood before his plate
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>
-on the table would be full of ’em.</p>
-
-<p>I wondered at it some, but found out that before
-he wuz born his sweet Ma had jest sech a passion
-for ’em, and always had her room full of ’em. And
-I kinder wondered if, in some occult way, she wuz
-a-keepin’ up the acquaintance with her boy by
-means of that sweet and delicate language that we
-can’t spell yet, let alone talkin’.</p>
-
-<p>I d’no, nor Josiah don’t, but anyway Adrian jest
-seemed to live on ’em in a certain way, as if they
-satisfied some deep hunger and need in his inmost
-nater.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span></p>
-
-<p>And he would sometimes make the old-fashionedest
-remarks I ever hearn, and praise himself up
-jest as though he wuz somebody else. Not conceited
-at all, but jest sincere and honest.</p>
-
-<p>One day after family prayers, Josiah had been
-readin’ about the New Jerusalem, and I spoze
-Adrian’s curosity wuz rousted up, and sez he, “Aunt
-Samantha, where is Heaven? Is it up in the sky, or
-where is it?”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp99" id="i_012" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_012.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“Aunt Samantha, where is Heaven? Is it up in the sky?”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And I sez, “Sometimes I have thought, Adrian,
-it wuz right here all round us, if we could only see
-it.”</p>
-
-<p>“I wonder if I could find it?” sez he, and he
-peered all round him in the old-fashionedest way I
-ever see.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I spoze my pretty Mamma is there; I
-guess she wants me dreadfully sometimes; I am a
-very bright little boy&mdash;I am very agreeable.”</p>
-
-<p>“But,” I sez, “that hain’t pretty for you to talk
-so.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, Papa sez I am, and he sez I am his wise
-little partner, and my Papa knows everything that
-wuz ever known&mdash;he knows more than any other
-man in the world.”</p>
-
-<p>And I sez to myself, “No, he don’t. He don’t
-know enough to be jest, from all I’ve hearn of his
-doin’s.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span></p>
-
-<p>But I didn’t wonder that Adrian thought as he
-did, or Alice either, for if there wuz ever a indulgent
-and lovin’ father on earth, it wuz Martin
-Smith.</p>
-
-<p>Nothin’ wuz too good for his children. He
-adored ’em, and tried to be father and mother both
-to his motherless boy and girl. And money, so fur
-as they wuz concerned, flowed as free as water.</p>
-
-<p>P. Martyn didn’t stay but a few days this time,
-but left the children two weeks and come back for
-’em.</p>
-
-<p>He stayed right to our house, and his eyesight,
-so fur as the other relations wuz concerned, wuz
-jest the same. He rode round considerable with
-his children, and writ about five thousand letters,
-and sent off and received about the same number
-of letters and telegrams, and said and assured us
-at the end of the three days he wuz there, that “it
-wuz so sweet for him to have sech a perfect rest.”</p>
-
-<p>He didn’t tell us much about what wuz in the
-letters, though the last day that he wuz there he got
-sech a enormous batch of ’em that he daned to explain
-the meanin’ of ’em to Josiah and me, for we
-both had helped him to carry ’em in. Sez he,
-“There is no such thing as satisfying the masses.</p>
-
-<p>“Now,” sez he, “I’ve built a line of trolley cars,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>
-that are the means of saving no end of time, for my
-drivers, if they don’t come up to the swift schedule
-time I have marked down for them, I discharge
-them at once.</p>
-
-<p>“They are economical, much cleaner and swifter
-than horses, an invaluable saving of time. They are
-convenient, rapid, and cheap. Now you would
-think that would satisfy them, but no; because they
-run through the most populous streets of the city,
-and because once in awhile an accident takes place,
-what do they want? They want me to add further
-to the enormous expense I have already been subjected
-to, and buy some fenders to prevent accidents.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, hain’t you goin’ to?” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez he, “I am not. If I do, they will
-probably want some sashay bags to hang up in the
-cars, and some automatic fans to fan them with as
-they ride.” But I had been a-readin’ a sight about
-the deaths them swift monsters had caused, and I
-sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Martin, life is dear, and it seems as if every
-safeguard possible ort to be throwed round the
-great public, between ’em and death.”</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez he, “it is impudent in them to demand
-anything further than what I’ve already done.
-Horses were always causing accidents.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p>
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “when folks are in danger of
-death, it makes ’em impudent. Why, Deacon Garvin
-sassed the minister when he fell into the pond
-at a Sunday School picnic, and the minister told
-him to call on the Lord in his extremity.”</p>
-
-<p>He sassed him and yelled out to him, “You dum
-fool, you, throw me a board!”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_016" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_016.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption">
-    <p>He sassed him and yelled out, “You dum fool, you, throw me a board!”</p>
-    </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Dretful danger makes folks sassy.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, I won’t be to the expense of getting
-them,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I mildly, “You told Josiah Allen and me
-yesterday that you’d laid up two millions of dollars
-sence you had gone into this enterprise. Now, as
-a matter of justice, don’t you think that the public
-who have paid you two millions of their money
-have a right to demand these safeguards to life and
-limb?”</p>
-
-<p>He waived off the question.</p>
-
-<p>“Why,” sez he, “in all the last year there have
-not been more than fifty lives lost in our city from
-these cars, and considering the hosts that have been
-carried, considering the convenience, the swiftness,
-the rapidity, and etcetera&mdash;what is fifty lives?”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_018" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">It depends on whose lives they be.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “it depends on whose lives they
-be. Now I know,” sez I, a-glancin’ at my pardner’s
-shinin’ bald head a-risin’ up like a full harvest
-moon from behind the pages of <i>The World</i>&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I know one life that if it went down in darkness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>
-under them wheels, it would make the hull
-world black and empty. It would take all the
-happiness and hope and meanin’ out of this world,
-and change it into a funeral gloom.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “It would darken the world for all who
-love him.” And sez I, “Every one of them fifty
-that have gone down under them death chariots
-have left ’em who loved ’em. Hearts have ached
-and broken as they have looked at the mangled
-bodies and the emptiness of life faced ’em.” Sez
-I, “Them rollin’ billows of blackness have swept
-over the livin’ and the lovin’ every time them cruel
-wheels have ground a bright human life to death.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span></p>
-
-<p>“They have mostly been children,” sez I, “and
-think of the anguish mother hearts have endured,
-and father love and pride&mdash;how it has been crushed
-down under the rollin’ wheels of death.</p>
-
-<p>“Sometimes a father, who wuz the only prop of
-a family, has gone down. How cold the world is
-to ’em when the love that wropped ’em round
-has been tore from ’em! Sometimes a mother&mdash;what
-can take the place of mother love to the
-little ones left to suffer from hunger, and nakedness,
-and ignorance?”</p>
-
-<p>“You’re imaginative, Cousin Samantha,” said he;
-but I kep’ right on onbeknown to me.</p>
-
-<p>“Who will care for the destitute children left
-alone in the cold world with no one to care for ’em
-and help ’em?”</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll give ’em some money,” said little Adrian,
-who’d been leanin’ up aginst my knee and listenin’
-to our talk, with his big, earnest eyes fixed on
-our faces.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll give ’em the gold piece that papa gave me
-yesterday.”</p>
-
-<p>He had gin him a twenty dollar gold piece, for I
-see it.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll give ’em all I’ve got&mdash;I’ll work for that
-poor woman who lost her little boy&mdash;I’ll work for
-her and help her.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span></p>
-
-<p>“Who’ll work for me?” sez Martin. “You’re
-to be my partner, my boy; remember that.
-You’re my little partner now&mdash;half of all I own
-belongs to you.”</p>
-
-<p>“And I will give it all to them,” sez Adrian.</p>
-
-<p>But Martin went right on&mdash;“You are to be
-president of this company when I am an old man;
-you’re to work for me.”</p>
-
-<p>“But I’ll work for those poor people, papa,” sez
-Adrian, and as he said this he looked way off
-through his father’s face, as he sot by the open
-window, to some distance beyend him. And his
-eyes, jest the color of that June sky, looked big
-and luminous.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll work for them, papa,” and as he spoke a
-sudden thrill, some like electricity, only more riz
-up like, shot through my soul, a sudden and deep
-conviction that he would work for ’em&mdash;that he
-would in some way redeem the old Smith name
-from the ojium attachin’ to it now as a owner of
-them Herod’s Chariots and a Massacreer of Innocents.
-But to resoom.</p>
-
-<p>All the next day Adrian kep’ talkin’ about it,
-how he wuz goin’ to be his papa’s pardner, and how
-he wuz a-goin’ to work for poor folks who had
-lost their little children, and wanted so many
-things.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span></p>
-
-<p>And the questions he asked me about ’em, and
-about poor folks, though wearisome to the flesh,
-wuz agreeable to the sperit.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin called him so much from day
-to day&mdash;“My little partner,” that we all got
-into the habit on’t, and called him so through the
-day.</p>
-
-<p>And every evenin’ he would come to me and
-say&mdash;“Good-night, Aunt Samantha, good-bye till
-mornin’.”</p>
-
-<p>And I would kiss him earnest and sweet, and say
-back to him, “Good-night, little pardner, till mornin’.”</p>
-
-<p>And after he went home, Josiah and I would
-talk about him a sight, and wonder what the little
-pardner wuz doin’, and how he wuz lookin’ from
-day to day. And I would often go into the
-parlor, where his picter stood on the top shelf of
-the what-not, and stand and look dreamily at it.
-There he wuz in his little black velvet suit and a
-big bunch of English violets pinned on one side.
-The earnest eyes would look back at me dretful
-tender like and good. The mouth that held that
-wonderful sweet and sort o’ curous expression, as
-if he wuz thinkin’ of sunthin’ beautiful that we
-didn’t know anything about, would sort o’ smile
-back at me.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span></p>
-
-<p>And he seemed to be a-sayin’ to me, as he said
-that day a-lookin’ out into the clear sky&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll work for them poor people!”</p>
-
-<p>And I answered back to him out loud once or
-twice onbeknown to me, and sez I, “I believe you
-will, little pardner.”</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah asked me who I wuz a-talkin’ to.
-He hollered out from the kitchen.</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “Ahem&mdash;ahem,” and kinder coughed.
-I couldn’t explain to my pardner jest how I felt, for
-I didn’t know myself hardly.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, it run along for some time&mdash;Martin a-writin’
-to me quite often, always a-talkin’ about his
-little pardner and Alice, and how they wuz a-gittin’
-along, and a-invitin’ us to visit ’em.</p>
-
-<p>And at last there came sech a pressin’ invitation
-from Alice to come and see ’em that I had to succumb.</p>
-
-<p>But little, little did I ever think in my early
-youth, when I ust to read about Solomon’s Temple
-and Sheba’s Splendor, and sing about Pleasures and
-Palaces, that I should ever enter in and partake of
-’em.</p>
-
-<p>Why, the house that Martin lived in wuz a sight,
-a sight&mdash;big as the meetin’-housen at Jonesville
-and Loontown both put together, and ornamented
-with jest so many cubits of glory one way, and jest
-so many cubits of grandeur another. Wall, it wuz<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>
-sunthin’ I never expected to see on earth, and in
-another sphere I never sot my mind on seein’ carpets
-that your feet sunk down into as they would
-in a bed of moss in a cedar swamp, and lofty rooms
-with stained-glass winders and sech gildin’s and ornaments
-overhead, and furniture sech as I never see,
-and statutes a-lookin’ pale with joy, to see the
-lovely picters that wuz acrost the room from ’em;
-and more’n twenty servants of different sorts and
-grades.</p>
-
-<p>Why, actually, Josiah and I seemed as much out
-of place in that seen of grandeur as two hemlock
-logs with the bark on ’em at a fashionable church
-weddin’.</p>
-
-<p>And nothin’ but the pure love I felt for them
-children, and their pure love for me, made me
-willin’ to stay there a minute.</p>
-
-<p>Martin wuz good to us, and dretful glad to have
-us there to all human appearance; but Alice and
-Adrian loved us.</p>
-
-<p>And I hadn’t been there more’n a few days before
-I see one reason why Alice had writ me so earnest
-to come&mdash;she wuz in deep trouble, she wuz in love,
-deep in love with a young lawyer, one who writ for
-the newspapers, too&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>A man who had the courage<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> of his convictions,
-and had writ several articles about the sufferin’s
-of the poor and the onjustice of rich men. And
-amongst the rest he had writ some cuttin’ but jest
-articles about the massacreein’ of children by them
-trolley cars, and so had got Martin’s everlastin’ displeasure
-and hatred.</p>
-
-<p>The young man, I found out, wuz as good as they
-make anywhere; a noble-lookin’ young feller, too,
-so I hearn.</p>
-
-<p>Even Martin couldn’t say a word aginst him,
-for, in the cause of Duty and Alice, I tackled him
-on the subject. Sez I, “Hain’t he honest and manly
-and upright?”</p>
-
-<p>And he had to admit that he wuz, that he hadn’t
-a vice or bad habit, and wuz smart and enterprisin’.</p>
-
-<p>I held him right there with my eye till I got an
-answer.</p>
-
-<p>“But he is a fool,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Fools don’t generally write sech good
-sense, Martin.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he wrathfully, “I knew your opinions&mdash;I expected
-you’d uphold him in his ungrateful folly.</p>
-
-<p>“But he has lost Alice by it,” sez he; “for I
-never will give my consent to have him marry her.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Then you had never ort to let him come
-here and have the chance to win her heart, and now
-break it, for,” sez I, “you encouraged him at first,
-Martin.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p>
-
-<p>“I know I did,” sez he&mdash;“I thought I had found
-one honest man, and I had decided on giving all
-my business into his hands. It would have been
-the making of him,” sez he; “but he has only
-himself to blame, for if he had kept still he would
-have married Alice, but now he shall not.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Alice thinks jest as he duz.”</p>
-
-<p>“What do women know about business?” he
-snapped out, enough to take my head off.</p>
-
-<p>“If wimmen don’t know anything about bizness,
-Martin, I should think you’d be glad to
-know, in case you left Alice, that she and her immense
-fortune wuz in the hands of an honest man.</p>
-
-<p>“And I want you to consent to this marriage,”
-sez I, “in a suitable time&mdash;when Alice gits old
-enough.”</p>
-
-<p>“I won’t consent to it!” sez he&mdash;“the writer of
-them confounded papers never shall marry my
-daughter.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why,” sez I, “there’s nothin’ harsh in the articles.”
-Sez I, “They’re only a strong appeal to the
-pity and justice of ’em who are responsible for all
-this danger and horrow!”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” sez he, “I’ve made up mind, and I never
-change it.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “I d’no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> whether you will or not.” Sez
-I, “This is a strange world, Martin, and folks
-are made to change their minds sometimes onbeknown
-to ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I didn’t stay more’n several days after
-this, when I returned to the peaceful precincts of
-Jonesville and my (sometimes) devoted pardner,
-and things resoomed their usual course.</p>
-
-<p>But every few days I got communications from
-Martin’s folks. Alice writ to me sweet letters of
-affection, wherein I could read between the lines a
-sad background of Hope deferred and a achin’
-heart.</p>
-
-<p>And Adrian writ long letters to me, where the
-spellin’ left much to be desired, but the good feelin’
-and love and confidence in ’em wuz all the most
-exactin’ could ask for.</p>
-
-<p>And occasionally Martin would write a short line
-of a sort of hurried, patronizin’ affection, and the
-writin’ looked so much like ducks’ tracts that it
-seemed as if our old drake would have owned up
-to ’em in a law suit.</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah and me would put on our strongest
-specks, and take the letter between us, and hold it
-in every light, and make out the heft on it.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_027" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_027.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Josiah and me put on our strongest specks.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Till at last, one notable day, long to be remembered,
-there come a letter in Martin’s awful chirography.
-And when we had studied out its contents,
-we looked at each other in a astounded astonishment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>
-and a sort of or.</p>
-
-<p>“Would I go to Europe with him and his children
-as his guest?” He thought Alice seemed to be a
-little delicate, and mebby the trip would do her
-good, and he also thought she needed the company
-of some good, practical woman to see to her, and
-mother her a little.</p>
-
-<p>That last sentence tugged at my heart strings.</p>
-
-<p>But my answer went back by next mail&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I wuz afraid of the ocean, and couldn’t leave
-Josiah.”</p>
-
-<p>The answer come back by telegraph&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“The ocean wuz safer than land, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> take Josiah
-along, too. He expected he would go.”</p>
-
-<p>Then I writ back&mdash;“I never had been drownded
-on dry land, and didn’t believe I should be, and
-Josiah didn’t feel as though he could leave the
-farm.”</p>
-
-<p>Then Martin telegrafted to Thomas J.&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Arrange matters for father and mother to take
-trip. Send bill to me. Alice needs their care. Her
-health and happiness depend on it.”</p>
-
-<p>So he got Thomas Jefferson on his side. Thomas
-J. and Maggie loved Alice like a sister. But there
-wuzn’t any bill to send to Martin, for Thomas J.
-pinted out the facts that Ury could move right
-into the house and take care of everything. And
-sez he, “The trip and the rest will do you both
-good.”</p>
-
-<p>“But the danger,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>And he said, jest like Martin&mdash;“Less danger than
-the land, better rates of insurance given,” etc., etc.,
-etc.</p>
-
-<p>And Maggie put in too, and Josiah begun to
-kinder want to go.</p>
-
-<p>And we wavered back and forth, until a long letter
-from Alice, beggin’ me and her Uncle Josiah to
-go with her to take care of her, tottled the balance
-over on the side of Europe.</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah and I began to make<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> preperations for
-a trip abroad.</p>
-
-<p>Oh my heart! think on’t!</p>
-
-<p>I announced our decision to Martin in a letter of
-9 pages of foolscap&mdash;Josiah writ half of it&mdash;describin’
-our doubts and delays and our final reasons for
-decision.</p>
-
-<p>And he telegrafted back&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“All right&mdash;start 14th. Send bill of expense to
-me.”</p>
-
-<p>But there wuzn’t no bill sent, as I said&mdash;no, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>I guess we didn’t want nobody to buy clothes for
-us&mdash;no, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>As for the travellin’ expenses of the trip, seein’
-they thought we wuz necessaries to their comfort,
-and seein’ he’d invited us, and seein’ his
-income wuz about ten thousand dollars an hour,
-why we laid out to let him have his way in
-that.</p>
-
-<p>It wuzn’t nothin’ that we’d ever thought on, and
-then, as I told Josiah, we could even it up some
-by invitin’ the children to stay all summer with us
-next year.</p>
-
-<p>So the die wuz cast down, and the cloth wuz
-soon bought for Josiah’s new European shirts, and
-my own foreign nightcap and nightgown.</p>
-
-<p>As for my clothes, by Maggie’s advice <span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>and assistance,
-aided by our two practical common senses,
-the work wuz soon completed.</p>
-
-<p>Maggie said that I must dress better than I usually
-did on my towers, for the sake of pleasin’ Martin
-and Alice. And she and Thomas J. made me a
-present of a good black silk dress, and she see to
-makin’ it, with one plain waist for common wear,
-and one dressy waist, very handsome, with black
-jet trimmin’ on it for my best.</p>
-
-<p>A good gray alpacky travellin’ dress, some the
-color of dust, with a bunnet of the same color, and
-a good brown lawn for hot days wuz enough, and
-didn’t take up much room. Plenty of good underclothes
-and a wool wrapper for the steamer completed
-my trossow.</p>
-
-<p>Thomas J. see to it that his Pa had a good-lookin’
-suit of black clothes for his best, and a suit of
-pepper and salt for every day.</p>
-
-<p>I also made him 2 new flannel nightcaps. And
-I myself had two new nightcaps made. In makin’
-’em, I departed from my usual fashion of sheep’s-head
-nightcaps, thinkin’ in case of a panick at sea,
-and the glare of publicity a-bein’ throwed onto ’em,
-a modified sheep’s head would appear better than
-clear sheep.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp60" id="i_031" style="max-width: 20em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_031.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>It wuz very dressy when it wuz done.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>They wuz gathered slightly in the crown, and had
-some very nice egin’
-on ’em&mdash;7 cents per<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>
-yard at hullsail&mdash;7 and
-&frac12; retail.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz good lace.</p>
-
-<p>They wuz very becomin’
-to my style.</p>
-
-<p>I also made Josiah
-a handsome dressin’-gown
-out of a piece
-of rep goods I had in
-the house. I had laid
-out to cover a lounge
-with it, but I thought
-under these peculiar
-circumstances Josiah
-needed it more’n the lounge did, and so I made it
-up for him. I made a cord with two tossels
-to tie it with. I twisted the cord out of good
-red and black woosted and made the tossels of
-the same.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz very dressy when it wuz done. And he
-would have worn it out visitin’ if I had encouraged
-him in it. He wuz highly delighted and tickled
-with it.</p>
-
-<p>But I tutored him that it wuz only to wear in his
-state-room, and in case of a panick on deck.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">A HEATHEN MISSIONARY.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I wuz a-settin’ in my clean settin’-room
-on a calm twilight, engaged in completin’ my preperations&mdash;in
-fact, I wuz jest a-puttin’ the finishin’
-touches on one of Josiah’s nightcaps and mine.</p>
-
-<p>I put cat stitch round the front of hisen, a sort
-of a dark red cat.</p>
-
-<p>When all to once I hearn a knock at the west
-door. I had thought as I wuz a-settin’ a-sewin’
-what a beautiful sunset it wuz. The west jest
-glowed with light that streamed over and lit up the
-hull sky. All wuz calm in the east, and a big
-moon wuz jest risin’ from the back of Balcom’s
-Hill. It wuz shaped a good deal like a boat, and I
-laid down my sheep’s-head nightcap and set still
-and watched it, as it seemed moored off behind the
-evergreens that stood tall and silent and dark,
-as if to guard Jonesville and the world aginst the
-gold boat that wuz a-sailin’ in from some onknown
-harbor. But it come on stiddy, and as if it had
-to come.</p>
-
-<p>I felt queer.</p>
-
-<p>And jest at that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> minute I hearn the knock at the
-west door.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp54" id="i_034" style="max-width: 20em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_034.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>A dark figger that riz up like a strange
-picter aginst the sunset.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And I went and opened it, and as I did the west
-wuz flamin’ so with light that it most blinded me at
-first; but when I got my eyesight agin I see
-a-standin’ between me and that light a dark figger
-that riz up like a strange picter aginst the sunset.</p>
-
-<p>His back wuz to the light, and his face wuz in
-the shadder, but I could see that it wuz dark
-and eager, with glowin’ eyes that seemed to light
-up his dark features, some as the stars light up
-the sky.</p>
-
-<p>And he wuz dressed in a strange garb, sech as I
-never see before, only to the World’s Fair. Yes,
-in that singular moment I see the value of travel.
-It give me sech a turn that if I hadn’t had the advantage
-of seein’ jest such costooms at that place,
-I should most probble have swooned away right
-on my own doorstep.</p>
-
-<p>He wuz dressed in a long, loose gown of some
-dark material, and had a white turban on his head.
-Who he wuz or where he come from was a mystery
-to me.</p>
-
-<p>But I felt it wuz safe anyway to say, “Good-evenin’,”
-whoever he wuz or wherever he came
-from; he couldn’t object to that.</p>
-
-<p>So consequently I said it&mdash;not a-knowin’ but he
-would address me back in Hindoo, or Sanskrit, or
-Greek, or sunthin’ else paganish and queer.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span></p>
-
-<p>But he didn’t; he spoke jest as well as my
-Thomas Jefferson could, and when I say that, I
-say enough,
-full enough
-for anybody,
-only his voice
-had a little
-bit of a foreign
-axent to
-it, that put
-me in mind
-some of the
-strange odor
-of Maggie’s
-sandal-wood
-fan, sunthin’
-that is inherient
-and stays
-in it, though
-it is owned
-in America,
-and has Jonesville wind in it&mdash;good, strong wind,
-as good as my turkey feather fan ever had.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Good-evening, madam. Do I address
-Josiah Allen’s wife?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “You do.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span></p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Pardon this intrusion. I come on particular
-business.”</p>
-
-<p>Whereupon I asked him to come in, and sot a
-chair for him.</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t know whether to ask him to lay off his
-things or not, not a-seein’ anything only the dress
-he had on, and not knowin’ what the state of his
-clothes wuz.</p>
-
-<p>And after a minute’s reflection on it, I dassent
-venter.</p>
-
-<p>So I simply sot him a chair and asked him to set.</p>
-
-<p>He bowed dretful polite, and thanked me, and
-sot.</p>
-
-<p>Then there wuz a slight pause ensued and follered
-on. I wuz some embarrassed, not knowin’
-what subject to introduce.</p>
-
-<p>Deacon Bobbett had lost his best heifer that day,
-and most all Jonesville wuz a-lookin’ for it, but I
-didn’t know whether it would interest him or not.</p>
-
-<p>And Sally Garvin had a young babe. A paper
-of catnip even then reposed on the kitchen table
-a-waitin’ until her husband come back to send it,
-but I didn’t know whether that subject would be
-proper to branch out on to a man.</p>
-
-<p>So I sot demute for as much as half a minute.</p>
-
-<p>And before I could collect myself together and
-break out in conversation, he sez in that deep, soft,
-musical voice of hisen&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span></p>
-
-<p>“Madam, I have come on a strange errand.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, in a encouragin’ voice, “I am
-used to strange errents&mdash;yes, indeed, I am! Why,”
-sez I, “this very day a woman writ to me from
-Minnesota for money to fence in a door-yard, and,”
-sez I, “Sime Bentley wuz over bright and early
-this mornin’ to borrer a settin’ hen. He had plenty
-of eggs, but no setters.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I in a encouragin’ axent, for I couldn’t help
-likin’ the creeter, “I am used to ’em&mdash;don’t be
-afraid.”</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t know but he wuz after my nightgown
-pattern, and I looked clost at his garb; but I see
-that it wuz fur fuller than mine and sot different.
-The long folds hung with a dignity and grace that
-my best mull nightgown never had, and if it wuz
-so, I wuz a-goin’ to tell him honorable that his pattern
-went fur ahead of mine in grandeur.</p>
-
-<p>And then, thinks I, mebby he is a-goin’ to beg
-for money for a meetin’-house steeple or sunthin’ in
-Hindoostan, and I wuz jest a-makin’ up my mind
-to tell him that we hadn’t yet quite paid for the
-paint that ornamented ourn. And I wuz a-layin’
-out to bring in some Bible and say, “Charity begun
-on our own steeple.”</p>
-
-<p>But jest as I wuz a-thinkin’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> this he spoke up in
-that melodious voice, that somehow put me in mind
-of palm trees a-risin’ up aginst a blue-black sky,
-and pagodas, and oasises, and things. Sez he,
-“Will you allow me to tell you a little of my
-history?”</p>
-
-<p>I sez, “Yes, indeed! I am jest through with my
-work.” Sez I frankly, “I have been finishin’ some
-nightcaps for my pardner, and I sot the last stitch
-to ’em as you come in. I’d love to set still and hear
-you tell it.”</p>
-
-<p>So I sot down in the big arm-chair and folded
-my arms in a almost luxurious foldin’, and listened.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “My name is Al Faizi, and I am come
-from a country far away.” And he waved his hand
-towards the east.</p>
-
-<p>Instinctively I follered his gester, and his eyes,
-and I see that the gold boat of the moon had come
-round the pint, and wuz a-sailin’ up swift into the
-clear sky. But a big star shone there, it stood
-there motionless, as he went on.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I have always been a learner, a seeker
-after truth. When a small boy I lived with my
-uncle, who was a learned man, and his wife, who was
-an Englishwoman. From her I learned your language.
-I loved to study; she had many books.
-She was the daughter of a missionary, who died and
-left her alone in that strange land. My uncle was
-a convert to her faith. She married him and was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>
-happy. She had many books that belonged to her
-father; he was a good man and very learned; he
-did my people much good while he lived with
-them.</p>
-
-<p>“I learned from those books many things that
-our own wise men never taught me, and from them
-I got a great craving to see this land. I learned
-from these books and my aunt’s teachings taught
-me when I was so young that truth permeated my
-being and filled my heart, that this land was the
-country favored by God&mdash;this land so holy, that it
-sent missionaries to teach my people. Then I went
-to a school taught by English teachers, but always
-I searched for truth&mdash;I search for God in mosque
-and in temple. These books said God is here in
-this land. So I come. Many of my people come
-to this great Fair, I come also with them.</p>
-
-<p>“But always I seek the great spirit of God I
-came here to find. I thought truth and justice
-would fill your temples, and your homes, and all
-your great cities.</p>
-
-<p>“I come, I watch for this Great Light&mdash;I listened
-for the Great Voice, I see strange things, but
-I say nothing, I only think, but I get more and
-more perplexed. I ask many people to show me
-the temple where God is, to show me the great
-mosque where Truth and Right dwell, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>
-people are blessed by their white shining light, for
-I thought He would be in all the customs and
-ways of this wise people, so good that they instruct
-all the rest of the world. I come to learn, to worship,
-but I see such strange things, such strange
-customs. I see cruelties practised, such as my own
-people would not think of doing. I keep silent, I
-only think&mdash;think much. But more and more
-I wonder, and grow sad.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_039" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_039.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">I don’t love to hear that; that sounds bad.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“I ask many men, preachers, teachers, to show
-me the place where God is, the great palace
-where truth dwells. They take me to many places,
-but I do not find the great spirit of Love <span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>I seek
-for. I find in your big temples altars built up to
-strange gods.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I mildly, “I don’t love to hear that; that
-sounds bad. I can take you to one meetin’-house,”
-sez I, “where we don’t have no Dagon nor snub-nosed
-idols to worship,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>But even as I spoke my conscience reproved me;
-for wuz there not settin’ in the highest place in that
-meetin’-house a rich man who got all his money by
-sellin’ stuff that made brutes of his neighbors?</p>
-
-<p>What wuz we all a-lookin’ up to, minister and
-people, but a gold beast! What wuz that man’s
-idol but Mammon!</p>
-
-<p>And then didn’t I remember how the hull meetin’-house
-had turned aginst Irene Filkins, who went
-astray when she wuz nothin’ but a little girl, a
-motherless little girl, too?</p>
-
-<p>Where wuz the great sperit of Love and Charity
-that said&mdash;“Neither do I condemn thee; go and
-sin no more”? Wuz God there?</p>
-
-<p>Didn’t I remember that in this very meetin’-house
-they got up a fair to help raise money for some
-charity connected with it, and one of the little girls
-kicked higher than any Bowery girl? Wuz it
-a-startin’ that child on the broad road that takes
-hold on death? Wuz we worshippin’ a idol of Expediency&mdash;doing
-evil that good might come?</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span></p>
-
-<p>There wuz poor ones in that very meetin’-house,
-achin’ hearts sufferin’ for food and clothin’ almost, and
-rich, comfortable ones who went by on the other side
-and sot in their places and prayed for the poor, with
-their cold forms and hungry eyes watchin’ ’em vainly
-as they prayed, hopin’ for the help they did not get.</p>
-
-<p>Wuz we hyppocrites? Did we bow at the altar
-of selfishness?</p>
-
-<p>Truly no Eastern idol wuz any more snub-nosed
-and ugly than this one.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz overcome with horrow when I thought it
-all over, and sez I&mdash;“I guess I won’t take you there
-right away; we’ll think on’t a spell first.”</p>
-
-<p>For I happened to think, too, that our good, plain
-old preacher, Elder Minkley, wuzn’t a-goin’ to
-preach there Sunday, anyway, but a famous sensational
-preacher, that some of the rich members
-wanted to call. Yes, many hed turned away from
-the good gospel sermons of that man of God, Elder
-Minkley, and wanted a change.</p>
-
-<p>Wuz it a windy, sensational God set up in our
-pulpit? I felt guilty as a dog, for I too had criticised
-that good old Elder’s plain speakin’.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi had sot me to thinkin’, and while I wuz
-a-meditatin’ his calm voice went on&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I came to a city not far away; there I saw some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>
-words you had written. I felt that you, too, desired
-the truth. I have come to ask you if you have
-found it&mdash;if you have found in this land the place
-where Love and Justice reign, and to ask you
-where it is, that I, too, may worship there, and teach
-the truth to my people.”</p>
-
-<p>I wuz overcome by his simple words, and I bust
-out onbeknown to me&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I hain’t found it.” Sez I, and onconsciously
-I used the words of another&mdash;“‘We are all poor
-creeters,’ but we try to worship the true God&mdash;we
-try to follow the teachin’s of Him who loved us,
-and give His life to us.”</p>
-
-<p>“The wise man who lived in Galilee and taught
-the people?” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez I, “not the wise man, but the Divine
-One&mdash;the God who left His throne and dwelt with
-us awhile in the form of the human. We try to
-foller His teachings&mdash;a good deal of the time we
-do,” sez I, honestly and sadly.</p>
-
-<p>For more and more this strange creeter’s words
-sunk into my heart, and made me feel queer&mdash;queer
-as a dog.</p>
-
-<p>“I have read His words. I loved Him when a
-boy, I love Him still. I go into your great
-churches sacred to His name. I find in one grand
-church they say He is there alone, and not in any
-other. I go into another, just as great, and they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>
-say He is there, and not in the one I first visited;
-and then I go to another, and another, and yet
-another.</p>
-
-<p>“All have different ways and beliefs. All say
-God is here within the narrow walls of this church,
-and not in the others. Oh! I get so confused, I
-know not what to do. How can I, a poor stranger,
-trace His footsteps through all these conflicting
-creeds? I grow sad, and my heart fills with doubt
-and darkness. Well I remember His words that I
-had pondered in my heart when a boy&mdash;‘That they
-who loved Him should bear the cross and follow
-Him,’ and love and care for His poor. In all these
-great, beautiful churches I hear sweet music. In
-some I see grand pictures, and note the incense
-floating up toward the Heavens; in some I see high
-vaulted roofs, and the light in many glowing colors
-falls on the bowed forms of the worshippers. I hear
-holy words, the voice of prayer, but I see no
-crosses borne, and all are rich and grand. I go
-down in the low places. I see the poor toiling on
-unpitied and uncared for. I see these rich people
-worship in the churches one day, and pray&mdash;‘Grant
-us mercy as we are merciful to others.’</p>
-
-<p>“And then the next day they put burdens on the
-poor, so hard that they can hardly bear them, the
-poor, starving, dying, herded together like animals,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>
-in wretched places unfit for dumb creatures.</p>
-
-<p>“And ever the rich despise the poor, and the
-poor curse the rich&mdash;both bitter against each other,
-even unto death.</p>
-
-<p>“I find no God of Love in this.</p>
-
-<p>“I go into your great halls where laws are made&mdash;I
-see the wise men making laws to bind the weak
-and tempted with iron chains&mdash;laws to help bad
-men lead lives of impurity&mdash;laws to make legal
-crimes that your Holy Book says renders one forever
-unfit for Heaven. I find no God of Justice in
-this.”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez I, “He hain’t nigh ’em, and never
-wuz!”</p>
-
-<p>“Well then,” sez he, “why do they not find out
-the way of truth themselves before they try to
-teach other people?”</p>
-
-<p>“The land knows!” sez I; “I don’t.”</p>
-
-<p>“Some of your teachers do much good,” sez he;
-“they are good, and teach some of my people good
-doctrines. But why ever are they permitted by
-your government to bring ways and habits into our
-land that cover it with ruin?</p>
-
-<p>“I was walking once with my own relation, Hadijah,
-unconverted, and we found one of our people
-lying drunken by the wayside, with bottles of American
-whiskey lying by his side. ‘Boston’ was marked
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>
-on them, a city, I find, that considers itself the centre
-of goodness and lofty thought. The bottles were
-empty. Hadijah says to me&mdash;‘That man is a
-Christian.’</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp53" id="i_045" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_045.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption">
-  <p>“<span class="smcap">‘That man is a Christian.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘Because
-he is drunk.’</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“I said&mdash;‘No, I think not.’</p>
-
-<p>“‘Yes he is,’ said he.</p>
-
-<p>“‘How do you know it?’ said I.</p>
-
-<p>“‘Because he is drunk.’ Hadijah, not being yet
-converted, and judging from appearances and from
-the evidences of his eyesight, associated the ideas
-and thought that in some way drunkenness was an
-evidence of Christianity. That belief is largely
-shared by all heathen people.</p>
-
-<p>“And then I open your Holy Book and find it
-written, ‘No drunkard shall inherit eternal life,’
-and I say to myself, What does it mean that these
-holy people over the seas, who try so hard to convert
-us, should send whiskey, and Bibles, and missionaries
-to us all packed in one great ship?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I&mdash;“The nation don’t mean to do it.” Sez I,
-“It don’t want to do any sech harm.”</p>
-
-<p>“But I hear of the great power of this nation,
-could it not prevent it? If it could not prevent
-it, it must be a weak government indeed. And if
-truly this great country is so weak and so wicked as
-to set snares for the heathens&mdash;trying to lead them
-into paths that end in eternal ruin&mdash;I think why not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>
-keep their missionaries in their own land? They
-must need them even more than we do.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I&mdash;“Don’t talk so, poor creeter, don’t talk so.
-Missionaries go out to your land fired with the
-deathless zeal to save souls&mdash;to bring the knowledge
-of the Christ to all the world.”</p>
-
-<p>“But if they bring the knowledge in the way I
-speak of, so the heathen honestly believes drunkenness
-is the sign of Christianity, is it not making a
-mockery of what they profess to teach?”</p>
-
-<p>I wuz dumbfoundered. I didn’t know how to
-frame a reply, and so I sot onframed, as you may
-say.</p>
-
-<p>“I heard the missionaries say, and I read it in
-your Holy Book, that the liar shall have his portion
-in the lake that burns forever. The same
-curses are on them that steal and on them that
-commit adultery.</p>
-
-<p>“I thought the country that sends these missionaries,
-rebuking these sins so sharply&mdash;I
-thought their country must be pure and peaceable
-and holy in its ways. I come here, as I say, seeking
-the Great Light to guide me. I come here to hear
-the Great Voice, so I could go back and carry its
-teachings to our own people. For I thought there
-must be some mistake, and that the lessons failed in
-some way to carry the idea of your great government.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>
-So I come, I study; and I find that not
-only was your great government willing to have my
-poor people enslaved by the drink habit, but it was
-a partaker in it. It sent over the accursed whiskey
-and brandy and took a portion of the pay&mdash;a portion
-of the money spent by my poor people for
-making themselves unfit for earth, and shutting
-them forever out of Heaven.</p>
-
-<p>“Again, this law that ‘Thou shalt not commit
-adultery,’ that stands out so plain in the Holy Book,
-that divorce is only permitted for this one cause, I
-find this great government, which by its laws breaks
-even the holy marriage bonds by the committing of
-this sin&mdash;I find that this government makes this sin
-easy and convenient to commit. It grants licenses
-to make it lawful and right.</p>
-
-<p>“When I get here and study I see such strange
-things. Forevermore I wonder, and forevermore
-I say&mdash;Why are not missionaries sent to this people,
-who do such things?</p>
-
-<p>“And I, even I, so weak as I am and so ignorant,
-but fired as I am by the love of Christ Jesus&mdash;I say
-to myself, ‘I will tell this people of their sins. I
-will try to bring them to a knowledge of the pure
-and holy religion of Christ.’”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span></p>
-<p>“You come as a missionary, then?” sez I,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>
-a-bustin’ out onbeknown to me. “Often and often
-I have wanted a heathen to come over and try to
-convert Uncle Sam&mdash;poor old creeter, a-wadin’ in
-sin up to his old knee jints and over ’em,” sez I.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp57" id="i_049" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_049.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">Uncle Sam a-wadin’ in sin up to his old knee jints.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Uncle Sam?” sez he; “I know him not. I
-meant your great people; I do not speak of one
-alone.”</p>
-
-<p>“I know,” sez I; “that is what we call our
-Goverment when we are on intimate terms with
-it.”</p>
-
-<p>“And,” sez I, “you little know what that old
-man has been through. He wants to do right&mdash;he
-honestly duz; but you know jest how it is&mdash;how
-mistaken counsellors darken wisdom and confound
-jedgment.”</p>
-
-<p>But the sweet, melodious voice went on&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Your missionaries preach loud to my people
-against the sins of stealing and gambling.</p>
-
-<p>“But I find that in this country great places
-are fitted up for gambling and theft.”</p>
-
-<p>Truly he spoke plain, but then I d’no as I could
-blame him.</p>
-
-<p>“In these places of theft and gambling, called
-your stock exchanges, I find that you have people
-called brokers, and some wild animals called bulls
-and bears, though for what purpose they are kept
-I know not, unless it is that they are trained for
-the Arena. I know not yet all your customs.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span></p>
-
-<p>“But this I know, that your brokers gamble and
-steal from the people&mdash;sometimes millions in one
-day. Which money, taken from the common
-people all over this country, is divided by these
-brokers amongst a few rich men. Perhaps then the
-game of bulls and bears, fighting each other for
-their amusement, begins. I know not yet all your
-ways.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp54" id="i_052" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_052.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>THE GAME OF BULLS AND BEARS.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“But I know that in one day five million
-bushels of wheat were bought and sold when there
-was no wheat in sight&mdash;when even during that whole
-year the crop amounted to only two hundred and
-eighty millions. There were more than two million,
-two hundred thousand bushels of wheat bought
-and paid for that never grew&mdash;that were not ever in
-the world.</p>
-
-<p>“As I saw this, oh! how my heart burned to
-teach this poor sinful people the morality that our
-own people enjoy.</p>
-
-<p>“For never were there such sins committed in
-our country.</p>
-
-<p>“I find your rich men controlling the market&mdash;holding
-back the bread that the poor hungered and
-starved for, putting burdens on them more grievous
-than they could bear. These rich men, sitting
-with their soft, white hands, and forms that never
-ached with labor, putting such high prices on
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>grain and corn that the poor could not buy to
-eat&mdash;these rich men prayed in the morning (for
-they often go through the forms of the holy
-religion)&mdash;they prayed, ‘Give us this day our
-daily bread,’ and then made it their first business
-to keep people from having that prayer answered
-to them.</p>
-
-<p>“They prayed, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’
-and then deliberately made circumstances that they
-knew would lead countless poor into temptation&mdash;temptation
-of theft&mdash;temptation of selling Purity
-and Morality for bread to sustain life.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, a-groanin’ out loud and a-sithin’ frequent&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I can’t bear to hear sech talk, it kills me almost;
-and,” sez I honestly, “there is so much truth
-in it that it cuts me like a knife.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, a-goin’ on, not mindin’ my words&mdash;“I
-felt that I must warn this people of its sins. I
-must tell them of what was done once in one of
-our own countries,” sez he, a-wavin’ his hand in a
-impressive gester towards our east door&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“In one of our countries the authorities learned
-that stock exchanges were being formed at Osaka,
-Yokohama, and Koba.</p>
-
-<p>“The police, all wearing disguises, went at once
-to the exchanges and mingled with the crowd.
-When all was ready a sign was given, the police<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>
-took possession of the exchanges and all the books
-and papers, the doors were locked and the prisoners
-secured. Over seven hundred were put in prison,
-the offence being put down&mdash;‘Speculation in margins.’</p>
-
-<p>“I yearn to tell this great people of the way of
-our countries, so that they may follow them.”</p>
-
-<p>“A heathen a-comin’ here as a missionary!” sez
-I, a-thinkin’ out loud, onbeknown to me. “Wall, it
-is all right.” Sez I, “It’s jest what the country
-needs.”</p>
-
-<p>But before I could say anythin’ further, at that
-very minute my beloved pardner come in.</p>
-
-<p>He paused with a look of utter amazement. He
-stood motionless and held complete silence and two
-pails of milk.</p>
-
-<p>But I advanced onwards and relieved him of his
-embarrassment and one pail of milk, and introduced
-Al Faizi. Al Faizi riz up to once and made
-a deep bow, almost to the floor; but my poor Josiah,
-with a look of bewilderment pitiful to witness,
-and after standin’ for a brief time and not speakin’
-a word, sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_055" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_055.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Al Faizi made a deep bow, almost to the floor.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“I guess, Samantha, I will go out to the sink
-and wash my hands.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span></p>
-<p>Truly, it wuz enough to surprise any man, to
-leave a pardner with no companion but a sheep’s-head
-nightcap, partly finished, and come back in
-a few minutes and see her a-keepin’ company with
-a heathen, clothed in a long robe and turban.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Josiah asked me out into the kitchen for
-a explanation, which I gin to him with a few
-words and a clean towel, and then sez I&mdash;“We
-must ask him to stay all night.”</p>
-
-<p>And he sez, “I d’no what we want of that
-strange-lookin’ creeter a-hangin’ round here.”</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “I believe he is sent by Heaven to
-instruct us heathens.”</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah said that if he wuz sent from
-Heaven he would most probble have wings.</p>
-
-<p>He didn’t want him to stay, I could see that, and
-he spoke as if he wuz on intimate terms with angels,
-a perfect conoozer in ’em.</p>
-
-<p>But I sez, “Not all of Heaven’s angels have
-wings, Josiah Allen, not yet; but,” sez I, “they
-are probble a-growin’ the snowy feathers on ’em
-onbeknown to ’em.”</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">OFF INTO SIDE PATHS.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the upshot of the matter wuz Al Faizi
-stayed right there for weeks. He seemed to have
-plenty of money, and I d’no what arrangement he
-and Josiah did make about his board, but I know
-that Josiah acted after that interview with him in
-the back yard real clever to him, and didn’t say a
-word more aginst the idee of his not bein’ there.</p>
-
-<p>(Josiah is clost.)</p>
-
-<p>As for me, I would have scorned to have took a
-cent from him, feelin’ that I got more’n my pay out
-of his noble but strange conversation.</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah is the head of the family (or he calls
-himself so).</p>
-
-<p>And mebby he is some of the time.</p>
-
-<p>But suffice it to say, Al Faizi jest stayed and
-made it his home with us, and peered round, and
-took journeys, and tried to find out things about
-our laws and customs.</p>
-
-<p>Thomas Jefferson loved to talk with him the
-best that ever wuz. And Al Faizi would make
-excursions to different places round, a-walkin’ mostly,
-a-seein’ how the people lived, and a-watchin’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>
-their manners and customs, and in writin’ down
-lots of things in some books he had with him,
-takin’ notes, I spozed, and learnin’ all he could.
-One book that he used to carry round with him
-and make notes in wuz as queer a lookin’ book as
-I ever see.</p>
-
-<p>With sunthin’ on the cover that looked some like
-a cross and some like a star.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz some precious stuns on it that flashed.
-If it wuz held up in some lights it looked like a
-cross, and then agin the light would fall on’t and
-make it look like a star. And the gleamin’ stuns
-would sparkle and flash out sometimes like a sharp
-sword, and anon soft, like a lambient light.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz a queer-lookin’ book; and he said, when I
-atted him about it, that he brought it from a
-country fur away.</p>
-
-<p>And agin he made that gester towards the East,
-that might mean Loontown, and might mean Ingy
-and Hindoosten&mdash;and sech.</p>
-
-<p>After that first talk with me, in which he seemed
-to open his heart, and tell what wuz in his mind, as
-you may say, about our country, he didn’t seem to
-talk so very much.</p>
-
-<p>He seemed to be one of the kind who do up
-their talkin’ all to one time, as it were, and git
-through with it.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p>
-
-<p>Of course he asked questions a sight, for he
-seemed to want to find out all he could. And he
-would anon or oftener make a remark, but to talk
-diffuse and at length, he hardly ever did. But he
-took down lots of notes in that little book, for I
-see him.</p>
-
-<p>I enjoyed havin’ him there dretful well, and done
-well by him in cookin’, etcetery and etcetery.</p>
-
-<p>But the excitement when he first walked into the
-Jonesville meetin’-house with Josiah and me wuz
-nearly rampant. I felt queer and kinder sheepish,
-to be walkin’ out with a man with a long dress, and
-turban on, and sandals. And I kinder meached along,
-and wuz glad to git to our pew and set down as
-quick as I could. But Josiah looked round him
-with a dignified and almost supercilious mean. He
-felt hauty, and acted so, to think that we had a
-heathen with us and that the other members of the
-meetin’-house didn’t have one.</p>
-
-<p>But if I felt meachin’ over one heathen, or, that is,
-if I felt embarrassed a-showin’ him off before the
-bretheren and sistern, what would I felt if Josiah had
-had his way about comin’ to meetin’ that day?</p>
-
-<p>Little did them bretheren and sistern know what
-I’d been through that mornin’.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah wore his gay dressin’-gown<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> down to breakfast,
-which I bore well, although it wuz strange&mdash;strange
-to have two men with dresses on a-settin’
-on each side of me to the table&mdash;I who had always
-been ust to plain vests and pantaloons and coats
-on the more opposite sex.</p>
-
-<p>But I bore up under it well, and didn’t say nothin’
-aginst it, and poured out the coffee and passed the
-buckwheat cakes and briled chicken and etc. with a
-calm face.</p>
-
-<p>But when church-time come, and Ury brought
-the mair and democrat up to the door, and I got up
-on to the back seat, when I turned and see Josiah
-Allen come out with that rep dressin’-gown on,
-trimmed with bright red, and them bright tossels
-a-hangin’ down in front, and a plug hat on, you
-could have knocked me down with a pin feather.</p>
-
-<p>And sez I sternly, “What duz this mean, Josiah
-Allen?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I am a-goin’ to wear this to meetin’, Samantha.”</p>
-
-<p>“To meetin’?” sez I almost mekanically.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez he; “I am a-doin’ it out of compliments
-to Fazer; he would feel queer to be the only
-man there with a dress on, and so I thought I would
-keep him company; and,” sez he, a-fingerin’ the tossels
-lovin’ly, “this costoom is very dressy and becomin’
-to me, and I’d jest as leave as not let old
-Bobbett and Deacon Garvin see me appearin’ in it,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>
-sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Do you go and take that off this minute, Josiah
-Allen! Why, they’d call you a idiot and as crazy as
-a loon!”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, a-puttin’ his right foot forward and standin’
-braced up on it, sez he, “I shall wear this dress
-to meetin’ to-day!”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “You won’t wear it, Josiah Allen!”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “You know you are always lecturin’ me
-on bein’ polite. You know you told me a story
-about a woman who
-broke a china teacup
-a purpose because one
-of her visitors happened
-to break hern.
-You praised her up to
-me; and now I am
-actin’ out of almost pure
-politeness, and you
-want to break it up, but
-you can’t,” sez he, and
-he proceeded to git into
-the democrat.</p>
-
-<p>Ury wuz a-standin’
-with his hands on his
-sides, convulsed with laughter, and even the mair
-seemed to recognize sunthin’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span> strange, for she
-whinnered loudly.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I in frigid axents, “Even the old mair is a
-whinnerin’, she is so disgusted with your doin’s,
-Josiah Allen.”</p>
-
-<p>“The old mair is whinnerin’ for the colt!” sez he,
-and agin he put his foot on the lowest step.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp65" id="i_061" style="max-width: 20em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_061.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Sez I, a-risin’ up in the democrat, “I’ll git out.”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, a-risin’ up in the democrat, with
-dignity, “I’ll git out and stay to home. I will not
-go to church and see my pardner took up for wearin’
-female’s clothin’.”</p>
-
-<p>He paused with his foot on the step, and a shade
-of doubt swept over his liniment.</p>
-
-<p>“Do you spoze they would?” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Of course they would!” sez I; “twilight would
-see you a-moulderin’ in a cell in Loontown.”</p>
-
-<p>“I couldn’t moulder much in half a day!” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>But I see that I wuz about to conquer. He paused
-a minute in deep thought, and then he turned away;
-but as he went up the steps slowly, I hearn him say&mdash;“Dum
-it all, I never try to show off in politeness
-or anything but what sunthin’ breaks it up!”</p>
-
-<p>But anon he come down clothed in his good
-honorable black kerseymeer suit, and Al Faizi soon
-follered him in his Oriental garb, and we proceeded
-to meetin’.</p>
-
-<p>As I say, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> excitement wuz nearly rampant as
-we went in. And I spoze nothin’ hendered the
-female wimmen and men from bein’ fairly prostrated
-and overcome by their feelin’s, only this fact,
-that the winter before a Hindoo in full costoom
-had lectured before the Jonesville meetin’-house,
-so that memory kinder broke the blow some. And
-then some on ’em had been to the World’s Fair,
-and seen quantities of heathens and sech there.</p>
-
-<p>So no casuality wuz reported, though feather
-fans wuz waved wildly, and more caraway wuz consoomed,
-I dare presoom to say, than would have
-been in a month of Sundays in ordinary times.</p>
-
-<p>But while the wonder and curosity waxed rampant
-all round, Al Faizi sot silent and motionless
-as the dead, with his soft, brilliant eyes fixed on the
-minister’s face, eager to ketch every word that fell
-from his lips&mdash;a-tryin’ to hear the echo of the Great
-Voice speak to him through the minister’s words,
-so I honestly believe.</p>
-
-<p>For I think that a honester, sincerer, well-meanin’er
-creeter never lived and breathed than he wuz;
-and as days went on I see nothin’ to break up my
-opinion of him.</p>
-
-<p>Politer he wuz than any female, or minister, I
-ever see fur or near. Afraid of makin’ trouble to a
-marked extent, eager and anxious to learn everything
-he could about everything&mdash;all our laws, and
-customs, and habits, and ways of thinkin’&mdash;and tellin’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>
-his views in a simple way of honest frankness, that
-almost took my breath away&mdash;anxious to learn, and
-anxious to teach what he knew of the truth.</p>
-
-<p>Though, as I said, after that first bust of talk with
-me he seemed inclined to not talk so much, but
-learn all he could. It wuz as if he had his say out
-in that first interview. Dretful interestin’ creeter
-to have round, he wuz&mdash;sech a contrast to the inhabitants
-of Jonesville, Deacon Garvin and the
-Dankses, etc.</p>
-
-<p>He didn’t stay to our house all the time, as I said,
-but would take pilgrimages round and come back,
-and make it his home there.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, it wuz jest about this time that a contoggler
-come to our house to contoggle a little for me.
-I wanted some skirts, and some underwaists, and
-some of Josiah’s old clothes contoggled.</p>
-
-<p>You know, it stood to reason that we couldn’t
-have all new things for our voyage, and so I had to
-have some of our old clothes fixed up. You see,
-things will git kinder run down once in awhile&mdash;holes
-and rips in dresses, trimmin’ offen mantillys,
-tabs to new line, and pantaloons to hem over round
-the bottom, and vests to line new, and backs to put
-into ’em, and etcetery and etcetery.</p>
-
-<p>And, then, you’ll outgrow some of your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span> things,
-and have to let ’em out; or else they’ll outgrow you,
-and you’ll have to take ’em in, or sunthin’.</p>
-
-<p>Sech cases as these don’t call for a dressmaker or
-a tailoress. No, at sech times a contoggler is
-needed. And I’ve made a stiddy practice for years
-of hirin’ a woman to come to the house every little
-while for a day or two at a time, and have my
-clothes and Josiah’s all contoggled up good.</p>
-
-<p>This contoggler I had now wuz a old friend of
-mine, who had made it her home with me for some
-time in the past, and now bein’ a-keepin’ house
-happy not fur away, had sech a warm feelin’ for me
-in her heart, that she always come and contoggled
-for me when I needed a contoggler.</p>
-
-<p>She had a dretful interestin’ story. Mebby you’d
-like to hear it?</p>
-
-<p>I hate to have a woman meander off into
-side paths too much, but if the public are real
-sot and determined on hearin’ me rehearse her history,
-why I will do it. For it is ever my desire to
-please.</p>
-
-<p>It must be now about three years sence I had
-my first interview with my contoggler. And I see
-about the first minute that she wuz a likely creeter&mdash;I
-could see it in her face.</p>
-
-<p>She wuz a perfect stranger to me, though she
-had lived in Jonesville some five months prior and
-before I see her.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span></p>
-
-<p>And Maggie, my son’s, Thomas Jefferson’s, wife,
-hearn of her through her mother’s second cousin’s
-wife’s sister, Miss Lemuel Ikey. And Miss Ikey
-said that she seemed to be one of the best wimmen
-she ever laid eyes on, and that it would be a
-real charity to give her work, as she wuz a stranger
-in the place, without much of anything to git along
-with, and seemed to be a deep mourner about sunthin’.
-Though what it wuz she didn’t know, for
-ever sence she had come to Jonesville she had made
-a stiddy practice of mindin’ her own bizness and
-workin’ when she got work.</p>
-
-<p>She had come to Jonesville kinder sudden like,
-and she had hired her board to Miss Lemuel Ikey’s
-son’s widow, who kep’ a small&mdash;a very small boardin’-house,
-bein’ put to it for things herself though,
-likely.</p>
-
-<p>I told Maggie to ask her mother to ask her
-second cousin’s wife to ask her sister, Miss Lemuel
-Ikey, to ask her son’s wife what the young woman
-could do.</p>
-
-<p>And the word come back to me straight, or as
-straight as could be expected, comin’ through five
-wimmen who lived on different roads.</p>
-
-<p>“That she wuzn’t a dressmaker, or a mantilly
-maker, or a tailoress. But she stood ready to do
-what she could, and needed work dretfully, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>
-would be awful thankful for it.”</p>
-
-<p>Then feelin’ deeply sorry for her, and wantin’ to
-befriend her, I sent word back in the same way&mdash;“To
-know if she could wash, or iron, or do fancy
-cookin’. Or could she make hard or soft soap?
-Or feather flowers? Or knit striped mittens? Or
-pick geese? Or paint on plaks? Or do paperin’?”</p>
-
-<p>And the answer come back, meanderin’ along
-through the five&mdash;“That she wuzn’t strong enough,
-or didn’t know how to do any one of these, but she
-stood ready to do all she could do, and needed work
-the worst kind.”</p>
-
-<p>Then I tackled the matter myself, as I might
-better have done in the first place, and went over to
-see her, bein’ willin’ to give her help in the best way
-any one can give it, by helpin’ folks to help themselves.</p>
-
-<p>I went over quite early in the mornin’, bein’ on
-my way for a all-day’s visit to Tirzah Ann’s.</p>
-
-<p>But I found the woman up and dressed up slick,
-or as slick as she could be with sech old clothes on.</p>
-
-<p>And I liked her the minute I laid eyes on her.</p>
-
-<p>Her face, though not over than above handsome,
-wuz sweet-lookin’, the sweetness a-shinin’ out
-through her big, sad eyes, like the light in the
-western skies a-shinin’ out through a rift in heavy
-clouds.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p>
-
-<p>Very pale complected she wuz, though I couldn’t
-tell whether the paleness wuz caused by trouble, or
-whether she wuz made so. And the same with her
-delicate little figger. I didn’t know whether that
-frajile appearance wuz nateral, or whether Grief
-had tackled her with his cold, heavy chisel, and had
-wasted the little figger until it looked more like a
-child’s than a woman’s.</p>
-
-<p>And in her pretty brown hair, that kinder waved
-round her white forward, wuz a good many white
-threads.</p>
-
-<p>Of course I couldn’t tell but what white hair run
-through her family&mdash;it duz in some. And I had
-hearn it said that white hair in the young wuz a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>
-sign of early piety, and of course I couldn’t set up
-aginst that idee in my mind.</p>
-
-<p>But them white hairs over her pale young face
-looked to me as if they wuz made by Sorrow’s
-frosty hand, that had rested down too heavy on her
-young head.</p>
-
-<p>She met me with a sweet smile, but a dretful sad
-one, too, when Miss Ikey introduced me.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_068" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_068.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>She met me with a sweet smile.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But when I told my errent she brightened up
-some. But after settin’ down with her for more’n a
-quarter of a hour, a-questionin’ her in as delicate
-a way as I could and get at the truth, I found that
-every single thing that she could do wuz to contoggle.</p>
-
-<p>So I hired her as a contoggler, and took her
-home with me that night on my way home from
-Tirzah Ann’s as sech, and kep’ her there three
-weeks right along.</p>
-
-<p>I see plain that she could do that sort of work by
-the first look that I cast onto her dress, which wuz
-black, and old and rusty, but all contoggled up
-good, mended neat and smooth, and so I see, when
-she got ready to go with me, wuz her mantilly, and
-her bunnet; both on ’em wuz old and worn, but
-both on ’em showed plain signs of contogglin’.</p>
-
-<p>She wuz a pitiful-lookin’ little creeter under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span> her
-black bunnet, and pitiful-lookin’ when the bunnet wuz
-hung up in our front bedroom, and she kep’ on bein’
-so from day to day, as pale and delicate-lookin’ as a
-posey that has growed in the shade&mdash;the deep shade.</p>
-
-<p>And though she kep’ to work good, and didn’t
-complain, I see from day to day the mark that Sufferin’
-writes on the forwards of them that pass
-through the valleys and dark places where She
-dwells. (I don’t know whether Sufferin’ ort to be
-depictered as a male or a female, but kinder think
-that it is a She.)</p>
-
-<p>But to resoom. I didn’t say nothin’ to make her
-think I pitied her, or anything, only kep’ a cheerful
-face and nourishin’ provisions before her from day
-to day, and not too much hard work.</p>
-
-<p>I thought I’d love to see her little peekéd face git
-a little mite of color in it, and her sad blue eyes a
-brighter, happier look.</p>
-
-<p>But I couldn’t. She would work faithful&mdash;contoggle
-as I have never seen any livin’ woman contoggle,
-much as I have witnessed contogglin’.</p>
-
-<p>And I don’t mean any disrespect to other contogglers
-I have had when I say this&mdash;no, they did the
-best they could. But Miss Clark (that wuz the
-name she gin&mdash;Annie Clark), she had a nateral gift
-in this direction.</p>
-
-<p>She worked as stiddy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> as a clock, and as patient,
-and patienter, for that will bust out and strike every
-now and then. But she sot resigned, and meek,
-and still over rents and jagged holes in garments,
-and rainy days and everything.</p>
-
-<p>Calm in thunder storms, and calm in sunshine,
-and sad, sad as death through ’em all, and most
-as still.</p>
-
-<p>And I sot demute and see it go on as long as I
-could, a-feelin’ that yearnin’ sort of pity for her that
-we can’t help feelin’ for all dumb creeters when
-they are in pain, deeper than we feel for talkative
-agony&mdash;yes, I always feel a deeper pity and a more
-pitiful one for sech, and can’t help it.</p>
-
-<p>And so one day, when I wuz a-settin’ at my knittin’
-in the settin’-room, and she a-settin’ by me sad
-and still, a-contogglin’ on a summer coat of my Josiah’s,
-I watched the patient, white face and the slim,
-patient, white fingers a-workin’ on patiently, and I
-stood it as long as I could; and then I spoke out
-kinder sudden, being took, as it were, by the side
-of myself, and almost spoke my thoughts out loud,
-onbeknown to me, and sez I:</p>
-
-<p>“My dear!” (She wuzn’t more’n twenty-two at
-the outside.)</p>
-
-<p>“My dear! I wish you would tell me what makes
-you so unhappy; I’d love to help you if I could.”</p>
-
-<p>She dropped her work, looked up in my face sort<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>
-o’ wonderin’, yet searchin’.</p>
-
-<p>I guess that she see that I wuz sincere, and
-that I pitied her dretfully. Her lips begun to tremble.
-She dropped her work down onto the floor,
-and come and knelt right down by me and put her
-head in my lap and busted out a-cryin’.</p>
-
-<p>You know the deeper the water is, and the thicker
-the ice closes over it, the greater the upheaval and
-overflow when the ice breaks up.</p>
-
-<p>She sobbed and she sobbed; and I smoothed back
-her hair, and kinder patted her head, and babied her,
-and let her cry all she wanted to.</p>
-
-<p>My gingham apron wuz new, but it wuz fast color
-and would wash, and I felt that the tears would
-do her good.</p>
-
-<p>I myself didn’t cry, though the tears run down
-my face some. But I thought I wouldn’t give way
-and cry.</p>
-
-<p>And this, the follerin’, is the story, told short
-by me, and terse, terser than she told it, fur. For
-her sobs and tears and her anguished looks all punctuated
-it, and lengthened it out, and my little groans
-and sithes, which I groaned and sithed entirely onbeknown
-to myself.</p>
-
-<p>But anyway it wuz a pitiful story.</p>
-
-<p>She had at a early age fell in love voyalent with
-a young man, and he visey versey and the same.
-They wuz dretful in love with each other, as fur <span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>as
-I could make out, and both on ’em likely and well
-meanin’, and well behaved with one exception.</p>
-
-<p>He drinked some. But she thought, as so many
-female wimmen do, that he would stop it when they
-wuz married.</p>
-
-<p>Oh! that high rock that looms up in front of
-prospective brides, and on which they hit their
-heads and their hearts, and are so oft destroyed.</p>
-
-<p>They imagine that the marriage ceremony is
-a-goin’ in some strange way to strike in and make
-over all the faults and vices of their young pardners
-and turn ’em into virtues.</p>
-
-<p>Curous, curous, that they should think so, but
-they do, and I spoze they will keep on a-thinkin’
-so. Mebby it is some of the visions that come in
-the first delerium of love, and they are kinder crazy
-like for a spell. But tenny rate they most always
-have this idee, specially if love, like the measles,
-breaks out in ’em hard, and they have it in the old-fashioned
-way.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, as I wuz a-sayin’, and to resoom and proceed.</p>
-
-<p>Annie thought he would stop drinkin’ after they
-wuz married. He said he would. And he did for
-quite a spell. And they wuz as happy as if they
-had rented a part of the Garden of Eden, and wuz
-a-workin’ it on shares.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span></p>
-
-<p>Then his brother-in-law moved into the place,
-and opened a cider-mill and a saloon&mdash;manafactered
-and sold cider brandy, furnished all the
-saloons round him with it, took it off by the load
-on Saturdays, and kep’ his saloon wide open, so’s
-all the boys and men in the vicinity could have
-the hull of Sunday to git crazy drunk in, while he
-wuz a-passin’ round the contribution-box in the
-meetin’-house.</p>
-
-<p>For he wuz a strict church-goer, the brother-in-law
-wuz, and felt that he wuz a sample to foller.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Ellick Gurley follered him&mdash;follered him
-to his sorrer. The brother-in-law employed him in
-his soul slaughter-house&mdash;for so I can’t help callin’
-the bizness of drunkard-makin’. I can’t help it,
-and I don’t want to help it.</p>
-
-<p>And so, under his influence, Ellick Gurley wuz
-led down the soft, slippery pathway of cider drunkenness,
-with the holler images of Safety and old
-Custom a-standin’ up on the stairway a-lightin’ him
-down it.</p>
-
-<p>Ellick first neglected his work, while his face
-turned first a pink, and then a bloated, purplish red.</p>
-
-<p>Then he begun to be cross to his wife and abusive
-to little Rob, the beautiful little angel that had
-flown to them out of the sweet shadows of Eden,
-where they had dwelt the first married years of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>their life.</p>
-
-<p>Finally, he got to be quarrelsome. Annie wuz
-afraid of him. And all of his money and all of
-hern went to buy that cider brandy (it makes the
-ugliest, most dangerous kind of a drunk, they say,
-of any kind of liquor, and I believe it from what
-I have seen myself, and from what Annie told me
-of her husband’s treatment of her and little
-Rob).</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp54" id="i_075" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_075.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Finally, he got to be quarrelsome.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And at last she begun to suffer for food and
-clothin’ for herself and the child.</p>
-
-<p>And as the drink demon riz up in Ellick’s crazy
-brain, and grew more clamorous in its demands,
-and he weaker to contend aginst it, Ellick sold
-all of the household stuff he could git holt of to
-appease this dretful power that had got holt of him,
-body and soul.</p>
-
-<p>Annie took in all the work she could do, did
-washin’ for the neighbors, who ust to envy her
-her happiness and prosperity&mdash;rubbed and hung
-out the heavy garments with tremblin’ fingers&mdash;sewed
-with her achin’ head a-bendin’ over the long
-seams, and her tear-filled eyes dimmed with the
-pain of unavailin’ agony.</p>
-
-<p>But heartaches and abuse made her weak form
-weaker and weaker, and then there wuz but little
-work to do, if she had been as strong as Sampson;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>
-so, bein’ fairly drove to it by Agony, and
-Fear, and Starvation, them three furies a-drivin’
-her, as you may say, harnessed up three abreast
-behind her, a-goadin’ her weak, cowerin’ form with
-their fire-tipped lashes, she appealed to the brother-in-law.</p>
-
-<p>She told him, what he knew before, that she and
-little Robbie were starvin’, and she wuz afraid of
-her life, and she urged him to not sell Ellick any
-more of the poison that wuz a-destroyin’ him.</p>
-
-<p>He wuz to meetin’ when she went. He
-wuz dretful particular about his religious observances.</p>
-
-<p>No Hindoos wuz ever stricter about burnin’
-their widders on the funeral pyre of the departed
-than he wuz a-follerin’ up what he called his religion.</p>
-
-<p>(Religion, sweet, pure sperit, how could she stand
-it, to have him a-burnin’ his incense in front of
-her? But, then, she has had to stand a good deal
-in this old world, and has to yet.)</p>
-
-<p>But, as I wuz a-sayin’, there never wuz a Pharisee
-in old or modern times that went ahead of him in
-cleanin’ the outside of his platters and religious
-deep dishes, and makin’ broad the border of his
-phylakricy. Why, his phylakricy wuz broader and
-deeper than you have any idee on.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span></p>
-
-<p>But inside of his platters and deep dishes wuz
-dead men’s bones!</p>
-
-<p>More’n one quarrel, riz up out of his accursed
-brandy, had led to bloodshed, besides achin’ and
-broken hearts without number, and ruined souls
-and lives.</p>
-
-<p>And his phylakricy ort to be broad, for it had to
-be used as a pall time and agin, and it covered, so
-he thought, a multitude of sins.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>Wall, as I say, he wuz to a church meetin’.
-There wuz a-goin’ to be a Association of Religious
-Bodies for the Amelioration of Human Woe. And
-he wuz anxious to be sent as a delegate, so he hung
-on to the last, and wuz appinted.</p>
-
-<p>But finally he got home, and Annie tackled
-him on the subject nearest her heart, talked to
-him with tears in her eyes and a voice tremblin’
-with the anguished beatin’s of her poor, achin’
-heart.</p>
-
-<p>She begged him to not sell her husband any
-more drink, begged him for her sake and for the
-sake of little Rob. For she knew that if the man
-had a tender place in his heart it wuz for his little
-nephew. He did love him deeply, or as deep as a
-man like this could love anything above his money
-and his reputation as a religious leader.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span></p>
-
-<p>But he wouldn’t promise, and he acted dretful
-high-headed and hateful to her to cover up his
-meanness, for he felt that if he should refuse to sell
-his stuff, it would not only stop his money-makin’,
-but it would be like ownin’ up that he had been in
-the wrong.</p>
-
-<p>And he plumed himself, and carried the idee that
-cider wuz a healthful beverage, and very strengthenin’
-in janders and sech. Why, he carried the
-idee to the world, and mebby in the first place he
-did to his own soul, so blindin’ is the spectacles of
-selfishness that he wore, that he wuz a-doin’ a
-charitable work a-keepin’ that old cider-mill and
-saloon a-goin’.</p>
-
-<p>So he wouldn’t pay no attention to her pleadin’s,
-only acted hateful and cross to her, his guilty conscience
-makin’ him so, I spoze.</p>
-
-<p>And then, too, he wuz in a hurry, for his church
-duties wuz a-waitin’ for him, and his barrels of cider
-wanted doctorin’ with alcohol and sech.</p>
-
-<p>So he turned onto his heel and left her.</p>
-
-<p>And Annie went home more broken-hearted than
-ever, for his cold, cruel sneers and scorn hurt her on
-the poor heart made sore by her husband’s brutality.</p>
-
-<p>And Ellick went on worse than ever. And it
-wuz on that very day that his brother-in-law (and
-to make it shorter we will call him B. I. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>L.)&mdash;it
-wuz on the very day that the B. I. L. went to New
-York on his great Amelioratin’ Human Misery
-errent, that Ellick, crazy drunk with cider shampain,
-struck little Rob sech a blow that it knocked the
-child down, and he laid stunted for more’n a hour.
-And he threatened Annie that he would take her
-life, because she interfered between him and the boy.</p>
-
-<p>He raved round, like the maniac that he wuz. He
-said that he would throw her out doors if she didn’t
-git a good dinner, when there wuzn’t a mite of
-food in the house to cook. He raved about the
-house bein’ so freezin’ cold, when there wuzn’t a
-stick of wood nor a lump of coal.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp73" id="i_080" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_080.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Ellick lay drunk in the office.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And finally he reeled off to his usual place of
-resort. And while the B. I. L. wuz a-raisin’ up in
-the great meetin’-house, and a-smoothin’ out his
-phylakricy, and a-layin’ the border of it careful, so’s
-it would show off well, and then bustin’ out into
-sech a speech, on the duties of church-members to
-the sinful and the sorrowin’ round ’em&mdash;a speech
-that riz him up powerful in religious circles&mdash;Ellick
-lay drunk in the office of his cider-mill.</p>
-
-<p>Little Rob lay like a dead child in a cold, bare
-room, and a white-faced, half-starved mother bent
-over him with big, despairin’, anxious eyes&mdash;bent
-over him till life come back to his poor,
-bruised body; and then as darkness crept over the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>
-earth she stole away, a-carryin’ him in her arms.</p>
-
-<p>She got a ride with a passin’ teamster, got carried
-fur off, then got another ride, wuz fed and warmed
-by pityin’ hearts on the way; so she come to a
-place nigh Jonesville, onbeknown to anybody.</p>
-
-<p>When Ellick rousted up out of his drunken
-sleep he went back to a desolate, empty house. His
-surprise, his grief, sobered him. He flew to the
-B. I. L., woke him out of a sound sleep filled with
-visions of his triumphs.</p>
-
-<p>The B. I. L. wuz in a tryin’ place. He wuz
-about to be riz up to a high position in the meetin’-house.
-If this story got out, it might and probble
-would hurt him. Annie must be found and
-brought back. They jined forces to try to find her.
-They sot out that very day, but the quest wuz a
-long one.</p>
-
-<p>Annie stayed a spell with the family who took
-her in first out of the cold and the darkness.</p>
-
-<p>The man of the house, and the woman, too, wuz
-relations on the soul side to the good old Samaritan
-mentioned in Skripter. They did well by her.</p>
-
-<p>But little Rob never got over the effects of the
-cruel blow, and the fall on the hard floor, and the
-awful journey through the coldness of the midnight
-escape. They all sort o’ underminded his little constitution,
-and he wuz took sick a bed.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span></p>
-
-<p>And bein’ too tired out and hardly dealt with
-here on earth, he wuz promoted up to that higher
-home, where we may be sure that his True Father,
-the Helper of all the oppressed and burdened, accepted
-him right into His great heart of Love, and
-wuz good to the little, patient soul.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Annie couldn’t tell me much about that
-time, when she had to let the child, a part of her
-own life, go out of her arms, and she wuz left
-alone&mdash;alone amongst strangers, helpless, despairin’,
-and poor.</p>
-
-<p>No, she couldn’t talk much about it, not in words,
-but I understood the language of her tremblin’ lips
-and her fallin’ tears.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, when little Rob wuz laid away under the
-dead grasses and the bare shade trees of that little
-country church-yard, Annie couldn’t stay long in
-the house where he had been and now wuz not.</p>
-
-<p>His little figger hanted every room, and her agonized
-Remembrance wuz a-walkin’ up and down
-with her. So she heard of a place in Jonesville
-where mebby she could git work, and she come
-there.</p>
-
-<p>But lately news had come to her that her husband
-and B. I. L. wuz huntin’ for her.</p>
-
-<p>Ellick really and truly loved his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span> wife and child,
-so it wuz spozed, and hunted for Love’s and Anxiety’s
-sakes.</p>
-
-<p>The B. I. L. hunted ’em so’s to hush up the
-story; it wuz a-hurtin’ him dretfully in the eyes of
-the meetin’-house. And Anger and Selfishness and
-Hypocrocy wuz a-holdin’ up their blue-flamed
-torches to light him on his hunt.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Annie wuz in deathly fear that they
-would find her. She had took another name&mdash;her
-mother’s maiden name&mdash;but she wuz afraid they
-would find it out.</p>
-
-<p>She said that she could not live to go through
-agin what she had gone through with. And yet
-when I pinned her right down on the subject (a
-calm, religious pinnin’) she owned up that she did
-love her husband yet. She cried when she said it.</p>
-
-<p>And I thought to myself that I would cry if
-I wuz in her place, if I loved such a thing as that.</p>
-
-<p>But she said, and mebby it wuz so, that he would
-have been all right if it hadn’t been for the influence
-of the B. I. L. and his bein’ gradual led back into
-drinkin’ agin by sunthin’ that he thought wouldn’t
-hurt him. She said that he never would have
-touched whiskey agin, havin’ promised and broke
-off.</p>
-
-<p>But he thought, somehow, that the liquid sech a
-highly religious man wuz a-sellin’ under the name of
-cider must be sort o’ soothin’ to his insides; <span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>but instead
-of that it set fire to ’em, and his morals and
-all, and burnt ’em right up.</p>
-
-<p>Annie showed me Ellick’s picter, and it wuz a
-good-lookin’ face, or kinder good; it would have
-been handsome if it hadn’t been for a sort of a weak
-look onto it.</p>
-
-<p>But weak or strong, she loved him. And so I
-didn’t really know how she wuz a-comin’ out so fur
-as her own happiness wuz concerned. Wimmen are
-so queer.</p>
-
-<p>But I chirked her up all I could, told her to keep
-jest as calm as she could conveniently, and I would
-take care of her for the present.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">SAMANTHA’S SWORD OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, if you’ll believe it, it wuz the very
-next day I had a occasion to go to Jonesville
-for some necessaries; and Josiah wuz busy a-makin’
-a new stanchil in the barn, so I sot off alone
-after breakfast with a large pail of good butter, and
-a cross-cut saw that Josiah had sent down to be
-filed, and the mair.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, jest about a mild from our house is a
-old tarvern that has been fixed up and is used
-now as a sort of a half-way house between Jonesville
-and Loontown. Teamsters and sech stop
-there a sight to git “Refreshments for man and
-beast,” as the sign reads.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I had got most there when I see a man
-approachin’ me a-walkin’ afoot. And I knew him
-the first minute I sot my eyes on him.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz Ellick Gurley.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_087" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_087.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>It wuz Ellick Gurley.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And the very minute I sot my eyes onto his
-face Duty and Principle both hunched me up
-hard to tackle him in this matter.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, most probble he had been hangin’ round
-for some time, for he knew me the first thing, and
-he come up to the side of the democrat wagon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> I
-wuz a-ridin’ in, bold as brass, and he sez:</p>
-
-<p>“Is this Josiah Allen’s wife?” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, sir,” sez I, up clear and decided.</p>
-
-<p>“Is a woman calling herself Anna Clark at your
-house?”</p>
-
-<p>I wuzn’t a-goin’ to fight for Annie with any pewter
-weepons of untruth. No, I wuz a-goin’ to fight
-with the two-edged sword of Eternal Truth and
-Jestice, and I took ’em out and whetted ’em (as it
-were), and sez I, sharp and keen&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, sir!”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” sez he, lookin’ dretful defiant and mad at
-me, “she is my wife, and I hereby forbid you harboring
-her, for I will pay no debts of her contracting.”</p>
-
-<p>“Like as not,” sez I coolly, “as you never paid
-any of your own.”</p>
-
-<p>He kinder blushed up some, but he went on
-some as if he wuz a-rehearsin’ a piece he had
-learnt:</p>
-
-<p>“She has left my bed and board!”</p>
-
-<p>Then I waved that sword of Truth agin that I had
-been a-whettin’, and sez I&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“It wuz her bed. Her mother gin it to her for
-her settin’ out, and picked every feather in it from
-her own geese and ganders. I got it from Annie’s
-own lips, and you sold it for drink. As for the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>boards,” sez I candidly, for even in the midst of
-the fiercest battle with the forces of wrong I must
-be jest to my foe, and so sez I&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“As for the piece of board you speak of, I d’no
-whose it wuz, but I believe it wuz hern. Anyway,
-I know she earnt every mite of food and
-drink you took into your miserable body.”</p>
-
-<p>And the remembrance of Annie’s wrongs and
-woes so overmastered me, that I sez right out&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You drunken, low-lived snipe, you! how dast
-you be comin’ round that good little creeter, and
-tryin’ to git her back into her starvation and slavery,
-and peril of life and limb? How dast you,
-you drunken coot, you?” sez I, a-lookin’ two or
-three daggers at him and some simeters.</p>
-
-<p>He quailed. I d’no as I ever see signs of quail
-any plainer than I see it in him.</p>
-
-<p>But he muttered sunthin’ about&mdash;“A man’s
-having a right to his wife and child.”</p>
-
-<p>“A right?” sez I; “do you dast to look anybody
-in the face and talk of your right to wife and child,
-when it wuz your poor, abused, half-starved wife’s
-weak arms and mighty love that riz up between
-you and your child and murder? Riz up between
-you and the gallows?”</p>
-
-<p>He quailed deeper, fur<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span> deeper than he had
-quailed, and his lips trembled.</p>
-
-<p>And I see under the quail, come to look clost at
-him, that there wuz a kinder good-hearted look under
-all the weakness and dissipated look of his face.
-I see, or thought I see, that it wuz bad influences
-that had led him astray, and if he had kep’ under
-good influence and away from bad ones (the B. I. L.
-and his hard cider, etc.), I thought like as not,
-from the generous lay of his features, that he
-might have been a tolerable good-lookin’ feller and
-behaved middlin’ well.</p>
-
-<p>And that is why I spozed that Annie looked so
-heart-broken, that wuz why, I spoze, that, in spite of
-all she had underwent, my contoggler loved him.</p>
-
-<p>But anon he sprunted up some and said sunthin’
-about bein’ bound to have his wife.</p>
-
-<p>And I waved my sword of Jestice agin (mentally)
-and sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, I am bound that you shan’t have her, and
-you’ll see,” sez I, “who’ll carry the day!”</p>
-
-<p>And then he sez, “What right have you to interfere?
-What relation are you to her?”</p>
-
-<p>And sez I, a-liftin’ up my head in a very noble
-way&mdash;“The same relation that the Samaritan wuz
-to the man by the wayside. She’s my relation on
-the heart’s side, the Pity and Sympathy’s side.
-Closter ties than the false, shaky ones that bound
-her to a life of slavery and danger with you&mdash;bound<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>
-her to you, who promised to protect her, and then
-half-murdered her. And you’ll find out so!” sez
-I, a-lookin’ as bold as brass, but in my heart
-I quaked considerable, not knowin’ but I wuz a-goin’
-agin the hull statute and constitution and by-laws
-of the U. S. of America.</p>
-
-<p>But I spoze my mean skairt him. It had sech
-determination and courage into it, and he sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I will go and call my brother-in-law. He is a
-rich and respectable man and very religious. I will
-bring him to talk with you.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, do so!” sez I, bold as a lioness on the
-outside. “I’d love to set my eyes onto that creeter,
-jest out of curosity, jest as I would look at a menagerie
-of wild beasts and man-eaters.”</p>
-
-<p>So he went back into the tarvern and brung him.</p>
-
-<p>He wuz a mean-lookin’ creeter in his face,
-and he wuz short in statter, and his figger looked
-sort o’ sneakin’ under the weight of guilt he wuz
-a-carryin’ round under the cloak of religion.</p>
-
-<p>And his little black eyes looked guilty, and his hull
-face, under some kinder red hair, looked withered
-and hardened, as if his doin’ for years what he knew
-wuz wicked had hardened his face into a cruel meanness.
-He looked mean as mean could be.</p>
-
-<p>But he tried to hold his head up,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> and he bust out
-the first thing about takin’ the law to me!</p>
-
-<p>“<i>You</i> take the law to me! <i>you!</i>”</p>
-
-<p>And oh! how my simeter of Truth and Jestice
-jest flashed round that man’s short, meachin’ figger.</p>
-
-<p>“You take the law on anybody, you mean creeter
-you! who have brung all this sin and misery to
-pass for your own selfishness. You, who took the
-good-tempered, weak boy and poured your poison
-down his throat till you flooded out all his moral
-sense and husbandly and fatherly affection, and filled
-up the empty space with the demons of Hatred and
-Brutality and crazy quarrelin’s!</p>
-
-<p>“You talk of law, who stole away every mite of
-that poor girl’s happiness and every cent of her
-money for your cursed drink!</p>
-
-<p>“You, who drove out of their home the sweet
-angel of Happiness, who used to board with ’em
-stiddy, and drove in your beasts of prey!</p>
-
-<p>“You ruined her happiness, you starved her, you
-broke her heart, and now you want her back to torment
-her agin!</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, you won’t have her, unless you take her
-over my prostrate form!”</p>
-
-<p>The B. I. L. wuz half skairt to death, and he
-stood demute.</p>
-
-<p>But Ellick broke in with tremblin’ lips. He
-stopped talkin’ about Annie for a spell, bein’, I
-spoze, perfectly overcome by my eloquence. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>And
-he begun on another tack, and sez he in tremblin’
-axents&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I want my boy,” sez he, “I will have my child!”</p>
-
-<p>And I see that he did have a deathly longin’ and
-hungry look in his eyes. I could see that he did
-love his wife and child, deep and earnest. And I
-felt a little mite tenderer towards him, not much,
-for I kep’ a-thinkin’ of how Annie’s face had looked
-as she come and throwed herself at my feet.</p>
-
-<p>The memory of that white face and them big, anguished
-eyes riz my heart up and kep’ it from meltin’
-right down under the agony of that man’s look.</p>
-
-<p>The B. I. L., whose selfishness had done the
-hull work, he too looked a heartfelt anxiety about
-the boy. I see that he loved him too, and wuz
-proud of him.</p>
-
-<p>But, as I say, the memory of the Giant Wrong that
-had struck down Annie and the boy stood right by
-me and nerved me up, and I sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You can’t have the child!”</p>
-
-<p>Then Ellick flared right up, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I will have the child, and I’ll let you know that
-I will! I am his natural guardian, and I’ll let you
-know that the law is on my side, and I can take him,
-and I will take him!”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez I, “you can’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span> take him!”</p>
-
-<p>“He can!” sez the B. I. L., speakin’ up sharp as
-a meat-axe&mdash;“he can; nobody loves the child as well
-as we do; and he is the child’s natural guardian,
-and we can take him away from any place you have
-put him in.”</p>
-
-<p>And agin I sez, “No you can’t, not from the place
-he is in now. The boy has got another gardeen now,
-a better one.”</p>
-
-<p>“Another guardian!” sez the father; “well, I will
-tear him right out of his hands; I will make him
-give him up!”</p>
-
-<p>He wuz jealous as a dog, I could see, of the gardeen.</p>
-
-<p>“No you won’t!” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes he will!” sez the B. I. L.; “we’ll teach
-him what the law is, and that a father can get his
-boy every time!”</p>
-
-<p>“Not this time!” sez I; “this gardeen is powerful
-and kind, too; and he has got him in a safe
-place. He wuz misused and kicked and beaten
-and half starved; but he has enough now; he has
-got a home of plenty and rest and happiness. He
-is safe,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“No matter how safe it is we will have him right
-out of it!” sez the B. I. L.</p>
-
-<p>“He is my child, and I <i>will</i> have him!” says
-Ellick Gurley.</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez I, “you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span> can’t have him. You can’t
-pull that tender little body out of the grave to misuse
-it agin. You can’t draw the sweet little sperit
-out of God’s happy home to torment it agin. The
-Lord is his father and his gardeen now, and He
-will keep the boy!”</p>
-
-<p>“Dead!” cried the B. I. L., and he staggered
-back like a drunken man, and his face turned white
-as a bleached white cotton shirt.</p>
-
-<p>“Dead! my baby dead!” sez Ellick Gurley.
-“Then I am his murderer!”</p>
-
-<p>And he threw up his arms as if he had received a
-pistol shot right in his heart, and then he fell jest
-like a log right down in the road. Wall, I disembarked
-from my democrat, and by the time the
-B. I. L. had got him up in a more settin’ poster on a
-log by the side of the road, I wuz by him a-holdin’
-his head and a-chafin’ his hands and his forward.</p>
-
-<p>When he come to and riz up and sot upright, his
-first words wuz&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! poor Annie! poor girl! how did she bear
-it, all alone with our dead boy! Oh! my boy!
-my boy that I killed!”</p>
-
-<p>I see plain that there wuz good in the man, after
-all.</p>
-
-<p>But the B. I. L. had by this time sprunted up,
-and wuz a-thinkin’ of his phylakricy, and a-pullin’ it
-over himself and Ellick, and seemed anxious to sort
-o’ hush him up, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span></p>
-
-<p>“It wasn’t your doings, it wasn’t the accident
-that killed the boy, it was probably something else.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, lookin’ at the B. I. L. straight in
-the face&mdash;“yes, it <i>wuz</i> sunthin’ else, it wuz <i>you</i>!
-You smooth-faced, selfish hyppocrite, you; it wuz
-your doin’s that killed the boy! If you had left his
-Pa alone, and not led him into a condition fit to
-murder, jest to put a few cents into your own
-pocket, the boy would have been alive and happy
-to-day, and so would Ellick and Annie.” Sez I,
-“It wuz your doin’s, and you don’t want to forgit
-it!” sez I.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_097" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_097.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">Yes, it</span> <i>wuz</i> <span class="smcap">sunthin’ else; it wuz</span> <i>you</i>.”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>He quailed, he quailed hard, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You talk like a fool!”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez I; “you are the fool, for it is the
-fool that hath said that there is no God, and you
-see there is,” sez I&mdash;“a God that punishes sin, who
-is even now a-punishin’ you; a God who said,
-“Cursed is he who putteth the cup to his neighbor’s
-lips.” Sez I, “You have prospered and grown rich
-in your bizness of beast-makin’, and you didn’t believe
-there wuz Eternal Jestice a-watchin’ over your
-sinful deeds, and you find now that you wuz a fool
-to believe it. For you find now that there is a God.
-You find now that you <i>are</i> cursed for your sin in
-makin’ murderers and assassins and wife-beaters and
-child-killers!”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span></p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “You loved little Rob; your bad heart is
-achin’ now this minute to think it wuz your hand
-that dealt out the poison that reached him through
-his father’s weakness and miserable vice!”</p>
-
-<p>He wuz demute. He didn’t say a word, but a
-look come over his face that I don’t want to see
-agin. He didn’t want to give up and own up his
-guilt and repent, and he wuz jest crushed right down
-about little Rob. He wuz jest tosted both ways,
-between agony and selfishness. He didn’t want to
-give up his profitable bizness of beast-makin’, and he
-wuz horrow struck to think that his own little idol
-had fell a victim.</p>
-
-<p>His face looked like a humbly fallen angel’s, or
-how I spoze they look. I never see one fall.</p>
-
-<p>He didn’t say another word, but turned on his
-heel and walked off.</p>
-
-<p>The last word he said to me, as I stated heretofore,
-wuz callin’ me “a fool.”</p>
-
-<p>But I didn’t care for that. I knew I wuzn’t.</p>
-
-<p>But still that broken-hearted father, that wretched,
-lonesome husband sot there by the side of the road.
-Finally he spoke&mdash;&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Can I see Annie?”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span></p>
-<p>“No, sir!” sez I plain and square&mdash;jest as plain
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>and jest as square as if my own heart wuzn’t
-a-achin’, and a-achin’ hard, too, for the miserable,
-broken-hearted man.</p>
-
-<p>My tears, if they fell, and I spoze they did from
-my feelin’s, fell inside of my head; for I wouldn’t
-let him have a chance to misuse and torment that
-good little creeter agin, not if I could help it.</p>
-
-<p>He trembled like a popple leaf. He wuz paler
-than any dish-cloth I ever see, and I see my advantage,
-and I hardened my heart, some like Pharo’s,
-only a more pious hardenin’, for it wuz done on
-principle.</p>
-
-<p>“You talk of wantin’ that poor girl to go back
-to your cold, naked home, to hardship, to starvation,
-to wretchedness&mdash;bodily wretchedness and heart
-wretchedness. For she loves you still, you poor
-snipe, you; she loves you, fool that she is, but
-wimmen are weak.”</p>
-
-<p>I see his face grow brighter for a minute, and
-then turn pale as death agin.</p>
-
-<p>“Will she forgive me?” sez he in axents weak as
-a cat, and weaker, too, and fur hopelesser than any
-cat I ever see.</p>
-
-<p>“Not if I can help it!” sez I heartlessly (on the
-outside) and boldly.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll do better. I’ll promise her to not drink
-another drop!”</p>
-
-<p>“Promises are <span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>cheap,” sez I in a lofty way,
-a-lookin’ up into a tree, for his pale face weakened
-me, and I felt that I must be strong. So I looked
-up into the tree overhead. It wuz a slippery ellum,
-but I held firm.</p>
-
-<p>“Promises are cheap and slippery,” sez I. I
-spoze it wuz that tree that put me in mind of that
-simely. “She shan’t be led away by ’em agin, by
-my consent.”</p>
-
-<p>“If I don’t drink for a year will you help me to
-have my wife back again?”</p>
-
-<p>His voice trembled.</p>
-
-<p>“That is beginnin’ to talk like a human creeter,”
-sez I, and I looked down from the ellum sort o’
-benignantly. And I sez in a more warmer axent,
-but not too warm&mdash;jest about milk warm&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You stop drinkin’ for a year. You git another
-home for her as good as you took her to at first,
-and I’ll advise her to talk with you about goin’
-back, and not one minute before!” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Can I see her one minute?” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>Annie wuz to home. Josiah wuz away. All devolved
-on me, and I riz up to the occasion.</p>
-
-<p>“No!” sez I, “you can’t; you can’t see her to-day
-for a minute, or a secont!”</p>
-
-<p>(I knew putty wuz hard in comparison to her
-heart, and I wouldn’t run the resk.)</p>
-
-<p>“You stop drinkin’ for six months,” <span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>sez I, “and
-you may see her for one-half hour in my presence,
-and not a minute longer,” sez I, as resolute as iron.
-“I’ll take care of her, and when you’ve earnt the
-right to have her agin with you, I’ll give her up to
-you and not a minute before,” sez I&mdash;“not a minute!”</p>
-
-<p>He riz right up, the tears runnin’ down his face,
-and he ketched holt of my hand and kissed it. I
-d’no when I’ve been so kinder took back.</p>
-
-<p>But I knew that Josiah wouldn’t care on sech a
-occasion as this, there wuzn’t anything immoral in
-it, and I couldn’t hender it anyway, it wuz done so
-quick. And then he started right off, fast as he
-could go.</p>
-
-<p>And as sure as the world, that man went to work
-at his trade. Got two dollars a day. He didn’t
-drink a drop. He rented a little house with five
-acres of grass land round it and a paster. He
-kep’ two cows, milked ’em nights and mornin’s,
-sold his milk and laid up money.</p>
-
-<p>Workin’ with all his heart and soul to be worthy
-of his wife and home.</p>
-
-<p>And I writ to that man stiddy, jest as stiddy as
-though I wuz a-keepin’ company with him, every
-week of my life.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah didn’t care. Good land! I writ on duty.
-I sent him good letters, all about how Annie wuz,
-and how she looked, and what she said, and a-holdin’
-up his arms like Arun and Hur (specially Hur,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>
-it sounds some like a woman).</p>
-
-<p>She made it her home with me, but went out to
-contoggle here and there, and laid up money,
-bought sheets and piller-cases and sech. And I
-helped her to two comforters and a bed-spread.</p>
-
-<p>But she didn’t go back to him till the year wuz
-up.</p>
-
-<p>No, I see to that.</p>
-
-<p>And when that year had gone by, he wuz a sober
-man all the time, completely out from under the
-influences of the B. I. L. and cider and whiskey
-and saloons, and completely under ourn, Annie’s
-and mine and Temperance. And we a-doin’ our
-very best for him, and a-believin’ in him, and
-a-helpin’ him, all three on us.</p>
-
-<p>Why, then I ventered to let her go and live with
-him agin. And I even made a party for ’em on
-the occasion. Some like a weddin’ party, for we
-all brung presents to ’em. And the children and a
-few sincere well-wishers that she had contoggled
-for and Josiah and me all jinin’ hearty in the
-prayer Elder Minkley put up after supper for the
-peace and prosperity of the new home.</p>
-
-<p>And they’ve prospered first-rate.</p>
-
-<p>Their sweet, cozy home is pleasant, as a home
-where Love is always must be. But it is a-settin’
-down under a shadder, and always will set there.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>
-It can’t be helped.</p>
-
-<p>The shadder stands up behind it, some like a
-mountain; but the peace and happiness of the
-present is gradually a-makin’ a meller, tender haze
-in front on’t; some as the blue,
-luminous sky of Injun Summer
-floats in and softens the truth
-of the year’s decay.</p>
-
-<p>It is there, all the same, but
-time and that soft, tender mist
-wears off the sharp edges on’t,
-and sometimes the shadders fall
-some in the shape of a cross.
-The sun hits it in jest the right
-way.</p>
-
-<p>Annie and Ellick jined the
-meetin’-house the year after they
-come together agin, and the Elder and several of
-us bretheren and sistern gathered round ’em, and
-held up their courage and helped ’em along all we
-could.</p>
-
-<p>And though some are kinder mean and throw
-out hints, for human nater can’t be helped, and
-mean and small souls have got to act out what is
-inherient in ’em, and some, specially the B. I. L.
-and his family, made lots of talk about him and
-her, and poked fun at ’em, and acted. But Ellick<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>
-is a-learnin’ to be patient and bear what he says
-he knows is “The Wages of Sin.”</p>
-
-<p>But, as naterally follers, he is now in the employ
-of another Master, and his wages is a-comin’ in
-better and better every day.</p>
-
-<p>And wuzn’t he happy when he held another little
-boy on his knee? Little Tom Josiah, named after
-my two best-beloved males.</p>
-
-<p>And Annie wanted to add “Sam” to it for me,
-but I demurred, sayin’, “They didn’t seem to go
-together smooth. Tom Josiah Sam didn’t seem to
-have the flow and rythm to suit my melodious
-idees.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Save the Sam, it may come in handy in
-the futer.”</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp78" id="i_102" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_102.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">Save the Sam, it may come in handy
-in the futer.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But the dimpled hands of that child seemed to
-draw Annie and Ellick nigher together than they’d
-ever been, and pull ’em both along, onbeknown to
-’em, into the sunshiny fields of happiness.</p>
-
-<p>Thomas J. gin little Tom Josiah ten dollars to
-put in the Savin’s Bank at compounded interest,
-and Josiah gin him two lambs, which are a-goin’ to
-be put out to double to the very best advantage for
-him.</p>
-
-<p>By the time he is twenty-one he will have considerable
-money, and a big flock of sheep to drive
-on before him down the path of the futer.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span></p>
-
-<p>But I might talk for hours and hours and not
-exhaust the fascinatin’ subject of the peace and
-prosperity of the one who has left the paths of sin
-and hard cider and whiskey, etc., and is walkin’ in
-the paths of sobriety and success.</p>
-
-<p>But to them not interested so much in this cause,
-so dear to the heart of her whose name wuz once
-Smith, the subject may grow monotunous and
-tejus, so I will resoom and take up the thread of
-my discourse over my finger agin, and let it purr
-along on the spool of History.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">A HEATHEN’S STANDARD OF MORALITY.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Al Faizi hearn this story about the contoggler’s
-sufferin’s and the doin’s of the B. I. L., and I
-never see him so riz up about anything as he wuz
-with that.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he&mdash;“This man who loved the child sold
-stuff to his father that he knew would make him
-liable to murder him? I cannot believe it possible
-that such a crime can be permitted.</p>
-
-<p>“To one coming from a heathen land it seems
-incredible.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, “I’ve always said that it wuz a
-worse practice than any savages ever dremp of.”</p>
-
-<p>Said Al Faizi&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“This is probably the one solitary instance that
-ever occurred where the death of a person much
-beloved was caused by a man for a few cents’ gain.”</p>
-
-<p>“One instance!” sez I; “why, all over this broad
-country, day after day, and year after year, murders
-are brought about almost solely by this cause!”</p>
-
-<p>He sithed deep and seemed to be turnin’ in his
-mind some possible remedy for this dretful state of
-things.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span></p>
-
-<p>“Could not these men be persuaded to stop this
-trade that kills men in this world, and destroys
-their hopes of Heaven?”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez I, “they can’t be persuaded; it has
-been tried by good men and good wimmen for
-years and years; they will keep on, driv by Selfishness
-and Ignorance, that span of bloody
-beasts!”</p>
-
-<p>“Could not the law interfere?” sez he; “could
-not your great police force step in and punish these
-dreadful doings?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “It could, if it wuzn’t spendin’ its hull
-strength on devisin’ ways to protect the liquor
-traffic.</p>
-
-<p>“The police might bring some on ’em up if it
-wuzn’t a-sneakin’ into side-doors a-partakin’ on the
-sly of the poison!”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “It gits braced up in this way, so’s it’s
-ready to drag off to jail the poor, weak drunkards,
-made so by the saloons, and by the men who supply
-the saloons, and by the voters who make this
-thing possible, and by the goverment that sustains
-it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why does not your great nation interfere and
-compel them to stop it?” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Because this great nation is in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span> company with
-’em,” sez I&mdash;“partakers in this iniquity, and
-takin’ part of the bloody gain.”</p>
-
-<p>And my feathers drooped and my face wuz as red
-as blood to have to own up these things to a
-heathen, that wuz a-contrastin’ our ways with his
-own, which wuz so much more superior and riz up
-on the liquor question.</p>
-
-<p>“Your holy church,” sez he, “why does not
-that, so great and powerful a force in this land,
-why does it not interfere and frown down these
-wicked ways? Why does it not pronounce its
-anathema on all those who commit this sin&mdash;this
-B.I.L., as I have heard him called, and men like
-him, who own saloons and supply the stuff that
-makes murderers?”</p>
-
-<p>“This B.I.L.,” sez I, “is a piller in his meetin’-house.
-He sets in the highest place,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“One of your holy men who take charge of the
-sacred things, permitted by your customs to carry
-on such iniquity? I cannot understand it,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I&mdash;“Nobody ort to understand it!” Sez I,
-“It is a shame and a disgrace, anyway!”</p>
-
-<p>“Why,” sez he, “in my own country our men
-who take part in holy observances have to lead
-pure lives&mdash;to fast and pray continually. I cannot
-understand that one would be permitted to carry on
-an evil business six days during the week and
-touch the sacred things of your religion the seventh<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>
-day.”</p>
-
-<p>Agin I sez&mdash;“Nobody ort to understand it; it
-would be a shame to heathen countries!” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he&mdash;“This very man who was the cause of all
-this wretchedness and crime and murder&mdash;he prays
-for the heathen, does he not?”</p>
-
-<p>“I spoze so,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“He carries round the vessel in which you gather
-the money to send to the heathen for charity and
-instruction?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I; “but we call it the contribution
-plate.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” sez he, “we refuse to accept his money;
-we refuse to take the money that man desecrates by
-touching.</p>
-
-<p>“And,” sez he, “I will tell him so.”</p>
-
-<p>And so I spoze he did&mdash;good, simple-minded
-creeter. He didn’t seem to have but two idees in
-his head&mdash;one to learn the will of God, and the
-other to do it.</p>
-
-<p>And from what I’ve hearn sence I guess he did
-impress the B.I.L.</p>
-
-<p>The idee of havin’ a heathen from heathen lands
-come to labor with him on religion kinder shook
-him up, from all I can hear.</p>
-
-<p>I shouldn’t wonder if he did<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> leave off his dretful
-trade, and come part way up to a heathen’s standard
-of morality.</p>
-
-<p>But if he duz, no thanks are due to our own law
-or to our own gospel. They wuz both weighed in
-the balances and found wantin’.</p>
-
-<p>If things are ever put on a more religious and noble
-and riz up footin’ it will all be caused by the
-missionary efforts of a heathen.</p>
-
-<p>But to resoom.</p>
-
-<p>Another thing about our contoggler interested
-Al Faizi dretfully. It wuz some talks he had with
-her about wimmen’s dress.</p>
-
-<p>Annie wuz sensible, and hated the tight girtin’s
-indulged in by some of our females. And Al Faizi
-expressed the greatest wonder at the ignorance and
-folly showed by civilized wimmen.</p>
-
-<p>The pressin’ in and destroyin’ all the vital organs
-by lacin’ in the waist. He expressed great
-wonder that a civilized people could commit this
-crime aginst the laws of health and the solemn
-laws of heredity.</p>
-
-<p>He said when he contrasted the loose, comfortable
-robes of his own wimmen with the deformities
-caused by tight lacin’, more and more he wondered
-at the strange sights of civilization.</p>
-
-<p>And then he said that in hospitals (for this strange
-creeter had peered round everywhere in search of
-knowledge), he had seen some of the terrible effects<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span>
-of tight lacin’ and high-heeled shoes.</p>
-
-<p>He said that he had seen cases of blindness,
-caused by the last, and a destruction of the
-nerves.</p>
-
-<p>In lacin’, he had seen dretful cases of internal
-diseases, incurable, and had seen terrible diseases in
-infants, caused alone by this destructive custom of
-the mothers&mdash;young infants who, if they lived, must
-carry a maimed body through life with ’em, caused
-alone by this habit.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Compare these high-heeled shoes with
-the loose, comfortable sandals that our own women
-wear. And these painful steel waists, that compress
-the lungs and heart, with our own women’s loose,
-flowing garments,” and he wuz astounded at our
-ways.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I agreed with him from the bottom of my
-heart, but sech is poor human nater that it kinder
-galded me to have my sect so sot down on and despised
-by a heathen. And I, kinder onbeknown to
-me, brung up their own veiled wimmen. “And,”
-sez I, “every country has its own shortcomin’s; I
-don’t like the idee of your wimmen havin’ their
-faces all covered up with veils.”</p>
-
-<p>My tone wuz kinder het up and agitated.</p>
-
-<p>But his voice wuz as sweet and calm as <span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>the evenin’
-breeze a-blowin’ over a bed of Japanese lilies.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez he, “perhaps we err in that direction,
-in veiling our women too much from the public
-gaze.</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez he, “I went to a grand party once in
-your great city Chicago, and to one also in Washington,
-and I see the women’s forms almost entirely
-disrobed and nude, while great folds of cloth trailed
-after them down on the floor. I knew not where to
-look for shame, for even when I was a nursing babe
-in my mother’s arms, I could not have witnessed
-such sights.</p>
-
-<p>“And while we Eastern people may err in the
-direction of veiling the charms of our women-kind,
-methinks you Western people err still further in the
-opposite direction. At these public parties I saw
-the naked forms of the women, displayed with far
-more than the freedom of the courtesans in my own
-country, and my heart sank down with shrinking
-and wonder at the strange customs of civilization.”</p>
-
-<p>I felt meachin’. I felt small enough to have
-gone to bed through my bedroom key-hole. But I
-thought I wouldn’t. I only sez&mdash;“Wall, I guess it
-is about bed-time.”</p>
-
-<p>Josiah had already sought repose in our bedroom.</p>
-
-<p>And Al Faizi got up at once and took his night-lamp,
-and bid me good-night with one of his low,
-reverential bows.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp50" id="i_112" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_112.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>WITH ONE OF HIS LOW, REVERENTIAL
-BOWS.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I knew what he said wuz the truth. I had meditated
-on it. And in my own way I had tried to
-break it up&mdash;the tight-lacin’, train-dragglin’, high-heeled
-doin’s.</p>
-
-<p>But, as I say, it galded me deeply to
-hear these truths discanted on by a heathen.</p>
-
-<p>I love my sect, and wish her dretful
-well, and I can’t bear to see heathens
-a-lookin’ down on her.</p>
-
-<p>And then Al Faizi hearn about how
-little children are put to work at a tender
-age down in the damp, dark mines, shet
-away from Heaven’s light, through long,
-long days, until their youth is gone and
-old age dims their eyes.</p>
-
-<p>And he sot off for a distant part of the
-country to see the owners of the mines, and see for
-himself, and use his influence to have this evil abolished.</p>
-
-<p>And then he hearn about how young children are
-bought in the great stores of the big citys.</p>
-
-<p>He hearn all the tales of sin and woe connected
-with sech doin’s&mdash;worse than the Masacreein’ of the
-Innocents.</p>
-
-<p>He sot out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span> to once to investigate, and to warn,
-and to rebuke.</p>
-
-<p>And he hearn with wonder and unbelief, at first,
-the story how children could sell their honor and
-all their hopes of the futer at a tender age.</p>
-
-<p>And how this great nation permits this iniquity,
-and makes laws to perpetuate it, and shield the
-guilty men who indulge in this sin.</p>
-
-<p>And all the horrows that gathers round them infamous
-words&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“The Age of Consent.”</p>
-
-<p>As he talked with me about it, I could see by the
-deep fire that wuz lit up in his usually soft eyes his
-burnin’ indignation aginst this idee that had jest
-been promulgated to him.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he&mdash;“You Christians talk a sight about the
-car of Juggernaut that rolls on over living victims
-and crushes them down, but,” sez he, “death leaves
-the soul free to fly home to its paradise; but your
-Christian country has found the way to ruin the
-<i>souls</i> of children, as well as their bodies. How can
-you sit down calmly and know that such a law is in
-existence? How can mothers happily watch their
-sweet little baby girls at play, and know that such a
-horrible danger lurks in the path their ignorant
-little feet have got to tread, such a snare is set for
-them?”</p>
-
-<p>“They <span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>don’t set calm and happy&mdash;mothers
-don’t!” I bust out; “their hearts and souls are full.
-They cry to God in their anguish and fear, but they
-can’t do nothin’ else, wimmen can’t; men made
-this law, made it for men. Men say they don’t
-want to put wimmen to the trouble of votin’, and
-so they hender ’em from the hardship of droppin’ a
-little scrap of paper in a small box once a year, and
-give ’em this corrodin’, constant fear and anguish to
-carry with ’em day and night, like a load of swords
-and simeters, every one of ’em a-stabbin’ their
-hearts.”</p>
-
-<p>“But how can men, fathers of young girls, make
-this law, or allow it to go on? Don’t they think
-of their own young daughters, who may be ruined
-by it?”</p>
-
-<p>“They don’t make this law and vote for this law
-for their own girls&mdash;it is to ruin other men’s girls
-that it is made.”</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t they know that the sword of retribution
-is two-sided&mdash;that it is liable to cut down their own
-beloved?”</p>
-
-<p>“No, they don’t think at all; their vile passions
-clog up their ears and blind their eyes.”</p>
-
-<p>“But your ministers, your holy men, what are
-they doing? I supposed their mission was to preach
-to sinners, and try to make the world better. I
-have heard them speak of many things in the high
-places where they stand to warn the people of their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span>
-sins, and the judgment to come, but I never heard
-them allude to this. Why do they let this enormous
-crime go on unrebuked?”</p>
-
-<p>“The land knows!” sez I; “I don’t; they go on
-year in and year out, a-preachin’ about Job’s sufferin’s,
-and Pharo’s hardness of heart, and the Deluge,
-and other ancient sins and sufferin’s all healed up
-and done away with centuries ago.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, it is six thousand years sence Pharo’s
-heart hardened or Job’s biles ached, and the green
-grass of centuries has riz up over the sweepin’
-swash of the Deluge, but they will calmly go on
-Sunday after Sunday for years a-preachin’ on that
-agony and that wickedness and that overflow, and
-not one word do they say about the hardness of
-heart of the men who make and permit this law,
-which makes Pharo’s hardness seem like putty in
-comparison, or the agony and dread this law brings
-to mothers’ hearts in the night watches, a-thinkin’
-on’t, and thinkin’ of their own helplessness to protect
-the ones who they would give their life for.
-And the depths of wretchedness that overwhelms
-the souls this law wuz made to ruin! What are
-biles compared to these pains?</p>
-
-<p>“But the clergymen, the most on ’em, go calmly
-on a-pintin’ these old sins and pains out, and the
-overflow of the Deluge, and drawin’ tenthlies <span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span>and
-twentiethlies from ’em, and not one word about this
-cryin’ iniquity, so great that it seems as if it would
-open the very sluce-ways of Heaven and let a new
-flood down onto this guilty age that will allow sech
-crime to go on unrebuked.</p>
-
-<p>“And philosophers will moralize on old laws and
-new ones, and their cause and effects; on Heaven
-and earth, and not seemin’ly cast a eye of their
-spectacles on this law of sin and shame that rises
-up right before their eyes. And scientists rack
-their brains to discover new laws and utilize old
-ones, but don’t make a effort towards discoverin’ a
-way to avert this enormous cause of woe and guilt,
-this fur-reachin’ and ever-increasin’ anguish and
-crime. And law-makers, instead of tryin’ to overcome
-it, try their best to perpetuate it and make it
-permanent; bend all their powers of intellect, band
-together, and use the cunnin’ of serpents and the
-wisdom of old Lucifer to git their laws passed and
-git Uncle Sam to jine in with ’em. Poor misguided
-old creeter, a-bein’ led off by his old nose,
-and made to consent to this crime and help it
-along!”</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi had been listenin’ in deep thought, and
-now he sez: “This uncle of yours I know him
-not; but your great Government, could it not interfere
-and stop this iniquity?”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span></p>
-
-<p>“It could” (sez I, mad as a hen)&mdash;“it could, if it
-wuzn’t jined right in with them law-makers and
-helpin’ ’em along; and,” sez I, “now they’re tryin’
-to git the poor old creeter to consent to a new
-idee. Some big clergymen and other wise men are
-a-tryin’ to have these wimmen, ruined by the evil
-passions of men, shet up in a certain pen to keep
-’em from doin’ harm to innocent folks, and not one
-word said about shettin’ up the men who have
-made these wimmen what they are. Why don’t
-they shet them up? There they be foot loose.
-If they have ruined one pen full of wimmen, what
-henders ’em from spilin’ another pen full? But
-there they be a-runnin’ loose and even a-votin’ on
-how firm and strong the pen should be made to
-confine these victims of theirn. And how big
-salaries the men who keep these pens in order shall
-have&mdash;good big salaries, I’ll warrant you. Wise
-men and ministers advocate this onjestice, and laymen
-are glad to practise what they preach.</p>
-
-<p>“There hain’t nothin’ reasonable in it; if a pen
-has got to be made for bad wimmen, why not have
-another pen, jest like it, only a great deal bigger,
-made for the bad man?</p>
-
-<p>“Why, this seems so reasonable and right I
-should think that Jestice would lift the bandage
-offen her eyes and holler out and say it must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> he
-done! But no, there hain’t no move made towards
-pennin’ bad men up&mdash;not a move.”</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi sez&mdash;“I cannot understand these
-strange things.”</p>
-
-<p>And I sez&mdash;“Nobody can, unless it is old Belzibub;
-I guess he gits the run on it.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, he took out that book of hisen and writ
-for pretty nigh an hour.</p>
-
-<p>And that is jest the way he went on and acted
-from day to day.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">A LITTLE FUN AND ITS PRICE.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi got acquainted with the Baptist minister
-at Jonesville, and Elder Dean took to that
-noble heathen in a remarkable way. He wuz a
-truly Christian man and deep learnt, and he and Al
-Faizi talked together right in my presence in languages,
-a good many of them dead, I spoze, and
-some on ’em, jedgin’ from the sound, in a sickly
-and dyin’ state.</p>
-
-<p>Elder Dean wuz English, college bred. Been
-abroad as a missionary, broke down, and come to
-Jonesville with a weak voice and lungs, but a full
-head and a noble heart, for six hundred dollars a
-year and parsonage found.</p>
-
-<p>They’d always had a hard time, bein’ put to it for
-things and kinder sickly. But he and his heroic
-wife had one flower in their life that wuz a-bustin’
-into full bloom, and a-sweetenin’ their hard present
-and their wearisome past, and the promise and
-beauty on’t a-throwin’ a bright, clear light clear
-acrost their futer&mdash;even down the steep banks
-where the swift stream rushes through the dark,
-and clear over onto the other side.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span></p>
-
-<p>This brightness and blessin’ that lightened up
-their hard and toilsome way wuz their only child,
-a youth of such manly beauty and gentle goodness
-that his love made up to ’em, so they said to me,
-for all they had suffered and all they had lost
-through their lives.</p>
-
-<p>He had been brought up on clear love mostly.
-His Pa and Ma had literally carried him in their
-hearts from the time his sweet, baby face had smiled
-up to ’em from his cradle.</p>
-
-<p>Nobody could tell the tenderness and love that
-had been lavished on him. His Ma jest lived in
-him and his Pa, too, but their devotion hadn’t spilte
-him, not at all&mdash;not mentally nor morally.</p>
-
-<p>Though there wuz them that did think that his
-Ma, bein’ so dretful tender of him and lookin’ out
-so for his health in every way, had kinder weakened
-his constitution and he would have been stronger if
-he had roughed it more.</p>
-
-<p>Bein’ watched over so lovin’ly all his days, he wuz
-jest about as delicate and couldn’t stand any more
-hardship than a girl; but he wuz stiddy and industrious,
-a good Christian, and dretful ambitious. And
-they looked forrered to him as bein’ an honor as
-well as a blessin’ to ’em in the futer.</p>
-
-<p>The minister had learnt him all he knew,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span> so he
-said, and for years back they’d been savin’ every
-penny they could, deprivin’ themselves of even
-necessaries to git the money to send Harry to
-college. From his babyhood they’d worked for
-this. And jest before Al Faizi come to Jonesville,
-the long looked-for and worked-for end had come&mdash;Harry
-had gone to college, a-carryin’ with him
-all his parents’ love and hope for the futer, and a
-small trunk full of necessaries, some Balsam of Fir
-for his lungs, and some plasters and things his Ma
-had put in.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, as I said, Elder Dean had took dretfully to
-Al Faizi, and he to him. So one day I invited the
-elder and his wife over to dinner. I went myself
-to gin ’em the invitation.</p>
-
-<p>I found the elder a carefully coverin’ a old book
-of poems he had bought, which wuz very rare, so
-he said, and jest what Harry had wanted. He had
-took the money he had been savin’ for a winter
-coat, so I hearn afterwards, to buy it.</p>
-
-<p>And she wuz knittin’ a african to put over the
-couch in his room. She had ravelled out a good
-shawl of her own to git the red for it, so I hearn.</p>
-
-<p>“But,” she sez, “when he comes into his room a
-little chilly, it will be so nice to throw over his feet,
-and he always liked that soft, crimson color. He
-gits cold real easy,” sez she, a-holdin’ up the african
-and lookin’ real affectionate at it. It wuz a good<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span>
-african.</p>
-
-<p>I asked ’em to come to dinner the next day, and
-they both demurred at first, sayin’ that it wuz the
-day for Harry’s long letter to come. He writ ’em
-long letters twice a week, and they both felt that
-they wanted to be right there by the post-office so’s
-to git it the minute it arrove.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, it wuz compromised in this way&mdash;I promisin’
-that Ury should be at the post-office when the
-afternoon mail come in and bring it to ’em right to
-our house. And I mentioned that the old mair
-could go pretty fast when Ury and Necessity wuz
-a-drivin’ her; so they consented to come.</p>
-
-<p>And I cooked up dretful good vittles. I don’t
-think they’re ever than above well fed to home, and
-I did enjoy a-cookin’ up good, nourishin’ food for
-’em with Philury’s help.</p>
-
-<p>I had some good beef soup, two roast chickens,
-with garden sass of all kinds, cream biscuit, strawberry
-shortcake and jell, and rich, yellow coffee with
-cream and loaf sugar in it.</p>
-
-<p>I did well by ’em.</p>
-
-<p>And I had a real good visit with ’em; for I jest
-as lives spend my time a-hearin’ about Harry as
-not. I wuz a-knittin’, and of course could hear and
-knit. And Josiah and Al Faizi (good creeters both
-on ’em) had jest as lives hear the elder praise up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>
-his boy in dead languages as in live ones.</p>
-
-<p>And so they enjoyed themselves real well.</p>
-
-<p>As I say, when the elder would git tired of
-praisin’ him up in English he would try it in Greek,
-and when that language got tired out and kinder
-dead, he would try a healthier, stronger one, so I
-spoze. He and Al Faizi sot out in the porch some
-of the time, but I could hear ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Miss Dean and I got along first-rate in our own
-native tongues, though once in awhile I felt that,
-visitor or no visitor, I had to sprunt up a little and
-tell my mind about Thomas J., and what a remarkable
-boy he always wuz, and what a man he’d made.</p>
-
-<p>But I see they wuz so oneasy when they wuzn’t
-a-praisin’ Harry that I switched off the track as
-polite as I could and gin ’em a clear sweep. And
-from that time Happiness and Harry rained supreme
-in our settin’-room and piazza. And reminescenes
-wuz brung up and plans laid on and
-prophecies foretold, and all wuz Harry, Harry,
-Harry.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I see Miss Dean kep’ a-lookin’ at the
-clock, though I told her it lacked three hours of
-train time. But in the same cause of politeness I
-had held up through the day I sent Ury off a
-hour before it wuz time, and in due time he come
-back bearin’ a letter.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span></p>
-
-<p>He brung it up to the stoop and handed it to
-the elder.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_125" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_125.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>As the Elder took it he turned pale.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>As the elder took it he turned pale&mdash;white as a
-piece of white cotton shirt, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“This is not Harry’s hand!”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Dean jest leaped forward and ketched
-holt of his hand.</p>
-
-<p>“What is it? Not Harry’s writin’, what does
-it mean?”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, when the letter wuz opened, we found
-what it meant.</p>
-
-<p>Dead! dead! That bright young life, full of
-hope and beauty and promise, had been cut down
-like a worthless weed by the infamous practice of
-Hazin’.</p>
-
-<p>Gentlemen’s sons, young men who had had every
-means of civilization at their command, had committed
-the brutality of a savage. Young men of
-riches, education, culture, position, they had committed
-this murder jest for wanton fun. They had
-called him out of his bed at midnight on a false
-errent, locked him out of his room for hours,
-poured a lot of icy water on him; he, shiverin’
-with his almost naked limbs, had plead in vain for
-help.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span></p>
-<p>Where wuz his Ma and Pa at this time? Asleep<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span>
-and dreamin’ of him, mebby.</p>
-
-<p>A congestive chill had attackted the weak lungs,
-and in two days he wuz dead.</p>
-
-<p>One of the pupils not engaged in it, in deep sympathy
-and pity, writ the hull thing out to the bereaved
-parents.</p>
-
-<p>We carried ’em home and helped ’em out of the
-democrat&mdash;helped ’em to walk into the house, for
-they couldn’t walk alone. We sot him down under
-a picter of Harry that had fresh flowers under it&mdash;laid
-her on a couch covered with the woosted
-work she wuz a-makin’ for him, and took care on
-’em as well as we could while they waited for Harry
-to come home.</p>
-
-<p>Oh dear me! Oh dear suz!!!</p>
-
-<p>I can’t tell nothin’ about that time. My pen
-trembles, jest as my heart duz, when I try to write
-about it.</p>
-
-<p>I’m a-goin’ to hang up a black bumbazeen curtain
-between the reader and that seen for the next
-few days. Reader, it is best for you that I do it&mdash;you
-couldn’t stand it if I didn’t.</p>
-
-<p>The curtain ort to be crape, but crape, though all
-right in the line of mournin’, is pretty thin for
-the purpose&mdash;you might see through it.</p>
-
-<p>But I will jest lift up a corner on’t a few days
-later to show you another coffin, with the broken-hearted
-mother a-layin’ in it, with a broken-down<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span>
-old man bendin’ over it alone, waitin’ for the summons
-to jine ’em in another country.</p>
-
-<p>One victim buried, another victim layin’ in the
-coffin, another victim, most to be pitied of all,
-a-stayin’ on here alone in a dark world a-waitin’ for
-the end.</p>
-
-<p>Gay, light-hearted young man, havin’ a good
-time at college&mdash;sowin’ your wild oats&mdash;havin’
-royal good fun, what do you think of the end of
-that night’s jollity?</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi couldn’t understand it. Sez he to me&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“His murderers will be hanged, will they not?”</p>
-
-<p>“Hung!” sez I in astonishment; “oh, no! this is
-merely Hazin’&mdash;college fun for young gentlemen.”</p>
-
-<p>“Gentlemen!” sez he. “Do gentlemen murder in
-your country? Why, your missionaries tell our
-people that if they murder they must be hanged in
-this world and eternally punished in the next.”</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez I, “these young gentlemen were simply
-havin’ a little fun!” My tone wuz as bitter as
-wormwood and gaul, and he see it.</p>
-
-<p>“Has such a thing ever been done before in this
-country?” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, yes!” sez I (wormwood and gaul still saturating
-my axents); “it is very common&mdash;it is always
-practised. Sometimes the victims are only frightened
-to death and maimed and made idiots and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span>
-invalids of; sometimes they don’t die so soon; but
-then, agin,” sez I, “they die fur quicker&mdash;sometimes,
-when the young gentlemen want to be extra
-funny, and use some deadly gas, their victim dies to
-once, right under their hands.”</p>
-
-<p>“But don’t the Government interfere to punish
-such dreadful deeds?”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, no!” sez I; “the Government has its hands
-too full a-grantin’ licenses and sech, sellin’ the stuff
-that helps to make these disgraceful seens.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, do not men and women rise and punish
-such deeds themselves?”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, no!” sez I; “wimmen are considered too
-feeble-minded to pass any jedgment on sech doin’s&mdash;they’re
-considered by the college professors and
-presidents, as a general thing, as too weak-minded
-and volatile to take in a college education, and men
-are kep’ pretty busy a-bringin’ up arguments to
-keep wimmen in their place.</p>
-
-<p>“Of course, no sech doin’s ever took place in a
-woman’s college. They generally spend their time
-in learnin’, and don’t riot round and act, and that itself
-is considered, I believe, an evidence that wimmen
-are inheriently weak and not really fitted for
-the higher education. It is, I believe, considered a
-damagin’ evidence agin her powers of mind to
-think she don’t have no hankerin’ to spend her college<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span>
-days a-gittin’ up the reputation of a prizefighter
-and a boat-swain, and had ruther spend her
-time a-bringin’ out the strength of her mind and
-soul instead of her muscles.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Take that with her refusal to kill and
-maim and torture her fellow students by Hazin’,
-and her dislike to cigarettes, drinkin’, etc.&mdash;take ’em
-all together, though she carries off prizes right and
-left for learnin’ and good behavior, yet these weaknesses
-of hern in refusin’ to jine in such upliftin’
-exercises, tells agin her dretfully in the eyes of the
-male world!”</p>
-
-<p>Oh! how the wormword showed in my axent as
-I spoke.</p>
-
-<p>“Of all the strange things which I have seen
-in your strange country,” sez Al Faizi, “this is one
-of the strangest&mdash;a civilized nation practising such
-barbarities!”</p>
-
-<p>And he took out that little book with the cross
-on’t and writ for a quarter of an hour, and I d’no
-but more.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the days went along, one after another, as
-days will, droppin’ off, droppin’ off the rosary Time
-counts its beads on, and the time pretty near
-elapsted for us to embark on our trip to Europe.</p>
-
-<p>The tickets wuz bought, the nightcaps wuz<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>
-packed, and the time drawed near.</p>
-
-<p>But as the time aproached, the thought of the
-deepness of the water in the Atlantic growed more
-and more apparient to me.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp82" id="i_131" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_131.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>I took down my old Atlas.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I took down my old Atlas and Gography from
-the cupboard over the suller way and poured over
-’em, and sithed, and sithed and poured.</p>
-
-<p>The distance looked fearful between shore and
-shore, and my reason told me, also experience, that
-the reality wuz jest as much worse as black water is
-worse than yeller paper.</p>
-
-<p>The ocean wuz painted on this old Atlas bright
-yeller.</p>
-
-<p>And the last time Al Faizi came back from quite
-a long trip he had took to Washington and New
-York he found me a-pourin’ over the old Atlas;
-while the nightcaps and dressin’-gown, all done up,
-lay on a stand by my side.</p>
-
-<p>As I mentioned more formally, I’d made a nice
-flannel dressin’-gown for myself, and it satisfied my
-desires for comfort and also my pride; though I
-didn’t act over it as my pardner did over hisen.
-No; a sense of dignity and propriety restrained me.</p>
-
-<p>I cut it out by my nightgown pattern and made
-it fuller&mdash;it looked well. It wuz a brown and red
-stripe, tied down in front with lute string ribbin,
-that I paid as high as 14 cents a yard for, and
-thought it none too good for the occasion; I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span>
-thought in case of a panick at sea, and I had to appear
-in it, I wouldn’t begrech the outlay for the
-ribbin.</p>
-
-<p>And then, agin, seein’ we wuzn’t to any extra expense
-for the voyage, I thought it wuzn’t extravagant
-in us to lanch out in clothes, or that is, lanch
-out some in ’em, not too fur.</p>
-
-<p>For I didn’t believe in goin’ through Europe follered
-by a dray full of trunks.</p>
-
-<p>No; I felt that two large satchels, that we could
-carry ourselves, wuz what the occasion demanded.</p>
-
-<p>That wuz our first thought, though we afterwards
-decided to take a trunk.</p>
-
-<p>Of course I took my mantilly, with tabs. It wuz
-jest as good as it ever wuz, and a big woollen
-shawl to wear when it wuz cold on the
-steamer. And my good, honorable bunnet,
-with my usual green baize veil to
-drape it gracefully on the left side.</p>
-
-<p>My umbrell, it is needless
-to say, occupied its usual place
-in my outfit&mdash;protection from
-storms and tramps and other
-dangers, and it could also be
-used for a cane.</p>
-
-<p>Noble utensil! I would have felt lost indeed to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span>
-have missed it from its accustomed place at my
-right hand.</p>
-
-<p>As I say, Al Faizi come back and found us engrossed
-in preperations and study.</p>
-
-<p>I with my Atlas, and Josiah carefully brushin’
-his dressin’-gown, though there wuzn’t a speck
-of dust on it, and a-smoothin’ out them tossels.</p>
-
-<p>We wuz a-makin’ our last preperations, for it
-only lacked about six weeks of the time when we
-wuz to embark. Our satchels stood all unlocked,
-with the keys fastened to ’em with good strong weltin’
-cord, so’s we wouldn’t have to hunt for the keys
-at the last minute. Some long letters for the relations
-on both sides lay on Josiah’s desk, to be sent
-after our departure; they wuz dretful affectin’ letters;
-we thought more’n as like as not they would bring
-tears.</p>
-
-<p>And as Al Faizi come in and witnessed our hasty
-preperations, he announced in that calm way of hisen
-that he would go with us.</p>
-
-<p>For a minute I wuz dumfoundered, and knew not
-whether I wuz tickled to death at the proposal, or
-felt sorry and meachin’ over it.</p>
-
-<p>I felt queer.</p>
-
-<p>Sez Al Faizi, “I come to your land expecting I
-hardly know what.</p>
-
-<p>“My heart had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span> touched by learning of
-your holy religion. I had accepted the teachings
-of the blessed Lord Christ with all my heart and
-soul; warmed by His love, I come to your country
-to learn what that Divine religion would be
-amongst the people who had followed His teachings
-eighteen hundred years, and had no false religion
-to paralyze its power&mdash;&mdash;and now&mdash;”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, for Al Faizi paused for a good
-while, not a-lookin’ mad, nor pert, nor anythin’,
-but jest earnest and some sad, and very
-quiet.</p>
-
-<p>“Now what?” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>He didn’t say nothin’. He looked as if he wuz
-afraid of hurtin’ somebody’s feelin’s; but at last he
-said in that soft, melodious voice of hisen&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Now, I should like to go to other lands.”</p>
-
-<p>I felt fearful meachin’, and showed it, I spoze, to
-have a Hindoo come here and git disgusted with
-our ways, for I mistrusted that he wuz, though he
-didn’t say so out plain. And there wuzn’t a shadder
-of blame on his face; jest calm and earnest,
-jest as he always had been, and always would be,
-so fur as I could tell.</p>
-
-<p>He couldn’t find Truth and Jestice here, and so
-he wuz for follerin’ off on their trail over the
-Atlantic.</p>
-
-<p>I felt queer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> as a dog, but Josiah hailed the idee
-with joy. He seemed highly tickled to have one
-more ingregient of curosity added to our cavalcade.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">THE EMBARKATION.</p>
-
-<p>And so it wuz settled, and Martin bein’ writ to
-to git another ticket, he got it, and sent it in a
-letter to us. But what he would say when he see
-the passenger who wuz goin’ to use it I knew
-not, but I knew that Alice and Adrian wuz good-natered,
-and would feel as I did about usin’ folks
-well. And then I remembered that complaint in
-Martin’s eyes, and felt that if he didn’t take to
-Al Faizi, he would most probble be so near-sighted
-that he couldn’t see him much, if any.</p>
-
-<p>And so it turned out (to go ahead of the wagon
-a spell, or, ruther, to paddle backwards a few furlongs),
-after the first conversation Martin held with
-him, and see what his bizness wuz over here in
-America and wuz a-goin’ to be in Europe&mdash;Martin’s
-eyes wuz so bad that he couldn’t see him
-hardly ever.</p>
-
-<p>But Alice wuz sweet and courteous to him, and
-Adrian liked him dretfully from the first. And Al
-Faizi, when he first see Alice’s sweet face, he
-stood stun still for more’n quite a spell.</p>
-
-<p>And on his dark, handsome face dawned a look<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span>
-sech as a man might have who had been walkin’
-a considerable time through a underground way,
-who had come out full in view of the mornin’ sun
-a-risin’ up on a June world.</p>
-
-<p>I d’no as anybody noticed that look but jest
-me; I don’t believe they did, for Martin wuz talkin’
-to Josiah in a dretful kind and patronizin’ way,
-and Alice wuz all took up a-lookin’ with her
-heart’s eye on the land where her prince reigned.</p>
-
-<p>And Adrian wuz, as I say, dretful took up with
-Al Faizi, and see nothin’ in his dark, expressive
-face only what he looked for, and what he found
-in it from day to day all through our tower&mdash;the
-good nater of a patient comrade, who loved him
-for his own bright, winnin’ little self, and loved
-him more for the sake of another, whose heart’s
-joy Adrian wuz.</p>
-
-<p>Martin’s eye complaint seemed to be real bad
-so fur as the noble heathen wuz concerned.</p>
-
-<p>I guess Al Faizi, in the first conversation he had
-with him, tackled him in the everlastin’ cause of
-jestice, and pity, and mercy&mdash;subjects that Martin
-hain’t “<i>o fay</i>” in (that is French. I seldom use
-foreign languages, but I’ve hearn Maggie use it
-considerable, and know it is lawful).</p>
-
-<p>No; Martin and Al Faizi looked on this earth
-and the things of life with sech different pairs of
-eyes that I d’no as they could be said to look<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span> on
-this old planet on the same side.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi looked on the deep side of subjects.
-He looked fur down under the outside current to
-try to discern the hidden springs, from whence
-these clear and turbid torrents flowed.</p>
-
-<p>If he found a spring that yielded black water,
-his first thought wuz to give warnin’ and try to
-dam it up.</p>
-
-<p>Martin would try to keep it a-humpin’, so’s to
-utilize it&mdash;sell the mud that flowed from it, mebby.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi’s gaze pierced through the clouds of
-earth, and rested on the gold pinnacles of Heaven.</p>
-
-<p>Martin clutched handfuls of the gold ore of earth
-and held it clost to his eyes, and so shet out the
-sight of the Heavenly City.</p>
-
-<p>One wuz honestly a-tryin’ to sweep away utterly
-the vile sperits of ignorance, evil, and want, etc., etc.
-Martin wuz for catchin’ ’em and hitchin’ ’em to his
-lawn-mower, to keep the lawn smooth round the
-house of his earthly tabernacle.</p>
-
-<p>Curous extremes as ever met, I believe, and as
-interestin’ to witness from day to day as the most
-costly and curous menagerie of wild animals would
-be.</p>
-
-<p>But, as I said, Martin’s eyes bein’ formed in jest
-that way, he wuzn’t able to hardly see the noble
-heathen after that first interview.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span></p>
-
-<p>Wall, to go back to the wagon agin and proceed
-onwards with my history, or paddle back to the
-steamer.</p>
-
-<p>At last the last minute come&mdash;Ury and Philury
-had took us to the cars and been shooken by the
-hands, and amidst fervent good-byes had been
-adjured over and over about the necessity of keepin’
-the cat out of the milk room, and the gate shet between
-the garden and paster, etc., etc., etc., etc.,
-etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>And they had promised faithfully to adhere to
-our wishes, and to advise us of the results in weekly
-letters.</p>
-
-<p>We let ’em move right in and have half of everything&mdash;butter,
-cheese, eggs, wool, black caps, etc.
-And they wuz highly tickled as well as we.</p>
-
-<p>Thomas Jefferson and Maggie had gone with us
-to the station, where Whitfield and Tirzah Ann put
-in a late appearance, on account of Tirzah’s bein’
-ondecided whether to wear a thick or a thin dress;
-the day bein’ one of them curous ones when you
-don’t really know whether it will be hazy or warm.</p>
-
-<p>And they’d come in time to kiss us and clasp our
-hands in partin’.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_139" style="max-width: 35em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_139.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>In time to kiss us and clasp our hands in partin’.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The girls both brought bokays with ’em, and
-Babe, the darlin’, brought a bunch of English
-violets to send to Adrian, knowin’ that he jest worshipped
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span>that posy&mdash;and it’s one of my favorites, too.
-Wall, the last words wuz said to us, Al Faizi had
-made his last low bow to the children, and said the
-last polite, melodious adieu, and we embarked on to
-the cars.</p>
-
-<p>But I looked back, and I see Tirzah Ann
-a-wrestlin’ with her polynay, that had got ketched
-into her parasol, and Whitfield a-helpin’ her to ondo
-herself.</p>
-
-<p>And I see Maggie’s sweet, upward look to the
-car winder, and met the clear, affectionate, comprehendin’
-look of my boy, Thomas Jefferson.</p>
-
-<p>It is curous how well acquainted our sperits be
-with each other, hisen and mine, and always has
-been, from the time when he sot on my lap as a
-child. Our souls are clost friends, and would be if
-he wuzn’t no kin to me.</p>
-
-<p>He is a young man of a thousand, and he understands
-my mind without my speakin’, and I do
-hisen.</p>
-
-<p>But to resoom. It had been arranged that we
-should proceed directly to a hotel that wuz nigh to
-the Atlantic, and Martin should call for us there,
-his own residence bein’ in a opposite direction.</p>
-
-<p>We did so, and after a good meal&mdash;and we all did
-jestice to it, bein’ hungry&mdash;a big carriage driv up,
-and Martin alighted from it and come in.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span></p>
-
-<p>Anon we embarked in it, and after a seen of
-almost indescribable tumult, owin’ to the screamin’
-of drivers, the conflict of passin’ wagons and carriages
-and dray carts, etc., etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>And after numerous givin’s up on my part that
-now indeed wuz the time I wuz to “likewise perish,”
-we found ourselves on the big steamer’s deck that
-wuz to bear us away from our own native land.</p>
-
-<p>Lots of folks wuz there a-takin’ leave of friends.
-Some wuz weepin’, some wuz laughin’, some wuz
-talkin’, and that las’ some wuz multiplied by hundreds
-and thousands, seemin’ly.</p>
-
-<p>And piles of flowers lay round, offerin’s to and
-from fond hearts that must sever.</p>
-
-<p>Adrian had his bunch of sweet blue violets, and
-the violets wuzn’t any sweeter than his eyes. And
-I, even at the resk of losin’ my umbrell, clutched my
-precious bokays&mdash;the frail links that seemed to connect
-me with my own native Jonesville and my
-loved ones there.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah seemed to be lookin’ round for somebody
-he could scrape acquaintance with.</p>
-
-<p>And Al Faizi stood in that silent way of hisen,
-with his dark, ardent face seemin’ly on the lookout
-for sunthin’ or other he could learn, and a-seein’
-every move that Alice made, as I could see, though
-nobody else noticed it.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span></p>
-
-<p>Martin wuz a-flyin’ round, busy a-seein’ to everything.
-Alice wuz a little apart a-bendin’ over the
-side of the great ship. She seemed to be lookin’
-intently on sunthin’ or somebody on the pier, and
-as we sailed off I see her
-snowy handkerchief wave
-out, and where she’d been
-a-lookin’ I see an arm lifted
-up and another white handkerchief
-wave out a farewell.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp57" id="i_142" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_142.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Her big blue eyes wuz full of tears.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>When I looked clost at
-her, I see that her big blue
-eyes wuz full of tears.</p>
-
-<p>As for me, I wuz tryin’ my
-best to keep my equilibrum,
-for the boat tosted some, and
-my equilibrum hain’t what it
-would be if it hadn’t had the
-rheumatiz so much.</p>
-
-<p>But my umbrell helped me some; I planted it
-down and leaned heavy on it, and in its faithful
-companionship and support I found some relief as
-I see the land sail swift away from me, seemin’ to
-be in a hurry to go somewhere.</p>
-
-<p>And I sez in my heart&mdash;“Good-bye, dear old
-Land! you no need to be in sech a hurry to go
-back and dissapear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span> in the distance; no truer lover
-did you ever have than she who now witnesses your
-swift departure,” and even in my reverie wantin’ to
-be exact, I added&mdash;“she whose name wuz once
-Smith.”</p>
-
-<p>Quite a while did I stand there until Reason and
-also Josiah told me that I had better seek my state-room.</p>
-
-<p>I don’t find no fault with that room, it probble
-wuzn’t its fault that the narrer walls riz up so many
-times, and seemed to hit me in my head and
-stomach, specially the stomach, and then anon turn
-round with me, and teeter, and bow down, and
-hump up, and act.</p>
-
-<p>No; the little room wuzn’t to blame, and my sufferin’s
-with Josiah Allen for the three days when he
-lay, as he said, in a dyin’ state, right over my
-head&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>I a-sufferin’ twice over&mdash;once in myself and agin
-in my other and more fraxious and worrisome self.</p>
-
-<p>The wild demeanors, the groans, the frenzied exclamations,
-and anon the faint and die-away actions
-of that man can’t never be described upon, and if
-it could, it would make readin’ that no man would
-want to read, nor no woman neither.</p>
-
-<p>But after a long interval, in which, while I wuz
-a-layin’, a-tryin’ in a agonized way to think how I
-wanted my effects distributed amongst the survivors&mdash;I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>
-would be called away from that contemplation
-to receive my pardner’s last wills and testaments,
-and I heard anon or oftener, spoke in solemn
-axents&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Bury me in the dressin’-gown, Samantha.”</p>
-
-<p>He clung to that idee, even in his lowest and
-most sinkin’est moments.</p>
-
-<p>I reached up, or tried to, and took holt of his limp
-hand that dangled down over my head, and I sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You will live, Josiah, to wear it out.”</p>
-
-<p>And as feeble as he wuz, and as much as he had
-wanted to die, them words would seem to sooth him
-some, and be a paneky to him.</p>
-
-<p>I repeated ’em often, for they seemed to impress
-him where more affectionate and moral arguments
-failed.</p>
-
-<p>But I may as well hang up a double rep curtain
-between my hearers and the fearful seens that wuz
-enacted in our state-rooms for nearly three days and
-nights.</p>
-
-<p>I hang a rep curtain, so’s it would shelter the seens
-more; cretonne is too thin.</p>
-
-<p>But some of the seens are so agonizin’ and sharp
-pinted that they seem to pierce even through that
-envelopin’ drapery.</p>
-
-<p>One of them dagger-like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> episodes wuz of the fog
-horns.</p>
-
-<p>If Josiah’s testementary idees and our united
-wretchedness would have let me doze off some in
-rare intervals, the tootin’ of them horns would be
-sure to roust me up.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, they made the night dretful&mdash;ringin’ of bells,
-tootin’ of horns, etc.</p>
-
-<p>And once, it wuz along in the latter part of the
-night, I guess, I heard a loud cry a-risin’ above the
-fog horn. It seemed to be a female in distress.</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah wuz all rousted up in a minute.</p>
-
-<p>And sez he&mdash;“Some female is in distress, Samantha!
-Where is my dressin’-gown?” Sez he, “I will
-go to her rescue!” And he rung the bell wildly for
-the stewardess, and acted.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I&mdash;“Josiah Allen, come back to bed! no
-woman ever yelled so loud as that and lived! If it is
-a female she’s beyend your help now.” And I curdled
-down in bed agin, though I felt queer and felt
-dretful sorry for her; but felt that indeed that yell
-must have been her last, and that she wuz now at
-rest.</p>
-
-<p>But he wuz still wildly arrangin’ his gown, and
-hollerin’ for the tossels&mdash;they’d slipped off from it.</p>
-
-<p>“Where is them dum tossels?” he yelled; “must
-I hear a female yell like that and not fly to her rescue?
-Where is the tossels?” he yelled agin. “You
-don’t seem to have no heart, Samantha, or you’d be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span>
-rousted up!”</p>
-
-<p>“I am rousted up!” sez I; “yes, indeed, I have
-been rousted up ever sence I laid my head onto my
-piller; but if you wuz so anxious to help and save,
-Josiah, you wouldn’t wait for tossels!”</p>
-
-<p>But at that minute, simultaneous and to once, the
-chambermaid come to the door, and he found his
-tossels.</p>
-
-<p>“Who is that female a-screamin’?” sez Josiah,
-a-tyin’ the cord in a big bow-knot.</p>
-
-<p>“That is the Syren,” sez she. And she slammed
-the door and went back; she wuz mad to be waked
-up for that.</p>
-
-<p>“The Syren!” sez Josiah; “what did I tell you,
-Samantha?” And sez he, a-smoothin’ out the tossels,
-“I wouldn’t have missed the sight for a dollar bill!
-How lucky I found my tossels!” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, dretful lucky,” sez I faintly, for I wuz wore
-completely out by my long night watches, and I felt
-fraxious.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez he, “I wouldn’t have appeared before
-a Syren without them red tossels for no money. I
-always wanted to see a Syren!” sez he, a-smoothin’
-out the few hairs on each side of his cranium.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “She wuz probble a-screamin’ for her
-lookin’-glass and comb; I’ll go to once on deck. It
-is a bad night; if she has missed her comb, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>I might
-lend her my pocket-comb,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“You let Syrens alone, Josiah Allen!” sez I, gittin’
-rousted up; “you don’t want to meddle with
-’em at all! and do you come back to bed.”</p>
-
-<p>“Not at all,” sez he; “here is the
-chance of my lifetime. I’ve always
-wanted to see a Syren, and now I’m
-a-goin’ to!”</p>
-
-<p>And he reached up to a peg and took
-down his tall plug hat, and put it on
-kinder to the side of his head in as
-rakish a lookin’ way as you ever see a
-deacon’s hat in the world; he then took
-his umbrell and started for the door.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp46" id="i_147" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_147.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Then took his umbrell and started for the door.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Agin come that loud and fearful
-yell; it did, indeed, seem to be a female
-in direst agony.</p>
-
-<p>“But,” I sez, “I don’t believe that’s any Syren,
-Josiah Allen; we read that her voice lures sailors to
-foller her; no sailor would be lured by that voice,
-it is enough to scare anybody and drive ’em back,
-instead of forrered.</p>
-
-<p>“What occasion would a Syren have to yell in
-sech a blood-curdlin’ way, Josiah Allen?”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, put to his wits’ end, “mebby her
-hair is all snarled up by the wind and salt water,
-and in yankin’ out the snarls, it hurts her so that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span> she
-yells.”</p>
-
-<p>I see the common sense of this, for the first night
-I had used soap and salt water my hair stood out
-like quills on my head, and it almost killed me to
-comb it out. “But,” sez I, “Syrens are used to wind
-storms and salt water. I don’t spoze their hair is
-like other folkses.”</p>
-
-<p>Agin come that fearful, agonizin’ yell.</p>
-
-<p>Agin Josiah sez&mdash;“While we are a-bandyin’ words
-back and forth, I am losin’ the sight,” and agin he
-made for the door.</p>
-
-<p>But I follered him and ketched holt of the tossels.</p>
-
-<p>He paused to once. He feared they would be injured.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Come back to bed; how it would look
-in the Jonesville paper to hear that Josiah Allen
-had been lured overboard by a Syren, for they
-always try to drown men, Josiah!” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, shaw!” sez he; “they never had me to deal
-with. I should stand still and argy with her&mdash;I always
-convince the more opposite sect,” sez he, lookin’
-vain.</p>
-
-<p>But I see the allusion to drowndin’ made him
-hesitate, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You don’t spoze there is any danger of that, do
-you, Samantha? I would give a dollar bill to tell
-old Gowdey and Uncle Sime Bentley that I’d<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>
-interviewed a Syren!” sez he. “It would make me
-a lion, Samantha, and you a lioness.”</p>
-
-<p>“I shan’t be made any animal whatsoever, Josiah
-Allen, by follerin’ up a Syren at this time of night.
-They never did anything but harm, from their
-grandmothers’ days down, and men have always
-been fooled and drownded by ’em!” sez I; “you
-let Syrens alone and come to bed,” sez I; “you’re a
-perfessor and a grandfather, Josiah Allen, and I’d
-try to act becomin’ to both on em,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>He fingered the red tossels lovin’ly.</p>
-
-<p>“Sech a chance,” sez he, “mebby I never shall
-have agin. I don’t spoze any man who ever parlied
-with ’em wuz ever so dressy in his appearance, and
-so stylish&mdash;no knowin’ what would come of it!”
-sez he. He hated to give up the idee.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “it’s rainin’ as hard as it can; them
-tossels never would come out flossy and beautiful
-agin, they would all be limped and squashed down
-and spilte.”</p>
-
-<p>“Do you think so?” sez he anxiously.</p>
-
-<p>He took off his hat and put down his umbrell,
-and sez he&mdash;“It may be as well to not foller the
-investigation to-night; there will probble be a
-chance in fairer weather.”</p>
-
-<p>But the next day we found <span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span>out that the Syren
-wuz a thing they fixed onto the fog horn for certain
-signals, and Josiah felt glad enough that he hadn’t
-made no moves to talk with her.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz glad on the side of common sense. He on
-the account of them tossels.</p>
-
-<p>But after we found out what it wuz, and all
-about it, that fog horn made us feel dretful lonesome
-and queer when we heard it, half asleep and
-half awake. It would seem as if one half of our
-life wuz a-hollerin’ out to the other half.</p>
-
-<p>Youth and middle age a-callin’ out to each
-other&mdash;&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Loss! loss!” and “Gain! gain!” as the case
-might be.</p>
-
-<p>Jonesville and London, “Yell! yell!”</p>
-
-<p>Love! peace! death! danger! “Shriek! shriek!”</p>
-
-<p>Them you love who wuz here on earth, and
-them who’d gone over the Great Flood, “Shout!
-shout!”</p>
-
-<p>“Ship ahoy! What hail!”</p>
-
-<p>Queer sounds as I ever hearn floated in on them
-high yells, borne by the winds and the washin’
-waves of ocean depths and the misty billows from
-Sleep Land, broken up some as they drifted and
-mixed with the billows of our own realm.</p>
-
-<p>But daylight would always seem to calm down
-this tumult and bring more lusid and practical
-idees.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span></p>
-<p>Wall, the time come when we tottered up on
-deck, two pale, thin figgers, to be confronted by
-other faces that wuz as wan, and some that wuz
-wanner.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp59" id="i_151" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_151.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>We tottered up on deck, two pale, thin figgers.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But after these days we begun to feel first-rate.
-Alice and Adrian had had a hard time of it, so I
-had learned before from the stewardess. And I’d
-sent ’em lovin’ messages time and agin, and they
-me.</p>
-
-<p>Martin, I don’t believe, had a minute’s sickness,
-nor Al Faizi. They both seemed to be real chipper;
-though they both seemed to be perfect strangers to
-each other; and I spoze they wuz and will be to all
-eternity&mdash;even if they wuz settin’ on the same seat
-on high.</p>
-
-<p>Their two souls hain’t made right to ever be intimate
-with each other.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">LANDING IN THE EMERALD ISLE.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, after all, as much as I wuz afraid of the
-deepness and length and breadth of the ocean, I
-had a pretty good time, after all.</p>
-
-<p>Somehow, I got to feelin’ that the ship wuz a big
-city, and I got to feelin’ as if it wuz about as safe as
-the land.</p>
-
-<p>We d’no what is a-goin’ on under us on land&mdash;no,
-indeed, we don’t, and if we git to forgittin’ it, we
-often git a shake-up and a hunch from old Mom
-Nater to let us know that we are entirely ignorant
-of what she’s a-doin’ down in the depths of the
-earth.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, we git shook up with earthquakes, or cyclones
-lift us up and sweep us off, and hurricanes
-and water-spouts are abroad, and cars break down,
-and horses throw us out of wagons, etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>I’d bring up these consolin’ thoughts a sight
-when I’d be a-layin’ on my narrer piller and
-a-thinkin’ that only a few boards wuz between me
-and&mdash;what? And I’d kinder shudder and turn
-over, and try to forgit it.</p>
-
-<p>How cold the water wuz and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span>how deep, and how
-lonesome it would be a-sinkin’ down, and down,
-and down, and how big the shark’s mouth wuz,
-and how the cold, bitter, chokin’ waves would wash
-anythin’ to and fro like a piece of weed, and sweep
-one so fur off and so fur down that it didn’t seem
-as if the Angel of the Resurrection could ever find
-us!</p>
-
-<p>But I spoze he could.</p>
-
-<p>It stands to reason that we could as well be found
-in a shark as in some poseys that grow up from the
-dust of our body, and whose perfume exhale in the
-mornin’ dew goin’ up to the clouds, fallin’ in rain,
-and goin’ through countless forms before the resurrection.</p>
-
-<p>Oh! did I not bring up all these thoughts anon
-or oftener? And did I not say to myself, time and
-agin, for my comfort and consolation, “The One
-who formed me out of nothin’ is able to reform
-me.” Yes, my best comfort wuz to ask the One
-who careth for ’em who go down to the sea in
-ships to care for me, and to rest in that thought.</p>
-
-<p>To lay down in the depths of that wide love and
-care and repose myself in it.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we had a pretty good time on board.
-There wuz lots of different kinds of folks there,
-jest as there always is on land.</p>
-
-<p>I had hearn that there wuz a live<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> English Lord
-on board, and Josiah picked him out the first time
-we went on deck.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, there he wuz, as we spozed, a tall, slim,
-supercilious-actin’ and lookin’ feller, who ordered
-round the ship’s crew, and wuz dissatisfied with his
-food, and snubbed the ocean, and felt that it hadn’t
-no need to breathe so loud, and looked askance at
-the Heavens if the day wuz dull.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, he looked down on everybody and everything.
-And Josiah sez&mdash;“He can’t help it, he wuz
-brung up that way; he is a Lord.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “Lord or not, he acts like a fool!”
-Sez I, “He might lower his nose once in awhile to
-rest it.”</p>
-
-<p>Truly, he held it right up in the air the hull of
-the time.</p>
-
-<p>But come to find out, that feller wuz a Grocer’s
-clerk, who wuz a-makin’ his first trip, and felt as if
-Heaven and earth wuz a-watchin’ and admirin’ his
-move.</p>
-
-<p>And the Lord we found out wuz a short, square-built
-man, dressed in rough tweed, so jolly and full
-of fun that his wife had to hold him back all the
-time.</p>
-
-<p>She would have been glad to had him put on
-some dignity and things, but he wouldn’t.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp41" id="i_157" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_157.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>The lord with a pink paper suit on.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>One night some pretty American girls give<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span> a
-dance, and they handed round some little favors
-that looked like big nuts, and when you opened
-’em a hull tissue-paper suit come out on ’em, and
-that Lord come out with a pink paper suit on, and
-went round through the dance half bent, for the
-skirt wuz but short, with a woman’s ruffled cap on,
-and a dress.</p>
-
-<p>His wife seemed to suffer agonies. Her pride
-ached, I spozed. But his didn’t; he wuz as happy
-as a lark, and didn’t put on any more airs than
-any common medder lark would.</p>
-
-<p>I liked him first-rate, but that clerk wuz austere
-and exclusive to the last. He wouldn’t mingle
-with us.</p>
-
-<p>He wuz a-travellin’ abroad. And, to use a common
-adage, usually applied to horses&mdash;“He felt
-his oats.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, they got up a paper on board and printed
-it on a typewriter&mdash;the Lord furnishin’ most of the
-jokes for it.</p>
-
-<p>And then they had a peanut-party, and the Lord
-carried the most of anybody on the back of his
-hand and got the prize&mdash;3 long strings of glass
-beads, and he wore ’em all the evenin’, to his wife’s
-horrow.</p>
-
-<p>But the clerk, whose father kep’ a peanut-stand,
-and who had dwelt with ’em all the days of his
-youth, he thought it wuz a vulgar party, and he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span>
-looked at peanuts as if he knew ’em not.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz times when the sea wuz rough, and
-Josiah and I retired to the cabin, and for hours
-bemoaned our fate and wondered if we
-should ever agin see the cliffs of Jonesville.</p>
-
-<p>And on one heavey day, when the floor
-of our cell seemed to rise up and smite us
-in the pits of our stumicks, Josiah made
-his will, and handed it to me, with a face
-on which love and agony and fear appeared,
-about a third of each on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, in a voice tremblin’ with emotion&mdash;“Take
-my last tribute of love, and,”
-sez he, “have it recorded, or it may be
-broke.”</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez I, “dear Josiah”&mdash;for his
-love awoke my own; it had been havin’
-a nap while I wuz a-wrestlin’ with the elements, and
-furniture that wuz a-tryin’ to upset me.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I&mdash;“If you die, I, too, shall perish. So what
-avails a will?”</p>
-
-<p>He hadn’t thought of that, and sez he, a-speakin’
-out feebly from his bunk with his eyes shet&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You’re fat; you may float,” sez he; “my prize
-shoat did that slipped out of the wagon fordin’ the
-creek.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span></p>
-
-<p>Sez I, in the same faint axents&mdash;truly our two
-voices wuz as feeble as a pair of feeble cats, and
-weaker&mdash;sez I, “I always said you would twit me
-of my heft on your death-bed if the subject come
-up, and you had your conscientiousness.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I’ve showed my love to you&mdash;I have
-left you everything onconditional. You can marry
-agin.” Sez he, “This is no time for selfishness and
-jealousy.”</p>
-
-<p>“Marry agin!” sez I feebly; “what do I want
-of another pardner? Heaven knows, I don’t
-know!”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” says he tenderly, for my words touched
-him&mdash;“you may feel different when you hain’t so
-sick to your stumick.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, “and you may, too!”</p>
-
-<p>He had never made a will before that left me
-onhampered, and I felt that when his legs wuz
-firmer under him, and his stumick and head wuz
-steadier, that he, too, might undergo a change.</p>
-
-<p>And he did.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz a bright, calm day. He felt well, and I
-see him the next mornin’ a furtively tearin’ up that
-will and a-strewin’ the torn bits out of the port-hole
-winder.</p>
-
-<p>As he did<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span> so his hands got entangled in a cord
-I’d made out of weltin’ cord.</p>
-
-<p>And sez he, a-lookin’ down onto it&mdash;“In the
-name of the gracious Peter! what is this?”</p>
-
-<p>He thought in a minute of rope ladders and
-troubadors&mdash;he acted jealous.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “It is some handkerchiefs that I am
-a-washin’ in the Atlantic Ocean, Josiah.”</p>
-
-<p>He didn’t know I wuz awake, and it startled
-him. And sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“How did you ever come to think on’t?”</p>
-
-<p>“I d’no,” sez I; “but I thought it would be
-sunthin’ to think on, to say I had used the Atlantic
-for a washtub.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he&mdash;“Wash one of mine, Samantha. I’d
-love to tell Deacon Garvin on’t.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I&mdash;“Your second best bandanna is on the
-line.”</p>
-
-<p>He looked down onto the heavin’ billows with
-content, and sez he&mdash;“I’m as hungry as a bear.”</p>
-
-<p>That mornin’ the sea lay calm and beautiful.
-The sun riz up on it and flooded it with delicious
-waves of color; the east wuz a flame of color, and
-the crest of the heavin’ billows wuz aflame with
-gold and crimson and amethyst, and fur off some
-tall icebergs loomed up like cold, pale ghosts,
-a-hantin’ us with a vague sense of danger, like the
-undertone of sadness that underlays all things the
-most beautiful and grand.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span></p>
-
-<p>Then there wuz moonlight evenin’s, when the
-moon shone down full and clear, and the glorified
-sky and the glorified water seemed to be a part of
-each other, and the long and deep rythm of the
-waves seemed to bear us up with ’em in a grand
-hymn that all creation wuz a-chantin’.</p>
-
-<p>And then there wuz misty days, when clouds of
-fog settled down round us like gray, mysterious
-wings, a-holdin’ us clost in their folds of mystery,
-when we knew not what wuz a yard in front of
-us; when we sailed on, blind creeters, not a-knowin’
-what we wuz a-comin’ bunt up aginst&mdash;a iceberg,
-or another ship, or jest the open space ahead.
-When the cries of the fog-horn seemed to be a-hollerin’
-out&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Git out of the way, we’re a-comin’!”</p>
-
-<p>But how could a iceberg hear and wheel round?
-No, it hadn’t come down from the pole for no
-sech a purpose, it wuz a-goin’ straight ahead.</p>
-
-<p>Them wuz solemn times, and we would think
-that we couldn’t never forgit ’em.</p>
-
-<p>But we did. When the sun shone bright agin, we
-wuz ready to forgit the sorrer and danger of the
-night and be happy agin. And at times, fur off on the
-fur, watery plain&mdash;fur off ahead, we would see a sail.</p>
-
-<p>Nearer and nearer it would come, and then go<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span>
-by us and dissapear in the horizen back of us&mdash;meetin’
-and partin’ at some distance without a
-word; some like human bein’s goin’ by each other
-on the ocean of Life. Separate worlds full of
-human life and interest meetin’ and partin’, floatin’
-by onbeknown.</p>
-
-<p>I took a strange and a mysterious comfort sometimes
-a-bendin’ over the sides of the ship and
-lookin’ fur down into the depths of the water and
-a-seein’ huge forms a-playin’ down in their strange,
-green depths, or imaginin’ I could. And I took
-a kind of dretful enjoyment a-ponderin’ on what
-would foller on and ensue if I should fall off
-and plunge down into the liquid depths. But
-them thoughts wuz too full of or to indulge in
-long. They driv me back to the side of my beloved
-pardner, or the society of little Adrian and
-Alice.</p>
-
-<p>Adrian knew everybody on board, and everybody
-loved him. But, above all, he liked a sailor
-called Mike. From all I could learn, that seaman
-racked his brain to tell all sorts of wild sea stories
-to the child.</p>
-
-<p>I d’no as I’ve told about Josiah’s appetite durin’
-that voyage. My pardner’s appetite wuz always
-a strong subject, but now it wuz exceedingly queer.</p>
-
-<p>After he got over his seasickness, most the first<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span>
-words he said, and they come right after his “good-by”
-and partin’ words to me, though some time
-after&mdash;he waked up out of a deep sleep, and the
-first words he said to me wuz, in middlin’ feeble
-axents&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Do you spoze, Samantha, I could git a little
-biled beef and cabbage, and some pork and beans?”</p>
-
-<p>He had been a-livin’ on water gruel, and the
-words almost startled me. But I obtained the
-ingregients with some trouble, and as I bore them
-in, a large platter full of each, he looked up dretful
-feeble and languishin’, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Set ’em down by the bed, Samantha, and
-mebby I could eat a bean, or part of one.”</p>
-
-<p>“Part of one bean” didn’t sound very encouragin’,
-but I set ’em down, and the next time I
-see them platters, about ten minutes afterwards,
-they wuz both clean as though they had been
-swept and garnished.</p>
-
-<p>And from that minute he gained on’t. My own
-first hankerin’ after I got better wuz for a biled
-dinner. Of course, I couldn’t git that, but I exchanged
-milk porridge for roast pork, and sassige,
-and cabbage hot slaw the first thing, and
-felt satisfied and happy with the change.</p>
-
-<p>Curous, hain’t it? If I’d been on land I believe
-they would a-killed me, but I thrived on the
-diet.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span></p>
-
-<p>Wall, I never shall forgit how good the land
-looked to me as I looked fur forrerds over the
-heavin’ billows of blue, and see the beautiful green
-shores of Queenstown a-risin’ up ahead.</p>
-
-<p>Adrian said, “Auntie, is that the Emerald Isle,
-and are the hills all covered with emeralds, like
-Alice’s ring?” Sez he, “Mike told me they
-were.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Don’t you pay any attention to what
-Mike sez. The hills are jest covered with soft,
-green grass that would look enough sight better to
-me than any jewelled stuns would.”</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi stood motionless, lookin’ on the fair
-seen ahead, as if he wuz a-lookin’ over the Swellin’s
-of Jordan into the Promised Land; part of the
-time that riz up look rested on Alice’s sweet face.</p>
-
-<p>Alice and Martin wuz a-walkin’ arm-in-arm up
-and down the deck, as much took up with the
-sight as we wuz, only Martin thought it looked
-more wise to not act tickled and enthuastick
-about it.</p>
-
-<p>That is the first rule in etiket with some folks, to
-not act tickled and glad about anything, but to
-look as stunny and onmoved at a masterpiece of
-Art, or a towerin’ Alp, as at a plate of cold ham.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah, he wuz a-worryin’ about the tug that wuz<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span>
-to take us on shore.</p>
-
-<p>“A tug!” sez he; “I don’t like that name, it
-don’t sound reliable. If it is a good convenience,
-why is it sech a tug to it to carry us?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Be calm, Josiah, everything will come
-out right.”</p>
-
-<p>And sez he, “One of the passengers called it a
-‘tender.’ If it is so tender, I don’t believe it is
-safe. Tenderness means weakness,” says he.</p>
-
-<p>“Not always,” sez I, “quite the reverse.” But
-I see that it wuz no time to plunge into metaphysicks
-and prove to him what I knew well, that
-“the bravest are the tenderest&mdash;the lovin’ are the
-darin’.”</p>
-
-<p>Then sez he, “If we ever live to git into that
-tug, we have got to have our baggage all overhauled
-by the Custom House Officers.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “what of it? We hain’t nothin’
-to conceal or cover up.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “that dressin’-gown of mine will
-jest as likely as not be all throwed round and
-mussed up. It worries me!” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Don’t worry, Josiah Allen; it is good
-rep, and it will stand a good overhaulin’ and not
-hurt it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “them tossels can’t be handled
-over by all Ireland and come out hull and sound.
-It is nothin’ but dum foolishness to have to go<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span>
-through all them performances.”</p>
-
-<p>But his worryin’ wuz worse than the reality.
-For anon we sailed into Cork harbor, and got into
-the tug that come out to meet us. The officers
-jest give our things the lightest examination possible.
-They didn’t throw things around at all,
-and they wuz real polite, only in one thing&mdash;they
-asked us if we had tobacco or sperits.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp60" id="i_166" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_166.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>With a stern look, calculated to wither him.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Josiah never took his eyes offen that dressin’-gown
-through the hull of the ordeal, and he
-wuz foldin’ them tossels lovin’ly as soon as they
-dropped his satchel, when I wuz lookin’ back and
-a-wonderin’ at the size of the steamer that loomed
-up above us some like a cliff.</p>
-
-<p>As I say, the man with the officers asked me if
-I had sperits or tobacco in my luggage.</p>
-
-<p>I confronted him with a stern look, calculated
-to wither him, and sez I&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Do I look like it, sir?”</p>
-
-<p>“Look like what?” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Like a old toper who carrys round whiskey
-and a pipe?” Sez I, “I never drink a drop
-stronger than coffee, half cream, and I never
-smoked a pipe in my life, only once I smoked a
-little mullen for asthma.”</p>
-
-<p>He felt ashamed, jest as I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span> wanted him to. He
-see the power of principle, and he didn’t hardly
-touch my things.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, it wuz no wonder that Josiah worried
-some. These things were new to us. He and I
-wuz, as you may say, the
-only students and novices
-in travellin’ in the hull
-party, for Al Faizi had
-been everywhere, his conversation
-wuz enriched by
-allusions to every land.</p>
-
-<p>And Alice had been to
-Paris to school for three
-years. And Martin had
-took her over and went
-after her. He often spoke
-of his familiarity with foreign
-life and the exhaustive
-study he had made in
-foreign fields. “There
-wuz little left for him to
-see,” he claimed.</p>
-
-<p>He had took Alice over and went after her,
-but went with lightnin’ speed only when he
-wuz bed-sick. So Alice told me with her own
-lips.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span></p>
-<p>He boasted a sight of his intimacy with foreign
-ways and customs.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, did it not seem good to set our feet on
-land once more! But I wuz almost ashamed to see
-the way my pardner reeled round, for he acted for
-all the world as if he had been a-drinkin’. I wuz
-jest a-goin’ to mention it to him when he whispered
-to me&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Hang on to me, Samantha,” sez he; “I will
-never tell on’t in the world.”</p>
-
-<p>“Tell of what?” sez I, as I made a effort to
-stand up straight and strong.</p>
-
-<p>“Why,” sez he, “if you took a little too much
-sling for that cold of yourn, I hain’t one to throw
-it in your face.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “That Stewardess wuz always a-recomendin’
-it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Sling!” sez I coldly; “I hain’t took a drop of
-anything stronger than tea, and,” sez I, “knowin’
-my principles as you do, I should think you’d be
-ashamed of yourself to misuse a pardner in this
-shameful way!”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “you can’t walk straight to save
-your life! and,” sez he, “you grew so indignant on
-the tug at that man, that one would almost mistrust
-you.”</p>
-
-<p>I see that there wuz some reason in his talk, for
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span>too much indignation looks like guilt, lots of
-times.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “You talk about my reelin’ round; what
-are you doin’?” sez I, as his knees crooked and he
-crumpled down like one intoxicated.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, he gin up that it wuz the effects of the
-ship, and erelong we were in a good, clean tarvern
-and had breakfast.</p>
-
-<p>After breakfast we wuz indeed glad to lay down
-and rest for a little while, and then, as the rest of
-the party had all sallied out, my Josiah and me
-took a walk all to ourselves, or that is what we had
-lotted on.</p>
-
-<p>But of all the droves of beggars that follered us,
-I never see the beat&mdash;nasty and shiftless and talkin’
-and teasin’ the very life out on us.</p>
-
-<p>I gin ’em a few cents in order to git rid on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>But the more I gin the more they follered on.
-So I jest shet up my portmoney and put it into my
-pocket.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah poohed at ’em and didn’t give a cent, and
-didn’t approve of the three cents I’d expended.</p>
-
-<p>Till one old woman whispered to him, and I
-hearn her say&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I see, young man, that you are good to your
-old mother; won’t you for her sake give me a
-shilling?”</p>
-
-<p>He wavered&mdash;he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> almost gin it to her. Sez she&mdash;“I
-will pray for blessin’s on your handsome
-young head.”</p>
-
-<p>He handed her the shillin’ with a happy, foolish
-look, which lasted till she come round to my side,
-and she whispered to me&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“My pretty young lady, give me a sixpence.
-Your poor old father has give me a gift, and do not
-let your own young heart be harder nor his.”</p>
-
-<p>His liniment darkened rapidly, and he hurried
-me through the narrer streets, full of shops and tarverns;
-and he did not console himself as I did by
-lookin’ up on the steep hill and seein’ the handsome
-residences&mdash;no, he seemed cut to the heart.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin said when we got back that we
-would go up to Cork at once, as he wuz anxious to
-see all he could in Ireland as rapidly as possible.</p>
-
-<p>He said that in a week at the outside he thought
-we could exhaust all the sight-seein’ in Ireland and
-git to the bottom of the “Irish Question.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “you’ll do well if you do that.”</p>
-
-<p>And I didn’t make no moves to break it up, and
-we wuz soon a-ridin’ through the beautiful green
-country. And we seen on each side on us “sweet
-fields arrayed in livin’ green.”</p>
-
-<p>Never wuz there sech velvety grass, and the
-roads wuz as smooth and as hard as a pavement.</p>
-
-<p>Stun walls run along, with their soft, gray color,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span>
-and anon a hedge, birds, and flowers would break
-the seen. And little, low cottages covered with
-vines dotted the landscape here and there; and
-now and then a chapel would point its spire up
-into the blue overhead.</p>
-
-<p>Once in awhile a queer rig with seats rigged out
-back to back, drawed by horses, and full of folks,
-and once in awhile a smaller cart drawed by a
-donkey, and once in awhile a woman with a red or
-blue cloak and a white cap, and a man with short
-pantaloons and coat.</p>
-
-<p>And so we rid on, green underneath, blue overhead,
-until we arrived in Cork.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we put up at the Imperial Hotel. Everything
-wuz clean and sweet about the house, and we
-had plenty to eat, and that wuz good. It wuz indeed
-a comfort. And the waiters wuz dretful civil
-and eager to please.</p>
-
-<p>It beats all, the difference in their actions here
-and in Jonesville.</p>
-
-<p>I’ve had Irish wimmen work for me who seemed
-to look down on me, and accepted their dollar a
-day hautily; but here they would thankfully receive
-their sixpence a day, and treat you like a lady, too,
-which is more ’n half the battle.</p>
-
-<p>Queer, hain’t it? But human nater is human
-nater, and even a little child, if she has been tyranized
-over by her Ma, will misuse her dolly or the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>
-cat. I spoze that trait in nater can’t be helped
-from caperin’ when it gits a chance.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the next day Martin said he “wanted to
-go to Blarney Castle for several reasons.”</p>
-
-<p>He didn’t say what they wuz, but I spoze one of
-’em wuz that old reason of hisen about wantin’ to
-do what other folks did. And then, mebby, he
-wanted to try to palaver better than he had palavered.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span>
-Tenny rate, we all set out for the castle
-next mornin’ after breakfast.</p>
-
-<p>We went in what they call a “jauntin’ car.”
-The passengers sot back to back, but as my Josiah
-wuz placed by my side I did not mind it.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp84" id="i_171" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_171.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>We went in what they call a “jauntin’ car.”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>On one side sot we two, and Al Faizi, on the
-other Martin and his children.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the view wuz enchantin’ beyend description.
-The road wuz as smooth and level as smooth glass,
-bordered by hedges full of pure white and other
-colored poseys, a-fillin’ the air full of perfume, and
-the cottages and every old tower and ruin wuz covered
-with the glossy green of the ivy.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz a fair seen&mdash;a fair seen!</p>
-
-<p>Nater duz her best in Ireland, anyway. She
-seems to delight to cover the meanest things&mdash;old
-straw-thatched cabins, and stuns, and everything&mdash;with
-a robe of the richest, brightest green; mebby
-she wants to kinder make up to the Irish for what
-they hain’t got, Jestice and comfort and sech, and
-mebby, agin, it is the moist climate.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">A VISIT TO BLARNEY CASTLE.</p>
-
-<p>Anon we reached the old castle, for when anything
-gits to be six hundred years old you can well
-call it old. Why, I should call Josiah dretful old
-if he wuz over six hundred years old.</p>
-
-<p>It towers up considerable high&mdash;a hundred feet,
-anyway. Some of its walls are eight or ten feet
-thick. Al Faizi asked what they had sech thick
-walls for.</p>
-
-<p>And Martin told him it wuz built so to keep
-enemies from breakin’ in and killin’ the inhabitants
-of the castle.</p>
-
-<p>He looked dretful thoughtful, and then he
-asked what made them big holes in the walls.</p>
-
-<p>Martin said that Cromwell made ’em 200 years
-ago. Sez Martin, “Cromwell made the land red
-with blood.”</p>
-
-<p>“Was he not a great religious leader among your
-people?” said Al Faizi&mdash;“a Reformer?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes.”</p>
-
-<p>“Did he not preach the doctrine of peace, love
-to your enemies, good will?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, of course he did,” sez<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span> Martin.</p>
-
-<p>“Why did he kill so many men, then?” sez Al
-Faizi.</p>
-
-<p>“To make the other men behave themselves,”
-sez Martin.</p>
-
-<p>“Kill them to make them act better?”</p>
-
-<p>“The Catholics and the Protestants both fought
-in the name of their religion, and tortured and killed
-and slaughtered thousands and thousands of men
-and women.”</p>
-
-<p>“For the sake of religion?” sez Al Faizi. And
-he took out his book and wrote rapidly for awhile,
-but he didn’t say nothin’.</p>
-
-<p>“It was a case of killing or being killed,” sez
-Martin. “It was a religious war.”</p>
-
-<p>“A religious war?” sez Al Faizi dreamily.
-“Where was His teaching, the divine Christ, ‘Love
-your enemies, do good to them that persecute
-you’?”</p>
-
-<p>“That won’t work,” sez Martin; “those words
-are good in peace, but in danger they don’t work
-worth a cent.”</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi looked up slowly to Martin’s face; in
-his eyes wuz a shinin’ light, a softness, a tenderness
-sech as made his face shine, and underneath it all
-wuz a sort of a innocent, wonderin’ look, which I
-spoze would be called primitive and oncivilized.</p>
-
-<p>Martin’s face looked commercial and successful,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span>
-sharp and shrewd, and what he called civilized.</p>
-
-<p>I had quite a number of thoughts as I looked on
-the two men, over a dozen and a half, anyway.</p>
-
-<p>Alice and Adrian wuz pickin’ some of the green
-ivy sprays, and they brung ’em to me and wanted
-me to look at ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Sez Alice, “Some of this ivy that grows here so
-wild and luxuriant&mdash;acres of it, it seems to me&mdash;is
-just the kind that we see little slips of in our green-houses
-at home; do you see how beautiful it is?”</p>
-
-<p>And she held up a few of the glossy leaves to Al
-Faizi.</p>
-
-<p>He glanced at it, and then beyend into her sweet,
-uplifted face.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, I see how beautiful it is,” he sez softly, and
-he ended his words with a deep sithe.</p>
-
-<p>And a shadder settled down over his face, and he
-turned to his writin’ agin.</p>
-
-<p>As for Alice, she see nothin’, but kep’ a-gatherin’
-her ivy sprays and a-singin’ to herself in her low,
-sweet voice&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent10">“I give thee an ivy leaf,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent14">Only an ivy leaf,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Oh, wear it forever, love, nearest thy heart.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I knew very well who she wuz aposthrofizin’ in
-her own heart entirely onbeknown to her as she wuz
-hummin’ over little snatches of the song and
-a-pickin’ the glowin’ green sprays. And I knew<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span>
-that the affection and constancy that dwelt in her
-soul wuz as deathless as that ivy and fur more
-clingin’ and beautiful.</p>
-
-<p>Martin had climbed up to the elevation where
-the Blarney Stun hung suspended two feet below
-the surface, fastened by iron clamps.</p>
-
-<p>But he wouldn’t resk his neck by bein’ lowered
-down to that place, but he kissed a little chunk that
-layed on the ground inside the castle, for I see
-him.</p>
-
-<p>And so did Josiah, though I didn’t advise him to.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah, a-lookin’ up from below, had been makin’
-calculations on how he could be lowered down to
-the big Blarney Stun on the ruff.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “It wuz a oversight in me not takin’ a
-rope; but,” sez he, all rousted up, as his ardent, impulsive
-way is, sez he, “I might take that mantilly
-you’ve got on.”</p>
-
-<p>It bein’ a cool day I’d worn it.</p>
-
-<p>“And you, and Martin, and Fazer could hang
-holt of one end, and tie the other end round my
-waist. I could be lowered down and kiss it and
-not git a hair of my head hurt.”</p>
-
-<p>I glanced pityin’ly at his bald head, and sez I
-coldly&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“How would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span> it be with the tabs?”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh,” sez he, “it might stretch ’em a little, but
-if a pardner wouldn’t be willin’ to resk a tab for
-her husband, she can’t think much on him.”</p>
-
-<p>And he prepared to mount the steep, a-holdin’
-out his hand for the mantilly.</p>
-
-<p>I stood still, foldin’ my tabs round me more
-clost.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “You talk a sight about your feelin’s for
-me, and now you put a mantilly ahead of ’em. I
-hain’t equal in your mind to a tab,” sez he bitterly.</p>
-
-<p>A thought struck aginst me. “No, Josiah,”
-sez I, “you use my mantilly to-day, and to-morrer
-we will come back, and I will use the tossels on
-your dressin’-gown.” (They wuz stout ones&mdash;stout
-as a rope almost.)</p>
-
-<p>He looked dumbfoundered. “Use them tossels?”
-sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I; “you can’t think much of me if
-you put them tossels ahead of me.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Them tossels hain’t a-goin’ to be used
-to lift a ton’s weight. I might as well give ’em up
-to once as to misuse ’em so.”</p>
-
-<p>“Then I hain’t as much importance in your mind
-as a tossel?” sez I; and he admitted that I wuzn’t
-half so good lookin’.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “less gin up the idee, both on us.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Didn’t you bring sunthin’ to eat with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span>
-you? I’m as hungry as a bear.”</p>
-
-<p>So I gladly led him away from the stairs leadin’
-to Danger and Blarney, and we found a good, clean
-spot, and spread out our refreshin’ lunch that we
-had brung with us to refresh ourselves with, and
-Josiah did indeed do jestice to it; but that dear
-man always duz do that, at home or in more foreign
-climes.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the day passed away with no particular
-coincedences.</p>
-
-<p>We went home by another road that led through
-the valley, by meetin’-housen and horsepitals, jails,
-etc., and amongst the rest we see Father Mathew’s
-statute.</p>
-
-<p>And if you’ll believe it&mdash;but I don’t spoze you
-will&mdash;all round the statute of that man, who spent
-his hull life a-fightin’ aginst intemperance, is a hull
-lot of drinkin’ places. As if they calculate to keep
-right on a-tormentin’ even his statute.</p>
-
-<p>But they’ve no need to try it, good old creeter!
-He himself has got beyend the toil and the heart-aches
-caused by others’ sin and weaknesses.</p>
-
-<p>He has got to the place where he is not plagued
-and heart-broken by the sight of that sin and folly,
-for what duz it say&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“There are no drunkards<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span> there.”</p>
-
-<p>Good old soul!</p>
-
-<p>Keep on a-sellin’ your accursed stuff right under
-the marble nose of his statute if you want to, or
-pour whiskey over it, you can’t git nigh to him,
-this hero, this martyr, who give his life, and has now
-found it in glory.</p>
-
-<p>But to resoom.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the next mornin’ we sot off in a carriage
-for Killarney.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz some sort of a meetin’ that day, and
-the bells wuz a-ringin’ as we rode along.</p>
-
-<p>Mebby amongst ’em wuz the Bells of Shandon.</p>
-
-<p>I shouldn’t wonder; I sort o’ listened to the
-sound of ’em with my soul, but I d’no as I could
-recognize ’em so’s to tell ’em from the other bells.</p>
-
-<p>Our souls hain’t learnt our mortal ears yet, as it
-would love to, as it will in the futer.</p>
-
-<p>But it seemed as though I could hear as we rode
-along the Bells of Shandon.</p>
-
-<p>And thoughts of what I’d seen in a face the
-day before kinder chimed in with the sweet, melancholy
-sounds.</p>
-
-<p>As it happened, Al Faizi sot by me, and I,
-a-feelin’ that I had a duty to do, and a-layin’ out
-to do it if I got a chance, I kinder brung the conversation
-round to Alice; and as I spoke of her
-sweetness and charm, the strangest look come into
-his eyes you ever see, and he sez to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span>me, jest as
-though I wuz a-beholdin’ his secret thoughts onbeknown
-to him&mdash;“I have a vow&mdash;I am wedded to
-the cause of truth.”</p>
-
-<p>He said it with a deep shadder settlin’ down over
-his glowin’ eyes. And then with Duty and Pity
-a-bolsterin’ me up on both sides, I sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Alice is engaged to another feller.”</p>
-
-<p>He looked full at me as curous a look as I ever
-see in my life&mdash;what did I see in his eyes, or ruther
-what didn’t I see? I see Religion, Devotion,
-Deathless Human Love, warm, glowin’, eager Renunciation,
-Pity for himself (I could see plain that
-he wuz sorry for himself&mdash;sorry as a dog), Eager
-Zeal, Pity for the hull world layin’ in wickedness.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz a strange look.</p>
-
-<p>And I never said anythin’ to him, only the look
-I gin him in answer, where deep pity and admiration
-and respect blended about half and half. And
-a motherly look of full comprehension and sympathy
-a-shinin’ out a-tellin’ him that I knew all, and
-pitied all, and would never tell anybody what I
-knew.</p>
-
-<p>We had volumes of conversation in jest them two
-looks, and no one wuz the wiser&mdash;I told nobody.</p>
-
-<p>But, indeed, this secret knowledge added a ingregient
-of as deep curosity as wuz ever carried round
-by a menagerie as a side show, for me to transport<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span>
-round from place to place, or wherever we pitched
-our tent on our tower.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, truly, things wuz in as curous a state as I
-ever see, so fur as the affections and sech wuz concerned.</p>
-
-<p>Alice a-bein’ wropped up in the thoughts of her
-feller, and her father a-bein’ determined to not let
-her so much as think on him.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi wropped up in Alice, speakin’ to nobody
-only in the soul language of the eye, anon or oftener,
-and nobody but me a-knowin’ it, but I a-knowin’ it
-for certain.</p>
-
-<p>Alice a-bein’ adored by a heathen!</p>
-
-<p>Queer feelin’s it gin me and queerer still to read
-in that heathen’s eyes the knowledge that she had
-nothin’ to fear from him&mdash;she would never have
-even an appeal to her pity in futer days.</p>
-
-<p>As she sot by her husband’s side a-holdin’ a baby’s
-head on her bosom, she would never look down
-into its sweet eyes and think with pity of lonely,
-despairin’ eyes that wuz facin’ a lonely, empty
-futer.</p>
-
-<p>No; that heroic soul kep’ its own secrets. Why,
-you can be a hero in anything&mdash;even boots and
-galluses, and sech, if you bear pinchin’ from ’em
-without complaint (Josiah never could, he groaned
-audibly and frequent unless his galluses wuz jest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span>
-right).</p>
-
-<p>And Adrian, a happy little soul, pleased with
-everything, and a-praisin’ himself up jest as calm as
-he did castles and cathedrals, and jest as innocent.</p>
-
-<p>And Martin a-bearin’ himself up with dignity,
-near-sighted as ever when it come to recognizin’
-American bores and curous tourists.</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah and I in our usual attitude of rapt
-devotion to each other, which is our two most
-striking traits (a good deal of the time they be).</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">KILLARNEY, DUBLIN, AND A WAKE.</p>
-
-<p>Martin said that he wouldn’t for the world
-have folks ask him if he had visited the Lakes of
-Killarney, and have to say no.</p>
-
-<p>And I believe that thought kep’ him up through
-all the long day’s journey and the two nights and
-one day we spent there.</p>
-
-<p>I don’t believe he had any deeper feelin’s and
-more riz up ones when he looked at them three
-beautiful lakes, with the mountains a-standin’ up all
-round ’em with bare heads.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, you’d think them old mountains had took
-their green caps off and wuz lookin’ down on ’em
-with deep reverence and respect. They wuz so
-exquisitely beautiful.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_184" style="max-width: 35em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_184.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Three beautiful lakes.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But Martin, mebby, can’t be expected to be as riz
-up and as elevated as them peaks; anyway, he acted
-out his nater, which wuz to see everything he could
-see, to stand round with his hands in his pockets if
-he felt like it, or if he wuz kinder tired, to lean back
-and shet up his eyes and rest and have his body
-dragged along through the places, so’s he could say
-he had been in ’em.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span></p>
-<p>And Al Faizi acted out his nater, which wuz to
-stand like a devotee before a shrine as the beauty of
-them seens busted onto him.</p>
-
-<p>And in noticin’ that the rich, highly cultivated
-lower lands layin’ about the lakes wuz all fenced in
-with high walls, and that one or two men owned
-hundreds and thousands of acres, sacred to the use
-of some animals they wanted to hunt down for
-pleasure once or twice durin’ the year, while
-hundreds and thousands of poor human bein’s wuz
-starvin’ all round the borders of these immense
-estates.</p>
-
-<p>Livin’ in miserable, rotten cabins, so poor that
-one of these rich men would not think of lettin’
-one of his beasts stay in ’em for a night. Immortal
-souls for whom Christ died hungry, starvin’ for a
-crust and dyin’ for a bit of the luxury that wuz
-wasted upon dumb brutes.</p>
-
-<p>In noticin’ this, Martin sithed to think that them
-men wuzn’t to home, so that he could call on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>He said that he would love to say that he had
-met ’em.</p>
-
-<p>But Al Faizi, after askin’ all he could about the
-estates of the two or three wealthy men and the
-thousands of starvin’ ones round ’em, looked
-dretful thoughtful, and took out his little book
-with the cross and star on’t and writ a lot <span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span>in it.</p>
-
-<p>And Martin spoke of its bein’ jest as bad in the
-north of Scotland, where the Crofters can hardly
-git enough food to keep from starvin’. And they
-live in sech huts as no man would keep his animals in.</p>
-
-<p>Big families of boys and girls huddled together
-like pigs in one small room, with a open fireplace
-in the middle, with no chimney and no ruff, nothin’
-but rotten straw; the smoke blindin’ their eyes,
-and nothin’ to eat hardly.</p>
-
-<p>And as miserable as this hovel is, the landlord is
-liable to turn ’em out at any time to make room
-for happier and better cared-for animals&mdash;sheep,
-deer, etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>As Al Faizi hearn this his face looked sad and
-thoughtful, and he wrote down quick a good deal
-in that little book of hisen.</p>
-
-<p>I think Martin liked it. He thought he wuz
-takin’ notes of his conversation, and he felt big
-over it, but I don’t believe it wuz anything personal
-that Al Faizi writ. I believe it wuz sunthin’ as
-deep as jestice and as pure as love and pity that
-he wuz a-writin’ about; anyhow, his face wuz a study
-as I watched it. There wuz indignation in it and
-pity and love, and another look, that I felt instinctively
-wuz a-lookin’ forrered to jedgment.</p>
-
-<p>Lookin’ forrered not many years to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span>the time
-when things would be different.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we stayed there and went round part of
-the way in boats, and part of the way in wagons
-all of the next day, a-lookin’ at the beautiful gems
-of lakes in their settin’s of richest emerald, and in
-little walks about the country, and in comparin’
-the heights of luxury to the depths of squalor and
-misery.</p>
-
-<p>Not fur from here wuz the cottage where Kate
-Kearney used to live. You know who she wuz,
-I spoze.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“For did you not hear of Kate Kearney?</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">She lives on the banks of Killarney;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">From the glance of her eye</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Shun peril and fly,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">For fatal’s the glance of Kate Kearney.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Whether he flew from her I d’no, but presoom
-he didn’t, men are so sot in these things.</p>
-
-<p>Peril and danger hain’t a-goin’ to make ’em fly
-from a pretty woman&mdash;no, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>In the lower lake, on an island, wuz the ruins of
-a big castle, picturesque and ivy-covered. It wuz
-owned by the O’Donohues. And the boatman
-said that every seven years the chief of the
-O’Donohues come back for a night to see his
-castle.</p>
-
-<p>I thought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span> to myself, mebby he come oftener
-than that, but didn’t say a word, not wantin’ to
-do anything to either make or break a legend hundreds
-of years old.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we wuz a-layin’ out to leave there the next
-mornin’, but Martin, by his pryin’ round, found
-that there wuz a-goin’ to be a wake that night in
-a cabin not fur from the tarvern where we wuz
-a-stayin’, and by payin’ some money&mdash;I d’no how
-much&mdash;he got a chance to attend to it, and he
-said that Josiah and I could go if we wanted to.
-He told me he didn’t spoze that Al Faizi would
-care about goin’, and he wanted Alice and Adrian
-to rest, for the next mornin’ early we wuz to set
-out for Dublin.</p>
-
-<p>But I thanked him real polite, and told him
-that “I would stay with the children.”</p>
-
-<p>And afterwards, seein’ that Al Faizi wanted to
-go, them three men sot off.</p>
-
-<p>A old man had passed away, and they wuz
-a-makin’ a great wake for him.</p>
-
-<p>They didn’t stay long, for they said that the
-whiskey and drinkin’ and tobacco-smokin’ in the
-little hovel drove ’em out.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_189" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_189.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Drinkin’ and tobacco-smokin’ in the little hovel drove ’em out.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But Martin observed complacently that he would
-be glad to say that he had been to a real Irish
-Wake.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span> spoke of the old wimmen wailers, and
-said that they had jest sech professional mourners
-in Egypt and parts of Africa, and he wondered
-quite a good deal how that custom come way off
-here in this fur-off Ireland, but he spozed that it
-wuz in some way brought here from the East.
-Mebby it come down from them old days nobody
-knows anything about, of which relics remains in
-them old round towers, etc. So old nobody knows
-who built ’em, or what for.</p>
-
-<p>He wondered a good deal, but didn’t take out
-that book of hisen with the star and cross on’t.
-No, he writ in another book with a plain Russia
-leather cover on’t.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span></p>
-
-<p>My pardner restrained himself until the others
-had departed to their couches, but I see that he
-wuz fearful agitated and excited.</p>
-
-<p>And sez he, the minute they went out&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I tell you, Samantha, it wuz a excitin’ seen,
-and,” sez he, “what a excitement it would make
-in Jonesville if we should have one!” Sez he
-dreamily&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Uncle Nate Bentley is over ninety; there
-might be one arranged easy.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Josiah Allen, don’t you go to lookin’
-forrered to any sech doin’s!”</p>
-
-<p>“Why?” sez he; “if I should leave you, you
-could probble git the Widder Lummis up to Zoar
-and Drusilla Bentley to wail for a little or
-nothin’.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Josiah Allen, no widder or old maid is
-a-goin’ to wail over you by my hirin’ ’em to; if
-they wail, it will be at their own expense.</p>
-
-<p>“You will have one true mourner, Josiah Allen,
-whose grief will be too deep and heartfelt to display
-it before a crowd, with whiskey and tobacco
-as accessories.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! I didn’t expect you’d have any drinkin’ or
-smokin’. I knew your principles too well. They
-might smoke a little catnip, or sunthin’ of that sort,
-or pass round some lemonade.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span></p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “There will be nothin’ of the kind done,
-Josiah Allen.”</p>
-
-<p>But he sprunted up and sez, “You seem to be
-settlin’ things all your own way. I should think
-that I ort to have some say in it. Whose funeral
-is it, I’d like to know, we’re talkin’ about?”</p>
-
-<p>But I sez, “I don’t want to hear another word
-of sech talk, and I won’t.” And I riz up and sallied
-off to bed, and in sweet slumber that man soon
-forgot all his stylish ambitions.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the next day we sot off to Dublin, and
-havin’ arrived there with no casualities worth mentionin’,
-we settled down in a good-sized tarvern,
-and after a little rest we meandered around to see
-the sights of the place.</p>
-
-<p>Martin said that he wanted to visit the great
-manafacturys where Irish Poplin is made, as he had
-some friends who wuz interested in that trade, and
-that it would be expected of him.</p>
-
-<p>And I then mentioned to Josiah, seein’ that he
-wuz right here at the headquarters, perhaps it would
-be best for me to buy a gray poplin dress. I knew
-it would last like iron.</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah said with deep earnestness, that if I
-only knew how much better he liked my old gray
-parmetty dress to home I never would speak
-on’t. Sez he, “You look perfectly beautiful in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span> it,
-and there is so many associations connected with it.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “I should think there would be, seein’
-I’ve worn it stiddy for upwards of eighteen years
-without alterin’ it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “it is a perfect beauty, and you
-look lovely in it.”</p>
-
-<p>He hadn’t been so complimentary to me for upwards
-of fourteen years, and I wuz touched by it,
-and gin up the thought of gittin’ a new dress.</p>
-
-<p>Oh! how many, many wimmen have done the
-same thing under the same circumstances.</p>
-
-<p>But the numerous shops wuz full of the loveliest
-goods of all kinds, and politer creeters than them
-clerks I don’t want to see.</p>
-
-<p>St. Patrick’s Cathedral wuz of course one of the
-first places we visited. They say that this wuz
-built, in the first place, by St. Patrick himself about
-fourteen hundred years ago, but if that wuz so, I
-thought St. Patrick would feel sorry for the filth
-and wretchedness that surrounded the meetin’-house
-up to the very door.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz a magnificent carved marble sarcophagus
-of Archbishop Whateley, with his own
-marble figger stretched out on top of it.</p>
-
-<p>And a monument to that kinder queer, kinder
-mean, smart chap, Swift, and a tablet to poor
-Stella, who would a-done better if she had <span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span>married
-some other feller, mebby not so smart, but better
-natered and a better provider.</p>
-
-<p>Poor creeter, I’m sorry for her!</p>
-
-<p>There wuz lots of other interestin’ monuments
-and memorials, but Time and Martin wuz in a
-hurry, so we did not delay.</p>
-
-<p>We visited Trinity College, the castle, the beautiful
-part of the city where the rich folks lived, and
-the Liberties, where it seemed as if all the liberty
-the poor creeters had wuz the liberty to be jest as
-poor and degraded and nasty as they could be.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz beautiful parks, one on ’em over
-eighteen hundred acres in it, full of beauty, and we
-see lots of statutes, erected to the great men who
-had been born in Dublin&mdash;the Duke of Wellington,
-the great orator, Daniel O’Connell, etc.</p>
-
-<p>The monument to Nelson, the hero of the Nile,
-is one hundred and ten feet high before he stands
-up on it, and he is 11 feet high.</p>
-
-<p>He is in a sightly place.</p>
-
-<p>If his sperit comes back in some still moonlight
-night, and looks over the world with him, I wonder
-if it ever looks over the mistakes he made? I wonder
-if the beautiful Lady Hamilton ever comes
-into its thoughts?</p>
-
-<p>She hain’t got any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span> monument.</p>
-
-<p>I wonder if he’s sorry for it, that he stands up so
-high and she so low in the opinion of people&mdash;so
-low, when once he felt it his greatest glory and
-happiness to kneel at her feet?</p>
-
-<p>But such surmises are futile, futiler than there’s
-any need on.</p>
-
-<p>To resoom.</p>
-
-<p>Charles Lever, the novelist, wuz born in Dublin,
-and so wuz Tom Moore.</p>
-
-<p>We went to the birthplace of Moore.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz a common-lookin’ buildin’, though it had
-a bust of the poet in front up between the winders.</p>
-
-<p>The lower part of the house wuz used as a
-grocery store, and Josiah himself proposed that we
-should buy here some little souvenir of the poet.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz dumbfoundered. I never knew him to
-propose any outlay of the kind before, and I sez
-as much.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “I knew you wuz always wantin’
-to buy sunthin’ to remember sech romantic
-places by, and I thought here would be a good
-chance.”</p>
-
-<p>I wuz so touched by his thoughtfulness that I
-sez&mdash;“Dear Josiah, what had you got it into your
-head to buy?”</p>
-
-<p>And he said that he thought a few crackers and
-a little cheese and a herrin’ or two would be as
-good as anything.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span></p>
-
-<p>“Did you mean to keep ’em, Josiah?” sez I, for
-a dark suspicion swept over me.</p>
-
-<p>And he owned up that he layed out to nibble
-on ’em a little on the way back to the hotel.</p>
-
-<p>I see right through it, and I didn’t fall in with
-his overtoor. Somehow, herrin’s and cheese seemed
-incongrous with Lally Rooks, and Peris, and Paradises,
-and I told him so.</p>
-
-<p>And he sez, “Dum it all, they had to eat in
-Paradise if they kep’ alive, and,” sez he, “a Peri,
-if she knew anything, wouldn’t object to a slice of
-good cheese and some soda crackers.”</p>
-
-<p>So I told him that if he wanted sunthin’ to eat to
-buy it; but, sez I, “never veneer a selfish thought
-with the fine gold of romance and tender memories.”</p>
-
-<p>And he said that he didn’t want nothin’ to do
-with varnish of any kind, he wanted some cheese
-and crackers. So he bought a few, I guess; I
-didn’t watch him.</p>
-
-<p>I myself wuz quite took up with lookin’ round
-the place, sanctified by genius of a certain kind, and
-I murmured almost onbeknown to myself the
-words I had hearn Tirzah Ann repeat. She always
-loved Moore fur better than Thomas J. did.
-Though Thomas J. thought well enough on him, but
-Tirzah Ann used to rehearse and sing him by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span> the
-hour, so in spite of myself I had learnt lots of his
-poetry by heart.</p>
-
-<p>And as I looked round the room I found myself
-entirely onbeknown to myself a-hummin’ over the
-“Last Rose of Summer,” and the “Meetin’ of the
-Waters,” and the “Harp that once through Tara’s
-Halls.”</p>
-
-<p>That last one Tirzah Ann ust to sing a sight,
-and I always liked to hear it, though I never got it
-into my head jest who Mr. Tara wuz, or what line
-of business he wuz in.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, knowin’ that Tirzah Ann would prize it so
-high, I bought some choclate drops of candy to take
-home to her.</p>
-
-<p>They wuz as sweet as Moore’s poetry, and softer,
-some.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">JOSIAH AS A BANSHEE.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin said that he should probble be
-asked if he had visited the Giant’s Causeway, so he
-thought we had better proceed to it to once. So
-we went directly from Dublin to Port Rush. We
-stayed there all night, and the next day we all went
-out on the electric car, for Martin said that he
-wanted Adrian to go, for in futer years he would
-probble be asked if he had been there. Adrian
-wuz tired out and didn’t want to go&mdash;he wuz real
-cross about it.</p>
-
-<p>Alice told her Pa that Adrian said that he
-wouldn’t look at anything if he went, but Martin
-said that it would be better for him to go, even if
-he didn’t see anything, for then he could say that
-he had been there. So we all sot off&mdash;the way we
-went wuz a perfect sight and wonder in itself, for
-what power do you spoze it wuz that rolled the
-wheels that took us onwards?</p>
-
-<p>It wuz all done by a waterfall at Bush Mills, a
-few milds away. The water that poured down
-from the hills is harnessed, as you may say, and
-made to carry us along.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span></p>
-
-<p>Queer, hain’t it? And shows that you never can
-tell what will happen to you in the futer.</p>
-
-<p>Why, if anybody had told them little free,
-sparklin’ rivulets that leap along up in the hills,
-foamin’ and chatterin’ of liberty and freedom, and
-sech&mdash;if anybody had throwed it into their bright,
-sparklin’ faces that they wuz a-goin’ to be ketched
-and tackled up with some kind of riggin’ and carry
-Josiah Allen’s Wife and her pardner, and the world
-at large, them rivulets would have resented it&mdash;they
-would have laughed and gurgled and swept on indifferent
-and onbelievin’.</p>
-
-<p>But so it wuz, they had to come to it.</p>
-
-<p>And after they got broke in they didn’t seem to
-mind it, for they bore us on so smooth and easy
-and noiseless, that it wuz a perfect treat.</p>
-
-<p>No steamin’, no smokin’&mdash;they learnt that up in
-the hills. It wuz a comfort to ride after ’em.</p>
-
-<p>And we had nothin’ to hender us from thinkin’
-of the Giants and talkin’ about ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah said that he had always approved of
-giants, and that he would love to see one or two of
-’em.</p>
-
-<p>Adrian didn’t git real reconciled to goin’ till
-after we got started, then he got real excited, and
-got the idee that we wuz goin’ to see Jack the
-Giant Killer, and asked me quite a number of questions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span>
-about it.</p>
-
-<p>Runnin’ sunthin’ like this&mdash;How big wuz the
-Giants, and where did they come from, and what
-wuz their names, and how long did it take ’em to
-build the Causeway, and&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“What is the Causeway made of?”</p>
-
-<p>“Of rocks.”</p>
-
-<p>“What are the rocks made of, and who made the
-rocks, and when were they made, and how, and
-what for?”</p>
-
-<p>Good land! I wuz tuckered out, and told him I
-guessed I would look out of the winder a spell and
-take the air.</p>
-
-<p>And then he wanted to know what air wuz
-made of, and who made it, and if there wuzn’t
-any air out of the winder if I could make some air.</p>
-
-<p>He didn’t ask so many questions as a general
-thing&mdash;he seemed to be kinder fractious that day.
-Poor little creeter, he wuz tired out, and I knew it,
-and I encouraged him to kinder lean up aginst me
-and take all the rest and comfort he could.</p>
-
-<p>Alice wuz real happy. She’d got some letters
-that mornin’, and two big ones wuz in one handwritin’&mdash;I
-knew it. She read ’em over two or three
-times in the train.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi looked at <span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span>her as she read ’em, and his
-face looked queer&mdash;he see the glow on her face, and
-I see that, like the sun, that bright light could cast
-a shadder. Sunshine and shadder, how they chase
-across the landscape of life! How clost they foller
-each other! What strange picters they make!
-What thoughts they give!</p>
-
-<p>But to resoom&mdash;we got to the Causeway in pretty
-good season, and we found it wuz a sight, a
-sight.</p>
-
-<p>It is made of high round columns, or pillows, and
-you can walk on it jest as you could on the walk
-Josiah made out to the hen-house out of bricks sot
-long end up.</p>
-
-<p>But this Giants’ walk is fur, fur immenser than
-Josiah’s. It is so extremely big that they say the
-Giants built it. It runs out into the sea in a kind
-of a curous shape, and is a sight to behold.</p>
-
-<p>I thought I wouldn’t go and see the caves that
-wuz nigh there. You had to go to ’em in a boat&mdash;and
-as I looked on that boat, and considered the
-size on’t, and then subtracted the size of it from the
-bigness of the Atlantic Ocean, I gin up that I
-wouldn’t tackle it.</p>
-
-<p>I had done some of my multiplyin’ and subtractin’
-out loud, onbeknown to me, and Josiah hearn me,
-and said he guessed he wouldn’t go. He looked
-round the Heavens and earth as if to find a suitable
-excuse, and finally he sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span></p>
-
-<p>“It seems so kinder muggy to-day, I guess I
-won’t go, though I should enjoy the trip immensely
-if it wuzn’t for the clost atmosphere.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I wuz glad to have him gin it up
-on any account.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi didn’t seem to care about
-goin’, nor Alice, nor Adrian.</p>
-
-<p>But Martin said that he wouldn’t want
-it to be said that he hadn’t visited the
-caves.</p>
-
-<p>So he sot off with a couple of boatmen.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz a dretful sort of a heavey
-look to the Atlantic, and I wuz glad that
-I didn’t venter, for I felt truly that the
-Giants, if they ever heard on’t, would make
-allowances for my feelin’s in not dastin’ to
-venter out on the Atlantic in a boat.</p>
-
-<p>As it turned out, glad enough wuz I
-that there didn’t none of the rest on us go,
-for there come up a sudden squall right
-when Martin wuz in the cave, and they had to hurry
-out for their lives. The rough waves wuz a-washin’
-the boat up aginst them hard pillows of stun, and
-they wuz in sech danger of their lives that the boatmen
-had to jump out on the rocks the best way
-they could, and haul Martin, more dead than alive,
-up over the rocks.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp33" id="i_201" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_201.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Drippin’ wet when he come back.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>He wuz drippin’ wet when he come back to the
-hotel, and I sez, “Martin, how sorry I am you ventered
-out there!”</p>
-
-<p>And he sez, with his teeth a-chatterin’ and the
-water a-drippin’ off of him, that he wasn’t sorry, for a
-friend of hisen, a very rich and very influential man,
-had been caught in jest the same way.</p>
-
-<p>And he gin me to understand that he anticipated
-a great treat in talkin’ over the experience with
-him.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, there is sunthin’ in that&mdash;there is comfort
-in talkin’ over past troubles and dangers, and I
-couldn’t dispute it.</p>
-
-<p>But I sez: “For mercy sakes! do change your
-clothes and git dried off.”</p>
-
-<p>But he hadn’t any other clothes with him, and
-the upshot of it wuz, he had to go to bed while his
-clothes wuz dryin’.</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah wuz sorry for him, and blamed himself
-for not thinkin’ to bring along his dressin’-gown.
-Sez he, “I wouldn’t think of lendin’ it on a common
-occasion, but,” sez he, lookin’ round on sech
-big work as the Giants had done there, sez he, “I
-wouldn’t want to act small, and refuse to let Martin
-put it on for an hour or two.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, as soon as Martin wuz dried<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span> off, we sot sail
-back to Port Rush, and it wuz there that night that
-I had a severe trial and fright.</p>
-
-<p>We had had a good supper, and Josiah had eat
-more than wuz good for him, I believe, and drinked
-too much coffee.</p>
-
-<p>He is used to tea at night, but bein’ so wore out
-and kinder chilly, Martin ordered strong coffee.</p>
-
-<p>And I believe that coffee wuz to the bottom of
-our trials that night.</p>
-
-<p>Bein’ kinder fagged out, Martin had gone to his
-room early, and the rest had follered his example,
-and my pardner and I had also sought the seclusion
-of our quiet bedroom.</p>
-
-<p>And I immegiately and to once begun my preperations
-for slumber.</p>
-
-<p>I onfolded my nightgown and laid it over a chair
-and ondone my sheepshead night-cap, and mekanically
-went to sort of flutin’ the border between my
-fingers, as I sot there, and I begun to feel real
-drowsy.</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah didn’t seem to be sleepy a mite. He
-had donned that dressin’-gown of hisen and tied the
-strings in a large bow-knot, that showed off the red
-tossels to the best advantage, and walked 2 and fro
-several times, and seemed to look and act real sentimental.
-He has sech spells&mdash;I guess all men do at
-times. And finally he leaned back in a big arm-chair
-and kinder hummed over some tunes&mdash;not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span>
-sech tunes as I would approve of his singin’, but
-some songs&mdash;such as “Ben Bolt,” and “Lorena,” and
-“She’s all my Fancy painted Her.”</p>
-
-<p>And finally he broke out quite loud a-singin’&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“‘I’ll chase the antelope over the plains,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">The tiger’s cub I’ll’&mdash;</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“What is it, Samantha, that he said he’d do to
-the tiger’s cub&mdash;‘with a chain’?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Choke it, mebby&mdash;I presoom he’d be
-skairt enough to want to.”</p>
-
-<p>“No; it wuz sunthin’ like harnessin’, Samantha.
-Do you know what it is? It comes right in the
-turn of the tune, and it hampers me to forgit it.”</p>
-
-<p>And then he begun agin&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“‘The tiger’s cub I’ll <i>tie</i> with a chain&mdash;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">I’ll tackle with a chain’&mdash;</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“No, that hain’t it&mdash;‘tie’ hain’t the word&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“‘The tiger’s cub I’ll, folderol, with a chain.’”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>He made the turn and went on to the next
-line&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“‘And the wild gazelle, with its silvery feet,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">I’ll get thee for a playmate, sweet.’”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I’ve got it all but that one word, and
-that&mdash;that will come to me,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I feel like singin’ to-night,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span> Samantha.”</p>
-
-<p>“Sing!” sez I in icy axents; “I’d call it singin’, if
-I wuz you.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “if I dast to let my voice out,
-you’d hear singin’, but it would wake ’em all up.
-My voice is powerful, and I feel in full voice to-night.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “I’m glad that sunthin’ holds you
-back.</p>
-
-<p>“And,” sez I, “I am beat out and I am goin’ to
-bed.”</p>
-
-<p>And so I got ready and went to bed.</p>
-
-<p>The rest wuz all asleep, so I spozed.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I fell asleep most the first thing, and I
-d’no how long I’d slept, when I hearn a knockin’
-at my door, and I got up, and Alice stood there,
-white and tremblin’.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp69" id="i_206" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_206.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Alice stood there, white and tremblin’.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“The Banshee!” sez she in tremblin’ tones; “I
-saw it myself, and heard it.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez she, “You know this is the very part of Ireland
-where they have them.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “You’d been a-thinkin’ of ’em and imagined
-it.”</p>
-
-<p>“No, indeed!” sez she; “I was just falling asleep
-when I heard those awful wails of distress, and I
-got up and went to father’s room, which is next to
-mine, and he got up and looked out of the window,
-and he saw it and heard it too.” Sez she, “You
-know the Banshee always appears before some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span>
-dreadful trouble comes to a family, and it seems as
-if it is meant for us, for it is only a little ways off.”
-Sez she, “You and Uncle Josiah get up and come
-into my room, and you can see it for yourselves.”</p>
-
-<p>At them words there
-seemed to come to me a
-realizin’ sense of my surroundin’s;
-bein’ jest waked
-up with news of a ghost,
-I’d overlooked the fact of
-my companion’s absence.</p>
-
-<p>But I sez, “I will come,
-Alice. Your Uncle Josiah
-has probble heard it, and
-gone out to investigate.”</p>
-
-<p>So I throwed on my
-flannel wrapper and slipped
-on my shoes and put
-my breakfast shawl round
-me and went into Alice’s room. There we found
-Martin wrapped in his Pegama, or whatever they
-call it.</p>
-
-<p>Alice’s winder commanded a better view than
-hisen, and he stood motionless by the winder.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi and Adrian wuz in the other side of the
-house, and so wuz the rest of the folks. These two
-rooms wuz kinder built out on the side by themselves.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span></p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Martin, you don’t believe anythin’ of
-this kind, do you?”</p>
-
-<p>But Alice spoke up before he could answer,
-“Why, at Dunluce Castle that we saw to-day there
-is a Banshee that always foretells death to the family,
-and they have them all over Ireland.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, advancin’ towards the winder, “You don’t
-believe anythin’ of this kind, do you, Martin?”</p>
-
-<p>He answered evasively, “There is something dreadful
-queer-looking down there across the road&mdash;it is
-standing still now, but it has been giving the most
-blood-curdling sounds and wails that I ever heard.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez Alice, “the Banshee always gives
-those same terrific screeches and harrowing yells. I
-know it is a Banshee, and it is for us, father, for
-it appeared to us.”</p>
-
-<p>And she commenced to cry. I guess her first
-thought was of somebody that wuz in her mind the
-hull of the time.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Hush up, Alice&mdash;I don’t believe anything
-of the kind.”</p>
-
-<p>But as I looked out, follerin’ Martin’s solemn and
-silent pint, I did see a sight that made the cold
-chills run down my back in spite of myself, and
-goose pimples gathered freely down my shoulder
-blades.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span></p>
-
-<p>I see a dark figger a-standin’ up on a little rock
-that riz up there above the rest of the ground; it
-stood motionless, and, indeed, it looked skairful.
-And onbeknown to myself I sez&mdash;“For the land’s
-sake! what is it?”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp58" id="i_209" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_209.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>A dark figger a-standin’ up on a little rock.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>My own voice wuz tremolous with fear, and
-Alice see it, and cried harder than ever. And Martin
-sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You ought to have heard the terrific screams
-the thing gave if you want to be scared&mdash;seeing it
-isn’t nothing at all to hearing it.</p>
-
-<p>“And,” sez he, “I’ll go and call up the hotel-keeper
-and find out what it is. Maybe it is a
-lunatic broken out of some asylum. I am going
-to know something about who and what it
-is.”</p>
-
-<p>But jest at this minute the creeter broke out in
-one of its wild cries, and Martin and Alice shuddered,
-and sez he, “Did you ever in your life hear
-anything so awful?”</p>
-
-<p>And Alice sez, “I cannot bear it, Aunt Samantha.
-It is too terrible.”</p>
-
-<p>But there wuz to me sunthin’ familiar in the
-sound, and I lifted the sash, and the words come in
-plain&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent10">“Bind with a chain!</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span>
-    <div class="verse indent0">The tiger’s cub I’ll <i>bind</i> with a chain</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And the wild gazelle”&mdash;etc., etc.</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Sez I, “It is my own pardner with his dressin’-gown
-on, and a-singin’.”</p>
-
-<p>The words Martin said then I won’t never tell&mdash;no,
-indeed! besides the wickedness on ’em, it wuz
-too humiliatin’ to hear ’em applied to my own pardner.
-“Fool” wuz the last one of the three, and
-“The” wuz the first one, but I will not tell the
-middle word&mdash;you can’t make me.</p>
-
-<p>Alice went to laughin’ (partly hysterics); she felt
-dretful relieved, and as the figger seemed now to be
-aproachin’ the house, I went back into my room,
-into which it soon entered in a gay and jaunty
-manner.</p>
-
-<p>He had been enjoyin’ himself first-rate, and
-sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, Samantha, I’ve found the word, and I’ve
-been a-singin’;” sez he, “I sung the verse all over,
-and it sounded beautiful, and then I stood still a
-spell, and all of a sudden the right word come to me.
-It wuz ‘bind,’” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I coldly, “You’ve skairt a woman almost
-into fits and made a church-member and a relation
-swear like a pirate.” Sez I, “I’ve seen you took
-for lots of things, Josiah Allen, from first to last,
-but I never thought I should ever live to see the
-day to see you took for a ghost&mdash;a Banshee. A<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span>
-common ghost would sound as good agin as that.”
-And I went on and related the facts. He acted
-mad and puggilistic like, and sez he&mdash;“I can’t help
-folks from makin’ dum fools of themselves.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “I wish you’d kep’ yourself from it.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “It is a pity if a man can’t sing a little
-durin’ the evenin’ without his folks actin’ like perfect
-fools!”</p>
-
-<p>“Sing!” sez I; “I wonder how many more
-episodes you’ll have to go through without your
-learnin’ the truth about what you call your singin’.”
-Sez I, “You can’t sing, Josiah Allen, any more than a
-cow can play on the melodian, and I’ve told you so
-often enough for you to believe it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, wall,” sez he, “it’s time to go to bed.
-When a man is a-travellin’ with a hull crew of loonaticks
-and fools, it stands him in hand to git what
-little rest he can, nights.”</p>
-
-<p>That man wuz ashamed of his conduct, and I
-knew it.</p>
-
-<p>Mortification works out sometimes in jest that
-way. It gaulded him to be took for a Banshee, for
-I hearn him mutter the word two or three times
-scornfully, as he wuz a-ondressin’.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “A Banshee!!! Dum fools!!! I’d love
-to be one a spell&mdash;I’d show ’em some screechin’!”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span></p>
-<p>He didn’t mean me to overhear him, but I did,
-and I sez calmly from my piller&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You needn’t blame yourself, Josiah Allen; there
-hain’t a Banshee in Ireland but what would be proud
-to mate with you after hearin’ you to-night&mdash;there
-hain’t one on ’em that could outdo you.”</p>
-
-<p>“Keep on your aggravatin’,” sez he, and he didn’t
-say another word for as much as three minutes, when
-he begun to complain of bein’ chilly.</p>
-
-<p>And I took alarm to once, and made him some
-hot lemonade&mdash;I had the ingregiences, and a alcohol
-lamp with me.</p>
-
-<p>And I folded up my woollen shawl, and tucked
-him all up in it, and spoke real soothin’ to him, and
-affectionate. For sech is the mystery of human
-love, though pardners may mortify you, or anger
-you, yet their sufferin’ or danger shows how strong
-are the ties that bind two lovin’ hearts&mdash;nothin’
-can break it. He answered me back in the same
-affectionate way, though terse, but showin’ the tender
-regard he had for my welfare. Sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“For mercy sake, do come to bed! your feet will
-be as cold as ice suckles.”</p>
-
-<p>And so sweet peace havin’ descended down onto
-us, we wuz both soon wropped in slumber.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin concluded that we would go <span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span>as soon
-as we could to Glasgow, “For,” sez he, “I feel
-that we have seen everything that there is to see
-in Ireland, and gone to the bottom, as you may
-say, of the ‘Irish Question.’ So we might just as
-well go to Scotland as soon as might be.”</p>
-
-<p>So we proceeded to Glasgow, partly by train and
-partly by steamboat.</p>
-
-<p>Martin talked comfortably agin, on the train, of
-havin’ seen everything in Ireland, and of havin’ gone
-to the bottom of the “Irish Question.” “For,”
-sez he, “the land is governed admirably&mdash;splendid
-standing army, admirable police force, and as for
-the people,” sez he, “in good seasons, statistics
-show that there is half a ton of potatoes to each
-person. More than I consume,” sez he complacently,
-leanin’ back with his fingers in his vest
-pockets.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Mebby you’d consume more potatoes if
-you didn’t consume nothin’ else.” Sez I, “You
-take out your fowls, and fish, and beef, and lamb,
-and puddin’s, and pastry, etc., etc., etc., and eat
-nothin’ but clear potatoes, and how many do you
-spoze you’d consume, and how much comfort do
-you spoze you’d take consumin’ ’em?”</p>
-
-<p>He looked lofty, and sez he: “That isn’t a
-parallel case.”</p>
-
-<p>“And,” sez I, “when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span> the potato crop failed,
-what then?”</p>
-
-<p>Agin he sez, “That isn’t a parallel case.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Parallel to what?”</p>
-
-<p>And he said, “Don’t you want the window shut
-awhile? Let me put your shawl round you; it is
-a little chilly.”</p>
-
-<p>And then he went on talkin’ to Alice as fast as he
-could about the seenery, and I wuz too well
-bread to say anything more.</p>
-
-<p>But I see that Al Faizi had took out his little
-book with the jewelled cross on it, and he wuz
-writin’ in it.</p>
-
-<p>And from the way the light from above fell on it
-as he held it, the rays streamed out from the jewelled
-cross some like the flashin’ rays from a sword.</p>
-
-<p>He had spoke to me before about the wretchedness
-and beggary of the people, and expressed wonder
-that one or two men should own hundreds of
-thousands of acres and keep it for idle pleasure
-grounds, while all round were men who couldn’t, no
-matter how sober and industrious they might be,
-buy enough land to build a shed on.</p>
-
-<p>He had looked dreamy and strange while he
-talked it over, but, as his usual way wuz, he didn’t
-blame nothin’ nor nobody&mdash;that wuz the difference
-between me and him.</p>
-
-<p>He would seem to ask<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span> about and find out about
-things, and then jest write ’em down in that book
-of hisen. His face a-lookin’ calm a most all the
-time, but dretful earnest and deep and sorrowful, a
-good part of the time. His writin’ wuzn’t nothin’
-hard, I don’t believe, but comparin’ the doin’s here
-with the things in his own land, I spoze.</p>
-
-<p>I had noticed that he had wrote down quite a
-good deal after he had hearn this conversation on
-Home Rule, and how for hundreds of years a brave
-people had tried to git the rule of their own land.
-Not always makin’ wise efforts, I spoze, but brave
-ones every time, and how the grand old man in
-England had stood up for ’em aginst his own folks.</p>
-
-<p>I see Al Faizi had writ down quite a considerable,
-a-praisin’ Gladstone, for all I know. He never told
-what he writ down or drawed our attention to it, no
-more than the sun duz as it photographs the pictures
-of the bendin’ trees and the flowers on the earth
-beneath. Jest duz it, and that’s all.</p>
-
-<p>The sun and Al Faizi did. That’s where I differed
-some&mdash;I talked more. Wimmen do have to
-talk once in a while&mdash;they’re made so, I guess, onbeknown
-to ’em. And I said quite a good deal
-aloud and found considerable fault, though I meant
-not to be too hard on either side.</p>
-
-<p>There’s always two sides to every story. Ireland
-hain’t always right, I don’t spoze, no more’n
-England. When two men git to fightin’ back and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span>
-forth, there must be some fault on both sides before
-they git through, anyway, sech as swearin’, kickin’,
-etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>I hain’t got nothin’ agin Queen Victoria, and she
-knows I hain’t. The Widder Albert is a good woman
-and a good calculator, and has brung up her children
-well, and has laid up for ’em.</p>
-
-<p>And if ever any woman wuz a mourner for a
-pardner, she’s been and is now.</p>
-
-<p>But I can’t think she duz jest right in this case,
-not to let the Irish people rule their own country.
-It stands to reason that Josiah and I wouldn’t want
-Deacon Gowdy to rule our house and farm, though
-he’s a real likely man and a brother in the same
-meetin’ house, and a good calculator.</p>
-
-<p>But even if we didn’t do quite so well, we would
-ruther tend to our own house and affairs&mdash;everybody
-would. And I laid out to talk to Victoria on the
-subject the first time I had a real set-down visit
-with her.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp89" id="i_217" style="max-width: 20em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_217.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>I laid out to talk to Victoria on the subject.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And then if Deacon Gowdy took all the money
-he could rake and scrape out of us, and spent it all
-on his own place, that would mad us, too.</p>
-
-<p>And like as not if he kep’ Josiah and me down so
-poor that we wuz most starved, and he should try
-to turn us out of our own house, and use that dear
-place, sacred to us, and the door-yard and orchard,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span>
-for a home for his dogs and fightin’ roosters and
-sech, why, I d’no if Josiah see me barefooted
-and hungry, a-beggin’ Deacon Gowdy not to turn
-me out of the house I wuz born in, and on an
-empty stumick, too, I
-d’no but he’d knock
-him down and jump on
-him.</p>
-
-<p>And that would make
-trouble&mdash;Miss Gowdy
-wouldn’t like that, but
-if she should come to
-me with it, I should say
-to her, “Let him tend
-to his own business,
-then, and let us alone.”</p>
-
-<p>And if she should uphold
-him and say we hadn’t no jedgment, and wuz
-shiftless, and we couldn’t take care of our land, and
-they had to do it because we wuz too indolent, and
-slack, and sech&mdash;I’d tell her agin that it wuz none
-of her business. Sez I, “If we run through with
-our own property we can go to our own poor-house,
-can’t we?</p>
-
-<p>“But,” I’d say, “you needn’t worry; what encouragement
-do we have to work and git things ahead
-when we know you’d take all the profits of our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span>
-labor? You go off and tend to your own business,
-and we’ll work hard enough, and lay up.”</p>
-
-<p>And then, after freein’ my mind to her, if old
-Gowdy wuz too bad off, I dare presoom to say I
-should offer him some wormwood to make a poultice
-of to show him that I didn’t have no malice
-towards him, only jest wantin’ to have my rights
-and be let alone. But to resoom.</p>
-
-<p>We arrove in Glasgow with no fatal results
-a-flowin’ from our voyage, and we put up at a good
-sizable tarvern, where we had plenty of things for
-our comfort and luxury.</p>
-
-<p>Amongst the things of luxury, I counted the
-water that I drinked from day to day, for I
-found that it wuz water brung from Loch Katrine.</p>
-
-<p>And when you remember Ellen’s Isle, as described
-by Sir Walter Scott, is right there in Loch Katrine&mdash;you
-may perhaps imagine the height and depth
-of my emotions.</p>
-
-<p>Why, the very water I sipped, and wet my front
-hair with mornings before my lookin’-glass, may
-have gurgled and murmured round the very isle
-where Ellen Douglas dwelt in her father’s hidden
-lodge, covered with ivy and Idien vines.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp55" id="i_219" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_219.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>
-  <span class="smcap">Samantha and Ellen Douglas.</span>
-  <span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span>
-  </p>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span></p><div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“The rocky isle with copsewood bound,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Where weeping birch and willow round</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">With their long fibres swept the ground.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Where she dwelt and roamed, dreaming of Malcolm
-Graeme, and where she met the King of Scotland,
-onbeknown to her.</p>
-
-<p>Poor feller, poor young king! he thought more
-of Ellen than wuz good for him, but he acted like
-a perfect gentleman through it all, and that is better
-than bein’ a king.</p>
-
-<p>Or ruther it <i>is</i> bein’ a king.</p>
-
-<p>He forgive her Pa, who had been rambellous,
-and with that gold chain of hisen, that he might
-have hung him with, he bound the girl he loved to
-another man forever. Good, generous creeter!</p>
-
-<p>But we are wanderin’ too fur back into the realm
-of poesy, accompanied by noble Warriors and Ladys
-of the Lake, and to come out into the hard-beat
-track of reality agin, and to resoom.</p>
-
-<p>Martin sot a great deal of store on visitin’ the
-great public buildin’s and the Cathedral, which is
-nine hundred years old, and the University, big
-enough for over a thousand scholars&mdash;I guess a
-thousand and a half.</p>
-
-<p>But I myself took more interest in visitin’ the
-Necropolous, as they call their buryin’ ground, and
-seein’ the monument riz up to John Knox. It towers
-up towards the sky dretful high; but not so high
-as John’s principles loomed up&mdash;not nigh.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span></p>
-
-<p>And I wuz dretful interested while in the city in
-lookin’ at the statutes of Sir Walter Scott, and
-James Watts, and David Livingstone, and Robert
-Burns.</p>
-
-<p>And seein’ the place where Sir John Moore wuz
-born.</p>
-
-<p>It wuzn’t any better place than Elder Minkley wuz
-born in, to Jonesville, or Deacon Blodgett up in Zoar.</p>
-
-<p>And as I looked onto the onpretentious walls I
-methought how it wuzn’t likely at all when he wuz
-a baby, his Pa a-puttin’ up pills and powders at the
-time, his Ma a-holdin’ his little helpless, dimpled
-form to her bosom, that he would grow up to be
-sech a hero and die fur from her, over in Spain, and
-“be buried darkly at dead of night.”</p>
-
-<p>And be left there cold and still, fur from kindred
-and loved ones&mdash;“Alone in his glory.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, here in this city I had a great and welcome
-surprise&mdash;Martin made me a present of a Paisley
-shawl; they wuz manafectered in a place nigh here,
-and Martin got me and Alice one.</p>
-
-<p>Men don’t realize sech things, but I knew, and
-Alice knew, that she wouldn’t be old enough to
-wear hern for twenty years yet. But then, as I told
-her, she would grow up to it in time.</p>
-
-<p>But she kinder laid out, as I could see,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span> on coverin’
-a lounge with it in her <i>boodore</i>, which means
-her private settin’-room.</p>
-
-<p>I seldom use foreign languages, but when I do, I
-don’t think it is any more ’n right to translate it
-for the benefit of ’em who hain’t had my advantages.
-What would Philury, or she that wuz Submit
-Tewksbury, know about a <i>boodore</i>? They’d
-probble think it wuz jewelry or some kind of agin’.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">ROBERT BURNS AND HIGHLAND MARY.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, from here we took some excursions to
-places of interest in the vicinity. One of heart-thrillin’
-interest wuz to Ayr, and lasted two days, for
-Martin said he wanted to see every spot connected
-in any way with Robert Burns. He said he didn’t
-care about readin’ his historys and sermons, but it
-seemed to be the stylish and proper thing to do, so
-he wouldn’t fail of doin’ it for anything. So we
-sot off one mornin’ with great anticipations, and
-each on us a satchel, for the forty milds trip.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah wuz riz up in his mind about Sir William
-Wallace&mdash;more so than he wuz with Burns.</p>
-
-<p>For the “Scottish Chiefs” had been read by him
-with avidity in his boyhood, and permeated his
-fancy, and he still thought it wuz the most thrillin’
-book that wuz ever wrote, exceptin’ “Alonzo and
-Melissa.” “<i>That</i>,” he said, “never will be equalled
-for heart-breakin’ interest.”</p>
-
-<p>So as we journeyed along he talked a sight about
-Wallace and that claymore of hisen. “Why,” sez
-he, “it must have weighed 4 hundred or 5 hundred
-pounds. What a man he wuz to wield it as he did
-and cut down his enemies with it!</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span></p>
-
-<p>“Why,” sez he, “it would take two common
-men to lift it, they say, and what a sight it must
-have been to see him swingin’ that round his head
-and mowin’ down his enemies jest as Ury would
-mow down oats!”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Josiah, I hope you are too good to enjoy
-sech a blood-curdlin’ sight, if it ever took place, but
-you must be careful about believin’ everything you
-hear about Wallace. I suppose that, like King Arthur,
-an old Illiad that Thomas J. ust to read
-about so much, lots of things has been told about
-him that never took place.”</p>
-
-<p>“Take care, Samantha; I can stand a good deal
-from a pardner, but when you go to doubtin’ William
-Wallace, then is the time for a man to take a stand.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, you’ll be a-doubtin’ ‘Thaddeus of Warsaw’
-next. I wuz brung up on them books,” sez he,
-“and on them books I take my stand. If I’d hefted
-that claymore myself, I couldn’t believe in it any
-more ’n I do.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, a-tryin’ to bring him back into the plains of
-megumness and reason&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You know history sez that Wallace wuz a sheep-stealer,
-in the first place. Don’t pin your faith onto
-him too much, Josiah Allen.”</p>
-
-<p>“A sheep-stealer!”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span></p>
-
-<p>Wall, I will pin up a heavy shawl between Josiah
-Allen and the public for the next few minutes.
-I guess I’ll hang up my Paisley shawl, that’s pretty
-thick, and I too will withdraw myself behind it.</p>
-
-<p>Suffice it to say when we emerged from behind
-it, I wuz a-sayin’&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, wall, I spoze like as not he did own a
-claymore, Josiah Allen, and I dare say it wuz a
-pretty hefty one.” And then I turned the subject
-off onto Robert Burns, and bagpipes, and sech.</p>
-
-<p>Truly there is a time for pardners to stand their
-ground, and a time for ’em to gin in. When they
-see blood-vessels are on the pint of bustin’ and pardners
-are chokin’ with rage&mdash;gin in to ’em if you can,
-and keep your principles.</p>
-
-<p>I allers foller this receipt, and it has bore me on
-triumphant.</p>
-
-<p>Truly great is the mystery of pardners.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Josiah got real sentimental a-talkin’ about
-Wallace’s first wife, Marion, and his second wife,
-Helen Mar. “You know,” sez Josiah, “Helen said
-in them last hours&mdash;‘My life must expire with his.’”</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “Wall, it did at jest about the same time&mdash;she
-died of a broken heart,” sez I, bein’ willin’ to
-talk kind o’ sentimental with him, and soothe him
-down.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span></p>
-<p>“Yes,” sez Josiah, “and don’t you remember
-what Bothwell said ‘as he raised her clay-cold face
-from Wallace’s coffin’&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“‘They loved in their lives, and in their deaths
-they shall not be divided’?”</p>
-
-<p>Josiah was dretful sentimental at them reminescences,
-but he gradually chirked up agin, and by the
-time we come in sight of that tower of William
-Wallace’s, in Ayr, more’n a hundred feet high, Josiah’s
-sperits riz up almost as high as that tower.</p>
-
-<p>Ayr is the seen of some of the most thrillin’
-events of Wallace’s life. Here he would sally out
-aginst his enemies&mdash;here he wuz took by ’em and
-imprisoned. Here Robert Bruce and his troops
-made it their headquarters for a spell, and so did
-Cromwell and his army.</p>
-
-<p>It is a dretful interestin’ spot on lots of accounts,
-but on none of ’em so much as bein’ the birthplace
-of Robert Burns.</p>
-
-<p>The humble cottage where the immortal flower
-of Genius sprung up like a tall white lily out of the
-dust of the wayside&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>This cottage is on the banks of Bonny Doon&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">There Simmer first unfaulds her robes,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">And there she langest tarries,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And there he took his last farewell</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Of his sweet Highland Mary.</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span> immortal tenderness and sweetness of that
-love meetin’ and partin’ has made the waters of
-Bonny Doon ripple along full of the melodies of
-the past.</p>
-
-<p>In Nater there is a universal tendency to retain
-the good and beautiful, and forgit the commonplace
-and dreary. We forgit the steamin’ vats and big
-cheeses Mary must have had to turn and lift at her
-place of service, Gavin Hamilton’s, or, as Burns
-called it&mdash;“The Castle of Montgomerie.”</p>
-
-<p>We forgit all the toilsome labor that must have
-turned Mary’s pretty hands brown and hard, and
-made her slim back ache.</p>
-
-<p>We forgit the achin’ “Ploughman shanks” the
-laborer Burns must have carried sometimes to their
-trystin’ place beside the Bonny Doon.</p>
-
-<p>For though you may lighten the labor of ploughin’
-by religious poems, like the “Cotter’s Saturday
-Night,” or brave, heroic ones, like “Scots wha hae
-wi’ Wallace bled,” or verses to “A Mouse” and
-“A Mountain Daisy”&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Wee sleekit, cowerin’, tim’rous beastie,”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>and</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Wee modest, crimson-tippéd flower,”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>and “Brigs” and “Glens” and “Water-fowls&mdash;”</p>
-
-<p>And though he may have added a flavor to it by
-sarcastic verses to “Holy Willie,” and “The Deil,”
-and “The Unco Guid”&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span></p>
-
-<p>Yet to hold the heavy plough as it tore its long
-furrows in the flinty soil wuz weary work, and the
-back and arms of the poet must have ached as sorely
-as any other ploughman’s.</p>
-
-<p>But you forgit all that; they dwell here forever
-care free, serene in glowin’ youth and beauty.</p>
-
-<p>How near they seemed to me, these immortal
-lovers, as I stood there lost in thought by the ripplin’
-waters of the Bonny Doon!</p>
-
-<p>The white clouds floated along in the same blue
-bendin’ Heavens; the bright waters dimpled and
-laughed along jest as gayly and crystal clear, and
-their memory dominated all things above and
-below.</p>
-
-<p>Here they stood, happy youth and maiden, beside
-the overrunnin’ Doon, that carries ’em on, and will
-carry ’em on forever, through the land of Love and
-of Fame.</p>
-
-<p>She is a-lookin’ up with blue, love-lit eyes into his
-eager, ardent face. He is sayin’ to her, as he did a
-hundred years ago&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">And leave auld Scotia’s shore?</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Across the Atlantic’s roar?</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">Oh, sweet grow the lime and the orange,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">And the apple on the pine;</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span></p>
-    <div class="verse indent0">But a’ the charms o’ the Indies</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Can never equal thine.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And agin he is sayin’, as we imagine, with a smile
-and a tear in his half sad, half humorous way&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">I wad wear thee in my bosom,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Lest my jewel I should tine.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Wishfully I look and languish</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">In that bonnie face o’ thine;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And my heart it stounds wi’ anguish,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Lest my wee thing be na mine.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Wall, his forebodin’ wuz correct; Death, a more
-triumphant and constant lover than poor Burns
-would have been, bore off the bonny lassie into his
-icy but secure realm&mdash;mebby beyend the star her
-bereft lover apostrophized so long afterwards a-talkin’
-to her “dear departed shade&mdash;”</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Thou ling’ring star, with less’ning ray,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">That lovest to greet the early morn;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Again thou usher’st in the day</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">My Mary from my soul was torn.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp64" id="i_230" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_230.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>This immortal pair of lovers.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But though Death bore her off in her first sweet
-youth, and him long years after, a sad, middle-aged
-man, with a big family of children, who called
-another woman mother&mdash;still they stand there by the
-Bonny Doon.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span></p>
-<p>The blue eyes and the brown eyes (that have been
-dust for a century) are still lookin’ love to each
-other.</p>
-
-<p>Warm, clingin’ hands, that can hardly be torn
-apart, love so great that it fills the universe&mdash;love!
-constancy! despair! heartache! flowin’ out from
-the rapt atmosphere that surrounds this immortal
-pair of lovers; it is a power that enfolds all feelin’
-hearts.</p>
-
-<p>The deep emotions that sanctified that spot live
-on still in the heart of the world.</p>
-
-<p>Devotion! heart-breakin’ grief! death! eternity!
-they are all brought nearer as we stand by these
-sparklin’ waters that flow on forever, whisperin’
-the names of Robert Burns and his Highland
-Mary.</p>
-
-<p>Other thoughts come to us anon, or a little later&mdash;thoughts
-of the labors and struggles of the poet to
-make a home and respectable livin’ for his family.</p>
-
-<p>The warm poet nater, endowed, as all true poet
-souls are, with the fiery “love of love, and hate
-of hate, and scorn of scorn,” tryin’ to make its way
-in a practical, money-lovin’ age.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz some like takin’ an eagle down from the
-heights, and trainin’ it to become a barn-yard fowl,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span>or breakin’ in a wild gazelle to churn in a treadle
-machine.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz hard work!</p>
-
-<p>And the fashionable world, that took him up with
-the interest it would give to a new toy of a novel
-design, soon grew weary of him, and turned away
-coldly from the strugglin’ poet, in his unequal conflict
-with poor land, high rents, misaprehension,
-poverty, and hardships.</p>
-
-<p>No wonder he turned away from the world at
-last and said to poor Jean (she that wuz Jean
-Armour), the wife who had been constant to him in
-evil and good report&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“I am wearin’ awa’, Jean;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Like snow in a thaw, Jean,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">I am wearin’ awa’</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">To the Land o’ the Leal.</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“And there I would be fain</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">In the Land o’ the Leal.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>No wonder he said it, poor creeter!</p>
-
-<p>I spoze the gay world apoligized for its neglect
-and coldness by sayin’ that Burns drinked and
-cut up.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I spoze he did&mdash;some; but he wuz a good-hearted
-creeter.</p>
-
-<p>And anyway they overlooked it in the first place,
-and ’em who worship his memory now look calmly
-over them faults as if they were mere specks on a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span>
-blazin’ sun.</p>
-
-<p>Why didn’t they do so then? Why didn’t they
-take a few of the posies they scatter on his cold
-tomb to-day (one hundred years too late) and lay
-’em in the tired, hard-workin’ hands, toilin’ on at
-Nithsdale?</p>
-
-<p>Why didn’t they take a few bits from the banquets
-they spread now to his memory (one hundred
-years too late) and give it to the half-starvin’ poet
-and his wife and little ones, while it would have
-done some good?</p>
-
-<p>Why didn’t they take a little of the immense
-sums they spend in marble blocks and shafts to rear
-monuments to him all over the world, to buy a few
-comforts for himself and his loved ones?</p>
-
-<p>For what did almost his last letter state, he had
-writ to a friend askin’ some relief, for without it,
-he sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“If I die not of disease, I must perish of hunger.”</p>
-
-<p>Heart-sick with the tyrrany of his employers, the
-little minds about him, who mebby rejoiced to tyrranize
-over and torment a soul so much above their
-own. Heart-sick with the neglect of the world, he
-fell asleep July 21st, 1795.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span></p>
-<p>About a month before his death he writ to a
-friend&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“As to my individual self I am tranquil, but
-Burns’ poor widow and half a dozen of his dear little
-ones, helpless orphans. Here I am weak as a
-woman’s tear, ’tis half of my disease,” etc.</p>
-
-<p>I should think Scotland would be ashamed of
-herself. I honestly should, to let her greatest pride
-and glory die of a broken heart, caused by her neglect
-and heartlessness, and then praise him up so
-and spend sech sums of money on his tombstones,
-and things (one hundred years too late).</p>
-
-<p>But, then, it’s a trait in human nater. Scotland
-hain’t the only country that duz it.</p>
-
-<p>It is nateral to torment and torture the soarin’
-bird of Genius, and pluck out the plumage from its
-quiverin’ flesh one at a time&mdash;cut its feathers
-down, hang weights to its wings, and act.</p>
-
-<p>And then when the agonized and heart-broken
-soul has took its flight out of the tortured body, to
-stuff that soulless effigy with the softest and warmest
-stuffin’ of praise and appreciation, put jewels in
-the blind eye sockets, cover the cold breast with
-diamond bright stars of praise, and lift it up on
-high, up on top of the soarinest monuments they
-can raise to its honor.</p>
-
-<p>Too late, <i>too late</i>!</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span></p>
-<p>But I am indeed a-eppisodin’; and to resoom.</p>
-
-<p>Everybody in the village had sunthin’ to say of
-Burns. Everybody wuz proud of livin’ in the place
-his feet had once trod.</p>
-
-<p>Them who looked the coldest on him when
-livin’, or descendents of them who had wrung his
-sensitive soul while warm and beatin’, and achin’
-for sympathy&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Descendents of the big man of the village, “Holy
-Willie” himself, who once would not have spoken
-to his humble neighbor, or if he’d spoken at all,
-they’d been words of insult that would have rankled
-in the soul of the poet, now considered it their
-greatest pride and honor to live in the country that
-gave him birth.</p>
-
-<p>The cottage is a low, long buildin’ only one
-story high. And jest think of it, how many are
-born in five-story houses that nobody hears from
-afterwards. The roof is thatched, the floors are
-stun, clean and white. A cupboard full of dishes
-stood on one side of the room.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz some letters that Burns writ with
-his own hand. I thought more of seein’ ’em than
-any of the other relicks. Letters that his own
-hand rested on&mdash;his own ardent, handsome face
-had bent over. What emotions they gin me; I
-never can tell the heft and number on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, the thought of Burns filled the place,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span> jest
-as some strong, rich perfume fills the hull room
-where it has been spilt.</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t hear much of anything said about Miss
-Burns (she that wuz Jean Armour), but I took
-quite a considerable spell of time and devoted it to
-jest thinkin’ about her. I didn’t think it wuz no
-more’n right that I should.</p>
-
-<p>I spoze she felt real proud to be the wife of sech
-a great man, and it wuz a great thing. But, then,
-she had her troubles. Poor thing! patient, hard-workin’
-creeter! Washin’ dishes, mendin’ clothes,
-takin’ care of the children, takin’ all the care she
-could of her husband. And then when she got
-him all mended up for the week, and as good
-vittles for him as she could with what she had to
-do with&mdash;then to have him a-writin’ verses to other
-wimmen!</p>
-
-<p>A-takin’ the strength her own pot-pies and puddin’s
-had gin him, and a-spendin’ it all on writin’
-verses to other females.</p>
-
-<p>His heart a-beatin’ voyalent aginst the vest she
-had newly vamped for some other “Chloris” or
-“Clorinda” or etc., etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>A-walkin’ off in the stockin’s she had new heeled to
-catch a glimpse of some “lassie wi’ lint white locks,”
-so’s he could put her rustic beauty into rhyme.</p>
-
-<p>A-throwin’ himself down in a good coat that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span>
-she’d jest washed and fixed up, to look up into
-the sky and apostrofize some other female up in
-Heaven.</p>
-
-<p>It must have been tough on Jean&mdash;fearful gauldin’
-to her!</p>
-
-<p>But, then, mebby she wuz willin’ to have the fire
-of his genius catch a brightness and glow from
-any object. And woman’s beauty wuz always, to
-Robert Burns, what the very best kindlin’ wood
-is to me when vittles are to be produced in a hurry.</p>
-
-<p>Mebby she looked on it with a lenitent eye&mdash;most
-likely she did, or she couldn’t thought so
-much on him as she did.</p>
-
-<p>I guess he wuz a good, tender husband to her,
-and a good provider, so fur as his means went.</p>
-
-<p>But thinks I, here is another sample of the
-devotion and constancy of my own sect. I thought
-on her about 17 minutes.</p>
-
-<p>Other tourists may foller my example or not, jest
-as they think best, but I done it, and am glad on’t.
-But to resoom.</p>
-
-<p>We then went to see the old Bridge of Ayr,
-whose single arch connects each green shore. It
-wuz over this bridge that Tam o’ Shanter rode on
-the old mair Maggie, pursued by witches, “Wi’
-mony an eldritch screech and hollow.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span></p>
-<p>And I eppisoded some. I have to in the strangest
-places. I methought that the same furies that
-pursued the drunken Tam is still sold in the same
-old inn, and even in the very birthplace of the
-poet.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp91" id="i_238" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_238.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>The same furies that pursued the drunken Tam.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The same sperits of delerious fear, and senseless
-terror, are bought and sold at so much a glass.
-Poets live and poets die&mdash;empires rise and empires
-fall, but whiskey has to be sold jest the same.
-Drunkards race through their sottish lives, hag rid
-by the furies of drink and debauch. And mairs
-have to be rid to death, and have their tails cut
-off.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span></p>
-
-<p>Sez Josiah, “It wuz probble a witch that cut off
-the mair’s tail.”</p>
-
-<p>Till he answered me, I hadn’t mistrusted that I
-wuz a-eppisodin’ out loud.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “That is to tippify how drunkards abuse
-their animals, most likely,” sez I, “and to show
-that these foul sperits don’t have no power where
-pure water is in full sway.</p>
-
-<p>“The drink demon hates water,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah sez&mdash;“Wall, wall! I didn’t walk out
-here to hold a Temperance Meetin’!” Sez he sarcastickally,
-“This hain’t a Total Abstinence Society!”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “It’s a pity there wuzn’t one here a hundred
-years ago!” Sez I, “Probble it would have
-saved poor Burns from a good deal that he went
-through, and,” sez I, “it would be a-settin’ a different
-sample before young folks from the one that
-wuz sot, and is still a-settin’&mdash;a sample his genius,
-and noble qualities, and his light-hearted good
-nater tempt ’em to foller.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez Josiah, “Hain’t you got a Temperance
-Pledge round you, Samantha, or some badges, or
-some banners, or white ribbins, or sunthin’?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he ironacly, “I could carry a banner with
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span>‘Temperance’ or ‘W. C. T. U.’ on it jest as
-well as not, and I’d ruther lug it round and be
-done with it than to have to everlastin’ly hear on’t.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I soothin’ly, “we will go back now
-and have a good lunch.”</p>
-
-<p>And as we wended along, I meditated that mebby
-I hadn’t gin enough thought to my pardner’s feelin’s.
-For truly mortals have not now any more
-than in the time of Burns the “gift to see oursels
-as ithers see us.”</p>
-
-<p>But I wuz upheld by thinkin’ I’d talked on
-principle, and that is a dretful upholdin’ thought.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">EDINBURGH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, from Glasgow we went to Edinburgh, and
-we found that that wuz a beautiful city, beautiful,
-with the ancient castle perched up on the rocks
-four hundred feet above, and old Edinburgh a-lyin’
-at its feet, like old Vassals that gathers round their
-Chieftan; all on ’em aged, but loth to part.</p>
-
-<p>The streets of old Edinburgh are so narrer that
-you can almost reach to both sides of ’em and touch
-the houses.</p>
-
-<p>The houses, with pinted ruffs and gabriel ends,
-are quaint and picturesque in the extreme, and interestin’.</p>
-
-<p>Between the new and the old is a gulf, as there
-often is, but partly filled up with a R. R. Station,
-and statutes and gardens and handsome bridges are
-throwed acrost it.</p>
-
-<p>New Edinburgh is laid out dretful handsome, with
-broad, wide streets and handsome buildin’s, and
-statutes and fountains and parks and everything
-else that it needs for its comfort; and it might
-have got along with less on ’em, it seemed to me.
-I rode through ’em, for Martin always said he
-wanted to view every city exhaustively.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span></p>
-
-<p>And we did it every time we rid out with him;
-I come home perfectly exhausted. He wanted to
-see so much, so much, in sech a short, sech a very
-short time.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>Oh, dear me suz!</p>
-
-<p>When Josiah and me went alone by ourselves we
-took as much agin comfort, for though mebby I
-didn’t see so many things, I see ’em much better.
-My brain didn’t reel nigh so much, nor my spectacles
-wobble so.</p>
-
-<p>Why, with Martin I would no sooner git them
-specs sot on anything, a steeple or anything, but
-them poor specs would have to do as poor little
-Joe did, that Dickens wrote about, “move along,”
-and move lively, too.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz sorry for ’em and for the eyes under ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, indeed, I wuz!</p>
-
-<p>Half of the time Martin wouldn’t look at the different
-things at all. But he said that he had never
-visited Edinburgh before, and that he wanted to
-take in all the sights.</p>
-
-<p>And I believe my soul wuz raced through every
-solitary street that day we wuz out together.</p>
-
-<p>He seemed to feel well when we got back to the
-hotel, he seemed to sort o’ wake up or roust up.
-I d’no as he had been sound asleep, mebby he’d<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span> been
-in a deep study about sunthin’&mdash;about his money-makin’,
-I guess. But his eyes wuz shet a good deal
-of the time.</p>
-
-<p>But he said, with a happy look, that we had accomplished
-a great deal.</p>
-
-<p>I knew he’d accomplished one thing, he had jest
-about killed one female.</p>
-
-<p>And my poor pardner! poor creeter! wuz not
-his looks pitiful? He bore up in Martin’s sight
-(that man is kinder deceitful, but I wouldn’t want
-him to hear that I said it).</p>
-
-<p>But when we wuz alone, he would take on, and
-limp, more’n I believe wuz neccessary.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I&mdash;“You’ve no need to limp, Josiah; you rid
-most all the way.”</p>
-
-<p>“Rid! I should think I had rid! I’m bed rid,
-that’s what ails me! I never shall be good for
-nothin’ agin. We’ve been four hundred milds sence
-we sot out, if we’ve been a step!”</p>
-
-<p>And he sunk down onto the bed and groaned
-loud, so’s you could hear him quite a good ways.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “let’s bear up under it the best we
-can&mdash;it’s all paid for.”</p>
-
-<p>“What good duz payin’ for a thing do that kills
-you?” Sez he, “When you’re killed, payin’ for things
-hain’t a-goin’ to help you! Oh! if I ever set foot
-on my farm agin,” sez he, “I’ll never leave it to go<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span>
-to meetin’, or anywhere.”</p>
-
-<p>No megumness here, as I could see, but I pitied
-him and sympathized with him deeply.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “It would seem dretful good, wouldn’t it,
-Josiah, to see you a-comin’ in with two pails of
-milk? It would be jest about this time you’d want
-the milk scum for the calves.”</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t mention it!” he groaned, “them happy
-times wuz too happy to last; we didn’t appreciate
-’em.”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez I; “don’t you remember how you ust
-to dum the calves, and barn chores?”</p>
-
-<p>“I praised ’em always,” sez he stoutly, “and I’d
-ruther milk my hull herd of Jerseys now this minute
-than to eat!”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “I don’t believe I appreciated how happy
-I wuz a-standin’ by the buttery winder, calm and
-peaceful, a-washin’ dishes, or a-skimmin’ milk, and
-a-seein’ the red sun a-sinkin’ low beneath Balcom’s
-hill; and the sweet south wind a-wavin’ the mornin’-glory
-vines, and my snow-white strainer spread on
-the blossomin’ rose-bush under the winder. And
-the sight of the barns lookin’ so good, and sort o’
-settled down and at rest, and the hen-house, and the
-ash-house, and the garden&mdash;”</p>
-
-<p>“And how I ust to ketch the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span>old mair,” sez Josiah,
-“and we’d ride over and see the children after
-the chores wuz done. Oh! happy days,” sez he,
-“we never shall see you agin!”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes you will, Josiah Allen,” sez I; “bear up,
-and we will anon be back in our own peaceful home.”</p>
-
-<p>And wantin’ to roust him up still further out of
-his despondency, I sez, “You will enjoy that home
-better than ever now, for how you will enjoy tellin’
-Uncle Smedley all about what you see to-day, Josiah
-Allen.”</p>
-
-<p>He brightened up; “Yes, Samantha, if I ever
-live to get home, it will be a treat to tell what we
-went through, and,” sez he, “won’t Uncle Smedley
-open his eyes when I tell him of&mdash;&mdash;”</p>
-
-<p>Alas! alas! I had done what I sot out to do. I had
-lightened my pardner’s gloom, but wearisome wuz
-the hours I spent a-hearin’ him rehearse what he
-wuz a-goin’ to tell the Jonesvillians.</p>
-
-<p>Oh, the peticulars, oh, the peticulars! It wuz
-hard to tread the ground over under the rain of a
-Martin, but it wuz harder still to hear ’em rehearsed
-by the voice of a Josiah.</p>
-
-<p>But of course I lived through it, or I wouldn’t
-be here to tell the tale.</p>
-
-<p>Martin always done the fair thing, so fur as gittin’
-good places to stay wuz concerned, and we had a
-plenty of everything for our comfort, only jest that
-one thing&mdash;rest.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span></p>
-
-<p>But my onusual common sense learnt me that I
-mustn’t expect to be to home and on a tower at
-the same time.</p>
-
-<p>And I felt quite grateful to Martin for invitin’ us
-to go with him&mdash;a good deal of the time I did; and
-I tried to do my part as well as I could. I kep’ a
-eye on Adrian, and see that his clothes and feet wuz
-dry, and see that he learnt his Sunday-school lesson,
-and see that Alice took her cough medicine
-every day; and when Martin took it into his head
-to go off for a day or two, he felt easy about the
-children, knowin’ my love and care for ’em couldn’t
-be excelled and gone beyend by anybody. He said
-it wuz a great care offen his mind, and made him
-feel at liberty to go and come.</p>
-
-<p>He had to see certain men on business in these
-different countries where we went, and I presoom
-he did feel better to know that the children had
-some one with ’em that loved ’em while he was off
-milds away for days at a time.</p>
-
-<p>And Alice kep’ a-sayin’ every day that she
-couldn’t have got along without me anyway. And
-I presoom I wuz some company for her; anyway, I
-loved her, and she knew it. You can’t hide sech
-feelin’s under a bushel.</p>
-
-<p>And lots of times I gladly,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span> <i>gladly</i> stayed to home
-with Adrian while Alice went out with her Pa.
-She would say so sweetly that it wuz too bad to
-deprive me of the pleasure of goin’ out with her
-Pa.</p>
-
-<p>And I would say, “Don’t mention it, Alice; I
-am perfectly willin’ to stay to home with Adrian.”
-And Heaven knows I spoke the truth!</p>
-
-<p>She would come home, the horses covered with
-sweat, and Martin and herself all fagged out; but
-the fagness of 20 hain’t like the fagness of&mdash;&mdash;more
-maturer and older years.</p>
-
-<p>And in the mornin’ she’d be ready for another
-start.</p>
-
-<p>Of course some of the excursions I gladly jined
-in. I wuz glad enough to go to see Holyrood
-Palace, once the home of Mary Stuart, Queen of
-Scots&mdash;Miss Darnley, she that wuz Stuart.</p>
-
-<p>The most interestin’ queen that ever walked down
-the pages of history. A-walkin’ along with her big,
-soft eyes bent kinder downwards under that cap of
-hern, and her sweet face a-drawin’ men’s hearts
-out of their bodies to foller her to the throne, or
-the scaffold, as she trod onwards. Heaven pity her
-for her sorrow! If she wuz true or false, she atoned
-for her sin, poor thing! by the hardness of her
-fate.</p>
-
-<p>Poor <span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span>Mary! poor Miss Stuart that wuz! I wuz
-always sorry for her, and I always believed her cousin
-Lizabeth wuz jealous of her.</p>
-
-<p>You know Lib wuzn’t very good-lookin’, and she
-wuz as vain as a pea-hen, and it gaulded her to
-have her cousin praised up so to her.</p>
-
-<p>Relations are dretful mean sometimes, they’re
-dretful jealous of each other&mdash;cousins specially;
-and though they don’t make a practice of beheadin’
-the ones they are jealous of, yet they stab ’em
-with the sharp, pizened daggers of detraction, lies,
-hatred, envy, mean insinuations, total incomprehension
-of their motives, etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>So if you have to live nigh ’em, you might jest
-about as well have your head cut off, and done
-with it.</p>
-
-<p>But to resoom. We see the rooms, not very big
-either, that poor Mary, Queen of Scots, ust to
-live in.</p>
-
-<p>It made me feel real bad to see in what a condition
-her rooms wuz kep’. Poor thing! it seems as if
-she went through with enough while she wuz alive
-to have some respect paid to her memory now, and
-her rooms kep’ clean.</p>
-
-<p>But they wuz dusty and dingy lookin’. The
-curtains round the bed where that pretty head ust
-to lay a-dreamin’&mdash;what?&mdash;wuz all ragged.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span></p>
-<p>I wouldn’t have sech ragged things in my back
-chamber. But, poor thing! I didn’t lay anything to
-her; my rooms git out of order if I leave ’em for
-three days. And if I wuz away for three hundred
-years, mine would look jest as bad, and mebby
-worse.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah wuz dretful took up in lookin’ at them blood
-spots in the anty-room, but I wouldn’t look at ’em.
-Sez I&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“If them stains are made new every few days
-from beef creeters, hens, or etcetery, I certainly
-don’t want to see ’em. And if they’re made by the
-blood of that Italian Rizzio, I wouldn’t give a cent
-to see ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “I’m sorry for him, but I don’t believe
-he wuz what he ort to be. Anyway, he ort to known
-he wuz a-makin’ trouble in a family; men ortn’t
-to make pardners jealous of ’em if they can help
-it. But,” sez I, after thinkin’ a minute, “I d’no as
-he could help it. That fatal power Mary wielded
-held him, poor creeter! and drawed him on to his
-fate, jest as it did the jealous pardner, when the
-time come.”</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp100" id="i_250" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_250.jpg" alt="" />
-</div>
-
-<p>Wall, I had sights of emotions in that palace and
-in the chapel adjoinin’, where we trod over the
-graves of so many kings and queens once so high
-and mighty, now nothin’ but dust.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span></p>
-
-<p>Curous, curous, hain’t it? Wall, I went with
-’em to visit the castle of Edinburgh. And the view
-from them rampants wuz so wide and extended
-that Josiah vowed he could see clear over to Jonesville.
-I disputed him, but he said and stuck to it,
-that he recognized the steeple.</p>
-
-<p>I knew better, but it wuz a grand and sweepin’
-view as I ever see, or ever expect to see. All Scotland
-lay spread out before us, some as our old map
-would if it wuz spread on the kitchen floor, and I
-looked down on it from the top of the kitchen
-table.</p>
-
-<p>We see the room here where poor Mary, Queen
-of Scots, gave birth to a prince, James VI., afterwards
-James 1st of England. What she went
-through in this room! For when her baby wuz only
-eight days old it wuz let down in a basket from the
-cliff. Jest think on’t, sech a little baby let down
-four hundred feet; but it wuz to save his life, and
-she stood it.</p>
-
-<p>Here we see the crown that they said rested on
-the head of Robert Bruce. And we see the place
-where so many, so many politicians had their heads
-cut off.</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span> like to hear sech talk, and I showed that
-I didn’t by my mean. But I proposed that we
-should jine Martin. He wuz a-settin’ down in
-front of them rampants a-addin’ up a row of figgers
-in a account book.</p>
-
-<p>He said that it wuz some home business that had
-to be attended to. As he put the book back in his
-pocket, and proposed that we should start for somewhere
-else, I sez, “The view is enchantin’ from
-here, hain’t it, Martin?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez he in a absent-minded way, without
-turnin’ his head&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Yes; there! I forgot to add that last five
-thousand dollars to the balance,” and he wrote it
-down as we walked onwards.</p>
-
-<p>But my remark wuz evidently a-hangin’ round in
-some by-place in his mind, for he presently remarked
-as he went down the path&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, as you say, the view is perfectly enchanting.”</p>
-
-<p>And he gazed dreamily at the rocks that riz up
-before us and shet out every mite of view from that
-place.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi stood on the lofty eminence a-lookin’
-off in silence, and it seemed as though he couldn’t
-hardly be tore from the seen; and the grandeur
-and beauty wuz reflected in his eyes, some as you
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span>can see your own face in a pardner’s orbs if you
-look clost and lovin’ into ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Alice and Adrian wuz a-walkin’ along, and
-seemed to be enjoyin’ themselves first-rate.</p>
-
-<p>Adrian wuz a-askin’ her quite a number of
-questions about Robert Bruce and King James,
-etc., etc., and she wuz a-answerin’ him quite lusid;
-bein’ so late at school made her quite a adept in
-history, adepter than any of the rest of us wuz, by
-fur.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we went to the Church of St. Giles, and
-we see the Heart of Mid Lothian. I had heard
-Thomas J. read the story, and I wuz interested in it.</p>
-
-<p>In the northwest corner of the church there is
-a heart cut in the pavement, and here the old
-Tolbooth, the city prison, first stood. In St. Giles
-Churchyard John Knox wuz buried.</p>
-
-<p>The grave-stun has nothin’ but his initial and
-the date of his death. As I looked at it, I
-thought what long epitaphs&mdash;and in poetry, too,
-some on ’em&mdash;failed to git any attention from
-posterity. But as long as posterity lives&mdash;and I
-spoze that will be a good while yet&mdash;this unasumin’
-grave will be visited, for a Man lies buried
-here&mdash;a hero who wuzn’t afraid to speak his mind,
-and who follered the right, so fur as he see it,
-through good and evil report.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span></p>
-<p>Wall, in the Parliament House we see a copy
-of the first Bible that wuz ever printed. That
-gin me a sight of emotions&mdash;a sight; and I had
-quite a number of emotions a-seein’ the manuscript
-of the Waverley Novels, and in meditatin’ that
-Walter’s own hand rested on these pages.</p>
-
-<p>Kinder tired hands some of the time, no doubt,
-and the eyes above heavy from study and toil.
-And he (Walter) not a-dreamin’ how so many years
-after she who wuz once Smith would stand and
-look on ’em with respect and almost veneration.</p>
-
-<p>No; he didn’t have this to encourage him and
-make him happy, poor creeter!</p>
-
-<p>But how well he did; how much happiness he
-has gin, and how much valuable information has
-been took onbeknown from the pages of his stories,
-like powders of smartweed in a spunful of honey.</p>
-
-<p>Old Gray Friar’s Church and churchyard wuz
-dretful interestin’ to us on account of a good many
-things.</p>
-
-<p>Alice and I wuz extremely interested to learn
-that here wuz where Walter Scott ust to come to
-meetin’ in his young days. And to see the graves
-of his Pa and his Ma, and some of the rest of his
-folks in the old churchyard.</p>
-
-<p>In this meetin’-house the National Covenant wuz
-signed in 1638. After listenin’ to a heart-searchin’ sermon
-by Alexander Henderson this paper wuz signed
-by the Earl of Sutherland, and all the rest of the folks<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span>
-who wuz to meetin’ that day. It wuz then took out
-into the buryin’-ground outside, and spread out on
-a flat tombstone&mdash;a fittin’ spot, jedgin’ from what
-come afterwards&mdash;and signed by crowds and crowds
-of the people. Some writ their names in blood,
-showin’ their willingness to die for the Faith.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp51" id="i_254" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_254.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>The National Covenant signed by the Earl of Sutherland.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>This wuz the Confession of Faith of 1580, drawed
-up by the principal Presbyterian ministers of Edinburgh.
-Them that signed it agreed to protect and
-preserve their religion even to the death.</p>
-
-<p>And these Covenanters wuz persecuted and killed
-for their faith, and then, when they wuz in power,
-they wuz jest as cruel to their persecutors.</p>
-
-<p>And all in the name of Religion. Sweet sperit,
-how can she stand it? But I spoze she made allowances
-for ’em, a-thinkin’ they wuz mistook.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi looked down in silence on the stun with
-a railin’ round it where the Covenant wuz written.
-And finally he took out that book of hisen with a
-cross on it, and he writ quite a lot in it. What it
-wuz I d’no.</p>
-
-<p>And as he stood in front of that monument, riz
-up there to the memory of the martyrs put to death
-for their religion, he writ a hull lot more.</p>
-
-<p>I myself got a piece of paper from Josiah’s
-account book, and I had a pencil with me, and I
-copied this inscription, so’s to let Thomas<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span> J. see it.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz dretful readin’. As History held up her
-torch to light me as I writ it down, mournin’ weeds
-seemed to wrop her round and droop over her forward,
-and her face looked cold and pale and awful
-out from under them weeds. It read as follers&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>And I thought, I can tell you, as I read it of
-how Miss Argyll felt and Miss Renwick and the
-children, for though it is a good ways back, it hurt
-jest as bad to have your head cut off then as it duz
-now, and hearts of loved ones who wuz left ached
-jest as bad.</p>
-
-<p>It read as follers&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“From May 27, 1661, that the most noble Marquise
-of Argyll was beheaded, to the 17th of February,
-1668, that Mr. James Renwick suffered, were
-one way or other murdered or destroyed for the
-same cause about 18,000, of whom were executed
-in Edinburgh about 100 of noblemen, gentlemen,
-ministers, and other noble martyrs for Jesus
-Christ.”</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi’s face wuz a deep study as he stood
-there.</p>
-
-<p>And he sez to Martin, who had sauntered up and
-wuz a-lookin’ round, with his hands in his pantaloons
-pockets&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Sez Al Faizi&mdash;“This<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span> war was between Presbyterians
-and Catholics?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez Martin.</p>
-
-<p>“Both of these religious sects thought they were
-right?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez Martin; “I suppose so.”</p>
-
-<p>“They both send missionaries to my people?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez Martin; “quite likely; of course they
-do.”</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi didn’t say nothin’, but he writ down
-quite a lot more; what it wuz I d’no.</p>
-
-<p>But his face looked very thoughtful, and the
-light struck that jewelled cross on the back of his
-little book, and its rays streamed out as red as
-blood.</p>
-
-<p>But he kinder shifted it a little after awhile, and
-a pure and lambient light gleamed from it.</p>
-
-<p>Queer! I’d like to know what them stuns wuz.</p>
-
-<p>I d’no what Josiah did think as he looked
-at that monument, but I had a sight of emotions,
-and of great size. And I sez to my pardner&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“One thing I am impressed by as I read of these
-dretful things done by men who thought they wuz
-doin’ right,” sez I, “it learns me to not be too set
-in my own way, even when I think I am right.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez Josiah, “I always knew you wuz too sot!”</p>
-
-<p>Somehow the words grated on my nerve. It is
-so much easier to run yourself down than to be
-run.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span></p>
-
-<p>But right here in front of so many martyrs I
-wuzn’t goin’ to be overcome by a muskeeter, for
-truly my sufferin’s wuzn’t bigger than that, compared
-to theirn.</p>
-
-<p>And I wuz jest a-goin’ to complete my self-conquest
-by speakin’ soft to him, when he whispered
-to me&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I’m as hungry as a bear, Samantha. Not a
-bear in a circus,” sez he, “but a Rocky Mountain
-bear.</p>
-
-<p>“I wonder if Martin hain’t about ready to go?”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin wuz ready by that time; but I see
-lots of other things whilst we wuz there. Alice
-and Martin went to the Queen’s Drive. I d’no
-who the Queen wuz, nor who she driv, nor
-how fur.</p>
-
-<p>And they went to the ruins of St. Anthony’s
-Chapel, and Alice raved over the beautiful view
-from Arthur’s Seat. I d’no what kind of a
-seat it wuz, nor how long Arthur sot in it, but she
-said that the view from there wuz enchantin’. And
-we all went to the Antiquarian Museum, and see
-sights and sights of relicks. Autograph letters from
-Charles 2nd, Cromwell, Mary, Queen of Scots, and
-we see the old Scotch Covenant with the names of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span>Montrose, Lothair, etc., signed to it. And one
-of the banners them Covenanters had bore in their
-battles.</p>
-
-<p>Here wuz the very glass that Prince Charlie
-drank from before the battle of Culloden. And
-then the pulpit of John Knox; out of which that
-man three hundred years
-ago thundered out sech
-burnin’ words agin the
-Church of Rome.</p>
-
-<p>Here is a piece of the
-last garments put on to
-Robert Bruce, and in
-which he was laid in his
-last sleep&mdash;a sound sleep.
-Poor creeter! disturbed
-not by the warlike bugles
-and sounds of fray.</p>
-
-<p>And here is the blue
-ribbin of the Knight of
-the Garter, wore by
-Prince Charlie, and the ring gin to him by Flora
-Macdonald as they parted.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp77" id="i_259" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_259.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>When Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald parted.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And then there wuz sights and sights of weepons,
-coins, medallions, seals, old implements, etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>But one thing I see there madded me more’n
-considerable; it wuz a kind of a gullotine rigged up
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span>with a axe, that wuz held up between two posts, and
-let down on the necks of ’em they wanted to kill.
-This very thing took the life of the Earl of Argyll,
-Sir John Gordon, and lots of others.</p>
-
-<p>But what madded me most wuz the name of the
-creeter.</p>
-
-<p>“The Maiden.”</p>
-
-<p>It is a wonder they didn’t call it the “Old
-Maiden,” if they’d wanted to be a little meaner.</p>
-
-<p>It rousted me up fearfully to think a lot of men
-should rig up such a horrid, death-dealin’ thing to
-carry out their bloody and brutal idees and then
-call it&mdash;“Maiden.”</p>
-
-<p>Why didn’t they call it after their own selves,
-and call it&mdash;the “Old Man,” or “the Feller,” or
-sunthin’ like that?</p>
-
-<p>“The Maiden!!!”</p>
-
-<p>No woman would countenance sech cuttin’ off
-the heads of folks, and they knew it. They named
-it so to be mean.</p>
-
-<p>And Martin, sayin’ that it would be expected of
-him, and he should have questions asked him by
-influential parties which he should want to answer,
-went to see lots of Horsepitals, and Schools, and
-Universities.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah went with him one day, and come home
-and said Heriot’s Horsepital beat anything he ever
-see for architecture, and, sez he, “it wuz designed
-by Indigo Jones.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span></p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “I don’t believe any woman ever named
-her babe ‘Indigo’ in this world.” And I inquired,
-and found out that it wuz “Inigo.”</p>
-
-<p>Josiah said I hadn’t made out much. It wuzn’t
-any better name. But it wuz.</p>
-
-<p>Indigo! the idee!!</p>
-
-<p>A little ways out of the town is the home where
-Doctor Guthrie lived, and one of the most beautiful
-and interestin’ houses I see in Scotland or anywhere
-else. It wuz the one his brother, Mr. Thomas
-Nelson, built. Every American who goes to Scotland
-ort to walk by it and meditate out a spell, anyway,
-if they don’t go in.</p>
-
-<p>Durin’ our late war, when foreign nations thought
-our great republic wuz a-totterin’ over to ruin, this
-man had faith in us, and invested thousands of
-pounds in goverment bonds.</p>
-
-<p>And the rise in them bonds paid every cent this
-palace of hisen cost. I didn’t begrech it to him,
-not at all.</p>
-
-<p>Them in England who invested so largely in
-Confederate bonds, and lost every cent, wouldn’t
-be so happy in ridin’ by that noble structure and
-lookin’ at it, mebby.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">MEMORIES OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.</p>
-
-<p>And one excursion I took part in with the
-greatest delight and one small satchel&mdash;for we wuz
-to stay one night&mdash;wuz to Melrose Abbey and Abbotsford,
-the home of Sir Walter Scott.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp53" id="i_263" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_263.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“I could sing to you,”
-sez he.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Josiah said he wanted to see Melrose Abbey by
-moonlight. He said it would be so romantic, and,
-sez he, “I wish I could have a guitar. How stylish
-and romantic it would be for you and me, Samantha,
-to visit it by moonlight, and I could sing to
-you,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>But I sez, “A old couple a-viewin’ that seen by
-moonlight, with thick blanket shawls on, and
-heavy overshues&mdash;and I should wear ’em, Josiah,”
-sez I, “and make you wear ’em, for our rumatizes
-is bad, and lookin’ up at the moon through
-spectacles hain’t what it would be in younger and
-less bundled-up days.”</p>
-
-<p>“Throw a blanket onto it!” sez he; “wet a
-blanket wet as sop, and throw it onto my plan.
-I never can git you to foller up any idees of mine
-that are stylish and romantic.”</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll foller ’em,” sez I, “but <span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span>I’ve got to foller
-’em with an eye on azmy and rumatiz. And as
-for your singin’,” sez I, “it don’t seem as if I can
-bear it.” And I shuddered imperceptibly; I
-thought of the near past.</p>
-
-<p>But the rubber strings that men’s memories and
-consciences are strung on a good deal of the
-time had sprung back, and he wuz jest
-as ready to be sentimental and bust out
-in song as if he hadn’t been took for a
-Banshee.</p>
-
-<p>But we visited the Abbey in broad
-daylight, which wuz better for our two
-healths at our age. We went to the
-Abbey Hotel, close by the Abbey, and
-after a comfortable dinner we went
-through the little iron gate that leads
-into the grand and wonderful ruin.</p>
-
-<p>It must have been a sight, a sight, in
-its early days. But bein’ built in the first place in
-1136, it hadn’t ort to be expected to be in the order
-it would have been if it had been built in 1836,
-and we’d call that bein’ pretty old in our young
-country.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we walked all round amongst the ruins,
-and the waves of the past swashed up aginst me in
-a powerful manner.</p>
-
-<p>Here, sez I to myself,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span> is the place where the
-heart of Robert Bruce is buried. That eager, restless
-heart that dared so much, and endured so
-much. Strange, passing strange that that great
-heart lays dumb and mute, and Samantha Allen
-and her pardner are a-walkin’ over it.</p>
-
-<p>Here is the grave of the wizard that bold Deloraine
-visited, as I told Josiah, and he looked down
-with scornful mean, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“He has stopped his wizardin’ now!”</p>
-
-<p>Josiah has no veneration for the occult.</p>
-
-<p>And here lies the Earl of Douglas, and here is
-the tomb of King Alexander 2nd.</p>
-
-<p>Hero, king, and wizard, all dust, and through
-the tall, ruined arches the blue sky smiles down on
-all on ’em alike, and sweet Nater drops on their
-restin’-places; on grave and monuments the same
-posies, and flowers, and long sprays of ivy.</p>
-
-<p>Nater is the true democrat; she treats all alike.</p>
-
-<p>But what richness of carvin’ and design is to be
-seen on every side; every ornament that wuz ever
-carved, it seems to me, wuz here on the tall pillows
-and arches. And that east winder&mdash;wall, I wake
-up in the night now, and think on’t, the perfect
-wonder and symetry of its design, and the marvels
-of its stun sculptur.</p>
-
-<p>But how different folks look at things! Al
-Faizi, as he looked up and around him, took in
-the beauty and majesty of the seen in every
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span>
-pore,
-as you may say&mdash;you could see that in his liniment.</p>
-
-<p>Alice wuz took up with some of the marvellous
-statutes and sculpturs of wreath and blossom. And
-Adrian wuz a-pickin’ some flowers. It beat all
-what a case that child wuz for flowers. And Josiah
-wuz took up, I guess, with musin’ on the failure of
-his romantic idees, as he sauntered about. But
-Martin, when he’d been there about an hour, he
-come up to me, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Now, having seen everything there is to see
-here, I think we had better go. I expect some
-letters and telegrams,” sez he, “and I’ve seen sufficient
-to reply to any inquiries that could be made
-of me at home.”</p>
-
-<p>Everything we could see! Why, I could have
-hung right round there for a week and discovered
-some new wonder and beauty every hour.</p>
-
-<p>But it wuz compromised in this way: Martin
-went back to the hotel, and Josiah and Adrian went
-with him. And Al Faizi and Alice and I stayed
-till night wuz a-drawin’ down her mantilly previous
-to puttin’ it on.</p>
-
-<p>The soft linin’ on’t of crimson and gold wuz
-turned over in the west as we walked back to the
-little hotel.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the next<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span> mornin’, bright and early, Martin
-got a carriage, and we drove three miles to Abbotsford,
-the home of Sir Walter Scott.</p>
-
-<p>By Martin’s advice (that man has good practical
-idees) we took our waterproofs and umbrells. And
-glad enough wuz we that we did; why, in all our
-trips almost waterproofs wuz neccessary companions;
-for short, quick showers would descend upon
-us at any time seemin’ly, and then pass away jest as
-quick.</p>
-
-<p>Three showers come up that very day, but two
-on ’em took place when we wuz inside, and the
-third jest before we got home at night, so umbrells
-and waterproofs saved us from damage.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we found it wuz a beautiful place, castle
-and mansion, about half and half. It stands in
-well-kep’, handsome grounds and sets down in a
-sort of a valley amongst the hills which stands round
-it, as if proud on’t and glad to shelter and protect it
-all they could.</p>
-
-<p>Home of industrious talent, so hard-workin’ and
-constant as to be as good if not better than
-genius.</p>
-
-<p>The mansion and all round it is full of relicks of
-the past.</p>
-
-<p>The big entrance hall is panelled with dark wood,
-and all along the cornice the different Coats of
-Arms of the Border is painted in rich colors and
-shields, on which is this inscription&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span></p>
-
-<p>“These be the coat armories of the clans and
-chief men of name wha keepit the marchys of Scotland
-in the auld tyme for the kynge. True men
-were they, in their defence. God them defendyt.”</p>
-
-<p>Here you see battle-axes and breastplates and
-weepons of all kinds. Most all on ’em with a
-tragic history. Here wuz several suits of armor:
-one on ’em holdin’ a big sword in its hand, captured
-at Bosworth’s Field. Another holds a immense
-claymore took from the battlefield of Culloden.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah wuz took up with the looks of that, and
-he said he wished he owned one, and, sez he, “how
-nice it would be if I only had a coat of armor!</p>
-
-<p>“Why, Samantha,” sez he, “how economical!
-When a man got one suit, he never would have to
-be measured for another suit of clothes&mdash;never be
-cheated by tailors or pinched by ’em. Cool in the
-summer,” sez he&mdash;“how cool and good they would
-feel in dog-days, when broadcloth jest clings to you;
-and warm in winter. The cold wind couldn’t blow
-through them collars,” sez he, alludin’ to the helmets.</p>
-
-<p>“And then,” sez he, “when your clothes got
-dirty, jest wet a towel and clean ’em off&mdash;you could
-do it in half an hour, and then they’d be good for another
-twenty years. I wonder,” sez he, “if I could
-dicker with the Widder Scott for one of them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span>
-suits? Scott’ll never wear ’em agin,” sez he.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp59" id="i_268" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_268.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“When they got dirty, jest wet a towel and clean ’em off.”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But I hastened to set him right, and, sez I, “Scott
-never wore one of ’em. He knew too much. How
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span>do you spoze,” sez I, “you could git round and do
-your spring’s work a-luggin’ round a ton of old
-iron?” Sez I, “You couldn’t lift one of the legs
-on’t with both your hands, and how could you
-plough with one on ’em on?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez Josiah dreamily&mdash;he wuzn’t hearin’ a word I
-said&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“If I could git it cheaper without that head-piece,
-I might use our coal scuttle.” Sez he, “I believe
-its shape is more stylish. Oh!” sez he, “what
-a excitement I would make a-walkin’ into the
-Jonesville meetin’-house with the hull thing on!
-how stylish and uneek it would be!</p>
-
-<p>“Where is the Widder Scott?” sez he; “I’ll
-tackle her about it.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “She’s with her noble husband in a land
-where style and folly have no home.”</p>
-
-<p>And then with deep argument I made him see
-that a suit of armor was not suitable for farm work
-or meetin’-house duties.</p>
-
-<p>But he gin it up reluctant, and at the last he sez&mdash;“How
-it would clank and rattle as I passed round
-the contribution plate&mdash;how all the other deacons
-would open their eyes!”</p>
-
-<p>But I silently led him away to where there wuz a
-suit of Scott’s clothes, the last ones he wore.</p>
-
-<p>And I had a very large variety of emotions as I
-looked on the clothes that had wropped round the
-magician who had the power to charm the hull<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span>
-world with his magic pen. My emotions drownded
-out the talk of the guide and the remarks of Martin
-and Josiah. And on one side of the fireplace
-stood the famous mistletoe trunk, as it’s called,
-that poor Genevra hid herself in on her weddin’
-night. The Baron’s daughter, you know, the one
-that her Pa called “The star of that goodly company,”
-meanin’, I spoze, that she looked better
-than any of the rest of the young folks that he’d
-invited in to the weddin’. Poor, pretty, young
-creeter! I wuz always dretful sorry for her.</p>
-
-<p>You know what she said to Lovell, the young
-feller she wuz married to (he worshipped the very
-ground she walked on).</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“I am weary of dancing now, she cried;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Here tarry a moment, I’ll hide, I’ll hide;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And, Lovell, be sure thou’rt the first to trace</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">The clue to my secret hiding-place.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And you probble remember how the crazed
-young bridegroom, and the old Baron, and all the
-rest of the weddin’ guests hunted for the pretty,
-young creeter all night and all day, and for weeks
-and months and years&mdash;all in vain, in vain.</p>
-
-<p>Till at last, when Lovell (poor, broken-hearted
-creeter!) wuz a old white-headed man, a old chest
-wuz found in the castle, and they see, on liftin’ up
-the led&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span></p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“A skeleton form lay mouldering there</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">In the bridal robes of the lady fair.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Oh, sad was her fate! In sportive jest</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">She hid from her lord in the old oak chest;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">It closed with a spring, and her bridal bloom</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Lay withering there in a living tomb.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Oh, the mistletoe bough!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Oh, the mistletoe bough!”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But I don’t have any idee that it wuz the mistletoe
-that caused the trouble. I spoze that it would
-have been jest the same if it had been red cedar
-hung up there, or dog-wood.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz more likely a lack of common sense and
-lookin’ ahead. Genevra ort to tried the lock and
-see how tight the led shet down, and had a little
-forethought afore she got into it.</p>
-
-<p>But poor, young creeter! I don’t spoze she
-thought of anything, only jest her light-hearted happiness
-and gayety, and wuz carried away by the
-thought of foolin’ Lovell a little and havin’ a good
-time.</p>
-
-<p>Poor, pretty young thing, how she must have felt
-when the realizin’ sense come to her that she wuz
-trapped in a death-trap, and should never see the
-light of day agin, and, what wuz worse, should never
-see the light of love a-shinin’ in her Lovell’s eyes!</p>
-
-<p>Oh, dear me! I wiped my eyes as this heart-searchin’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span>
-thought come to me&mdash;what if it had been
-my Tirzah Ann. And I couldn’t help thinkin’ that
-it would be jest like Tirzah to be ketched in that way.
-Maggie, my son’s wife, would have looked at the
-ketch before she let the led down, and she’d never
-wrinkled up a long white dress in that contracted place.</p>
-
-<p>But I am indeed a-eppisodin’ and to resoom.</p>
-
-<p>The entrance hall and the rooms leadin’ out of it
-are jest as Mr. Scott left ’em, and that made me
-feel curous as a dog to look round me, and I
-meditated and eppisoded to extreme lengths, to
-myself mostly.</p>
-
-<p>The library is a large and handsome room, lined
-with books, twenty thousand in all. And underneath
-its deep, big winders runs the river Tweed.</p>
-
-<p>How many times, when he got tired of writin’
-down his rushin’ thoughts, did Walter stand and
-lean up aginst the winder, and look down into the
-rushin’ river!</p>
-
-<p>I leaned up aginst the side of the winder where
-he had leaned, and on lookin’ down, I see that the
-river wuz still a-flowin’ along jest the same. But
-the eager, active mind wuz&mdash;where?</p>
-
-<p>The dead water, with no soul, rushed and flowed
-on; the rocks couldn’t stop it&mdash;no, it made a leap
-downward and flowed on more free and placider.</p>
-
-<p>And I sez to myself&mdash;“Death’s rocky portals is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span>
-jest the same; after the leap down into the oncertainty&mdash;the
-darkness, it goes on in the Certainty
-and the Light, fuller and freer than ever.”</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t say anything of these thoughts to my
-pardner. He wuz a-lookin’ round at one thing and
-another, and not havin’ the deep feelin’s that I had,
-as I could see.</p>
-
-<p>But Al Faizi wuz a-lookin’ down into the water
-or at the beautiful landscape from another winder.
-And I’ll bet if I’d atted him about it his idees would
-have been congenial to mine and inspirin’. I jedged
-so from the looks of his liniment.</p>
-
-<p>But I knew he didn’t care about talkin’ much, so
-I restrained my tongue.</p>
-
-<p>The rest on ’em wuz a-prowlin’ round and
-a-lookin’ at relicks&mdash;priceless ones, some on ’em&mdash;and
-I methought to myself volumes as I looked on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>The clock of Marie Antoinette wuz there&mdash;what
-hours, what hours that clock ticked off for Marie!</p>
-
-<p>And then there wuz the inkstand of Lord Byron&mdash;and
-what black, gloomy ink and sometimes
-kinder nasty, that poor creeter dipped his pen in a
-good deal of the time&mdash;but lofty and riz up, too, at
-times, very.</p>
-
-<p>And then there wuz two gold bees took from
-Napoleon’s carriage&mdash;what bees buzzed and hummed
-in his ambitious brain as the carriage whirled him
-on! Then there wuz a crucifix that belonged to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span>
-Mary, Queen of Scots; most probble held clost
-to her poor, frightened heart as the pretty creeter
-walked away to have her head cut off.</p>
-
-<p>A miniature portrait of Prince Charlie, a box
-from Miss Edgeworth, a purse made by Joanna
-Baillie, a little case from Miss Martineau, a snuff-box
-of George IV., and lots, and lots, and lots of
-relicks from Egypt and Italy and everywhere else.
-But I d’no as I see any from Jonesville. But
-oversights will take place, and <i>contrarytemps</i> will
-occur.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, in the armory we see bows, and arrers, and
-spears, and muskets, and rifles. A musket that belonged
-to Rob Roy, a sword gin by Charles 1st to
-the Marquis of Montrose, a pair of pistols that belonged
-to the 1st Napoleon, found after the battle
-of Waterloo. Poor creeter, how he must have felt!
-No wonder he lost ’em! James VI. hunting flask,
-the key of old Tolbooth prison. And then we see
-thumb-screws, and a gag for scoldin’ wives&mdash;I looked
-on that with scorn.</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah jest peered and squinted at it, and
-walked all round it, and took out a piece of string
-out of his pocket and tried to measure it, and
-I sez, “What on earth are you a-doin’?”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “I <span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span>believe I could make one
-of ’em after I got home, with a little of Ury’s
-help.”</p>
-
-<p>“What do you want of one, Josiah Allen?” sez I
-coldly.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp80" id="i_274" style="max-width: 10em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_274.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">I never should think
-of usin’ it.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Oh, nothin’, nothin’ in the world, only I thought
-it would be uneek to own one. I never should
-think of usin’ it,” sez he, as I looked still more
-stonily at him.</p>
-
-<p>“I should think not!” sez I, and my axents wuz
-about the temperture of five ice suckles.</p>
-
-<p>But after we’d all turned away and wuz a-lookin’
-at other relicks, I see him furtively apply that string
-to it, and mark down the dimensions on’t in his account
-book.</p>
-
-<p>I d’no what under the sun the man wuz a-thinkin’
-on, and I don’t believe he did.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we wandered round through the rooms for
-a long time, I with memories a-walkin’ tight to my
-side&mdash;what a host of ’em wuz a-follerin’ me of them
-shadow shapes&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Sweet Ellen Douglas, and Ivanhoe, and Rebecca,
-Marmion, Rob Roy, Guy Mannering, Rosamond,
-Nigel, the Wild Huntsman, Meg Merrilies, etc.,
-etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>Oh, what a crowd of phantoms, and what different
-lookin’ creeters they wuz that wuz a-walkin’ up
-and down that room with me, onbeknown to Josiah
-and the rest!</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span></p>
-
-<p>And what curous words they wuz a-pourin’ out
-into my ears&mdash;words that I only could hear&mdash;some
-on ’em wuz in poetry&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Charge, Chester, charge&mdash;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">On, Stanley, on”&mdash;</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>or&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Oh, mother, mother, what is bliss,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Oh, mother, what is bale&mdash;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Without my lover, what is Heaven?</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">And with him, what were Hell?”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And noble, practical idees, and solemn, historical
-ones wuz a-soundin’ in my ears. And figgers of
-noble knights and heroes and fair ladies wuz by
-my side, up and down the room they walked with
-me and in and out.</p>
-
-<p>Some of the picters on the walls of the different
-rooms wuz dretful interestin’&mdash;dretful. The one on
-’em that gin my heart and mind the deepest shock
-wuz the head of poor Mary, Queen of Scots, said
-to have been took a few hours after her execution.
-The mournful, noble beauty of that white, still face
-gin me feelin’s I couldn’t express, and I didn’t
-try to.</p>
-
-<p>It seemed as if the home where her soul had so
-lately sojourned had a dignity and peace gin it,
-a-flowin’ out from the seens that soul wuz a-beholdin’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span>
-after it had cast off the tribulations and persecutions
-of earth.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz a dretful interestin’ picter to me.</p>
-
-<p>Then there wuz Charles XII. of Sweden, Charles
-II. and Cromwell, and lots of picters by Turner
-and other great artists.</p>
-
-<p>The house from top to bottom wuz full to over-flowin’
-with objects of interest. I could have stayed
-there for days and not seen half, but Time and
-Martin wuz a-hastenin’.</p>
-
-<p>And we went from there to Dryburgh Abbey, to
-see the spot where Scott wuz buried.</p>
-
-<p>We see his tomb and the place where his ancestors
-are buried. His son-in-law, Mr. Lockhart, who
-wrote Scott’s biography, is buried here.</p>
-
-<p>In Dryburgh Abbey we see the winder where the
-White Maid of Avenal ust to appear.</p>
-
-<p>But she didn’t appear to us, much as I’d loved to
-seen her (right there in broad daylight, with my
-pardner with me).</p>
-
-<p>The Abbey is said to be hanted, mebby by them
-who have been imprisoned and tortured in the
-dungeons onderneath.</p>
-
-<p>There are holes in the walls where the hands of
-prisoners were held by heavy wedges.</p>
-
-<p>It don’t seem right to have a meetin’-house<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span> used
-to torture folks in, and so I told Josiah.</p>
-
-<p>But he said that he didn’t know about it; he
-thought once in awhile it would do good to jest
-pinch Deacon Garvin’s thumb a little, to make him
-do right, or to make Deacon Bobbett come to terms,
-when he got too rambunktious to business meetin’s
-and wanted his own way.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, “or to make Deacon Josiah Allen
-more willin’ to give to charitable objects.”</p>
-
-<p>His liniment fell.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, the Charitable Object has more done for
-him than I do, they’re always raisin’ money for
-him.”</p>
-
-<p>That wuz his favorite mode of puttin’ off from
-givin’ to charity.</p>
-
-<p>“And,” sez I, “you see from Loyola and Cromwell
-down to Josiah Allen the carnal mind wants
-to punish somebody else for doin’ suthin’ different
-from what you want ’em to do.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “I wonder if Martin hain’t a-goin’
-back? I believe it’s a-goin’ to rain, and you ort to
-have sunthin’ to eat, Samantha. It worries me to
-have you see so much on an empty stumick.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, for his thoughtfulness touched me,
-“some dinner would taste good.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, in a low, thrillin’ voice&mdash;“Samantha,” and
-tears wuz almost in his eyes as he spoke, “imagine
-I am in the barn door, and the smell of roast<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span>
-chicken, and baked potatoes, and lemon puddin’,
-and cream biscuit floats out, a-wroppin’ you all
-round, as you are a-standin’ in the back door a-callin’
-me in to dinner. As you stand there a-lookin’
-perfectly beautiful,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>Agin my heart wuz touched, and sez I, “And
-roses under the winders, and voyalets, and the
-blossomin’ trees, and the new-mown grass in the
-orchard a-smellin’ sweet as the scent comes in on
-the warm south breeze.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez he, “and the good, rich coffee, and
-cream cheese, and honey, and things.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, “and after dinner we could set
-down, and set there as long as we wanted to.”</p>
-
-<p>“I wouldn’t stir in over three days!” sez he,
-“not an inch from my good old rockin’-chair.</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez he, with a deep sithe, “them days wuz
-too happy to last.”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez I, “Providence permittin’, we will see
-agin the cliffs of Jonesville; and home never seemed
-so sweet as it will when troubles and toil and
-foreign travel is all past, and our two barks are
-moored once more in our own peaceful door-yard.”</p>
-
-<p>“Never to be <i>on</i>moored!” sez he, with a almost
-fierce mean. And my own longin’ heart and achin’
-back and tired-out eyeballs gin a deep assent to
-his remarks.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span></p>
-
-<p>Sweet, sweet is the fruits of foreign travel, but
-lofty and precipitus are the thorny branches it hangs
-on, and wearin’ in the extreme is the job of pickin’
-’em offen foreign fields and bringin’ ’em home in
-our mind basket.</p>
-
-<p>And happy are they who carry ’em back fresh
-and hull and sound&mdash;some folks carry ’em home in
-a sort of a jell or a jam&mdash;dretful mixed up and promiscus
-like.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">OLD YORK AND ITS CATHEDRAL.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, as we got back to Edinburgh it was on the
-first edge of the evenin’, and I had the chance of
-hearin’ a real Scotch ministrel; not one
-of them bagpipes of theirn, which sounds
-perfectly awful to me, but which Josiah
-wuz dretful took with (of which more
-anon), but this man had a violin, or fiddle,
-and sung in a sweet, high voice some
-of the best ballads of the country.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp31" id="i_281" style="max-width: 10em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_281.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Josiah wuz dretful
-took with it.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I shed tears and wept to hear some on
-’em.</p>
-
-<p>“Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.”</p>
-
-<p>And “Auld Joe Nickleson’s Bonnie
-Nannie.”</p>
-
-<p>My heart sort o’ listened as I hearn the
-words. I had hearn our Tirzah Ann sing
-’em in the melancholy stillness of a June
-evenin’, when through the open winder the
-distant sounds of the frogs and the tree-tuds would
-come in from the cedar swamp, fur off, and the
-moonlight throw all over her and the organ the
-long shadders of the mornin’-glories.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span></p>
-<p>This is one of the verses&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“There is mony a joy in this world below,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">But sweet are the hopes that to sing were uncanny;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">But of all the joys I aer hae known,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">There is nane like the love of my Bonnie Nannie;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Oh my Nannie, my sweet little Nannie,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">My dear little niddlesome, noddlesome Nannie.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">There naer was a flower,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">In garden or bower,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Like auld Joe Nickleson’s bonnie Nannie.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And then he sung “John Anderson, my Jo,
-John,” and my mind onconsciously reverted to my
-beloved pardner, as he sung words tellin’ how he
-looked&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“When they were first acquent.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And then&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“John Anderson, my Jo, John,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">We clamb the hill thegither,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And mony a canty day, John,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">We’ve had wi’ ane anither:</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Now we maun totter down, John,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">But hand in hand we’ll go;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And sleep thegither at the foot,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">John Anderson, my Jo.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>There wuzn’t hardly a dry eye in my head as I heard
-it, and I looked round to see how my Josiah wuz
-a-takin’ it.</p>
-
-<p>But right behind<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span> that sweet singer wuz a man
-with a bagpipe, and after the melodious warbler had
-moved away he piped up, right under our winder,
-that screechin’, awful sound; and Josiah’s attention
-wuz all took up with him.</p>
-
-<p>And there wuz a distant, dreamy look to my
-pardner’s eyes as he gazed onto him, of which I did
-not git the full meanin’ till bime-by&mdash;of which more
-anon.</p>
-
-<p>After we had had our supper and had gone to
-our room Adrian come a-runnin’ in and told us that
-a company of Scotch soldiers wuz marchin’ through
-the place on their way to Sterling.</p>
-
-<p>So we quickly made our way out onto a balcony,
-where we could git a good view of ’em, with their
-short kilt skirts, bare legs, plaid stockin’s, and
-feathers. If it hadn’t been for their whiskers and
-mustaches, you’d most thought they wuz wimmen.</p>
-
-<p>Sez Alice, “Oh, how picturesque they look!
-don’t they?”</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “More picturesque than comfortable!”
-Sez I, “What clothes them must be to wear
-into a battle-field, or to pick rosberrys in! What
-would hender thorns and bullets from stickin’ right
-into them bare legs?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “They don’t use no reason; we see to-day
-that they ust to dress in iron all over, when they
-ust to go into battle, but now they go half
-naked.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span></p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Oh, the beauty of megumness! They
-wore too much in old times, and now not enough,
-which, I’ll bet, their cold legs would testify to, if
-they could speak up.”</p>
-
-<p>As I said of the bagpipes&mdash;but more anon.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz that night, jest as I wuz preparin’ my
-body for rest, that Josiah’s dreamy study a-lookin’
-at the bagpipes become manifest. I see my companion
-foldin’ up two handkerchiefs kinder queer
-and a-measurin’ ’em by his arm, and anon kinder
-layin’ his jack-knife between ’em, and actin’.</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “What are you a-doin’, Josiah
-Allen?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why,” sez he, “I wuz a-thinkin’ of makin’ a
-bagpipe.”</p>
-
-<p>“Out of two handkerchiefs!” sez I mockin’ly.</p>
-
-<p>“No; I wuz jest a-layin’ out the work and gittin’
-a view of its nater;” sez he, “I wuz a-layin’ out to
-use two bags.”</p>
-
-<p>“Bags?” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, meal bags,” sez he; “take them bags, and
-dip ’em into starch to stiffen ’em, and then paint
-and varnish ’em, and there you are as fur as the
-wind is concerned; the music,” sez he, “I believe
-could be rigged up some way with a mouth-organ
-or sunthin’, or mebbe our old accordeun; fix the
-bags onto both ends on’t and then draw ’em out,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span>
-or shet ’em up, with wind accordin’.</p>
-
-<p>“What a sensation it would create in Jonesville!
-How it would stir the people up!” sez he.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp41" id="i_285" style="max-width: 10em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_285.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">What a sensation it would
-create in Jonesville!</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“And I might on occasions, on 4th of July and
-sech, wear the Tarten costume. I
-could take that old plaid overskirt of
-yours, Samantha, it’s dressy, you
-know&mdash;red and green&mdash;cut it off a
-little above my knees, and my own
-red stockin’s would look all right.
-And the old rooster would furnish
-very stylish feathers&mdash;I should look
-beautiful! And of course,” sez he,
-“I should sing with it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, “your rumatic old
-knees would look beautiful bare naked,
-and them bags and accordeun,
-and your singin’ would empty Jonesville
-as soon as a cyclone would, or a
-water-spout.” And, in the name of duty, I said
-further, “Your singin’ is like thumb-screws and
-gullotines, and with that bagpipe added, it would
-cry to Heaven!”</p>
-
-<p>“There it is! there it is!” sez he! “throw cold
-water on it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Better that,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span> sez I, “than the hot water you
-would be deluged with if you should try it in
-public. Nobody would stand it, and you’d find it
-out they wouldn’t without scaldin’ you.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, from Edinburgh Martin said that we would
-start for London, and so we took the train goin’
-south and sot off in the early mornin’ and in pretty
-good sperits.</p>
-
-<p>We only made one stop on our way to London,
-and that wuz at York&mdash;the quaint, old, walled
-city, in which Americans take an interest on account
-of their own New York bein’ named after it.</p>
-
-<p>Our New York is some younger&mdash;about seventeen
-hundred years younger, and that is a good deal
-of difference between a Ma and a young child. But,
-then, it hain’t common to have the youngster about
-twenty times bigger than its Ma.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we went to a good tarvern and recooperated
-a little durin’ the night from the fatigues of travel,
-and the next mornin’ bright and early we sot out
-to see the sights of the city, knowin’ that our stay
-there wuz to be but short.</p>
-
-<p>Martin engaged a guide, though he didn’t often
-want one, sayin’, as he did, that he felt that he wuz
-so familar with history and all those places that a
-guide was “an unnecessary outlay and a drug.”</p>
-
-<p>But bein’ in a hurry to git on to-day, we went first
-to see the great wall that has stood for centuries, and
-seems able to stand quite a number more of ’em. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span>
-got out of the carriage and laid my hand on the
-wall, feelin’ that it would be a satisfaction to put my
-hand on the stun.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah said, “That looks foolish, Samantha; you
-have never tried once to put your hand on to
-the stun wall between our paster and Deacon
-Gowdy’s.”</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez I, “that wall has never been looked
-upon by Adrian and Constantine the Great; it
-has never been trod by Britons, Picts, Danes, and
-Saxons, each on ’em a-warrin’ for and defendin’ their
-native land.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “our wall is a crackin’ good one.”
-Josiah looked kinder scorfin’ at me for my enthoosiasm,
-but I didn’t mind it any.</p>
-
-<p>And Martin, seein’ my enthoosiasm, and though he
-didn’t share it, not at all, he asked me if I didn’t want
-to go up and walk on the great wall&mdash;which I did.
-So we had the carriage stopped at one of the gates,
-and he and I and Alice and Al Faizi went up and
-walked on the parapets.</p>
-
-<p>And I probble had as many as 70 or 80 emotions
-as I felt that eight-foot wall under my feet and
-looked up at the solid, round watch-towers, with
-narrer slits in the stun, for arrers to be shot out of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span>onto the enemies, and way up above ’em the little
-turrets for the sentinuls to look out.</p>
-
-<p>I wonder how that sentinul felt there on cool
-moonlight nights twelve or fourteen hundred years
-ago&mdash;I wonder what century old grief or pain hanted
-his lonely heart through the night-watches&mdash;Love,
-Hope, mebby they lightened his lonely watch jest
-as they do in 1900.</p>
-
-<p>Tenny rate, the same sun and moon looked down
-on him, and Love and Hope is as old as they be&mdash;as
-old as the world.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi, I believe, had a sight of emotions, too.
-He stood still and looked off with a dreamy look
-on his face.</p>
-
-<p>Martin thought the stun wuz good and solid,
-and might be utilized for buildin’ depots and
-grain elevators and sech.</p>
-
-<p>Alice looked good-natered and didn’t say much.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah wuz a-makin’ a cat’s cradle with Adrian
-when we went back to the buggy. And I told him
-I didn’t see how he could be a-playin’ with weltin’
-cord at sech a time as this, when he could see this
-wall.</p>
-
-<p>And he sez, “Dum it all! mebby you wouldn’t
-take so to stun walls if you had broke your back,
-and got so many stun bruises as I have a-layin’
-’em.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span> sez I soothin’ly, “do jest as you feel, Josiah.
-But I wouldn’t have missed the sight for a
-dollar bill.”</p>
-
-<p>Yes, it rousted up sights of emotions in me.</p>
-
-<p>Another thing that endeared York to me: here
-in this city wuz Christmas celebrated
-for the first time by King Arthur,
-fourteen hundred years ago.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp43" id="i_289" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_289.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>That sentinul twelve or
-fourteen hundred years ago.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I don’t spoze he ever gin a thought
-at that time of what a train of turkeys,
-Christmas presents, trees, plum
-puddin’s, bells, stockin’s, Santa
-Clauses, etc., etc., etc., would foller
-on his wake. But it wuz a good
-idee, and he wuz quite a likely creeter&mdash;buildin’
-up the meetin’-housen the
-Saxons had destroyed.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we thought we would leave
-the Cathedral, or Minster, as they
-call it for the last. And anon we
-see a almost endless procession of
-anteek gate-ways, and housen, museums, churches,
-the ruined cloisters of St. Leonard founded by
-Athelstane the Saxon, and the ruins of St. Mary’s
-Abbey, with its old Norman arch and shattered
-walls.</p>
-
-<p>But from most every part of the city where we
-might be we could see the Cathedral towerin’ up
-above us, some like a mountain of sculptured <span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span>turrets
-and towers. And anon we found ourselves within
-its walls, and its magnificent and grand beauty almost
-struck us dumb with or.</p>
-
-<p>The guide said that it wuz the most gorgeous and
-beautiful in the world. But I considered it safe to
-add a word to his description, which made it <i>one</i> of
-the most gorgeous and magnificent cathedrals in
-the world&mdash;and that I spoze is true.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz about two hundred years a-buildin’, and I
-don’t believe there is a carpenter in Jonesville that
-could have done it a day sooner. Seth Widrick is
-a swift worker on housen, but I believe Seth would
-have been a week or two over that time at the
-job.</p>
-
-<p>The guide said that it wuz 500 and 24 feet long,
-and 250 feet broad&mdash;24 feet longer than St. Paul’s
-Cathedral in London, and 145 feet longer than
-Westminster Abbey, and the most magnificent minster
-in the world. The greatest beauty of the hull
-interior is, I spoze, the immense east winder. Imagine
-a great arched winder 75 feet high and 30 feet
-broad all aglow and ablaze with the most magnificent
-stained-glass. A multitude of saints, angels,
-priests, etc., all wrought in glass, the colors of
-which are so soft and glowin’, so harmonious, that
-they can’t be reproduced in this day by the most
-cunnin’ workmen; the secret is lost.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span></p>
-
-<p>This winder is known as The Five Sisters; the
-pattern bein’ took, it is said, from embroideries
-these maiden wimmen made.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah said, when the guide mentioned it, “Good
-for the old maids! they done well.”</p>
-
-<p>But as I looked upon that marvellous poem of
-glowin’ color, I felt beyend words, but I could still
-think. And I thought proudly of the exquisite
-work my sect had wrought, and I wuz glad for the
-moment that I too wuz a woman; and though seven
-hundred years lay between them noble sisters and
-myself, yet I felt that our hearts, our souls, touched
-each other in that pleasant day of 1895.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Passin’ Time and Josiah tore me away
-from the contemplation of that glory, that wonder,
-that delight&mdash;unequalled, I believe, in the hull
-world.</p>
-
-<p>And at Martin’s request, for he said that he should
-be asked about it probble, and would wish to be
-prepared with answers, we went out on a little stun
-platform or bridge outside, from which we had a
-view of the hull glowin’ interior&mdash;a vista of leafy
-gothic arches, and sculptered columns, more’n
-five hundred feet in length, and at the end the great
-west winder, with the figgers of the eight earliest
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span>Archbishops of York, and to keep ’em company,
-eight saints and other figgers.</p>
-
-<p>All seemin’ly a-standin’ in the glowin’ light took
-from the most gorgeous western sunset. They wuz
-put up about five hundred years ago, and I can’t
-begin to describe the beauty and richness of colorin’,
-and design, nor Josiah can’t.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz lots of other winders, too, that would
-be remarkable anywhere else. And among ’em wuz
-one over the entrance that they called the Marygold
-winder, circles of small arches in the form of a
-wheel, the color of which makes it look some like
-that flower.</p>
-
-<p>Though, as Josiah well said&mdash;“Nobody ever hearn
-before of a marygool thirty feet acrost.”</p>
-
-<p>In the vestries we see some historical relicks. One
-of the oldest is the great Saxon Drinkin’ Horn, by
-which the church holds valuable estate near
-York.</p>
-
-<p>The old chieftain, Ulphus, knelt at the altar and
-drinked out of the horn, and by this act gave to
-the church all his land, housen, etc., etc., givin’ to
-the fathers this horn as a title-deed.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah wuz dretful took up with it, and vowed
-that he would save the horns from the next beef
-creeter he killed and make out his next deed with it.</p>
-
-<p>“So strong and safe,” sez he; “no ‘whereasis’ and
-‘to wits’ and ‘namelys,’ and runnin’ up to a stake,
-and back agin, to wit.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span></p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “It would be a boon to git rid of all that
-nonsense. That would use up one horn, and then
-I might make my will with the other. I could will
-you all my property with it, Samantha, and then we
-could both drink root-beer, or sunthin’, and you
-could jest keep the horn, and there would be no
-way to break the will. 2d. Wives have lots of
-trouble, but how could anybody break it, Samantha,
-when you had the horn locked up in the tin chest?”</p>
-
-<p>It wuz thoughtful in him, and showed a deep
-kindness to me, but I felt dubersome about it.</p>
-
-<p>Then there wuz another drinkin’ cup presented
-by Archbishop Scrope. But it wuz bigger than I
-love to see&mdash;I am afraid that Mr. Scrope drinked
-too much. But as he had his head cut off in 1405,
-I couldn’t labor with him about it.</p>
-
-<p>Then there wuz the chair in which the Saxon
-kings wuz crowned. And a old Bible presented
-by King Charles II., and one gin by Charles 1st.
-A old communion plate 500 years old and oak
-chests, etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp51" id="i_294" style="max-width: 10em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_294.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">With the ends of the
-fingers a-hangin’
-down.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>When we looked at the communion plate Josiah
-nudged me, and sez he, “Don’t that make you think
-of she that wuz Sally Ann Plenty?” Sez he, “You
-know she bought a old communion service once
-because she could git it for a little or nothin’.” Sez
-he, “That wuz the same day that she bought a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span>
-crosscut saw, and a box of gloves 4 sizes too big
-for her, and wore ’em with the ends of the fingers
-a-hangin’ down, jest as if they wuz onjointed.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Hush! This is no place to bring up sech
-worldly and foolish eppisodes.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin clim up into the Lantern
-Tower, two hundred and thirteen feet
-high, for he said that he would wish to
-say that he had been there.</p>
-
-<p>But Al Faizi wuz the most took up with
-lookin’ at the monuments in the Cathedral.
-They wuz beautiful in the extreme,
-and some on ’em wuz saints, some on
-’em Archbishops, but the most on ’em
-wuz riz up to men who had made themselves
-famous by killin’ lots and lots of
-folks&mdash;some in England, some in Russia, and in
-India, and in Burmah, etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>As I stood in front of them bloody records, and
-meditated that a common murderer, who had only
-killed one or two men, couldn’t never git a statute,
-but it wuz those that killed hundreds and thousands
-who had ’em built through foreign lands, and my
-own native country&mdash;as I wuz a-meditatin’ on this
-and a-considerin’ on how the more a man killed the
-higher his monument wuz riz up, and the nigher he
-wuz buried to saints, I see Al Faizi take out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span>
-that little book with the cross on’t and write
-down quite a lot&mdash;what it wuz I d’no, but I presoom
-it wuz good writin’. His idees are congenial
-to mine, very.</p>
-
-<p>And then another place where I see Al Faizi
-a-writin’ down quite a lot in that book of hisen wuz
-at Clifford’s Tower, in the castle enclosure, where
-two hundred Jews were masicreed in 1490. From
-what the guide said, I made out as follows: When
-the Crusaders got back from fightin’ the Infidels
-they wuz kinder mad to see that the Jews wuz better
-off than they wuz&mdash;had better clothes, more
-money, etc.&mdash;so they begun to kill ’em off.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz so many fightin’ Christians the Jews
-couldn’t defend themselves, so they come to the
-castle with their wives and children. And all the
-soldiers in York come to help the Crusaders kill the
-Jews. And when the poor Jews found that they
-couldn’t stand it any longer, they did jest as the
-Rabbi told ’em.</p>
-
-<p>They killed the wives and children that wuz left,
-to keep ’em from fallin’ into the hands of their
-persecutors, and sot fire to the castle, and then
-killed themselves, so’s they shouldn’t burn to death.</p>
-
-<p>This massicre of these onoffending Jews by
-Christians wuz one of the most barbarous acts that
-ever took place on earth. Lots of folks now<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span> have
-their souls massicreed in the same way&mdash;out of envy
-and jealousy.</p>
-
-<p>I d’no what Al Faizi writ in his book as he
-looked at this place where this dretful deed wuz
-done in the name of Religion. But his face wuz a
-sight to see as he writ&mdash;solemn and awful; not
-mad, but sunthin’ of the expression of the Avengin’
-Angel, or as I mistrust he would look&mdash;dretful
-sorry, but sot, awful sot.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we went back to the tarvern and got a
-good dinner, and I laid down for a nap&mdash;I wuz clean
-used up.</p>
-
-<p>When I waked up it wuz sunset, and Josiah sot
-by the little casement with the panes of glass about
-four inches big, a-readin’.</p>
-
-<p>And I asked him if Martin laid out to go to
-London in the mornin’, and he said that he guessed
-he did. “But,” sez he with a tone of regret&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I did want to visit Scarborough; there’s no
-need hurryin’ so to London,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Who and what is Scarborough?” sez I in a
-weary axent as I got up and wadded up my back
-hair.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, it is the fashionable waterin’-place of
-England,” sez he; “it is only a little more than
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span>forty milds away,” sez he; “we could go jest as
-well as not, and it would be so genteel. I would,”
-sez he, a-smoothin’ out the folds of his dressin’-gown,
-and bringin’ the tossels forred in a more sightly
-place&mdash;“I would love to mingle in fashionable
-circles once more, Samantha.”</p>
-
-<p>I looked down at his old bald head in silent disaprobation.
-He wuz too old to hanker after fashion
-and display, and too bald, and I knew it.</p>
-
-<p>But I knew that I could not make him over,
-after he had been made so long&mdash;no, I should have
-to bear up the best I could under his shortcomin’s.</p>
-
-<p>But I sez mekanically, and to git his idees off&mdash;“I
-would kinder love to visit Whitby, Josiah; that
-hain’t much further away, and that is where all the
-most beautiful jet is made. I thought like as not
-that you would want to buy me a handkerchief pin,
-Josiah Allen.”</p>
-
-<p>He looked injured, and sez he, “Where is the
-black pin you mourned in for Father Smith?” His
-tone wuz sour and snappish in the extreme.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “That pin wuz broke over twenty years
-ago.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “I can glue it together with
-Ury’s help, or we could tie it up, so’s it would be
-jest as good as a new one. It don’t come to any
-strain on your collar,” sez he anxiously.</p>
-
-<p>“No, Josiah; but I shouldn’t like to wear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span> a pin
-that you and Ury had contoggled up. But let it
-pass,” sez I; “I can do without it, if my companion
-don’t think enough of me right here in the
-headquarters of black breastpins and beads to buy
-me anything.”</p>
-
-<p>My tone touched him. He sez&mdash;“I’d look
-round and see about it, but I hain’t no time, for
-we’ve got to be a-pushin’ right on to London; if
-we ever lay out to git home agin we’ve got to be
-on the move.”</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t say nothin’ only what my liniment spoke,
-and anon he sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“If worst come to worst, Ury and I could make
-you a crackin’ good one out of coal. All of this
-jet in Whitby is made out of coal. And how much
-less it would cost&mdash;we could make you a hull set
-in one evenin’&mdash;earrings and all.”</p>
-
-<p>I gin him one look, and that wuz all the argument
-that I would dane to waste on the subject.</p>
-
-<p>Alice kinder wanted to go to Robin Hood Bay,
-which wuz not far from Scarborough. She said
-that she would love to see the place where the hero
-of Sherwood Forest had lived once&mdash;the bold outlaw
-who took from the rich with one hand and
-gave to the poor with the other.</p>
-
-<p>But her Pa laughed at her for believin’ that
-there ever wuz sech a man, or if there wuz, he wuz
-nothin’ but a common robber, who deserved<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span>
-hangin’.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp48" id="i_299" style="max-width: 10em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_299.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Robin Hood.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I believe Martin would favor drivin’
-Santa Claus out of the country and
-killin’ his reindeers. His imagination
-hain’t, I really believe, not much bigger
-than a pea&mdash;not a marrowfat one, but a
-common field pea.</p>
-
-<p>So Martin decided at first that we
-would go direct to London, but finally
-he concluded to go a little out of our
-way to visit the estate of the Duke of
-Devonshire&mdash;the grandest home in England.
-And he wanted to stop a little
-while at Sheffield on business&mdash;property
-matters, I spoze, or mebby he wanted to buy a
-jack-knife&mdash;I d’no what his business wuz.</p>
-
-<p>I knew he could git a good jack-knife here, for
-they’ve been makin’ knives and sech right here for
-five or six hundred years.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">EDENSOR AND THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE.</p>
-
-<p>So anon we found ourselves in the smoky, grimy,
-dirty city. A heavy black cloud seemed to hang
-overhead, seemin’ to shade the hull spot; but then
-I didn’t want to lay it up agin ’em, for I knew we
-had our own cities, that had to set down under a
-cloud of smoke jest as they did&mdash;Pittsburg, and
-others, etcetery.</p>
-
-<p>I can’t say that I took sech a sight of comfort
-here in Sheffield, but Josiah and Martin seemed to
-enjoy themselves a-goin’ round and seein’ all they
-could.</p>
-
-<p>Martin said it wuz a sight to see how perfectly
-each workman did his work, and how faithful they
-wuz to their employers; he said he wished he had
-sech men to work for him.</p>
-
-<p>And it wuz curous to think on. As nigh as I
-could make out, generations of one family would
-work on and on, a-workin’ at one part of a jack-knife,
-for instance, a-keepin’ right on&mdash;a grandpa,
-and his son, and his son’s son, and etcetery&mdash;all
-contented and industrious and awful handy, as they
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span>would naterally be, a-workin’ on at one thing year
-after year, year after year; mebby a-makin’ a rivet
-to put into a handle of a knife.</p>
-
-<p>It stands to reason that they would learn to do it
-well after workin’ at the same thing over and over
-for hundreds of years. And these workmen seemed
-to be sot on doin’ jest the best
-work that they could, and stay right
-on in the same place.</p>
-
-<p>“And,” sez Josiah, “I wonder if
-Ury’s boy and grandson and great-grandson
-will be willin’ to keep
-right on workin’ for me?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Do you expect to outlive
-Ury’s grandson, Josiah Allen?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “They did in Bible
-times.” Sez he, “I wouldn’t be
-nigh so old then as Methusler,” and
-he went on&mdash;“I use my help as
-good agin as they do here. If I
-should put Ury to work in sech a dark, dirty, onhandy
-place as these workmen have, he’d kick in
-a minute and leave me; but here they work, generations
-of ’em, all in one place.”</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp59" id="i_301" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_301.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">It don’t pay to tussel with ’em.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Sez I feelin’ly, “I wish I could git sech a generation
-of hired girls; but no sooner duz an American
-housekeeper git a hired girl broke in, so she can
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span>bile a potato decent, or make a batch of bread,
-than off she trapes somewhere else to better herself.
-It don’t pay to tussel with ’em,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez Josiah, “you ort to go into some of
-these factories; it is a sight to see how perfect
-everything is done. One part of a knife, for instance,
-done in one house, and then another house
-doin’ another part, and then another another, and
-every part done jest as well as it can possibly be.”</p>
-
-<p>And then Josiah went on about that wonderful
-knife they make here, with a new blade added for
-every year.</p>
-
-<p>And bein’ we wuz alone, and I hadn’t nothin’
-else on my mind, I moralized some, and sez I&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Old Fate is makin’ her knife pretty stiddy, and
-seems to add a new blade every year for us to cut
-our feelin’s on, and jab ourselves with.”</p>
-
-<p>And sez I, “They don’t hurt any the less because
-we dig the metal ourselves and shape the sharp
-blades with our ignorant hands, not knowin’ what
-we’re a-workin’ on, and some on ’em,” sez I,
-“handed down from foolish, ignorant workmen who
-have gone before&mdash;queer!” sez I, “passin’ queer!”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez Josiah, “it wuz quite a sight; Martin
-and I enjoyed it.</p>
-
-<p>“But the drinkin’ here in Sheffield,” sez Josiah,
-“is sunthin’ dretful to witness.” Sez he, “I
-thought we had drinkin’ habits in America, but I
-never see nothin’, nor I don’t believe anybody<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span>
-else did, to compare with some of the places we
-visited to-day. Why,” sez he, “it would do a
-W. C. T. U. good to jest look at ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>“Good?” sez I sternly.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, yes,” sez he; “it would set ’em to kinder
-soarin’ and wavin’ them banners of theirn and talkin’&mdash;you
-know jest how they love to talk,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “You better stop right where you are.”
-Sez I, “Do you realize that you are talkin’ about
-your pardner?”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, yes,” sez he; “that’s what I wuz kinder
-figgerin’ on&mdash;Heaven knows you love to talk, you
-can’t dispute that.”</p>
-
-<p>I wouldn’t dane to argy with him.</p>
-
-<p>But, indeed, it wuz a sight to walk through some
-of the low, dingy, filthy streets, with saloons on
-every side flauntin’ their brazen signs, and men and
-wimmen with bloated, sodden faces, that strong
-drink had almost changed into the faces of animals.</p>
-
-<p>The same sin&mdash;the same useless, needless sin,
-parent of <i>all</i> other vices&mdash;jest as bad on this side of
-the Atlantic as in Jonesville and America, and
-worse.</p>
-
-<p>I left it there a-performin’ and cuttin’ up, and I
-found it here actin’ jest the same. You’d think
-after crossin’ the Atlantic it would git sobered up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span> a
-little&mdash;seein’ so much water and everything.</p>
-
-<p>But it hadn’t. It wuz jest the same reelin’, disgraceful,
-foolish, leerin’, bloated Shame&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Jest as bad in Sheffield as it wuz in Jonesville
-and Chicago, and worse.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz enough to melt a stun with pity, and
-make hard eyes weep with sorrer and flash with a
-righteous indignation, at the Nations that don’t
-devise some means of wipin’ out this gigantic
-cause of wickedness, woe, and want.</p>
-
-<p>They can connect worlds together with chains of
-lightnin’, they can make roads through the earth
-and on top of it, and in all ways; then why can’t
-they keep a man from drinkin’ a tumbler full of
-whiskey? They could if they wanted to, and all
-put in together.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, wuzn’t it a change to leave this smoky,
-grimy city and find ourselves in the open, beautiful
-English country, and in the most beautiful
-part of it, too?</p>
-
-<p>We went by railroad to Matlock Bath, and from
-there went in a carriage to the little village of
-Edensor, the loveliest little village I ever sot eyes
-on. Its housen are all built in some quaint, beautiful
-style of architecture, and it looks like a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span>
-picter, and a great deal handsomer than lots of
-picters I’ve seen&mdash;chromos and sech.</p>
-
-<p>This village belongs to the Duke of Devonshire,
-and is on his estate, which is the finest in England,
-and I guess on this hull earth.</p>
-
-<p>And I d’no whether they’ve got any on any other
-planet that goes ahead on’t. Mebby Jupiter has,
-but I don’t really believe it.</p>
-
-<p>Why, jest its pleasure park&mdash;the door-yard, as
-you may say&mdash;has two thousand acres in it.</p>
-
-<p>This estate, known as Chatsworth, is twelve
-milds from Edensor, and nobody could describe the
-beauty of the landscape all about us as we passed
-onwards.</p>
-
-<p>As we went acrost a corner of this immense
-door-yard, through the most beautiful pieces of
-woodland, and the verdant slopes covered with
-velvety sward, great, beautiful pheasants and herds
-of deer would look round at us and then walk off,
-not a mite afraid, fearless as they will be if they’re
-used well. Anon we would ketch a glimpse of
-some enchantin’ vista, with herds of contented
-cattle, makin’ picters of themselves aginst the background
-of green grass and noble trees centuries old.</p>
-
-<p>From a little hill top we could see twelve milds
-in every direction, and not a foot of land that this
-man didn’t own.</p>
-
-<p>Twelve milds! the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span> idee! It seems more’n he
-ort to have on his mind.</p>
-
-<p>Anon we reached a beautiful stun bridge, designed
-by Michael Angelo, and crossin’ the little
-river, went up to the great iron and gilt entrance
-gates.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp58" id="i_307" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_307.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Martin sent his card in.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Martin sent his card in to somebody that takes
-care of the premises, I guess (and how he dast to
-ask any favors of this gorgeous-dressed creeter in
-knee-breeches, I d’no, but he did, bold as brass),
-and word come back that we could look over
-the place, and one of the hired men wuz sent
-to go with us and show us round. It wuz well
-he come; we should have got lost, sure as the
-world. But lost in sech a place&mdash;sech a place!
-Why, I’d read the Arabian Nights quite a good
-deal, and a considerable number of fairy stories
-about enchanted castles, and sech. But never did
-I ever hear, in a book, or out on’t, of sech magnificence
-as I see here.</p>
-
-<p>First we went through a great courtyard into
-the splendid entrance hall, seventy feet long if it
-wuz a inch; the wall and ceilin’s ornamented with
-frescoes, all representin’ the life and death of
-Cæsar. We went up a majestic staircase, with all
-the richly ornamented columns and statutes it needed
-for its comfort, and more, too, it seemed, though
-they wuz beautiful beyend tellin’; and here we
-went into the State Apartments of the house.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span></p>
-
-<p>I spoze they are called State Apartments because
-in every room there’s
-enough of beauty and
-grandeur to supply a
-hull State, if it wuz
-scattered even, and I
-don’t mean Rhode
-Island either, but New
-York and Maine and
-sech sizable ones.</p>
-
-<p>Why, every one of
-these lofty ceilin’s is
-painted with picters
-handsome enough for
-the very handsomest
-handkerchief pin, if they
-wuz the right size. The
-hired man told us what
-some of the picters
-represented&mdash;Aurora (and, oh, how beautiful Aurora
-wuz!), and one wuz the “Judgment of
-Paris.”</p>
-
-<p>I hadn’t no idee before that Paris jedgment wuz
-so perfectly beautiful; I spozed it wuz kinder triflin’.
-They seemed, as fur as I could make out, to be
-a-samplin’ apples&mdash;lovely creeters they wuz that wuz
-standin’ round.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span></p>
-
-<p>And then there wuz “Phaeton in the Chariot of
-the Sun.”</p>
-
-<p>It didn’t look a mite like our phaeton&mdash;fur more
-magnificent.</p>
-
-<p>Room after room opened into each other, all different
-as stars differ from each other, but every one
-full of glory; all full of the treasures of every land&mdash;Persia,
-Egypt, and every other.</p>
-
-<p>The hired man drawed our attention to the presents
-of kings and princes, and all the rare objects of
-art and virtue.</p>
-
-<p>But I sez, “As fur as virtues is concerned, I d’no
-as kings would be any more apt to git hold of ’em
-than common men, or so apt, but,” sez I, “call ’em
-perfectly beautiful, and I agree with you.”</p>
-
-<p>In them magnificent and immense rooms are picters
-by Landseer, Holbein, Salvator Rosa, Raphael,
-Rubens, Claude Lorraine, Correggio, Hogarth,
-Titian, Michael Angelo, etc. A great many with
-the autographs of the painters&mdash;priceless, absolutely
-beyend price, are these works of art.</p>
-
-<p>And if I should talk a week, I couldn’t describe all
-the beautiful objects we see there, so valuable that
-one on ’em would make a man rich.</p>
-
-<p>In one room wuz a clock of gold and malachite&mdash;a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span>present from the Emperor Nicholas, worth a
-thousand guineas, and a broad, shinin’ table of one
-clear sheet of transclucent spar, and a great table of
-clear malachite. I’d be glad to git enough of it for
-an earring for Tirzah Ann.</p>
-
-<p>In one room we see a picter by Holbein of
-Henry VIII., and a rosary belongin’ to him. I
-wondered as I looked on’t what that poor, misguided
-creeter ust to pray about as he handled them
-beads. He couldn’t want any more wives than he
-had, it seemed to me. Mebby he wuz a-wishin’
-some of the time that he wuz back with Katharine,
-that noble creeter who said&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Weep, thou, for me in France, I for thee here;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Go count thy way with sighs, I mine with groans.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And when they had that lawsuit of theirn (he gittin’
-after another woman, and wantin’ to git rid of her),
-after he’d bought off the jedge, Katharine sez to
-Henry&mdash;liftin’ her right arm up towards Heaven&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“<i>There</i> sits a Jedge no king can corrupt.”</p>
-
-<p>Noble, misused creeter! I’ll bet if them beads
-could have told what wuz said over ’em, they would
-have said that Henry thought of her, his lawful wife,
-when his memory wuz sick of recallin’ Anne
-Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.
-But to resoom.</p>
-
-<p>We see the bed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span> that George II. died in. The chairs
-and footstools used by George III. and his queen.
-And the two chairs used by William IV. and Queen
-Adelaide at their coronation. And then we see the
-most beautiful tapestry that ever wuz made, and
-busts and statutes. Richly colored, priceless old
-china filled the splendid cabinets inlaid with finest
-mosaic work&mdash;in fact, the hull length of these rooms,
-openin’ into each other so that you could see their
-hull length of 550 feet, wuz full of the most costly
-and beautiful objects man ever made.</p>
-
-<p>The oak floor wuz polished, and shone like a
-mirror.</p>
-
-<p>The library wuz one hundred feet long of itself,
-with columns risin’ from floor to ceilin’ and a gallery
-runnin’ round it, and two more openin’ out of it,
-with alcoves of Spanish mahogany, these full of
-picters by Landseer and others, and medallions, etc.,
-etc., etc., and full of the choicest literature of
-every land.</p>
-
-<p>And then there wuz a private chapel that went
-ahead of any meetin’-house I ever see or ever expect
-to, all marble and spar and wonderful wood-carvin’s,
-and picters from the old masters filled it full of beauty
-and glory. Faith and Hope wuz there all carved
-out beautiful, so’s you could see ’em right before
-you, as well as feel ’em in your heart.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span></p>
-<p>In the sculpter gallery is the most wonderful
-treasures, busts and statutes and mosaics, relicks
-from every land and age, and beautiful figgers, almost
-alive, by Canova, Powers, Thorwaldsen, Gibson,
-Bartolini, etc., etc. Some wuz presented by
-emperors and kings, and some on ’em bought by
-the Duke and his folks. The hull room, one hundred
-feet long, is full of the rarest treasures that
-can be collected; it made my brain fairly reel beneath
-my best bunnet to see the wealth of glory
-and beauty, and Al Faizi turned away from it a
-spell and looked thoughtfully out of the winder.</p>
-
-<p>But I see that here, too, wuz a picter that no
-artist could reproduce, and so it wuz in every winder
-that you could look out of. A green, velvety
-lawn a hundred feet wide and over five hundred long,
-bordered by most beautiful colored flowers, and out
-of another winder you could see the velvety slopes,
-with walks and river and bridge, and way off the
-noble trees and terraces, one risin’ above another,
-all full of beautiful plants and shrubs. And in the
-centre from the top down, hundreds of feet, wuz a
-great flight of stun steps, thirty feet wide, down
-which flows and sparkles a sheet of water, reflectin’
-in its mirror-like surface all the white statutes on its
-margin, till it reaches the edge of the broad gravel
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span>walk, when it disapears right down into the earth and
-flows off in some curous, underground way to the
-river.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah wuz all rousted up when he see this, and,
-as is the way of my dear, ardent-souled companion,
-he tore a page out of his account-book, and begun
-to make calculations on’t.</p>
-
-<p>And I sez with a sithe&mdash;“What are you a-figgerin’
-on now, Josiah Allen?”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! I’m plottin’ out a lovely addition to the
-beauty of our home, Samantha&mdash;I’m a-plannin’
-sunthin’ so uneek and fascinatin’ that it will make
-the Jonesvillians open their eyes in astonishment
-and or.”</p>
-
-<p>“What is it?” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“I’m a-plannin’ on how we can have a waterfall
-on our back doorsteps.” Sez he, “I hain’t seen
-anything so perfectly beautiful and strikin’ as this
-sence I come to the Old Country, and we can have
-one jest as well as not. You know our back steps
-are quite high, and how beautiful they would look
-with the sparklin’ water flowin’ down ’em&mdash;how refreshin’
-it would be in hot weather to have a waterfall
-right on your own doorsteps, and set in the
-open back door, right on its banks, as it were, and
-hear the murmur of the water, and see it a-glidin’
-down towards the smoke-house. We might have it
-dissapear,” sez he, “between the smoke-house and
-the ash-barrel.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_313" style="max-width: 35em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_313.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Josiah’s home-made waterfall.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Where would you git your water?” sez I
-coldly.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, a-holdin’ up the paper with quite
-a lot of figgers and marks on it, “I figgered it out
-that we might have a pipe go from the kitchen
-pump, cut a little hole in the thrasholt to let it go
-in, and there you would be.”</p>
-
-<p>“And did you lay out,” sez I in frigid axents,
-“to have me stan’ there a-pumpin’ all day to supply
-your waterfall?”</p>
-
-<p>His mean begun to fall a little&mdash;it had been triumphant&mdash;and
-he sez kinder meachin’&mdash;“You
-have to throw out your dish-water anyway, and you
-might’s well throw it on the steps as to throw it in
-the dreen.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “a fountain a-runnin’ dish-water
-would be a beautiful spectacle, wouldn’t it, Josiah
-Allen?</p>
-
-<p>“I guess it would astonish the eyes of the Jonesvillians,
-and their noses, too!”</p>
-
-<p>“I didn’t mean that!” he hollered quite loud.</p>
-
-<p>“What did you mean, then?” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>He agin murmured sunthin’ about the pump,
-the cistern, and the old mair.</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “That poor old mair agin!” Sez I,
-“If I hadn’t broke it up, that mair wouldn’t live
-three days after we got home, with all you’d<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span> put on
-her, a-apein’ foreign idees, Josiah.”</p>
-
-<p>“I hain’t been a-apein’, and you know it!”</p>
-
-<p>But I went right on&mdash;“Even if you could make
-it work, how could we git into the house if the
-doorstep wuz turned into a waterfall?”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, a-lookin’ up kinder cross, “I’ve
-hearn lots of times of havin’ the bottom sash of a
-winder hung on hinges, and goin’ in and out by
-’em.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “after you’d clumb up through
-the buttery winder onct or twict with a pail of
-milk in both hands, I guess you’d git sick of doorstep
-waterfalls!”</p>
-
-<p>He see by the light of my calm, practical reasonin’
-that his idee wuz visionary and couldn’t be
-carried out, but he wouldn’t own up to it&mdash;not he.</p>
-
-<p>He jest jammed the paper down into his vest
-pocket, and snapped me up real sharp the next
-words I said to him.</p>
-
-<p>He acted awful growety; but I didn’t care, I
-knew I wuz in the right on’t.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, after goin’ through the brightest and most
-lovely garden you can imagine, you come into a
-place with huge rocks and cliffs, romantic shrubbery,
-massive ledges, and a waterfall fallin’ into a
-deep, dark basin, caverns, etc., and as you go
-round a corner, you come face to face with a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span>
-huge rock that you think must have fell there.
-You think you will have to go back; but no! Do
-you think you will have to turn back for anything
-in this enchanted place? The hired man touches
-the rock, and it turns right away and lets you
-pass, and then you see that not only is the enchantin’
-beauty of the place made, but the rough
-wildness of this spot.</p>
-
-<p>One of the curous things in this place wuz a
-tree with kinder queer-lookin’ branches, and the
-hired man touched it somewhere, and water flowed
-out of every leaf and twig, turnin’ it into a fountain.</p>
-
-<p>The conservatory is from one end to the other
-two hundred and seventy-six feet long, and broad
-enough to drive through it with a carriage and
-four horses, so you can imagine the wealth of
-beauty in it&mdash;orange-trees full of their glossy fruit,
-lemon-trees, feathery palm-trees fifty feet high,
-bamboos, cactuses, bananas, queer, broad, velvety
-leaves of every shape and color, and all of the
-flowers that ever wuz hearn on, and never wuz
-hearn on, it seems to me.</p>
-
-<p>There are thirty other greenhousen, all runnin’
-over with beauty of various kinds. Graperies
-seven hundred feet long, with the rich white and
-purple clusters hangin’ down in every direction.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span>
-Peach housen, strawberry housen, apricot, mushroom,
-vegetable housen, in which every kind of vegetable
-is raised. Why, the kitchen-garden and greenhousen
-covers twenty acres. But there is no use
-of talkin’ any more&mdash;like Niagara, and the World’s
-Fair, you have got to see it to understand its vastness
-and its perfect beauty.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz glad I’d seen it. I believe that even Martin
-wuz kinder took down off from the Mount
-of Self Esteem he always sets on, as he wandered
-through it.</p>
-
-<p>He’d always prided himself quite a good deal of
-his home in the city, and it is palatial and grand.
-But what comparison would it bear to this? Not
-even&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Like moonshine unto sunshine,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Or like water unto wine.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>No; it wuz like a small kerosene lamp unto sunshine.
-And he felt it, Martin did. He didn’t
-patronize anybody for as much as three quarters of
-an hour after he left there. He give the hired man
-a good-sized piece of money, for I see him. It wuz
-so big that the man turned fairly pale, and called
-Martin “Your Highness.” He sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“When will Your Highness return again?”</p>
-
-<p>So we come off with flyin’ colors, after<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span> all.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, seein’ that we wuz so near, Martin thought
-we’d ride over to Haddon Hall, only a few milds
-away. This is one of the fine old buildin’s of the
-Middle Ages. It stands on a rocky eminence above
-the River Wye; over the great arched entrance is
-the arms of the Vernon family, who occupied it for
-three hundred and fifty years.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp73" id="i_319" style="max-width: 10em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_319.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Her common-sense shoe.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>As we passed in through a little door, cut in one
-of the broad sides of the gates, we see, on the rough
-stun thrasholt, the impression of a human foot,
-wore there by the innumerable feet of warriors, pilgrims,
-ladies, troubadors, children, kings, and queens,
-for all I know. Anyhow, she who wuz once Smith
-put her own common-sense shoe right into the
-worn footprint, and stood there, kinder on one foot,
-and had more’n eighty-seven emotions as she did so,
-and I d’no but eighty-nine or ninety.</p>
-
-<p>I had a sight, anyway, as we went into the stun
-courtyard, ornamented with stun carvin’, into the
-interior.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah didn’t take to it at all.</p>
-
-<p>But, then, as I told him, what could you expect
-of a house where the folks had been away for several
-hundred years&mdash;any place would look kinder
-dreary.</p>
-
-<p>But he sez, “Dum it all! when it wuz new, who’d
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span>
-like to have sech rough stun floors? And look at
-that fireplace in the kitchen, big enough to roast a
-hull ox. How could a man cut wood enough to
-keep that fire a-goin’?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “The man of the house didn’t have to do
-it at all, his vassals did it, Josiah.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, he had to tend to it, and I’d ruther do
-the work any time than to keep a vassal a-goin’,
-that is, any vassal that I ever hired by the month,
-or day.”</p>
-
-<p>But in the great banquettin’ hall, with its oak
-rafters and long table, where they feasted, at one
-end a little higher&mdash;for the quality, I spoze&mdash;he
-ketched sight of the minstrels’ gallery at one end.
-And sez he, his face lightin’ up, “The man of the
-house could git up there and sing while the rest
-wuz eatin’, if he wanted to, and nothin’ said
-about it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I pintedly, “if he <i>could</i> sing; but,”
-sez I, wantin’ to git his mind offen this unpleasant
-theme, sez I&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I’d love dearly to see this table set out as it ust
-to be, and the noble and beautiful a-settin’ round it,
-with boars’ heads on the table, and great
-sides of beef, and gilded peacocks.”</p>
-
-<p>“And jugs of ale and wine,” sez
-Josiah.</p>
-
-<p>But I waved<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span> off that idee, but couldn’t wave it
-fur, for the beer cellars wuz a sight to behold.
-They must have been drunk a good deal of the time,
-jedgin’ from the accommodations for drinkin’.</p>
-
-<p>Up the massive stun stairway we went into
-another big room, used as a dinin’-room by the later
-occupants of the Hall.</p>
-
-<p>Here over the fireplace are the royal arms, and
-under them, in old English letters, the motto&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Drede God, and honor the king.”</p>
-
-<p>Goin’ up six heavey, oak, semicircular steps, we
-go into the ball-room, over a hundred feet long, with
-great bay-winders, out of which you see picters
-more beautiful than any that could be painted by
-the hand of man&mdash;perfect landscape of quiet
-country, silvery stream, rustic bridges, grand old
-parks, and the spire of the church from the distant
-village pintin’ up to the blue sky.</p>
-
-<p>Then through other rooms with Gobelin tapestry
-on the walls, still holdin’ skripteral stories in its
-ancient folds.</p>
-
-<p>Then through other rooms that are modern compared
-with the others, and have been used in the
-present century. Here, agin, in one of ’em we see
-Gobelin tapestry drapin’ the State bed.</p>
-
-<p>Follerin’ the guide through a anty-room we come
-out into the garden on Dorothy Vernon’s Walk.</p>
-
-<p>Under the tapestry is concealed doors and passages,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span>
-as the guide showed us by pushin’ the folds
-aside, through which many a man or woman, drove
-by Fear or Love, or some other creeter, had rushed
-for refuge or secret meetin’.</p>
-
-<p>The garden of Haddon Hall is picturesque and
-beautiful in the extreme.</p>
-
-<p>Dorothy’s Walk, shaded by noble old trees, leads
-to the massive flights of marble steps, down which
-she hurried with beatin’ heart and flyin’ steps to
-meet her lover, Sir John Manners, while her friends
-were merry-makin’ in another part of the Hall, and
-never dreamed of her flight.</p>
-
-<p>Haddon Hall by this means passed into the
-family of Rutland, who lived here till the first of
-this century. The Duke of Rutland keeps the
-place in its ancient form, much to the delight of
-those who love the old ways.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">JOSIAH HAS AN ADVENTURE.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin, who sometimes changes his
-mind, but don’t think he duz, always a-sayin’ that
-it shows weak-mindedness and is a trait belongin’
-to wimmen (which I never
-feel like disputin’, knowin’
-that my sect has in time past
-been known to be whifflin’;
-but so have men, too)&mdash;so it
-didn’t surprise me much when
-he said that instead of proceedin’
-directly to the Lake District
-from here he thought we
-would go first to the home of Shakespeare. Sez
-he:</p>
-
-<p>“I may be called to London any minute on
-business, and I feel that it will be expected of me
-to visit Shakespeare’s birthplace anyway.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez Martin, with a thumb in both vest pockets,
-and a benine, patronizin’ look on his liniment&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Shakespeare wrote a number of very creditable
-productions, and though I never had the time to
-spare from more important things to peruse his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span>
-works&mdash;poems, I believe, mostly&mdash;yet I always love
-to encourage talent. I think it is becoming for solid
-men, for progressive, practical men, to encourage
-writers to a certain extent; and Shakespeare, as
-I am aware, has been very much talked of. I would
-be sorry to miss the chance of saying to those who
-inquire of me that I had been there, so I believe
-we will proceed there at once.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” I sez, “I shall be glad enough to go;”
-and Al Faizi looked tickled, too. He had read him,
-he said, in his own country.</p>
-
-<p>And sez he to me, with his dark eyes all lit up,
-“To read Shakespeare is like looking into clear
-water and seeing your own face reflected in it, and
-earth, and mountain top, and over all the Heavens.
-And it is more than that,” sez he, “it is looking into
-the human mind and reading all its secrets&mdash;all the
-wonder and mystery of the soul; it is like looking
-at life, and death, and eternity.”</p>
-
-<p>He wuz dretful riz up in his mind a-talkin’ about
-it, and he quoted Shakespeare quite often on our
-way to Stratford, and always in the right place, and
-he is generally so still, that I see, indeed, how he felt
-about him. Alice talked, too, quite a good deal
-about Shakespeare. And Al Faizi listened. Yes,
-he listened to Alice&mdash;poor creeter! And everybody
-blind as a bat but jest me.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span></p>
-
-<p>Wall, we got there anon or a little before, and put
-up to the Red Horse Inn, a quaint, old-fashioned
-tarvern, but where we had everything for our comfort,
-and wuz waited on by as pretty a red-cheeked
-girl as I want to see.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp100" id="i_322" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_322.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>A quaint, old-fashioned tarvern.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>A sight of emotions wuz rousted up in me as I
-sot in that tarvern, or walked through its old-fashioned,
-low-ceiled rooms and meditated on who had
-been under its ruff.</p>
-
-<p>When rare Ben Jonson, and Drayton, and Garrick,
-and all of Shakespeare’s friends come down
-from London to visit him, of course they stopped
-here, and of course Shakespeare himself often and
-often come here&mdash;mebby too often for Miss Shakespeare’s
-feelin’s.</p>
-
-<p>Much as I honor Shakespeare, I have to admit
-that he did stimulate a little too much&mdash;but, then,
-who hain’t got their failin’s? Why, Solomon, the
-very wisest man, had more wives than he ort to
-had.</p>
-
-<p>Seein’, I spoze, that we wuz Americans, our supper
-that first night wuz served in Washington
-Irving’s room, as they call the room that he occupied,
-our own genial wit and poet. Mebby his
-words didn’t come in rhyme, but they had the soul of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span>poetry, and quaint, sly wit, and good sense and good
-manners and everything.</p>
-
-<p>I always sot store by Washington Irving. (I
-had got acquainted with him through Thomas J.)</p>
-
-<p>Alice quoted a lot from Irving, and a lot from
-Shakespeare, while we wuz to the table, and I felt
-their presence in my heart.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I wuz so kinder beat out that night, that,
-as poets say, “I sought my couch” to once, a good-lookin’
-oak bedstead, with a teester cloth overhead,
-and some curtains hangin’ down on each side.</p>
-
-<p>The weariness I had gone through with that day,
-mixed in with the powders Mr. Morpheus keeps by
-him, brung on a sleep almost imegiately and to once.
-And I wuz sweetly a-dreamin’ of seein’ the Jonesville
-steeple a-pintin’ up through a ile paintin’ of cows
-and calves. Philury wuz a-peacefully milkin’ one of
-the cows, while Ury, a-settin’ on the steeple with a
-pail of skim milk, wuz a-tryin’ to bagon one of the
-calves to him, but a Madonna with a long beard
-poked at the calf with a sceptre and made it kick.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz a sweet, tender dream of home, tinged
-slightly with the surroundin’s we had been surrounded
-by on our tower.</p>
-
-<p>But anon as the Madonna and Philury changed
-into two gorgeous altar pieces, and Ury leaned near
-the calf and fed it out of a stained-glass winder&mdash;</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span></p>
-<p>Even at that very minute a sharp scream cut
-through the silence of night, like the ragged thrust
-of a bread knife through a loaf of light bread.</p>
-
-<p>Once, twice, three times, did that cry ring out,
-and then I heard the sounds of rapid footsteps, and
-anon the door busted open, and my pardner rushed
-in and slammed it shet and clicked the bolt to.</p>
-
-<p>And then he sunk down in his chair and almost
-buried his face in his hands.</p>
-
-<p>I riz up on my piller, and sez I in agitated
-axents&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“What is the matter, Josiah?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he from out from under his hand, “I’ve done
-it now!”</p>
-
-<p>“Done what?” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t ask me!” sez he, a-shudderin’ visibly; “it
-is nothin’ you want to know.”</p>
-
-<p>But his words made me more and more determined
-to know the worst, as wuz nateral they
-should. And finally he said in a surly, cross
-way&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, if you must know, I’ve been into a
-woman’s room.”</p>
-
-<p>“Been into a woman’s room!” sez I coldly;
-“what did you want in a woman’s room?”</p>
-
-<p>“I didn’t want nothin’&mdash;Heaven knows I didn’t,
-only to git out agin.”</p>
-
-<p>“Who wuz it?” sez I in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span> stern axents.</p>
-
-<p>“I d’no&mdash;she wuz a perfect stranger to me,”
-sez he, with his face still hid in his hand.</p>
-
-<p>“Wuz she good-lookin’?” sez I in the same stern
-tones. I hain’t a mite jealous, as is well known,
-but I felt that I wanted to know the worst.</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t ask me,” sez he; and he continued fiercely,
-“What business has a woman to be up a-ondressin’
-herself at this time of night? Why wuzn’t she
-to bed and covered up?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, a-growin’ more and more excited and
-fierce actin’&mdash;“I’m a-goin’ back and tell that
-woman that it is a shame and a disgrace to be up
-and ondressed at this time of night. Why wuzn’t
-her door locked, if she had to ondress?”</p>
-
-<p>“What business wuz it of yours?” sez I. “Do
-you spoze she expected you to be a-prowlin’ round
-her room and a-prancin’ in, onbeknown to her?”</p>
-
-<p>“Gracious Peter!” sez he in pitiful axents; “duz
-she think I wanted to be there?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why did you go in, then?” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Because I made a mistake!” he thundered out.
-“I thought it wuz our room. How should I know
-that there wuz a dum, red-headed fool there a-ondressin’
-herself at this time of night? Why wuzn’t
-she abed&mdash;up, and skairin’ a man half to death?”</p>
-
-<p>“If you’d kep’ out, Josiah, you’d have escaped,”
-sez I more softer like, for I see by his axents that
-he wuz a-sufferin’ from fear and the effects of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span>the
-shock.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Be calm; accidents will happen, Josiah.
-Come to bed, and try to forgit it.”</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp94" id="i_328" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_328.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Sez he, “I’m a-goin’ back&mdash;it is my duty.”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“I won’t try!” sez he. “I’m a-goin’ back and
-give that dum fool and loonatick a piece of my
-mind. What henders
-some other man from
-walkin’ in?” Sez he,
-“I’m a-goin’ back&mdash;it
-is my duty!”</p>
-
-<p>I riz up and laid
-holt of him, and sez I,
-“Do you stay where
-you be, Josiah Allen.
-I should think you’d
-done enough for one
-night.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “What henders Martin and Fazer from
-walkin’ in jest as I did, and bein’ skairt to death?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Martin and Al Faizi know enough to
-take care of themselves, and it is your place to go
-to bed and behave yourself.”</p>
-
-<p>“A-ondressin’ herself at this time of night!” he
-kep’ a-mutterin’ as he put his vest down on a chair.</p>
-
-<p>“What are you a-doin’?” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, there hain’t a lot of strange<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span> wimmen
-round, is there?”</p>
-
-<p>I see it wuz vain to dispute the pint. He acted
-deeply injured, and as if the woman had made a
-plot to skair him, and I had to gin up the idee of
-wringin’ any jestice out of his words and demeanors
-in the case.</p>
-
-<p>But the next mornin’ he felt calmer, and didn’t
-seem to blame her so much, and admitted that she
-had to ondress, and said of his own accord that
-mebby he had been too hard on her.</p>
-
-<p>But he wuzn’t quite reconciled, I could see, and
-felt deeply that he might have escaped the shock if
-she hadn’t ondressed.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, our first visit wuz to Shakespeare’s birth-place.
-We sot out bright and early.</p>
-
-<p>It is a long, old-fashioned-lookin’ house, with
-three gabriel ends in the ruff on front, and kinder
-criss-cross-lookin’, some like a big checker-board,
-the cross pieces of oak filled in with plaster, I
-should jedge.</p>
-
-<p>We first went into the kitchen, with its wide,
-open fireplace, and how I felt when I thought that
-here, right here, in this spot, the immortal Shakespeare
-had often sot, with his feet and face burnin’
-hot, and his back a-freezin’, as is the way with them
-old fireplaces!</p>
-
-<p>But no matter how<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span> his body felt or didn’t feel,
-think of that mind, that soul that wuz caged in here
-between these narrer and queer-lookin’ walls.
-What visions them eager, bright eyes ust to see in
-the burnin’ flames! What shadders and shapes the
-clouds of smoke took as they floated up and away!
-How his soul follered ’em! How he sailed off into
-strange heights and depths, sech as no other writer
-ever did, or can, foller and explore! How the
-mind of the Infinite must have brooded over that
-little sleeper that lay over three hundred years ago
-in that low, shabby room upstairs&mdash;a small, dreary-lookin’
-apartment, with the walls covered with the
-names of visitors and verses, etc.</p>
-
-<p>We went up to it on a steep, narrer stairway.
-Martin had to take off his tall hat or he couldn’t
-have got in&mdash;I d’no whether he would or not
-if he hadn’t had to. I wuz proud to see that my
-pardner took off his hat the minute we got inside;
-I wuz proud of the reverence he showed
-for genius, and told him so.</p>
-
-<p>But he said he forgot that it wuzn’t meetin’,
-it seemed some like it, he said, all dressed up
-at ten in the mornin’, and goin’ off all together.</p>
-
-<p>After I spoke he wuz a-goin’ to put his hat on
-agin, but I sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“If you’ve blundered into reverential and noble
-ways, Josiah Allen, don’t, for pity sake, break it
-up.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span></p>
-
-<p>Of course my pardner always takes off his hat
-when goin’ into housen, visitin’, or callin’, or sech,
-or in our own residence. But on our travels, goin’
-through big, cold buildin’s, dungeons, etc., he’s made
-a practice of keepin’ it on, bein’ bald, and sufferin’
-in his scalp from cold.</p>
-
-<p>But here, in this place, this hant of genius, I felt
-for about the first time sence I had been huntin’
-antiquities, that I’d love to take off my own bunnet
-and dress-cap, but I spozed that the move would
-draw attention and call forth remarks, so I kep’
-’em on.</p>
-
-<p>But my sperit knelt bareheaded and bowed itself
-down before this shrine of Wisdom and Genius, this
-earthly abode of one who showed what a grand and
-divine thing the human mind may be; who held the
-secret of all things common and transcendent&mdash;all
-things “that are dreamed of in our philosophy”
-and more&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>This magician, who showed “what fools we mortals
-be,” and showed to what heights of wisdom men
-may attain&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Who held up his wonderful microscope and let
-mortals look through it into the inside of their own
-hearts and feelin’s and emotions. And who held
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span>up a lookin’-glass to Mom Nater, so she could see
-her old face in it, every beauty and every deformity&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Who plunged us into the depths of sorrerful and
-heart-breakin’ experience, bewitched us with his wit,
-and brung us up so clost to the divine good that
-we almost feel the beatin’ of the great heart of
-love.</p>
-
-<p>Wonderful magician, indeed, and havin’ sech feelin’s
-for him for years and years (ketched a good
-deal from Thomas J., who admires him beyend any
-tellin’), I felt that it wuz strange indeed that she
-who wuz once Smith should stand right here in the
-place where he had once lived.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi felt jest as I did, only more so&mdash;jest as
-still waters run deepest. I could talk with my companion
-yet, and the others, but he stood reverent
-and silent, and walked through the rooms like one
-in a dream, in which sech visions come that it “give
-us pause.”</p>
-
-<p>But, as I say, I could still talk some&mdash;I seem to
-be made that way that conversation is hard to
-smother in my breast. Lots of wimmen are made
-jest so, and men too.</p>
-
-<p>Martin wuz talkin’ fluently to Alice and Adrian
-as they went from spot to spot in the old house,
-and Martin wuz, I spozed, a-layin’ up a fount of
-memories that the public could tap, and valuable
-information would flow for their refreshin’.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span></p>
-
-<p>But anon I missed my pardner; but even as my
-Thought wuz a-reachin’ after him, as it always must
-while it is yoked to my constant Heart, he come up
-to me with joy in his mean and a piece of paper in
-his hand, and sez he, with a glad and joyous axent,
-in which, too, pride wuz blendin’, about a third of
-each ingregient a-makin’ up his hull mean.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I have been a-writin’ a poem in the
-visitors’ book, Samantha, and I copied it off for
-you on a leaf out of my account book&mdash;I knew that
-you would want to see it, and then I shall keep the
-copy in my tin trunk with my money and deeds.”</p>
-
-<p>I groaned instinctively, but suppressed it all I
-could as I sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Let me know the worst to once! What have
-you writ?”</p>
-
-<p>He proudly ondid the paper, and I read&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“I, Josiah,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Am settin’ by the fire,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Am right on the spot</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Where Shakespeare sot;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">I’m proud to be there,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Though I spoze, from what Samantha sez, that it hain’t the same chair.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“There,” sez he proudly, as he folded up the paper,
-and put it into his portmoney. “There hain’t
-a verse here on these hull walls or on the visitors’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span>
-book that will compare with that.”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez I coldly, “there hain’t&mdash;Heaven knows
-there hain’t.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he proudly, “It has three great qualities,
-Samantha&mdash;it is terse, melodious, and truthful.
-Shakespeare’s chair wuz sold two hundred years ago
-to a Russian princess, and they’ve kep’ on a-sellin’
-the original chair several times sence, so how could
-it be here? If I’d been writin’ in prose, I should a
-said that it wuz a dum humbug!”</p>
-
-<p>And here he paused reflectively and dreamily.</p>
-
-<p>“I might have said sunthin’ strong and strikin’
-here&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“‘It makes me mad as a June bug</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">To see ’em try to humbug.</div>
-    <div class="verse right">‘<span class="smcap">Josiah.</span>’</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“You know that June bugs hum,” and he murmured
-dreamily, “humbug, and bughum; it would
-have been very ingenious, and I might say sunthin’
-strong about ‘tire,’ to rhyme with ‘Josiah,’ about
-relicks bein’ made to order. ‘It makes me tired,’
-you know, only have it come all in poetry,” sez he;
-“it would be dretful appro<i>poss</i>.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I coldly, “What you mean by that, I don’t
-have any idee.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span></p>
-<p>“Why,” sez he, “I see it in <i>The World</i>; it is
-French, and it means to have anything come in
-appropriate&mdash;appro<i>poss</i>, you know. I should have
-used it in my poem, but I couldn’t think of anything
-to rhyme with it but hoss.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “<i>Tire</i> is a good word to use in connection
-with your poetry. Everybody would appreciate
-it, and hail it with effusion.”</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez he with a wise air, “you have to be so
-careful in poetry. You can’t use strong phrases
-much, if any. And then, knowin’ that I wuz
-writin’ in the same book with kings, etc., I felt
-that it must be genteel and stylish. And I knew
-you always loved to be remembered, and so I
-brung your name in, Samantha.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, “you brung it in in sech a way
-as to hurt his folkses feelin’s as long as they make
-them chairs of hisen.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “it looks well for pardners to
-remember each other, and it’s a rare quality, too.”</p>
-
-<p>I felt that he wuz right, and didn’t dispute him,
-and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Samantha, I wanted you to be jined with me
-on the pillow of fame. I don’t want to be anywhere
-where you hain’t, Samantha.”</p>
-
-<p>His tenderness touched my heart, and I kep’
-still and let him go on, only I merely remarked&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“As for its bein’ melodious, Josiah, your first<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span>
-line has got 2 words in it, and your last one
-seventeen.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “that’s the way with great
-writers&mdash;they warm with their subject as they go
-on, and git all het up with inspiration. Jest think
-of Browning and Walt Whitman.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Don’t go to comparin’ that verse of
-yourn with Browning. Why, folks know what you
-wuz a-writin’ about! Don’t compare yourself with
-Robert Browning.”</p>
-
-<p>He see in a minute his deep mistake&mdash;he see
-that folks could find out what he’d undertook to
-write about.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, Walt Whitman,” sez he, “he writ jest as
-long and short lines. I’ve seen ’em to home in
-that ‘Leaves of Grass’ Thomas J. owns.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, I wish your grass wuz to home, too,” sez
-I; “but,” sez I, a-sithin’ hard, “I’ve got to stand it,
-I spoze. But,” sez I warmly, “there hain’t a spot,
-from Egypt to Jonesville, but what I’d ruther had
-you broke out into poetry in than in this house.”</p>
-
-<p>And I turned onto my heel and left him, feelin’
-cheap as dirt about it, though I comforted myself
-with the thought that his poetry wuzn’t the only
-foolish lines writ there.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp51" id="i_337" style="max-width: 20em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_337.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Shakespeare’s ghost reading the effusions on the
-walls of his house.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I believe that if Shakespeare’s ghost comes back
-and hants this old spot&mdash;as it seems likely to spoze
-it duz&mdash;about the hardest thing it has to bear is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span>
-to read the effusions
-writ all over the walls
-and in the visitors’
-book, though some
-on ’em are quite good.</p>
-
-<p>Prince Lucian writ
-a very good verse.
-But, then, he writ in
-it that&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“He shed jest <i>one</i> tear.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>How under the sun
-anybody can make
-calculations ahead on
-sheddin’ jest <i>one</i> tear,
-no more, no less, is a
-mystery to me, and
-it must have been
-jest out of one eye,
-and not the other.</p>
-
-<p>But bein’ a Prince,
-I spoze he done it;
-but I never could.
-I couldn’t calculate closter than a dozen or twenty
-before I begun to cry, and I couldn’t cry with one
-eye and keep the other dry to save my life.</p>
-
-<p>Our own Washington Irving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span> writ quite a good
-verse, and so did the American Hackett&mdash;the best
-actor of some of Shakespeare’s characters.</p>
-
-<p>Lots of actors have left their names in the room
-where the poet wuz born&mdash;Edmund Kean, Charles
-Kean, and a great many others. And in the visitors’
-book you see writin’s from kings to chore-boys,
-and lines in every language&mdash;English, German,
-French, Chinese, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish,
-etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>The Poet of the World has the world come to
-do honor to his memory.</p>
-
-<p>Next to the thought that I wuz under the ruff
-that bent over the head of Shakespeare wuz to
-see the writin’ of some who had writ their names
-on the low walls.</p>
-
-<p>Charles Dickens! Why, jest to look on that one
-name, writ by his own hand, would have been
-enough, if I had been to home, to furnished me
-with deep emotions for ten days. Nobody knows
-what my feelin’s have always been for that man.</p>
-
-<p>It hain’t quite so fashionable to love Dickens
-now as it ust to be. The world has grown older
-and more genteel, and seems to prize more the
-writin’s it can’t understand&mdash;the vaguer ones and
-more cross like, and morbid, “Is Life Worth Living”&mdash;“No,
-it hain’t.”</p>
-
-<p>“How to be <span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span>Happy though Married.”</p>
-
-<p>Ibsen, Tolstoi, etc., etc., etc., and so forth and so
-on.</p>
-
-<p>But I lay out to like Dickens till, like Barkis,
-the high water comes, and&mdash;“I go out with the
-tide.”</p>
-
-<p>So his name, the Master, I laid my hand on’t,
-and had ninety-seven emotions durin’ that time, and
-I presoom more, though truly I didn’t count ’em.</p>
-
-<p>And Thackeray, who laughs with us over the
-weaknesses of humanity, yet once in a great while
-strikes sech a hard and onexpected blow onto our
-hearts and feelin’s, that we look right under that
-cynical veil he chose to wear, and see the great,
-tender heart of the man. His name, writ by his
-own hand, gin me powerful emotions, and sights on
-’em.</p>
-
-<p>Lord Byron’s name rousted me up some. Poor,
-onhappy, restless creeter! I wuz always sorry for
-him&mdash;sorry he wuz so mean and grand too&mdash;dretful
-grand. I spoze he wuz so onhappy that he couldn’t
-help lettin’ it run off the ends of his fingers sometimes
-onto the paper.</p>
-
-<p>Some of his poetry uplifts you, like bein’ on a
-mountain-top in a storm, and some is like a calm
-moonlight night in the tropics, and still there is
-some on’t that I never felt willin’ that Josiah Allen
-should read&mdash;I felt that it would be resky to allow
-it. As I looked at his signature I instinctively sez<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span>
-over to myself a verse of hisen, that always seemed
-to be kinder open-hearted, and ownin’ up, and had
-a good deal of human nater in it. Some despair
-and some plain curosity&mdash;they always seem to
-touch a chord in everybody’s nater&mdash;I guess that
-most everybody sometimes feels jest about so, jest
-so kinder curous to know what is comin’ next&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“My whole life was a contest since the day</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">That gave me being&mdash;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">And I at times have found the struggle hard,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">But now I fain would for a time survive,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">If but to see what next can well arrive!”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Wall, he see the last thing arrive that we know
-anything about here. What come next, after he
-shet his eyes in Greece (dyin’ nobly, anyway) we
-can’t tell. But probble the one who formed that
-strange soul knew jest what it needed the most,
-and deserved.</p>
-
-<p>Probble that was the&mdash;“The next thing that arrived.”</p>
-
-<p>But I am indeed a-eppisodin’, and to resoom&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Then there wuz Sir Walter Scott, and Tennyson,
-and Longfellow, and everybody else, as you may
-say, who have distinguished themselves in literature
-and art, and lots of Lords and Ladies, but them I
-didn’t mind so much, knowin’ that for the most<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span>
-part that they had been born into their lofty places
-onbeknown to ’em, but the others had made the
-high pinnacles for themselves, and then stood up on
-’em.</p>
-
-<p>In another room we see lots of relicks of the past.
-Josiah nudged me once or twict a-lookin’ at ’em, I
-spoze to call attention to his poetry and his doubts.
-But I declined to be nudged, and never looked up
-at him at all, but kep’ my eye on the relicks.</p>
-
-<p>One is a seal ring of Shakespeare’s, with his
-initials, W. S., tied together with a true lover’s knot.
-It wuz found near Stratford meetin’-house, twenty
-years ago and over, and is spozed to be really his
-ring, as he said sunthin’ in his will that shows that
-he had lost his seal ring.</p>
-
-<p>Then there is a letter writ to Shakespeare by
-Richard Quincy, askin’ the loan of some money.</p>
-
-<p>I sez to Josiah, “Whether he got it or not, if he
-could come back now he could sell that letter of
-hisen for enough to make him comfortable.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez Josiah; “I would give fifty cents for
-it myself, or seventy-five, if he would take it in provisions.”</p>
-
-<p>“Hush!” sez I, “you couldn’t git it for that, for
-this letter, I feel, is genuine. It seems so nateral,
-borrowin’ money of a writer. Why,” sez I, “truth
-is stomped onto it.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</span></p>
-
-<p>Then there wuz the desk that Shakespeare sot at
-when a boy. A rough, battered desk it wuz, with
-the lid lifted by leather hinges.</p>
-
-<p>I sot down to it and leaned my head onto my
-hand and thought&mdash;thought&mdash;of how he felt when
-he wuz a-settin’ at it, and wondered if he had boyish
-joys or boyish sorrers jest like the rest of children.
-And if he scribbled poetry when he ort to be studyin’
-his rithmetic, and whether old Miss Shakespeare,
-his ma, sent him off to school happy, with
-fond words and a kiss, or kinder mad from a
-spankin’.</p>
-
-<p>To spank Shakespeare! My soul revolted from
-the thought.</p>
-
-<p>Or whether, while he sot here, he studied his
-schoolmates and teachers with eyes that must have
-held some fur-seein’ wisdom in ’em even at that age,
-or whether his mind wuz all took up with goin’ in
-a-swimmin’ in the clear waters of Avon, or a-goin’
-a huntin’, or a-nuttin’ in his rich neighbor’s woods,
-Sir Thomas Lucy, who looked down with sech
-disdain on William when a boy and a young man,
-and now whose only earthly chance of bein’ held in
-any remembrance is the fact that he misused
-Shakespeare.</p>
-
-<p>But then mebby<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span> William wuz tryin’, boys are
-sometimes.</p>
-
-<p>I wondered if while he wuz a-settin’ here where I
-sot any dreams of Anne Hathaway begun to come
-into his brain. She must have been about eighteen,
-allowin’ that William wuz ten; mebby some dreams
-of the pretty young girl hanted the boy’s vision,
-edgin’ themselves in between thoughts of play and
-study. But before long them little dreams wuz
-a-goin’ to rise up and push every other vision out
-of his mind.</p>
-
-<p>And then there wuz Shakespeare’s jug, and the
-old sign of the Falcon&mdash;I hated to see ’em.</p>
-
-<p>And some old deeds and documents relatin’ to
-his father’s property, from John Shackspere and
-Mary his wyffe, and a deed with Gilbert Shakspere’s
-autograph on it.</p>
-
-<p>And lots of engravin’s of different places about
-Stratford, and a great many portraits of Shakespeare.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp55" id="i_344" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_344.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>A great many portraits of Shakespeare.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Poor creeter! if he and Columbus have got
-acquainted with each other where they be now, as
-I spoze it is nateral to think they have, how they
-must sympathize with each other over the numerous
-faces they wuz said to have had on this planet!
-Noble creeters, it wuz too bad, when they only had
-one apiece, and good, noble-lookin’ ones, I most
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span>know, or they wuz, anyway, when they got older,
-for Time, the sculptor, must have sculped some of
-their noble traits into their faces.</p>
-
-<p>Martin and Alice bought quite a number of
-steroscopic views, and I bought a few, and would,
-though Josiah looked askance at me as I did it, and
-we left the cottage. But I laid my hand on the
-doorway as I went out, as though it wuz a shrine,
-as indeed it wuz.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, havin’ seen the place where he wuz born,
-we naterally wanted to see the place where he is
-a-layin’, where “After life’s fitful fever he sleeps
-well,” havin’ “Ended the heartache, and all the
-natural ills that flesh is heir to.”</p>
-
-<p>So we sot out for Holy Trinity Church. New
-Place, as it wuz called, where Shakespeare spent the
-last days of his life, and where his girl entertained
-Queen Henriette, wuz torn down in 1757 by its
-owner, who had moved away, and didn’t want to
-pay the heavey taxes levied on it. While livin’
-there, he had cut down the mulberry-tree Shakespeare
-planted, because folks thronged into his
-garden so, and cut off twigs, etc., for relicks; so he
-cut it down.</p>
-
-<p>It seems mean in him, and then, on the other
-hand, it would be hard for us to be broke in on any
-hour of the day, sometimes when we had a hard
-headache, and wanted to set quiet under our own
-vine and mulberry-tree, to have a gang of enthusiastick<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span>
-tourists come, and not only break up your
-quiet, but break off your branches over your achin’
-head, and mebby recite Shakespeare right there in
-broad daylight, and declaim, and elocute, and act.</p>
-
-<p>It would be tuff&mdash;tuff both ways. But the young
-folks of Stratford wuzn’t megum&mdash;they didn’t try
-to see on all sides, as she who wuz once Smith tries
-to do, so they used to pelt his winder with stuns
-and things, so he moved out. And much as I
-honor and revere Shakespeare, I feel kinder sorry
-for the man, mebby because nobody else seems to
-say a decent word for him. But I believe he see
-trouble, with taxes, tourists, elocution, and sech.
-And because our eyes are sot on a blazin’ sun that
-is shinin’ high in the Heavens, it hain’t no sign that
-we ort to kick over every kerosene lamp and candle
-that we come acrost. No; less be jest to all, and
-respect what is respectable in ’em, and be sorry for
-humble trials, as well as proud of lofty glories.</p>
-
-<p>But to resoom&mdash;The house that stands on the
-spot now is owned by the town, and is a museum
-of Shakespeare’s relicks and souvneirs. It is needless
-to say how many emotions I had as I walked
-onwards towards the tomb of the greatest writer
-who has ever appeared on our planet&mdash;in fact, I
-couldn’t count ’em or begin to, if there wuz any
-need on’t.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span></p>
-
-<p>Nor nobody couldn’t see the crowd that walked
-with me&mdash;King Lear, with sweet Cordelia a kinder
-holdin’ him up; eloquent Portia, Lady Macbeth&mdash;the
-Henrys and Richards&mdash;the bright-faced Shrew
-that wuz tamed&mdash;Prince Hamlet&mdash;Ophelia a-babblin’
-her love ditties&mdash;Imogene&mdash;poor Desdemona,
-and her folks, and etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. How
-they pressed round me!&mdash;a great deal nigher to me
-than Adrian wuz, though I wuz a-leadin’ him by
-the hand.</p>
-
-<p>The church stands near the banks of the sweet
-Avon. And we went up to it by a avenue of trees,
-and through a great Gothic door, into a porch that
-led into the church itself. The old sexton, who had
-onlocked the door for us, at our request led us
-right up to the monument, which is in a niche in
-the chancel, and is spozed to be a perfect likeness, as
-it wuz made by a sculptor who wuz acquainted
-with Shakespeare, and who had a death mask to
-work from.</p>
-
-<p>There he stands or sets, as the case may be, for a
-sort of a marble cushion comes up in front of him,
-and you can’t see quite to the bottom of his
-vest.</p>
-
-<p>He stands (or sets) with that high, noble forward
-and good-lookin’ featers, and eyes that look clear
-through your soul, and that deep collar of hisen <span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</span>on,
-under a arch that has some cupids up on each side
-on top, and coats-of-arms, and skulls, and things.</p>
-
-<p>And there he has stood (or sot) through the centuries,
-jest as I spoze he would wanted to, with a
-paper in one hand and a pen in the other, to all
-appearance a-writin’, and the hull world a-readin’ it.</p>
-
-<p>In front of the altar rails are the marble slabs
-over the graves of the Shakespeare family, among
-them his wife, Anne Hathaway; it reads as follers&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Here lyeth interred the body of Anne,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Wife of William Shakspere, who depted this life the</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">6 day of Aug. 1623, being of the age of 67 years.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Another slab marks the grave of Susanna, the
-poet’s daughter.</p>
-
-<p>But, of course, the slab that gin me the biggest
-sized emotions, and the greatest number on ’em, wuz
-the one over the poet, which has these mysterious
-and immortal lines on’t&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Good friend, for Jesu’s sake forbeare</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">To digg the dust encloased heare;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And cursed be he yt moves my bones.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I had a immense emotions of or as I read these
-words, and dassent hardly lay my hand on’t. But
-made up my mind that as I didn’t have no idee of
-movin’ his bones, and laid out to spare the stuns,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</span> I
-might venter.</p>
-
-<p>There are them that think that some great secret
-wuz buried with Shakespeare&mdash;them are the ones
-that are so sot on thinkin’ that Bacon wuz the one
-who writ the great plays, and they say in this very
-inscription is hid in cypher a confession that Bacon
-writ ’em.</p>
-
-<p>But I didn’t seem to think so, nor Josiah didn’t,
-though he wuz all took up with the idee of the
-cypher, as Martin broached it.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “How beautiful it would be, and how
-stylish, to write to you when you’re off on your towers
-with a cypher! I could write it in poetry, and it
-would be so uneek, and if I wanted to complain to
-you about the children, or Ury, or anything, how
-handy it would be!”</p>
-
-<p>“But,” I sez, “in answer to that idee of yourn,
-I can quote to you the first line of Shakespeare’s
-epitaph, and I feel it, too,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>He went back and read it over agin, and come
-back lookin’ real puggicky.</p>
-
-<p>But I see that other folks had felt jest as I did
-about disturbin’ the slab, for it looked fresh and
-new, while the other ones near it wuz all worn with
-the footprints of time and the tourists; and when
-the poet’s wife and daughter died, they wanted dretful
-to be laid by William, but they dassent open the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</span>
-grave. The curse he threatened held ’em back.</p>
-
-<p>Queer! I wish I knew what he meant by it,
-but can’t; the silence of three hundred years can’t
-be broke by one small woman’s voice, or ruther one
-woman’s small voice. No answer comes to our
-deep wonder and curosity.</p>
-
-<p>In this church is the font where Shakespeare wuz
-baptized&mdash;this wuz in the church at the time of his
-birth, but wuz took out in the seventeenth century,
-and replaced by a new one; this old one lay for years
-in a heap of rubbish, and wuz used for a pump
-trough for a spell&mdash;jest think on’t!</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_350" style="max-width: 20em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_350.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>The font in which Shakespeare was baptized.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>There is other interestin’ things in the church,
-but we didn’t wait to see ’em. We went out and
-wandered for a spell around the quaint streets of
-Stratford. Every shop almost has souvneirs to sell
-of the great man&mdash;busts and medallions and picters
-of him and his home, and his tomb, and carvin’s,
-engravin’s, etc., etc. I <i>would</i> buy a plate with his
-birthplace on’t, though Josiah demurred.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I always thought you wuz so peticular,
-Samantha, what you eat on, and the idee of eatin’
-on Shakespeare&mdash;cow-slop greens, for instance, or
-pork and beans.”</p>
-
-<p>I sez, “It hain’t Shakespeare’s face.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</span></p>
-
-<p>“Wall, eatin’ cabbage and onions on a meetin’-house.”</p>
-
-<p>“It is <i>his</i> house,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “custard and Shakespeare’s
-birthplace.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “what of it&mdash;what of custard and
-Shakespeare?” My tone wuz cold&mdash;cold as ice,
-and it danted him, and he sez&mdash;“Oh, wall, if you
-can reconcile ’em, and bring ’em together, buy
-it.”</p>
-
-<p>It wuz the money he begreched, though you
-could git ’em from a sixpence up. I gin a shillin’
-for mine. It wuz a good plate.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we went acrost the old bridge, over the
-clear waters of the Avon. And we visited the
-Memorial Hall, a big buildin’ built in honor of
-the poet’s three hundredth anniversary. It has
-a theatre to act out Shakespeare’s plays on
-Memorial days, and a library filled with the volumes
-that have been writ about him, and the
-picter gallery is filled with picters, some on ’em
-different faces of hisen, and them relatin’ to his
-life and writin’s. It wuz a interestin’ spot, and I
-would have loved to lingered in it longer, and so
-would Alice and Al Faizi, but Josiah wuz tired out,
-and he sed to me aside&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“It is most night and I <span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</span>am starved to death!”
-Sez he, “I hain’t most starved, but starved.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “we shall have to do what Martin
-sez.”</p>
-
-<p>“Martin!” he whispered enough to take my
-head off&mdash;“Martin! Can he suffer and die for me,
-do you think?”</p>
-
-<p>And then he reviled me for not havin’ some
-cookies and cheese with me.</p>
-
-<p>And I asked him if I could be expected to make a
-restoraunt of myself, and lug round cookies and cheese
-for him all over Europe. And we had some words.</p>
-
-<p>But the expression of his face wuz pitiful in the
-extreme when Martin come up, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Without doubt it would be expected of me to
-visit Shottery and see Anne Hathaway’s cottage.
-And as my time is limited, and I have already
-wasted nearly a day of my valuable time in noticing
-Shakespeare, I think that we had better do up the
-whole of this weary job to-night; so I propose that
-we go at once from here to Shottery.” And he
-hurried out to the carriage.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah whispered to me in a feeble voice, “He
-needn’t use any Shottery on me or stabbery or any
-other killery, I shall fall dead without ’em. I cannot
-stand it, Samantha!” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>He did indeed look wan; weariness and hunger
-had made sad inroads on his mean, and my heart
-melted, and I hurried out to see if I could <span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</span>gain
-Martin’s consent to wait till mornin’ before we went.
-But no! He said he knew that he should be asked
-if he had seen the cottage, and he could not waste
-another day on a writer of
-books and the girl he married.</p>
-
-<p>Alice come out jest then
-a-lookin’ considerable pale, and
-I sez, “It is goin’ to be pretty
-hard on Alice and Adrian;
-they are pretty tired now.”</p>
-
-<p>“Are they?” sez he. That
-man would have jumped into
-the Avon if it would have
-pleased either of ’em. He
-worships ’em. And then he
-sez, “I suppose I can stay
-over another day.” Sez he,
-“They are of the <i>first</i> importance.”</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp69" id="i_353" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_353.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>The supper that man eat wuz enormous.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Josiah sez to me aside&mdash;“Dear Samantha, you
-have saved my life!”</p>
-
-<p>And the supper that man eat wuz so enormous
-that I whispered&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Have I saved you, Josiah, to lose you now?
-saved you on the road and relicks, to lose you on a
-plate and deep dish?” And he didn’t like it.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">SHOTTERY AND WARWICK CASTLE.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the next mornin’ we sot out bright and
-early for Shottery, Josiah feelin’ as peart as you
-please, and the two children’s faces lookin’ like
-roses. Al Faizi’s eyes wuz bent on the biggest and
-sweetest rose, as you may say, with a worshippin’
-look, that nobody noticed but she who wuz once
-Smith.</p>
-
-<p>We found the cottage a long, low buildin’, lookin’
-as old as the hills, though, like ’em, there didn’t seem
-to be no signs of fallin’ down and decayin’.</p>
-
-<p>They say it is in jest the condition it wuz when
-gentle Anne Hathaway lived here, and drawed
-William over here so often by the strong magnetism
-of love.</p>
-
-<p>The walls wuz kinder criss-crossed, lookin’ some
-like Shakespeare’s cottage, and the ruff wuz kinder
-histed up in places, down towards the eaves, into
-gabriel ends. And some birds wuz playin’ and
-wheelin’ round the chimblys. They might have
-been to all appearance the very same birds that sang
-round the latticed winders of Anne’s room, and
-waked her up on summer mornin’s, a-sayin’ to her,
-as they wheeled round and round it, in the rosy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</span>
-dawn&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Will is coming to-day to see you! Will loves
-you! Will loves you!”</p>
-
-<p>I presoom the birds wuz relations to them very
-ones&mdash;grandchildren, “removed” a great number
-of times.</p>
-
-<p>If birds keep a family tree and plume themselves
-on their ancestors (and trees and plumes comes
-nateral to ’em), I presoom they talk this over
-amongst themselves; mebby that wuz jest what they
-wuz a-talkin’ about that day, a-twitterin’ about
-legends a-flyin’ down from the past&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>How the happy, eager-faced lover ust to come
-to see their pretty Anne, and how her heart wuz
-won, and she went out of the old house a happy
-bride with the man of her heart, who wuz not an
-illustrious man to her at all, but only Will, Will
-Shakespeare, the man she loved, and who loved her.</p>
-
-<p>How they did chirp and talk sunthin’ over! I d’no
-what it wuz.</p>
-
-<p>Inside wuz some old-fashioned furniture, amongst
-the rest a bed that ust to belong to Miss Shakespeare,
-she that wuz Anne Hathaway. Mebby it wuz
-the same bedstead that her pardner left her in his
-will.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</span></p>
-
-<p>“His second-best bed and bed furniture.”</p>
-
-<p>It seems as if he hadn’t ort to done it; it seems
-as if she ort to had the best one. Howsumever,
-there might be reasons that I don’t know nothin’ of
-that influenced him. Mebby they’d had words over
-it; mebby she’d told him that she wouldn’t take it
-as a gift, and that he needn’t give it to her; mebby
-she thought it wuz extravagant in him to buy it,
-and throwed it in his face that as much as he paid
-for it, it wuz nothin’ but hens’ feathers, and the
-second-best bed, the one her ma had gin her, wuz as
-good agin and softer layin’.</p>
-
-<p>I d’no, nor nobody don’t. Anyway, he willed it
-to her, and I presoom it wuz on this very bedstead
-it wuz put; it gin me queer emotions to look on’t,
-and a sight on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin sed that as the day wuz partially
-wasted, we might jest as well drive over and see
-Warwick Castle; it wuz only eight milds’ drive.</p>
-
-<p>The old town of Warwick is about eighteen
-hundred years old, and dates back to the time of
-the Romans.</p>
-
-<p>But, as Martin well sed, “Think of a town over
-eighteen hundred years old with only ten thousand
-inhabitants, and then,” sez he, a-leanin’ back in the
-carriage and puttin’ his thumbs in his vest pockets
-a-pityin’ and a-patronizin’ the Old World dretfully&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Think of Chicago, about fifty years old and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</span>
-with a population of about forty hundred thousand”&mdash;he
-spread out the population a purpose. He owns
-lots of real estate in Chicago, and is always a-puffin’
-it up.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “They haven’t got public enterprise and
-push over here, as we have.”</p>
-
-<p>But his tone kinder grated on my nerve somehow,
-and I spoke up and sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“They don’t base their reputation on a mob of
-folks, and beef and pork; they have sunthin’ more
-solider and more riz up like.”</p>
-
-<p>But I’ll be hanged if I didn’t have to change
-my mind a little afterwards, of which more
-anon.</p>
-
-<p>You see I had heard Thomas J. read a sight
-about the old Saxon earls of Warwick, and specially
-Guy Warwick in the time of Alfred the Great (you
-know the man that fried them pancakes and burnt
-’em, and had other great reverses, but come out
-right in the end, as men always do who are willin’
-to help wimmen in their housework).</p>
-
-<p>I always bore strong on this great moral when
-Thomas J. would be a-readin’ these deeds to me (I
-thought he might jest as well wipe a few dishes for
-me once in a while as well as not). And he’d read
-“how Guy killed a Saxon giant nine feet tall, and a
-wild boar, and a green dragon, and killed an enormous
-cow.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</span></p>
-
-<p>At the porter’s lodge we see the rib of that cow,
-and Josiah said, “You sed that they didn’t date
-back any of their greatness to beef; what do you
-call this? Why,” sez he, “Ury and I kill a cow
-almost every fall; nothin’ is said in history of it;
-you don’t set any more store by me.”</p>
-
-<p>I see that I had done the man onjestice, and I
-sez tenderly, “You are a good provider of beef,
-Josiah, and always have been; but,” sez I, “this
-cow wuz probble twice the size of one of your
-Jerseys. You couldn’t wear that breastplate, or
-swing that great tiltin’-pole, or the enormous sword
-that hangs up there,” sez I, “you couldn’t move
-’em hardly with both hands, and,” sez I, “look at
-that immense porridge-pot of hisen; you couldn’t
-eat that full of porridge, as he probble did.”</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp92" id="i_359" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_359.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">You couldn’t eat that full of porridge.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Try me!” sez he, earnestly&mdash;“jest try me, that’s
-all.” Sez he, “I could eat every spunful and ask for
-more.”</p>
-
-<p>And there it wuzn’t much after noon. That
-man’s appetite is a wonder to me and has been ever
-sence I took it in charge. And foreign travel,
-which I thought mebby would kind o’ quell it down,
-only seems to whet it up to a sharper edge.</p>
-
-<p>The way to the castle is through a large gateway,
-and then we go through a roadway which is cut
-through solid rock for more’n a hundred feet,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</span>
-and then when you come out, you suddenly git a
-full view of the grand old castle, with its strong
-walls and noble old Round towers.</p>
-
-<p>The first is Guy’s Tower, one hundred and twenty-eight
-feet high, and has walls ten feet thick&mdash;jest
-think on’t! the walls further
-acrost than our best bedroom.</p>
-
-<p>Then there is Cæsar’s Tower,
-eight hundred years old and one
-hundred and fifty feet high, and
-between these towers the gray,
-strong old castle walls, with slits
-in ’em for the bowmen to shoot
-their arrers out of, and portcullises
-and old moat, showin’
-that the castle in its young days
-had everything for its comfort and defence. Enterin’
-one of the arched gateways in the wall, you
-find yourself on the velvet grass and amongst the
-stately old trees of a spacious courtyard, with the
-ivy-covered walls and towers and battlements risin’
-on every side of it.</p>
-
-<p>We walked round up on them walls&mdash;clumb up
-into Guy’s Tower and looked off on a glorious landscape,
-as beautiful as any picter, and went down
-below Cæsar’s Tower into some dungeons; gloomy
-places of sorrer, filled even now with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</span> atmosphere
-of pain and agonized memories.</p>
-
-<p>The great hall, sixty-two feet by forty, with oak
-ceilin’ and walls darkened by time and covered with
-carvin’s, has firearms of all kinds, and splendid
-armor of all ages&mdash;English crossbows, wicked-lookin’
-Italian rapiers, weepons of all kinds inlaid
-with gold and silver in the most elegant workmanship.</p>
-
-<p>We see Prince Rupert’s armor, Cromwell’s helmet,
-a gun from the battlefield of Marston Moor. And,
-in fact, all round you you see the most elegant and
-curous curosities, and can look down the hull
-length of the grand apartments that open into each
-other, a length of three hundred and thirty feet&mdash;the
-red drawin’-room, the gilt drawin’-room, the
-cedar drawin’-room, etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>At the end of a little hall leadin’ from the great
-hall I see the noted picter of Charles 1st on horseback,
-with one hand on his side.</p>
-
-<p>I declare, it actually seemed as if he wuz a-goin’
-to ride right in here amongst us, it wuz so perfectly
-nateral. It wuz painted by Vandyke. I don’t see
-how Vandyke ever done it&mdash;I couldn’t.</p>
-
-<p>The apartments are all furnished beautiful&mdash;beautiful.
-Cabinets, bronzes, exquisite old china, magnificent
-anteek furniture, and the most rare and
-beautiful picters are on every side&mdash;by Rubens, Sir<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</span>
-Peter Lely, Hans Holbein, Salvator Rosa, Rembrandt,
-Vandyke, Guido, Andrea del Sarto, Teniers,
-Murillo, Paul Veronese. And beautiful marble
-busts by Chantrey, Powers, etc. There wuz a lovely
-table that once wuz owned by Marie Antoinette.
-And others had rarest vases on ’em, and wonderful
-enamelled work of glass and china, with raised figgers
-on ’em, made by floatin’ the metals in glass;
-nobody in the world knows now how to make ’em.
-One dish we see wuz worth one thousand pounds.</p>
-
-<p>As I see this I nudged Josiah, and sez I, “When
-you think of what this dish is worth, hain’t you
-ashamed of standin’ out about that plate?” And
-he said&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“It wuz the sperit of the thing I looked at,
-mixin’ Shakespeare up with vittles; though,” sez he,
-“I would gladly eat now offen a angel or a seraphin;
-why,” sez he, “St. Peter himself wouldn’t dant me.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “we’ll be havin’ dinner before
-long.” We laid out to eat at Warwick before we
-went back.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Look round you and let your soul grow
-by takin’ in these noble sights.” Sez I, “Look at
-them bronzes and tortoise-shell and ivory and
-mosaic.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</span>“I’d swop the hull lot of ’em, if they belonged
-to me, for a plate of nut cakes or a bologna
-sassige. And I’d ruther see a good platter of pork
-and beans than the hull on ’em!”</p>
-
-<p>I knew he wouldn’t complain so much alone, so
-I left him and sauntered round
-to look at the beautiful objects
-on every side.</p>
-
-<p>In the state bedroom is the
-bed that belonged to Queen
-Anne, and the table and trunks
-that she used, also her picter.</p>
-
-<p>In the grand dinin’ hall is a
-great sideboard, made from a
-oak that grew on the Kenilworth
-estate, so old that they
-spoze it wuz standin’ when
-Queen Elizabeth come here to
-the castle a-visitin’.</p>
-
-<p>The carvin’s on it show the
-comin’ of Queen Elizabeth
-and her train, her meetin’ with sweet Amy Robsart
-in the grotto, the queen’s meetin’ with Leicester,
-etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>Jest as I wuz a-lookin’ at this and a-standin’ before
-it in deep thought, Martin come on out of
-the drawin’-room, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“A wonderful display of art and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</span> virtu!” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>My eye wuz bent on that sideboard, and I
-sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I d’no as I’d call it a display of virtue&mdash;I don’t
-believe I would.”</p>
-
-<p>I wuz sorry for Miss Leicester&mdash;sorry as a dog.</p>
-
-<p>Though when I see the epitaph she put above
-that handsome, fascinatin’ mean creeter (her husband),
-put it over him her own self, when he wuzn’t
-by her to skair her and make her stand up for him
-as pardners will sometimes&mdash;I d’no as I wuz very
-sorry for her. Thinkses I, She either didn’t know
-enough to know what her pardner wuz up to, or else
-she wuz sech a fool she didn’t care about it. In either
-case I felt that my sympathy wuz wasted&mdash;of which
-epitaph more anon.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we went through a place in the wall they
-called a portcullis, and over a bridge called a
-moat.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp65" id="i_362" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_362.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">The more I see of moats, the more determined
- I be to have one round our house.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And Josiah nudged me here, and sez he, “The
-more I see of moats, the more determined I be to
-have one round our house.” Sez he, “How stylish
-it would be and how handy! When you see company
-comin’ you didn’t want, or peddlers or agents
-or anything, jest pull back your drawbridge, and
-there you’d be safe and sound.” Sez he, “I’ve
-wanted one for years, and now I’m bound on havin’
-one.” Sez he, “Ury and I will start one the minute
-I git home.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “You won’t do any sech thing.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</span></p>
-
-<p>“Why,” sez he, a-arguin’, “it would be a boon to
-you, Samantha; hain’t I hearn you groan when onexpected
-company driv up, and you wuz out of
-cookin’ or cleanin’ house or anything? All you’d
-have to do would be jest to speak to Ury or me, and
-jest as they wuz a-comin’ along, a-thinkin’ of dinner
-mebby, a-wonderin’ what you’d have&mdash;bang! would
-go the drawbridge, and they’d jest have to back up,
-and turn round and go home.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I; “how could I face ’em the next
-Sunday in meetin’? It hain’t feasible,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Face ’em?” sez he; “if they said anything, tell
-’em to start a moat of their own; tell ’em you
-couldn’t keep house without one.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, shaw!” sez I; “come and look at this
-vase.”</p>
-
-<p>And, indeed, we had entered a greenhouse full of
-the most beautiful flowers and rare plants, and wuz
-even then in front of the famous Warwick vase.
-It is a huge, round, white marble vase that holds
-one hundred and thirty-six gallons, with clusters of
-grapes and leaves and tendrils; and vine branches,
-exquisitely wrought, run round the top and form
-the two large handles, with other designs full of
-grace and beauty all wrought in it. How old this
-vase is nobody knows, but it wuz used by somebody<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</span>
-probbly centuries before old Warwick Castle wuz
-ever thought on.</p>
-
-<p>Who wuz it that drinked out of it? How did
-they look? How come it sunk in the bottom of
-the lake? I d’no, nor Josiah don’t.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz found at the bottom of a lake near Tivoli
-by Sir William Hamilton, Ambassador then at the
-court of Naples.</p>
-
-<p>I gazed pensively on the vine-clad spear of
-Mr. Bacchus carved on it, and sez I to Josiah&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“How true it is that that sharp spear that Mr.
-Bacchus brandishes is covered with beautiful vines
-and flowers at first; but it stabs,” sez I&mdash;“it stabs
-hard, and,” sez I, “who knows but somebody that
-had been pierced to the heart by that spear of hisen,
-a-reachin’ ’em mebby through the ruined life of
-some loved one&mdash;who knows but what he got so
-sick of seein’ them symbols of drinkin’ revels that
-he jest pitched it into the lake?”</p>
-
-<p>“Keep on!” sez Josiah, “keep on! I believe
-you’d keep up your dum temperance talk if you
-wuz on the way to the scaffold.”</p>
-
-<p>“That would be the time to preach it,” sez I;
-“scaffolds is jest what drinkin’ revels lead to, and
-if it wuz my last words, mebby folks would pay
-some attention to what I said.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</span></p>
-
-<p>“Wall, wait till then,” sez he. “I have got to
-have a little rest. I am dyin’ for a little food, and
-if I git through this day alive I have got to be
-careful, and let my <i>ears</i> rest anyway.”</p>
-
-<p>He did indeed look quite bad, and I sez soothin’ly&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, Martin will be for goin’ back before long
-now. He is gittin’ hungry himself; I heard him
-say so.”</p>
-
-<p>We didn’t stop to but one more place on our
-way back to the tarvern where we had dinner, and
-that wuz to that old horsepital founded by Robert
-Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in 1571. It wuz meant
-in the first place for one Master and twelve bretheren,
-the bretheren to be of the Earl’s servants, or
-his soldiers who had been injured in battle. But
-now they are appointed from Warwick and
-Gloucester, and have a comfortable livin’.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz quite likely in Robert to build this horsepital&mdash;a
-old-fashioned-lookin’ place enough in 1895.
-But sech likely deeds as this couldn’t cover up his
-black performances.</p>
-
-<p>The chapel is an elegant buildin’, built for a
-memorial to the great Earl of Warwick, the first in
-the Norman line, and his elaborate tomb is here.</p>
-
-<p>But it wuz in this chapel where I see the epitaph<span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</span>
-of which I spoke more formerly. It is over the
-tomb of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the one
-Queen Elizabeth thought so much on. There I
-see the epitaph I despised.</p>
-
-<p>On the tomb are the recumbent figgers of
-Leicester and his pardner, the Countess Lettice.
-Probbly about the only time they wuz ever so
-nigh to each other without quarrellin’, and this
-epitaph sez, after givin’ all his titles&mdash;more’n enough
-of ’em&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“His most sorrowful wife Letitia, through a
-sense of conjugal love and fidelity, has put up this
-monument to the <i>best</i> and <i>dearest</i> of husbands.”</p>
-
-<p>She must have been a <i>fool</i>, for besides his goin’s
-on with the queen&mdash;which would made me as
-jealous as a dog&mdash;a learned writer says&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“According to every appearance of probability,
-he poisoned his first wife, disowned his second, dishonored
-his third before he married her, and in
-order to marry her, murdered her first husband,
-while his only surviving son was a natural child by
-Lady Sheffield.”</p>
-
-<p>“The <i>best</i> of husbands!” What wuz Lettice
-a-thinkin’ on? She’d no need to put his actin’s and
-cuttin’s up on a tombstun. I wouldn’t advised
-her to; but I should say to her&mdash;“Now, Lettice,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</span>you jest put onto that gravestun a good, plain
-Bible verse&mdash;‘The Lord be merciful to me, a sinner,’
-or, ‘Now the weary are at rest,’” or sunthin’
-like that&mdash;I should have convinced her. But, then,
-I wuzn’t there&mdash;I wuz born a few hundred years too
-late, and so it had to be; but it made me feel bad
-to see it. I want my sect to have a little self-respect.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi is dretful well-read in history, and he
-took out that little book of hisen, and copied off
-the hull of the inscription on Leicester’s tomb, all
-the glowin’ eulogy of his glorious deeds, which he
-knew wuz false. He didn’t say nothin’, as usual,
-but looked quite a good deal as he writ.</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t say nothin’ to him, but Josiah will att
-him once in a while about his writin’, and he sez
-now&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“What are you a-writin’ about, Fazer?”</p>
-
-<p>He turned his dreamy, pleasant eyes onto us,
-and seemed to be lookin’ some distance through
-us and beyend us, and the light from the East
-winder fell warm on his face as he sez evasively&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Your missionaries tell our people to always
-tell the truth&mdash;that we will be lost if we do not.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez Josiah, “that is true.”</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi didn’t reply to him, but kep’ on
-a-writin’.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</span></p>
-<p>Wall, a happy man wuz my pardner as we returned
-to the tarvern, and a good, refreshin’ meal
-of vittles wuz spread before him. He done jestice
-to it&mdash;full jestice&mdash;yes, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the next mornin’ we sot out for the Lake
-Deestrict, accordin’ to Martin’s first plan, which
-he’d changed some. Sez Martin, as we wuz talkin’
-it over that evenin’&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“It would, perhaps, be expected of me to go
-on and visit Oxford.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I warmly, “Thomas J. has read so
-much to me about Tom Brown at Oxford, it
-would be highly interestin’ to see the places Tom
-thought so much on.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez Alice with enthoosiasm, “and where
-Richard the Lion-hearted was born, and where
-Alfred the Great lived.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez Josiah, “I wouldn’t give a cent to see where
-he lived. I despise fryin’ flap-jacks, and always did,
-and if a man undertakes to fry ’em, he ort to tend to
-’em and not let ’em burn.”</p>
-
-<p>But Alice went right on, “And think of being
-in the place which William the Conqueror invaded!”</p>
-
-<p>“And,” sez Al Faizi, “where Latimer, and Ridley,
-and Cranmer were burned at the stake for
-their religion by Bloody Mary.”</p>
-
-<p>It beat all how well-read that <span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</span>heathen is&mdash;he
-knows more than the schoolmaster at Jonesville,
-enough sight.</p>
-
-<p>But sez Martin, with his thumbs inside of them
-armholes of hisen&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“It is not for any
-such trifling reasons that
-I would visit Oxford,
-but, as I say, it undoubtedly
-would be expected
-of me, if it was
-known at Oxford that I
-was so near, that I would
-give a little of my valuable
-time to them; for
-there, I have thought
-hard of sending my son
-to finish his education.</p>
-
-<p>“For as you know,
-Cousin Samantha, my
-boy is to have the best
-and costliest education that money can give.
-His future is in the hands of one who will look
-out sharply for the very best and most valuable
-means of education. It is not as if he were
-a common child. But he is my little Partner&mdash;are
-you not, Adrian?” sez he fondly to the little
-boy, who wuz lookin’ dreamily out of the winder.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</span></p>
-<p>Adrian turned, and the gold of the settin’ sun
-wuz on his sweet face.</p>
-
-<p>“Your father will look out for your future, little
-Partner; we will work together for your good, will
-we not, my boy?”</p>
-
-<p>Mebby it wuz because I sot there so nigh&mdash;mebby
-it wuz the perfume of the English voyalets Alice
-had pinned into the front of my bask, jest like
-’em I wore that day, but, anyway, some recollection
-seemed to take him back to that time at Jonesville,
-for he sez, jest as he did then&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp70" id="i_370" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_370.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">I am going to work for the poor.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“I am going to work for the poor.”</p>
-
-<p>“Ah, indeed!” sez Martin, smilin’, “and how
-will you do it, little Partner?”</p>
-
-<p>Agin he turned his sweet face towards us, and
-agin the big, earnest eyes and sweet, serious mouth
-wuz gilded by the glowin’, yet sad smile of the
-sinkin’ sun.</p>
-
-<p>And he sez simply, “I don’t quite know how,
-Father, but I know I shall work for them, and help
-them in some way.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin dismissed the matter with a laugh,
-but I kep’ the words in my heart, and believed ’em.
-I believed truly that the Lord would lead him, and
-make him do His work.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I kinder wanted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</span> to visit Mugby Junction,
-as Dickens named Rugby Junction. It wuzn’t fur
-from Warwick, and I’d loved to seen it, and eat one
-of them sandwitches, and been glared at by the
-female in charge there, and her help, and seen her
-poor, browbeat husband and the <i>Boy</i>, but didn’t
-know as they wuz all alive.</p>
-
-<p>And if they wuz, as Josiah well sed, sez he, “My
-stumick is bad enough now, without eatin’ leather
-sandwitches.”</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “I’d love to give ’em my recipe for
-good yeast bread, and I’d willin’ly tell ’em how to
-make delicious sandwitches, and not ask a cent for
-it.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Take good minced chicken, or lamb, and
-a little mustard and sweet butter, and a pinch of
-minced onions and&mdash;”</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah interrupted me, “They’d only look
-stunily at you if you offered your services; why,”
-sez he, “they always look as if they feel so much
-above you at our railroad stations to home, that you
-want to crawl into your hand-bag and git out of
-their way. They’d despise your overtoors.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “my conscience would be clear,
-and travellers’ nightmairs wouldn’t be so frequent.”</p>
-
-<p>But a bystander observed that they had good
-sandwitches there now.</p>
-
-<p>Havin’ been turned round<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</span> in their stuny and
-leather course, by Dickens, I spoze.</p>
-
-<p>So we packed up our things and started in pretty
-good sperits for the Lake Deestrict.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">THE LAKE DISTRICT AND ITS POETS.</p>
-
-<p>We went to Windermere, and from there took
-the omnibus for Bowness&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>One of the charmin’est little villages I ever sot
-my eyes on, as clean as my kitchen is when I git
-it all swept out. The housen are all built of stun,
-and some on ’em have little porches built out on
-’em, but all on ’em overrun with ivy. And flowers
-and pretty climbin’ plants make every house attractive,
-and not a mite of dust or dirt&mdash;I wonder
-what they do with it?</p>
-
-<p>The little tarvern where we stayed wuz so clean
-and comfortable that I wondered what the tarvern-keeper
-and his wife would say if they wuz sot down
-in some of our own small hotels. It wuz a lesson
-in perfect neatness and order, the hull place wuz.</p>
-
-<p>And the landscapes all round the little village
-wuz pretty enough to frame, and we see ’em more
-or less all the while we stayed there; we made our
-headquarters there, and sallied out for excursions,
-a-lookin’ on picters on every side on us&mdash;green
-grass and foliage, high, tree-covered hills, little,
-lovely, clean, picturesque villages like them I have
-described, magnificent country seats, with grand entrances<span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</span>
-and porters’ lodges, and stately green parks,
-and fountains, and deers, and sleek herds of cattle
-walkin’ through on the velvet grass and green tree
-aisles, and cottages, and quaint old bridges, and
-dark stun churches half covered with ivy.</p>
-
-<p>Bowness is on the shores of the lake. As I say,
-we put up at a good tarvern, and the next day we
-sot out on our sight-seein’.</p>
-
-<p>The waiter at the tarvern told us as we sot out on
-our first excursion that we had better take our
-waterproofs and umbrells.</p>
-
-<p>It is needless to say that I had my faithful umbrell
-in my hand, but the rest hadn’t, so they got
-theirn, and I went back for my waterproof, and
-glad enough we wuz, for before night we wuz
-ketched out in four different showers&mdash;good drivin’
-ones, but short.</p>
-
-<p>Martin, who had been ust to fur bigger lakes&mdash;Michigan,
-Ontario, Superior, and sech&mdash;wuz bitterly
-dissapinted in ’em, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“A trout out of Lake Superior would die of
-thirst in one of these lakes.”</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah, who had been up on our lakes on
-a tower, sed that those lakes would make a pretty
-good waterin’ trough for American cattle; sez he,
-“There would be in each one of ’em as much as an
-ordinary Yankee cow would want to drink.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</span></p>
-
-<p>I see the driver a-lookin’ on in deep surprise, and
-sez I, “Josiah Allen, remember you are a deacon;
-let it be known to once that you are talkin’ in
-parables.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “I would want to be took in that
-way, but they’re dum small potatoes compared to
-our lakes.”</p>
-
-<p>“But they’re beautiful,” sez I, “and are full of
-tender associations.” Sez I, “Look at the poets that
-have hallowed these sacred spots&mdash;Coleridge, and
-Southey, and Wordsworth, and Mrs. Hemans,
-and&mdash;”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez Josiah, interruptin’ me, “on our
-lakes there is me, and&mdash;”</p>
-
-<p>But I turned away in silent scorn, and looked
-out on the beauty of the seen. Lovely picters
-lay round us on every side&mdash;wooded shores, lovely
-islands, glowin’ waters&mdash;a paneramy of beauty
-never to be forgot.</p>
-
-<p>Dove’s Nest, which wuz once the home of
-Mrs. Hemans, I looked on with a deep interest,
-for though Felishy and I didn’t think alike about
-little Casey Bianky, who “stood on the burnin’
-deck,” and I should have approved of his runnin’
-away before he got burnt up, still I respected her
-for quite a number of things, and as I meditated
-on the poets who had loved this beautiful place,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</span>
-and lived here and wrote their songs, I instinctively
-thought, in the words of Felishy&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“Where are these dreamers now?”</p>
-</div>
-
-<p>The biggest of these lakes are Windermere,
-Ullswater, Conoston and Durwentwater, but there
-are a good many others. And they are all, like our
-Niagara Falls and Thousand Islands, been turned
-into money-makin’ shows.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, of course we wanted to see&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“How the waters come down to Lodore.”</p>
-</div>
-
-<p>But we wuz dretful dissapinted, for the water
-didn’t come a-sweepin’ down with the force and
-fury Mr. Southey described&mdash;not at all. Josiah,
-who had hearn Thomas J. read the poem, wuz mad
-to think it wuzn’t so. “And,” sez he, in a threatenin’
-way&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I could tell Mr. Southey that we didn’t know
-none the better for <i>his</i> tellin’ ‘How the waters
-come down to Lodore.’</p>
-
-<p>“Why,” sez he, “the mill-dam to our buzz-saw
-mill in Jonesville is furious agin as this, and more
-noble and impressin’ lookin’ by fur, and,” sez he,
-gettin’ all het up, “I’d love to tell Mr. Southey
-so.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez <span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</span>I, “Josiah, don’t git nerved up and talk about
-jawin’ a man who has been dead for more’n fifty
-years.” Sez I, “It don’t sound decent in you&mdash;he
-meant well.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “He wuz good to his own family, and
-then think of how dretful good he wuz to Coleridge’s
-wife and children; though, to be sure,” sez I,
-“they wuz relations on <i>Her</i> side.”</p>
-
-<p>“I understand that,” sez Josiah; “he could do
-<i>that</i> and not deserve any particular thanks to <i>himself</i>.
-I know how <i>that</i> is.”</p>
-
-<p>I see he wuz insinuatin’ sunthin’ or ruther, but I
-wuzn’t browbeat, nor wuzn’t led off by him.
-Sez I&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“He writ first-rate prose, and wuz Poet Lauerate.</p>
-
-<p>“That wuz what might be expected,” sez Josiah.</p>
-
-<p>I don’t exactly know what he did mean by that,
-and I don’t believe he did.</p>
-
-<p>“Then,” sez I, “he wuz the greatest talker that
-ever talked. He would talk for hours and hours,
-without gittin’ up, or those gittin’ up that heard
-him.”</p>
-
-<p>“I know what that is,” sez Josiah; “that don’t
-raise him in my estimation; no, Heaven knows
-it don’t!”</p>
-
-<p>I hain’t the <i>least</i> idee what he meant by <i>that</i>, but
-he found immegiately that I wouldn’t multiply any
-more words with him.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</span></p>
-
-<p>But, as I sez, it wuz a comfort to visit this hant of
-Southey, and I wuzn’t goin’ to see him run down
-too much for enlargin’ a little mite about the power
-of that waterfall; as I sez to Josiah&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Sunthin’ ort to be allowed for a poet’s license.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, yes, that is so; I didn’t
-think of it,” sez he. “I thought
-it wuz a barefaced lie. I see,”
-sez he; “I make use of one of
-them poet’s licenses myself
-sometimes; I forgot.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the waters did meander
-down in a very languishin’
-and thin sort of a way, and I
-couldn’t deny it, but the surroundin’s
-wuz beautiful and
-the associations hantin’ and
-powerful in the extreme.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, while we wuz in that neighborhood I see
-everything I could of the remains of the Lake
-School of Poets. I told Josiah I wanted to, and he
-sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, I d’no as I’m a-goin’ to make much of a
-effort to see their hants.” Sez he, “Probble they
-got that name, Lake Poet, because their poetry
-hain’t no bigger accordin’ than the lakes be, and if
-that is so, I don’t want to patronize ’em.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</span></p>
-
-<p>“Patronize!” sez I, lookin’ several icy cold
-daggers through him. “I have to stand Martin’s
-demeanors and acts, though they are harrowin’ to
-my soul and sickenin’ to the stumick, but I <i>won’t</i>
-stand by and have my own pardner talk about
-patronizin’ Coleridge and Wordsworth.” Sez I,
-“Talk about patronizin’ the man that wrote ‘The
-Ancient Mariner.’”</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp82" id="i_379" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_379.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>My tone chilled him to the veins.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>My tone chilled him to the veins, and he walked
-off some distance away. And my mind roamed on
-that weird and matchless poem I had heard Thomas
-J. read so much, that I wuz as familiar with as I
-wuz with the Almanac.</p>
-
-<p>How the Ancient Mariner&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Held the wedding guests with his glittering eye.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And how that belated guest “beat his breast”
-as he heard the weddin’ guests pass in, and he havin’
-to set out on a stun by the side of the road, and
-<i>had</i> to hear this “gray beard loon” tell his story.
-For the old Mariner knew the one he had to tell it
-to when the fit come on, and so that weddin’ guest
-had to set and hear that most weird and wonderful
-story ever told.</p>
-
-<p>And at last, jest as he released that poor, tuckered-out
-guest (when the weddin’ wuz all over, poor dissapinted
-creeter!), how he ended with these lines, so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</span>
-noble they must have mollified that poor, belated
-creeter&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“He prayeth best, who loveth best</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">All things, both great and small,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">For the dear God, who loveth us,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">He made and loveth all.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And then there is the poem of Christabel,
-another one of my very primest favorites. How
-many times the truth of some of them lines have
-been brung up to me in my own native land of
-Jonesville!</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Alas! they had been friends in youth,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">But whispering tongues can poison truth.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Alas! for the whisperin’ tongues that carry the
-poison of asps with them. Alas! for the hearts and
-lives that through their malice and whisperin’s are
-torn apart, and nothin’ can atone for their evil
-effects&mdash;nothin’, <i>nothin’</i></p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Can free the hollow hearts from paining,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">They stand aloof, the stars remaining.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Like cliffs that have been rent asunder,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">A dreary sea now flows between.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Yes; my mind jest dwelt on Mr. Coleridge all
-the time while I wuz in the Lake Deestrict. But we
-see while we wuz there lots of other places of great
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</span>interest to me. Though, as I sed, the Falls of
-Lodore didn’t fall quite so much as he had depictered
-’em, yet Rydal Falls wuz a seen of beauty
-and enchantment, with the water flowin’ down
-through the rocks and overhangin’ trees. It wuz
-a picter to always remember, to frame round with
-admiration and hang up in your memory.</p>
-
-<p>And then there wuz a promontory called Storr’s
-Point, which had a observatory built on it. Here
-wuz where Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Southey,
-and Conway met in 1825 to see a regatta gin in
-Scott’s honor.</p>
-
-<p>It must have been a pretty sight, the scenery
-around it wuz so beautiful.</p>
-
-<p>And then we see Miss Martineau’s handsome
-residence, called the Knolls. I spoze on account
-of its being built on quite a rise of ground.</p>
-
-<p>I spoze she wuz quite a likely poetess, and
-wrote most probble twenty books on every subject,
-from religion and politics to mesmerism and
-handicraft. But Thomas Jefferson couldn’t never
-git over sunthin’ she said to Charlotte Brontë in a
-kind of a fault-findin’ way; it jest gaulded Charlotte
-dretfully. Poor little creeter! with the mind of a
-giant and the body of a child&mdash;a glowin’ soul of
-fire and the shrinkin’ weakness and tenderness of
-heart of a young child.</p>
-
-<p>Harriet hadn’t ort to said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</span> it&mdash;she ort to known
-that God don’t send a genius any too often onto
-this dull earth, and folks ort to prize ’em and guard
-’em when He duz; but folks don’t; they pick at
-’em, and they have to stan’ it, and build up a stun
-wall of endurance and constant anguish of patience
-between these tormentors and their own souls and
-sensitive feelin’s. And then set behind that barricade
-and try to write. And folks only see the stun
-work, and don’t see what it wuz raised for, and they
-call ’em cold, and cross, and unfeelin’, and etc., etc.,
-etc.</p>
-
-<p>But they hain’t cold, nor etc., etc., etc.&mdash;no sech
-thing.</p>
-
-<p>But I am a-eppisodin’, and to resoom.</p>
-
-<p>I presoom that one thing that made Harriet sour
-and kinder hard sometimes wuz she wuz so deef;
-not a-knowin’ any of the time what other wimmen
-wuz a-sayin’ about her&mdash;behind her back, or
-to her face either; it’s enough to sour any disposition,
-only the very sweetest ones.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we went to Hawkeshead, where Wordsworth
-went to school, Martin sayin’ he should
-probble be asked if he had seen the old school-house.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz a old schoolhouse a hundred years ago,
-when Wordsworth went to school there.</p>
-
-<p>It is a little, old-fashioned place, and Martin put
-his fingers in his vest pockets, and leaned back, and
-looked round him some as if he wuz a-patronizin’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</span>
-them old memories with which the place wuz
-filled.</p>
-
-<p>Good land! he’d no need to; them memories
-towered up and filled the hull place, and floated off
-round it into the serene, beautiful
-English landscape, and up towards
-the blue heavens above.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp49" id="i_384" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_384.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Martin with his patronizin’ ways.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Martin couldn’t quell ’em down
-with his leanin’s back, and thumbs in
-his armholes, and patronizin’ ways.</p>
-
-<p>I sot down to the poor, shabby
-old bench to which he had sot, and
-see the very spot where the boy Billy
-had cut his name in the rough old
-desk. Mebby he got licked for it&mdash;I
-shouldn’t wonder a mite. The
-teacher not knowin’ that though he
-might be slapped in youth, and laughed
-at by Reviewers in early manhood, yet a great man&mdash;a
-man of simple manners, and a soul of genius
-sot there at that desk, jest as the great oak wuz hid
-in the heart of the acorn in Billy’s pocket, mebby,
-at the time.</p>
-
-<p>I had quite a large number of emotions as I sot
-there&mdash;probble upwards of seventy-five.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</span></p>
-
-<p>Wall, of course we went to Rydal Mount, the
-home where he lived and worked, and to Grass-mere,
-where he lays asleep with his kindred.</p>
-
-<p>The south wind waved the branches of the trees
-that stood jest a little ways from the simple slabs.</p>
-
-<p>Not fur off wuz the grave of Hartley Coleridge,
-son of Wordsworth’s friend&mdash;a son who inherited
-all the splendor and weakness of his father’s nater.</p>
-
-<p>He drinked!</p>
-
-<p>But some of his sonnets are upliftin’ in the extreme.</p>
-
-<p>“Poor creeter! what he could have been if he
-had left stimulants alone,” I sez to my pardner, as
-we looked down on his quiet grave.</p>
-
-<p>And he sez, “There you be agin&mdash;meetin’-housen
-and castles can’t stop you, nor buryin’-grounds
-skair you out; I’m sick of your dum W. C. T. U.
-talk!”</p>
-
-<p>I felt too riz up to argy with him, but I felt
-deeply the truth of what whiskey had done in his
-case. And as to his pa, I said to myself, “Weakness
-of will, and opium, mebby, stood in the way
-of the world’s seein’ another Shakespeare&mdash;not <i>jest</i>
-like him, but a new and uneek type of poet; jest
-as great and dazzlin’, but different as one big star
-differs from another&mdash;all on ’em a-flashin’ out light
-onto a dark, dull world.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</span></p>
-<p>Alice felt deeply the sweet sadness of the spot&mdash;the
-quiet beauty of the landscape round us, the
-bird’s song in the green branches overhead, and the
-low, sweet song of the
-little stream, the south
-wind amongst the trees.</p>
-
-<p>She stood under a
-tree lookin’ up through
-it into the sky overhead,
-followin’ the flight of a
-bird. Her face looked
-so sweet&mdash;so sweet that
-I thought if Wordsworth
-was here he
-would be reminded of
-his own lines, and think
-that&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Beauty born of murmuring sound</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Had passed into her face.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Her face had a good
-look to it, too, that
-made me think that she wuz a-goin’ to make&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“A perfect woman, nobly planned,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">To warn, to comfort and command,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And yet a spirit still and bright,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">With something of an angel’s light.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Al Faizi felt this, I see&mdash;I could see that by his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</span>
-face. But <i>I</i> knew, havin’ seen her tired out and
-kinder fraxious when her shoes hurt her feet or a
-hairpin pierced her, or her cosset pinched her, etc.,
-I knew she wuz a creeter&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Not too bright or good</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">For human nature’s daily food,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">For transient sorrows, simple wiles,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But he see her only as a “lovely apparition,” a
-“phantom of delight.”</p>
-
-<p>I felt that as he stood there in that rapt moment
-he see all the beauty of nater through her&mdash;he see
-rock and plain, earth and Heaven, glade and bower.
-I methought he wuz sayin’ to himself as he looked
-at her&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“The floating clouds their state shall lend</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">To her; for her the willow bend;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Nor shall she fail to see,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Even in the motions of the storm,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Grace that shall mould the maiden’s form</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">By silent sympathy.</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“The stars of midnight shall be dear</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">To her; and she shall lean her ear</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">In many a secret place,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">When rivulets dance their wayward round,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And beauty, born of murmuring sound,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Shall pass into her face.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp56" id="i_386" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_386.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>A livin’ poem bound up in a girl’s sweet body.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And<span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</span> I felt, too, in view of what I knew, that all
-that would be left of Al Faizi in the futer would be
-the memory of what had been and never more
-would be. Yes, all took up as he wuz with the
-poets of the western world, he wuz more heart interested
-in the livin’ poem bound up in a girl’s sweet
-body. And he turned away from the hants of
-poets to look in her sweet face.</p>
-
-<p>Poor creeter! I see what he didn’t spoze I did,
-and all the rest wuz deef and dum&mdash;deef as posts
-and dum as adders.</p>
-
-<p>But I am a-eppisodin’ and to resoom.</p>
-
-<p>We sot out for London the next day.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">THE ARRIVAL IN LONDON.</p>
-
-<p>Martin, who owned, or pretty nigh owned, several
-railroads, wuz dretful talkative about the superior
-merits of our cars, etc. And, to tell the truth,
-these English cars did seem quite a good deal like
-ridin’ in a wagon, or a old-fashioned coach, where
-you set facin’ each other, and they wuz pretty low,
-made so as to not bump our heads when goin’
-through covered bridges, I guess.</p>
-
-<p>Of course, Martin paid for the best there wuz,
-and we had a hull car to ourselves, all cushioned and
-fixed off in the nicest manner, and after we all got
-in we felt very comfortable all alone by ourselves if
-we’d wanted to. And ever and anon a basket of
-good refreshments to refresh ourselves would be
-handed in to us. But it filled me with horrow to see
-bottles of beer, wine, etc., in every one of ’em, and I
-sez to myself&mdash;“Who and what did they spoze I
-wuz?”</p>
-
-<p>I wuz indignant to think that they should dast to
-offer she that wuz once Samantha Smith bottles of
-intoxicants.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah kinder<span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</span> hefted the bottle in our basket,
-and said dreamily sunthin’ about when you wuz in
-Rome of doin’ as the Romans did. But I sez to
-him coldly&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Be you a deacon or be you not? Are you a
-member of the Temperance Society in Jonesville, or
-are you not?”</p>
-
-<p>And he kinder wriggled round oneasy in his seat
-and laid the bottle down. If it hadn’t been for me,
-I tremble to think what would have been the result
-to Jonesville and the world at large.</p>
-
-<p>Ever and anon the guide would walk along sideways
-by our winder and go the hull length of the
-train, for all I know a-seein’ to us. I don’t see what
-hendered him from fallin’ off. It wuz sunthin’ I
-wouldn’t have done for a dollar bill. I never wuz
-any hand to walk sideways, even on the ground.</p>
-
-<p>But, howsumever, there wuzn’t any casualties reported.</p>
-
-<p>Another thing that did seem strange to us wuz
-that we didn’t have any checks for our baggage to
-take care on. That seems dretful queer to Americans
-to have to go out and hunt round and find our
-own trunks. Though we had no trouble with ourn,
-for it wuz a very valuable one, and easy to be recognized
-with the naked eye. It wuz a trunk that belonged
-to Father Allen, and made on honor, and it
-lasted him through his life, and then descended onto
-Josiah&mdash;and will, we think, descend, as good<span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</span> as new,
-onto Thomas Jefferson.</p>
-
-<p>One reason it has wore so well is, I spoze, that
-Father Allen never took but one trip in his life
-with it, and that wuz up to Canada. That journey
-lasted him for a story all his days; he wuz looked
-upon with considerable or as a highly travelled man.</p>
-
-<p>The trunk is covered with hair of a good gray
-color and trimmed off handsome with brass nails.
-And Josiah, to make sure of its not bein’ stole,
-writ our names in bright, brass-headed tacks. It
-took him quite a spell. He sed he believed in
-doin’ the fair thing by me, so it reads&mdash;</p>
-
-<p class="center">
-“<span class="smcap">Josiah and Samantha Allen.<br />
-Jonesville,<br />
-U. S.</span>”
-</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp100" id="i_391" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_391.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Them letters wuz a stroke of genius.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Them last letters he sed wuz a stroke of genius.
-He sed the English
-people would be so
-tickled when they see
-it, for they would see
-in a minute that he and
-me had really come
-over! We wuz there!
-“us!” Samantha and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</span>
-Josiah! and then, too, it would stand for the United
-States.</p>
-
-<p>He made them two letters of a little bigger nails, but
-they wuz all good sized, and a very bright brass color.</p>
-
-<p>And truly it did seem as if England wuz glad to
-have us there, for I don’t remember of seein’ a single
-Englishman that looked at that trunk that
-didn’t laugh when he see it, or smile warmly. Yes,
-they wuz glad enough to have us there.</p>
-
-<p>Martin didn’t see the trunk until we arrove at the
-steamer, and it affected him different. He looked
-fairly stunted and browbeat when he sot his eyes
-on it; evidently he thought it wuz a pity to run
-the resk of jammin’ it, or gittin’ the nails rusty, for
-sez he:</p>
-
-<p>“Good Heavens! let me get you a new trunk!
-It isn’t too late!” And he rushed off like a man half
-distracted.</p>
-
-<p>But it wuz too late, for the bell rung in a minute,
-and we sot sail.</p>
-
-<p>But Martin never see it durin’ that hull trip but
-he looked on it with that same look of or&mdash;a kind
-of a dark, questionin’ or.</p>
-
-<p>Alice jest laughed when she see it. She liked its
-looks, we could see, though she didn’t come right
-out and say so.</p>
-
-<p>But Adrian sed it wuz the most beautiful thing
-he ever saw in his life. And he beset Josiah to
-put his name on one of their trunks with the same<span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</span>
-kind of nails.</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah, who had took a few along to repair
-damages in ourn, in case we should lose some of the
-nails, or some envious Englishman should steal ’em
-out, stood ready to do it.</p>
-
-<p>But Martin broke it up. I guess he thought
-that Adrian wuz too young to go into sech extravagances.
-They had four trunks between ’em, but
-not so much luggage as the English carry round
-with ’em. They beat all, baskets, bundles, portmantys&mdash;as
-they call their trunks&mdash;and hat-boxes and
-rugs and bath-tubs.</p>
-
-<p>The idee! What would we be thought on in
-America if we lugged round sech things. Josiah,
-who always hankers after style, sed he was most
-sorry we didn’t take our enamelled wash-dish. Sez
-he, “It would have looked dretful genteel;” sez he,
-“We could have lashed it to our trunk with some
-red cord, and it would have looked so stylish.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, shaw!” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “when you’re in Rome, do as
-the Romans do, and,” sez he, “I’d love to let the
-English that carry round their bath-tubs see that
-‘U. S.,’ the ones that own that trunk, know what
-gentility is and what style is.”</p>
-
-<p>But I wouldn’t gin in to the idee,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</span> though he as
-good as sed that he stood ready to buy a new wash-dish
-for the venter.</p>
-
-<p>But economy prevailed, not common sense, but
-jest closeness. I see in his mean that he wuz givin’
-up the idee, as I told him that with the care I
-would give it the wash-dish we had would last for
-years and years.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we got to London in what ort to be the
-daytime, but it wuz as dark as pitch with fog, and
-how we wuz ever goin’ to git through them streets,
-full of blackness and roar, roar and blackness, wuz
-more’n I could tell.</p>
-
-<p>I leaned back in that omnibus time and agin
-durin’ that trip, truly feelin’ that my hour had come.</p>
-
-<p>As Josiah told me afterwards, in talkin’ it over&mdash;I
-wuz a-dwellin’ on my feelin’s durin’ the epock,
-and he wanted to outdo me, I guess, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I know jest how you felt, Samantha; I too
-felt, in the words of another, as if ‘every breath I
-drawed would be my next.’”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “You meant your last.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez he, “my last; it wuz a dretful time.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “I put my trust in Providence&mdash;a
-good deal of the time I did.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez he, “so did I. I wuz jest ground
-down to it that I had to.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “less be thankful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</span> that we got out
-alive&mdash;out of that black, movin’, rumblin’ roar.”</p>
-
-<p>We wuz talkin’ it over in our room that night,
-a good, comfortable room, with all the modern improvements.
-It wuz a hotel for Americans that
-Martin had gone to, and it wuz jest like the best
-of our American tarverns.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah sez, when he see the bright lights in our
-room, “Thank Heaven, I won’t have to use my
-candles!”</p>
-
-<p>He had hearn that folks had to furnish their
-own lights in England, so he’d lugged round a
-couple of taller candles, run in our own candle
-moulds to home.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp79" id="i_395" style="max-width: 10em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_395.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>A hull soap-box full.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I told him not to, but he sed he wuzn’t goin’ to
-pay no high price for lights when we had a hull
-soap-box full under the suller stairs. So he had
-took ’em at the resk of spilin’ his dressin’-gown, as
-I told him.</p>
-
-<p>“No, I don’t resk that,” sez he; “that is to the
-top of the trunk. The candles are packed down
-with my Sunday suit to the bottom of the trunk.”</p>
-
-<p>I changed their position.</p>
-
-<p>But his feelin’s for that dressin’-gown
-are simply idolatrous, as I tell
-him&mdash;specially the tossels.</p>
-
-<p>And he said he “never thought
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</span>of makin’ idols of ’em&mdash;worshippin’ a tossel!”
-sez he, scorfin’ly. But he duz think too much
-on’t.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the next mornin’ the fog seemed to be
-lowered a little. I could see the sun, or pretty
-nigh see it, which I felt wuz indeed a blessin’; and
-after a good breakfast we sot off on a excursion.</p>
-
-<p>I had sed from the first minute London wuz
-talked on, that Westminster Abbey wuz my first
-gole, and the rest seemed to feel a good deal as
-I did. Al Faizi and Alice wuz dretful anxious
-to see it, and Martin sed&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>He thought it wuz probble what would be expected
-of him, and if he wuz summoned home
-on account of his business, he said he <i>must</i> be
-able to say that he had been to Westminster Abbey,
-anyway.</p>
-
-<p>So he engaged a big carriage, and we sot off,
-Josiah kinder laggin’ back and actin’ onwillin’. He
-had found a New York <i>World</i> in the readin’-room
-for the first time sence he left home, and he sed
-openly&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>That he had ruther stay to home with his dressin’-gown
-on and read that paper than to see any
-Abbey that ever wuz born.</p>
-
-<p>He thought it wuz some noted woman, and I
-wuz deeply touched by his preference, and cast-iron
-principle; but I explained, and would make
-him go. So we sot off.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</span></p>
-
-<p>Wall, the first view I got of that imposin’ edifice
-looked jest as nateral as could be; for Thomas J.
-has got a big photograph of it framed in his office,
-with the two great, high towers, 225 feet high, and
-the big Gothic winder between ’em, and the great
-Gothic door below. The buildin’ is a immense
-one; it is built in the form of a cross, and is more’n
-five hundred feet long.</p>
-
-<p>I can tell you, I had a sight&mdash;a sight of emotions,
-and about as large sized ones as I ever had, as I
-stood inside, under them lofty arches, full of the
-mellow light of the stained-glass winders, and looked
-off down, down that long colonnade of pillows, at
-the end of which, fur off, is the chapel of Edward
-the Confessor.</p>
-
-<p>This chapel is full of the tombs of kings and
-queens&mdash;Henry III., in brass, lyin’ on top of a huge
-porphery tomb; Edward I. and his queen, Eleanor,
-who sucked the poison from her husband’s wound
-in Palestine; and Queen Philippi, who put down
-a insurrection in Scotland, while her pardner, Edward
-III., wuz away from home.</p>
-
-<p>Noble creeters! I wuz proud on ’em as I thought
-over their likely, riz-up deeds. I couldn’t have done
-more for my Josiah, and I felt it as I looked on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I said that the very first place I wanted to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</span>
-see wuz the place sacred to the Great Dead. So I
-went off kinder by myself, as I spozed, led by a
-guide, but the rest follered on after me.</p>
-
-<p>Martin said that if a telegram should recall him
-home sudden, he spozed it would be expected of
-him, anyway, to say that he had stood by the monuments
-to Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, etc., in
-Westminster Abbey. Sez he, “I have never read
-the poems of the last two gentlemen, but I hear
-that they are very creditable; so much so, that I
-have heard their names mentioned often, and I
-would like to say that I have stood by their remains.”</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t say nothin’ to Martin, but the feelin’s as
-I stood right by the side of that man made a deep
-gulf that swep’ him fur off away from me, and swep’
-me back into a life that seemed more real, almost,
-than my own.</p>
-
-<p>Little fingers plucked at my gown, as it were,
-and, lookin’ down, I see the brave, patient face of
-Little Nell, and Tiny Tim, and David Copperfield,
-and the old-fashioned looks of little Paul Dombey,
-and Little Rowdey, Becky Sharp’s neglected boy;
-and little Clive Newcome’s sturdy figger wuz
-pushed away anon by the tall, slender figger that
-walked by his cousin Ethel Newcome’s side with
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</span>a achin’ heart. I seemed to hear the Old Colonel
-saying “adsum” to the Heavenly roll-call.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Gummidge’s melancholy voice, recallin’ the
-“old un’,” mingled with Peggotty’s comfortin’
-talk and tender words to “Little Em’ly;” Mrs.
-Micawber, bearin’ the twins, passed on before me;
-Micawber, Dombey, Pecksniff, Little Dorrit’s
-patient form, Bella Wilfer’s handsome, wilful face
-went by me, a-lookin’ up, coquettish, but lovin’, into
-the sad, reasonable eyes of “Our Mutual Friend.”</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">WESTMINSTER AND PARLIAMENT HOUSES.</p>
-
-<p>I see Captain Cuttle and Bunsby fleein’ from
-Mrs. McStinger, and Wall’r Boy and his uncle,
-and Susan Nipper and Toots, and Mrs. Pipchin,
-and sweet Florence a-walkin’ by the Little Brother
-where the wild waves were talkin’ to him and the
-silver sails a-beckonin’ him over into a fur country&mdash;David
-Copperfield; Dora, the child wife; Agnes
-Wickfield, with her finger on her lips, and a-pintin’
-upwards; dear Aunt Betsy Trotwood, and Oliver
-and Nicholas Nickleby; Mrs. Jellaby, with her
-dress onhooked and droppin’ papers with absent
-eyes, and Esther and Guardy, and Skimpole and
-the little Pardiggles&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>How the crowd swep’ by me! It wuz a sight.</p>
-
-<p>Ophelia passed by with her apron full of flowers,
-and she said to me, with a sad look out of her sweet
-dark eyes&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Here is rosemary, I pray you, love, remember.”</p>
-
-<p>Truly, I didn’t need her reminder&mdash;my soul wuz
-all rousted up and a-rememberin’.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</span></p>
-<p>I remembered the young feller she kep’ company<span class="pagenum" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</span>
-with&mdash;yes, indeed! Hamlet, “the expectancy and
-rose of the fair state.” His shadder follered her
-clost, and I almost said to him with Horatio, “Good-night,
-sweet prince.”</p>
-
-<p>But he looked kinder curous&mdash;he wuz a little off
-and acted, and, poor creeter! so wuz she, too; I felt
-to pity ’em both, and anon she seemed to be singin’
-the song that Hamlet ust to sing to her when he
-wuz a-waitin’ on her:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Doubt that the stars are fire,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Doubt that the sun doth move;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Believe that truth is a liar,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent1">But never doubt that I love.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>She believed still in his constancy. She wuz a
-good deal out of her head.</p>
-
-<p>Then Rosalind and Queen Catharine’s stately
-figger glided by; and eloquent Portia and Lady
-Macbeth a-holdin’ up her lamp, a-lightin’ her on to
-crime&mdash;the light a-shinin’ back into her dark, evil
-face&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>And old King Lear, with faithful Cordelia a-holdin’
-his tremblin’ old arms, and a-helpin’ him along.</p>
-
-<p>Then, feelin’ pensive&mdash;Il Penseroso, I seemed to
-see John Milton’s blind eyes lookin’ into Paradise,
-and the Fairy Queen seemed to look down on us
-from the tablet of Spenser, and “Rare Ben Jonson,”
-Chaucer, John Dryden, Thomas Gray&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</span></p>
-
-<p>I wuz a-walkin’ back with him in the old church-yard&mdash;“Where
-the rude forefathers of the hamlet
-sleep”&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>When Martin interrupted me, and sez he&mdash;“Gray,
-Thomas Gray, I suppose that is the father of Lady
-Jane Gray.”</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t dispute him, but as I looked at him
-a-leanin’ back and a-feelin’ big, I allegored to
-myself&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“We don’t need to remember Micawber or Dombey;
-we’ve got a livin’ curosity with us.”</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi wuz deeply interested in the Poet’s Corner.
-He stood long and silently by the graves of
-the great dead, and his face wuz a deep mirror of
-his thoughts.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp54" id="i_401" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_401.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>We stood long and silently by the graves of the great dead.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Alice wuz very much interested in ’em, too.</p>
-
-<p>But as I stood by Goldsmith’s grave&mdash;a-seein’,
-with my mind’s eye, Mrs. Primrose and Olivia and
-the good Vicar a-moralizin’ at em&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>I hearn Josiah say to Adrian&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Oliver, goldsmith.” Sez he&mdash;“I spoze Mr.
-Oliver wuz the best goldsmith in England, or he
-wouldn’t be layin’ here. He probble made the
-crowns and septers they all have to wear in these
-monarkiel countries.”</p>
-
-<p>I turned round, and sez<span class="pagenum" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</span> I, “The metal that Goldsmith
-used wuz purer gold than that&mdash;it wuz the
-rare wealth of a faultless style.”</p>
-
-<p>“That’s what I said,” sez Josiah&mdash;“stylish jewelry,
-and septers, and sech.”</p>
-
-<p>But I explained it all out to Adrian, and kep’
-him by me all I could.</p>
-
-<p>Alice drawed my attention to the bust of Longfellow,
-our own poet, and my emotions swep’ me
-off quite a long ways, clear from this old Abbey
-to&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Where descends from the Atlantic</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">The gigantic</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Storm winds of the equinox.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Yes, he seemed to bear me clear to the musical
-murmurs of Minnehaha, Laughing Water, and from
-Acadia to Spain. I travelled fur and wide.</p>
-
-<p>And then there wuz the tomb of Thomas
-Campbell and Matthew Prior and James Watt and
-Mrs. Siddons. Not all in one place are these tablets
-and busts and monuments, but my mind seems
-to kinder gather ’em in together as I look back.</p>
-
-<p>The most elegant chapel in the Abbey is that of
-Henry VII. Its noble arched ceilin’ is exquisitely
-ornamented and carved&mdash;flowers, vines, armorial
-designs, etc., etc., in almost bewilderin’ richness
-and profusion. Henry and his wife Elizabeth the
-last to rain of the House of York.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</span></p>
-
-<p>In this chapel is also the tomb of poor Mary,
-Queen of Scots, with her figger in alabaster on top
-of it.</p>
-
-<p>If it wuzn’t in alabaster&mdash;if she wuz alive, and if
-the kings and queens wuz also alive and actin’&mdash;what
-a time there would be in that old Abbey!</p>
-
-<p>If that exquisite body had agin that rare gift of
-magnetism&mdash;or, I d’no what it wuz, anyway, it
-wuz sunthin’ that drawed men to her despite their
-own will, and, it is needless to say, aginst their
-pardners’ wishes&mdash;what a time, what a time there
-would be!</p>
-
-<p>How the emperors and kings and princes that
-now stood so still and demute would gather round
-her! How the wives would draw back and glare!
-And mebby some on ’em, bein’ quick-tempered,
-would throw their septers at her.</p>
-
-<p>Poor creeter! mebby it’s jest as well that she is
-made of alabaster; for not fur from her is the
-tomb of Queen Elizabeth, a-layin’ down guarded by
-four lions.</p>
-
-<p>She’d a-needed ’em, Lib would, if she’d a-expected
-to keep her lovers from a-follerin’ after
-Mary. She wuz a jealous creeter, and vain, although
-a middlin’ good calculator.</p>
-
-<p>But Raleigh, and Leicester,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</span> etc., etc.&mdash;lions
-couldn’t a-kep’ ’em from the prettiest woman&mdash;no,
-indeed!</p>
-
-<p>In the same vault is Bloody Mary, who burnt up
-about seventy folks a year durin’ her rain.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi took out his little book with a cross
-on’t, and wrote quite a lot here, and he also did before
-Mary, Queen of Scots. I d’no, mebby he, too,
-bein’ a man, felt some of the subtle charm that
-surrounds her memory, even to-day, and keeps men
-from ever doin’ plain jestice to her, and always will,
-I spoze.</p>
-
-<p>Not fur off is the restin’-place of the little
-princes murdered in the Tower by Richard III.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi writ sunthin’ here, too, in his book&mdash;quite
-a lot.</p>
-
-<p>There are nine chapels in the Abbey, each one
-full of the tombs of ’em whom the world has
-delighted to honor; and the guide told us that
-many a king and prince lay here who had not any
-memorial to mark his last sleep.</p>
-
-<p>One of these wuz the “Merry Monarch,”
-Charles II. Among the great crowd who surrounded
-him, like a swarm of hungry insects, feedin’
-upon him, and buzzin’ out their praise and
-compliments and loyalty to him, and flatterin’ his
-vices and weaknesses, not one of ’em thought
-enough of him to rare up the least little mark to
-his memory&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</span></p>
-
-<p>A deep lesson of the worthlessness of worldly
-praise or blame. A great contrast to this is the
-monument to Charles and John Wesley. They
-worked on all their lives, a-preachin’ and a-warnin’
-aginst the vices of the great, as well as the humble,
-and here they have their monument amongst the
-royal dead.</p>
-
-<p>Another thing that interested me in the Abbey
-wuz the Coronation Chair, in which every sovereign
-in England, from Edward the Confessor
-down to Queen Victoria, has been crowned.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp68" id="i_407" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_407.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>An immense chair, the four legs bein’
-four animals.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>It is a immense chair, the four legs bein’ four
-animals&mdash;lions, I guess, though they looked kinder
-queer. But mebby they wuz a-thinkin’ who and
-what they wuz a-holdin’ up that made their hair
-stan’ out so kinder queer, and their tails curl up
-so.</p>
-
-<p>Under the seat wuz a queer-lookin’
-slab of stun, and they said it
-wuz the very stun Jacob had his
-head pillered on. It wuz carried
-back and forth by his descendants,
-and finally got to Ireland, where
-it wuz used at the Coronation of
-the Irish Kings.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</span></p>
-<p>Some say that if the one who wuz a-bein’
-crowned wuz unworthy royal honors, the stun
-would groan, but kep’ still if it wuz the right one
-in the right place.</p>
-
-<p>I should have thought it would have done considerable
-groanin’ in the centuries gone by&mdash;in the
-case of Henry VIII., for instance, etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>I don’t believe it groaned the last time it wuz
-used. No; as a female a-thinkin’ of a female, I wuz
-proud to contemplate the fact that most probble it
-never gin a single groan, or even a sithe, at that
-time.</p>
-
-<p>Some say that wimmen can’t rule good, but
-hain’t Victoria rained well and rained long?</p>
-
-<p>Yes, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we lingered in this venerable and intensely
-interestin’ place for a long time, and until the
-gnawin’s of hunger woke in my pardner’s inside,
-and he gin pitiful expressions of his inward oneasiness.</p>
-
-<p>But Martin sed he must visit the Housen of
-Parliament. He sed that it would certainly be
-expected of him; so we went through Westminster
-Hall to the new Palace of Westminster, as the
-buildin’ is called.</p>
-
-<p>The laws made here ort to be noble and big-sized,
-indeed, to correspond with the place they are made
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</span>in. It covers eight acres of ground, has eleven
-hundred rooms, one hundred stairways, and eleven
-courts. It cost over fifteen millions, so they say.</p>
-
-<p>But I d’no, I didn’t feel ashamed of our own
-Capitol at Washington when I see it. That is a
-good sizable buildin’, and made on honor, good
-enough and big enough to correspond with the laws
-made in it.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Westminster Hall, that we went through
-to go to the House of Parliament, wuz dretful interestin’.</p>
-
-<p>The great Hall of William Rufus wuz built first
-in 1097. Rufus wanted a great Hall, where he
-could hold banquets, and not feel crowded, and feel
-that he had air enough, and wuzn’t in any danger of
-hittin’ his head on the ceilin’, so he built this Hall.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz partly burnt up once, but it has been repaired,
-so that it is a room now good enough for
-anybody, and big enough so’s the World and his
-wife and children could eat dinner here if they
-wanted to, or so it seemed.</p>
-
-<p>It is three hundred feet long, seventy feet wide,
-and ninety feet high. The ruff overhead is carved
-into many beautiful forms, and is one of the largest
-in the world that has no columns or supports from
-below.</p>
-
-<p>Glorious<span class="pagenum" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</span> seens have been enacted in this Hall, as
-well as dretful ones. After the Hall wuz built
-over and beautified by Richard II., the very first
-public meetin’ held in this Hall wuz to take away
-his crown and septer and send him to prison.</p>
-
-<p>Poor thing! after all he’d went through buildin’
-it. I should thought them old timbers and jices
-would have creaked and groaned to have seen it go
-on.</p>
-
-<p>I know well how I should have felt after we got
-our house altered over, and I’d jest got the parlor
-papered and carpeted and new curtains up, if I’d
-had to be dragged off and shet up, and let Sister
-Bobbett or Sister Henzy move in and take the
-comfort of it.</p>
-
-<p>And I spoze Richard had feelin’s as well as myself,
-and the splendor of my parlor would mad me
-all the more to leave it, even if it shed a glory over
-the seen.</p>
-
-<p>Charles I. wuz tried in Westminster Hall and
-condemned to death, and a few years later Oliver
-Cromwell was inaugerated in it Lord Protector of
-England.</p>
-
-<p>He sot in that Royal Chair, which wuz took out
-of Westminster Abbey for the first and last time.
-The chair never groaned or took on any as I’ve
-ever hearn on, but I should have thought it would,
-not for reproof, but for sorrer. For only five
-years after that Cromwell died, and wuz buried in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</span>
-Westminster Abbey amongst its royal dead, and then
-three years later his body wuz took up and hanged
-on Tyburn by command of the king, and his head
-wuz displayed on the pinnacles of Westminster
-Hall with Bradshaw and Ireton.</p>
-
-<p>Hangin’ a man who had been dead for three
-years, and for doin’ what he thought wuz right!</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi wrote quite a lot in his book here. He
-looked queer as he meditated on a civilized country
-committin’ sech barbarities.</p>
-
-<p>They laid out to have the skulls remain up there
-on them pinnacles for thirty years, and some say
-they did, and some say Cromwell’s blew down durin’
-a hard storm, and some of his descendants have
-got it to this day, and several of his skulls are in
-other places, so we hearn.</p>
-
-<p>Poor creeter! He seemed to have as many
-heads as Columbus had faces. It beats all what
-them poor old fourfathers went through.</p>
-
-<p>In this Hall Charles I. wuz condemned to die,
-and also Sir William Wallace, that Josiah and I felt
-so well acquainted with, havin’ formed his acquaintance
-and loved him through Thomas Jefferson and
-“The Scottish Chiefs.”</p>
-
-<p>And Sir Thomas More, that witty, smart
-creeter&mdash;philosopher, statesman, and everything else&mdash;the
-favorite of Henry VIII., and who succeeded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</span>
-Cardinal Wolsey as Lord High Chancellor, but
-who lost Henry’s favor in his life, by not approvin’
-of Henry’s stiddy practice of marryin’ wimmen and
-then cuttin’ their heads off, and marryin’ another
-and another, and so on and so on. Here the poor
-creeter had his trial.</p>
-
-<p>Robert, Earl of Essex, wuz tried here and condemned;
-and so wuz Guy Fawkes, and the Earl of
-Stafford, and many, many, many others.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, in the House of Parliament we see Parnell,
-the great helper for Irish rights. And it did my
-soul good to look on Joseph Arch, who wuz elected
-to Parliament as a representative of agricultural
-laborers.</p>
-
-<p>He wuz a plough-boy, and his mother learnt him
-to read and write. She wuz a earnest Christian.
-Later he become a local preacher in the Methodist
-Meetin’-House. Afterwards, meditatin’ on their
-wrongs, he organized a union of agricultural laborers,
-and finally wuz elected to Parliament. He
-wuz sent from that deestrict where the Prince of
-Wales lives. And you would have thought that
-some richer and more aristocratic man would have
-been chose to stand for that place, so nigh to the
-British throne.</p>
-
-<p>But no, a good <span class="pagenum" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</span>man, a man of the people, wuz
-chose. The Prince of Wales never done a thing to
-break it up, so they say. He is quite a sensible,
-good-hearted creeter, the Prince is. Though, like
-the rest of the world, he has his failin’s.</p>
-
-<p>Here we see Gladstone, that noble creeter. A
-man that will be revered and beloved and held dear
-to grateful hearts when lots of contemporary emperors
-and kings are forgot.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>The House of Lords is made up of lords temporal
-and lords spiritual&mdash;twenty-six lords spiritual,
-which are the Archbishops of Canterbury and
-York, and twenty-four Bishops, Dukes, Earls,
-Barons, etc., make up the lords temporal&mdash;they
-come into their places by the right of their titles,
-which fell onto ’em onbeknown to ’em. Here they
-set makin’ laws with their hats on.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah drawed my attention to it, and sez he,
-“You’ve always tutored me so about takin’ off my
-hat everywhere and in every season. I’ve had sun-strokes
-and froze my scalp a number of times in
-carryin’ out your orders; but,” sez he, “I’ve made
-up my mind, Samantha, as to one thing, and you
-can’t change me.”</p>
-
-<p>I have a deadly fear of his plans, and can’t help
-it&mdash;in fact, I have reason to, as dire experience has
-often showed me the dretful results flowin’ from
-’em anon or oftener; so I waited with breathless<span class="pagenum" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</span>
-dread to hear him expound his plan.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I’m bound on it. When I’m elected to
-Congress I’m goin’ to wear my hat the hull time I’m
-there; I hain’t a-goin’ to take it off only to go to
-bed; I calculate to have a good warm head the rest
-of my life.” Sez he, “If it’s proper for ’em, in
-their high station, it’s proper for me, when I git
-there.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp55" id="i_415" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_415.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">When I’m elected to Congress I’m goin’ to wear my hat the
-hull time.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I thought a minute, and then sez I, “Wall, I
-guess I’m safe in not objectin’ to it.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “You mean by that, that I won’t git
-there, but you’ll see, mom. The minute I git home
-I’m a-goin’ to organize the farmers. I’ll organize
-Ury the first one, and then I’ll organize old Gowdey.
-Uncle Sime Bentley I can depend on.” Sez
-he, “If Arch and Burt and Macdonald, all on
-’em workin’ men, can git into Parliament, what
-is to hender Josiah Allen from shinin’ in Congress?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I mildly, “Nater broke <i>that</i> up from the
-start.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Do you mean that I can’t git in?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, still more tenderly, “I alluded to shinin’,
-Josiah; but,” sez I soothin’ly, for I see that his liniment
-begun to darken&mdash;sez I, “I won’t say a word
-agin your wearin’ your hat under them circumstances.”
-Sez I in affectionate axents, “Mebby I’ve
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</span>been too harsh with you about takin’ it off in cold
-weather; mebby I hain’t made allowance as I should
-for the weakness of the place exposed; mebby
-etiket has ruled me too clost.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “You and etiket has been almost the
-death of me time and agin.”</p>
-
-<p>One thing that is sure to strike the tourist and
-beholder with wonder is the extreme smallness of
-the House of Commons.</p>
-
-<p>How five hundred and sixty folks could ever git
-into that room is a wonder to me, and the guide
-told us that there had been as many as that a-standin’
-there time and agin&mdash;a-standin’, of course, for
-there wuzn’t no room for ’em to set.</p>
-
-<p>It struck Josiah, too, though, as usual, our meditations
-wuz fur different.</p>
-
-<p>I methought, “No wonder laws hain’t what they
-ort to be, made in sech a tight place, by folks jest
-crowded and squoze in together like sardeens in a
-box.”</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah methought out loud, “You thought,
-Samantha, that I didn’t allow half room enough in
-my new hen-house, and my brood of fowls have as
-much agin room accordin’ as these law-makers
-do.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</span> sez I, “there both on ’em kep’ in too clost
-quarters to do well.”</p>
-
-<p>But truly I couldn’t break it up, for time and
-Martin didn’t give me no chance.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">SAMANTHA SEES A DOCTOR.</p>
-
-<p>I hadn’t been in London for more’n a short
-time before I wuz attacked with a queer feelin’
-and pain in my back. It seemed to be the worst
-on my right shoulder blade. It wuz a pain and a
-soreness all together, and the surface indications
-pinted to more trouble if I didn’t tend to it.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah rubbed it with assiduity and camphire, and
-in hours of solitude bathed it in anarky.</p>
-
-<p>But to no purpose&mdash;it grew worse and worse,
-and I feared it wuz a bile, but didn’t know.</p>
-
-<p>It kep’ me awake nights, and I spoze it made
-me fraxious and restless, for Josiah urged me
-warmly to have a young man, who wuz a doctor in
-the hotel, look at my back and see what ailed it.</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “I hain’t a-goin’ to have that young
-man foolin’ round my shoulder blades.” Sez I,
-“It would make me feel queer as a dog to think
-he wuz a-lookin’ at it through that eyeglass of
-hisen.” Sez I, “Neuralgy hain’t to be fooled
-with.”</p>
-
-<p>“I thought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</span> you said,” sez he, “it wuzn’t neuralgy;
-you said it wuz sunthin’ mysteriouser.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, so I do say,” sez I; “it is sunthin’ I
-d’no anything about. It is sore as a bile,
-and anarky don’t seem to relieve it a mite. If I
-had some good lobely and catnip,” sez I, “I believe
-I could make a poultice that would relieve
-it; but where would I git lobely and catnip here?”
-sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he&mdash;willin’ creeter always when I
-am sick&mdash;“Martin and I had made a agreement
-to ride to Hyde Park this mornin’, and I shouldn’t
-wonder a mite if I could find some lobely and
-catnip growin’ there idegenus. I will look for
-some, anyway.”</p>
-
-<p>“Catnip in Hyde Park!” sez I mournfully; “you
-might as well look for a angel at a dog fight, or
-a saloon in Paradise!”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “if I can’t find any myself,
-I’ll ask the policeman if he knows of any little
-corner or shady place where I’d be apt to find a few
-sprigs for you.” Sez he, “I’d go to Windsor Park
-for you in a minute if I thought I could git sunthin’
-to relieve your pain&mdash;I’d go to Langly Marish.”
-(Marish is marsh writ long.) Josiah thought that
-he would spell his old marsh in the beaver medder
-“marish,” for style&mdash;Jonesville Marish&mdash;but I told
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</span>him that that wuzn’t goin’ to make him any nearer
-the royal family, or make him act any more royal.
-I guess I broke it up.</p>
-
-<p>But to resoom&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “It is good of you to think on’t, but I
-wouldn’t want to tackle Victoria the first thing for
-catnip. I d’no as she has put up any more herbs
-than she wants to use herself&mdash;her family is big,
-and she has frequent calls for catnip, anyway.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I wuzn’t a-layin’ out to tackle Victoria
-for it. I wuz a-goin’ to hunt round myself for it
-in the park.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “You’d only tire yourself out for nothin’;
-you wouldn’t find a sprig. And if you found any,
-I wouldn’t want you to pick it without Victoria’s
-consent&mdash;it would like as not be some she had saved
-for the children or grandchildren; no,” sez I, “I
-will suffer and be calm,” and I sithed.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “I’m goin’ to be minded in this
-matter&mdash;I am goin’ to have you see a doctor, and
-I hain’t a-goin’ to put it off another day. You
-might put it off too long, and then what would the
-world be to me? What would life be without
-Samantha?”</p>
-
-<p>His tender tones touched my heart considerable,
-and I promised I would see a doctor that very day;
-so he went away, quite contented, with Martin.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp41" id="i_421" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_421.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>That little dude doctor, with
-his cane and his eyeglass.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Wall, after he had went away, and I wuz left
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</span>
-alone with my promise, I rumineated in deep
-thought. And the more I thought on’t, the more
-I hated to have that little dude doctor, with his
-cane and his eyeglass, a-reconoiterin’
-round my back and a-laughin’ at me,
-for all I knew&mdash;for I felt instinctively
-that he wuz one that would laugh
-at a person’s back, and I felt that in
-this case I should be the means of
-lurin’ him into that wickedness and
-deceit.</p>
-
-<p>He looked conceited and disagreeable
-in the extreme, anyway, and I
-didn’t put any dependence at all on
-his jedgment.</p>
-
-<p>But then my promise confronted
-me; what should I do? But as I
-mused I happened to think&mdash;besides
-this little dandy doctor, with his case
-of medicine, a-goin’ to and fro, I had
-noticed a tall, dignified, good-lookin’,
-middle-aged man a-goin’ up and down the halls
-with his case of medicine.</p>
-
-<p>He usually went up the stairs as we wuz a-goin’
-out&mdash;about 10 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>&mdash;and, thinkses I, here is a chance
-to keep my promise, and mebby git relief. For it
-stood to reason that I had ruther display my right
-shoulder blade to a middle-aged, sober man, with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</span> a
-wife and children and grandchildren, and other
-things to stiddy him down, than to a little snickerin’,
-supercilious young chap, who hadn’t any wife, or children,
-or any other trouble.</p>
-
-<p>So I left my door on a jar, and waited for his
-comin’. I got my dress waist so’s I could slip it
-off in a minute, and throwed a breakfast shawl
-gracefully round my figger, and waited calmly the
-result.</p>
-
-<p>Anon I heard a step approachin’, and I looked
-out, and I see that it wuz the young doctor. He had
-a posey in his buttonhole and he wuz a-hummin’ a
-light tune and a-swingin’ his cane in his right hand,
-and I felt more and more relieved to think it wuz
-not my fate to tackle him.</p>
-
-<p>Anon a hall-boy went by slowly, a-bearin’ a
-pitcher of ice water; anon a chambermaid, and then
-I recognized a messenger’s slow, haltin’ step.</p>
-
-<p>And then I see the doctor’s benine face, framed
-in gray hair and ornamented with whiskers of the
-same color, approachin’.</p>
-
-<p>I folded my breakfast shawl closter around my
-form and advanced to the door, and sez I&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Can I speak to you for a moment, sir?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “I would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</span> like to employ you for a few
-minutes.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez he, a-enterin’ the room willin’ly, as if
-it wuz the way of his business, as doctors always
-do.</p>
-
-<p>He looked round the room enquirin’ly as he entered,
-and as if mentally in search of sunthin’. And
-I spozed mebby it wuz to see if he could see signs
-of any other doctor’s medicine or sunthin’. And I
-spoke up, and sez I:</p>
-
-<p>“I have had some trouble with my back lately,
-and I want you to look at it and see what is the
-matter;” sez I, “I want to know whether it is
-neuralgy or a bile.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp66" id="i_424" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_424.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">I have had some trouble with my back lately, and I want you
-to look at it.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>He looked dretful surprised&mdash;I spozed he wuzn’t
-ust to havin’ a complaint so queer and mysterious.</p>
-
-<p>And I rapidly made my preperations, and presented
-my left shoulder blade for his consideration.</p>
-
-<p>And as I did so, I said anxiously&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Is it a bile?”</p>
-
-<p>I dreaded his answer. Neuralgy I felt I could
-face, but a bile seemed dretful if met by me on
-foreign shores, far from catnip and a quiet home.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I can’t tell what is the matter; if I were
-in your place I would have a doctor.”</p>
-
-<p>Mekanically, and like sheet lightnin’, I seized the
-breakfast shawl and drawed its voluminous folds
-about my figger and faced him.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</span></p>
-<p>“Hain’t you a doctor?” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez he; “I am a piano tuner. I thought
-you wanted me to tune an instrument,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>I sunk into a chair and waved my hand towards
-the door.</p>
-
-<p>He bowed and vanished.</p>
-
-<p>And I, a not knowin’ whether to laugh or to cry,
-I did both at the same time. I felt meachin’, and
-small, and provoked, and shamed, and tickled, and
-mad, and everything.</p>
-
-<p>But anon I thought I must not let this <i>contrarytemps</i>
-(French) vanquish me. So I called on all
-the common sense I had, and all the rectitude I had,
-and I had a real lot of it when I got holt of all
-of it.</p>
-
-<p>For I realized that my motives wuz as pure as
-rain water in a new cedar barrel, and so, bein’
-dragged up to the tribunal of my own jedgment, I
-could not find myself to blame; so I determined to
-keep calm and not let the World or Josiah know
-what I had been through.</p>
-
-<p>For it wuz a hard blow onto both my jedgment
-and pride, lookin’ on it with a nateral eye, and I felt
-that Josiah and the World would be apt to look at
-it through nateral eyes, and not through the rapt
-vision of jestice that made me say and say calmly
-that Josiah wuz the one to blame; for if he hadn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</span>
-extracted a promise from me, this <i>contrarytemps</i>
-would not have occurred.</p>
-
-<p>These large-sized emotions lifted me up quite a
-good ways, and so I spoze it made the next notch
-up come easier to me. For as I sot there I moralized&mdash;I
-have been a-relyin’ on mortal ingregients to
-help me and a-leanin’ on a pardner’s jedgment.</p>
-
-<p>Ingregients have failed, pardner’s jedgment has
-proved futile&mdash;futiler it did seem to me than anything
-ever had before sence the world begun, as
-futile as I have found ’em anon and oftener.</p>
-
-<p>So sez I to myself, “What if I should branch
-out and try the faith cure&mdash;turn aside from doctors
-and pardners, reeds that have broke under my weak
-grasp?”</p>
-
-<p>I will! I will!</p>
-
-<p>So I at once made my preperations for faith cure.
-I het some Pond’s Extract in a little cup on the
-gas&mdash;I had brung a little contrivance from home that
-fitted the burner.</p>
-
-<p>I het that extract as hot as I could bear it, and
-bathed that shoulder blade in the soothin’ mixture;
-I then wet a cloth in anarky, and rubbed it for a
-quarter of a hour by the clock; I then put on a
-strong poreus plaster I had by me, made from healin’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</span>herbs; and then I het some more Pond’s Extract,
-and put in some tincture of wormwood&mdash;I had a
-little in a bottle&mdash;and I wet a woollen cloth in it
-and laid it over the blade. I then filled my hot-water
-bag with water and laid myself down on
-the bed, with the warm, soothin’ rubber bag pressed
-clost to the achin’ blade.</p>
-
-<p>And then, havin’ completed these simple preleminaries,
-I leaned on the Faith Cure&mdash;I leaned
-heavy, and anon I felt that I had hit on the right
-plan. The pain grew lighter and lighter, my thoughts
-of the <i>contrarytemps</i> grew more peaceful and as if
-I could bear it. I felt that I could forgive Josiah,
-and then I knew nothin’ further for a long time.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp86" id="i_427" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_427.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Samantha’s Faith Cure.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Anon I seemed to be back in Jonesville; Philury
-and I wuz down in our back paster a-pickin’
-rossberrys. The sun shone down warm as I stooped
-over the pink, laden boughs.</p>
-
-<p>The crick under the hill tinkled melogiously&mdash;somebody
-wuz tunin’ it, I
-thought. It seemed to be playin’
-melogious cords I had never
-hearn before. A bird flew out
-of the deep, green depths of
-Balcom’s woods; it flew up in
-front of me and lighted on
-my forward, and said&mdash;</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</span></p>
-<p>“How do you feel, Samantha? Are you worse?”</p>
-
-<p>I had layed there for five hours by the clock, and
-it wuz my own pardner’s hand on my forward that
-rousted me up.</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez I, “Josiah; I am much better than I
-wuz.”</p>
-
-<p>“Did you git the doctor?” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>That wuz a tender subject to me, but I wuz able
-to meet it. I sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I thought I would try the Faith Cure, Josiah,
-and,” sez I, “I truly feel like a new creeter&mdash;the
-pain has almost all gone.” And it had, and from
-that minute I gained on it fast.</p>
-
-<p>At bedtime I tried the Faith Cure agin, after
-goin’ through with the same simple preleminaries I
-had went through, and the next mornin’ the cure
-wuz almost complete, which made the trials that
-begun as soon as I opened my eyes some easier to
-bear.</p>
-
-<p>I heard my pardner’s voice the first thing, out in
-the hall, through the half open door. I hearn him
-a-sayin’&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Dum it all, don’t you never have day here? Is
-it always night?”</p>
-
-<p>“It is day now,” sez the voice of a agitated
-chambermaid; “it is between 8 and 9 o’clock.”</p>
-
-<p>“Pretty day!” sez Josiah. Sez he, “Look out
-of the winder and see if you can see daylight; a
-pretty day this is&mdash;dark as a stack of black<span class="pagenum" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</span> cats,
-and darker, for you could see the cats if they
-wuz a inch from your nose.” Sez he, “We have
-been here three days, and I hain’t seen daylight
-yet.”</p>
-
-<p>He had a air of blamin’ the girl, and I interfered
-and called him in; but the girl wuz waywised, and
-she said, “It is very unusual weather, sir&mdash;very unusual.
-We have never had such a fog before.”</p>
-
-<p>They always say that, from Chicago and London
-to Egypt&mdash;they “never had it before.”</p>
-
-<p>It always happens dretful onfortunate jest whilst
-you are there.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah wuz jest preparin’ to blame the girl agin,
-I dare presoom to say, when I hearn another voice
-on the seen.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz the voice of a Englishman that Josiah
-had got some acquainted with, and who had disputed
-warm with him about their two different countries,
-each one on ’em a-praisin’ up his own native land
-to the skies.</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah made a derisive remark to him
-right there in that untoward place about his “dum
-climate.”</p>
-
-<p>I wuz mortified, but couldn’t walk out and interfere,
-not bein’ dressed.</p>
-
-<p>After passin’ a number<span class="pagenum" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</span> of sentences back and
-forth, I hearn the Englishman say&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“This is a great country, sir&mdash;the sun never sets
-on it.”</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah sez in a real mean axent&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Good reason for that! the sun never rises on’t&mdash;it
-can’t go down where it hain’t riz! I hain’t
-seen a ray of sunshine sence I come to England!”</p>
-
-<p>Thinkses I, “Dressed or ondressed, I’ve got to
-interfere,” and I hollered out agin, “Josiah&mdash;Josiah
-Allen!” And he see in my axent a need of
-haste.</p>
-
-<p>And he come into the room, and I sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t run down a man’s country on a empty
-stumick, when it is as dark as pitch.”</p>
-
-<p>And he sez, “Then I can’t run it at all.” His
-axent wuz pitiful.</p>
-
-<p>And it wuz indeed a fearful time.</p>
-
-<p>The winder presented a black, murky appearance,
-the gas wuz lit in the house and outside,
-and away from the light the streets wuz as dark
-as a black broadcloth pocket in a blind man’s over-coat.</p>
-
-<p>We felt gloomy at the breakfast-table, but Martin
-sed we must be gittin’ round some. So we
-concluded to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral. So after
-awhile we ventered to sally out. We wuz about
-two hours a-goin’ a distance that ort to took us
-about fifteen minutes&mdash;a-movin’ on through the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</span>
-dense blackness, and not knowin’ what we wuz
-a-comin’ up aginst, or who, or when, or what.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz a fearful time, very.</p>
-
-<p>We went in two handsomes (though their handsomeness
-didn’t do us any good, for we couldn’t
-see a speck on’t). Josiah and I and Al Faizi
-went in one, and Martin and Alice and Adrian in
-the other. A strange and mysterious journey as
-I ever took, a-hearin’ anon or oftener a voice
-up on top of our vehicle a-shoutin’ out replies to
-the frenzied cries of cabmen on every side on him,
-and a not knowin’ who or what we wuz a-goin’ to
-run into, or be run in by. And the faint glow of
-the street lights a-shinin’ through the black mists
-like suns that wuz a-bein’ darkened, as the Skripters
-tell on.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz a fearful seen; my Josiah wuz well-nigh
-prostrated by it, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“If I ever git where the sun shines in the daytime
-agin, I’ll stay there.”</p>
-
-<p>“So will I!” sez I, and I felt it, Heaven knows!
-I wuz fearful agitated.</p>
-
-<p>Sez Josiah, as a loud, skairful cry from the top
-of our handsome wuz answered from others all
-round us&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Jest think<span class="pagenum" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</span> on’t, Samantha, how bright and
-pleasant it is this minute in our back yard to Jonesville;
-how plain you could see the side of the
-barn; how the sun is a-shinin’ down on the smoke-house,
-and hen-park, and leech barrel.</p>
-
-<p>“Why did we ever leave them seens!” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, indeed!” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Ury is mebby at this minute goin’ in to
-the house, happy creeter!” Sez he, “A-walkin’
-out a-seein’ every step he takes; and Philury
-a-standin’ in the back door a-watchin’ him, and
-a-lookin’ at the Loontown hills milds off, and the
-Jonesville steeple.</p>
-
-<p>“And we a-gropin’ along in perfect blackness
-at 12 <span class="allsmcap">M.</span>, and can’t see our noses. Why,” sez he
-bitterly, “my nose is a perfect stranger to me; it
-might be changed to a Roman or a Greecy one,
-and I not know it.”</p>
-
-<p>“You’d feel the change,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“I d’no whether I would or not. I feel all lost
-and by the side of myself,” sez he; “three more
-days of these carryin’s on would make my brain
-tottle.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, it couldn’t tottle fur,” sez I. I said it
-to comfort him, but it wuzn’t took so&mdash;no, fur
-from it.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">ST. PAUL’S AND THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, after a seen of almost inexpressible
-wretchedness we reached St. Paul’s Cathedral.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah a-gittin’ it into his head that it wuz fashionable
-to read up about places of interest, had
-flooded his brain almost beyend its strength to bear
-about the Cathedral. And that information oozed
-and drizzled out of the instersises of his brain all
-the time we wuz there. As for me, when we entered
-the great central western door I wuz almost
-lost and by the side of myself as I ketched sight of
-the vast interior.</p>
-
-<p>As I looked down the immense, soft gray yeller
-depths of distance, I felt almost as though I wuz
-lookin’ down some of Nater’s isles, with shadders of
-blue mist a-lurkin’ in the corners.</p>
-
-<p>After my senses come back gradual I could pay
-some attention to the rich, dark carvin’, the crimson
-cushions, the big organ towerin’ up, etc., etc. I felt
-lifted up considerable by the grandeur of the
-spectacle.</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah wanted to show off.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, a-wavin’ his hand down<span class="pagenum" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</span> the long aisle&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“There is the place for knaves! See, Samantha,
-the beautiful arrangement&mdash;they’re set apart from
-good folks. It sez the ‘knave runs down that way.’
-He is made to run so’s to separate him still more
-from Christians that go slow.”</p>
-
-<p>“Where did you git that information, Josiah
-Allen?” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Right here,” sez he, and he took out his guide-book
-and pinted to the words&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“The long nave runs down through the centre.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “How do you spell your vile person, Josiah?”</p>
-
-<p>“N-a-v-e, nave,” sez he&mdash;“the easiest way.”</p>
-
-<p>I groaned, and sez I, “I would shet up that book,
-Josiah Allen, and go back to Webster’s old spellin’-book.”</p>
-
-<p>He acted real pudgiky.</p>
-
-<p>But Alice wanted to go into the North Chapel,
-where the short service for business men wuz a-goin’
-on, it bein’ almost noon when we got there. It wuz
-a impressive sight to see these busy men takin’ a
-breathin’ space from the hard labors of the day to
-give thought to the Better Country and the best
-way to git there.</p>
-
-<p>A beautiful sculptured head of the Christ looked
-down on these busy, careworn men, as if He wuz
-sorry for ’em and wanted to give ’em a breath of
-peace and love to go with ’em through the hot,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</span>
-feverish toils of the rest of the day.</p>
-
-<p>After lookin’ up into the ineffible beauty and love
-of that face, it didn’t seem as if those grocers could
-put so much sand into their sugar and pepper, or the
-merchants pay so little to the poor wimmen who
-make the garments they sell.</p>
-
-<p>But I d’no.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the chapel on the south side wuz meant to
-be a place to administer jestice at different times,
-affectin’ meetin’-housen and sech&mdash;what they call a
-Consistery Court.</p>
-
-<p>And here Josiah agin tried to explain things
-to me.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “This is called a Consistery Court&mdash;here
-is where they try to be consistent when they attend
-to affairs of the meetin’-house.”</p>
-
-<p>And sez I in a dry axent, about as dry as a corn-cob,
-sez I, “It’s a pity they don’t have sech a court
-in American meetin’-housen.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “They’re needed there,” and my mind
-roamed over the pressin’ need of consistency in sech
-cases as Dr. Briggs, Parkhurst, Beecher, Heber
-Newton, Felix Adler, Satolli, etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>“And even in Jonesville,” I sez to myself, “is it
-not possible to even now have one built in the precincts
-of the Jonesville meetin’-house, where the
-members could go in half a day or so a week<span class="pagenum" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</span>
-and try to be consistent?”</p>
-
-<p>Thinkses I, If they did honestly try to live up
-to the buildin’ they wuz in, and be consistent,
-there wouldn’t be so much light talk aginst religion
-as there is now, and more young folks brung
-into the church.</p>
-
-<p>Howsumever, whether Josiah got it right or not,
-one thing I do know, right in the midst of this
-court is a elaborate monument to the Duke of
-Wellington, that almost fills it up, so jestice is fairly
-scrunched up and squoze for want of room.</p>
-
-<p>That noble old Duke wouldn’t wanted it so. But
-how little can we tell what people will do with
-our memories when we have left ’em! But probble
-most of us won’t have no sech immense memorial
-riz up to us after we have passed away.</p>
-
-<p>But my reflections wuz agin cut short, for Josiah
-wanted to agin show off. Sez he, “The man that
-that wuz riz up to wuz made of iron mostly&mdash;lost
-his legs and arms, I spoze, and had iron ones made
-to replace ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>“Iron legs!” sez I; “how could he git round?”</p>
-
-<p>“By main strength.” Sez he, “He wuz a powerful
-man; he wuz called the ‘Iron Duke.’”</p>
-
-<p>I gin him a pityin’ glance, but strangers wuz
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</span>by, and I wouldn’t humiliate him by disputin’ him.
-I merely sez, “If I wuz in your place I would
-keep still for the rest of the day, Josiah Allen.”</p>
-
-<p>But Adrian, who took it all in good part, and
-with immense interest, sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“How funny it must be to shake hands with
-him, but how it would hurt to have him strike
-you over the ear!”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Adrian, you keep with Alice and me.”
-Sez I, “We’re a-goin’ to look at General Gordon’s
-statute.”</p>
-
-<p>This noble life and noble death are kep’ in
-memory by a beautiful statute, recumbient and
-a-layin’ down. The face, they say, is a good likeness.
-And as I looked at it, the thought of that
-noble and manly creeter almost brung tears to my
-eyes.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we proceeded on eastward to the dome.
-Here is the pulpit and the place where the bigger
-part of the congregation sit.</p>
-
-<p>Lookin’ up, we see glitterin’ spaces filled with
-beautiful mosiacs, and up there are the benine
-figgers of the Evangelists, and the four great
-Prophets&mdash;Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.</p>
-
-<p>Agin that thought of what would be done with
-our memories hanted me. They wandered about
-in goats’ skins here&mdash;afflicted, persecuted; did they
-think they would ever be throned in sech gorgeous
-places? No, indeed.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</span></p>
-
-<p>Above Daniel, Isaiah, etc., is the whisperin’ gallery,
-where the lowest whisper, clost to the wall,
-goes all round the entire distance&mdash;a sight, hain’t it?</p>
-
-<p>And way up in the dome we see paintin’s of the
-life of St. Paul and his deeds.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, down on the floor to the south are immense
-statutes to Lord Nelson and Cornwallis. Good
-creeters, both on ’em, I believe, though mistook in
-jedgment. And a great monument to Major-General
-Dundas. There wuz lots of monuments to
-other eminent men. Most of the statutes, as is
-nateral, as is done in our own country, wuz mostly
-riz up to men who had been famous for fightin’&mdash;them
-who had been successful in killin’ off thousands
-and thousands of men, leavin’ trails of agony and
-blood behind ’em, clouds of black gloom, under
-which widders and orphans groped, seekin’ for
-bread, and fallin’ down hopeless in the quest.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, it’s nateral; I couldn’t say a word&mdash;America
-duz it.</p>
-
-<p>I also see, as in America, the skurcity of female
-statutes. We see the absolute dearth on ’em. Why,
-if a inhabitant of Mars should light down there
-some day and take a fancy to go through the
-cathedral, he wouldn’t have a idee that there wuz
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</span>
-ever sech a thing as a woman in the world. He
-would go back to Jupiter and say: “One peculiarity
-of the planet Earth wuz, there wuz no wimmen
-there&mdash;only a race of men.”</p>
-
-<p>And if they questioned him too clost how they
-wuz born, he would say that most probble they
-growed jest like trees.</p>
-
-<p>And then the old Mars would gather round him
-and congratulate themselves on bein’ on a planet
-where equal jestice wuz awarded to men and wimmen
-both, and where there wuz no more war.</p>
-
-<p>The red lights on the planet don’t mean war, I
-don’t believe; it means the rosy glow of the strange
-foliage that the Mars gather for their children, and
-the Pars, too, for all I know.</p>
-
-<p>But I am indeed a-eppisodin’.</p>
-
-<p>But a few centuries from now let that same
-visitor come down and look into our great cathedrals,
-on both sides of the Atlantic, and he will see
-statutes to wimmen risin’ up jest the same as to
-men. Under the benine faces of some on ’em he
-will read&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“There is no more war, for the former things
-have passed away.”</p>
-
-<p>The former things wuz what made war&mdash;injestice,
-intemperance, brutality, licenses for prostitution,
-drunkenness, and infamy, etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</span></p>
-
-<p>But I am a-eppisodin’ too fur, too fur.</p>
-
-<p>The stained-glass winders we see on every side
-wuz beautiful in the extreme. But if you’ll believe
-it, this meetin’-house hain’t finished yet. Seein’
-there has been a meetin’-house here for thirteen
-hundred years or so, you’d a-thought they’d ort to
-got it finished; but, then, they’ve been burnt out
-several times.</p>
-
-<p>I don’t want to brag over ’em, I didn’t feel like
-it at the time, though I couldn’t help a-thinkin’
-that we built the Jonesville meetin’-house in three
-months. But, then, this one is bigger and has more
-work on it.</p>
-
-<p>Though the steeple on our meetin’-house is <i>very</i>
-much admired.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we went down into the crypt. It is called
-one of the finest in Europe. It is the same size as
-the cathedral.</p>
-
-<p>Here are some more warriors buried&mdash;Lord Nelson,
-the Duke of Wellington, etc. But to give
-credit to those who got up the buryin’-ground, there
-are some ministers buried there&mdash;sech as Dr. Liddon,
-Dean Milman, and eminent painters, sculpters, etc.</p>
-
-<p>Here lies the great architect of the cathedral, Sir
-Christopher Wren.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah read the tablet on his grave, and then went
-to explainin’ it to us.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “It tells the date<span class="pagenum" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</span> of his birth and his
-death, and then it sez sunthin’ about spice&mdash;allspice,
-I guess. Christopher wuz probble fond of it.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, for I knowed the words by heart&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Reader, if you ask where is his monument, look
-about you.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez Josiah, “You’re wrong, Samantha. There’s
-the word spice all writ out.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “It’s a dead language, Josiah&mdash;I’ve translated
-it. And,” sez I, “if you felt as I did a-lookin’
-round on his matchless monument, sech as no man
-ever had before, you wouldn’t talk about allspice.”</p>
-
-<p>He acted real huffy, and moved on.</p>
-
-<p>Here are many monuments to illustrious people
-who are buried somewhere else.</p>
-
-<p>Down here in the east end is a chapel where they
-have early service every week day.</p>
-
-<p>In the west end is kept the funeral car on which
-the body of the Duke of Wellington wuz carried to
-the grave&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“To the sound of the people’s lamentation.”</p>
-
-<p>It is a handsome structer of gun metal. One
-gun took at each of the Duke’s victories bein’
-melted to make it. Twelve horses wuz needed to
-draw this car&mdash;it broke through the pavement in
-many places.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</span></p>
-<p>As I wuz a-explainin’ this to Alice, I hearn Josiah
-say to Adrian:</p>
-
-<p>“On account of his legs and arms bein’ so heavey,
-I spoze, and his bein’ so great.”</p>
-
-<p>And then I had to explain
-to that child agin
-that his greatness wuz
-not his heft by the steelyards,
-nor his bein’ called
-iron wuzn’t because he
-wuz made of cast iron.</p>
-
-<p>I guess Adrian understood
-it&mdash;I guess he did.
-But Josiah Allen wuz a
-drawback to correct information&mdash;indeed, he
-wuz.</p>
-
-<p>For as we wended on
-I hearn him explain how
-this cathedral wuz sot
-on fire in 1590 by a
-woman called Anne Domono.</p>
-
-<p>Sez Adrian, “She was a bad woman, wasn’t she?”</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp55" id="i_442" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_442.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“Yes,” sez Josiah, “old Domono probble had his
-hands full with her.”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez Josiah with a deep sithe, “old Domono
-probble had his hands full with her&mdash;she wuz a
-fiery creeter.”</p>
-
-<p>But here I interfered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</span> and explained it all out to
-Adrian, much as I hated to go agin my pardner’s
-words.</p>
-
-<p>Strange doin’s has been done in this old meetin’-house
-durin’ the long centuries that it has stood here.
-It almost made my brain reel to think on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Councils of the church wuz held here, the Bishop
-of Exeter sought refuge here from a mob&mdash;wuz proclaimed
-a traitor and beheaded. Here Wyckliffe
-wuz tried for his religious opinions. Here popes
-sent out their legates. Here kings held their councils,
-and here men and wimmen sold their goods.
-And some with stuns and arrers killed the pigeons
-who made their nests in the ornaments of the walls.
-Here, too, they played ball and other games. Queer
-doin’s for meetin’-housen, but it wuz true. But
-what would the world say if my Josiah and Deacon
-Bobbett should take to playin’ ball in the Jonesville
-meetin’-house, or Sister Gowdy and I should play
-tag round the pulpit? Why, how foreign nations
-would be all rousted up and sneer at us!</p>
-
-<p>Here the leaders in the War of the Roses acted
-and carried on. Here Richard, Duke of York,
-took a solemn oath to uphold Henry VI., and then
-tried his best to shake him off the throne&mdash;lyin’ and
-actin’ in a meetin’-house. Here the dead body of
-Henry lay in state.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</span></p>
-<p>After the Reformation had begun it wuz desecrated
-by the very meanest kind of doin’s. All
-kinds of business wuz carried on, all kinds of amusements.
-Busybodys and gossips made it their resort,
-and the Holy Evelyn said&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“It was made a stable of horses and a den of
-thieves.”</p>
-
-<p>Then, if you’ll believe it, some of the reformers,
-or them who called themselves sech (queer creeters,
-I guess), stole the beautiful altar clothes, communion
-plate, candleabra, etc.&mdash;jest carried ’em off under
-the mantilly of religion they’d put on.</p>
-
-<p>Curous! curous! but, then, that old mantilly
-covers up lots of stolen things to-day, and meanness
-of all sorts.</p>
-
-<p>After this the grand old meetin’-house wuz completely
-burnt down. I should thought it would
-have expected lightnin’ to strike it, or sunthin’.
-Anyway, it all burnt down to ashes. The present
-buildin’ hain’t been misused in that way&mdash;the services
-are carried on decently and in order.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we hung round there for more’n a half
-day. Josiah had took the precaution to eat a hearty
-lunch before we sot out, so he remained considerable
-quiet till the nawin’s of hunger overtook him
-agin. And we left at sunset.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">“THE WIDDER ALBERT.”</p>
-
-<p>I’d told Martin when we’d first come to London
-that I must see the Widder Albert whilst I wuz
-there.</p>
-
-<p>A few days had run by, and I sez to Martin&mdash;“Like
-as not Victoria will be a-wonderin’ why I
-hain’t been to her house.”</p>
-
-<p>Of course when I first arrove I had sent her
-word to once, and asked her in a friendly way to
-come and see us jest as quick as she could, knowin’
-that it wuz etiket for me to do so, and it wuz
-nothin’ but manners for her to make the first
-visit.</p>
-
-<p>And a-takin’ it right to home, that if she had
-come over to Jonesville, and wuz a-stoppin’ to the
-tarvern there, it would be my place to make the
-first call. I hain’t over-peticular in sech matters,
-but still I set quite a store by etiket, after all, and
-havin’ made the overtoor and sent the word that I
-wuz here, I didn’t want to demean myself by actin’
-too over-anxious to make her acquaintance, though
-I did in my heart want to neighbor with her, thinkin’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</span>quite a lot of her as a woman who had rained
-long and rained well.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz Martin that I sent the word by. He argued
-quite a spell about the onproperness of my sendin’
-sech word to a Queen. But I argued back so
-fluent about the dissapintment it would be to her if
-she didn’t know I wuz here, and my onwillin’ness
-to hurt her feelin’s by my not makin’ myself known
-to her, that I spoze he wuz convinced, for he sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Leave it right in my hands; don’t say a word
-to anybody else on the subject, and I will tend to
-it in the right way.”</p>
-
-<p>So I gin my promise, and as he hurried right
-out of the room, I spoze he tended to it imegiately
-and to once. And I sot in my room the rest of
-that day in my best waist and my shiniest collar
-and cuffs, expectin’ some that she would be to see
-me before night.</p>
-
-<p>And the next time I went out sight-seein’,
-though I didn’t say a word about her, accordin’ to
-my promise, yet I expected to go back and see the
-benine face, mebby a-lookin’ over the bannisters
-a-waitin’ for me.</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t spoze she would have her crown on at
-this time&mdash;no, I expected to see that good, likely
-face surrounded by a widder’s bunnet, or mebby a
-crape veil throwed on kinder careless like.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</span></p>
-<p>I knew we should be very congenial. We both
-wished so well to our own sect&mdash;we wuz both so
-attached to our pardners; and though hern had
-passed on and mine wuz still with me, still I knew
-we had so many affectin’ incidents of our early days
-of our wedded love, before our perfectly adorin’
-affection for Albert and Josiah wuz toned down by
-time and walkin’ round in stockin’ feet, and
-throwin’ crowns and bootjacks down in cross and
-fraxious hours, when meals wuz delayed, or the
-nations riz up and kicked, or the geese got into the
-garden, or slackness about kindlin’ wood, or the
-shortness of a septer, or etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, I spozed we both had had our domestic
-trials. I spozed that Albert had his ways jest as
-Josiah has. Every pardner has ’em&mdash;they’re fraxious,
-touchy at times, over-good at others, and have
-mysterious ways. Men are dretful mysterious creeters
-at times&mdash;dretful.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, I felt that we could find perfect volumes
-to talk over on this subject, for if ever there wuz
-two wimmen devoted to their pardners with a devotion
-pure and cast iron, them two wimmen wuz
-Samantha and Victoria.</p>
-
-<p>And then, too, we wuz both Mas. I spozed
-she would tell me the good pints of Albert Edward,
-and I laid out to tell her of the oncommon
-smartness of Thomas Jefferson. And the more
-she would enlarge on Bertie, the more I would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</span>
-spread myself on Tommy.</p>
-
-<p>And then the girls; how she would tell me about
-Louise and Beatrice, and how I would tell her
-about Tirzah Ann&mdash;how we’d praise ’em up and
-compare notes about ’em.</p>
-
-<p>I presoom her boys and girls didn’t always come
-up to her idees of what girls and boys should do,
-and should not do. And if she told me in confidence
-anything of this sort, I wuz a-layin’ out to
-confide in her about Tirzah Ann, and how her
-efforts to be genteel wore on me, and how she
-would love to flirt if it wuzn’t for religion and a lack
-of material. And if she made any confidences to me
-about Bertie&mdash;anything relatin’ to the fair sex, and
-playin’ games, etc., I wuz a-goin’ to tell her, as
-much as I love Thomas Jefferson, I thought he did
-play checkers too much; and sence he wuz riz up
-so as a lawyer, the wimmen jest made fools of
-themselves and him, too, a-follerin’ him up and
-a-makin’ of him; but, then, Maggie didn’t care a cent
-about it, and that he wuz perfectly devoted to his
-wife and children, jest as her boy wuz.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz a-goin’ to say that I would never mention
-these things to a single soul but her, anyway, but
-I knew she would keep it, for she wuz jest like me&mdash;if
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</span>
-her boy didn’t please her, she went right to
-him with it, and that ended it. She stood up for
-him to his back, jest as I stood up for Thomas J.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, I spozed we should take solid comfort a-confidin’
-in each other, and mebby a-givin’ each other
-hints that would be helpful in the futer.</p>
-
-<p>And then we wuz both grandmas. How happy
-we should be a-talkin’ over the oncommon excellencies
-of our grandchildren!</p>
-
-<p>For though we are both too sensible to act foolish
-in sech matters and be partial, yet we both
-knew there never wuz and probble never would be
-sech grandchildren as ourn wuz.</p>
-
-<p>And then I had some very valuable receipts I laid
-out to gin her in cases of croup and colic, sech as
-young people don’t pay much attention to, but
-which I knew would jest suit her, and which might
-come handy for her grandchildren or great-grandchildren.
-I laid out to write ’em off for her. One
-or two of ’em wuz in poetry&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“A handful of catnip steeped with care,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">With a little lobelia throwed in there,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Mixed with some honey more or less,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Will mitigate the croup’s distress.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And this&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Some mustard seed,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Some onion raw,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Applied to chests&mdash;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</span>I never saw</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">A thing more strong</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">To draw, to draw.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The grammar wuzn’t quite what I would have liked
-it to be in this last verse of poetry, but I made it in
-a time of pain, and I knew that when croup and colic
-wuz round, she nor I wuzn’t a-goin’ to stand on a
-verb more or less.</p>
-
-<p>And then I had another one:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Some spignut roots</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Steeped on the fire</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Is always good</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">For my Josiah.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And a little Balm</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Of Gilead flowers</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Is good to calm</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">In fraxious hours.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I laid out to gin her all these receipts, and offer
-to send her the ingregients for makin’ the mixtures.</p>
-
-<p>Of course her pardner had passed away, but the
-world is full of men and wimmen, and sickness and
-fraxiousness are rampant, and good receipts like
-these don’t grow on every gooseberry bush.</p>
-
-<p>And then, I had a lot of other receipts I thought
-she’d like. And I wuz a-goin’ to ask her for her
-receipt for makin’ milk emptin’s bread; somehow,
-mine had seemed to run out and not be so good as
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</span>usual. And I had a receipt for corn bread that wuz
-perfectly beautiful&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Two measures of meal and one of flour,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Two of sweet milk and one of sour,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And a little soda and molasses.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Besides the literary treat of this poem, the excellence
-of the bread wuz fenominal.</p>
-
-<p>And then, how we both would love to talk about
-the interests of the world at large! I wuz a-goin’ to
-compliment her by sayin’ that though the sun never
-set on her property, while it sot every day on ourn,
-yet she couldn’t welcome the blazin’ sun of Righteousness
-and Enlightenment any more gladly than
-I did. And how first-rate I thought some of her
-moves had been, and how highly glad and tickled
-I’d been over ’em; and then I wuz layin’ out to draw
-her attention to some tangles in the mane and tail
-of the old Lion of England, a-tellin’ her at the
-same time that I realized only too well the dirt and
-onevenness in the feathers of our American Eagle.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz a-goin’ to talk it over with her about the
-opium trade, and the dretful intemperance and horrible
-cuttin’s up and actin’s, and the dretful crimes
-bein’ perpretated way out in Injy.</p>
-
-<p>Dretful thing, indeed, takin’ a woman and ruinin’
-her body and soul for time and eternity, and then
-the goverment a-drawin’ money out of this eternal
-shame and ruin. I spozed we should talk a sight<span class="pagenum" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</span>
-about that and draw lots of morals from it, too&mdash;draw
-’em a good ways. And the horrible doin’s in
-Armenia&mdash;I thought more’n as likely as not we
-should both shed tears over it.</p>
-
-<p>But, as I say, time had went on, and she hadn’t
-come to see me yet. I asked Martin anxiously what
-he spozed wuz the reason, and he gin me various
-and conflictin’ answers.</p>
-
-<p>Once he sed she wuz sick a-bed; and the next
-hour, in answer to my anxious inquiry, he told me she
-had gone on a visit to a fur country. And when I reminded
-him of the descripency in his statements, he
-come right out and sed she’d broke her legs&mdash;both
-on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez he, “don’t make it public&mdash;it’s a State
-secret.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, then I worried considerable about her, and
-sed I ort to go and see her, and carry her some
-Tincture of Wormwood.</p>
-
-<p>And then Martin sed she wuz entirely well and
-comfortable and happy, but couldn’t walk.</p>
-
-<p>But I sez, “She might send me word.”</p>
-
-<p>“She did,” sez he; “she tells you that the next
-time you visit England she hopes to see you.”</p>
-
-<p>“The next time!” sez I&mdash;“there won’t be no next
-time. If I ever git acrost the ocean agin I shall stay
-there.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</span></p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez my Josiah; “if we ever see home agin
-we shall probble never step our feet outside the
-house agin, or the back door-yard.”</p>
-
-<p>But I sez, “I shall probble walk round some in
-the front yard, and mebby visit the children.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Not for years, if ever.” Sez he, “I want
-to set down on our back steps and set there for over
-a year without gittin’ up.”</p>
-
-<p>I felt that along in January he would be willin’
-to move round a little and git into the house, but
-that dear man can’t be megum.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, with deep dissapintment I realized that the
-Widder Albert and I wuzn’t a-goin’ to meet.
-If she wuz in the state Martin said she wuz, of
-course I knew she couldn’t take no comfort a-visitin’,
-and I hain’t no hand to go and visit sick folks
-if I can’t help ’em.</p>
-
-<p>And I spoze, as Martin sed, that she had good
-hired girls and everything done for her comfort.</p>
-
-<p>But I worried about her quite a good deal.</p>
-
-<p>But it wuz a comfort to me to think of what a
-big house she had&mdash;it wuz big enough to hold plenty
-of help, and it must have good air in it&mdash;yes, indeed!
-The house itself is as big as from our house over to
-Deacon Gowdey’s, and I d’no but bigger.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</span></p>
-<p>Martin made a great pint on goin’ to see the
-Bank of England. I believe he jest loves to walk
-round the outside of buildin’s that has immense
-wealth in ’em, if he don’t go inside. He and Josiah
-went and wuz gone all the forenoon. I spozed it
-would take a week to go through all the rooms.
-Why, there is nine different door-yards right inside
-the buildin’; they call ’em courts, and the rooms
-open into ’em; so you can form a idee of how big
-it is. But I didn’t seem to care so much about
-goin’, so I stayed to home. I had quite a talk with
-Al Faizi about it. He’d been a-huntin’ up facts
-and idees, as his way is.</p>
-
-<p>He didn’t condemn the ways of England at all&mdash;he
-simply told the facts and left ’em, jest as the
-’postles did. He sed he found that in the Bank of
-England wuz the greatest wealth heaped up in the
-smallest space that the world had ever known sence
-the creation. And with the same air of simply
-tellin’ a fact, and then leavin’ it, in the New Testament
-way, sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Almost in the shadow of this building, holding
-the world’s wealth, I find the greatest want and
-wretchedness and crime existing that I have ever
-looked upon, and I believe the worst the world has
-ever seen.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp54" id="i_455" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_455.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">Almost in the shadow of the Bank of England, I found the
-greatest want and wretchedness.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>He didn’t say that there must be a screw loose
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</span>somewhere in the great revolvin’ wheel of Humanity
-to make sech a state of things possible. He
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</span>jest writ down sunthin’ in that book of hisen&mdash;mebby
-it wuz expressions of wonder about our boasted
-civilization havin’ accomplished so little in eighteen
-hundred years, when the richest place on earth
-should have its dark shadder of the greatest want
-and crime clost to its side. No; he jest stated the
-facts and let us draw our own morals, and as fur as
-we wanted to. Martin didn’t notice his remarks,
-nor see Al Faizi at all, so fur as I could observe.
-He went on a-talkin’ with Josiah about the bank,
-and about Rotten Row; he sed he wanted us to
-see that, and wanted us to set off to once.</p>
-
-<p>And I told Alice out to one side, when we wuz
-gittin’ ready, that I didn’t know as I wanted her to
-go into any sech a nasty place, or Adrian either. I
-take good care of the children&mdash;yes, indeed I do!</p>
-
-<p>But we found out when we got there that Rotten
-Row wuz a elegant place, fixed off for ridin’ and
-drivin’. Beautiful ladies and grand-lookin’ gentlemen,
-and if there wuz anything Rotten about ’em,
-it wuz on the inside of their phylackricies; the outside
-of ’em wuz clean and brilliant.</p>
-
-<p>Some say that the place where these great folks
-congregate is well named, but I don’t believe everything
-that I hear.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</span></p>
-<p>Martin enjoyed the seen dretfully, though he sed,
-on commentin’ on the ladies ridin’, that none on
-’em could come up to an American woman in
-grace, and he sed that the best ridin’ that he ever
-see wuz by cow-boys on a Dakota ranch.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I couldn’t dispute him, never havin’ neighbored
-with cow-boys. But let Martin alone for
-findin’ out all the attractions of U. S. A. No;
-U. S. A. won’t suffer in Martin’s hands, not at all.</p>
-
-<p>As I sed, Martin and Alice went round quite a
-good deal to see her friends&mdash;Lords and Ladies
-some on ’em; she got acquainted with ’em to school,
-when she wuz a-boardin’ with that Miss Ponsions, a
-good likely school-teacher she wuz, so fur as I
-could make out.</p>
-
-<p>But owin’ to the Widder Albert enjoyin’ sech
-poor health, and not bein’ able to git to see me, I
-didn’t seem to want to go round so much. I didn’t
-want to go to parties&mdash;no, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>Alice come home from one gin by Lady L&mdash;&mdash;,
-and, if you’ll believe it, her pretty dress wuz all
-crushed and torn, fairly spilte. Alice sed there
-wuz sech a jam she couldn’t breathe hardly.</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “Sech doin’s don’t speak well for the
-woman of the house&mdash;lady or no lady; and,” sez I,
-“I’d love to advise her; I’d tell her that when I
-give a quiltin’ or a parin’-bee I never invite more’n
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</span>can git round the quilt and the parin’ machines
-handy and without crowdin’.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “I could probble put idees into Lady
-L&mdash;&mdash;’s head that would help her all her life in
-futer parties.” But I didn’t happen to see her,
-poor thing! and so I spoze she’ll keep on in the
-old way.</p>
-
-<p>I have known ’em who lived in the country, fur
-back from the delights and advantages of Jonesville&mdash;I
-have known them creeters, when they come
-in on a saw log or on a load of calves to ship, I have
-seen ’em look with perfect or at the commotion
-and life in the Jonesville street, where, right in front
-of the tarvern, I have seen with my own eyes as
-many as five teams and two open buggies, besides
-walkers on the sidewalk. This sight to ’em, fresh
-from country wilds, where one wagon along the
-road a day wuz a fair average, wuz as good as a circus
-to ’em.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp54" id="i_459" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_459.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Right in front of the tarvern, I have seen with my own eyes as
-many as five teams and two open buggies.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But the Jonesvillians wuz ust to the rush and
-bustle of them seven teams, and acted calm and
-self-possessed and hauty through it all.</p>
-
-<p>But I have seen the pride of them very Jonesvillians
-took down when they visited New York.
-There I have seen ’em stand with or on lower
-Broadway, when they see the rush, and jam, and push,
-and pull, and I’ve hearn their remarks, full as wonderin’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</span>and as agitated as the backwooders from way
-behind Jonesville.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</span></p>
-<p>That makes two ors, as I figger on’t.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, here is another one jest as big or bigger;
-set them New Yorkers, them very Broadwayers,
-down in a London street, and you’ll have another
-or jest as big to add as the two foregoin’ ones.</p>
-
-<p>The crowd is jest as much immenser, the roar
-jest as much louder, the jam, and push, and pull, and
-drive, and yell, and crash, and scramble, and roar,
-and rattle jest as much more enormouser.</p>
-
-<p>Why, imagine the slate stuns down to the Jonesville
-creek all springin’ up into men and wimmen, and
-horses and wagons, and carriages and drays, etc., etc.,
-etc., and you may have a faint idee of the countless
-number on ’em; and then imagine over all that
-seen a deep, black curtain of fog descended down
-sudden, and out of that roar the crowds of vehicles
-of all kinds, the yells of drivers, and most probble
-the yells of skairt-out females a-blendin’ in it&mdash;imagine
-it if you can; wall, that is a London
-street.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz considerable interested in the bridges of
-London that crossed the Thames, and I meditated
-every time I crossed one on ’em on Old London
-Bridge, and what a seen, what a seen that wuz for
-centuries; with houses built on each side on’t, merchants
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</span>and dealers in everything, and artists and
-preachers, for all I know. I know, anyway, one on
-’em wuz a good preacher&mdash;the immortal Bunyan.
-How he must have meditated as he see the throng
-surge past him&mdash;old and young, beggars and princes,
-velvet and rags!</p>
-
-<p>How he must have thought of the hard journey
-to the Celestial City, and what a hard tussle it wuz
-to git there!</p>
-
-<p>Hogarth lived here at one time, and mebby got
-the idee of his “Rake’s Progress” from some of the
-endless crowd he see go past. Anyway, he probble
-see rakes enough, if that wuz all, for they have permeated
-every field of life, a-rakin’ up all that is vile,
-and leavin’ the flowers and sweet blades of grass as
-they raked on.</p>
-
-<p>Holbein lived here.</p>
-
-<p>Life on that old bridge must have been a sight to
-contemplate, havin’ a good time on it some of
-the time, most probble, jest as we do in America
-and Jonesville. But in times of highest prosperity
-a-knowin’ that under ’em wuz a deep, black current
-a-flowin’, jest as we know it in Jonesville, only
-the current of Human Life is more mysteriouser
-and vague.</p>
-
-<p>Poor William Wallace had his head stuck up
-here&mdash;good creeter, it wuz a shame after all he went
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</span>through: a-losin’ his first wife and a-fightin’ so for
-freedom. And Thomas More, and Bolingbroke,
-and lots of others&mdash;middlin’ good creeters, all on
-’em. And then there wuz traitors, Jack Cade, etc.,
-etc., etc. I d’no but their heads did less trouble
-here than when they wuz on their bodies, so fur as
-the world wuz concerned, but I spoze it come tough
-on ’em, a-seein’ these heads wuz the only one
-they had.</p>
-
-<p>And Martin took us to parks so beautiful and
-grand that they took down Martin’s pride considerable,
-and us Jonesvillians, whose grassy acre in
-front of the meetin’-house had looked spacious to
-us, laid out as it wuz with young maples and slippery
-ellums&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>But where wuz our pride, and where wuz Martin’s?
-Think of four hundred acres all full of
-beauty: that is Hyde Park. And Windsor Park,
-Queen Victoria’s door-yard, as you may say, has
-five hundred acres in it. Jest think on’t.</p>
-
-<p>And there we’ve called our door-yard big, specially
-sence we moved the fence and took in the
-old gooseberry patch. I had boasted to neighborin’
-wimmen that it must be nigh upon a quarter
-of a acre&mdash;but five hundred, the idee!</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I’m glad I hain’t got to tend to it, and
-weed the poseys, and see that the grass is cut.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</span>But, then, she’s forehanded; she can afford to
-hire.</p>
-
-<p>But, amongst all the parks we went to, Josiah and
-I seemed to like the Kew Gardens about as well as
-any.</p>
-
-<p>I had deep emotions, for wuz it not there that
-Clive Newcome walked with Ethel? Her sweet
-form clost to him, but the dreary sea of Hopeless
-Despair a-surgin’ through his heart, a-seemin’ to
-wash her milds away from him, and she also, visey
-versey.</p>
-
-<p>Poor young creeters! poor young hearts!</p>
-
-<p>I seemed to see ’em a-walkin’ before me, with
-downcast heads and sad eyes, all up and down
-them lovely walks, jest as in Windsor Park I seemed
-to see the Merry Wives of Windsor, and poor
-old Falstaff a-settin’ out to meet ’em.</p>
-
-<p>I seemed to look out with my mind’s eye for that
-poor, foolish, vain old creeter more’n I did for
-Victoria’s clothes, which I might have expected
-would be hung out to dry that day&mdash;it bein’ a Monday,
-and she sech a splendid housekeeper.</p>
-
-<p>I have said what emotions rousted up in me as I
-went through Kew Gardens; as for Josiah, he liked
-’em because he could git provisions here of all kinds&mdash;good
-ones, too, and cheap.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we went to the British Museum.</p>
-
-<p>To give any idee of what we see in that museum
-would take more time, and foolscap paper, and eyesight,
-or wind and ears than I spoze I will ever be
-able to command.</p>
-
-<p>It is seven acres of land full of everything rich
-and rare and beautiful from our time back to the
-year one, and further, for all I know. The marbles,
-engravin’s, picters, coins, manuscripts, curosities&mdash;if
-I had the wealth of ’em in money&mdash;if I could
-have the worth of jest one article out of the innumerable
-multitude of ’em, I could jest buy out the
-hull town of Lyme, and live on the interest of my
-money.</p>
-
-<p>The museum holds everything and more too.
-And the library, why, it is most too much to believe
-what we see there. Now, I’ve always had a Bible
-and a New Testament, and have never gin much
-thought whether there wuz any other different ones;
-but I see with my own eyes seventeen hundred different
-kinds of Bibles.</p>
-
-<p>And good land! everything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</span> else accordin’&mdash;everything
-else a-swingin’ out jest as regardless of cost
-and space. The Egyptian Gallery wuz a sight to
-see, and statutes and slabs older than the hills. Who
-writ them words on ’em? Did the heads ache, and
-hearts, jest as they do now? I spoze so.</p>
-
-<p>Roman, Grecian, Assyrian galleries, galleries of
-all sorts, birds and beasts and fishes enough to stock
-the world, it seemed to me.</p>
-
-<p>But most of all the relicks; some on ’em filled
-my tired-out brain with or and wonder and admiration.</p>
-
-<p>Milton’s contract with his publishers for “Paradise
-Lost” (he got five pounds down, and wuz goin’ to
-git five dollars more when the first edition wuz sold,
-and so on).</p>
-
-<p>They took the advantage on him; you know he
-wuz blind, and couldn’t skirmish round and look
-into things; so Paradise or not, they got the better
-of him.</p>
-
-<p>And then his widder; why didn’t they try to do as
-they ort to by Miss Milton? She sold out root and
-branch for eight dollars&mdash;the idee! Why, how many
-copies have been sold of that book? Enough to
-build up a mountain as high as the Catskills.</p>
-
-<p>8 pounds for ’em&mdash;what a shame!</p>
-
-<p>The publishers are dead, I spoze; yes, I spoze
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</span>Samuel Symon passed away years ago, but he left
-quite a big family, and they all seem to foller the
-old gentleman’s plans, and are doin’ first-rate and
-layin’ up money real fast.</p>
-
-<p>And I see Hogarth’s receipts for some of his picters.
-And there wuz the very prayer-book used by
-Lady Jane Grey on the scaffold.</p>
-
-<p>“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place for all
-generations,” and “though I walk through the valley
-and the shadow of death” I will be with thee.
-I wonder if she heard the words when the shadders
-lay so dark on her pretty head?</p>
-
-<p>Then there wuz letters writ in their own hands
-from Martin Luther, Oliver Cromwell, Mary
-Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth, Peter the Great,
-Dudley, Leicester, Francis Bacon. And there
-wuzn’t a word in Francises letter, so fur as I see, as
-to whether he wuz Shakespeare or not, or whether
-Shakespeare wuz him.</p>
-
-<p>I wish I knew how it wuz!</p>
-
-<p>And there wuz papers and letters from all the
-kings and emperors, and George Washington right
-amongst ’em&mdash;it kinder tickled my pride to see
-George there, but he deserved it.</p>
-
-<p>Then there wuz the old bull that gin Henry the
-VIII. the name of Defender of the Faith. What
-kind of faith did he act out&mdash;the faith that he could
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</span>marry more wimmen and chop their heads off than
-any other old creeter this side of Blue Beard.</p>
-
-<p>I should have been ashamed if I wuz him. If he
-had been a woman a-marryin’ and a-killin’ and
-a-marryin’, and etc., etc., etc., they wouldn’t have
-stood it half so long&mdash;they would have broke it up;
-it wouldn’t have been any worse in a female for
-anything I know.</p>
-
-<p>And then there wuz the message from Julius
-Cæsar a-sayin’ that he had “Veni, vidi, vici.”</p>
-
-<p>I spoze Thomas Jefferson would know jest what
-that meant. Josiah thought it wuz sunthin’
-about some wimmen&mdash;Nancy somebody, but I
-d’no&mdash;I wouldn’t ask.</p>
-
-<p>And then there wuz letters from good riz up
-creeters, sech as John Knox, Sir Isaac Newton,
-Cardinal Wolsey, Cranmer, Erasmus, etc., etc., etc.,
-etc., etc., etc., and so forth.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah wuz perfectly beat out when we got home
-that night, and so wuz I.</p>
-
-<p>But we found letters from home, and they
-seemed to refresh us and take our minds offen
-our four legs and our two dizzy and tired-out
-heads.</p>
-
-<p>Babe, sweet little creeter, she writ that she prayed
-for me every night, and for her grandpapa, too. I
-wonder if that is one reason why our legs didn’t give
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</span>out completely that day, as they threatened to time
-and agin?</p>
-
-<p>Thomas J. and Tirzah Ann writ affectionate letters&mdash;Thomas
-J. a-tellin’ us to be careful and not
-overdo, and Tirzah Ann sent a
-heart full of love, and a request
-to git a yard and a half of lace
-with deep pints on’t to trim a
-summer waist.</p>
-
-<p>Ury and Philury wanted to
-know when we wuz a-comin’
-home, and whether, with deep
-respects, they should take up
-the parlor carpet, that seemed
-threatened with carpet bugs, and
-whether it wuz best to break up
-the 8-acre lot.</p>
-
-<p>Oh, sweet and tender missives,
-how near they seemed to bring
-the old home to us&mdash;drag it
-right along over the glassy
-bridge of the Atlantic and land
-it at our feet!</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin sed he wouldn’t fail to see Madame
-Tussaud’s wax figgers. He sed undoubtedly he
-would be asked if he’d seen ’em. And Adrian wuz
-anxious to go, thinkin’ it wuz sunthin’ like a circus.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</span></p>
-<p>But we found it wuz a sight, a sight to see how
-nateral they wuz. Why, some of the figgers almost
-breathed, and you can see ’em&mdash;some machinery
-rigged up inside, I spoze. And then we see kings,
-and queens, and princes, and warriors, and everybody
-else&mdash;we got fairly light-headed a-seein’ ’em
-all, and I spoze Josiah got kinder excited and
-wrought up, or he wouldn’t have done as he
-did.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz a old man a-holdin’ a programme in
-his hand, and every little while he would lift up his
-head and look round. He favored Deacon Henzy
-quite a good deal, and Josiah sez to me&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I believe that is Deacon Henzy’s cousin; you
-know he sed he had one here in London. Don’t
-you see he has got the real Henzy nose? I believe
-I’ll be neighborly and scrape acquaintance with
-him.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “he duz favor the Henzys, but,”
-sez I, “don’t be too forred; the Henzys are big
-feelin’.”</p>
-
-<p>“Big feelin’!” sez Josiah; “don’t you spoze he
-will be glad to see a neighbor of his own blood
-relation?” Sez he, “He will be glad to neighbor
-with me.”</p>
-
-<p>I felt dubersome, but he advanced onwards, and
-sez he in his most polite axents&mdash;</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</span></p>
-<p>“Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of Jonesville?”</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp50" id="i_468" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_468.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of
- Jonesville?</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The old man never moved, but read away, and
-occasionally lifted his head and looked round, and
-Josiah spoke agin a little louder&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Be you any relative of Bildad Henzy?”</p>
-
-<p>He never noticed my pardner any more’n as
-if he wuz dirt under his feet, and my pardner got
-his dander up, and he fairly yelled in the old man’s
-ears&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Be you a Henzy?” And bein’ mad, he added,
-“Dum you! I believe you can hear if you want to.”
-And he put his hand on the old man’s shoulder to
-draw his attention to him. And for all the world!
-if that man wuzn’t wax! Josiah looked meachin’
-for as much as four minutes, and I sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I told you to look ahead.”</p>
-
-<p>“You didn’t, nuther,” he snapped out.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “it wuz words to that effect, and
-I wouldn’t try to be neighborly agin to-day.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “If I see a man afire I wouldn’t tell him
-on’t.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “he would probble find it out himself;
-but now,” sez I, “you’d better keep right by
-me.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, as I said, we see every noted woman from
-Queen Victoria back to Eve, I guess; and from the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</span>Prince of Wales and his wife and children back to
-little Cain and Abel&mdash;or I presoom Adam’s little
-boys wuz there, though I don’t remember of seein’
-’em. But there wuz Knights, Barons, Crusaders,
-Kings, and Emperors, all dressed up in royal robes;
-the Black Prince, as good a lookin’ young man as I
-want to see, and Kings Edward and Richard and
-Henry, and Queens Mary and Elizabeth, and Mary,
-Queen of Scots, all ready to have her head cut off;
-and her rosary, on which she had told her prayers
-those dretful days, slipped through her fingers as
-much as to say, I am goin’ into a country where I
-sha’n’t want you any more. And there wuz Marie
-Antonette&mdash;poor creeter! and Anne Boleyn, poor
-thing! she’d better not married a widdower. And
-Joan of Arc, noble creeter! I felt real riz up a-lookin’
-at her&mdash;I always liked her.</p>
-
-<p>And I wuz dretful interested in the Napoleon
-rooms, full of the relicks of the great kingmaker.</p>
-
-<p>There he lay, jest as nateral as life, on a bed, with
-his cloak wropped round him&mdash;the very cloak he
-wore at the battle of Marengo, and which he
-wropped round his body some like a pall when that
-heart had stopped its ambitious throbbin’s; and the
-world breathed freer.</p>
-
-<p>Then there wuz his coronation robe&mdash;and if you’ll
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</span>believe it, the coronation robe of poor Empress
-Josephine right by.</p>
-
-<p>I’d a-gin ten cents cheerfully if I could have
-got a little piece of both on ’em for my crazy
-quilt. But I didn’t spoze they’d be willin’ to
-have me cut ’em off, so I didn’t tackle the guide
-about it.</p>
-
-<p>And mebby it wuz jest as well, I d’no as I could
-have slept much under them two robes and meditated
-on what they had covered up. Love, triumph,
-doubt, jealousy, heartaches, despair would permeate
-the Josephine crazy block, and wild passions, and
-burnin’ ambition, and cold, remorseless neglect, and
-desertion would most likely surround the Napoleon
-crazed block.</p>
-
-<p>I d’no but I should have the nightmair every
-time I tried to sleep under it.</p>
-
-<p>Then there wuz his watch, stopped the minute he
-died, his ring, camp knife and fork, coffee-pot, snuff-box&mdash;if
-I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believed he used
-snuff, the idee is somehow so incongrous of the hero
-of the Nile, the conqueror of Europe a-takin’ snuff.
-Why, all Jonesville kinder looks down on old Miss
-Moody because she takes snuff&mdash;black snuff, too,
-scented high with bergamot.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp100" id="i_472" style="max-width: 10em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_472.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Napoleon’s tooth.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Wall, one of the most life-like
-relicks wuz one of his teeth; that
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</span>wuz a part of the great emperor, or wuz once, before
-it wuz pulled out.</p>
-
-<p>I spoze it ached jest like anybody’s tooth, and I
-presoom he wuz hard to git along with, and talked
-rough, jest as any ordinary man duz, durin’ its
-worst twinges.</p>
-
-<p>I presoom he sed “Dum it!” repeatedly before he
-made up his mind to have it out.</p>
-
-<p>I jedge him by Josiah, and I spoze that is a good
-way to jedge men.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, I spoze you ketch any one man and study
-him clost, and you have a good idee of the hull male
-race.</p>
-
-<p>And then there wuz a lock of hair, took right
-from his scalp, so I spoze. Oh, what burnin’
-thoughts and plans and ambitions once permeated
-the spot on which that grew!</p>
-
-<p>My emotions wuz a perfect sight as I looked at it.</p>
-
-<p>And we see clothes and relicks of every other great
-man, it seems to me, that ever lived&mdash;Lord Nelson,
-Henry of Navarre, etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>And we see figgers&mdash;lookin’ jest as nateral as if
-they could walk up and shake hands with you, if
-they wuz a-mind to&mdash;of Shakespeare and Macaulay
-and Scott and Byron, Calvin and Knox and Luther,
-Lincoln’s homely, good face, and Grant, Henry
-Ward Beecher, etc., etc., etc.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</span></p>
-<p>I wouldn’t give a cent to see all the figgers of
-criminals and murderers, but Martin thought it advisable
-to walk through it, so he could say he’d been
-there, I spoze.</p>
-
-<p>And there wuz one thing among everything else
-that gin me more than seventy emotions, and that
-wuz the very axe, the very old guillotine that cut
-off the heads of twenty-two thousand folks durin’
-the Rain of Terror in Paris.</p>
-
-<p>I looked at the piece of iron with feelin’s, as I say,
-beyend description.</p>
-
-<p>And I wondered out loud if the iron wuz now dug
-out of the sile that would make jest sech a horrible
-instrument for America.</p>
-
-<p>I groaned deep as I wondered it.</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah sez, “You talk like a fool, Samantha!”</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “I hope I do, Josiah&mdash;I hope so!</p>
-
-<p>“But what hammered this piece of iron out to its
-terrible use wuz the fiery hammers of jealousy, and
-fury, and hunger, and want, and the gay multitude
-went on in its gayety and extravagancies, and didn’t
-heed the sullen hammerin’s onto that iron, and
-laughed at ’em that called attention to it&mdash;jest as
-you are a-doin’ now, Josiah Allen.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “You can talk about my extravagancies
-if you want to, Samantha Allen, but I hain’t half the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</span>clothes you have, and they hain’t trimmed off anywhere
-nigh as high as yourn are.”</p>
-
-<p>But I went on, not heedin’ his triflin’ words.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “The same furies are loose in the streets
-of our American cities to-day&mdash;foolish suspicion
-driv by mistaken zeal, jealousy, heartburnin’, honest
-want, and need on one side; injestice, wrong, oppressions,
-extravagance, indifference, anger, contempt,
-etc., etc., etc., on the other side, all a-flamin’
-up and a-holdin’ up a light for jest sech a axe to be
-ground out. How long will I hear the sullen thunderin’
-of the silent hammerin’s on the forge of ignorant
-malice and hatred and jest anger&mdash;how long?”
-And I sithed deep and heavey.</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah sez, “What you hear is the thud of
-folks a-walkin’ through the Chamber of Horrows.”</p>
-
-<p>And sez he agin, “You talk like a fool! America
-is good to the poor. Look at So-and-so, and So-and-so,
-and So-and-so,” sez he, a-bringin’ my attention
-to some of the most shinin’ lights in the field of
-philanthropy and jestice.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, a-drawin’ his attention to the good philanthropic
-works in France&mdash;sez I, “Paris had also her
-So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so before the
-Rain of Terror.”</p>
-
-<p>And agin I gin several sithes and a few groans.</p>
-
-<p>But my pardner looked cross as a bear, and dog<span class="pagenum" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</span>
-tired.</p>
-
-<p>So, as allegorin’ and eppisodin’ must yield to the
-powers of affection, I mekanically follered him in
-silence through the halls, Martin and the children
-bein’ in another part of the buildin’ and Al
-Faizi somewhere a-lookin’ or a-takin’ notes in a
-noble way&mdash;I hain’t a doubt of it.</p>
-
-<p>But we all rejoined each other, and sot off home
-to dinner amid Josiah’s great rejoicin’.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin took us to the Zoological Garden,
-where we see all the dumb creeters that ever wuz
-made, it seemed to me; and all used so first-rate
-that it wuz a comfort to me to see ’em. Great
-big cages, where they could roam round some and
-enjoy themselves.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp51" id="i_477" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_477.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Josiah at the London “Zoo.”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And wuzn’t it a pleasure to see all the beautiful
-birds, of every color and plume, from every
-country from Eden down, a-playin round in the
-trees and in the ambient air? The cages as big
-as a door-yard, with trees in ’em, where they can
-fly round in the branches. And water birds with
-their own ponds to float in; and sea birds with
-real sea-shores fixed up for ’em.</p>
-
-<p>And so it wuz with every animal from a elephant
-down, wild or tame. And I should have took a
-sight of comfort here if I had had a pair of iron ear
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</span>pans, or even gutty-perchy. But bein’ but flesh
-and blood, them pans ached with the fearful noise
-the animals made.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah wanted the worst way to go to the Parliament
-of Cogers, which wuz established over two
-hundred years ago, and still meets in Fleet Street.</p>
-
-<p>Sez Josiah, “A public man in America naterly
-depends on cogers and sech for his election.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I; “Heaven knows that is so.
-Saloon-keepers and whiskey and beer and cider
-manafacturers, and whiskey drinkers, and the raw
-foreign element, and other cogers, elect more politicians
-to office, specially in our big towns, than any
-other element; and pure men and Christian
-wimmen have to stand back and be ruled by ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez he, blandly; “and so it stands anybody
-in hand who has political aspirations and
-wants to be popular with the masses to ingrashiate
-himself with all the cogers he can. I would love
-to see what means these men take to endear themselves
-to the cogers, besides buyin’ ’em, and makin’
-’em drunk, and sech other ways as I’m familar
-with.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “you’ll go alone for all of me; I
-see cogers enough in my own country without
-huntin’ ’em up here, and I’d advise you to keep
-away from ’em.” Sez I, “Your head hain’t strong
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</span>enough, Josiah, to hold only jest so much, and I’d
-advise you to fill it up with the noble and grand
-objects we see here on every side, and let cogers
-alone.”</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez he, “my futer depends on ’em; I
-must keep up with other statesmen if I’m ever to
-amount to anything.”</p>
-
-<p>But I wouldn’t listen to any more of his arguments,
-and waved off the subject almost hautily.</p>
-
-<p>But I found out afterwards that the Parliament
-wuzn’t cogers as Josiah looked on ’em, and they
-wuz particular to be called <i>co</i>gers, with the emphasis
-on the <i>co</i>. I found they wuz a sort of mock
-debates&mdash;patronized by lawyers, political men,
-newspaper men, clerks, etc., where they debate on
-every subject, and drink beer and smoke pipes and
-talk, talk, talk.</p>
-
-<p>Daniel O’Connell and Curran and John Wilkes
-and many others eminent in debate wuz members
-of this club.</p>
-
-<p>I had always pictered the Tower of London as a
-tall tower a-shootin’ up, some like a steeple, only
-more of a size all the way up; more, mebby,
-like a very tall pillow. But, anyway, I’d always
-depictered it in my mind as steeple or pillow
-shaped.</p>
-
-<p>But, to my surprise, I found that what is called the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</span>Tower of London is a hull lot of buildin’s that
-cover nigh upon fourteen acres of ground, though
-there are, of course, a number of towers throwed in&mdash;thirteen
-of ’em in all&mdash;Bloody Tower, Bell
-Tower, Jewel Tower, etc., etc. They date back to
-the time of Cæsar.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz a Roman fortress on this spot when
-the Romans held London. One tower is called
-Cæsar’s Tower now. William the Conqueror
-founded the Tower of London as we see
-it. When he wuz alive it wuz a great palace,
-with thick walls for safety or defence; it
-wuz used as a prison for prisoners of state mostly,
-and now it is used as an arsenal. Piles of rifles
-and cannons are kep’ here in some of the buildin’s.</p>
-
-<p>The principal entrance is the Lion’s Gate, but
-there are three other gates. The Traitor’s Gate wuz
-the one through which prisoners wuz took into the
-Tower. I don’t spoze they recognized the way they
-wuz took out. Then there is the Water Gate and
-the Iron Gate.</p>
-
-<p>One of the most interestin’ sights there wuz the
-guards who had charge of the place. They had on
-velvet hats, with a kind of a wreath on ’em, some
-like Tirzah Ann’s last winter’s hat, and a deep ruffle
-round their necks, and a blue sort of a polenay or
-overskirt, with a belt all embroidered with roses
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</span>and thistles and shamrocks and crowns, and, etc., and
-short pantoloons, with stockin’s comin’ up to the
-knee, and rosettes on their knees and rosettes on
-their shues.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah sez to me, “Never before sence I wuz
-born have I seen a man dressed up as he ort to be
-to carry out my idees. You can see for yourself,
-Samantha, jest how perfectly beautiful, and how
-dressy and stylish a man can be if he sets out;
-why,” sez he, “a dress like that would take twenty
-years offen my age, and I d’no but twenty-one,
-and I’m bound to have one jest exactly like it
-if I ever live to git home. What a sensation it will
-create in Jonesville!” sez he dreamily.</p>
-
-<p>I gin a deep sithe, but before I could reply the
-company started on their rounds of observation,
-led by one of them gay-dressed individuals. They
-go the rounds every half hour.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we got some guide-books, and payed our
-sixpence apiece for our tickets, some as if we wuz
-goin’ into a menagerie, and follered the guide over
-the moat bridge into the different towers.</p>
-
-<p>Martin and Josiah wuz dretful interested in the
-place where the weepons wuz kep’, bayonets and
-swords and rifles and pistols enough to equip all the
-armies of the earth, it seemed to me.</p>
-
-<p>But I wuz more interested, a dretful heart-sickenin’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</span>interest in the place where the wretched
-captives wuz imprisoned and wore the long hours
-away (jest as long hours as we have now) in vain
-dreams of the happy and brilliant past. A-lookin’
-forred to the sure approach of a awful death, or,
-perhaps, in ellusive hopes of escape and flight to
-other shores.</p>
-
-<p>But the shores they reached, poor things! wuz
-up a steep the livin’ has never climbed.</p>
-
-<p>We see on the walls of these prisons words they
-carved in the hours they waited execution. Arthur
-Poole, who tried to help Mary up onto the English
-throne, left these words&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I. H. S. A passage perillus makethe a port
-pleasant&mdash;1568.&mdash;A. Poole.”</p>
-
-<p>I wonder jest how he felt when he writ them
-words&mdash;jest what a heartache and heartbreak spoke
-through ’em. I dare presoom to say he thought
-too much of Mary, but I can’t help that now; it’s
-three hundred years too late.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz elaborate carvin’s of flowers, leaves,
-figgers, etc., and the names of their unhappy designers,
-who seemin’ly tried to light up their
-captivity by formin’ the shapes of the flowers
-they would never see a-growin’ in freedom agin&mdash;poseys
-without perfume, cold stun rosys, indeed.</p>
-
-<p>And then in one room wuz jest that one word:</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</span></p>
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“Jane.”</p>
-</div>
-
-<p>That touched me more’n the more elaborate
-ones. That wuz spozed to mean Lady Jane Grey,
-and wuz carved by her pardner, Lord Dudley. It
-seemed as if Love wuz a-callin’ out to her&mdash;“Jane!”
-jest that one cry acrost the silences of death and
-eternity.</p>
-
-<p>Then there wuz the autograph of Philip Howard,
-Earl of Arundel, who had his head cut off in 1572
-for wantin’ to marry Mary Queen of Scots.</p>
-
-<p>What a havock that woman did make amongst
-the men!</p>
-
-<p>Then in the White Tower we see the place where
-Essex wuz killed and the rooms occupied by Sir
-Walter Raleigh, and in the Brick Tower we see the
-prison where Walter spent the last days of his life.
-I wondered if through the long, dreary hours them
-real good words of hisen wuz any comfort to him:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Give me my scallop shell of quiet,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">My staffe of faith to walk upon;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">My scrip of joye&mdash;immortal diet&mdash;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">My bottle of salvation,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">My gown of glory, hope’s true gage;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">&mdash;And thus I take my pilgrimage.</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Blood must be my body’s balmer,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">While my soul, like peaceful palmer,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Travelleth toward the land of Heaven.</div>
-<hr class="tb" />
-    <div class="verse indent0"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</span>“There will I kiss</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">The bowle of blisse,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And drink mine everlasting fill</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Upon every milken-hill;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">My soul will be a-dry before;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">But after that will thirst no more.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Them lines ort to have been a comfort to him&mdash;mebby
-they wuz. But lines writ in a pleasant room
-to home, with the door shet up, don’t mebby sound
-jest the same on the scaffold or to the stake&mdash;dretful
-echoes sound all round ’em, loud voices that
-mebby drown out the words.</p>
-
-<p>I spoze he thought sometimes durin’ them long
-days of his friends Shakespeare and Bacon. Mebby
-if there wuz any secrets between them two about
-the plays, he knew it. I wish I knew what it wuz&mdash;I’d
-give fifty cents freely if it could be made
-known to me.</p>
-
-<p>I wonder what he thought of Elizabeth in them
-days. I wonder if he wuz sorry he throwed his
-cloak down for her to walk over. He tried to keep
-her from jest dampenin’ her feet a little, and she
-willin’ to cut his head off.</p>
-
-<p>I’ll bet if he’d had his way them last ten days
-here, he would have let her sloshed right through
-the mud, and not offered to throw his cloak down
-for her.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</span></p>
-<p>Poor, capricious, jealous creeter, Lib wuz; but I
-believe that big collar she always wore choked her
-and kinder rasped her neck, and made her ugly. It
-would make me cross as a bear, it seems to me.</p>
-
-<p>But I d’no what his feelin’s wuz, nor what hern
-wuz, when she knew the man who wuz once her
-lover, and beloved by her, wuz spendin’ the long
-days alone with despair and death.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">PARIS AND ITS BEAUTIES.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin felt and sed that France must be
-took in by him. He sed that a full knowledge of
-the French character, the
-country and the customs
-and habits of the people,
-wuz positively imperative
-to any one who laid any
-claims to fashion, and so
-he laid out to go to France
-and give it a exhaustive
-study. He laid out, he
-sed, to stay in the country
-not less than three
-days, and he might possibly
-stay four.</p>
-
-<p>Thinkses I, with a deep
-inward sithe, I guess it
-will be a exhaustive study;
-it exhausted me even to
-think of bein’ raced so through a country, whirled
-on by the influence of Fashion and Martin.</p>
-
-<p>But he wuz the conductor of the enterprise, so to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</span>
-speak, and we had to foller his rules blindly, as it wuz.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, travellin’ at the rate of speed we did, my
-memories are apt to run together, some like the
-colors of a calico dress after it is washed&mdash;the blacks
-and reds are apt to mingle, dark eppisodes and
-lighter complected ones&mdash;but some memories stand
-out vividly, too deeply printed to fade out.</p>
-
-<p>One is my Josiah’s feelin’s at not havin’ his breakfast
-till ’leven o’clock.</p>
-
-<p>In vain the waiter told him that at any time he
-could have his “calf-o-lay” (French).</p>
-
-<p>“Lay!” sez he; “that’s jest what I want to get rid
-on&mdash;lay! Do you spoze that after gittin’ up at five
-o’clock all my life, I’m a-goin’ to lay abed till noon?”
-And then the waiter murmured sunthin’ agin about
-“calf-o-lay.”</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp59" id="i_486" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_486.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“Calf-o-lay! I hain’t a calf or a ox!” he shouted.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And that madded Josiah agin, and sez he, “What
-of it&mdash;what if calves do lay! I hain’t a calf or a
-ox!” he shouted. “You think,” sez he, “that because
-I come from the country that you can go on
-with your insultin’ talk about calves, and intimate
-that I’m a calf. But I’ll let you know that you’ve got
-holt of the wrong individual to impose upon. Keep
-your dum breakfast till noon if you want to and
-starve a man to death, but you shall not call me a
-calf.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</span></p>
-
-<p>I interrupted him and told him that he meant
-coffee with milk.</p>
-
-<p>“Coffee and milk!” he hollered; “what is that to
-feed a starvin’ man?” Sez he, “I want pork and
-beans and potaters and slap-jacks.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the waiter wuz skairt most to death, but I
-quieted my pardner down, and the next time I had
-a chance I bought two paper bags of cookies and
-sech, to appease the worst cravin’s of hunger, and
-administered ’em to him as I had need.</p>
-
-<p>Another memory is seein’ the bathers goin’ in at
-Havre, and the trials I had with my pardner a-keepin’
-him out of the briny surf.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp50" id="i_489" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_489.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">How stylish I would look.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Samantha, I will go in a-bathin’; jest
-see,” sez he, “how gayly they swim and float
-through the water, all dressed up in bright colors;
-how stylish it would look, what a air it would gin
-us to see you and me a-floatin’ and a-bobbin’ up and
-down in that element! It would be sunthin’ so uneek
-to tell to Deacon Gowdey and Ury.</p>
-
-<p>“And then,” sez he, “we could lead the fashion
-to home, we could turn the buzz saw-mill dam into
-a perfect carnival of delight.”</p>
-
-<p>I looked coldly at him, and sez I, “You’re not
-goin’ to make a fool of yourself at your age by bathin’
-and foolin’ round in the water.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why,” sez he, “you’re always preachin’ up bathin’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</span>to me; you’ve lectered me more times than I’ve
-got fingers and toes about bathin’; and now that I’m
-willin’ to foller it up, you draw me back.”</p>
-
-<p>And agin he looked longin’ly at the dancin’ surf
-and the gay-robed bathers and the
-funny bathin’ housen.</p>
-
-<p>But I sez, “A big pail of water
-and some soap and towels and
-the seclusion of your bedroom are
-very different from makin’ a spectacle
-of yourself here in this hant
-of display.”</p>
-
-<p>I broke it up.</p>
-
-<p>And then at Trouville, though
-I spoze nobody would believe it,
-and he denies it now, yet sech is
-the force of custom and fashion on
-the mind of my beloved pardner
-that I d’no but that man would
-have played cards and won money
-mebby up as high as 25 cents, if
-I’d allowed it.</p>
-
-<p>He denies the awful charge, and mebby he’s right.
-But he talked strange, strange for a deacon and a
-grandfather.</p>
-
-<p>But while engaged in these purile thoughts while
-journeyin’ through France his pardner wuz thinkin’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</span>of what we owed the country, and how it sent the
-flower of its youth and bravery to help us in our
-troublous time.</p>
-
-<p>I thought of the young Marquis De Lafayette
-leavin’ his fair France, his ease, his luxury, and his
-sweetheart, to sail out fur away into the midst of
-privations and dangers to help a strugglin’ colony
-to independence.</p>
-
-<p>And then I thought of how another Frenchman,
-Jacques Cartier, wuz the first white man to navigate
-our king of rivers, the St. Lawrence. Why, my
-thoughts soared and sailed along as I thought of
-them idees, most as surgin’ and deep as that noble
-river at its widest pint, and my pride and glory in
-my native land stood up above that sweepin’ current
-some like its Thousand Islands, only mebby not
-ornamented off so much as they be with palaces,
-bridges, cupalos, torchlights, etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>But I felt dretful riz up. And a-musin’ on Lafayette
-and the debt we owed France, I wondered if
-they got in a tussel with England or Russia or etc.&mdash;if
-Uncle Sam would lay to and help her in
-return.</p>
-
-<p>But I d’no as there is any danger of our havin’
-the job, seein’ she has got about six millions of defenders
-in her army and navy; and we about 20 or
-30 thousand.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</span></p>
-<p>Queer, hain’t it, when the United States is so
-much bigger than she is?</p>
-
-<p>But the fact speaks well for our republic and all
-the law-makers, from its President and Governors
-down to its Pathmasters and School Trustees.</p>
-
-<p>In Havre, Alice wuz some interested in seein’
-the birthplace of Sara Bernhardt. She had seen
-her act, and they do say, though she is considerable
-bony in figger and gittin’ along in years, she is a
-marvel of grace, and acts out all sorts of lives, and
-dies so nateral that you’d almost appint the day for
-her funeral and pick out her barriers.</p>
-
-<p>I don’t spoze I could ever git to be nigh so
-graceful as she is, and Josiah don’t think I can; he
-wuz real sot on it when we talked it over.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp61" id="i_492" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_492.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>I don’t spoze I could ever git to be nigh so graceful as she is.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Al Faizi wuz interested in seein’ the birthplace of
-Alphonse Karr&mdash;he had read his works.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, there wuz one place I wanted to see dretfully
-on our journey to Paris, and Al Faizi and
-Alice wanted to see it too. And that wuz the
-place where the Maid of Orleans wuz executed in
-1431. I mentioned to Martin our desires.</p>
-
-<p>And he sez, “Joan of Ark? What Ark,” sez he,
-“is that? I am not familiar with any such personage,” sez
-he.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “You can call her that, or you can call her
-Jennie Dark; you can call it either way.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</span></p>
-<p>“I don’t know any Ark or Dark,” sez he.
-“Was she a woman of any note? Was her calling a
-high one?” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“About as high as you git here below,” sez I.
-“She heard voices from above; angels talked with
-her and guided her on her way.” And I went on
-and related her history, brief though impressive,
-comin’ to me through Thomas J.</p>
-
-<p>Sez Martin, “I don’t approve of following up
-any such impostors; I don’t believe in any such
-doings. Common sense don’t bear them out.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I mildly, “Mebby Oncommon Sense is
-needed to comprehend it, Martin.”</p>
-
-<p>But he wuz obdurate, till Alice told him in
-her sweet way that she would really love to go
-there.</p>
-
-<p>And then he gin in to once.</p>
-
-<p>And we did go to the Place De Pucelle, where
-she wuz burned to death for bein’ more speritual and
-riz up than her burners.</p>
-
-<p>I had a sight of emotions as I stood on that spot&mdash;sights
-on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>You see, I had her story at my tongue’s end,
-Thomas J. had read it to me so much. She wuz a
-common country girl, whose parents wuz day
-laborers. She herself couldn’t read or write. Into
-this sile, prepared, as you may say&mdash;speakin’ from the
-laws of heredity&mdash;for only coarse labor, coarse
-thoughts, common desires and hopes&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</span></p>
-
-<p>In this sile sprung up the consummit flower of
-speritual communion. Angels talked with her.
-She held communion with the Exalted One.
-From her thirteenth year she heard voices speakin’
-to her. They did not tell her to go forth to labor
-like her brothers and sisters; no, they told her to
-free France from the English, put her young king
-on the throne. The onseen one that talked with
-her enabled her to know her troubled young king,
-amidst a crowd of his own age and dressed jest as
-he wuz.</p>
-
-<p>She had hard work to even see him to tell her
-mission, so sure wuz the Common Sense about her
-that the Oncommon Sense she had wuz only imposter.</p>
-
-<p>But she headed the army, made that wicked, dissolute
-body of soldiers some like Christian Endeavorers,
-so ardent and sincere wuz her piety.</p>
-
-<p>She won the battle. Agin and agin she defeated
-the enemy. She saw her young king crowned.
-Then she wanted to go back into her quiet home&mdash;into
-the garden where in the cool of the evenin’ she
-heard the heavenly message. She said her work
-wuz done. But they wouldn’t let her go. And
-wuz it because she didn’t foller the Voice that told
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</span>her to go back to her old home&mdash;did a little personal
-pride, gratified ambition, ozze in and flavor
-the human mandate to make her stay?</p>
-
-<p>I d’no, nor Josiah don’t. But she begun to make
-mistakes after this&mdash;lost battles, and at last her
-own countrymen, though allies of the English,
-called her a sorceress. The Common Sense found
-her guilty; the same C. S. burnt her up root and
-branch.</p>
-
-<p>But the Oncommon Sense didn’t desert her.
-The heavenly influence that the multitude wuz
-blind as a bat to, and as deef as a adder, made her
-say in them last supreme moments&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I <i>did</i> hear the voices.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the feelin’s I had as I stood in that spot
-couldn’t be counted&mdash;no, not on a typewriter.</p>
-
-<p>The Common Sense felt that a statute to her ort
-to be useful, as well as ornamental, so they made it
-into a sort of a waterin’ trough. And the statute
-hain’t what it ort to be, but my imagination filled
-out the details, and I see as I look at it the rapt face
-of the little maiden of thirteen a-lookin’ up with
-illumined eyes as she received the message; I see
-her a noble conqueror, clad in armor, stand by her
-young king as she see him crowned; I see her
-noble face uplifted to Heaven as the flames
-mounted about her; I hearn her say&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I <i>did</i> hear the voices.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</span></p>
-
-<p>But my reflections wuz cut short by the words:</p>
-
-<p>“Well, I believe tourists usually make a short
-stay here; it is comparatively uninteresting. This
-combination of trough and monument is remarkably
-uninteresting, and not to be copied by Americans.</p>
-
-<p>“Though considering the small water power
-France possesses, compared with our own great
-water-courses, I can’t perhaps criticise their methods
-so much.” This I heard on the right of me, then
-on the left of me Josiah’s voice&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“This has put a crackin’ good idee into my head,
-Samantha. You know the trough out east of the
-horse barn, Ury might kinder chop out a statute
-of me and nail it on top of it; it would be highly
-esteemed by my fellow-townsmen. He could put
-on it, you know, ”Deacon and salesman in the
-cheese factory.“ They’d praise the trough highly,
-and I’ll have Ury begin it jest as quick as I git
-home; I’ve got a good block of hickory over to the
-saw-mill.”</p>
-
-<p>I sithed deep and turned away, and I see Al
-Faizi’s rapt face a-lookin’ beyend the statute&mdash;fur
-beyend, on sunthin’ that Martin and Josiah couldn’t
-see if they lived to be as old as Metheuseleah.</p>
-
-<p>Alice looked real sweet and dreamy, too. Adrian
-wuz playin’ in the water.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</span></p>
-<p>And so each one on us wuz pursuin’ our own
-peticular fantoms, some on ’em as thin shadders as
-the materials dreams are made of, and some on ’em
-as real and practical as horse-blocks and anvils.</p>
-
-<p>Martin sed he should make only a brief visit to
-France, as he had studied the country so exhaustively
-when he brung Alice over here to school and
-went after her (in all, he wuz in France about 48
-hours); he sed he could spend but very little
-time there.</p>
-
-<p>But he sed that he felt that the proper thing to
-do would be to visit Paris, so he could say on our
-return that we had come straight from Paris. I
-d’no why he felt so, but I spoze he did.</p>
-
-<p>But we did, indeed, find Paris a beautiful city.</p>
-
-<p>Martin put up at a first-class tarvern, as he always
-did. But I hearn him tell Josiah that they cheated
-him on every side. It madded Martin, for though
-he always duz things on a large, noble scale, and is
-willin’ to pay large, yet he don’t want to be cheated&mdash;nobody
-duz.</p>
-
-<p>I found that they spoke English at the tarvern, so
-my worst fears wuz squenched; for how I wuz goin’
-to git along and feed Josiah in a land where bread
-wuz “pain” and water wuz “oh” wuz more than I
-could tell. Besides, other things accordin’, what
-wuz I to do? I wildly questioned my soul.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</span></p>
-<p>How could I git my pardner dressed, and warmed,
-and git him from place to place wuz more than
-I could tell; but my fears wuz vain, for though
-jabberin’s wuz on every side on us, and rapid vocifiration
-in senseless brogue wuz in voge, yet plenty wuz
-found who spoke our good, honest, Jonesville tongue.</p>
-
-<p>How clean Paris is! how gay and bright the
-streets look! what pretty wimmen, and what neat,
-smart-lookin’ men, and pretty children, too, with
-their smart nurse-maids! elegant carriages, splendid
-housen, magnificent buildin’s, and arches, and towers,
-and monuments, and meetin’-housen, and around
-everything and over everything the gay, bright atmosphere
-of good feelin’ and politeness.</p>
-
-<p>No wonder folks love to come here, and don’t
-want to go away. Why, I enjoyed myself first-rate
-in Paris, and Paris enjoyed my bein’ there, so
-fur as I know; they acted as if they did, anyway;
-most always a-smilin’ at me and my pardner in a
-most agreeable manner.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, they wuz glad we had lanched out and come,
-I hain’t a doubt on’t.</p>
-
-<p>Alice had lots of school friends here, and wuz
-out a good deal a-seein’ ’em, and Martin and Al
-Faizi wuz each on ’em a-pursuin’ their own favorite
-fantoms&mdash;as different as any two fantoms ever wuz,
-from first to last.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</span></p>
-<p>But Josiah and me shacked round quite a good
-deal, Adrian a-goin’ with us quite considerable.
-About the first thing that strikes you as you venter
-out-doors is the wideness and beauty of the
-streets, with their double row of trees and their elegant
-housen, lookin’ so sort o’ finished&mdash;not put in
-anyhow, like a palace and a hovel, but all kinder
-of the same style and make, handsome as picters,
-and the sidewalk is as wide as from our house to
-the barn, and I d’no but wider. They are
-twice as wide as the main street in Zoar, some on
-’em, where they have the most gay and beautiful
-stores of different kinds; and, if you’ll believe it,
-they have tables set out-doors in the most handsome
-style, and folks a-eatin’ at ’em, all dressed up
-and a-jabberin’ away, and a-laughin’, and havin’ a
-first-rate time.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah wuz dretful impressed by it all.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, as if he wuz a-usin’ real big words, sez
-he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“France is impressive and edifyin’ in many ways.
-What improvements we can witness and inaugerate
-to home! One thing I shall immegiately proceed to
-arrange; henceforth, Samantha, we shall always
-partake of our food out by the side of the road.”</p>
-
-<p>I looked real cold at the idee, and he went on&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp56" id="i_500" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_500.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Josiah, “cultered and travelled,” schemes for Jonesvillian out-door
-dinner parties, à la Paris, and how Samantha foresees the result.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Jest think of the gayety, the life it will bring
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</span>to Jonesville to have all the neighbors a-eatin’ out
-by the highway, for of course they will foller the
-example of those who are cultered and travelled;
-imagine,” sez he, a-wavin’ his hand and enjoyin’
-himself first-rate in futer retrospects ahead on
-him&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Imagine Deacon Henzy and Drusilly, and she
-that wuz Submit Tewksbury and her husband, Simon
-Slimpsey and Betsy, all on ’em a-eatin’ out-doors,
-a-minglin’ their voices with ourn as we set
-to our table; I with my dressin’-gown on, and you,
-if you wanted to, a-playin’ on a accordeon in a gay,
-light manner befittin’ the happy occasion.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “It would be a lot of fun to set down in a
-lot of burdocks and mullin full of dirt; and what
-would happen when Deacon Small driv his big herd
-of cows by? You know they always will go a-prancin’
-and a-kickin’ up the dust and a-actin’ because
-he wants ’em to eat the grass along the side of the
-road.</p>
-
-<p>“How would you like to have the table overturned
-by his critters, and you prostrated by a
-kick in the stumick as you tried vainly to protect
-the teapot? How would you like to have that
-Jersey entangle his huffs in the tossels of your
-dressin’-gown, and drag you at his heels?” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“And who’d bring the food out there and bear it
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</span>in agin? And if you think I’m a-goin’ to learn the
-accordeon at my age and with my rumatiz, you’re
-mistakened.”</p>
-
-<p>He see it wuzn’t feasible, but he wouldn’t gin in.</p>
-
-<p>He drawed my attention off by pintin’ down the
-magnificent vista of broad avenues, three hundred
-feet wide, smooth as glass, and full of gay vehicles,
-and beyend, risin’ up like a dream of beauty and
-grandeur and strength, the great Arch d’Etoile.</p>
-
-<p>This can never be described by Josiah or me; it
-must be seen to be appreciated. It is the grandest
-monument Napoleon has left, and cost over two
-millions of dollars.</p>
-
-<p>But as you go on you see fountains and columns
-and gardens and arches and booths and groves and
-singers and amusements of all kinds for the people,
-and everything else that is beautiful and impressive
-and etc., etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>The Place Vendôme, where memories of the
-great king-maker hover round the tall columns
-that picters out his grand, melancholy career;
-the Tuileries and the Louvre.</p>
-
-<p>How be I a-goin’ to make the public and Betsy
-Slimpsey git any idee of them palaces, adorned
-with all that is most beautiful in art and sculpter,
-and that cover sixty acres of ground!</p>
-
-<p>Mebby I could gin Drusilly Henzy a little idee
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</span>on’t, for that is jest the number of acres of solid
-ground that fell onto ’em from her father.</p>
-
-<p>It jest about crushed ’em&mdash;the wealth seemed
-to ’em overwhelmin’.</p>
-
-<p>Imagine a big farm all risin’ up into palaces,
-beautiful as you ever see rise up into the cloudy
-Heavens.</p>
-
-<p>The Gallery of the Louvre&mdash;wall, if Drusilly and
-I should undertake to pick up every little grain of
-dirt that goes to make up them sixty acres of hern,
-and have each separate one branch out into some
-beautiful, be-a-u-tiful form, some delicate, exquisite
-fancy, or some exalted figger of impressive beauty&mdash;why,
-wouldn’t we be tuckered out before we
-got through? though at the same time so riz up
-and inspired, that we wouldn’t know, some of
-the time, whether we wuz in the body or out on’t.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, that may gin the public and Betsy some
-idee of what everybody must make up their mind
-to go through when they tackle the Louvre.</p>
-
-<p>From the beginnin’ of time till now every land
-has contributed its choicest treasures to this hallowed
-place, from Nineveh and Egypt to Jonesville
-(for was not Jonesville’s choicest treasures of
-humanity represented there when Josiah Allen and
-I stood there, some like statutes, only more comfortably
-dressed, and lookin’ round us more?).</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</span></p>
-<p>What poems in marble bust onto our visions,
-and what sights on ’em!</p>
-
-<p>What marvels of ancient art!</p>
-
-<p>What picters! what picters!</p>
-
-<p>Oh, dear me! it lifts me up, and tuckers me out
-to think on ’em now. Some of the galleries wuz a
-quarter of a mild long.</p>
-
-<p>Jest think of it here, as fur as from our
-house over to Old Grout Nickleson’s; and I
-never ust to think, when his mother-in-law was
-bed-rid, that I could walk it; no, I always had
-Josiah hitch up. And then think of that immense
-distance full on each side of the best of
-the world.</p>
-
-<p>Picters by Guido, Murillo, Titian, Rembrandt,
-Vandyke, Leonardo da Vinci, Wouverman, etc.,
-etc., etc.&mdash;picters that them immortal old masters
-had their own hands on, and bent their own glowin’
-inspired eyes on.</p>
-
-<p>My soul, jest think on’t!</p>
-
-<p>Relicks of all the sovereigns&mdash;spurs of the old
-conquerors (and how they did spur things up and
-make ’em fly!).</p>
-
-<p>Relicks of kings without number&mdash;and queens,
-too, and princes.</p>
-
-<p>Marie Antoinette’s shues&mdash;I’m glad I didn’t have
-to walk in ’em, for though they trod through pleasant,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</span>luxurious places at first, they had to climb up
-the scaffold.</p>
-
-<p>Poor creeter!</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp53" id="i_505" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_505.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>There wuz the clothes he wore that he ust to
-button over that restless, ambitious heart.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The Napoleon Room gin me a sight of emotions,
-and I didn’t care who see ’em.
-I jest about cried when I looked
-on that old flag he kissed in a
-sad hour. There wuz the clothes
-he wore that he ust to button
-over that restless, ambitious
-heart. Yes, and there wuz some
-of the hair that riz up over that
-ambitious brain, that wuz the
-terror and admiration of all
-Europe.</p>
-
-<p>He used Josephine mean&mdash;mean
-as a dog, and he
-wuz too high-sperited and
-ambitious; but yet what
-a man, what a man he
-wuz! Sunthin’ good and
-noble must have been in
-him to make his soldiers
-love him so. How they totter up to-day to lay
-wreaths on the railin’ round his statute&mdash;layin’
-at his marble feet the poseys of their hearts’ devotion,
-their highest love, and their deepest sorrer.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</span>No man not naterally noble could call forth sech
-affection in his dependents.</p>
-
-<p>I have wished a hundred times I could have been
-there, and neighbored with him and Josephine, and
-kinder kep’ ’em together, and quelled him down
-some in his ambitious views&mdash;things would have
-been different, no doubt; I presoom she wouldn’t
-have died of a broken heart&mdash;years in dyin’, but so
-much the harder.</p>
-
-<p>He wouldn’t have had to be shet up in a lonesome
-island a prisoner, and all Europe would have
-fared better.</p>
-
-<p>But it wuzn’t to be&mdash;it wuzn’t to be.</p>
-
-<p>Pa Smith at that time wuzn’t married, and
-I wuz&mdash;wall, I don’t really know where I wuz
-at that time, nor Josiah don’t know; it looked
-kinder dubersome and vague about my ever bein’
-born at all, and things had to go on jest as they
-did.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, as I have said heretofore, that gallery of
-the Louvre is full, full to overflowin’ of the richest
-treasures of art, as my riz-up brain and my
-four weary legs testify&mdash;my own two extremities
-and my Josiah’s pair on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Hisen ached like the toothache, so he sed.</p>
-
-<p>He didn’t bear his weariness silently and oncomplainin’ly,
-as I tried to&mdash;no, with groanin’s that
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</span>couldn’t be uttered hardly he kep’ by my side
-through them interminable galleries.</p>
-
-<p>Adrian asked a sight of questions&mdash;a sight of
-’em. And when I proposed to go to the Bois
-de Boulogne, my poor pardner asked me feelin’ly
-if in the name of the gracious Peter I wanted
-another boy a-traipsin’ at our heels a-askin’ enough
-questions to tire out a regiment of soldiers.</p>
-
-<p>But I explained it all out to him, and we took
-considerable comfort there.</p>
-
-<p>The place wuz more beautiful than tongue
-could tell. Jest as a French woman always looks
-better dressed up than an American or an English
-woman, and their cities more brilliant and
-beautiful, jest so are these woods fur more beautiful
-than Jonesville or New York woods.</p>
-
-<p>Why, jest compare our sugar bush and the
-woods between Zoar and Jonesville with these
-woods of Boulogne&mdash;where be they? Further off
-than the golden sunset is to the vision of Josiah.</p>
-
-<p>And the Elysian Fields&mdash;tongue would fail to
-give any idee of what we see there.</p>
-
-<p>Notre Dame, perfect indeed duz it look, a-risin’
-up with its two towers a-dwarfin’ the housen about
-it, though they are sizable ones.</p>
-
-<p>The Egyptian Obelisk of Luxor, that rises up
-in the air one hundred feet, all full of strange
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</span>writin’, I wish it could speak and tell what it
-had seen all through the past centuries&mdash;what its
-old red face must have looked down on from first
-to last.</p>
-
-<p>Curous to even think on. I presoom it must
-have looked down on Cleopatra and seen her a-cuttin’
-up and a-actin’, a-flirtin’ and a-carryin’ matters
-altogether too fur with Antony, Cæsar, etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>I wonder if the old obelisk sees any sech doin’s
-now in Paris in 1894?</p>
-
-<p>I dare presoom to say she duz. Human nater
-has always capered sence the days of Adam and
-Eve.</p>
-
-<p>It hain’t never talked on much, but I always
-blamed Antony jest as much as I did Cleopatra and
-Cæsar too; they all ort to been ashamed of themselves&mdash;and
-sech good wives as they had, too.
-Aurelia and Calpurnia wuz real good wimmen, so
-fur as I ever hearn on.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the big fountain, which stood not fur off,
-are a sight to see and are ornamented beautifully,
-besides havin’ immense water priveliges, and they
-ort to have, for right here on this spot stood
-that dretful thing, the guillotine.</p>
-
-<p>Oh, what doin’s, what doin’s took place right
-here! Angels must have veiled their faces with
-their feather wings as they flew over the spot in
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</span>them dretful days of the French Revolution.
-Twenty-eight hundred wuz killed here&mdash;had their
-heads cut right off&mdash;trompled on by men risin’ aginst
-tyrants, killin’ ’em off; and then they, too, turned
-into tyrants, wuz overthrown and killed off like
-sheep.</p>
-
-<p>Louis XVI., Charlotte Corday, Marie Antoinette,
-Danton, Robespierre&mdash;oh, what dretful things to
-think on! But the murmur of the water as it
-spouted up and fell back in murmurs whispered of
-happier, more peaceful times.</p>
-
-<p>In a place where stood the old prison of Bastille,
-a sile steeped with the tears and blood of the
-thousand and thousands of prisoners and victims,
-stands Liberty, a-standin’ upon a monument one
-hundred and fifty feet high. She always had to
-wade through blood, and always will, for all I
-know. She had a broken chain in one hand&mdash;the
-past is behind her, the chains are broke. She lifts
-up a torch in the other hand, its light streams into
-the futer. She don’t lay out to have any more
-sech deeds of darkness done if she can possibly
-help it&mdash;you can see that by the looks of her.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">NAPOLEON AND OTHER GREAT FRENCHMEN.</p>
-
-<p>One day I told Josiah that I must go to see the
-Invalides.</p>
-
-<p>And he sez, “You better keep away, Samantha;
-you may ketch sunthin’.”</p>
-
-<p>But I explained that I wanted to see the tomb of
-Napoleon, so he gin in, and we went there and stayed
-some time.</p>
-
-<p>The big gilded dome of this meetin’-house towers
-up three hundred and fifty feet, and can be seen all
-over the city, and would be apt to keep Napoleon
-in memory if France wuz inclined to forgit him,
-which it hain’t. Here he lays, jest as he wanted to,
-by the banks of the waters he thought so much on,
-and with the French people he loved.</p>
-
-<p>As you go in, you see under a gold and white canopy
-the form of our Lord upon the cross lookin’ down,
-down into a splendid tomb surrounded by a great laurel
-crown and twelve giant statutes of Victories a-towerin’
-up all about it&mdash;you see the grave of the Great
-Conqueror. My emotions wuz a sight to behold; I
-couldn’t count ’em, nor did Josiah.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</span></p>
-<p>All the thoughts I had ever had about the Hero&mdash;and
-they’d been soarin’ ones and a endless variety
-on ’em seemin’ly&mdash;all seemed to be crystallized and
-run together as I stood in that spot. But how could
-I tell my feelin’s? I couldn’t no more’n them
-twelve marble figgers could, who lifted their grand
-colossial figgers all round his coffin; their great
-noble faces expressed a sight, and so I spoze
-mine did, but it would have been jest as vain
-for me to have told my emotions as it would
-for them to open their marble lips and told
-theirn.</p>
-
-<p>You might probble thought that they had their
-own idees about Napoleon, and so had I.</p>
-
-<p>He waded through seas of blood and sufferin’,
-personal sufferin’ as well, up from obscurity to the
-topmost pinnacle of worldly glory. He left achin’,
-bleedin’ hearts on all sides on him, from Josephine’s
-down to the widders and sweethearts of dead soldiers,
-as he stalked along with his arms folded, and that old
-hat of hisen on, and his inscrutable eyes fixed on the
-heights, so I spoze; but he loved his country, and
-there wuz sunthin’ about the man that drew hearts
-to him, that turned grizzled old soldiers into babies
-when they spoke on him, that made ’em willin’ to
-live for him, to die for him.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_512" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_512.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>With his arms folded, and that old hat of hisen on, and his
-inscrutable eyes fixed on the heights.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I d’no, I spoze some of that resistless charm rested
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</span>on the sublime magnificence of that place, and always
-will, so fur as I know.</p>
-
-<p>I felt queer.</p>
-
-<p>But Martin could not pause long even in this
-place, and for all I know all the while we wuz there
-he wuz a-pricein’ in his mind the marble and porphry
-and all the matchless splendor of the tomb, and
-a-calculatin’ on how much the money invested there
-would bring if he had the handlin’ of it. Anyway,
-we wuz probble milds and milds apart in our minds,
-though the left tab of my mantilly brushed aginst
-him.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah observed as we turned away that he wuz
-“hungry and dog tired.”</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi wuz deep in thought, and Alice and
-Adrian took up in lookin’ about ’em, and wonderin’
-at the grand and solemn magnificence of the interior.</p>
-
-<p>One day we went to the cemetery of Père La
-Chaise. Alice and Al Faizi and Adrian went with
-us that day; Martin had got to go to see some big
-man or other, who owned a ranch in Montana, in
-the neighborhood of some of Martin’s friends.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, what a quiet, lovely spot that cemetery is,
-what a sweet place to rest in when our little life
-here is rounded by a sleep!</p>
-
-<p>Over two hundred acres of graves&mdash;what glowin’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</span>hopes and joys, what miseries and despairs found
-a rest here! Wealth and Poverty, Ambition and
-Love, all asleep.</p>
-
-<p>Rothschild a-droppin’ his money bags as the sleep
-come on, as well as the baby who reposes under
-the simple stun marked&mdash;“Our Own Darling
-Baby.”</p>
-
-<p>Hearts ached when he dropped to sleep.</p>
-
-<p>The Countess Demidoff rests under the costly
-Mausoleum built above her. And Rachel, the
-great actress, wonderful creeter, how she moved the
-hearts of the world! But at last the curtain fell and
-she retired. No <i>encore</i> from friend or lover can
-call her before the World’s footlights agin&mdash;no, she
-has got through actin’; has gone from the Make-Believe
-into the Real.</p>
-
-<p>Talma, too, has gone to sleep in that quiet place,
-and Béranger and Racine and Bernardin St.
-Pierre.</p>
-
-<p>It seemed almost as though Paul and Virginia ort
-to be here by him.</p>
-
-<p>And La Place and Arago. I wonder if they
-hain’t havin’ a good time up amongst the stars; I
-presoom they have discovered lots of new worlds&mdash;hosts
-of ’em. And General Massena, Marshal
-Davoust, and Marshal Ney, the bravest soldier. And
-Chopin, what music that man must have hearn by
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</span>this time&mdash;more melogious than he ever dreamt on
-here!</p>
-
-<p>And Alice wanted to visit the graves of Abelard
-and Heloise. They are restin’ under a canopy,
-havin’ got past all the tribulations that beset ’em
-here below.</p>
-
-<p>Alice wanted to see ’em for Love’s sake&mdash;so I
-spoze. Poor creeters that thought so much of each
-other and seemed to be so clost to each other that
-nothin’ earthly could separate ’em, and then he
-a-dyin’ in a monastery and she a-passin’ away in a
-nunnery; separated in body, but united in sperit&mdash;so
-I spoze.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, their memories are close linked together,
-anyway, and will walk down the ages together.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi’s dark eyes dwelt on Alice, and the marble
-forms of the lovers, at about the same time and
-for quite a long spell.</p>
-
-<p>His look seemed to take ’em all in&mdash;Alice’s sweet
-young beauty and the idee of the sad fate of the
-lovers.</p>
-
-<p>The hull sad story seemed to be writ out in his
-melancholy, but glowin’ eyes.</p>
-
-<p>Poor creeter!</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin and Alice went to lots of places
-that I hadn’t no idee of wantin’ to go to&mdash;receptions
-and parties and theatres and sech. And Martin
-come home from the theatre with his big feelin’s
-kinder trompled down for once, I guess.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</span></p>
-
-<p>They wouldn’t let him in.</p>
-
-<p>He probble could have bought out the hull theatre,
-root and branch, and not felt it a mite; and to
-home they would have strewed flowers in his path
-up the aisle, if he had jest hinted at it.</p>
-
-<p>But he wuz turned out here, neck and crop, because
-he hadn’t a dress-suit on.</p>
-
-<p>He felt meachin’ about it, I believe, though he
-wouldn’t say much. But the next night they went
-agin. He put on a coat with pinted tails and kinder
-low necked in front, and they let him in quick as a
-wink. Josiah said, when I told him about it, that
-if he had known it he would have gin Martin the
-loan of his dressin’-gown.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Of course that would’ve opened the doors
-to once.</p>
-
-<p>“The French love beauty, and that dressin’-gown,
-when the tossels are combed out and looped up as
-they ort to be, would set off any buildin’ and ornament
-it.” Sez he, “I wouldn’t lend it on any common
-occasion, but Martin has done so much for us
-I would make the venter.”</p>
-
-<p>It wouldn’t have been let in, but it showed Josiah’s
-good sperit, anyway.</p>
-
-<p>But, if you’ll believe it, Alice had to leave her
-bunnet out in the anty-room and go in bare-headed.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</span></p>
-<p>I wouldn’t have done it for nothin’ in the world&mdash;no,
-you wouldn’t have ketched me a-reskin’ my bunnet
-by leavin’ it out-doors. Why, the ribbin on
-that bunnet cost twenty-five cents per yard, besides
-the bunnet itself, and that wuz only four years old,
-a-goin’ on five.</p>
-
-<p>When Alice told me on it I sez, “It is a shame
-to make wimmen go in bareheaded, and,” sez I,
-“what would Paul say? He said it wuz a shame
-for wimmen to appear in public without bunnets
-on.”</p>
-
-<p>“But I thought,” sez Josiah, “that you always
-thought Paul wuz a-meddlin’ with what didn’t concern
-him, and he’d better kep’ to morals and let millinery
-business alone. You’d never let me bring up
-them texts.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I impressively, “there is a time to
-quote and a time not to quote.</p>
-
-<p>“I should have argued with that doorkeeper, anyway,
-and, if necessary, brung up the Bible to him.”</p>
-
-<p>And Alice bought lots of fine things while we were
-there&mdash;her Pa wanted her to. He bought a lot,
-too.</p>
-
-<p>He said that he could git the same things through
-a dealer he knew in New York considerable cheaper,
-“but,” sez he, “it doesn’t have the same name.
-Anything brought from Paris is so dreadful distinguished.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</span></p>
-
-<p>And I spozed that he wuz in the right on’t, and
-I felt that I too would love to branch out and buy
-sunthin’ that I could tell the neighbors come right
-from Paris, France.</p>
-
-<p>And I beset Josiah to buy me a summer
-shawl, but he said that he’d seen my
-summer shawl for so many years wropped
-round the form he loved so, that the idee
-of seein’ me in any other shawl wuz repugnant
-to him.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, then I laid to and tried to git him
-to buy me a handkerchief pin; but he said
-that old cameo that I had on looked so
-beautiful. He said so many memories
-hung round that shell face on it that he
-couldn’t bear to see me with any other on.</p>
-
-<p>And so it wuz with my winter bunnet. Sez he,
-“Oh, the times I have seen that bunnet a-frontin’
-up to me when I’ve stood by the meetin’-house
-door a-waitin’ for you, and it looked so perfectly
-lovely to me, as I stood there with cold legs and
-I ketched sight on it a-hallowin’ your face round
-as I see it a-comin’ towards me! No other bunnet
-could ever look to me as that did.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</span></p>
-<p>And so with my shues, and my gloves, and every
-other article; they wuz all so dear to him, and he
-showed his affection to ’em and me so plain that I
-couldn’t bear to hurt his feelin’s by gittin’ any new
-ones.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp56" id="i_518" style="max-width: 10em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_518.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>A-wipin’ my face on sech
-genteel towels.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But I sez, “I need some towels, and have got to
-have ’em.” So he give a reluctant consent, and I
-swung out and bought two new huckabuck towels,
-and I spoze Miss Gowdey and Sister Ganzey will
-be surprised and sort of envious to see me a-wipin’
-my face on sech genteel towels, brung from sech a
-fashionable place, for I lay out to use ’em and not
-lay ’em up&mdash;for, as the Sammist sez, slightly
-changed&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You may lay up towels, but how do you know
-who shall gather ’em?”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, when the time come for me to leave France
-I felt bad, for besides all the reasons I have named,
-lots of thoughts hovered over the land and made it
-dretful interestin’ to me.</p>
-
-<p>Victor Hugo, brave old exile, trompled on, but
-like a rich flower, the tromplin’ brought out their
-rarest odor.</p>
-
-<p>Who knows whether we should ever had “Les
-Miserables” if he had stayed to home and been made
-much on?</p>
-
-<p>Mebby the sentences of that incomparable book,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</span>that stun our minds and hearts, like the quick,
-sharp echoes of artillery at sea&mdash;mebby they would
-have been longer drawed out, and less apt to strike
-the mark, if he hadn’t been sent into exile.</p>
-
-<p>And Josephine, and Napoleon, and Louis, and
-Eugenie, and the poor young Prince Louis&mdash;memories
-of all on ’em jest walked up and down the
-bright, beautiful streets with me, and cast a sort of
-a melancholy shadder on the brightness, some like
-the soft, deep shadders of a cypress-tree on a clean
-flower-bed.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, I had emotions enough while I wuz in
-France, if that wuz all&mdash;I didn’t suffer for <i>them</i>&mdash;not
-at all.</p>
-
-<p>Martin, from the first to the last, through every
-country we visited, drawed up comparisons between
-’em and America&mdash;to the great advantage
-to America.</p>
-
-<p>He boasted over our country on our tower as
-eloquent as a Fourth of July oriter ever did from
-the wilds back of Loontown.</p>
-
-<p>I hated to hear him callin’ every other country
-all to nort, and told him so. And in the cause of
-Duty I told him of several things these countries
-went ahead of ourn in; but he waved ’em off, and
-sez he, with a dignified sort of scorn:</p>
-
-<p>“Bring up one, if you can.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</span></p>
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, a-lookin’ round on the inside of
-my mind, and takin’ up the first idee that happened
-to be in sight&mdash;“look at that great society, that
-seems like the mission of angels, to help relieve the
-wants of the wounded and dyin’ on the battle-field&mdash;the
-Red Cross, the gleam of which, a-fallin’
-on the dyin’ soldier, lights up his face with hope
-and courage. The foreign nations protect that
-insigna&mdash;they keep it sacred to this sacred cause;
-while the Goverment of the United States allows
-it to be used on liquor casks, and cigar boxes, and
-etc., etc., a-trailin’ its glorious beams in the mud
-and dirt for a little money.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, the noble woman who stands a-holdin’ up
-the Red Cross, a-tryin’ to have its pure rays fall
-only on the victims of war, pestilence, famine, and
-other national calamities&mdash;she has to see it a-shinin’
-jest as bright on the causes of national crime and
-shame. How must she feel to see it go on?</p>
-
-<p>“Uncle Sam has been urged year after year to
-protect this insigna, and I should think that he
-would feel a good deal as if somebody wuz a-urgin’
-him to not stun meetin’-housen, and whip grandmas
-and babies&mdash;I should think that he would sink
-down with shame for permittin’ sech things to go
-on.</p>
-
-<p>“I declare I d’no what that old creeter will
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</span>do next. I believe he’d sell the steelyards that
-Jestice weighs things in, if he could git a few cents
-for ’em; and I d’no but he’ll use that bandage
-of hern that she wears over her eyes to stop up
-bung-holes in whiskey barrels; he seems to be
-bendin’ his hull mind on helpin’ the liquor traffic.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp55" id="i_523" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_523.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">I believe he’d sell the steelyards that Jestice weighs things
-in, if he could git a few cents for ’em.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“He tries me dretfully. But mebby he’ll brace
-up and do right in this matter of the Red Cross.
-I mean to tackle him about it, anyway, when I git
-a good chance.</p>
-
-<p>“And then,” sez I, “our country is jest as much
-behind these European countries in beauty and art
-as Josiah’s new wood lot is that he is jest a-clearin’
-off, with stumps and brushwood a-lyin’ on every
-side, compared with what that lot would be after
-centuries of improvements and culter had
-smoothed the ground off into velvet lawns, with
-posey beds, like rainbows and fountains a-sparklin’
-on it, etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>“America, to foller out the metafor, has only
-jest got her giant trees chopped down&mdash;the stumps
-stand thick, the brushwood lays round in fallers.”
-Sez I, “It will take years and years and years to
-give America the beauty and perfection these
-countries have been growin’ gradual for centuries.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</span></p>
-<p>“We’ll do it, Martin,” sez I; “we’ll git even
-with ’em, and then go ahead on ’em&mdash;as fur ahead
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</span>as Lake Superior is bigger than their inland
-lakes&mdash;”</p>
-
-<p>“Lakes!” sez Martin scornfully&mdash;“ponds, you
-mean.”</p>
-
-<p>But I went on in not mindin’ him.</p>
-
-<p>“Or the St. Lawrence is bigger than the Rhine,
-but it will take a long, long time. And then
-in a lot of other things these countries are superior
-to ourn. They train their children better in some
-of these countries. Their children have as much
-agin reverence and respect for parents and gardeens,
-and them who are in authority, as American
-children have. Why, a English or a German
-mother would faint away with horrow to see a lot
-of American children behave, and boss round their
-folks, and act. And then look at&mdash;”</p>
-
-<p>I wuz jest on the pint of bringin’ up a lot more
-of things in which these countries excelled ourn,
-when Martin looked at his watch, and sed that he
-must be in a distant part of the city in ten minutes
-by the clock; so he went out. I presoom he hated
-to lose my eloquent and instructive remarks; but
-he had to go.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">GERMANY AND BELGIUM.</p>
-
-<p>Martin sed he shouldn’t think of travellin’ in
-Germany, as he had made a very exhaustive study
-of the country on a visit he’d paid it some years before.
-I knew Alice had been there two years, a-stayin’
-with a Miss Ponsione, a music-teacher, as nigh
-as I could make out, a kind of foreign creeter, I
-guess.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I gave more exhaustive attention to Germany
-than to any other country in Europe, and I
-would not wish to make a needless expenditure of
-time there.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Martin, how long a time did you stay in
-Germany?”</p>
-
-<p>“Over a week,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, thinkses I, accordin’ to his idees that is
-considerable of a time. Alice, of course, didn’t care
-to stay there long, as she had stayed there all durin’
-her vacations, and took excursions all over the
-country with that Miss Ponsione and her folks;
-there seemed to be a hull lot of ’em, all girls, as nigh
-as I could make out.</p>
-
-<p>And it wuz from her <span class="pagenum" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</span>that I learnt that her Pa
-had fell and sprained his ankle and hurt his head,
-and wuz bed-sick all the time he wuz in Germany;
-he wuzn’t able to lift his head from the piller, and
-so I guess it wuz ruther exhaustin’
-study he gin to it.
-But I wanted to see the Rhine&mdash;I
-wanted to see “Fair Bingen
-on the Rhine,” I wanted to
-like a dog, and I told Alice so.</p>
-
-<p>But she said Bingen looked
-jest about like any other city.
-And come to think on’t, I
-spoze it wuz the homesick
-longin’ for his own country
-that made the “Soldier of the
-Legion” want to see it so bad,
-and made its seenery seem
-fairer and lovelier, and made its
-moonlight fairer and brighter
-than that which looked down
-on that fur-off battle-field,
-where his body lay, and his
-homesick sperit a-wanderin’ off to “Fair Bingen on
-the Rhine.”</p>
-
-<p>I eppisoded this to Josiah, and he sez with a sad
-look on his face&mdash;he wuz awful beat out, and his
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</span>corns ached fearful&mdash;“Yes, that is it, I feel jest so;
-I could talk jest as melogious and affectin’ this minute
-about ‘Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.’”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “You may feel jest as bad, Josiah, but you
-can’t write sech poetry as that.”</p>
-
-<p>“Whattle you bet?” sez he, a-settin’ the bottle of
-liniment on the stand; he’d been tryin’ to irrigate
-them corns of hisen and quell ’em down some.
-“Whattle you bet I can’t?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I mildly, “That Soldier of the Legion wuz
-dyin’ in Algiers.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “I’m a-dyin’ in France; what’s the
-difference?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “His talk about his distant home is enough
-to make anybody weep.”</p>
-
-<p>“Home!” sez he. “Can’t I talk about home?
-Why,” sez he, “if I should swing right out into
-poetry and describe my feelin’s, nobody would look at
-that soldier’s verses agin, if I should let myself out and
-tell the beauties of Jonesville, and what we’ve been
-through sence we left its blessed presinks; why that
-soldier didn’t begin to know what trouble wuz. He
-wuz a single man,” sez he.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp52" id="i_526" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_526.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">No attention paid to rumatiz, or meal
-times, or corns.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I looked coldly at him, and he hastened to add
-with a deep groan, “Oh, what hain’t we been
-through, in verse or out on’t&mdash;what hain’t we been
-through! two old folks snaked through Europe by
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</span>a Martin and Fashion; no attention paid to rumatiz,
-or meal times, or corns, or anything, and one of
-them dum old fools,” sez he impressively, and in a
-kind of a rhymin’ axent, “wuz born in Jonesville&mdash;‘fair
-Jonesville on the Lyme.’”</p>
-
-<p>I wuz born myself pretty nigh the town of Lyme,
-jest over the line, but I wouldn’t contend.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I could make up hull books of poetry
-on our tower better than hisen, enough sight.”</p>
-
-<p>“No you can’t, Josiah,” sez I; “jest think of
-them beautiful messages he sent back to them distant
-friends of hisen; it hain’t in you to write like
-that.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, it <i>is</i> in me, mom; and messages! Gracious
-Peter! couldn’t I send messages back? Couldn’t I
-send heart-breakin’ messages to the children, and
-Ury, and Philury, and Deacon Henzy, and Uncle
-Sime Bentley, and the rest of the meetin’-house
-bretheren&mdash;couldn’t I send word to ’em&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“When they meet and crowd around</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">The horse-block by the meetin’-house, that dear old talkin’ ground?</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Couldn’t I warn the hull caboodle on ’em to
-stay where they be, in that beautiful, beautiful place;
-to never traipse a million milds from home on a
-tower? Let ’em hear my dyin’ words to stay where
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</span>they be. Oh, what volumes I could say to them
-companions and friends if I could git holt of their
-ears once! I wouldn’t want ’em to think I wuz
-rambelous and back slid&mdash;no, I would want ’em
-to know I felt like sayin’ in these last hours
-that&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“‘I am a married man and not afraid to die.’”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I looked dretful cold at him; I hain’t no idee
-what he meant, if he meant anything, and he hastened
-to add&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“If they hain’t dum loonaticks and crazy as loons
-they’ll stay where they be,” sez he, in that same
-rhymin’ axent&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“They’ll stay right there in Jonesville, fair Jonesville
-on the Lyme.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “That hain’t poetry, Josiah.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, it’s good solid horse sense, the hull of it,
-and the last line is poetry.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “One line don’t make poetry.” I wuz sorry
-I said it, for he turned his eyes up towards the ceilin’
-in deep thought a minute, and then he kinder
-recited out in blank verse, or considerable blank,
-though it rhymed some&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“A leadin’ man of Jonesville lay dyin’ in&mdash;”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>He hesitated for a minute, and seemed to be lookin’
-round the room for a word, and finally his eye
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</span>fell onto his feet&mdash;he had jest drawed his boot on
-agin, and I spoze the pain wuz fearful, but it seemed
-to gin him an idee&mdash;and he begun agin&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“A leadin’ man of Jonesville lay dyin’ in his boots,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">There wuz dearth of rest and intment, or food, or healin’ roots;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">But his pardner sot beside him&mdash;”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Here he gin me a witherin’ look; I spoze I wuz
-a-smilin’ some. He can’t write poetry, that man
-can’t, and mebby I showed my knowledge of the fact
-in my mean.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“His pardner sot beside him, a-jeerin’ at his woe,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And unto her he faintly sed, in axents wan and low,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">‘I’ve a message and a groan or two, to send most any time,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">To distant friends in Jonesville, fair Jonesville on the Lyme.’”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Yes, I wuz sorry enough I mentioned that poem,
-for before night that man had a hull string of
-verses writ off, and he recited ’em to me anon, or
-oftener. They went on a-recountin’ all the peace and
-beauty of Jonesville, and the delights of stayin’ there
-and takin’ solid comfort and happiness, and the
-tribulations two old folks went through away from
-that blissful spot, with their bodies moved round
-from place to place on a tower, and the verses most
-all on ’em ended with these lines, some like the melancholy
-accompaniment of a trombone&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</span></p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“And one old fool wuz born in Jonesville,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And some on ’em wuz stronger&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“And one dum old fool wuz born in Jonesville,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>His axents on these last words wuz affectin’ in
-the extreme, and he seemed to think I ort to shed
-tears when he said ’em, and I didn’t know but I
-<i>had</i> ort to, but I wuz in sunthin’ of a hurry a new
-bindin’ a petticoat, and I thought I wouldn’t.</p>
-
-<p>One verse wuz as follers, and I presoom his feelin’s
-about the delights of our home wuz powerful
-as he writ it:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Tell Ury and Philury to joyous wash the pan,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">To worship all the barn chores, adore the milky can,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">The Jerseys, oh, in happier hours I driv ’em through the crick,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Oh, angel calves, oh, did I e’er hit one on ’em with a stick?</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">The lovely, sweet young critters might kick me time and time,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">If I wuz back in Jonesville, fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And there wuz one to Thomas J., and one to
-Tirzah&mdash;</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</span></p>
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Tell Tirzah Ann that other Pars must comfort her young age,”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>etc., etc., etc., all put down jest as if he wuz in a
-dyin’ state; no regularity or symetry in the lines,
-but powerful in feelin’s. There wuz more’n twenty-one
-on ’em. I didn’t hear all on ’em&mdash;I wouldn’t,
-and we had some words.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin wuz sot on not goin’ to Germany,
-till Adrian sed he would love to see the Rhine.
-That settled it&mdash;the Rhine wuz seen. That man
-would go through fire and water if his little pardner
-jest motioned him that way.</p>
-
-<p>And that very fact, I felt, shed a perfect halo
-round Martin Smith. It showed that deep down
-in the nater of the man, all covered up by layers
-of pride, worldiness, fashion, ambition, etc., there
-wuz a fount of pure water a-springin’; but few indeed
-could pierce down to it. Alice can, and
-Adrian can, but nobody else, so fur as I know; but
-that love permeates everything he sez and duz.</p>
-
-<p>As wuz nateral on French sile, we got to talkin’
-about poor young Prince Louis, the pride of the
-third Napoleon&mdash;the very heart and soul of his
-beautiful Ma. His sad fate seemed to impress
-Adrian dretfully. He wuz dretful sorry for him,
-and sed he wuz. Good little creeter! Any tale of
-sadness and sorrer found a ready sympathy in his
-tender, generous young breast. But Martin seemed
-to draw a different moral from it, and sez he,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</span>
-when I wuz a-tellin’ how sorry I wuz for his poor
-Ma, sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“She ought to have looked ahead, she never
-ought to have allowed him to go into such danger,
-she ought to do as I do. I always surround my
-boy with safeguards to keep him out of danger’s
-way entirely, and therefore he is safe.”</p>
-
-<p>But I sez, “Martin, in this world it is hard to
-tell always where danger is, and who is really safe.”</p>
-
-<p>“But I know,” sez he, “because I am right with
-him. If he was a child of poor parentage, now,
-one of the masses, why, then, I grant you I could
-not surround him with such safeguards, but as it is
-Adrian is perfectly safe.”</p>
-
-<p>I felt that here it wuz a good place to gin a little
-hint. Sez I, “Speakin’ of safeguards, Martin, have
-you ever put them fenders on that line of cars of
-yourn that they wanted you to?”</p>
-
-<p>“No!” sez he, speakin’ up pretty sharp.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Don’t you feel that you ort to, for the
-sake of children whose Mas and Pas love them jest
-as well as you do Adrian?”</p>
-
-<p>But he waived off that idee, sayin’, as usual, that
-it wuzn’t expected that he wuz a-goin to spend his
-life and fortune for the sake of the children of the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</span>masses, who, two thirds on ’em, wuz better off
-dead than alive.</p>
-
-<p>I <i>hate</i> sech talk.</p>
-
-<p>But he went on to prove by statisticks how they
-grew up to be criminals, and paupers, and Coxeyites,
-and the world wuz well rid on ’em if they died
-in childhood.</p>
-
-<p>I <i>hate</i> sech talk. He see my feelin’s, and he went
-on jest as if nothin’ had been sed, and repeated that
-Adrian wuz perfectly safe, and that his futer wuz
-assured.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “I hope so, for he is a dretful
-good little boy, and smart, and I hope he will make
-a useful man.”</p>
-
-<p>“There is no other child in the world like him,”
-sez Martin, “and he will have a great and successful
-future. I shall attend to that.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” I sez agin, “I hope so,” and I truly did.
-But I felt dubersome about thinkin’ that Martin
-had it all in his own hands&mdash;this is sech a queer
-world, and so kinder surprisin’ and changeable.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin wuz as good as his word, we didn’t
-stay long in Germany, but seein’ that Adrian wanted
-to see the Rhine, we sot out for it. We went
-through Valenciennes on the night train, which Josiah
-sed wuz indeed a blessin’, and he sed that Martin,
-in some things, did show great tax.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</span></p>
-<p>Sez I, “What do you mean?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, you’d been a-wantin’ to git some of that
-lace of theirn for a nightcap, or sunthin’, if you
-hadn’t been sound asleep and a-snorin’.”</p>
-
-<p>I never snore, and he knows it. He is the one.
-I may sometimes breathe a little hard, that’s all.
-And I sez, willin’ to give him a woond for the onmerited
-snore eppisode, sez I&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I can git some in Brussels; their lace wears like
-iron.”</p>
-
-<p>He wuz earnest in a minute, deeply earnest.
-Sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“If you knew, Samantha, how becomin’ your
-nightcaps are, and how perfectly sweet you look
-with the plain muslin ruffles round your dear face,
-you wouldn’t speak of lace.”</p>
-
-<p>That “dear” touched my heart. He hadn’t used
-the adjective in some time. But I wouldn’t promise
-not to git any. I think he worried all the time
-we wuz in Brussels, but he needn’t. I am a good
-economizer, I didn’t lay out to git any&mdash;I had
-above a yard of good Torchon to home. I didn’t
-need any lace.</p>
-
-<p>Godfrey D. Bouillon stood up in plain sight jest
-as he has been a-standin’ for a number of years,
-a-holdin’ up the banner of the Cross. Good, determined
-creeter he wuz.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</span></p>
-<p>Wall, we went to see public buildin’s and towers,
-from them one to three or four hundred feet high
-to more megum ones, and galleries of paintin’s, and
-parks and statutes; and one little statute rigged up
-as a kind of a fountain, I won’t say nothin’ about&mdash;the
-least sed the soonest mended. But it wuz a shame
-and a disgrace, and if I’d had my way the poor little
-creeter would have had at least a shirt put onto
-him, or I would know the reason why.</p>
-
-<p>A perfect shame to behold!</p>
-
-<p>In the Museum of Paintings Josiah got real
-skairt. He wuz kinder prowlin’ round, and he happened
-to see a door partly open, and it wuz nateral,
-so he sez, to kinder look in. But he shrunk back
-in extreme perterbation, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“By Jehoshaphat, what have I done?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “What is it, Josiah?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, his face as red as anything, “A woman
-jest dressin’ herself&mdash;she seems all broke up.”</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp46" id="i_537" style="max-width: 20em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_537.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">A woman jest dressin’ herself&mdash;she
-seems all broke up.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “you keep out of there; you stay
-right by me.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, I lay out to!” he snapped out.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I looked in myself. I had no curosity, but
-I felt that I had better see if my pardner had done
-any harm. And I see a young woman all kinder
-crouched together a-holdin’ her clothes round her,
-and I sez&mdash;</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</span></p>
-<p>“Mom, you needn’t be afraid, my pardner
-wouldn’t hurt a hair of your head.”</p>
-
-<p>She didn’t move a mite, but jest held her clothes,
-what she had on, round her, and looked at me
-kinder skairt. And I spoke up some louder, thinkin’
-mebby she wuz deef; sez I&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“He is a deacon in the Jonesville
-meetin’-house, mom, and
-though fraxious a good deal of the
-time, a likely man.”</p>
-
-<p>But jest at this junkter Martin
-come up behind me, and told me
-that it wuz a picter. I wuz dumbfoundered,
-but so it wuz. The artist,
-Wiertz by name, made quite
-a number considerable like it; dretful
-curous and surprisin’, but it is
-a sight to see ’em.</p>
-
-<p>The meetin’-house of St. Gudale,
-with its stained glass winders, wuz
-extremely interestin’ to see; it is
-most a thousand years old, but no one would mistrust
-it. It looks fur better than our meetin’-house,
-that hain’t over fourteen years old, if it is that. But,
-then, it cost more.</p>
-
-<p>Martin and Josiah and Al Faizi driv out to see
-the battlefield of Waterloo, only about six milds
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</span>away. They went in a English coach with a half a
-dozen horses, and a bugle a-caracolin’ high and clear.
-I never see Josiah in better sperits.</p>
-
-<p>I would have gone, too, but Alice wuzn’t well, nor
-Adrian nuther, and I stayed with ’em; and I wuz
-glad of a chance to rest my lower legs.</p>
-
-<p>I spoze they had a number of emotions as they
-stood on that field where the Star of Austerlitz sot.
-I did, where I wuz a-layin’ down or a-settin’ to home.
-Truly to a feelin’ heart, who contemplates what
-high ambitions tottled over that day, and what
-powerful interests wuz involved, they may say truly
-that they carry the battlefield of Waterloo in their
-hearts.</p>
-
-<p>I thought on’t a sight. I had read what Victor
-Hugo said about that battle, and Alfred Tennyson
-and others had said about the Duke of Wellington,
-a-praisin’ him up, and I had numerous feelin’s and
-emotions, very powerful ones, indeed, very; but I
-took good care of the children all the same.</p>
-
-<p>There wuz one place in Brussels that I wanted
-to see as much as any other place I could look on
-offen my tower, and that wuz where Charlotte
-Brontë had spent those years, those quiet but dretful
-tragic years of her life.</p>
-
-<p>So one day, when we wuz on our way home from
-some big palace or monument&mdash;Martin wanted to
-show off before us&mdash;I persuaded him to go a little
-out of our way to that quiet street, to the kinder<span class="pagenum" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</span>
-old-fashioned house where the Professor ust to teach
-school, and some of his folks live now and keep a
-small school. They let us in when they found out
-that we wuz Americans; truly that name opens all
-sorts of foreign doors.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz a half holiday, and they let us walk
-through the room where she ust to set and study,
-and the old-fashioned garden where she ust to walk
-and dream them strange dreams of hern, that afterwards
-charmed the world.</p>
-
-<p>Though the folks here didn’t seem to think of
-her as I did&mdash;no, indeed! They seemed to kinder
-blame her for reflectin’ on ’em in her books. Still
-they must respect to a certain degree the memory of
-one that leads so many from distant lands to their
-out-of-the-way home, jest to stand on the floor she
-trod on; jest to look on the walls that rared up
-around that great soul.</p>
-
-<p>What emotions Charlotte did have here! She
-had more to bear than most folks knew of&mdash;yes,
-indeed!</p>
-
-<p>What wuz that hantin’ grief that rung her soul
-so that year in Brussels, that drove her, a devout
-Protestant, into a Catholic church, to pour out her
-agony in confession? Longin’ to give vent to the
-sorrer that without that relief wuz mebby a-urgin’
-her to forgit it all in the long quiet.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</span></p>
-
-<p>Why, a pint bottle full of sweet turned bitter,
-must have vent gin to it or else bust.</p>
-
-<p>Poor creeter! poor, little, lonesome creeter!
-with her intense power of lovin’, and
-her intenser tenderness of conscience.</p>
-
-<p>Gray old city, never did one tread
-your streets with more need of heart
-pity than she who wuz swept along by
-her emotions that day into an alien
-temple, a strange altar, and a strange
-worship, seekin’ for rest, for help to live,
-which is so much harder than to die.</p>
-
-<p>I know what the matter wuz&mdash;it
-come to me straight, but I sha’n’t tell
-it, it has got to be kep’.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I had a large white handkerchief
-with me, I took it a purpose, for I
-thought more’n as likely as not I should
-be melted into tears a-meditatin’ on her life and all
-she had done to delight the world, and how after
-her life-long struggles and her brief wedded happiness
-she passed away.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp43" id="i_540" style="max-width: 20em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_540.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>I thought more’n likely
-I should be melted into
-tears.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But no, this last thought kinder boyed me up&mdash;I
-wuz glad to know that she lay asleep by the lonely
-moors of Haworth. Its long purple wastes hanted
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</span>by her shade forever, a sleep never to be distracted
-agin by her brother Patrick’s actin’ and behavin’, or
-her pa’s morbid idees and ways, or her own private
-heartache.</p>
-
-<p>Little, small-boneded, great-minded creeter! how
-often I’ve pictered her lonesome life in that little
-village, shet up in oncongenial surroundin’s, her
-noble sperit beatin’ agin the bars of her environment;
-a-settin’ on lonesome evenin’s in a bare,
-silent room, a-pinin’ mebby for a word of sympathy,
-and the clasp of a comprehendin’ hand, and the
-great world a-praisin’ her fur off&mdash;<i>too fur</i>.</p>
-
-<p>Or else a-walkin’ up and down in the twilight
-with her sisters a-plannin’ them strange stories of
-theirn.</p>
-
-<p>And then I come back to the bare walls of the
-school-room at Brussels, and I presoomed that on
-these very bare walls we wuz a-lookin’ on Charlotte
-had seen stand out vivid the strong, dark face of
-Rochester, and the elfin figger of Jane, Shirley,
-Caroline, Louis and Robert Moore, the Professor&mdash;yes,
-indeed, she see <i>him</i>, I hain’t a doubt on’t&mdash;and
-all these wonderful characters of hern, who seemed
-more real friends and neighbors to me than them
-who live under the chimblys I can see from my own
-winders to home.</p>
-
-<p>Good, little, bashful creeter! sech genius as you
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</span>had the world will seek a good while for before it
-finds agin.</p>
-
-<p>While these thoughts wuz a-goin’ on under my
-best bunnet, Martin looked round sort o’ indifferent,
-and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Who wuz she, anyway&mdash;some kind of a writer?”</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “Yes.”</p>
-
-<p>“Historical or poetical?” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “Both.”</p>
-
-<p>I couldn’t bring my emotions down in that place
-to explain, and I told the truth, anyway. Historys
-she wrote that always will be true as long as hearts
-beat and suffer. Poetry wuz in ’em, whose great
-rythm hants the hearts of ’em whose ears are
-tuned to understand the strange melodies. For no
-two people can ever find the same things in a book&mdash;what
-inspires you, and thrills your heart almost
-to bustin’, will slip over the head and heart of somebody
-else, and make no impression.</p>
-
-<p>Curous, hain’t it?</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp55" id="i_543" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_543.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>A-leadin’ Adrian and a-plannin’ sunthin’ with
-him relatin’ to a whistle.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Wall, we looked round for a long time&mdash;Josiah
-not enjoyin’ himself a bit, so fur as I could see, but
-a-leadin’ Adrian and a-plannin’ sunthin’ with him relatin’
-to a whistle he could make out of a stick.</p>
-
-<p>Alice’s soft eyes held sweetness and compassion,
-but she owned that she’d never read the books.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi, too, wuz a stranger to ’em. But he
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</span>would have enjoyed ’em if he had&mdash;he’s made in jest
-the right way.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin wuz in haste, and we left the sacred
-spot, leavin’ a little gift, too, in the hands of the old
-servant who showed us round.</p>
-
-<p>Antwerp, Düsseldorf, Cologne,
-how they kinder swim
-along in my mind as I think
-of ’em&mdash;picters, picters,
-church towers, bells, gardens,
-steeples, music, stained-glass
-winders, quiet seenery,
-grand, impressive ditto, big
-carriages, dorgs harnessed up
-as horses.</p>
-
-<p>As we noticed the number
-of these latter, my companion
-begun to lay on plans
-agin. Sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Take our brindle, and
-she that wuz Submit Tewksbury’s
-yeller dorg&mdash;and she’d
-lend her in a minute&mdash;and
-what a team I could rig up with a little of Ury’s
-help. I could take you to meetin’ to Jonesville
-as easy as nothin’, and how uneek we would look
-drawed along by a brindle and yeller dorg-team.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</span>It will, perchance, inaugerate a new era in navigation
-in Jonesville, and dorg-teams will be in voge.</p>
-
-<p>“What a sensation we will create amongst the
-Jonesvillians: you in your parasol and I in my
-dressin’-gown, mebby. What a uneek spectacle!”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, coldly, “when you ketch me a-ridin’
-in that way, Josiah Allen, it will indeed create a
-sensation, for I shall be no more. It will be when
-my corse is senseless and cold.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, shaw! What comfort could I take then,
-Samantha? It wouldn’t look very well for me to be
-a-enjoyin’ myself a-swingin’ out in fashion then,
-and I couldn’t wear the dressin’-gown or the tossels,
-anyway. It beats all how you love to break up all
-my plans for astonishin’ the Jonesvillians. You
-know well enough that folks when they git back from
-European towers always act different&mdash;more riz up
-like, and reminescent, and astonishin’, and everything.
-And you frown down all my plans, every
-one on ’em”; and he sithed bitterly. But I wouldn’t
-gin in to him, for I felt that Samantha and a dorg-team
-wuz not synonomous terms; no, fur from it.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, in Cologne I’d been glad to bought a hull
-bottle of cologne, but Josiah said to his mind there
-wuz nothin’ on earth so sweet as the smell of caraway.</p>
-
-<p>I most always do up a little sprig on’t in my
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</span>
-handkerchief when I go to meetin’, to kinder chirk
-me up in my head some as the minister and my
-mind are a-wanderin’ up from the 12thlies to the
-“Finally, my dear hearers.”</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez I, attacktin’ the weakest jint in his
-armor, “cologne is so stylish.”</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez he, and I couldn’t scold him for sayin’
-it&mdash;sez he, “don’t you remember how the caraway
-grew amongst the roses in the old front yard to
-Mother Smith’s?” Sez he, “You had a sprig of
-caraway in your hand the very minute I asked you
-to be my bride&mdash;I had a little snip on’t in my
-pocket when I led you to the altar, and a big vase
-of the white blows kinder riz up above the June
-roses like a halo, right there on the altar.”</p>
-
-<p>He meant the cherry stand that we stood by, with
-curly maple draws.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Oh, them beautiful, holy memories!
-And then,” sez he, with a look of deep content, “to
-think of the cookies you’ve garnished with it
-durin’ the beautiful years of our union.” Sez he,
-“Nothin’ like the scent of caraway to me.”</p>
-
-<p>I wuz deeply moved by the sweet and tender
-memories he invoked.</p>
-
-<p>Oh, summer hours! oh, old front garden, lit by
-the settin’ sun a-shinin’ through the maples! I see it
-agin, I almost feel the shadders of the tall lilock
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</span>bushes; I see the June roses a-shinin’ like rosy stars
-above the deep lush grass, and the delicate white
-tracery of the caraway a-hoverin’ over ’em like a
-snowy mist.</p>
-
-<p>Oh, summer garden! oh, summer hours of life!
-oh, beauty and bloom, divine sadness and rapter,
-and rich promise of the glowin’ futer a-layin’ fur
-off in the distance, like the sun in the glowin’
-west.</p>
-
-<p>My Josiah had brung ’em all back to me. What
-wuz cologne or bergamot in them rapt hours?</p>
-
-<p>Men are deep.</p>
-
-<p>The cathedral is a sight to see. It is called one
-of the most beautiful cathedrals in Europe, and they
-don’t lie about it when they say it is. It wuz begun
-eight or nine hundred years ago, and two hundred
-men wuz to work at it. I wonder if they are slack.
-Anyway, I don’t have any idee when they lay out
-to finish it. I guess they are to work by the day.
-I know jest how they acted when they wuz to work
-at Josiah’s horse-barn. I believe it is better to
-let barns, or cathedrals, or anything else out by
-the job.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, if I should describe jest that one enormous
-old meetin’-house, and what we see in it and about it,
-it would take a book bigger than Foxe’s “Book of
-Martyrs.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</span></p>
-<p>I won’t try, but it wuz a sight, a sight to see&mdash;carvin’s,
-statutes, picters, towers, canopies, arches,
-altars, relicks, etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>Among the most interestin’ of the relicks wuz the
-skulls of the three Wise Men who came to worship
-the infant Christ. Here their old skulls wuz shown&mdash;they
-sed they wuz theirn. I d’no, nor Josiah
-don’t, whether they wuz the Wise Men or not, and
-of course it wuz eighteen hundred years too late to
-ask ’em. No, wise as they wuz, their bones wuz
-on a par with the bones of the ’leven thousand virgins
-that we see there in another meetin’-house.</p>
-
-<p>I d’no as they wuz virgins or not, or wuz massacreed,
-as they sed. Martin sed it wuz a perfect
-fraud. But I d’no either way. Anyway, there
-the bones wuz, a real lot of ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I guess the hull on us wuz glad to git
-onto the little steamer that wuz to take us up
-the beautiful Rhine. And we found that it wuz
-indeed beautiful, though after bein’ on sech intimate
-terms as I had been with the St. Lawrence and
-the Hudson, I wuzn’t a-goin’ to say I had never
-seen any river so grand&mdash;no, indeed!</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">SAMANTHA CLIMBS THE RIGHI.</p>
-
-<p>Our noble St. Lawrence could have took the
-Rhine in if she had been in need and adopted her,
-and let her run along with her, a-murmurin’ and
-a-babblin’ as children will, and nobody would have
-been the wiser only the old Saint herself.</p>
-
-<p>And the Hudson is jest as beautiful. No old
-castles on the Rhine tower up so grand as Nater’s
-old homesteads, the Palisades, where she has dwelt,
-with Majesty, and Strength, and Sublimity, and
-Beauty for hired help, for so many centuries, and is
-a-livin’ there still in the same old place with the
-same help. Them who have eyes to see, can see her
-there right along day by day, and night by night, with
-her help all round her. Sometimes the risin’ and
-settin’ sun a-gildin’ their calm brows. And sometimes
-the big, serene moon a-standin’ over ’em as if
-lovin’ to linger with ’em. Their serene forwards
-a-shinin’ with the love they have for him&mdash;or her
-(I d’no whether to call the moon a him or a her.
-It is so kinder changeable, my first thought wuz to
-call it a him).</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</span></p>
-<p>But to resoom. Yes, we found the Rhine beautiful.
-It runs along in my memory now like a
-beautiful paneramy right when I’m round the house
-a-doin’ up my mornin’s work, or night-times when
-I wake up ever or anon or oftener that fair picter
-onfolds in front of me&mdash;the ripplin’ waters, the
-shores sometimes smooth and grassy, with orchards
-and vineyards; fields of grain, with wimmen a-workin’
-in ’em, as well as men; high rocky shores, with
-grim old castles perched up on the cliffs, tree-embowered;
-anon a wayside shrine, with the image of
-the Virgin a-lookin’ calmly on us tired voyagers, or
-the face of our Lord hallowin’ the spot, or the baby
-Christ in his Ma’s arms. It made the spots where
-we see ’em more lifted up, and made me feel kinder
-safer, though I knew it wuz only some wood and
-paint and glass it wuz made of. I spoze it wuz the
-memories and thoughts they invoked that seemed
-to hover over us some like wings.</p>
-
-<p>How it sweeps onward in my mind&mdash;high cliffs
-three or four hundred feet high, with a picteresque
-old castle perched on it; anon a bridge of boats
-more’n a thousand feet long!</p>
-
-<p>Then I see, a-lookin’ onto the paneramy, dog-teams,
-peasants, soldiers, beautiful towns, queer little
-villages, lovely villas, humble cottages, green
-grass, wavin’ trees, blue murmurin’ river. Ah, how
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</span>it floats along in front of my foretop! Coblentz&mdash;Thurnberg&mdash;then
-the high cliff where the Siren ust
-to set and sing. I wonder if she sets there now?
-I mistrusted she’d kinder moved down into the vineyards.
-She sings there a sight, lurin’ the wine lovers
-right along to destruction.</p>
-
-<p>Oberwesel, Castle Schonberg, and right acrost,
-like a faithful old pardner who has kep’ company
-for centuries, the towerin’ old walls of Gutenfels.</p>
-
-<p>Right under my head-dress or nightcap the seen
-moves along. Anon I see the splendid old castle
-of Rheinstein way up above the river. Ehrenfel,
-vineyards, vineyards, with Lurlei hid amongst ’em,
-whether they believe it or not, and on the other, fur
-up, the Mouse Tower, where selfishness got its pay
-if it ever did.</p>
-
-<p>Bingen we found, jest as Alice sed, a quiet little
-town, its marvellous beauty born in the homesick
-longin’ of the soldier who lay dyin’ in Algiers.</p>
-
-<p>Johannesburg Castle would be dretful interestin’,
-standin’ up as it duz three or four hundred feet high,
-but the sights and sights of vineyards all round it
-made me feel bad, dretful. But I’ve had my say
-about that&mdash;sirens, etc., etc. What crazy acts
-would the wine make these surroundin’ folks do!
-That wuz a question I couldn’t answer, nor Josiah.
-I wish they wouldn’t make so much; I wish they
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</span>would stop the mouth of Lurlei with good water, or
-cold tea, or sunthin’ or other&mdash;she’d act like another
-creeter if they did.</p>
-
-<p>But truly I couldn’t make ’em stop by eppisodin’
-or allegorin’.</p>
-
-<p>On, on we went by islands, fortifications, palaces,
-villages.</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t want to see Wiesbaden, I didn’t want to
-see card-playin’ and gamblin’ goin’ on&mdash;no, indeed.</p>
-
-<p>But I did want to stop at Frankfort-on-the-Main,
-the birthplace of Goethe. And in thinkin’ on’t, I
-mekanically repeated over the words I’d heard
-Thomas J. rehearse a number of times&mdash;the homesick
-words of Mignon&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Knowest thou the land where citron apples bloom,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And oranges like gold in leafy bloom?”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>She wanted to go back home, Mignon did, she
-wanted to like a dog.</p>
-
-<p>But Martin sed he didn’t know as anybody had
-ever made a specialty of visitin’ the birthplace of
-Goethe.</p>
-
-<p>“And as for citron apples,” sez he, “your friend
-evidently made a mistake in writing about them;
-citrons grow on a vine; but,” sez he, “perhaps
-Goethe was in the grocer line and was recommending
-some new fruit.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</span></p>
-<p>And I let it go so. Truly the author of “Wilhelm
-Meister” would have advised me to let it pass and
-go by.</p>
-
-<p>But when Martin learned that Rothschild wuz
-born there, he sed that if he had had time he would
-have loved to visit that hallowed spot.</p>
-
-<p>Martin thought he would stop and take a kind of
-a rest at Heidelberg, and my two legs and my pardner
-wuz glad enough of the rest&mdash;yes, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>Martin sed that any traveller of note made a
-pint of visitin’ that spot, so it wuz on that account,
-I spoze, that we stopped. He sed he
-had seen a number of engravin’s of the place, and I
-told him I had too.</p>
-
-<p>We stayed all night to a comfortable tarvern,
-and had a good supper and breakfust. Josiah admitted
-we had, though he sed&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Samantha, it don’t taste like your breakfusts;
-oh, shall I ever partake of ’em agin in that blessed,
-blessed home?”</p>
-
-<p>He suffers dretfully, that man duz. But I told
-him that we should soon be to home agin now, and
-to bear up.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Heidelberg Castle is a sight, a sight to see.
-All the picters we see of it in chromos and almanacks
-and sech don’t give you any idee of how
-grand, how vast it is.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</span></p>
-<p>Why, imagine a buildin’ all covered with
-carvin’s, and towers, and pinnakles, and with
-moats, and drawbridges, and dungeons, and courtyards,
-and banquet-halls, and decorations of all
-kinds, as big as from our house over to Deacon
-Henzy’s, and back round by Solomon Bobbettses,
-and acrost to Seth Shelmadine’s, and so
-on around the two cross-roads and back to our
-house.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, reader, whether you believe it or not,
-it covers as much ground as that, and you well
-know how much ground that covers. Good
-land! it is enough to make anybody’s
-back ache to think of the days’ work it
-took to build it. But, then, it wuzn’t all
-done all in one job&mdash;it wuz begun a good
-many hundred years ago. They didn’t shirk
-their work, them old carpenters didn’t;
-the makers of summer hotels could take
-lessons of ’em in the matter of walls. It
-would make one of them paper wall makers
-swoon away to think of buildin’ a wall
-twenty feet thick.</p>
-
-<p>I wish I had one of them rooms to
-take round with me summers on my towers.
-It would be impossible for
-the sound of snorers to penetrate
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</span>into the apartment where one wuz vainly tryin’ to
-woo the Goddess of Sleep. And midnight snickerers
-would be futile to kill that Goddess with
-their giggle-pinted arrers.</p>
-
-<p>Of course, a big part of this immense buildin’
-is in ruins.</p>
-
-<p>A handsome old stone platform or piazza that
-them old builders made half way up the castle walls
-I did want to see. It had everything it needed in
-the way of sculpters, vases, carved seats, etc. And
-the view, oh! my poor head-dress, it almost rises
-now as the paneramy sweeps through my foretop,
-it gives sech elevatin’ thoughts and emotions.</p>
-
-<p>How fur off, how fur off you could see&mdash;towns,
-country, the blue Rhine, the mountains&mdash;oh, my
-soul! wuz it not a fair seen, a fair seen!</p>
-
-<p>But the barrel, or, ruther, hogsit, to hold wine in,
-it jest madded me to see it. Would you believe it
-that the very worst old drunkard you ever see or
-hearn on would make a hogsit as big as the Jonesville
-tarvern to hold his liquor in?</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp33" id="i_553" style="max-width: 20em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_553.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>A hogsit as big as the Jonesville
-tarvern.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Wall, it is, sir, full as big as Seth Widrigses
-tarvern. I won’t compare it to a meetin’-house,
-no, you can’t make me; the idee would be too
-sacrilegious to me.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz as big as Seth Widrigses tarvern, barrooms,
-parlor, dinin’-room, bedrooms, ruff and all.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</span>
-It holds two hundred and thirty-six thousand bottles
-of wine.</p>
-
-<p>The idee! it’s a burnin’ shame! How many
-fights can be shet up in it at one time&mdash;broken
-hearts, broken heads, murders, etc., etc., etc.!</p>
-
-<p>I won’t talk about it another minute.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin sed that he spozed that it would
-be expected of him to go and see the Righi.</p>
-
-<p>(I spozed that he thought that in his high, prominent
-position in society he ort to see some of
-the most riz-up places, so he settled on that.)</p>
-
-<p>Mont Blanc he sed he should not endeavor to
-ascend, which wuz, indeed, a comfort to me; for
-how I wuz a-goin’ to git up on that steep, icy
-pinnakle with my heft and my rumatiz, to say
-nothin’ of my umbrell and my pardner, wuz
-more’n I knew. But if Martin had put his ultimatum
-on that we must go, I knew that we should
-have to make the venter.</p>
-
-<p>But he gin up the idee. He is a-gittin’ kinder
-short-winded himself, though he don’t own up to
-it. So we clumb the Righi. We rid up on that.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah wuz all carried away with the idee of goin’
-up that mountain, because the engine that took us
-up, instead of bein’ hitched on ahead to pull us up,
-wuz tackled on behind a-pushin’ us.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</span></p>
-<p>Sez he, “Samantha, it will be sech a uneek ride.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</span>What will Uncle Sime Bentley say to it, and the
-other Jonesvillians, when they hear on’t?”</p>
-
-<p>There it wuz&mdash;fashion, fashion and display.
-From different standpints, he and Martin wuz jest
-alike.</p>
-
-<p>But I knew that Josiah had some reason to be
-sot up by it, for that way of goin’ up mountains
-wuz a American idee at first.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah took considerable comfort a-goin’ up
-(owin’ to the feelin’s I have depictered). But
-bein’ of sech a restless temperament, he soon announced
-that he wuz a-goin’ to git out and walk up.
-“For,” sez he, “I want to git there some time
-to-day, and I hain’t a-goin’ to creep along like a
-snail.”</p>
-
-<p>But I seized him by his vest, and sez I&mdash;“Do
-you set still; it will tucker you all out to walk up six
-thousand feet!”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “I want to git there some time
-or ruther.”</p>
-
-<p>We did indeed go slow, but sure; for in two
-hours’ time we arrove on the summit, and wuz ensconsed
-in a comfortable tarvern, from which, after Josiah
-had satisfied his yearnin’s for food, and the rest
-on us had refreshed ourselves with some refreshments,
-we sallied forth to see the grandeur as well
-as beauty of Nater; to behold what she can do
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</span>when she humps herself, so to speak, and makes
-glory.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_556" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_556.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>We did indeed go slow, but sure; for in two hours’ time we arrove on the summit.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Wall, the view from the top of that mountain I
-can’t never describe. I stood perfectly spellbounded,
-and looked fur off down the mountain-side, and
-see cities, and villages, and farm-housen, and sparklin’
-streams, and, fur down below, beautiful Lucerne
-and eight other lakes.</p>
-
-<p>And on the off side the chain of snowy Alps
-a-meltin’ upwards into the blue of the summer sky,
-twelve thousand feet high, and on the nigh side
-forests, hills, mountains.</p>
-
-<p>Oh, wuz it not a fair seen&mdash;a fair seen!</p>
-
-<p>I stood perfectly lost and by the side of myself.
-The grandeur and beauty of the seen wuz so overwhelmin’
-that, entirely onbeknown to myself, my
-bunnet had fell backward on my neck, and I stood
-bareheaded, jest as men do before a great heroine
-or hero. (I spoze it is jest as proper to call the
-Righi a female as a male; anyway, she stood up so
-dretful calm and serene it didn’t seem as if a male
-could hold that poster and calmness so early in the
-mornin’. You know, males are dretful restless and
-oneasy early in the mornin’. The work of the day
-kinder takes the tuck out of ’em, and they grow
-more sedater.)</p>
-
-<p>But, anyway, I stood there bareheaded, jest as
-anybody ort to before the great Presence. The on-matchable
-grandeur of the seen&mdash;the sun a-beatin’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</span>
-down onnoticed on my gray “crown of glory,” when
-I hearn a voice clost beside me, and the words kinder
-brung me back, for I had been quite a distance
-away from the real world of trouble and tourists
-and things.</p>
-
-<p>The voice said&mdash;“For the land’s sake! I wouldn’t
-run the risk you do of tanning myself all up, for
-anything in the world.”</p>
-
-<p>I wuz brung clear down, and I looked round, and
-I see standin’ clost to me a female, jedgin’ from
-her matronly form and her gray hair, that kinder
-meandered down on the neck of her ulster behind,
-of about my own age, or a little older, mebby. Yes,
-she wuz probble a number of years older, and
-though our hefts wuz jest about alike, she hadn’t
-got nigh so noble a figger.</p>
-
-<p>She had two veils over her face besides a lace one&mdash;two
-braize veils, a green and a brown one, and
-carried a big umbrell, histed up to its full height,
-the umbrell a-lookin’ firm and decided, as if it calculated
-to shet off all the grandeur the braize veils
-didn’t make out to.</p>
-
-<p>Sez she, as I slowly turned round and brung my
-spectacles to bear on her with a gray flame of wonder
-and surprise a-shinin’ through each one on ’em&mdash;</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</span></p>
-<p>Sez she, “I wouldn’t tan my nose as you’re tanning
-yours for worlds like this.”</p>
-
-<p>I sez mekanically, “Why, why not tan your
-nose?”</p>
-
-<p>“Why, it would detract so from my looks; a
-nose adds so much to the looks of a human face,”
-sez she.</p>
-
-<p>That sounded reasonable, and I sez, “Yes, that
-is so; a nose is necessary, both for beauty and for
-use; but,” sez I, “at our age a nose or two more or
-less, or a little tan on some on ’em hain’t a-goin’
-to either make or break us&mdash;they won’t draw much
-attention,” sez I. “And even if they did, I expect
-to enjoy the society of my nose for quite a number
-of years yet, on towers and off on ’em, but this seen
-of grandeur I’m a-biddin’ good-bye to,” sez I, sadly&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“It is hail, and farwell, to me&mdash;I never expect
-to see it agin with these mortal eyes.” And I
-looked off on the lovely seen agin with all the rapter
-and sadness sech thoughts carry with ’em, when
-agin my rapt emotions wuz brung downward by
-the voice&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Well, I know I wouldn’t run the risk you do
-of spoiling my complexion for thousands of worlds
-like this.”
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</span>I felt that she needed roustin’ up and improvin’
-upon, and I sez&mdash;</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</span></p>
-<p>“Mom, I believe you’d enjoy Nater as much
-agin, if not more, if you’d forgit your complexion.
-Let your nose retire into the background, so to
-speak, and open the winders of your soul to the
-divine influences&mdash;look about and soar away, so to
-speak. And how you can do that under three
-veils and that umbrell is more’n I can tell.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez she, confidentially, “I am dead tired of seeing
-things, anyway&mdash;I love to rest my eyeballs.”</p>
-
-<p>“Then,” sez I, pityin’ly, “what be you up here on
-the Rigi for? What made you climb up so fur?”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” sez she, “I came with a party of Cook
-tourists, and you know just what they are for boasting;
-I’m not going to have them crow over me because
-they have been where I haven’t. Three of
-them are bed-sick at the hotel, but they can say with
-truth that they have been here. Two of the girls
-have to wear bandages over their eyes, and can’t see
-a thing, but they both have emulative Mas, who
-are bound that they shan’t be out-travelled by the
-rest of the girls, and so they are leading them
-round through Europe; blind as bats, but full of
-the true Cook fervor of travel.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp63" id="i_561" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_561.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">They have emulative Mas, who are bound that they shan’t
-be out-travelled.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Oh, dear me!” sez I, “how bad it is for ’em!”</p>
-
-<p>“No; they enjoy it. The doctor says all they
-need is quiet and rest to restore their eyesight, and
-they will have it when this cruel war is over and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</span>they get home. One of them is my own girl,” sez
-she, in a burst of confidence, “and I’m out here
-unknown to the rest; so my girl has outdone them,
-so to speak, for of course it is just the same as if
-she stood here where her Ma stands, in this be-a-u-ti-ful
-place, looking at this magnificent
-scenery.”</p>
-
-<p>And she turned her wropped-up
-face towards the tarvern door,
-and faced round towards Josiah.</p>
-
-<p>But truly she wuzn’t to blame,
-she couldn’t see through that
-envelopin’ drapery. The tarvern
-might have been a waterfall, and
-my Josiah a Alp for all she
-knew.</p>
-
-<p>I felt quite curous, but consoled
-myself a-thinkin’ they wuz
-a-follerin’ their own goles, and
-would all set on ’em when they
-got home.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, it wuz that very afternoon that I heard my
-first yodellin’&mdash;the melogious cry of the Alpine
-shepherds to one another. Clear and sweet it rung
-through the still air&mdash;Ye-o-lo-leo-leo-leo&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp53" id="i_563" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_563.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Ye-o-lo-leo-leo-leo&mdash;the melogious
-cry of the Alpine shepherds.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Melogious as any music you ever hearn, only sort
-o’ bell-like, and pecular. And while you stand
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</span>spellbound and wantin’ to hear it agin the answer
-comes, sweet, fur away, clear&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Ye-a-oo-ye-ho-oo&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>It wuz like nothin’ I ever hearn in my life, and
-yet seemed sort o’ familar to me, after all, as all
-true beauty in sight and sound duz seem to its devotees,
-he or she.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I wuz so lost in my own feelin’s of delight,
-and so carried away some distance by ’em, that I
-clean forgot that I wuz still in the flesh and still had
-a earthly pardner by the name of “Josiah.” But
-I wuz too soon fetched back to a realizin’ sense on’t.</p>
-
-<p>For even as the sweet echoes wuz a-floatin’ back
-from peak to peak lingerin’ly, as if they wuz loth to
-let go on ’em, a voice spoke beside me&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You’ll hear yodellin’ when we git home,
-Samantha Allen. Hereafter I shall never say ‘co-boss,
-co-boss’ to cows, or ‘co-day, co-day’ to sheep;
-after this I shall always yodel to ’em. Why,” sez
-he, “what a stir it will make in Jonesville! how the
-inhabitants will gather round me as I stand on the
-blackberry hill and yodel acrost to the creek paster!
-Why,” sez he, all carried away with the subject, as
-his nater is, “mebby I can learn Uncle Sime Bentley,
-so he can yodel back to me; mebby,” sez
-he, growin’ ambitious, “I shall yodel to Sister Bobbett
-and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</span></p>
-<p>Sez I coldly&mdash;“Do you confine your yodellin’ to
-dumb brutes, Josiah, who hain’t got sensibilities nor
-feelin’s to be woonded.”</p>
-
-<p>“Mebby you hain’t willin’ I should yodel to Ury;
-but I’ll let you know I shall anyway, mom!”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “he is used to your performances;
-he won’t mind ’em so much.”</p>
-
-<p>I knew it wuzn’t best to draw the string too tight;
-I knew I couldn’t break up his yodellin’ out to the
-barn, or round, when I wuzn’t in sight, and I felt
-that I would be glad to confine it to dumb brutes,
-and Ury, and sech.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, anon, after passin’ through lovely seens&mdash;lovely
-ones, we found ourselves on beautiful Lake
-Lucerne, the most beautiful lake in Switzerland, or
-the hull world, for all I know&mdash;beautiful, beautiful
-for situation it is. You could spend weeks a-admirin’
-the lovely views, and then begin agin and keep
-it up for years.</p>
-
-<p>And before long we found ourselves, much to my
-pardner’s relief, in a good tarvern with a long Swiss
-name, that I always forgit, and called it to myself
-“The Swizzler,” which wuz jest as good so fur as
-I wuz concerned.</p>
-
-<p>We didn’t stay here long, owin’ to Martin’s pecular
-views. But we hearn the organ in the old
-cathedral, and I wuz carried fur away from myself
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</span>into the land of happiness, love, and peace, into the
-realm&mdash;where is it?&mdash;that lays so nigh to us, that a
-burst of glorious music will sweep us right into its
-gates, but so fur off that we hain’t never ketched a
-glimpse of its glorified mountains with
-our nateral eyes.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi wuz carried into that same
-realm, too, I could see by his mean,
-and the rest on ’em wuz carried off
-wherever their nateral bent lay&mdash;Alice
-into the land of Love and Hope,
-Martin into the Stock Exchange
-mebby, where the roar of its bulls
-and bears drownded out the sound of
-the organ’s grand, melancholy voice.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp45" id="i_566" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_566.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Listening to the organ’s grand,
-melancholy voice.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And Josiah, wall, mebby he wuz
-a-settin’ agin to a full dinner table in
-Jonesville, with Deacon Sypher and
-Drusilly and some of the other bretheren
-and sistern a-hangin’ breathless
-onto his adventers.</p>
-
-<p>I d’no, I’ve only guessed at their emotions, but
-mine wuz a sight to see as the liquid waves of melody
-swep’ round me, and swep’ me along with it.</p>
-
-<p>And then we see the Lion of Lucerne, a-layin’
-there carved out of solid rock, in memory of the
-Swiss Guard, who fell defendin’ the Tuilleries in
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</span>1792. It wuz carved by Thorwaldsen, the great
-Danish sculptor, and is a noble and impressive sight.
-There it lay in a beautiful grotto, with water tricklin’
-all round it, some as if the hull country wuz
-a-sheddin’ tears over them poor young men that
-perished in their prime. It lay stretched out, its
-hull length of twenty-eight feet, a-holdin’ in its
-paws the shield of France and some flower de luce&mdash;France
-is jest sot on them poseys, and I always
-liked them myself; I’ve got a big root of ’em under
-my bedroom winder at home in Jonesville.</p>
-
-<p>I thought considerable in our short sojourn at
-Lucerne about William Tell, whose exploits with
-Gessler, apples, etc., took place in that vicinity
-(though I’ve hearn tell that Tell hain’t the creeter
-they tell on).</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp59" id="i_568" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_568.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>I thought considerable about William Tell and his exploits with
-Gessler, apples, etc.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But I always loved to read about him, and I
-always did kinder love to believe in things that ort
-to be true, if they hain’t&mdash;about liberty, freedom, and
-sech. Anyhow, he has got a high chapel built to
-him&mdash;mebby like some other popular idees, that
-haint got no greater foundation in solid truth.</p>
-
-<p>Though, agin, what is truth?</p>
-
-<p>Hard question.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</span></p>
-<p>Wall, our way on to Lake Geneva wuz like a dream
-of glory and grandeur, full of mountain peaks,
-green and snow-clad, and flashin’ waterfalls, with
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</span>little side dreams of sweet green valleys&mdash;“sweet
-fields arrayed in livin’ green”&mdash;quaint villages, cosey
-little housen, swift dashin’ waterways, and gently
-flowin’ rivers.</p>
-
-<p>Interlaken, Freiburg, Lausanne, how they look
-out of the paneramy at me when I shet my
-eyes in the Jonesville meetin’-house or anywhere,
-and onto the blue lake that Byron writ so much
-about.</p>
-
-<p>Alice had beset her Pa to take her to Castle
-Chillon. And I had strange feelin’s, I can tell you,
-as I walked down the road with Josiah Allen by
-my side&mdash;from Jonesville meetin’-house to the
-Castle of Chillon&mdash;what a leap! Could Fancy cut
-up any stranger? I spozed we should have to take
-a boat to reach it, and so they did in old times, but
-now the water has filled in so, that, like the Israelites,
-we passed over dry shod.</p>
-
-<p>The castle is over a thousand years old. Some say
-the Lake Dwellers built it, and in talkin’ about
-them queer creeters, who dwelt a thousand years
-ago in housen built up on posts stuck in the water,
-I had another trouble with my too ardent and susceptible
-pardner. Sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Samantha, what a beautiful way of livin’ that
-would be&mdash;how cool and pleasant in summer
-weather, and so handy; no luggin’ in water to fill
-the tank, no pumpin’, jest lean right out of the buttery
-winder and draw in a pailful, and then how<span class="pagenum" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</span>
-easy to lower the milk in the water to cool. Why,
-we could have the milk-room built jest below the
-surface, and set the milk pans right into the lake, as
-it were. What butter we could make, how it would
-be sought for! And then the idee of settin’ in your
-own back door and fishin’ for pike and sturgeons,
-draw ’em right up and land ’em on the kitchen
-table, not a foot off from the briler. How convenient!
-And bathin’ now, you’re always a-tewin’
-at me about it&mdash;washin’ my feet, it’s always a job&mdash;but
-now jest cut a little hole in the bedroom floor,
-and with a towel there you are. I’ll commence a
-house out on our pond the minute I git home for
-a summer retreat, no mowin’ door-yards, no fences
-to keep up, no gates to be onhingin’; why, I’d renew
-my age there, Samantha. And then think of
-the profit in the extra butter, etc.”</p>
-
-<p>“How would it be about milkin’ the cows?” sez
-I. I see he hadn’t thought of that or anythin’ else
-practical, but he’d been jest carried away by the
-novel and the new.</p>
-
-<p>But he wouldn’t give in, men have such doggy
-obstinacy. Sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Why, learn ’em to swim; begin when they’re
-yearlin’s, learn ’em to strike right out and swim up
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</span>to the milk-house, hitch ’em to the post, and jest
-set in the back door and milk ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>“Under water?” sez I; “milk under water?”</p>
-
-<p>I see he wuz gittin’ sick of the idee&mdash;sick as a
-dog, but he sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, milk ’em under the water in rubber bags,
-jest as Ezekiel did, and Malachi, and all the rest on
-’em.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “you’ll keep bachelder’s hall then,
-and cook your own vittles and make your own
-butter for all of me. I hain’t a-goin’ into any sech
-enterprise.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “that don’t surprise me at all; I
-never yet got up a uneek idee but what you backened
-it all you could.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we hung round here for some time, and I
-meditated on how the prisoners must have felt,
-condemned to</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Fetters and the damp vault’s dayless gloom.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And as I see how they had wore the very stuns
-away, a-pacin’ back and forth in their narrer bounds
-like caged lions, I felt like sayin’ with Byron:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“May none these marks efface,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">For they appeal from tyranny to God.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And it wuz with quite saddened emotions that
-we wended our way back to the tarvern Byron.</p>
-
-<p>I see Al Faizi wuz dretful mournful-lookin’. It
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</span>always affected that good creeter to see how Truth
-and Liberty and Jestice have always been trompled
-on by Error and Ignorance all through the ages
-and in all countries, and always would, so fur as I
-could tell.</p>
-
-<p>Geneva! Chamouni, how they glide past the
-roused eye of my mind, that don’t need spectacles&mdash;no,
-indeed! For never on earth, it seems to me,
-was there sech grandeur of seenery as wuz here in
-Chamouni. And the hull world seemed to have
-found it out, for folks from all the countries of the
-earth seemed to be represented here.</p>
-
-<p>Here we wuz set down like little grains of sand
-in a high pine forest, and that don’t carry out my
-idee at all, for what is a pine-tree compared to
-Mont Blanc&mdash;grand old giant standin’ up there
-lookin’ down on the hull world, and seemin’ to be
-kinder guardin’ it. I believe that even Martin’s
-pride wuz kinder crumpled down a-beholdin’ that
-wonder and glory.</p>
-
-<p>On, on we went by wild and magnificent seenery,
-by sweet sheltered spots, castles, farm-housen,
-bridges, waterfalls, valleys, towerin’ hills, lofty
-mountains, etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>Martigny&mdash;the wonderful Rhone valley, the
-magnificence of the Simplon Road, straight up the
-mountain-side, under waterfalls, over wild waters,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</span>along abysses, through tunnels seemin’ly milds long,
-openin’ out into new seens of beauty&mdash;oh, what a
-time, what a time!</p>
-
-<p>How many bridges did we cross? Josiah said,
-groanin’, “Over ten thousand.” But I believe there
-wuz only six hundred odd; but what would Miss
-Gowdey and Sister Bobbett think of that, who
-have always looked with some or at the thought of
-goin’ to North Loontown, because they had to pass
-over three bridges to git there, and go up a considerable
-steep hill? What would these sistern do
-under the circumstances that I wuz placed in? So
-my almost crazed but riz-up brain would wildly
-question me anon or oftener.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">MILAN, GENOA, VENICE.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, at last, under the fosterin’ care of Martin,
-we wuz conveyed along into Italy and put up to a
-place called Milan. But one memory of our way
-thither stands out as plain in my mind as our
-centre-table duz in my parlor; it is of beautiful
-Lake Maggiore. A more beautiful piece of water
-I don’t believe moistens this old earth. Them
-sweet blue waters, with lovely Isola Bella terraced
-into hite after hite of verdure and beauty, and
-other islands a-standin’ out like clear blue stars in
-a clear blue sky, and the Italians in their picteresque
-dress, priests, peasants, etc., etc., wuz a seen
-of enchantment, and even Martin looked kindly on
-it, and admitted that it looked well. “But,” sez
-he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“What is it compared to our own Thousand
-Islands? Why, nothing at all. Our own St.
-Lawrence would take in the whole of Lake Maggiore
-at one mouthful, and not know the difference.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Martin, don’t run down the beauty of another
-country a-praisin’ up your own.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</span></p>
-<p>“Well,” sez he, “do you find such perfection
-here as in our own country?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I reminescently, “I find better telegraph
-poles.” Sez I, “Think of the clear granite shafts,
-good enough for monuments, and then think of
-the humbly, crooked wooden poles that disfigger
-our American landscape.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” sez he, “you don’t often find them
-here.”</p>
-
-<p>Josiah sed if I wuz so bent on havin’ stun
-telegraph poles, he and Ury could build up one
-out of loose stuns in front of the house. Sez he,
-“We might make it sort of a monument shape, and
-Ury might kinder block out my figger on top.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “I guess it would be a work of art if Ury
-did it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “I might have a tin-type or
-sunthin’ fixed on, or a lock of my hair. It would
-be real uneek, and my fellow-townsmen would
-think the world on’t.”</p>
-
-<p>Mebby he’ll forgit the idee, and mebby I’ll see
-trouble out on’t yet.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, in Milan our first move wuz, of course, to
-see the cathedral. I’d seen so many picters on’t
-that it looked as familar as Betsey Bobbettses
-liniment, only fur grander and more impressive
-lookin’.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, after<span class="pagenum" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</span> lookin’ at that wonderful buildin’ on
-the outside and inside, I felt as if I wuz a heathen
-creeter who had never seen a cathedral or a meetin’-house
-in my life. Why, to make it clear to
-everybody jest how grand and extensive it is, I will
-say that if the pine woods on the hill back of Deacon
-Henzy’s wuz all turned into pinnakles and
-monuments and arches, and every pine needle on
-’em wuz ornaments of delicate tracery and carvin’
-and beautiful design, it could not be more impressive,
-and to anybody who has seen them woods
-that is sufficient. It is a dream to remember in
-still nights when you lay on your piller and can’t
-sleep. I think on’t time and time agin. Why, it
-is so big that you could carry on a Stock Exchange
-meetin’ at one end and a funeral at the other, and
-not interfere with each other in the least; you
-couldn’t hear the bulls and bears yellin’ or the
-mourners a-weepin’ and wailin’, not at all.</p>
-
-<p>And you climb up five hundred steps to the top,
-and look down on all the beauty and glory of the
-world&mdash;it is a sight, a sight.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin sed that he must make all haste
-possible a-travellin’ through Italy, as business wuz
-a-callin’ him home, but he must go to Genoa, the
-birthplace of Columbus. Sez he, “Of course, considering
-what he discovered and where he was of
-late celebrated, that is by far the most important
-place in Europe.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</span></p>
-
-<p>Wall, I wuz glad enough to visit the birthplace
-of that good, misused creeter. So we anon found
-ourselves in Genoa, the Superb, as some call it,
-and in good rooms in a big, comfortable tarvern.</p>
-
-<p>The first thing we went to visit wuz the statute
-of Columbus. It towers up, a poem in white marble;
-and in a settin’ poster, on the four sides on’t,
-are Religion, Gography, Strength, and Wisdom,
-and all round ’em and between ’em are carved the
-leadin’ events of Columbuses life. Every one of
-them symbols carved out there&mdash;Religion, Strength,
-etc.&mdash;Christopher had, and the world realizes it at
-last.</p>
-
-<p>I should think the world would have been
-ashamed of itself after picterin’ out his grand doin’s,
-his discoveries in the New World, to have sculped
-him out in chains; it wuz a burnin’ shame, but his
-memory is a-walkin’ down through the ages now
-free and soarin’, no chains on it&mdash;no, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>But, poor creeter! how he would have enjoyed
-bein’ made sunthin’ on, and used well while he wuz
-here in the body! How he would have enjoyed
-havin’ enough to eat, and hull clothes!</p>
-
-<p>But sech is life.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin renewed his strength a-lookin’ on
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_578">[Pg 578]</span>Columbuses statute and a-realizin’ what it wuz he
-discovered and how his discovery is a-branchin’ out
-and spreadin’ itself. He felt well.</p>
-
-<p>Right acrost from the statute stands a big house,
-which has writ on it, “Christopher Columbus Discovered
-America.” Martin didn’t need to be told
-on’t&mdash;no, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>As nigh as we could make out, Columbus wuz
-born in that house. They showed us the very room
-where he wuz born; but my lofty emotions in
-viewin’ the spot wuz quelled down with the thought
-that he wuz born in seven or eight other places.
-Poor creeter! what a time he did have from first to
-last!</p>
-
-<p>In the Municipal Palace, among other curous
-and valuable relicks, we see lots of relicks of Columbus&mdash;amongst
-’em some autograph letters that he
-had his own hand on.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah sez, “He’s some like you, Samantha&mdash;ducks’
-tracks is plain readin’ compared to ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>I looked coldly at him, but did not dane to argy.</p>
-
-<p>In a glass case, amongst lots of other things, we
-see the violin of Paganini, the greatest violinist that
-ever lived.</p>
-
-<p>He, too, wuz a discoverer; divine realms of melody
-wuz brung to view by his heavenly vision. He
-wafted his hearers into that realm on the flood of
-melody. I took sights of comfort a-lookin’ at that
-old fiddle.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_579">[Pg 579]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp50" id="i_579" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_579.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Divine realms of melody wuz
-brung to view by his heavenly
-vision.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>When my thoughts git started back to Italy, as
-thoughts will, no matter where your body is&mdash;a-settin’
-in the meetin’-house or out to the barn or anywhere&mdash;they
-always linger sort o’ lovin’ly on Venice&mdash;Venice
-that stands out in my mind
-all by itself amongst cities, jest as
-prominent as Thomas J. duz amongst
-boys.</p>
-
-<p>My Josiah wuz dumbfoundered when
-we emerged from the depot to think
-that he had got to go to our tarvern in
-a boat; but so it wuz.</p>
-
-<p>Then he demurred agin about the
-convenience we wuz a-goin’ in.</p>
-
-<p>He sez, “Dum it all, I hain’t a-goin’
-to be drawed by a hearse whilst I am
-alive!”</p>
-
-<p>But I soothed him down by pintin’
-out that the boats wuz all painted black.</p>
-
-<p>But wuzn’t it a curous sensation to drive along
-on streets of water, instead of good, honest dirt.
-Bein’ kinder skairy of water, I whispered to Josiah&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“As bad as our roads in Jonesville be durin’ the
-worst of Spring mud, I’d ruther navigate ’em with
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_580">[Pg 580]</span>our wheels up to the hubs in mud than to ride down
-these water streets.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “Samantha, we didn’t realize our priveliges
-then, we made light on ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, “you used language on them roads
-that you wouldn’t use now if you wuz set back on
-em.”</p>
-
-<p>“I didn’t talk any worse than the rest of the
-Jonesvillians!” he snapped out. “And how these
-streets smell&mdash;dead cats and pollywogs!” sez he,
-turnin’ up his nose real high.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “less count over our blessin’s.
-We can hold our noses while we are a-countin’,”
-sez I. “Look at them towerin’ marble palaces;
-see the carvin’ on them tall pinnakles and the arched
-winders and the fretted ruffs,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“The ruffs don’t fret no worse than my mind
-duz!” sez he. “Oh,” he whispered with a low
-groan, “shall we ever see the cliffs of Jonesville
-once more!”</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t give up, Josiah,” sez I, “here right in the
-dream of the world, Venice, the beautiful.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez Josiah, “I hearn there wuz a sayin’, ‘See
-Venice and die,’ and I can tell ’em that if this smell
-keeps on, and if the dum muskeeters keeps on
-a-bitin’, there’s one man who will foller their advice.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_581">[Pg 581]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_581" style="max-width: 35em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_581.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">If this smell keeps on, and the dum muskeeters keeps on a-bitin’, one man will ‘see Venice
-and die.</span>’”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Sez I, “They hain’t muskeeters, they’re nats,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_582">[Pg 582]</span>and it wuz Naples that wuz said on; and,” sez I,
-wantin’ to roust him up, “they say Venice is perfectly
-beautiful by moonlight.”</p>
-
-<p>That kinder nerved him up, bad as he felt&mdash;he
-seemed to look forrered to it, and after a good meal
-and a good rest, when we did set off by moonlight,
-hirin’ a gondola jest as we would a express wagon
-to home, he admitted the beauty of the seen.</p>
-
-<p>And it wuz like a journey through fairyland.
-The long, glassy streets, all lit up by lights from
-the tall, white palaces on each side on us, and by the
-lanterns of the passin’ gondoliers; the soft, sweet
-voices of the gondoliers as they called out to each
-other in their melogious Southern tongue; the
-glidin’ boats movin’ past us like shadder craft, with
-the handsome, graceful forms of the gondoliers
-a-drivin’ ’em, and anon or oftener the sweet strains
-of a guitar, and some divine voice in song; and
-the admirin’ surprise when you’d turn a corner and
-look down another street of beauty, differin’ in form
-of glory.</p>
-
-<p>Oh, it wuz a seen to be remembered as long as
-Memory sets up on her high-chair under my foretop!
-And what hantin’ thoughts kep’ company with
-me and filled the gondola to overflowin’! I seemed
-to see Titian with his artist’s eyes and inspired pencil&mdash;the
-old Doges with their embroidered and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_583">[Pg 583]</span>jewelled robes&mdash;sad-eyed Beatrice Cenci, Antonio,
-Shylock, Wise-eyed Portia&mdash;I seemed to hear her
-sayin’,</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“The quality of mercy is not strained,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven....</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The gondola wuz crowded by the fantom crowds
-that set round me onheeded by my Josiah, jest as
-sperit crowds may be cramped all round onbeknown
-to us.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I expected that about the most interestin’
-thing in Venice to me would be the Bridge of Sighs,
-that stands, as Byron so eloquently observes, with a
-palace on the nigh side, and a prison on the off side
-(I may not have got the exact words, but it is the
-same meanin’). And I had more emotions there
-than I could count, as I looked at it.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi wuz dretful interested in the old prison
-and dungeons and in the relicks of the infamous
-Council of Ten.</p>
-
-<p>He writ pages in that book of hisen, and didn’t
-come no more nigh depicterin’ all their atrocities
-and abominations than one drop of water would to
-exhaustin’ the ocean.</p>
-
-<p>In the palaces we see the height of luxury and
-richness of beauty. In the prisons and dungeons
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_584">[Pg 584]</span>we can see the black depths of terror and cruelty
-of the time when the Council of Ten ruled Venice.</p>
-
-<p>The Doge’s palace is a dream of magnificence.
-You look up the Giant’s Staircase, way up&mdash;up to
-the great statutes of Mars and Neptune, where
-them mean creeters wuz crowned&mdash;the Doges, I
-mean. And then you can’t help meditatin’ that
-whilst they clumb to the very top of magnificence,
-they didn’t do well, they didn’t die peaceable in their
-beds, none on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>No, they wuz pizened, or had their heads cut off,
-or sunthin’ or other, that interfered with their comfort.</p>
-
-<p>I wouldn’t want Josiah to be a Doge&mdash;not if he
-could be jest as well as not. No, Dogein’ seemed to
-be resky business in them days, and I presoom that
-it would be now.</p>
-
-<p>And then they wuz so awful mean some on ’em&mdash;jest
-read what they done, it’s enough to skair you to
-death almost. I had dretful emotions as I looked
-at that long table where the Ten ust to set in silence,
-and condemn men and wimmen to death.</p>
-
-<p>They ort to be ashamed of themselves.</p>
-
-<p>And then the Lion’s Mouth, where the papers
-accusin’ folks wuz dropped by the people. The
-paper dropped down into a chest so’s the wicked old
-Ten could git holt of ’em.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_585">[Pg 585]</span></p>
-<p>Miserable creeters! I’d love to gin ’em a piece of
-my mind.</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah wuz all took up with the idee; sez
-he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“How convenient, how charmin’ it would be to
-have a complainin’ box rigged up in the barn over
-the manger or by the side of the haymow, so when
-I wanted to complain of Ury I wouldn’t have to jaw
-him and have him sass back! How much easier it
-would be than jawin’! He’d like it better, too. And
-you can have one, Samantha, to complain of Philury;
-you could jest drop ’em in, and then you wouldn’t
-have to tell ’em over to me when she wuz wasteful
-or slack, or acted. Jest put ’em down on paper,
-drop ’em into the box, and nobody but Philury
-would be the wiser.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Do you spoze I’m a-goin’ to be feelin’
-round writin’ complaints while a batch of cookies
-are bein’ spilte, or a lot of good vittles throwed to
-the hens? No, indeed! My tongue is good yet,
-and active.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, indeed, it is!” sez he with a deep groan (I
-d’no what he meant by it).</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez he, “it would be good for it to rest a
-spell, and it would be a good thing for me, anyway,
-specially nights when I wuz sleepy,” and agin he
-sighed (he acted like a fool).</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_586">[Pg 586]</span></p>
-<p>“And if you say so,” sez he, “we could have one
-rigged up together for both on us&mdash;we ort to be
-able to complain of our hired man and woman in
-one complainin’ box. We might have it over our
-back door, or on the smoke-house.”</p>
-
-<p>But I waived off his idee, and mebby he gin it up,
-and mebby, agin, he’ll try to rig up some contrivance
-that won’t do no good, and take time and money.</p>
-
-<p>Another one of the queer things them old Doges
-ust to do wuz to marry the Adriatic to the city at
-a certain time every year.</p>
-
-<p>What did they want to marry water for?</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah wuz all worked up with the idee, when
-he hearn us a-talkin’ about it, and about the magnificent
-ceremonies they went through with at the
-weddin’.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “How uneek it would be for me to
-marry the creek to Jonesville and perform the ceremony
-out to our mill-dam! It would be beautiful,
-and it would be as cheap as dirt, too; Ury could
-fix up a raft, and I could take one of the curtain
-rings out of the spare bedroom to wed it with.”</p>
-
-<p>“What do you want to be weddin’ the creek
-for?” sez I coldly.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, for fashion,” sez he&mdash;“style. Old-fashioned
-things are so stylish now,” sez he. “You know
-how them old, long, black clocks, humbly things in
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_587">[Pg 587]</span>the first on’t as they could be&mdash;you know how they’re
-set up in the boodores of luxury now, a-lookin’
-like a coffin on end. And spinnin’-wheels and sech
-that our grandmas ust to hustle out of the room, if
-company come, now they’re sot up on velvet carpets,
-and made sights on. And this manoover
-would be dretful stylish. Oh, how the Jonesville
-bridge would be crowded! how the Jonesvillians
-would look on in admiration to see the sight!</p>
-
-<p>“Of course I should wear my dressin’-gown. The
-public has never had a chance to see it on me yet,
-you have always been so sot on keepin’ me to home
-in it. This would be a very agreeable treat to have
-on Fourth of Julys, or any national holiday, and I
-could carry it out perfectly and dog cheap, with a
-little of Ury’s help.”</p>
-
-<p>But I sot my foot right down on the idee to
-once. Sez I, “It looks silly as anything in them
-wicked old Doges, and you hain’t a-goin’ to import
-any of their tricks into Jonesville. Next thing I’d
-know you’d have a inquisition a-goin’ on, and a secret
-tribunal of Ten.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_588" style="max-width: 35em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_588.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">Next thing I’d know you’d have a inquisition a-goin’ on.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“I’d like it first-rate,” sez he, “if I could be the
-10. I’d like to shake some of the sins and foolishness
-out of Brother Gowdey and Deacon Henzy,”
-sez he, “and bring ’em into my way of thinkin’.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_588">[Pg 588]</span></p>
-<p>“There it is!” sez I. “Intolerance, bigotry, persecution,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_589">[Pg 589]</span>how fresh they be to-day in the human
-heart! Jest as ready to spring up and act in 1895
-as a thousand years ago.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, I hain’t said I wuz a-goin’ to start it up
-agin,” sez he, kinder cross like; “I only spoke on’t.”</p>
-
-<p>I expected trials when I sot out to take my pardner
-through Europe, and I wuzn’t dissapinted in it.
-But if it hadn’t been for his ambition for display,
-and his bein’ carried away by novelties, and his appetite,
-he would have acted real well. But, anyway,
-act or not, he’s the one man in the world for me,
-and visey versey.</p>
-
-<p>But, as I wuz a-sayin’, the palaces of them old
-Doges rousted lots of emotions in my brain, and
-the fantoms of their victims seemed to hover round
-them old palaces as thick as the pigeons that come
-with a rush of wing down into the great square of
-St. Mark at jest two o’clock, where they are fed by
-order of the government.</p>
-
-<p>The grand old Church of St. Mark interested me
-dretfully. It is built in the form of a Greek
-cross, with a big dome in the centre, and full, full
-to overflowin’ with glory of mosaic, precious stuns,
-picters, monuments, altars, pillars, colenades, gold,
-silver, and splendor of all sorts.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah sez to me, “Our Jonesville meetin’-house
-wouldn’t show off much compared to this.”</p>
-
-<p>But I wuz some consoled in this by thinkin’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_590">[Pg 590]</span> that
-if our meetin’-house wuzn’t so gorgeous, there wuz
-jest as big a lack of beggars and poor people of all
-kinds a-hoverin’ on the outside on’t, and sez I&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“If they should sell off some of their costly
-things and try to improve the condition of these
-poor beggars, they would raise themselves as
-much as twenty-five cents in my estimation, and
-I d’no but more.”</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah sez, “It is hard to make a rotten
-string stand up straight&mdash;it is hard to brace up
-laziness, and dissipation, and improvidence, and
-make anything on’t.”</p>
-
-<p>I couldn’t dispute him, nor didn’t try to. But
-I did love to prowl round in those old meetin’-housen
-and see the wealth of interestin’ things in
-’em.</p>
-
-<p>In the Church of Santa Maria d’Frari, the beautiful
-monument to Titian took my admirin’ interest.
-It has angels, lions, all sorts of sculptered figgers
-in elegant carvin’, and beautiful bas-reliefs of
-his greatest works&mdash;“The Assumption,” “Martyrdom
-of St. Lawrence,” and “Peter Martyr.”</p>
-
-<p>Then the monument to Canova is a sight to see
-in its beauty. Wall, he ort to had it; he did
-enough work to make the world more beautiful.</p>
-
-<p>In the Academy of Fine Arts we see sech sights
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_591">[Pg 591]</span>of beautiful picters that my brain almost reels now,
-a-tryin’ to recall ’em. But Titian’s “Assumption of
-the Virgin” is one that you can’t forgit, no matter
-how clost other idees press around it and squooze
-aginst it.</p>
-
-<p>Great picters by Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, and
-other great masters&mdash;the walls are jest seens of
-beauty.</p>
-
-<p>I wouldn’t want it told on&mdash;it ort to be kep’, but
-Josiah told me right there in that sacred spot, that
-he wuz sick of Madonnas&mdash;sick as a snipe.</p>
-
-<p>But I told him that I wouldn’t own up to it, if I
-wuz.</p>
-
-<p>And he said he didn’t care who hearn him.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz kinder sick on ’em myself, but didn’t want
-to own up to it right there in a meetin’-house.
-But, truly, anybody will see enough Holy Families,
-Virgins, Madonnas, etc., to last ’em a long life, unless
-they’re extravagantly fond of ’em. And every
-artist seems to have painted his own idees of the
-Holy Mother&mdash;mebby from his own sweetheart;
-anyway, no two of ’em are alike. Most of ’em are
-real fat and healthy lookin’. I never spozed she
-enjoyed sech good health as they depicter; I
-thought she wuz more kinder spindlin’ lookin’.
-And then I imagined there wuz a ineffible look
-to the face of the Mother of our Lord, sech, as
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_592">[Pg 592]</span>it seems to me, they hain’t none of ’em ketched.
-The Mother of our Lord! What a face she ort
-to have to fit my idees of her! It’s resky work,
-paintin’ divine things. I wouldn’t want to undertake
-it, or have Josiah. Now I see the picter of
-the Deity once painted with a hat on.</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t love to see it.</p>
-
-<p>Why, even to Moses the Great Presence wuz
-surrounded by a flame of fire; and St. Paul fell
-to the ground, struck by the blindin’ glory on’t,
-and he wuz never able to put in mortal words
-the sights he see&mdash;“Whether in the body or out
-of the body, God knoweth.”</p>
-
-<p>He wuz reverent. And it don’t seem quite the
-thing to try to paint ineffible glories with chrome
-yeller and madder. Howsumever, I spoze they
-meant well.</p>
-
-<p>And, indeed, some of the picters we see as we
-journeyed through the Italian cities are all placed
-in rows around the inside of my brain, and can’t
-never be moved from there&mdash;no, the strings must
-break down first that they hang up on.</p>
-
-<p>In Florence the Beautiful, oh, the acres and
-acres and acres of beauty that I walked through,
-full to overflowin’ with beauty and glorious conceptions
-and the white splendor of marble poems!
-The works of Michael Angelo I hain’t a-goin’ to
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_593">[Pg 593]</span>forgit them&mdash;no, indeed! nor Lorenzo Ghiberti,
-nor the picters by Titian, Raphael, Rembrandt,
-Tintoretto, Veronese, Van Dyke, Rubens, etc., etc.,
-etc., and so forth, and so forth, and so on, and so on.</p>
-
-<p>I walked through the long picter galleries with
-my brain and heart all rousted up, and enjoyin’
-themselves the best that ever wuz, and my legs all
-wore out and achin’ bad. And Josiah groanin’
-audibly by my side. And Martin patronizin’ the
-marvels of ancient and modern art, and havin’ a
-good time. Al Faizi with his hat off, reverent and
-devout in the presence of so much divine beauty.
-And Alice, I spoze, thinkin’ of the past and the
-futer, and Adrian eatin’ candy, etc.</p>
-
-<p>Time fails to tell what we see. It seems to me
-it would be easier to tell what we didn’t see; I
-guess it wouldn’t take so long, but I will desist.</p>
-
-<p>But a few memories stand out shinin’ amidst the
-bewilderin’ maze. One of ’em is standin’ in the cell
-of Savonarola, that noble creeter, raised up to the
-pinnakle of saintship by the fickle populace, who
-knelt and worshipped him, and then so soon crucified
-him. And he all the time a-keepin’ on stiddy,
-jest as good and noble and riz up as he could be.
-Yes, his last words to his persecutors gin a good
-idee on him&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You can turn me out of earthly meeting-houses,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_594">[Pg 594]</span>but you can’t keep me out of the Heavenly
-one.”</p>
-
-<p>I may not have used the same words he did, but
-it wuz to that effect. I had a sight of emotions as
-I stood in that narrer place that once confined the
-form of that kingly creeter.</p>
-
-<p>And then the tomb of Galileo. I always liked
-him the best that ever wuz. He wuz also persecuted
-for knowin’ things that them round him
-didn’t know, and thinkin’ thoughts and seein’ sights
-that they didn’t. And in order to git along with
-’em round him, he had to promise to stop teachin’
-the truth. The Majority had to be appeased by
-the old Ignorance. It has to now, time and agin.
-But he kep’ on a-sayin’ to himself, and out loud, when
-he got a chance to&mdash;“The world duz move.” Men
-and wimmen to-day, who feel some as Galileo
-about men’s and wimmen’s rights&mdash;licenses, the
-higher spiritual knowledge&mdash;they keep on a-sayin’
-all the time, every time that they can git a chance
-to edge a word in between Ignorance and Bigotry
-and shaky-kneed Custom, who stand all shackled
-together with mouldy old chains of prejudice, every
-time they can git a openin’ between these tattlin’,
-but hard-lived old creeters, they keep on a-sayin’&mdash;“The
-world <i>duz</i> move.”</p>
-
-<p>Folks will fall in with ’em after a time, jest as
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_595">[Pg 595]</span>they fell in with the idees of Galileo; now they persecute
-’em.</p>
-
-<p>But more interestin’ to me than the glories and
-marvels of the Medician Chapel, the Pitti and
-Uffizi galleries, the Boboli Gardens, the monument
-to Dante (smart creeter <i>he</i> wuz, and went
-through a sight from first to last; he and she both&mdash;Beatrice,
-I mean)&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>But of fur more interest to me it wuz to stand in
-the house where the slender little English woman
-dwelt while her soul was slightly imprisoned in her
-frail body, while she held “The poet’s star-tuned
-harp to sweep.” And where at last “God struck a
-silence through it all, and gave to His beloved
-sleep.”</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Sleep, sweet belovéd, we sometimes say,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Yet have no tune to charm away</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">But never doleful dream again</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Shall break their happy slumber when</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">He giveth His belovéd sleep.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Yes, she sleeps well now. All the melancholy
-and charm of Italy, all its magnificence, all of its
-splendor, its ruins&mdash;all seem to be centred in that
-one little room. I had emotions there that it hain’t
-no use dwellin’ on.</p>
-
-<p>Figgers seemed to start up and bagon to me
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_596">[Pg 596]</span>from every side. Aurora Leigh, with her sad,
-sweet smile, stood in front of me with that lover of
-hern; the Portuguese lovers, with hearts of fire and
-dew too; the “Poet Mother” holdin’ her two boys
-to her heart, knit to that heart by ties of iron;
-Nino and Guido, little babies, teaching ’em to&mdash;“Say
-<i>first</i> the word country,” after that mother
-and love. Then I see her alone in the house&mdash;<i>alone</i>.</p>
-
-<p>“God, how the house feels!”</p>
-
-<p>While Guido and Nino lay dead, shot down by
-the balls of the enemy&mdash;“One by the East Sea and
-by the West”&mdash;then she remembered that she
-had learnt ’em to say <i>first</i> the word “country,”
-puttin’ it before “mother and home.”</p>
-
-<p>She wuz kinder sorry she’d done it at first, I
-guess. She forgot Glory and Patriotism, for this
-woman&mdash;this “Who was agonized here, the East
-Sea and West Sea rhymed on in her head, forever
-instead.”</p>
-
-<p>She couldn’t think of anything else, only the
-mightiness of human love and grief.</p>
-
-<p>I don’t blame her; I should felt jest so myself if
-it had been Thomas Jefferson shot down. What
-would the glory of Jonesville be to me, if his bright,
-understandin’, affectionate eyes wuz closed in death?
-I, too, should think that everything else wuz “imbecile,
-hewin’ out roads to a wall.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_597">[Pg 597]</span></p>
-<p>How black that wall would look to me!</p>
-
-<p>And then the cry of the Human, how it rung
-in my ears&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Be pitiful, O God!”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Yes, indeed, in how many crysises have I felt the
-hite and the depth of that cry!</p>
-
-<p>I had powerful emotions, powerful, and sights of
-’em&mdash;so did Al Faizi. He jest doted on Mrs.
-Browning’s poetry, and he sot a good deal of store
-by the poetry of her relict&mdash;her widderer. And
-Robert duz write first-rate, but pretty deep, some
-on ’em. I’ve grown real riz up and breathless
-a-hearin’ Thomas J. read about “How they brought
-the good news from Ghent to Aix.” And I love
-to hear Thomas J. read about the “Lost Leader,”
-and beautiful “Evelyn Hope,” and etc., etc. But, on
-the hull, I sot more store by the poems of his wife.</p>
-
-<p>But, as I say, I always respected and admired
-Elizabeth’s widderer. He insisted on marryin’ the
-woman he loved, no matter how poor health she
-enjoyed. I presoom his folks objected and thought
-that Robert would do better to marry a woman
-that wuz enjoyin’ better health. But he never
-thought of doctors’ bills or poultices&mdash;things that
-fill up littler minds&mdash;no, indeed! nor she didn’t
-either. They felt only the supreme joy of congenial
-minds and hearts, and love that lifts the soul
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_598">[Pg 598]</span>up to the divinest hites mortals can ever stand
-up on.</p>
-
-<p>She says, and it seems almost like liftin’ a veil
-before the Holy of Holys, and as if I ortn’t to
-speak of it, but I will venter&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>She sez:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“First time he kissed me, he but kissed</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">This hand wherewith I write,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And ever since it grew more fair and white,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Slow to world greetings, quick with its Oh, list!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">When the angels speak.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>How the words fell from her innocent soul, and
-how they must always reach the same place in ’em
-who hear ’em, if they have got souls!</p>
-
-<p>Yes, in readin’ her poetry you can see that, as she
-sed about the dead baby and its sorrerin’ ma, that
-“The crystal bars shine faint between the souls of
-child and mother.” You can see that the veil wuz
-but thin indeed between her soul and the Heaven
-she writes of&mdash;yes, you can almost see its light
-a-shinin’ through the words, and its music almost
-throbs through her sweet thoughts.</p>
-
-<p>But to resoom. It seems almost like a beautiful
-dream to look back on’t, with, of course, some
-shadders to make the brightness seem more bright,
-the time we spent in Florence. One day while we
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_599">[Pg 599]</span>wuz there we rid out to see the Tower of Pisa&mdash;Martin
-sed it would be expected of him to see it.</p>
-
-<p>We found that Pisa wuz a dretful noisy place&mdash;dretful,
-and, somehow, yellin’ in a foreign language
-seems worse than the same yellin’ in Yankee.
-Howsumever, I spoze these yellers and jabberers
-knew their own business.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp46" id="i_599" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_599.jpg" alt="Leaning Tower of Pisa" />
-</div>
-
-<p>Josiah sed, as we looked up at the tower, sez
-he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You’ve always took me to task, Samantha, about
-my corn-house bein’ built kinder tippin’ and tottlin’.
-Now what do you think? This tips as much agin,
-and folks can’t think too much on’t, so it seems.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “it has a different look to it from
-your edifice. I believe that will fall on you some
-day, Josiah Allen, and be the death on you.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, they hain’t either on ’em fell yet; they
-both stand kinder tippin’, but I don’t worry about
-either on ’em&mdash;we knew what we wuz about when
-we built ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>He ranked ’em both right in together, I see that
-he did. But this tower goes fur ahead of his edifice&mdash;fur,
-though it is some seven hundred years older.</p>
-
-<p>It is perfectly round, the sides all fixed off in
-rows of pillows, and the hull thing most two hundred
-feet high.</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t hanker for goin’ up to the top on’t&mdash;no,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_600">[Pg 600]</span>indeed! It tuckers me enough to go up into our
-wood-house chamber, about twenty odd steps. I
-wuzn’t goin’ to trail up three hundred steps&mdash;no,
-indeed!</p>
-
-<p>But Martin sed that he would like to say that
-he had been there. So he toiled up the ascent, and
-so did Alice. And she sed that the view from the
-top wuz perfectly wonderful, takin’ in the beautiful
-country all round&mdash;cities, picteresque villages, and
-the blue waters of the Mediterranean twelve milds
-away.</p>
-
-<p>And Martin sed that if that tower wuz in
-Chicago, with a outside elevator let down from
-the top to take folks up, and a cigar-stand and
-saloon on top, a man ort to clear five thousand
-dollars a year from it. And he sed the white
-marble it’s built on would make splendid mantlepieces,
-and he told how many it would make&mdash;I
-can’t remember, but a immense lot on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>He’d figgered ’em up on the tower; he took his
-pencil out and figgered it up on the pinnakle, so,
-for all he realized, the entrancin’ view below might
-have been our four-acre paster or a huckleberry
-patch. We didn’t stay here long. Of course, we
-had to see the cathedral and Baptistery, great
-buildin’s built of white marble, and all ornamented
-off on the outside to as great an extent as I ever
-see, or ever expect to, and the Campo Santa has
-got frescoes in it that are beautiful beyend any tellin’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_601">[Pg 601]</span>
-on.</p>
-
-<p>There is lots of other things there that is worth
-seein’&mdash;the Museum, the University, the Aqueduct,
-etc.&mdash;but we didn’t stay to see em all, Martin, as
-usual, a-bein’ in a great hurry; but he sed that he
-wanted to say, of course, that he had paid proper
-attention to this city, which wuz one of the oldest
-in Europe. Before John the Baptist came preachin’
-in the Wilderness this wuz a Roman town. It
-beats all! No wonder it’s a noisy old place&mdash;it has
-seen lots of trouble.</p>
-
-<p>In goin’ out of it we went through so many tunnels,
-it skairt me most to death, and Josiah wuz
-skairt, too, though he wouldn’t own up to it, but I
-heard him sithe repeatedly; otherwise I wuz glad
-to go.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, as I say, what I see in beautiful Florence
-can’t be told, and the enchantin’ seenery in the
-Valley of the Arno. The beautiful Casino, which
-even Martin admitted come almost up to Central
-Park (it is fur bigger and handsomer, though I
-wouldn’t want the Central Park folks to know I
-sed it, for it would be apt to mad ’em. It made
-Martin mad as a hen when I suggested it).</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_602">[Pg 602]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">COLOSSEUM AND CATACOMBS.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz jest as beautiful in Rome&mdash;magnificent
-palaces, cathedrals, picters, statutes, tapestry, mosaics,
-articles of virtue of all kinds, and immense
-gateways leadin’ into new seens of beauty, fountains,
-monuments, tombs, parks, wells, etc., etc.,
-etc.</p>
-
-<p>My head-dress almost rises up on my head now
-as I contemplate the seens. But specially the Colosseum
-almost lifts up the ribbins on it&mdash;now,
-when I meditate on’t.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp100" id="i_602" style="max-width: 25em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_602.jpg" alt="Colosseum" />
-</div>
-
-<p>Why, when the Loontown Opera House wuz
-finished, we Jonesvillians hung our heads considerable
-before the Loontowners, they wuz so hauty
-over it. Two hundred could set down in it all to
-one time.</p>
-
-<p>It danted us. We envied ’em. But what would
-them proud Loontowners think of a theatre that
-would seat eighty thousand, and probble twenty
-or thirty thousand more could have squoze in
-while they wuz a-performin’.</p>
-
-<p>One hundred thousand all assembled,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_603">[Pg 603]</span>
-mebby to look down on the dretful sight of seein’
-men kill each other. That wuz the thought that riz
-up my head-dress, and almost busted my bask waist.
-To think that men and wimmen could meet for
-amusement, and witness sech agony and sufferin’,
-and probble laugh at it. Why, in one of their
-meetin’s, twelve hundred men wuz killed, wimmen
-lookin’ on, too, jest as well as men, and probble
-snickerin’ over it.</p>
-
-<p>I would be ashamed of myself if I wuz in their
-places&mdash;heartless creeters! If I’d been there at the
-time nobody could kep’ me from givin’ ’em a piece
-of my mind. But I wuz eighteen hundred years
-too young; they kep’ right at it.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi wuz dretful interested in this place. He
-writ down lots in that book of hisen. He see
-sights here he never see in his own land&mdash;religion
-or no religion.</p>
-
-<p>Christians throwed round to let lions and tigers
-devour ’em! The idee! He looked curous as a
-dog while he talked with me about it.</p>
-
-<p>Martin wuz kinder calculatin’ on how many grain
-elevators the stun would build if they wuz landed
-in Chicago.</p>
-
-<p>And Josiah and the children were wanderin’
-round, and he acted tired and fagged out. He wuz,
-as usual, hungry. He sed prowlin’ round amongst
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_604">[Pg 604]</span>
-them stun heaps gin him a appetite. And I spoze
-it did. But, then, I’ve known settin’ still to whet
-up his appetite, and barn chores, and everything.</p>
-
-<p>But we prowled round here for some time, and
-there is one big, vivid memory that I brung away
-from Rome; it stands up in my foretop some as
-in Naples Mount Vesuvius stands, with the Bay of
-Naples a-layin’ placid and fair at its treacherous old
-feet.</p>
-
-<p>The treasures of the Vatican (which makes my
-brain reel and my feet kinder ache to this day when
-I think of ’em), the biggest palace in the world, so
-I spoze. And then St. Peter’s Church, more’n five
-times as big as the big Catholic Cathedral in New
-York&mdash;two hundred and twelve thousand feet; we
-can’t hardly understand it, it is so big.</p>
-
-<p>But Martin kep’ us there more’n half an hour;
-for, as he sed, he wanted to git a thorough idee of
-it, so that he wouldn’t have to come agin. Sez he:</p>
-
-<p>“I travel as I do everything else; I do it laboriously
-and thoroughly.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, mebby he did, but I carried away from St.
-Peter’s and the Vatican, which is jest by the side
-on’t, a sort of a dizzy, achin’ memory of pillows and
-picters and statutes and illimitable space, and picters
-and carvin’s and statutes, and statutes and carvin’s
-and picters&mdash;a few of which stands out prominent&mdash;the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_605">[Pg 605]</span>Laocoon, the Apollo Belvidere (he wuz as
-handsome as Thomas Jefferson, and that is sayin’
-all I can say), and the Annunciation, and the Transfiguration
-by Raphael, and great picters by Da
-Vinci and Murillo. Picters, statutes, mosaics, carvin’s,
-chapels, altars, picters, etc., etc., etc., etc.,
-etc., and I might go on so all day, but I won’t.</p>
-
-<p>Why, the treasures of art in the Vatican is the
-finest collection in the world, and when you realize
-how big the world is&mdash;take it from Jonesville to
-Chicago, and so by New York to Ingy, and back
-agin by the North Pole to Loontown and Zoar,
-you can git a faint idee on’t.</p>
-
-<p>There is everything in it besides the glorious picters
-and statutes made by the greatest artists and
-sculpters that ever lived. There are ancient coins
-and household utensils of every age, tapestry,
-mosaics, jewels, embroideries, carvin’s, etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>Why, imagine what treasures of art could be put
-into these ten thousand rooms by onlimited wealth
-and power through hundreds of years, and then see if
-you expect anybody is a-goin’ to describe ’em; specially
-if they are hurried on by a Martin, and goaded
-on the right and the left by the hungry groanin’s of a
-Josiah, and the endless questions of a child of
-eight.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi got considerable good out on’t, I guess.</p>
-
-<p>He writ down a lot, I see, in that delicate, small<span class="pagenum" id="Page_606">[Pg 606]</span>
-handwritin’ of hisen&mdash;I d’no but it is shorthand.</p>
-
-<p>Alice, I spoze, see on every side a face, jest as
-young eyes will, when young hearts are full of love
-and hope.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin sed he must see the catacombs, and
-I felt, too, that I must go, although I knew it wuz
-resky. I felt that with his ardent temperament and
-his eager search after ontried paths, I more’n
-mistrusted that I should lose Josiah Allen for good
-in them catacombs. But I ventered, after layin’
-stringent rules onto that small, but ambitious man.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Don’t you lose sight of me through the
-day, Josiah Allen!”</p>
-
-<p>“How can I see you in the dark?” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Foller my voice!” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“That’s an easy job,” sez he; “I could foller that
-for years and years, and not lose a minute.”</p>
-
-<p>I d’no what he meant; he wuz excited and kinder
-wanderin’ in his mind, I believe.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_607">[Pg 607]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp46" id="i_607" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_607.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">The guides went ahead with flarin’ lights.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Wall, when we descended into the bowels of the
-earth, I felt queer, queer as a dog. The guides went
-ahead, with flarin’ lights held up to guide us, and as
-we proceeded onwards through what seemed to be
-milds and milds of underground rooms and halls
-and windin’ ways, the thought come, and I couldn’t
-keep it out of my mind&mdash;</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_608">[Pg 608]</span></p>
-<p>“What if the light should blow out, as I’ve seen
-so many lights do in my day, and we should be
-doomed to forever more wander here, and die at
-last fur from Jonesville, and the light of day. But
-as I whispered to Josiah&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“We shall die together at least, which will be a
-comfort.”</p>
-
-<p>He, too, felt the pathos and danger of the seen,
-and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Hurry up, or the guide will be out of sight!”
-and he added almost tenderly, “You’re too fat,
-Samantha, to take many sech trips.”</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “Wall, I don’t expect to travel habitually
-under the ground.”</p>
-
-<p>And we had some words. It madded me considerable
-to be twitted of my heft both on top of the
-ground and in the bowels of the earth, till I recollected
-where I wuz and what had once gone on
-here; then a deep or took holt on me, and I sez
-to myself&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“What must the Christians have felt who fled
-here for safety from persecution and death! What
-did the saints and martyrs think on as they jined in
-their hymns of praise and victory? A few pounds
-of flesh, more or less, what would they have thought
-on’t, or the teasin’ words of their pardners? No,
-lions and tigers and the headsman’s axe wuz what
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_609">[Pg 609]</span>wuz before their eyes, and, what wuz worse, before
-the eyes of ’em they loved best.”</p>
-
-<p>Endless rooms, so it seemed to me, we went
-through, narrer passages and chambers, arched overhead,
-and the walls lined, some on ’em with dead
-bodies. Mummies, tombs, picters, windin’ ways,
-Josiah, Martin, torches&mdash;them wuz the idees that
-come back to me as I think on’t now.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Josiah wuz dretful impressed with the Holy
-Staircase, up which the members of the meetin’-house
-went on their knees, a-sayin’ their prayers as
-they went, and it wuz a impressive sight to look way
-up the stairs and see the bretheren and sistern
-a-creepin’ up and a-fingerin’ their strings of beads
-and a-prayin’ to the Virgin Mary or some other
-saint or ’postle, mebby.</p>
-
-<p>And here I had another trial with my dear, but
-too ardent and impressible pardner. He looked
-on in deep thought for anon or a little longer,
-and then he sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Samantha, wouldn’t it be uneek for you and
-me to climb up the steps of the Jonesville meetin’-house
-a-sayin’ over some hymn, or one of the
-Sams? And you could take your mother’s gold
-string of beads, and I could buy a string of glass
-ones for two or three cents, or I could make a
-string with a little of Ury’s help&mdash;whittle ’em out
-of wood. And how impressive it would be! how
-it would attract attention to us! how foreign it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_610">[Pg 610]</span>
-would look, and show plain how travelled and cultivated
-we wuz! You know, folks that come
-home from Europe always bring lots of strange
-ways with ’em and airs; and this would be one
-of the most uneekest and impressive that wuz ever
-brung into Jonesville or America.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Gin up that idee to once, Josiah Allen,
-for I will never jine in with it in the world. The
-idee!” sez I, “that you and me, with our age and
-our rumatiz, should go a-creepin’ up on our knees into
-the meetin’-house. Why, to say nothin’ of spilein’
-our clothes, our knee-pans wouldn’t be good for
-nothin’ after one venter.” Sez I, “The pans would be
-perfectly useless forever afterwards, and,” sez I,
-“what good would it do? The aid we invoke
-hain’t bought with beads. The God we worship
-hain’t reached by creepin’ up a pair of stairs; He is
-right with us to the foot of the stairs or anywhere.
-Give up the idee immegiately and to once.”</p>
-
-<p>He acted real fraxious, but I drawed his attention
-off, and mebby he’ll forgit it.</p>
-
-<p>The beauty of Naples has been sed and sung in so
-many different words and tunes that it don’t need
-the pen or voice of a Samantha, specially as I hain’t
-much of a singer, nor wuzn’t even in my young
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_611">[Pg 611]</span>days, so I will be content with singin’ to myself at
-times a rapt sort of a soul song, as I look back on
-the enchantin’ beauty of the Bay of Naples.</p>
-
-<p>Beautiful for situation indeed is Naples! clusterin’
-round the clear, blue waters, that sweep round in
-a sort of a crescent.</p>
-
-<p>The city occupies the centre&mdash;the inside on’t, little
-villages and tree-embowered castles and villas a-linin’
-the shores on each side, and on the off side, addin’
-the one touch of mystery that gives a vivid but dark
-charm to the picter, rises Mount Vesuvius, a-standin’
-there all the time as if protestin’ aginst the poor
-wisdom of the ages.</p>
-
-<p>Who knows what’s a-goin’ on in her insides?
-Who knows what she’s mad about? Who knows
-what makes her act so puggicky, and every now and
-then bust out into blood-red indignation, that carries
-death and ruin all round her? Queer, hain’t it?</p>
-
-<p>Queer, that havin’ in mind jest what she’s done
-and is liable to do any time agin, that men and
-wimmen go on, gay and happy, and lean up aginst
-her old feet, and nestle down in her shadder, and
-build homes of love there, liable any minute to be
-swep’ away by her red-hot wrath!</p>
-
-<p>Passin’ strange! jest as singular as it is to think
-all of us in Jonesville and the world at large will
-build fair homes of love and content, and anchor
-’em to livin’ hearts alone, in the same world where
-Death is.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_612">[Pg 612]</span></p>
-
-<p>But to resoom. My recollections of this city,
-like so many others, is one vast paneramy, framed
-in by the blue Mediterranean, and ornamented on
-top by Vesuvius, of picter galleries, tall palaces,
-broad avenues, narrer streets, in which we see many
-seens that in Jonesville is kep’ under cover, and
-stately castles&mdash;sights and sights of castles, and immense
-ones; seems as if they wuz immenser and
-more numerous than in any other city I see on my
-tower, and fountains, and aqueducts, and churches,
-and colleges, and theatres, and operas, etc., etc., etc.
-Plenty of chances for bein’ good, and plenty of
-modes of recreations, the Neapolitans have, and
-they seem to take advantage on ’em all. But it
-seemed as if I couldn’t never forgit that tall, warnin’
-figger that looms up forever in the background.
-But, then, agin, mebby I should; I forgit the graveyard
-in Jonesville lots of times, though I ride by it
-every Sunday to meetin’.</p>
-
-<p>The guide wanted us to go up Vesuvius. He
-said she wuz lookin’ very mild and pleasant, and it
-would be perfectly safe.</p>
-
-<p>But I didn’t like her looks, or that is, I thought
-I’d ruther admire her at a distance, some as I would
-a striped tiger right out of the jungle. But Vesuvius
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_613">[Pg 613]</span>did indeed look beautiful, a-risin’ up above the
-incomparable Bay of Naples. But I felt for all her
-good looks I didn’t want to tackle her.</p>
-
-<p>I knew what she’d done in the past to ’em that
-trusted her too much. Pompey won’t forgit her&mdash;no,
-indeed! After eighteen hundred years have gone
-don’t memories hant the House of Pansa and the
-hull of that devoted city of what Vesuvius can do
-when it gits to actin’? Yes, indeed, indeed! No, I
-didn’t want to venter.</p>
-
-<p>But I did want to visit that city that has lain
-buried up in the earth for so many years. And
-Martin sed that most all of his inflooential friends
-made a practice of goin’ there. So we all sot off one
-pleasant mornin’&mdash;my Josiah in pretty good sperits,
-for we had had an oncommon good breakfust, and
-Alice lookin’ sweet as a flower, and Al Faizi a-knowin’
-she did, a-realizin’ her sweetness through all his
-bein’, as I could see from his big, dark, sad eyes, that
-wuz bent on her all the way, and her heart all filled
-up with another’s image and drawin’ her radiant
-looks from that sun of her heart.</p>
-
-<p>O human hearts; O glory and sadness and
-rapter that fills ’em! How many jest sech gay
-young sperits, sech souls, full of the glowin’ rapter of
-love, the divine sadness of love, went out in darkness
-on that dretful day, a thousand and a half years ago!</p>
-
-<p>I had fearful riz-up emotions before I got to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_614">[Pg 614]</span>
-Pompey, jest a-thinkin’ on’t, and so what could they
-have been when I at last stood in the city on which
-fell sech a sudden doom.</p>
-
-<p>To see the silent forms struck down, jest as full
-of life and love and happiness as Alice and Adrian
-wuz to-day. There wuz a woman clingin’ to a bag
-of gold&mdash;gold couldn’t help her. A young man
-and young girl clasped in each others’ arms&mdash;love
-couldn’t save ’em. A priest of Isis, who knew all
-the secrets of the Mystic Religion&mdash;his wisdom
-couldn’t save him, or what he called his wisdom.
-A giant form full of courage and defiance&mdash;strength
-couldn’t save him, nor courage. A high-born lady
-covered with jewels&mdash;wealth and high station
-couldn’t save her.</p>
-
-<p>They all had to bear the common fate, as well as
-the little maid who died runnin’ away from death,
-and had covered her face with her garments, she
-wuz so ’fraid. Poor little creeter! what if it had
-been Babe?</p>
-
-<p>No; the prisoners shet up in jail, riveted to the
-rock, the dogs, horses, goats, even the poor little
-dove, that wouldn’t leave her nest, pretty, little affectionate
-thing!&mdash;all, all had to bear the doom that
-come down upon ’em on that dretful day.</p>
-
-<p>All on ’em a-doin’ their usual work, jest as if the
-Heavens should open and pour down a avalanche
-of ashes and bury us up in our home in Jonesville&mdash;Josiah<span class="pagenum" id="Page_615">[Pg 615]</span>
-a-doin’ his barn chores, and I a-washin’
-dishes, and both on us full of life and joy of livin’.
-Besides Ury and Philury.</p>
-
-<p>Oh, dear me! oh, dear me suz!</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I went through them streets, so many centuries
-buried and forgot, in a state of mind I can’t
-describe. It seemed some like goin’ through any
-city. The streets wuz middlin’ narrer, but the housen
-stood on each side; good roads wore down by the
-steps of the multitude. So wuz the fountains that
-stood on every hand; you could see where the lips
-of the public had wore ’em away. Palaces, little
-housen, shops, temples, amphitheatres. One house
-we went through looked as though it had been built
-yesterday for some rich American; it wuz over three
-hundred feet long and over a hundred feet broad,
-and all ornamented off beautiful with statutes and
-mosaics and things good enough for a Vanderbilt.</p>
-
-<p>In some things the old inhabitants did better
-than they do now. They had sidewalks&mdash;pretty
-narrer, but fur better than none&mdash;and more facilities
-for gittin’ water. I wish the Italians used
-more now&mdash;they would feel as well agin for it, jest
-as Josiah duz when I can git him to use it free.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_616">[Pg 616]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">FASHIONABLE WATERING-PLACES.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp43" id="i_616" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_616.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Mr. Goldwind, one of
-Martin’s business rivals.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Wall, in the streets of Naples Martin met a man
-that he knew at home&mdash;a man most as rich as
-Martin&mdash;a Mr. Goldwind, a sort of a rival in business,
-I guess, and he had jest been
-travellin’ through Spain.</p>
-
-<p>And what should P. Martyn Smythe
-do but proclaim it to us that evenin’
-that we wuz to go to Spain.</p>
-
-<p>I hearn him say to Alice&mdash;“It will
-be asked of me if we have been there.
-Gertrude Goldwind will ask you if
-you have been there. Alice, we must
-be able to say ‘Yes.’ So we will start
-immegiately. I have got to go back
-to Paris anyway on important business.”</p>
-
-<p>So the next day we started for Paris.</p>
-
-<p>As I have sed heretofore, Martin wuz a very
-enthusiastick and ambitious traveller; that is, he
-wanted to tell what he’d seen in foreign lands,
-whether he’d seen ’em or not; but he wuz ambitious
-to have his body trailed through ’em. And
-it made it very good and instructive for me, though<span class="pagenum" id="Page_617">[Pg 617]</span>
-wearisome, for, of course, the more you see, the
-more you know, and he had to take the hull circus
-with him wherever he went. And when he promulgated
-the wild idee that we wuz to go to
-Spain, I acquiesced immegiately and to once,
-and after a private interview I held with Josiah,
-he did.</p>
-
-<p>Sez Martin&mdash;“We won’t make a long stay there;
-but we will go over the Pyrenees anyway, and step
-onto the soil; and when we go back to America it
-can’t be said by any one that we did not see Spain.”</p>
-
-<p>Oh, how different folkses key-notes is! Now,
-the key-note to his character wuz&mdash;what would
-folks say?&mdash;the outside of the platter; while, as for
-me, my key-note wuz&mdash;what I could see and learn,
-and what wuz inside of the platter. And that wuz
-Al Faizi’s key-note, only his key wuz stronger and
-deeper even than mine. Josiah and the children
-had their own keys and notes, which it is needless
-to peticularize.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I had become some acquainted with Spain
-through my friend, Washington Irving, and Mr.
-Bancroft, and then I wuz quite familar with its
-literature. I had learned at a early age one of its
-poems, runnin’ thus:</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_618">[Pg 618]</span></p>
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“When it rains,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Do as they do in Spain&mdash;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Let it rain.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I had often hearn and repeated this national
-epick to my relief and consolation on stormy days.
-And though I felt that our trip bid fair to be a
-hasty and sweepin’ one, yet I felt that if I could
-jest stand on the top of the Pyrenees, and look
-down into the land, I would like it, even if I did
-not step my foot into it.</p>
-
-<p>So, after stayin’ a short time in Paris&mdash;for Martin
-to do his errents there, I spoze&mdash;we sot sail for
-Spain, and the first night come to the river
-Garonne, and acrost the long bridge into Bordeaux.</p>
-
-<p>We stayed all night there, and the next mornin’
-bright and early sot out agin. A little after noon
-we come to Pau. The train stopped down by the
-river Gave, a river that rushes right out of the
-mountains. Above that, a hundred feet high, on a
-terrace lookin’ south, stands the city.</p>
-
-<p>And what a view busted onto my vision as I
-looked out of the winder at the hotel! Them
-gleamin’, silent peaks of snow are camped round
-Pau like tall, silent, white-robed pickets a-guardin’
-Pau from danger.</p>
-
-<p>What a sight! what a sight!</p>
-
-<p>But Martin, anxious to see <span class="pagenum" id="Page_619">[Pg 619]</span>everything that could
-be seen, sot off most the first thing to see the castle&mdash;one
-of the grandest in France&mdash;where Henry
-IV. wuz born, and I spoze they enjoyed it, for Josiah
-went with him.</p>
-
-<p>But what I wanted to see wuz the fountain of
-Lourdes. And though Martin and Josiah kinder
-made light of me, they seemed willin’ enough to go
-with me the next day. It is only a two hours’ ride
-from Pau to this most famous place of pilgrimage
-in Europe. And we sot off in good sperits. It
-lays down at the foot of the mountain, in a deep
-valley. At one end of the village is a grotto where
-a young girl, years ago, received a visit from the
-Virgin Mary, or she sez that she did. She told the
-story to her folks and to all the neighbors, and
-she stuck to the same story all her life till she died.</p>
-
-<p>Of course ’em that went to the same place and
-didn’t see nothin’&mdash;they didn’t believe her.</p>
-
-<p>I d’no as Abraham’s folks believed him when he
-sed that he had had a visit from angels. I dare
-presoom to say some of his relations didn’t&mdash;his
-cousins now, and his mother-in-law’s folks; I dare
-say they sed they wuz a-lookin’ right that way at
-the very time and didn’t see a thing&mdash;Abraham must
-have been mistaken; and they would add most probble&mdash;</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_620">[Pg 620]</span></p>
-<p>“Abraham’s eyes are a-failin’; he ort to wear
-stronger specs.”</p>
-
-<p>Not a-thinkin’ that their stronger specs could
-never give ’em a glimpse of the things that he see;
-for speritual things are speritually discerned, and
-we all have gifts differin’. Why should a propheysier
-try to dream dreams and see visions?</p>
-
-<p>Wall, finally the priests gin out that the story
-wuz true, but whether their consciences wuz good
-in ginin’ it out I d’no&mdash;I don’t keep their consciences
-in a box in my bureau draw.</p>
-
-<p>But tenny rate, the first six months one hundred
-and fifty thousand pilgrims visited the spot and partook
-of the healin’ water of the spring that flowed
-out of the grotto.</p>
-
-<p>And pretty soon a lofty meetin’-house riz up over
-that grotto. The grounds round it are laid out like
-a immense waterin’-place that must prepare for the
-comin’ of a multitude without number. In the season
-of pilgrimage the meetin’-house is crowded all
-day and way into the night, and round it the way
-is blocked with the pilgrims, and way up onto the
-hillside their kneelin’ forms are massed.</p>
-
-<p>What a seen it must be in still nights, that immense
-kneelin’ throng and vast procession a-movin’
-up the hill and a-carryin’ torches and a-singin’ thrillin’
-hymns!</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_621">[Pg 621]</span></p>
-<p>Inside, the meetin’-house wuz richly decorated,
-its high arches festooned with banners, and the
-walls covered with memorials of gratitude for cures
-performed there.</p>
-
-<p>Martin walked round with his hands in his pockets
-and his head up. I don’t believe he sensed anything
-of the sperit of the place, nor Josiah.</p>
-
-<p>Nor down in the grotto either, as we stood by
-that miracolous fountain and see a-hangin’ all round
-us the crutches of the paryaletics and cripples who
-had been cured here and walked off with no use for
-’em any more.</p>
-
-<p>I don’t believe them two men took any more realizin’
-sense of what they wuz a-seein’.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah drinked a cup of the water, and sez he in
-a pert tone&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“That is the best water I’ve drinked sence I left
-Jonesville. I wish I could take a kag with me&mdash;it
-tastes like the spring down by the Beaver Medder
-in Jonesville.”</p>
-
-<p>And Martin drinked his cupful, and sed he preferred
-Apollinaris water.</p>
-
-<p>Neither of them men realized its virtues.</p>
-
-<p>But I sez to my pardner&mdash;“Josiah Allen, don’t
-you know that this water heals the sick, makes the
-lame walk, and the blind see? Don’t you realize it
-as you ort to, Josiah Allen?”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_622">[Pg 622]</span></p>
-<p>“Oh,” sez he, “I don’t feel any peticular difference
-in my feelin’s; I feel jest about the same.”</p>
-
-<p>And Martin sed he thought it wuz imagination
-mostly. Sez he, “You know in sudden danger
-cripples have been known to walk off; it is the
-power of their religious fervor that performs the
-cure.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “you can call it what you please,
-but it is a good thing anyway that cures ’em.” Sez
-I, “I dare presoom to say that they feel like sayin’
-as they walk off and look round&mdash;‘One thing I
-know, whereas I was blind, now I see,’ and they
-feel like leapin’ and praisin’ the power that has
-healed ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>Martin kep’ his hands in his pockets and looked
-onbelievin’, but I see that my talk wuz impressin’
-my beloved companion, and he whispered to me
-while Martin’s back wuz turned&mdash;“Do you spoze,
-Samantha, that it would be apt to cure that corn of
-mine? I’m most tempted to try it.”</p>
-
-<p>I sez, “Have you the faith, Josiah Allen?”</p>
-
-<p>And he sez, “I have faith that it aches like the
-old Harry this minute.”</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp58" id="i_623" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_623.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">I have faith that it aches like
- the old Harry.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Do you believe that the water could heal
-it? If you hain’t got faith I wouldn’t take off my
-shue;” for my ardent companion wuz even then
-a-onbuttonin’ the top button.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_623">[Pg 623]</span></p>
-<p>He paused. “But,” sez he, “would I have to
-leave my shue here if I got cured&mdash;would it be fashionable
-and stylish to do so, and go home barefooted?”</p>
-
-<p>And I swep’ right by him, and sez I, “Come on,
-Josiah Allen; all the water of Lourdes can’t cure a
-soul whose highest aim is to be stylish.”</p>
-
-<p>And he come on a-mutterin’, “You complain if I
-don’t look ahead, and you complain if I do. How
-did I know whether it would be expected of me to
-go home in my stockin’ feet or not, and you’d complain
-if I got a hole in my stockin’.” Sez he, “If I
-hain’t healed you complain, and if I be healed you
-find fault with me.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I soothin’ly, “Dear Josiah, you might git
-cold in your stockin’ feet&mdash;it is all for the best, and
-I d’no its power over corns anyway,” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “it would look queer to Pau to
-see me mount the hotel steps with one shue and
-one red stockin’ on.”</p>
-
-<p>For he had worn his dressiest pair
-that mornin’.</p>
-
-<p>And he murmured, “If I had my
-dressin’-gown on, it would droop down
-over my feet some.”</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi had been all this time a-lookin’
-round and notin’ down things in his
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_624">[Pg 624]</span>note-book, and seein’ everything with his deep,
-strange eyes, but sayin’ little about it, and a-thinkin’
-a lot, as wuz his general way.</p>
-
-<p>The next mornin’ we left Pau, and in the afternoon
-we found ourselves in the “Bay of Biscay,
-Oh!”</p>
-
-<p>That is a quotation from a poem&mdash;in common
-talk the “Oh” can be omitted.</p>
-
-<p>We had to wait a spell at Bayonne for the train
-to take us into Spain, though Martin proposed
-that we should take a carriage and drive out to
-Biarritz.</p>
-
-<p>For Martin sed that so many of his acquaintances
-went there for the winter that it would sound
-better for us to say that we had passed some time
-there&mdash;it would be far more stylish and fashionable
-to say it.</p>
-
-<p>“How long a time can you pass there,” sez I,
-“to git back to ketch the train?”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez he, “we shall have time to stay three
-fourths of an hour&mdash;ample time to see everything
-of interest there.”</p>
-
-<p>Good land!!!!!</p>
-
-<p>But Martin wuz the head of the procession, as
-you may say, and we had to foller on where he went
-and halt when he halted.</p>
-
-<p>And I felt that one thing wuz favorable to me, I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_625">[Pg 625]</span>always had a faculty for seein’ a good deal in a
-short space of time by the clock.</p>
-
-<p>Biarritz is a pleasant place in the winter, and you
-could see that a good many have discovered it by
-the number of big hotels perched up on the bluffs,
-their open winders lookin’ south.</p>
-
-<p>Of course Martin had to drive by the Villa
-Eugenia, occupied by her who once had a empire
-to command, and beauty, youth, and love, and now
-sits and looks over the tombs and the ruins of the
-hull on ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Poor creeter! I always felt onreconciled to that
-bright young boy of hern bein’ struck down as he
-wuz by a savage in a savage place, fur from a
-mother’s love.</p>
-
-<p>Oh, dear me!</p>
-
-<p>But here Napoleon came often in the mild September,
-and happiness rained in the beautiful villa,
-with its gay pleasure grounds.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin see a sight, I spoze, and as he sed
-a-goin’ back:</p>
-
-<p>“I am so glad we stayed here some time, for I
-know a lot of men who bring their families here
-winters, and it will be interesting to converse with
-them about the beauties of the place; I’m glad I
-brought all my family with me,” sez he, lookin’
-complacently at Alice and Adrian.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_626">[Pg 626]</span></p>
-<p>“But, papa, we never sat down at all,” sed
-Adrian.</p>
-
-<p>“Never mind, my boy&mdash;you have been there,
-and it is a great watering-place. And when Mr.
-Goldwind’s boy talks about Biarritz, you can mention
-to him that you have been there and stayed for
-some time.”</p>
-
-<p>“But Billy Goldwind stays there all winter,
-papa.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, we do not want to stay so long; we want
-to get back home before winter. We merely wanted
-to go there and stay some time, and we have.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I don’t spoze it wuz a real lie&mdash;we had been
-there and had stayed some time.</p>
-
-<p>Josiah sed he had stayed as long as he wanted to,
-and he should be glad to git into Spain with his
-dressin’-gown on, and set down a spell.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_627">[Pg 627]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">CATHEDRALS AND CASTLES IN SPAIN.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz not sorry to be on the train agin on our
-way to Irun, which wuz the first town of Spain we
-entered, and here we wuz ushered into the Custom
-House.</p>
-
-<p>Our baggage wuz all took into the station and
-spread out on long counters and examined.</p>
-
-<p>Politer creeters I don’t want to see than them
-Spaniards wuz. And the language they spoke
-amongst themselves wuz as soft as silk and as
-kinder soothin’ and sweet. And they didn’t hurt
-our baggage a speck, though Josiah’s anxiety as
-they opened his satchel wuz extreme.</p>
-
-<p>He sez to me, “Like as not they’ll spile that
-dressin’-gown.”</p>
-
-<p>“How could they spile it?” I whispered back.</p>
-
-<p>“Why,” sez he, “them tossels could be hurt easy.
-I shall have to comb ’em out agin as quick as we
-stop.”</p>
-
-<p>He had a awful coarse comb with him, and he
-did spend hours a-combin’ out them red tossels that
-he ort to spend on his own head, or on his Bible.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_628">[Pg 628]</span></p>
-<p>So, as I say, he jest hovered over that satchel
-and heaved 2 or 3 deep sithes of relief as the
-Custom House officer released it from his hand.</p>
-
-<p>And, oh! how lovin’ly he folded
-the rep folds, and laid the tossels
-down caressin’ly.</p>
-
-<p>My baggage was soon and hurridly
-gone through&mdash;in the words
-of a old adage concernin’ a horse,
-changed to suit the occasion&mdash;“A
-short satchel is soon hurried.”</p>
-
-<p>The Spaniards are a lazy set&mdash;I
-guess they would have examined
-our things closter, if they wuzn’t so
-slow and slack.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp37" id="i_628a" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_628a.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>I see one of the officials
-take up my sheep’s-head
-nightcap.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figright illowp30" id="i_628b" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_628b.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>A smile of admiration
-swep’ over his dark
-visage.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I see one of the officials take up
-one of my sheep’s-head nightcaps
-that lay on top&mdash;so’s to not muss
-the agin’&mdash;he took it up, and a
-smile of admiration swep’ over his
-dark visage. I believe, if he hadn’t
-been so lazy, he would have asked me for the pattern
-on’t. More’n as likely as not, so lackin’ is
-Spain in some of the first elements of the ingregiencies
-of civilization, I shouldn’t wonder a mite
-if them two wuz the only sheep’s-head nightcaps
-in Spain.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_629">[Pg 629]</span></p>
-
-<p>But this last fact (his laziness) conquered his
-gropin’s after sunthin’ new and better than he and
-his companion had known in the way of nightcaps.
-He laid it down with another smile of admiration,
-and closed up my satchel.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, after we got on the cars agin, bag and
-baggage, and I thought, my soul, owin’ to the utter
-shiftlessness and slowness, that we never should git
-fairly to goin’.</p>
-
-<p>After Josiah wuz set at rest agin concernin’ his
-dressin’-gown, and I settled down about my nightcap,
-little did I think that we should have to go
-through the hull performance agin in a few hours.</p>
-
-<p>But we did&mdash;the hull seen was enacted agin, my
-pardner’s anxiety and all. Only these new officials
-hadn’t the sense to appreciate my nightcaps&mdash;they
-turned ’em over as if they wuz common apparel.</p>
-
-<p>Martin and Alice took everything of the sort
-with composure and good nater; they wuz ust to
-it, I spoze, travellin’ round all the time. And Al
-Faizi looked on the faces of the men with that
-searchin’, enquirin’ gaze of hisen, and didn’t say
-nothin’. Adrian wuz tired, I could see, and when
-we got into the carriage to take us to our hotel, he
-kinder laid down in my lap and went to sleep.</p>
-
-<p>Good, pretty little creeter!</p>
-
-<p>San Sebastian is situated on sech a beautiful little
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_630">[Pg 630]</span>bay that they have named it the Concha, or shell,
-as we would call it. It is a noted waterin’-place, and
-Queen Isabella ust to come here summers and
-water herself, and bathe, and act. If I’d been here
-I should have gin her a talkin’ to; I dare presoom
-to say I could have got her to turn right round in
-her tracts and got her to behavin’; I presoom, in
-all the crowds around her, there wuzn’t one well-wisher
-to walk up and tell her what wuz what.
-No; praise to her face and back-bitein’ to her
-back.</p>
-
-<p>I’d ort to been there! She had a hard time all
-her life, and I’m real sorry for her, and she would
-have read it in my mean, and took my advice as it
-wuz meant to be took.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we stayed here two days, and I wuz glad,
-indeed, of the rest. I wuz willin’ to spend my time
-with St. Sebastian, while the rest spent their time
-a-meanderin’.</p>
-
-<p>Martin and Josiah and the rest made lots of
-excursions to all the castles and cathedrals in the
-vicinity, but I felt middlin’ satisfied to see the most
-on ’em from the outside. The ruffs of ’em, viewed
-from my bedroom winder, seemed to satisfy my
-mind as I looked out on ’em dreamily, as I
-applied arnaky to my knee jints. I wuz real lame,
-but recooperated a good deal while here.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_631">[Pg 631]</span></p>
-<p>I did take one or two drives, when I wuz charmed
-with the strange and picteresque scenery. In some
-places to see the mountains a-standin’ up all round
-us in the fur blue distance, and the queer little
-hamlets nestled down in the deep green valleys.</p>
-
-<p>We went to Pasages, less than a hour’s drive, to
-see the very place where Lafayette sot sail to help
-us git our freedom.</p>
-
-<p>I had so many emotions here, as I viewed this
-spot, that I breathed hard, and had to restrain myself
-to keep a composure on the outside.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_632">[Pg 632]</span></p>
-<p>On the way back we met lots of their heavey,
-rough carts, drawed by an ox and a cow lashed
-together by ropes wound round their horns, and
-then hitched to the cart.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp87" id="i_631" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_631.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Heavey, rough carts, drawed by an ox and a cow lashed together
-by ropes wound round their horns.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>As Josiah see this, he sez, “There, Samantha,
-you can see the practical workin’s of wimmen’s
-rights.” Sez he, “I say a cow has done all she ort
-to when she’s gin a good pail of milk; she ortn’t to
-plough and reap too.”</p>
-
-<p>That speech kinder dumbfoundered me for a
-spell. It wuz the smartest thing my pardner had
-sed for over a year and a half. But, after considerin’
-on’t for a spell, I sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Josiah, that hain’t so deep a speech as you’d
-think it wuz from considerin’ it from jest on the
-outside. The cases are different,” sez I. “The cow
-helps draw the cart, both equal; but the cow don’t
-have to pay taxes and the ox can’t make laws that
-hang her and rob her, etc.”</p>
-
-<p>But still, in my own mind, I did admire my pardner’s
-observation, and admired him considerable for
-thinkin’ on’t. It showed high gallantry, too, and
-devotion to females; I felt quite proud on him for
-pretty nigh half a day.</p>
-
-<p>On one excursion that Martin wanted to make I
-wuz more’n willin’ to accompany and go with
-him&mdash;that wuz to Azpeitia, a little village 25 miles
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_633">[Pg 633]</span>from San Sebastian; but its bein’ a mountain road,
-it took us about all day to go and come.</p>
-
-<p>But Martin didn’t begrech the time. “For,”
-sez he, “I want to see the spot where the man was
-born who has exerted the greatest power of any
-man on earth&mdash;Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the
-order of Jesuits.” Sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I shall be asked if I went there, and I want to
-be able to say yes.”</p>
-
-<p>How different I felt on the subject, and how different
-Al Faizi felt! I see in that heathen’s rapt
-eyes as we talked about it on the way the same
-emotions I felt&mdash;a deep admiration for the grand,
-heroic character of Loyola, a deep horrow of the
-power he sot to goin’, not knowin’ how fur it wuz
-a-goin’ to move, nor how much blood it wuz a-goin’
-to wade through.</p>
-
-<p>I’d hearn his history rehearsed a number of times
-by Thomas Jefferson, and I knew all about it. He
-wuz a favorite at court, with beauty and wit and
-good sense, a brave warrior, brought down to
-death’s door by the enemy’s sword. When he wuz
-thirty years old, as you can see by the inscription
-over his front door, “He gave himself to God.”</p>
-
-<p>In that same hour he wuz converted, there hain’t
-a doubt of that; nobody ever had more faith than
-he had. Why, he see for himself the water and the
-wine changed right before his eyes into the blood
-and body of our Lord.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_634">[Pg 634]</span></p>
-
-<p>Some say it wuz a vision caused by his religious
-ecstasy. But <i>he saw it</i>, and forevermore he
-doubted not&mdash;he <i>knew</i> what he believed, and with
-all the ardor of his immortal faith, with all the
-brave generalship learnt by his warlike trainin’, he
-led on his countless troops aginst the Wrong as he
-see it.</p>
-
-<p>Nobody can doubt the sincerity and single-mindedness
-of Loyola; he give proof of it in his
-life of self-denial and fastin’ and prayer. He
-changed his clothes with a beggar, eat the most
-loathsome food, and to mortify his pride begged
-from door to door. Why, he who wuz ust to the
-soft couches of a court dwelt a hull year in a cave
-in plain sight of a convent built to the Virgin
-Mary. He lay here on the ground a hull year,
-three hundred and sixty-five nights, so that he
-could show that he wuz indeed a worm of the dust
-in sight of his Maker.</p>
-
-<p>Havin’ prepared himself thus, he went to the
-shrine of the Virgin Mary and spent a hull night in
-prayer before the altar, then laid his sword upon
-it to show that he laid aside all dreams of earthly
-honor. And here he took his vows&mdash;to give his
-heart’s deepest love, and his hull life’s devotion.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_635">[Pg 635]</span></p>
-<p>These vows he kep’ to the last minute of his
-life. In a church built to his honor are those
-words that ruled him:</p>
-
-<p>“To the Greater Glory of God.”</p>
-
-<p>There can be no doubt of his sincerity and no
-doubt of the fatal power he wielded and wields yet.
-For that strong, inexecrable hand holds empires in
-its grasp, blood drippin’ through the firm, cast-iron
-fingers. A well-meanin’ grasp in the first place, nobody
-doubts, and as time has passed, a-snatchin’
-many savages from their barbarous lives and
-savage beliefs into better ways of livin’, and bringin’
-’em into the shelter of the Cross.</p>
-
-<p>Good and evil, evil and good. Loyola is not the
-only Leader who has waded through seas of blood,
-and all to “The Greater Glory of God.” And
-what will be the end?</p>
-
-<p>Onlimited power is a dangerous weepon to handle.
-Believin’ as he did firmly, onalterably, that
-his way wuz the only right way, he proceeded to
-make people walk in it. He went to work jest as
-the Puritans did when they hung witches and
-whipped Baptists. Only as his power reached by
-powerful organizations into all the countries of the
-earth, so the streams of bloodshed flowed down all
-the mountains of the earth, and reddened all the
-valleys.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_636">[Pg 636]</span></p>
-<p>And he, shet up to home a-fastin’ and a-prayin’
-and a-seein’ visions of his Lord, and heads a-bein’
-cut off and flames a-cracklin’ round the martyrs
-that he caused to be put to death in the name of
-his religion. And St. Francis Xavier, the best and
-sweetest soul that ever lived, he too become a general
-in this great army. By its swift, silent, mysterious
-power Kings wuz put to death, a Pope wuz
-poisoned, and some say that the Massacree of St.
-Bartholomew wuz caused by it. By its power
-Queen Isabella, the sweet, tender-hearted soul who
-sold her own earrin’s and things to help Columbus
-discover us&mdash;jest think of her, for what she wuz
-made to think wuz for “The Greater Glory of
-God,” she give her consent to have the dretful Inquisition
-established in Spain, causin’ half a million
-of Christians to be tortured and put to death.</p>
-
-<p>Curous, hain’t it, what actin’ and behavin’ mortals
-will take on themselves to do in the name of
-Religion!</p>
-
-<p>And she, so sweet, so peaceable, so holy&mdash;rejoicin’
-not in Iniquity, but rejoicin’ in the Truth;
-forgivin’ her enemies, blessin’ ’em that persecute
-her, lovin’ all men and wimmen, blessin’ the world.</p>
-
-<p>Queer, hain’t it!</p>
-
-<p>Wall, from San Sebastian we went to Bruges
-and put up at a hotel built in honor of a Emperor.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_637">[Pg 637]</span>But I wuz dissapinted; a hotel in honor of a
-tramp ort to have more conveniences and smell
-sweeter. But I got a chance to set down and rest,
-anyway, which wuz indeed a panaky to my legs and
-to me.</p>
-
-<p>I’d been quite rousted up about comin’ to
-Bruges, for here Cid wuz born, as I told Josiah.</p>
-
-<p>“Syd who?” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, the Cid,” sez I, “who led the armies
-aginst the Moors and freed Spain.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez Josiah, “I should think if he done
-all that it would look better for you not to nickname
-him and call him Syd. You never wuz intimate
-with Sydney,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “That hain’t his name; it is C-i-d, Cid.
-Hain’t you hearn Thomas J. read about him&mdash;all
-the great things he did, and how after he wuz dead
-he rode into Bruges clad in armor? And when a
-Jew approached his dead body to offer it some insult
-his mailed hand come up and knocked him
-down.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez Josiah, “I don’t approve of Syds doin’ that
-anyway&mdash;I should go aginst it; it would be apt to
-make queer funerals if sech things wuz encouraged.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “I don’t say it is so, but I’ve
-hearn tell it wuz.”</p>
-
-<p>Anyway, we found in the town-hall his bones wuz
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_638">[Pg 638]</span>nothin’ but dust. Josiah kinder sheered away from
-the box where they wuz kep’, but nothin’ took place
-and ensued.</p>
-
-<p>The cathedral is a sight&mdash;a sight. I felt a good
-deal as I stood under its walls as a ant would feel
-if she wuz sot down under Bunker Hill Monument.
-And inside the buildin’ my emotions wuz still more
-various and lofty. The interior is exquisite, grand
-beyend any idee almost, and the proportions are so
-perfect, the harmony of it affects one a good deal as
-the most melogious music would, and the colorin’ is
-jest as perfect as the architecture. Take it all in all,
-it is a sight&mdash;a sight. Even Josiah wuz affected by
-it; his local pride wuz lowered imperceptibly, and
-sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I’ve cracked up the Jonesville meetin’-house
-everywhere I’ve been, and it is a comogious structure,
-but this goes ahead on’t, and I will own up
-that it duz.”</p>
-
-<p>Martin sed, “I’m glad I’ve been here; a good
-many of my friends have spoken of it to me. I shall
-be glad to say that I have studied this much-talked-of
-cathedral at length.”</p>
-
-<p>We wuz there about half a hour.</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi showed in his ardent face, lifted in reverence
-and admirin’ or, jest how he felt about it.
-The lights from the stained-glass winder gleamed
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_639">[Pg 639]</span>on’t, and made it look almost inspired. He nor I
-didn’t seem to want to talk much about it. I never
-do when I see Niagara. No, I’m willin’ to let that
-do the talkin’ to my rapt soul.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz so here. When I stood in these cathedrals,
-the grandeur and might of their silent oratory
-preached to me so loud that I wuz almost overwhelmed
-and by the side of myself, and carried some
-distance by the power of the sperit that carried out
-these grand results.</p>
-
-<p>But anon, when I got outside, other emotions
-got into my sperit; they come in onbid, and I had
-to use ’em well.</p>
-
-<p>I thought how on great days the congregation
-who meet here would worship God all day and
-wave banners and anon fire cannons in honor of
-some saint or other, and then end up with a bull-fight.</p>
-
-<p>Jest as if Josiah and Deacon Bobbett should pass
-the Holy Communion, bread and wine, and then
-withdraw into the horse-shed, and have a dog or
-rooster fight.</p>
-
-<p>It took off a number of my soarin’ emotions to
-think on’t, probble as many as 80 or 85. I had
-had over a hundred right along&mdash;I know I had.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_640">[Pg 640]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">JOSIAH’S DEVOTION.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, another day we went to see the Carthusian
-Monastery, founded four hundred years ago by
-Queen Isabella&mdash;Christopher Columbuses Isabella&mdash;the
-intimate friend of America (owin’ to jewelry,
-discovery, etc.).</p>
-
-<p>Josiah and I thought we would branch out this
-day and go alone, so he secured the gayest-lookin’
-rig he could find, drawed by three mules hitched
-side by side. It attracted all the beggars in town,
-so they follered us as a dog with a bone is follered
-by other dogs.</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah took it as a tribute to our style, and
-he leaned back in perfect delight, and sez he, a-wavin’
-his hand with a kind of hauty wave&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Drive by Alameda!”</p>
-
-<p>Come to find out the reasons he gin his orders
-wuz he’d heard Alameda talked about, and he
-thought she wuz a woman, and mebby a American,
-and he wanted to show off before her.</p>
-
-<p>But it wuzn’t a woman. It wuz a pretty park,
-and we driv along and crost the river, and went
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_641">[Pg 641]</span>
-through a long avenue of ellum trees each side on’t,
-and anon we found ourselves on top of a noble hill
-in front of a Monastery.</p>
-
-<p>Here we rung the bell at a gate for admission,
-and a small grated winder wuz opened and a man’s
-face appeared with a dark-colored nightcap on.</p>
-
-<p>He asked if there wuz wimmen in the party. If
-there wuz we couldn’t come in.</p>
-
-<p>I guess he wuz fraxious, bein’ waked up sudden.
-I jedged from his nightcap. But little did I think
-it would have sech a effect on my pardner.</p>
-
-<p>He could not at first comprehend the indignity
-offered to his beloved pardner. But the driver repeated
-it; sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“The Friar says you can come in, but no woman
-could be admitted.”</p>
-
-<p>Then I see the power of cast-iron devotion made
-harder by the hammers of Joy and Sorrer a-hammerin’
-down on the anvil of Time. That noble but
-too hasty man riz right up in the vehicle and shook
-his fist at the man with the nightcap, and hollered
-out&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll give that fryer a piece of my mind!” and
-before I interfered he yelled out:</p>
-
-<p>“You may keep right on with your fryin’; I
-won’t stir a step inside if Samantha can’t come too.
-I’ll let you know that any place that’s too good for
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_642">[Pg 642]
-</span>her is too good for me. Keep right on with your
-fryin’, your bull beef will probble spile if it hain’t
-cooked!”</p>
-
-<p>I ketched him by his vest, and sez I: “Pause,
-Josiah Allen. He hain’t a cook; it is a F-r-i-a-r.”</p>
-
-<p>“How do you spoze I care how you spell it?
-You can spell their bull-fights b-o-u-l if you want
-to; that don’t hender ’em from havin’ to take care
-of their fresh beef. Keep right on a-fryin’!” sez he
-in bitter mockery. “My Samantha hain’t probble
-good enough to see a little beef a-fryin’; but,” sez
-he, waxin’ eloquent, as, animated by the power of
-love, he stood up nobly for me&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You can fry all day and think you go ahead of
-any woman, and be too proud to let ’em see you at
-it; but Samantha’s cookin’ is as fur ahead of yours
-as the United States is bigger than Spain. And
-I’d ruther have one of Samantha’s steaks that she
-cooks than all the beef that you ever killed at your
-dum bull-fights. And don’t you forgit it!” he hollered,
-as the driver drove away by my almost
-frenzied directions.</p>
-
-<p>He sunk back exhausted on his seat as we swep’
-on. And you can jedge of his agitation when I
-say that he threw out three copper cents all to
-one time to the swarm of ragged beggars that run
-along by the side of the carriage. He threw ’em
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_643">[Pg 643]</span>out mekanically, and as if he didn’t know what
-he wuz about. Ah! the insult to me rankled deep
-in his noble but small-sized frame. He didn’t git
-over it all that night. I always knew he loved me
-deeply&mdash;I knew it in Jonesville, and I knew it in
-Spain. But oh! how touchin’ the proof wuz that
-he gin to me as his voice rung out in the vast,
-lonesome bareness of our chamber in Bruges,
-Spain, as he lifted his hand in mockery, and cried
-out:</p>
-
-<p>“Keep right on with your fryin’; you won’t git
-me to eat a mou’ful while Samantha is hungry!”</p>
-
-<p>Oh, the power of love! How it gilds with its
-rosy rays the quiet ways of Jonesville! How it
-still shone on and shed its ambient light in a
-foreign land! But I gently hunched him and
-woke him up, for I see it wuz endin’ in nightmair.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz too overcome by a deep sense of his nobility
-of sentiment in my behaff to argy with
-him that day. I felt that it would be ongrateful
-in me; and then, agin, I felt that he wuz too overcome
-by the greatness of his emotions&mdash;I knew
-his frame wuz but small, and his devoted affection
-and his righteous anger mighty. I dassent add
-another single emotion to them he wuz already
-a-carryin’&mdash;no, I dassent venter. But I talked
-soothin’ly all the evenin’, and said not a upbraidin’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_644">[Pg 644]</span>
-word when his nightmair snorted and waked
-me up with its prancin’ huffs.</p>
-
-<p>No; I, too, am a devoted pardner, and know
-when to talk and when to keep silence. That is
-a great nack for pardners to learn&mdash;one of the
-greatest and most neccessary.</p>
-
-<p>But the next mornin’, when all wuz calm, and
-a not knowin’ how fur his emotions might lead
-him agin into twittin’ them Spaniards about their
-national custom of bull-fights, etc., and fearin’ he
-might git into serous trouble by it when I wuz
-not near to soothe and assuage the ragin’ tumult, I
-sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Josiah, you made a mistake yesterday; that
-man in the nightcap wuzn’t a-fryin’ the beef slaughtered
-in their bull-fights. They don’t eat that;
-why,” sez I, “sech mad beef wouldn’t be fit to eat&mdash;it
-would make ’em sick.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, don’t they look sick?” sez he; “a little,
-under-sized, saller set, caused almost entirely,” sez
-he, “by eatin’ that beef.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I see that I couldn’t change his mind, and
-I sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Wall, anyway, they’re about the politest creeters
-I ever see, and how soft and melogious their voices
-are! Their words seem as soft as velvet and silk.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez he; “if they wuz a-goin’ to spell ‘cat’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_645">[Pg 645]</span>
-or ‘dog,’ they would pronounce it c-a-t, cattah, or
-d-o-g, doggah,” sez he. “I’m kinder sick on’t,
-but most probble they can’t help it&mdash;it is caused
-by their diet; and,” sez he, lookin’ wise&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“That bull beef hain’t the worst on’t. Don’t
-history tell of that Diet of Worms that they wanted
-Martin Luther to partake on and he wouldn’t?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Josiah, that wuz the name of the meetin’
-he wuz dragged before.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I take history or the Bible as it reads,
-and I know I have read a sight of that Diet they
-couldn’t git Martin to jine in with ’em and partake of.”</p>
-
-<p>Mekanically I disputed him, for my thoughts
-wuzn’t there. No, as I thought on’t, the form of
-my companion a-tyin’ his necktie before the small
-lookin’-glass, and a-tryin’ to edify me, faded away,
-and I seemed to look back through the centuries
-and see that brave Monk a-standin’ up for the Holy
-Truth, revealed to him in his cloister, as it has been
-through all time revealed to chosen, prophetic souls.
-I seemed to see the angry-faced assemblage surroundin’
-him. The cold, gloomy face of Charles
-V., King of Spain and Emperor of Germany,
-a-lookin’ frownin’ly on him as he pleaded for liberty
-and conscience. And I seemed to hear Luther’s
-voice say the words that have echoed down through
-all these centuries and are a-echoin’ still:</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_646">[Pg 646]</span></p>
-<p>“Here I take my stand, I cannot do otherwise.
-God help me!”</p>
-
-<p>But anon the voice of my pardner drawed me
-back down the long aisle of the years wet with
-blood, black with the Inquisition, with little oases
-of Peace scattered along, shinin’ through the lurid
-battle clouds.</p>
-
-<p>His voice rousted me as it sed, “Hain’t you
-never goin’ to git that nightcap off, Samantha?
-I’m almost starved to death, though what I’m goin’
-to eat, goodness knows.”</p>
-
-<p>And as I hastily took off my nightcap and
-wadded up my back hair, he resoomed&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I never wuz any case to eat clear pepper and
-ginger for any length of time, or allspice.” Sez he,
-“I am slowly wastin’ away, Samantha; I’ll bet I
-weigh five or six ounces less than I did when I left
-home.” Sez he, pitifully, “It seems to me, Samantha,
-if I could set down once more quiet in our
-own home and eat one of your good breakfusts, I
-would be willin’ to die.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wall,” sez I, “less try to bear up and lot on
-gittin’ back home agin.” Sez I, “One of the
-noblest fruits of travel, Josiah, is the longin’ it gives
-us to be back home agin and settle down and rest.”</p>
-
-<p>He assented with a deep sithe, and at my request
-hooked up my dress skirt in the back.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_647">[Pg 647]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp71" id="i_647" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_647.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>At my request he hooked up my dress skirt in the
-back.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Wall, knowin’ Martin’s pecular, but, as I found
-out afterwards, popular idees of travel, I didn’t expect
-to remain long in Spain; but we did stay there
-several days, for, as Martin sed, after comin’ so fur
-he wanted to make a
-exhaustive study of the
-country; so we stayed
-most a week.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, so far as exhaustion
-wuz concerned
-I felt that we wuz havin’
-a success, for I wuz
-as tired as a dog from
-day to day, and tireder
-than any dogs I ever
-see from all appearance.</p>
-
-<p>But Martin sed that
-we would visit Madrid
-before we left the country,
-for he sed that he
-wouldn’t want to be
-asked if he had been to the capital of Spain
-and be obliged to say no. Al Faizi spoke of
-wantin’ to see the Alhambra, and I myself, havin’
-been introduced to it by Washington Irving and
-my boy, had a sort of a longin’ to explore its
-wonders. But Martin sed that he had studied the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_648">[Pg 648]</span>Alhambra exhaustively at Chicago, and he felt,
-seein’ he had got all the information that could be
-got on the subject, it wuz useless to prolong our
-trip by goin’ there.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “If there was anything new to learn I
-would go, for it is my way to go to the very
-bottom of things in exploration or discovery; but,”
-sez he, “I spent over half an hour in the Alhambra
-in Chicago, and I have no more to learn.”</p>
-
-<p>I had been in that place myself, and had got lost,
-and felt like a fool there. I remembered well how
-I roamed through them curous labrinths, and had
-been brought up standin’ in front of myself repeatedly,
-and had bowed to myself real polite, thinkin’
-that I recognized some familar form from Jonesville.</p>
-
-<p>And there it wuz myself, in one of them countless
-lookin’-glasses. I felt cheaper than dirt.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes I would think it wuz two or three
-somebody elses, and I’d wonder how so many other
-wimmen could look so much like me as these
-several ones did, a-appearin’ right up in front and
-on both sides of me.</p>
-
-<p>Only I would always give up every time that
-there didn’t none on ’em look nigh so well as I did.
-They didn’t somehow have sech a noble look to
-’em, and their clothes didn’t hang so well as mine
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_649">[Pg 649]</span>did, and their bunnet strings wuz more rumpled up,
-and their front hair wuzn’t so smooth, and they
-looked fur more tired out than I ever looked, and
-bewildered like, and kinder wan.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, I’d been through them labrinths. I had
-enough of Moorish palaces by the time I got out,
-a plenty.</p>
-
-<p>And if, as Martin sed, there wuz nothin’ more to
-see in Grenada, I didn’t care a cent to go. And I
-thought more’n as like as not I should lose Josiah
-in a labrinth&mdash;lose him for good and all.</p>
-
-<p>So I gin a willin’ consent to proceed onwards to
-Madrid. The children wuz willin’ to go anywhere,
-and so wuz Al Faizi, for, as he sed to me:</p>
-
-<p>“Truth makes her home in all lands. I seek
-the light of her face under every sky.”</p>
-
-<p>And, poor creeter! not findin’ it time and agin,
-I’m afraid. Though in our long talks about this
-country, which in tryin’ to stomp out Protestantism,
-had stomped out her own life; and in tryin’ to
-drownd out Religion in the blood of her saints,
-had drownded out her own civilization and progress&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi and I talked this all over, but took comfort
-in thinkin’, after all, that good can be found in
-every country by them that seek her benine face.
-We took sights of comfort in talkin’ back and forth
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_650">[Pg 650]</span>about the Archbishop of Grenada, and his self-sacrificin’,
-heroic doin’s in the great cholera plague
-of 1885.</p>
-
-<p>No Methodist could have done any better than
-he did, no deacon or minister or anybody. I d’no
-as John Wesley could have come up to it.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, as I sed, I felt well to think that we had
-saved a journey to Grenada, though I had kinder
-lotted on walkin’ under the Gate of Jestice that I
-knew had to be gone through to visit the Alhambra.
-But I sort o’ comforted myself by the thought
-that mebby it wuz only a name, after all.</p>
-
-<p>I got real soothed for my dissapintment in not
-walkin’ through it by thinkin’ of our own Halls of
-Jestice, and a-meditatin’ that Jestice never sot her
-foot in ’em from one year’s end to the other, as nigh
-as I could find out.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_651">[Pg 651]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">THE QUEEN, ULALEY, AND A BULL-FIGHT.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, we had a very fatiguin’ journey, durin’
-which I will pass over the sufferin’s of my pardner
-from the hot, dry climate, the ever-present pangs of
-hunger, that wuz always with him, and the fraxiousness,
-that, alas! always overcomes him at sech tuckerin’
-times.</p>
-
-<p>I will draw a curtain of cretonne over the incidents
-of our tegus, tegus journey, and only draw it
-back agin, on its hot, dry, brass rings, when we are
-once more settled down in a middlin’ good tarvern
-at Madrid&mdash;I a-settin’ by the winder and Josiah
-a-layin’ on the bed fast asleep, the dressin’-gown
-folded lovin’ly round his small-boneded figger.</p>
-
-<p>Martin and the children and Al Faizi went out a
-good deal to see all the strange, new sights of the
-Spanish capitol.</p>
-
-<p>But I took considerable comfort a-settin’ still in
-as comfortable a chair as I could find, a-lookin’ down
-on the Spaniards and their kinder queer-lookin’
-housen, and the strange costooms and ways of
-another country&mdash;</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_652">[Pg 652]</span></p>
-<p>The tall, hauty-lookin’ Dons a-walkin’ along as if
-the ground wuzn’t quite good enough for ’em to walk
-on, and the dark-eyed wimmen, and the children, and
-the beggars, and the splendid carriages, some on
-’em drawed by six horses apiece, and their harnesses
-all glitterin’ with gold, and the humbler vehicles
-drawed by mules, and these mules trimmed off beautiful,
-too, and, etc., etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, it wuz on the third day after we arrov in
-Madrid, and I wuz a-walkin’ in the Public Garden
-with little Adrian and my Josiah, when, on turnin’
-the corner of a leafy avenue, who should I see, right
-face to face a-comin’ towards me, but my intimate
-friend, Ulaley.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz tickled most to death. It is always happifyin’
-in a strange and foreign country to meet anybody
-you’re intimate with, and when that friend is
-a Infanty, and one you’ve advised and neighbored
-with, your happiness is still greater.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp67" id="i_653" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_653.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>She knowed me to once&mdash;a happy smile curved her
-pretty lips.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I advanced and held out my hand, my Josiah and
-Adrian a-bringin’ up my rear. She knowed me to
-once&mdash;a happy smile curved her pretty lips, and sez
-she&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Madam, I’m pleased to meet you. I remember
-seein’ you in your own country.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, “we met in Chicago, Ill., and had
-a first-rate visit there.” Sez I, “How have you
-been ever sence I see you, and how is all your folks?
-How is Antonio?” Sez I, “Did he git through the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_653">[Pg 653]</span>
-winter all right? Sickness and the grip has been
-round lots, and if it has spared our two pardners
-we ort to be thankful.
-And that makes me
-think,” sez I, “let me introduce
-my pardner, Josiah
-Allen.</p>
-
-<p>“Josiah,” sez I, “this
-is the Infanty&mdash;Ulaley,
-you’ve hearn me speak
-on.”</p>
-
-<p>Josiah made his best
-and lowest bow, and
-murmured sunthin’ about
-havin’ read about her in
-the <i>World</i>.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, “and
-you’ve hearn me talk
-about her a sight.”</p>
-
-<p>But he had a sort of a obstinate streak come over
-him, sech as pardners will have in the strangest and
-most onconvenient times, and he never assented to
-that at all, but sed agin that he had read about her
-in the <i>World</i>.</p>
-
-<p>And I had to let it go. Truly, pardners, though
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_654">[Pg 654]</span>agreeable at times, yet how clost do they clip off the
-wings of your pride and ambition at other and more
-various times!</p>
-
-<p>Ulaley see it. Wimmen know only too well
-how often sech <i>contrarytemps</i> occurs, and she
-helped me out, as I’ve helped many a woman out
-of the mud-puddle of embarrassment a pardner’s
-words have throwed her into.</p>
-
-<p>Sez she, “I have such warm recollections of your
-country&mdash;it is so great a country,” sez she.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, “our country is a middlin’ big one,
-but I thought I wouldn’t speak of the size on’t to
-you, Ulaley, thinkin’ that you might think mebby
-that I’d come over here to kinder twit you of the
-smallness of yourn.” And wantin’ to be real polite,
-sez I&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“The value of anything don’t always depend on
-its size.”</p>
-
-<p>“No, indeed!” sez Josiah.</p>
-
-<p>He wuz alludin’ to his own small weight by the
-steelyards. But I waved off his speech&mdash;I felt
-quite cool towards him, about as cool as rain-water,
-and I wouldn’t fall in with his hint and gin him my
-usual compliment.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, jest as the Infanty and I wuz a-talkin’ back
-and forth, a woman and a little boy, who had been
-a-lingerin’ a little behind, come up, and I see in a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_655">[Pg 655]</span>minute who they wuz; and though I’m bashful by
-nater&mdash;very, yet knowin’ that I had the honor and
-politeness of my own country and Jonesville to uphold,
-I advanced towards her in a very admirin’,
-respectful way.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, I see it wuz the Queen Regent and little
-Alfonso himself. I wuz tickled, and still hampered,
-by the duties that devolved onto me, but above all
-of my emotions riz the thought of how glad I wuz
-to meet ’em, and how glad they would be afterwards
-a-thinkin’ it over to think that they had a chance to
-meet me.</p>
-
-<p>Ulaley didn’t make no move to introduce us.
-And I see in a minute how it wuz. There wuz the
-Queen pardnerless and alone, there wuz I with my
-livin’ pardner; it would roust up too many sad
-memories to bring us all closter to each other.</p>
-
-<p>But she’d no need to hesitated on that account; I
-could have told the Queen that though a pardnerless
-state had its trials, havin’ a pardner brings afflictions
-also&mdash;Heaven knows it duz!</p>
-
-<p>But I see how it wuz, and havin’ the sole glory
-of Jonesville and America in my eyes, I advanced
-forwards with quite a lot of dignity and made a
-deep curchy.</p>
-
-<p>I took holt of each side of my brown alpaca dress
-and held out the skirt a very little. They wuz
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_656">[Pg 656]</span>
-good curchys, and I made about three on ’em&mdash;two
-to the Queen Regent and one to Alfonso. I
-thought one wuz about right for him, considerin’
-his age.</p>
-
-<p>I then advanced and held out my hand, and sez
-I&mdash;“I am glad to meet you, Julia, and tell you how
-well I think on you.” Sez I, “A young woman who
-has done as well as you have with what you have
-had to do with deserves to be encouraged, and I’m
-glad to encourage you.”</p>
-
-<p>She looked awful surprised at my good manners
-and politeness; she bowed her head in almost dumbfounder,
-as I could see, and I went on&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You’ve had a hard time on’t, Julia&mdash;real hard.
-It’s always hard to leave your own folks when
-you’re married and go and live with his folks, and I
-presoom you’ve had days when you thought his
-folks didn’t treat you well&mdash;it is nateral. And I
-presoom he cut up more or less&mdash;pardners will.
-And you, fur away from your own folks, made
-the cuttin’ up and actin’ seem worse. I persoom
-you’ve had days when you would have willin’ly
-swapped off five or six Spanish palaces for one free,
-onfettered hour beyend the Alps. And you would
-have willin’ly swapped the most flatterin’ words
-addressed to you in a strange tongue to listen to
-the swashin’ waves of the blue Danube, the ripplin’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_657">[Pg 657]</span>
-waves that beat up agin the shores of home&mdash;you
-had a real hard time.</p>
-
-<p>“And then, to cap all, your pardner wuz took
-from you, before even the catnip wuz put to steepin’&mdash;before
-his baby’s eyes could look any comfort
-into yours. Poor creeter! what a hard time on’t
-you did have.</p>
-
-<p>“But when the baby wuz born, he brung a new
-life to you&mdash;you see your dead-and-gone pardner’s
-first tender love a-shinin’ through the little face, all
-the passion and dross and dissapintment of a pardner’s
-love filtered through the divine and satisfyin’
-sweetness of a child’s love.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, he has made life and Spain different things
-to you, and you’ve sprunted up and done well&mdash;you’ve
-done first rate! You are a-bringin’ up little
-Alfonso jest as well as I could, and I d’no but
-better, for, bein’ younger, you can git round
-spryer and find out new things to teach him. His
-little hands, too, have drawed you and Spain nigher
-to each other; you think as much agin of each
-other as you ust to, and I’m glad on’t.</p>
-
-<p>“And how do you do?” sez I, a-holdin’ out my
-hand to little Alfonso.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Are you pretty well, Bub?”</p>
-
-<p>He answered real pretty, and I then and there
-introduced little Adrian to him, and I sez&mdash;</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_658">[Pg 658]</span></p>
-<p>“I wish I had both of you children to Jonesville
-for a month in strawberry time or blackberry time&mdash;it
-would do you both lots of good.” And I sez
-to his ma&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“It seems to me he looks ruther pimpin’; have
-you gin him any smartweed lately?” Sez I, “A
-syrup of smartweed and catnip, half and half,
-sweetened with honey, would set him right up agin,
-and if you’d like to try it, I will write and have
-Philury send you over a bundle of the herbs.”</p>
-
-<p>She hesitated&mdash;I see she felt a delicacy about
-makin’ me so much trouble.</p>
-
-<p>But I sez, “It won’t be no trouble at all&mdash;we’ve
-got more’n a floursack full up in the woodhouse
-chamber.”</p>
-
-<p>She didn’t reply, but still looked sort o’ wonderin’
-and queer.</p>
-
-<p>And I sez&mdash;“I will write to-day to Philury to
-send you a paper bag full of the herbs, and a handful
-of spignut&mdash;that is dretful good for a cold, if he
-happens to git one, and boys will, goin’ barefooted
-and actin’.” Sez I, “Pour bilein’ water on ’em, and
-let ’em stand, and be sure the water biles.”</p>
-
-<p>But at this minute their carriage driv up&mdash;they’d
-been a-walkin’ for exercise, I guess. And though
-I presoom they hated to leave me&mdash;hated to like
-dogs, they had to tear themselves away.</p>
-
-<p>But they bowed real polite to me, and Ulaley<span class="pagenum" id="Page_659">[Pg 659]</span>
-held out her hand and shook hands. The Queen
-wuz busy with the little boy, but they both bowed
-real polite after they got into the carriage. And
-then they driv off.</p>
-
-<p>The carriage wuzn’t nigh so showy as some we
-see, and the Queen Regent wuz dressed real plain.</p>
-
-<p>I believe she’s a real likely woman, and if anything
-happens to her, and she should lose her property,
-I’d love to have her come and settle down in
-Jonesville&mdash;I’d love to neighbor with her first rate.</p>
-
-<p>But I truly hope she won’t never have to make
-the move&mdash;I hope the little King will have his Pa’s
-good nater, and his Ma’s good sense and Christian
-sperit, and that Spain and he won’t have no fallin’
-out, but do well by each other.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Martin and Alice went to a bull-fight. I
-waved off coldly Martin’s request to accompany and
-go with ’em, though Josiah wuz, for a minute,
-rampant to go.</p>
-
-<p>But I didn’t encourage him in it.</p>
-
-<p>He sez it would be sunthin’ to talk over with Ury
-and Deacon Bobbett when I got home.</p>
-
-<p>This wuz his best argument, and I sez, “If I
-couldn’t talk over anything but this I wouldn’t
-talk at all. The idee,” sez I, “of human bein’s
-with hearts in their bosoms a-settin’ to see a wild
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_660">[Pg 660]</span>animal kill a human bein’, and visey versey.” Sez
-I, “If I should see it goin’ on I should be so
-shamed on’t that I shouldn’t want to speak agin at
-all for some time.”</p>
-
-<p>But sez Josiah, “It’s a national recreation; it’s
-fascinatin’; probble you’d like it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Mebby,” sez I; “mebby my heart would git so
-hard that I could enjoy it&mdash;I, that in days of pig
-and beef killin’ have always run into the parlor bedroom
-and put my fingers in my ears to escape the
-sounds of agony the poor brutes make.” Sez I,
-“Spozen if in them days I should invite the minister
-and his folks and the Jonesvillians, and have high
-seats built up aginst the side of the barn, and let
-’em witness the gory spectacle?”</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp49" id="i_661a" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_661a.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>The Matador.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Josiah sot a minute in deep thought. “Wall,”
-sez he, “I’ll be hanged if it wouldn’t be stylish.
-You could drape some turkey-red calico over the
-top, kinder canopy style, and I and Ury could dress
-like them Spanish Matadors with knee-breeches and
-a long sash, and some feathers in our hats.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, growin’ enthused with the new idee,
-“We could use our winter scarfs&mdash;they’re very gay
-colored; and I could take that long feather out of
-your winter bunnet, and have it hang down gracefully
-over my left shoulder, and I guess Tirzah Ann
-would lend me a couple to stand up in front. I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_661">[Pg 661]</span>
-declare, it would be sunthin’ new and uneek, and
-we’ll have it next fall.”</p>
-
-<p>I glared at him with a stuny look, and sez I&mdash;“And
-while you’re all dressed up and
-enjoyin’ yourself, what of the poor dumb
-brutes who are made to suffer the agony
-of death?” Sez I, “What happiness
-could come to you built up on a custom
-of pain and sufferin’, bloodshed
-and terrer? Let me hear no more
-about sech a seen.”</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez he, “it would make
-talk; it would be the topic in all
-the genteel circles of Jonesville and
-Loontown.”</p>
-
-<p>“If you should brain me with a
-tommyhawk it would make talk,”
-sez I.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp69" id="i_661b" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_661b.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>His Victim.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“The idee of your follerin’ sech a
-custom as this. I scorn and despise sech doin’s,
-and I don’t see what a nation can be thinkin’ on
-to allow it to go on.”</p>
-
-<p>Al Faizi writ down quite a
-lot in that book of hisen about
-the bull-fightin’, and he seemed
-to be lookin’ for a peticular page
-to jot down his notes.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_662">[Pg 662]</span></p>
-<p>And Josiah sez (he hain’t no scruples about
-questionin’ the noble heathen), sez he, “What are
-you lookin’ for, Fazer?”</p>
-
-<p>He sez calmly, “I am looking for the page
-where I wrote down the doings of John Sullivan
-and other American prize-fighters. I wish to put
-public exhibitions of this nature together.”</p>
-
-<p>His tone wuz as calm and serene as a cool afternoon
-in June. He hadn’t a shade of sarcasm or
-irony in his axent; no, he simply grouped similar
-occurrences together.</p>
-
-<p>And where wuz my feathers that had stood up
-hautily on my foretop as I condemned another
-country’s doin’s and cuttin’s up? Where wuz
-they? They wuz droopin’ and hangin’ down limp
-on my foretop as I sot and meditated how we in
-America allowed prize-fighters to knock and
-bruise and maim each other in public for the delight
-of the throngin’ multitude. Then fill hull
-sides of our American newspapers with minute details
-of their punchin’ and knockin’ down and actin’,
-for the eyes of our youth to peruse and emulate.
-Deeds of religion and science and philanthropy all
-pushed into the background, amongst the advertisements,
-while the papers were flooded with the
-deeds of men fighters and men killers.</p>
-
-<p>The idee! What wuz I, to talk about the doin’s
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_663">[Pg 663]</span>of Spain or the doin’s of a Josiah, and look down
-on ’em? Truly, folks who live in glass housen
-mustn’t throw stuns; how many, many times I
-realized this deep truth when I witnessed doin’s I
-didn’t like in foreign countries!</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_664">[Pg 664]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">A SPANISH FUNERAL AND A JONESVILLE ONE.</p>
-
-<p>While we wuz in Madrid we felt that we ort to
-anyway visit the Escuriel, that immense palace and
-monastery built by Philip II. He got skairt,
-so I wuz told, and made a vow to St. Lawrence (it
-wuz on that saint’s day) that if Lawrence would
-help him git the victory, he would build a monastery
-and name it after him. So havin’ won the
-victory, he did as he agreed. He built this immense
-structure; it took him twenty-one years to
-do it. Out of compliment to Lawrence, who perished
-on a gridiron, it wuz built in that form.</p>
-
-<p>I hearn Josiah a-explainin’ it that day. Sez he,
-“It wuz built in the form of a gridiron because
-that is the best way of cookin’ beef.” Sez he,
-“After their bull-fights they have immense quantities
-of beef, so this takes its shape from that
-national characterestick.”</p>
-
-<p>But it hain’t no sech thing&mdash;he gits things wrong.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, it wouldn’t took us but a little while to git
-to the Escuriel if the train had sprunted up and
-gone as fast as an American hand-car.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_665">[Pg 665]</span></p>
-<p>But we crept along so slow that it took us three
-hours. Before we got there we see the buildin’
-loomin’ up so vast, so gloomy, that it looked like a
-mountain itself&mdash;a low, big mountain without much
-of a peak to it.</p>
-
-<p>We had to approach it with some dignity, it
-bein’ a royal palace, so we got into a big covered
-omnibus, drawed by four mules and two horses.
-Though what peticular dignity there is in a mule
-I never see before, unless it is in their ears. But we
-got there all right, the driver a-yellin’ and whippin’
-the mules as if he wuz crazy. If you want beauty,
-you won’t git it in the Escuriel, but if you want
-size, there you are suited. It takes up as much
-room as one of the pyramids; it has two thousand
-rooms in it and five thousand winders, and the winders
-wuzn’t very thick together, neither.</p>
-
-<p>There is a big meetin’-house in it, a palace and a
-monastery and a Pantheon, where the dead kings
-and mothers of kings sleep and forgit the troublesome
-days when they sot on thrones, and worried
-about their children who wuz settin’.</p>
-
-<p>This meetin’-house is grand and imposin’; you
-can look down inside a long, clear space of four
-hundred feet. Then there is a library, one of the
-finest in Spain, and picters that are dretful impressive
-in number and beauty. We wanted to see the
-private room of Philip II., and so we wuz led up
-grand staircases and through apartment after<span class="pagenum" id="Page_666">[Pg 666]</span> apartment
-hung with the costliest tapestry.</p>
-
-<p>And havin’ seen sech glory on the outside, what
-did we imagine must be the splendor of the inner
-room, sacred to his majesty, where he sat alone
-and sent out orders that ruled half
-or three quarters of the world.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I d’no as you’ll believe me
-when I say the floor wuz brick&mdash;not
-even a strip of rag carpet on’t, sech
-as I spread down often in my back
-kitchen.</p>
-
-<p>Poor creeter! I’d gin him a
-breadth of my best hit-or-miss carpet
-in welcome if I’d lived in his day,
-and known how cold his feet must
-have been as he stepped out of bed
-cold mornin’s onto that hard brick
-floor.</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp57" id="i_666" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_666.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>How cold his feet must have been
-cold mornin’s.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And there wuzn’t a picter on the walls&mdash;not
-one, only a picter of the Virgin.</p>
-
-<p>I’d a-gin him one of my chromos in welcome. I
-had two throwed in at Jonesville with the last
-chocolate calico dress I bought.</p>
-
-<p>He should have had one on ’em, and I’d a-gin
-’em both to him if it would a-made that gloomy,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_667">[Pg 667]</span>
-mysterious creeter any happier; and most probble
-they would have had their influence&mdash;they wuz
-very bright colored.</p>
-
-<p>One hard wood chair and two stools wuz the
-only settin’ accommodations he had. I’d made him
-a barrell chair, if I’d been there; if he’d wanted to go
-in for cheapness, that would have suited him. Saw
-a seat out of an old salt barrell and cushion it with
-a old bed-quilt and cover it with cretonne.</p>
-
-<p>He could a-sot easy in it. Poor creeter! it
-made me feel bad to think he always sot on that
-hard board chair&mdash;not a sign of a cushion in it.
-I could have made a good cushion for it anyway
-out of hens’ feathers. And mebby he wouldn’t
-been so hard on the nations if he’d sot easier&mdash;it
-makes a sight of difference. Josiah wuz as hard
-agin on Ury when he had a bile on his back,
-and couldn’t set easy. I didn’t know but Ury
-would leave.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, Philip lived here fourteen years, and
-when he come to die, he died hard, so they
-say. Mebby the oceans of blood he had caused
-to be shed kinder swashed up aginst his conscience;
-if it did, I hope the prayers he had knelt
-on the hard floor and prayed all night long sort o’
-lifted him up some.</p>
-
-<p>Queer creeter! strange and mysterious doin’s! <span class="pagenum" id="Page_668">[Pg 668]</span>
-A-prayin’ and a-fastin’ and a-killin’, a-prayin’ and
-a-killin’ and a-fastin’! I am glad I hain’t got to
-straighten out the dark and tangled skein of his
-life and git the threads a-runnin’ even, and sort out
-the black threads and the lighter ones and count
-’em.</p>
-
-<p>No, it takes a bigger hand than mine to hold
-’em, and a eye that looks deeper into the soul of
-things.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, when he wuz dead at last they laid him in
-the Pantheon. We visited the spot. We went
-down first into the big, eight-sided room, a sort of
-annex, where princes and princesses lay, and then
-we went down a long flight of steps with walls of
-jasper, into the room where kings and queens lay
-asleep.</p>
-
-<p>This is a smaller room, but eight-sided, like the
-other. The dead lay in black marble coffins, piled
-up on top of the other, the kings to the right, the
-queens to the left. Wimmen have to take the
-second-best place even down there in the grave,
-but then they wuz in a condition where they
-couldn’t argy about it, and where it wouldn’t hurt
-their feelin’s.</p>
-
-<p>It must have been a sight to see a king buried.
-No funeral in Jonesville ever approached it in
-solemnity or mystery.</p>
-
-<p>You know they don’t give<span class="pagenum" id="Page_669">[Pg 669]</span> up that a king is
-dead till they go through with certain performances,
-but they treat the dead body with all the honor that
-they would give the livin’ monarch. When the
-procession gits up to the door, the new-comer has
-to be announced.</p>
-
-<p>A voice sez, “Who would enter here?”</p>
-
-<p>They reply, “King Philip.”</p>
-
-<p>Then the door is thrown open, and all the long,
-illustrious procession of the noblest in the land enter,
-and they lay the body of the king on a table,
-for he has got to give his own consent, as it were,
-before they will admit that he is dead&mdash;silence gives
-consent, they say.</p>
-
-<p>So after all are gone the Lord Chamberlain lifts
-the heavey, gold-embroidered pall, and kneelin’
-down by the side of his royal master, looks long in
-his face to see if he recognizes him. But he don’t.
-He lays cold and still as marble.</p>
-
-<p>Then he cries, “Señor! Señor! Señor!” and
-waits for a reply. But as no answer comes, he sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“His Majesty does not answer! then indeed the
-king is dead!”</p>
-
-<p>So he takes the wand of office&mdash;the septer, I
-spoze&mdash;and breaks it over the coffin in token of a
-power that has ceased to be. Then he locks the
-marble coffin, hands the key to the Prior of the
-Monastery, and they go up the long steps and leave
-the king to sleep with his own folks.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_670">[Pg 670]</span></p>
-
-<p>It must have been a sight to see it go on.</p>
-
-<p>Why, a mourner who undertook sech doin’s in
-Jonesville or Loontown would find himself lugged
-off to the loonatick asylum, or have threats on’t.
-But the ways of countries differ&mdash;I didn’t make any
-moves to break it up. I am very liberal minded,
-and then I meditated that it wuzn’t my funeral.</p>
-
-<p>What made me say that a mourner in Jonesville
-couldn’t do sech a thing wuz owin’ to a incident
-that came under my own observation.</p>
-
-<p>A man that lived in the outskirts of Jonesville,
-havin’ moved down there from Zoar, got it into his
-head that he wuz goin’ to die on a certain day at
-two o’clock in the afternoon.</p>
-
-<p>So what should that creeter do but write his own
-funeral sermon, and gin out the word that he would
-preach it at one o’clock sharp. Because he wuz to
-die at two precisely.</p>
-
-<p>He got his coffin made, his wife got her mournin’
-clothes all done, for he wuz so dead sure of the result
-that he had converted her to his belief. So at
-one o’clock exactly the crowd gathered to see the
-corpse, as you may say, preach its own funeral
-sermon.</p>
-
-<p>The coffin wuz in the parlor, the mourners come
-down from upstairs, some on ’em weepin’ bitterly,
-and headed by the body, dressed in its shroud, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_671">[Pg 671]</span>bearin’
-its own funeral sermon.</p>
-
-<p>The mourners wuz arranged in orderly rows round
-the room (he wuz wide connected), and the body
-stood by the head of the coffin and preached a long
-sermon.</p>
-
-<p>He touched on the sins of his hearers, and of
-course they couldn’t resent it in him, bein’ a corpse’s
-last thoughts, as you may say.</p>
-
-<p>He bore down hard on ’em, specially his relations&mdash;the
-more distant ones, cousins and sech,
-and kinder rubbed up his bretheren and sistern
-some.</p>
-
-<p>But to his wife he spoke words of tenderness, and
-in a touchin’ and fervent manner spoke of what she
-had lost. He praised himself up to the highest
-notch, and his wife sobbed out loud, and she had to
-be fanned on both sides by a circuit minister and
-his wife, who wuz present; and she sed to ’em that
-she had never mistrusted before what a prize she
-had in her pardner.</p>
-
-<p>He then warned his children to grow up as nigh
-like their father as they could conveniently, and he
-got ’em to sniffin’ and wipin’ their noses. He then
-addressed the community, tellin’ ’em of their sinful
-ways, and exhorted ’em to turn round and do better,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_672">[Pg 672]</span>and sed to ’em a few words of consolation about the
-great blessin’ they had lost.</p>
-
-<p>And then he folded his shroud around him with
-one hand, and with quite a lot of dignity he stepped
-up into a chair, and so into his coffin. Then he laid
-down, arranged the folds of his shroud and crossed
-his hands on his bosom and shet his eyes up. As
-he did so the clock struck two. He laid a minute,
-while a dumbfoundered look swep’ over his liniment,
-and anon a sheepish one. And then he
-lifted up his head and looked round, and sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“There must be some mistake.”</p>
-
-<p>And one of the cousins, one he had rasped down
-the hardest (they wuz at swords’ pints anyway,
-caused by line fences), he hollered out&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, I should think there wuz, you dum fool you!
-gittin’ us all here right in hayin’ time to hear your
-dum funeral sermon.”</p>
-
-<p>And another one he had reviled yelled out&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Why didn’t you do as you agreed, you consarned
-loonatick, you!”</p>
-
-<p>And still another cried&mdash;“We’ll have the law on
-you for this! You agreed to die, and we all got
-together for that purpose, and we’ll see if we’re goin’
-to be bamboozled and fooled in this way. It is all
-a contrived plan to abuse us and make fun on us.
-But I’ll see if I can’t make you sick of sech dum
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_673">[Pg 673]</span>nonsense,” sez he. And he rushed for the live
-body with sech vengeance in his eyes and a wooden
-stool in his hand that the body’s wife precipitated
-herself onto the coffin, and sez she&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I will perish with this noble man, if die he must”
-(you see he’d worked her all up about his worth).</p>
-
-<p>Wall, suffice it to say, the cousin wuz overmastered,
-and etiket prevailed, and decorum wuz established,
-and the crowd dispersed, leavin’ him still in
-his coffin, for he sed he wuz tired, and would lay
-there for a spell.</p>
-
-<p>I believe he wuz ’fraid to git out. It kinder protected
-his lims and body. But then mebby he told
-the truth; the sermon wuz a powerful one, and delivered
-loud&mdash;it must have used up considerable
-wind.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, they talked hard of sendin’ Jake Bilhorn to
-the asylum. He escaped it jest by the skin of his
-teeth, as the sayin’ is. His wife testified to the last
-minute that his mind wuz weak, and he couldn’t
-help it. But she would watch him, she sed, and
-take care on him. So it wuz agreed that he should
-be let off on the Idiot Act, and she promised to let
-him go to the loonatick asylum if he ever tried to git
-up any sech performance agin.</p>
-
-<p>But I am a-eppisodin’, and a-eppisodin’ too fur,
-too fur.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_674">[Pg 674]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">AL FAIZI SAYS GOOD-BYE.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the very next day, follerin’ and ensuin’ after
-our visit to the Escuriel, Martin gin orders for the
-march.</p>
-
-<p>We wuz to git back to London at the rapidest
-rate possible, and from thence embark for home.</p>
-
-<p>Home! sweet sound! No word ever did, or ever
-can, sound so sweet as that word “home” duz hearn
-on a foreign shore. And though the journey seemed
-long and perilous and full of fatigue and danger,
-yet Josiah and I hearn it with joy.</p>
-
-<p>So after a journey that seems, to look back on’t,
-like a confused dream of wonderful sights, and
-strange ones, rumatiz, car whistles, big hotels, cold
-beds, dyspeptic food, groans, sithes, beautiful views
-seen from flyin’ trains, talk in a strange language
-goin’ on round me, murmured words from a pardner,
-better left onsaid, dreams of home sot in a frame of
-foreign seenery, tired eyes and lims, dizzy flyin’
-through space, headache, etc., etc., etc., after this
-dream we found ourselves in London.</p>
-
-<p>We parted with Al Faizi in London. It wuz on
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_675">[Pg 675]</span>the eve of our departure. Our tickets reposed in
-Martin’s vest-pocket, so I spoze, and our ship wuz
-to sail on the morrer.</p>
-
-<p>The lamps wuz lit in our room, and their meller
-glow lit up the form of my companion, clad in
-his dressin’-gown and layin’
-outstretched on the
-couch.</p>
-
-<p>I myself wuz a-rubbin’
-my spectacles with shammy-skin.</p>
-
-<p>I see the minute that
-Al Faizi come in that he
-looked sort o’ agitated
-and riz up like. And
-anon I understood the
-reason&mdash;he had come to
-bid us good-bye.</p>
-
-<p>I felt mean&mdash;mean as
-a dog. I hated to have
-him go, though Common
-Sense told me, and, of
-course, I didn’t spoze that I could in the common
-nater of things lug round a heathen with me everywhere
-I went all my life; but still I felt bad.</p>
-
-<p>After the first compliments wuz spoke, and
-he told us that he wuz a-goin’, and we told him
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_676">[Pg 676]</span>that we hated to have him go, and, etc., he
-sez:</p>
-
-<p>“I have sought for the ways of love and truth
-all through these Western lands&mdash;and now&mdash;”</p>
-
-<p>He paused, and only his dark, sad eyes spoke
-for quite a spell. Finally I sez:</p>
-
-<p>“And now?”</p>
-
-<p>“I go back to my own country&mdash;I have many
-things to teach my people.”</p>
-
-<p>“Then you <i>have</i> learnt some good things in my
-country and on our tower?” sez I, glad and proud
-to hear him say so.</p>
-
-<p>But his soft voice resoomed&mdash;“I have to teach
-them many things&mdash;to avoid.”</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp71" id="i_675" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_675.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>“<span class="smcap">I go back to my own country&mdash;I have many things
- to teach my people&mdash;to avoid.</span>”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I felt deprested agin. “But,” sez I, wantin’ to
-git some closter view of his mind&mdash;wantin’ to like
-a dog, for I hadn’t had, I can truly say, any more
-clear view on’t than if we had lived some milds
-apart, sez I, “you must have seen some things in
-this land worthy your approvin’ of&mdash;these lofty
-cathedrals built to the honor of the Lord. To
-be sure,” sez I, “the poor are a-flockin’ round ’em
-like a herd of freezin’ and starvin’ animals. But
-look at the free schools and the great charities,
-mighty and fur reachin’ in their influence.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez Al Faizi, “I have seen some things in
-your land that I will teach them to do. I have
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_677">[Pg 677]</span>seen sweet charities&mdash;the sick and unfortunate
-cared for; great free schools; crowds of little
-children helped to better lives.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I, “a great many rich men and
-wimmen give their money like water to help the
-poor and unfortunate. To be sure,” sez I, “the
-poverty and the crime is caused, most of it, by ourselves,
-and Uncle Sam bein’ so sot on that license
-business of hisen.” Sez I, “We cause the evils we
-relieve in a great measure&mdash;but then&mdash;”</p>
-
-<p>I see that Al Faizi wuz a-lookin’ at me with that
-same calm, sweet smile, and I’ll be hanged if it
-seemed as if I could go on a-drivin’ them metafors
-right in front of it. It made me feel curous as a
-dog, and curouser to think on’t.</p>
-
-<p>There it wuz, he a-settin’ right by me, and I
-couldn’t git a full, clear view of what wuz a-goin’ on
-in his mind, his idees and emotions, no more’n
-I can see the high trees in our orchard in a heavey
-snow-storm.</p>
-
-<p>I spoze I showed my deep chagrin in my face, for
-he hastened to add:</p>
-
-<p>“Everywhere I see strivings after the Good&mdash;the
-Perfect Life. The nations are feeling after God.
-But I see His truth covered up by a network of
-man-made lies; and shadows of darkness, cast from
-human comprehension, veil and shadow the sweet,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_678">[Pg 678]</span>just face of the Good. But evermore my heart
-burns within me, and I long for the perfect way.”</p>
-
-<p>Right here my Josiah spoke up in this unappropos
-moment, and sez:</p>
-
-<p>“I hate to say good-bye, Fazer, but if you ever
-come up our way from Hindoostan, or Egypt, or
-Africa, or wherever you are a-stayin’, you must be
-sure to stop and stay overnight with us.”</p>
-
-<p>Adrian come in at that minute, and when I told
-him that Al Faizi was a-biddin’ us good-bye, and
-wuz a-goin’ away, he put both arms around his neck
-and nestled his head aginst him. Al Faizi pressed
-him clost to his heart and bent his head low over
-him, and when he let him go, sunthin’ bright shone
-amongst the curls and waves of Adrian’s gold-brown
-locks, that Alice loved so well.</p>
-
-<p>Custom and pride makes folks reticent and keep
-their griefs to themselves, but as long as human
-hearts are made as they be now, they will ache.
-Love’s arrers are sharp winged; when they fly they
-don’t take any note of where they are a-goin’, and
-the pain is keen and sharp when they hit&mdash;bittersweet
-at any time, and sometimes bitter without the
-sweet. The good Lord go with Al Faizi and comfort
-him, so I sez to myself.</p>
-
-<p>He took both of my hands in his little brown
-ones, and it seemed as if he would never let ’em go.</p>
-
-<p>“I will never forget you!” he cried; “you have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_679">[Pg 679]</span>
-had for me the kind heart and kind deeds of a
-mother.”</p>
-
-<p>I thought to myself that he might jest as well
-sed a “sister” while he wuz about it, but then I
-laid it to the excitement of the occasion&mdash;I wuz excited
-myself and felt bad. I hated to have him go,
-and when he wuz a-goin’ to let go of my hands I
-didn’t know. I wuz a-thinkin’ that if he offered to
-kiss me I didn’t know what I should do&mdash;it wuzn’t
-nothin’ I wanted, leavin’ Josiah out of the question,
-but I didn’t know what he would take it into his
-head to do. But he didn’t offer nothin’ of the kind,
-which I wuz glad enough on. But he gin my hands
-a long, hard clasp, and sez he:</p>
-
-<p>“Farewell!” And then he let go. He looked
-bad, sorrerful as death. And I sez, onbeknown to
-me:</p>
-
-<p>“Won’t you wait and bid good-bye to Alice?”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez he; “I leave with you my farewell to
-her. May heaven bless her!” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Amen!” sez I.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz some as if we wuz to protracted meetin’,
-only more strange-like, and mebby not quite so
-protracted, but curouser.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, with a real good axent&mdash;“My heart will
-go with you, Al Faizi; I shall think of you when
-you’re fur away, some as I do of my own boy&mdash;knowin’
-that you are doin’ your best for your own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_680">[Pg 680]</span>
-soul, and for everybody round you.”</p>
-
-<p>“I go to my own people,” sez he sadly. “Forevermore
-will I work to help them to the right
-way&mdash;help them to understand the teachings of
-the Lord Christ. Nowhere else do I find such a
-pure religion as His. In my own home, far away
-beyond the dark waters”&mdash;and he made that
-gester of his towards the East&mdash;“I will work
-till I die to bring my people to know this
-great love, this mighty King. And there also
-I will pray that your people, too, may follow His
-teachings, and the people in the great countries
-I have visited with you, that these lands may
-renounce their false ways, and follow His gentle and
-lovely guidance, and be led into His truth. I will
-give my life for this,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>His tone wuz sweet and tender. It sounded to
-me sunthin’ like the autumn winds a-rustlin’ the
-leaves over the grave of the one you love.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz almost a-cryin’, and sez I:</p>
-
-<p>“Shan’t we ever see you agin?”</p>
-
-<p>He pinted upwards, his eyes wuz full of the
-love and passion of devotion, of Christian
-feelin’.</p>
-
-<p>“We will meet in that great land,” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>I wuz dretful riz up and glad and deprested<span class="pagenum" id="Page_681">[Pg 681]</span> and
-sorry all to one time. I felt queer.</p>
-
-<p>But Josiah had to holler most the last minute.
-Sez he, “What are you a-goin’ to do with that book
-of yourn, Fazer?”</p>
-
-<p>“I will use it to help teach my people&mdash;to avoid
-the mistakes of civilization.”</p>
-
-<p>Josiah sez, “Good for you, Fazer!”</p>
-
-<p>And I sez, “I always felt that we ort to have
-missionaries come over here to teach us how to behave.”</p>
-
-<p>But his face had no triumph in it&mdash;no look of
-reproach, only that sweet smile rested on it that
-made his face look better than any face I ever see,
-or ever expect to see.</p>
-
-<p>And agin he took my hand in his little brown
-one; agin he said “Farewell,” and he wuz indeed
-gone.</p>
-
-<p>I didn’t git over it all day.</p>
-
-<p>I felt some as if the meetin’-house to Jonesville
-should dissapear mysteriously, as if sunthin’ good
-had vanished, and some as if my boy Thomas J.
-should go off out of my sight for some time.</p>
-
-<p>Adrian mourned for him several hours. Alice
-wuz writin’ a letter home, and didn’t hardly seem to
-know that he wuz gone, and Martin wuz glad, I
-believe. He had never took to him for a minute.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_682">[Pg 682]</span></p>
-<p>Wall, I will hang up a thick moreen curtain between
-my readers and the voyage homewards.</p>
-
-<p>It needs a thick curtain to hide the fraxious,
-querilous complaints and the actin’s of my pardner,
-the howlin’s of the wind and waves, and the usual
-discomforts of a sea voyage.</p>
-
-<p>There are times when Heaven knows I wuz glad
-to hide behind it myself.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, I will cower down behind the thick folds,
-knowin’ that I am doin’ the best I can for myself
-and the world at large. Yes, I will let ’em droop
-down over our voyage through the wild waves, our
-arrival in our own dear native land, our feelin’s when
-we see the shore we loved dawn on us out of the
-mist, and when we sot our feet on the sile of the
-Continent that wears Jonesville like a pearl of
-great price on its tawny old bosom.</p>
-
-<p>I will also let its thick folds screen us in our
-partin’ from Martin and the children, and our lonely
-but short journey by our two selves.</p>
-
-<p>And I will only loop that curtain back in
-graceful folds as we draw nigh to Jonesville&mdash;Mecca
-of our hearts’ hopes and love.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_683">[Pg 683]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">HOME AGAIN, FROM A FOREIGN SHORE.</p>
-
-<p>Jonesville wuz bathed in the rosy hue of sunset
-when Ury let down the bars and we passed up into
-the lane leadin’ to our dear home&mdash;that sweet, restful
-haven, into which Josiah and me truthfully felt
-that our barks would sail in and be moored forever
-and ever.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, we both felt that nothin’, nothin’ could
-tempt us agin to spread our sails and float out of
-that blessed Home Harbor.</p>
-
-<p>How soft the light fell onto the white curtains
-with lace agin’! How sweet the rosy glow illumined
-the piaza and front yard, and how it played round
-the red chimblys and Philury’s collar, as she stood
-in the front stoop to welcome us home! Inside
-the house wuz all lit up, and when we entered, there
-wuz the children all come to surprise us, and welcome
-us home. They had sent Philury out, like
-the dove, on the front doorstep, while they stayed
-in the ark to surprise Ma and Pa when we
-come.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_684">[Pg 684]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp96" id="i_684" style="max-width: 35em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_684.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>They had sent Philury out, like a dove, on the front doorstep to meet us.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Oh, how glad they wuz to see us, and visey
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_685">[Pg 685]</span>versey. Yes, indeed, I guess it wuz visey versey&mdash;the
-children and grandchildren almost eat us up,
-and we them.</p>
-
-<p>A beautiful supper wuz a-waitin’ the tired-out
-travellers. The girls had laid to and helped, and it
-wuz a supper long to be remembered, and the children’s
-and the grandchildren’s demeanors to us wuz as
-tender as the briled chicken and cream biscuit, and
-the ties of love that united us all together wuz as
-strong as the coffee, and stronger, too, and mellered
-down by our happiness, jest as that wuz with
-lump-sugar and rich cream. And, oh, how good!
-how good it did feel to be to home! Josiah the first
-thing pulled off his boots and went round in his
-stockin’ feet.</p>
-
-<p>I sez, “Why do you do that, Josiah?”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, for no reason, only to swing out and do
-jest as I’m a-mind to. After bein’ cramped and
-hampered for months, I’m a-goin’ to act and feel
-to home, and I’m a-goin’ barefoot for a spell,” sez
-he, “as soon as the children go.”</p>
-
-<p>And, sure enough, he did, for all I could do and
-say, and he sung several pieces while I wuz ondressin’&mdash;he
-sung ’em loud. I remember he sung
-the hull of “Robert Kidd” and “André’s Lament,”
-besides some hymns.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “I’ve been pent up and bound down so
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_686">[Pg 686]</span>long that I’m a-goin’ to swing right out and act all
-I want to.”</p>
-
-<p>And happy&mdash;why, happy is no name for the
-feelin’s of that man, and I felt the same&mdash;yes,
-indeed! Only, as my nater is, I acted more megum,
-though I did kinder jine in with him in the chorus&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“My name is Robert Kidd,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">As I sailed, as I sailed.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>I wuz so perfectly happy that I had to.</p>
-
-<p>And when he struck into the hymns I jined in
-strong, right there in my nightgown&mdash;“On
-Canaan’s happy banks I stand,” and “Long time I
-have wandered,” and etcetery.</p>
-
-<p>Why, Josiah sung the most of the time for days
-and days.</p>
-
-<p>When Deacon Henzy come to see him, instead
-of advancin’ and shakin’ hands dignified, as a foreign
-traveller ort to, he jest advanced onto him, a-singin’
-loud&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Home agin, Deacon, home agin, from a foreign shore.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">And, oh! it fills my soul with joy</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">To greet Deacon Henzy and the rest of the Jonesvillians once more.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>It spilte the meter, but he didn’t care. He acted
-fairly crazed with joy to be home.</p>
-
-<p>The first thing he done the next mornin’ when
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_687">[Pg 687]</span>he got up wuz to throw his best clothes in a sort of
-a scornful heap behind his closet door. He
-throwed ’em some as if he hated the very sight on
-’em. When I found ’em afterwards, all tumbled
-in together, we had a number of
-words.</p>
-
-<p>But, as I say, he throwed his best
-clothes there, and specially his stiff
-collars and cuffs&mdash;them looked some
-as if they’d been trompled on.</p>
-
-<p>And then that man got on the
-worst-lookin’ pair of pantaloons and
-vest you ever see&mdash;holes in the knees,
-and the vest ripped up in the back,
-and the pockets hangin’ outside. I’d
-been a-savin’ ’em for carpet rags.</p>
-
-<p>And he went down suller and took
-a old coat offen the apple-ben. We
-had used it for two winters to cover
-up the apples in extra cold nights.
-And the land knows where he got
-the hat he put on&mdash;a old straw, the
-rim a-hangin’ half off, and the crown
-all jammed in. I guess he found it up in the
-woodhouse chamber.</p>
-
-<p>But, anyway, his looks wuz sech, so onbecomin’
-to a deacon and a pathmaster, let alone a cultered
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_688">[Pg 688]</span>gentleman of foreign travel, that I took him to do
-sharply about it.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp31" id="i_687" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_687.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>His looks wuz so onbecomin’
-to a deacon and
-a pathmaster.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Sez I, “I won’t have you a-goin’ round lookin’
-worse than any old scarecrow, Josiah Allen.”</p>
-
-<p>He took up a position in front of me, where his
-rags showed off to the most plainest advantage, and
-sez he&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“As you see me now, Samantha, you will see me
-henceforth. I shall never, never be dressed up
-agin as long as I retain my conscientiousness.”</p>
-
-<p>He spoke so firm, I felt some browbeat and
-skairt.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I faintly, “Do you expect to go through
-your life a-lookin’ as you do now?”</p>
-
-<p>“Always, always, Samantha; only worse, if I can
-manage it.” Sez he bitterly, “I am a man that has
-been dressed up too long; the iron has entered too
-deep into my soul&mdash;the worm has turned,” sez he.
-“I calculate to go in rags the rest of my life. And
-I wish,” sez he in a pleadin’ axent, “I wish that
-you would promise that you would bury me in this
-suit&mdash;that you would take a vow that I shall not
-be dressed up.”</p>
-
-<p>I wuz at my wits’ end; he looked as determined
-as any old hen turkey ever did on her nest.</p>
-
-<p>But by a happy inspiration I sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Wouldn’t you ruther lay in your dressin’-gown,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_689">[Pg 689]</span>
-Josiah? Think of them beautiful tossels,”
-sez I.</p>
-
-<p>I see a change come over his mean; he wavered
-and turned onto his heel, and went out-doors.</p>
-
-<p>And I may as well tell the end on’t. It wuz
-that dressin’-gown that gradual won him back into
-decenter clothin’.</p>
-
-<p>I lured him into that at first, and then gradual
-into pepper-and-salt, and so on to broadcloth; but
-it wuz a hard tussle! Collars and cuffs wuz my
-worst battle-field, but I got the victory over ’em
-at last.</p>
-
-<p>Oh, dear me, dear me, suz! what hard times female
-pardners do have anon or oftener; but yet
-I believe that pardners pay, after all.</p>
-
-<p>And it did seem so good to walk round the
-house, free and ontrammelled, and see the old
-bureaus and tables once more, and sasspans and
-things; and go out into the garden and see the
-garden-truck, and walk out to the barn and gather
-the eggs, and count the chickens.</p>
-
-<p>And plunge into all the sweet delights that make
-home a perfect Eden.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, we both felt that we should never want to
-move a inch from our own fireside. But how
-little&mdash;how little we can tell what is ahead on us in
-the onseen futer.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_690">[Pg 690]</span></p>
-<p>In this case Alice wuz ahead.</p>
-
-<p>We hadn’t been to home more’n several weeks
-when that sweet creeter wrote to me, urgin’ me hard
-to come and see her.</p>
-
-<p>She didn’t make no open complaints, but all
-through the letter I could read between the lines,
-as it wuz, the echoes of a sad heart.</p>
-
-<p>I felt, as I read it, that I ort to go right away and
-see her.</p>
-
-<p>But I hated to leave home agin&mdash;I hated to like
-a dog.</p>
-
-<p>So I writ her back as lovin’ a letter as I could,
-and I kinder waved off the subject of my comin’,
-sayin’ I’d come jest as soon as I could.</p>
-
-<p>A week or more passed, then come a letter from
-Martin, sayin’ Alice wuzn’t very well, and had sot
-her heart on seein’ me&mdash;wouldn’t I come?</p>
-
-<p>I went.</p>
-
-<p>Alice wuz dretful glad to see me, and in my lovin’
-sympathy her white face seemed to git a little
-more color and brightness into it.</p>
-
-<p>Good land! I see what ailed her jest as well as
-though I had took our big parlor lamp and walked
-through her mind.</p>
-
-<p>Her father wuz jest as determined as ever that
-she should have nothin’ to do or say to Richard
-Noble.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_691">[Pg 691]</span></p>
-
-<p>And bein’ right here by his side, as it were, and
-forbid to see him or speak to him made it fur worse
-than it wuz when they wuz seperated by a ocean.
-Her Pa had planned in his own mind that this
-trip should ween her from him. But how mistook
-he wuz!</p>
-
-<p>She had carried a faithful, lovin’ heart over the
-Atlantic, and had brung it back with her.</p>
-
-<p>Distance had only drawed the ends of the love-knot,
-unitin’ their souls all the tighter. They
-couldn’t be ontwisted now by the hands of a Martin&mdash;no,
-indeed!</p>
-
-<p>Martin wuz dretful good to me. He see that
-Alice loved me and brightened up considerable in
-my presence. And that would have made Miss
-Belzebub welcome.</p>
-
-<p>And Adrian, how he did hang round me, sweet
-little creeter that he wuz!</p>
-
-<p>Yes, Alice wuz the same, and Martin wuz the
-same as before his trip. He kep’ right on in the
-same old roteen of money-makin’, and money-savin’,
-and obstinacy, and sotness, and ambition, and
-etcetery.</p>
-
-<p>I found that out only a few mornin’s after I got
-there.</p>
-
-<p>I happened to take up a daily paper, and I read a
-piece in it about a horrible axident that had took
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_692">[Pg 692]</span>place right there in the city a few days before&mdash;two
-children killed, and the driver of the car had
-died from the effects of the horrow and remorse he
-had experienced in causin’ the death of the two
-children.</p>
-
-<p><i>Died!</i> when the poor creeter wuz no more guilty
-than a babe for it. He wuzn’t no more guilty than
-the spokes in the wheels. They all wuz run by
-another’s orders.</p>
-
-<p>As I sed, I wuz so horrified by it, that I felt that
-mad him or not, I must tackle Martin about the
-matter.</p>
-
-<p>And I found that he wuz as stiffnecked and rambellous
-as a iron-clad about it.</p>
-
-<p>And we had a number of words.</p>
-
-<p>And in the course of our conversation I atted
-Martin agin about Alice’s lover. For her big, sad
-eyes had follered me all the time I’d been there, and
-I had vowed in my heart that I would help her to
-her happiness if I could.</p>
-
-<p>As I sed, the pretty creeter had took her faithful
-heart over the Atlantic, and carried it round with
-her all the time she wuz there, and had brung it
-back with her.</p>
-
-<p>Movin’ the body round don’t change the soul.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_693">[Pg 693]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">MARTIN’S TERRIBLE LESSON.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, I found that Martin wuz as immovable
-and sot as a rock. “As for Alice,” sez he, “I told
-you six months ago what I should do, and I never
-change my mind.”</p>
-
-<p>And agin I sez, “Sometimes folks are made
-to change their minds when they don’t mean to or
-want to.”</p>
-
-<p>But before I could multiply any more words with
-him a servant come in to say that a paintin’ had come
-that Martin had ordered while he wuz abroad.
-And he asked me quite polite to go in and see
-it.</p>
-
-<p>He wuz glad of the interruption. He wanted to
-change the subject&mdash;he wanted to like a dog.</p>
-
-<p>The picter had been onpacked, and wuz standin’
-in the big hall, waitin’ for Martin to decide where to
-hang it.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz called “The Mother’s Sacrifice,” and wuz
-the picter of a Eastern mother, who wuz a-throwin’
-her child under the wheels of a juggernaut to insure
-its everlastin’ salvation.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_694">[Pg 694]</span></p>
-<p>Her face wuz torn with love and duty. It wuz
-a impressive picter. He gin twenty thousand dollars
-for it, for he told me so.</p>
-
-<p>Sez Martin as we looked at it, full of the rich
-Oriental glow of forest and landscape, and the dark,
-frenzied beauty of the mother’s face and the innocent
-beauty of the child, who trusts to her love and
-care and don’t mistrust its impendin’ doom&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Sez Martin, “What a struggle is going on in that
-woman’s breast! how her heart is torn between her
-love for the child and her religious belief! What a
-masterly handling of the subject!” sez he.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez I; “but what of the hearts of the
-mothers who see their children crushed down under
-jest as murderous wheels, and don’t have her religious
-zeal to hold ’em up? That Eastern mother
-thinks that this will insure her child’s eternal well-bein’&mdash;she
-thinks the wheels move on in the cause
-of eternal good. What would she think if she wuz
-a American mother, and knew these wheels murdered
-her child jest to save a little money&mdash;jest out
-of wicked, graspin’ avarice?”</p>
-
-<p>Sez Martin coldly, “I don’t know what you
-mean.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Yes you do, Martin; I mean your
-trolley cars, that move on and crush down childhood
-and age, when a little bit of money you spend
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_695">[Pg 695]</span>for this ficticious woe would relieve the real agony
-which is goin’ on right before your front gate
-through your own neglect.”</p>
-
-<p>I would gin him some sech little delicate hints,
-whether he liked it or lumped it, as the sayin’ is.
-Agin he sez in that dretful dignified way of hisen,
-“I don’t know what you mean,” and turned away.</p>
-
-<p>But jest as I wuz withdrawin’ myself from the
-seen, for I felt that these little blind hits I gin him
-wuz enough for the present, Adrian come in, and
-Martin called out&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Well, dear little Partner, what do you want?”</p>
-
-<p>And Adrian sez, “Alice and I are going out
-driving, and I wanted to say good-bye to you.”</p>
-
-<p>Martin kissed the pretty face, with his adorin’
-love for the child a-showin’ plain in him. And
-then Adrian come and kissed me, his gold curls
-fallin’ back from his little, earnest face, and his
-black velvet cap a-settin’ ’em off first rate, and he
-sez to me, “Good-bye;” and I hadn’t any way of
-knowin’ that that good-bye would echo through
-the long futer and die out only at the Dark
-Portal.</p>
-
-<p>Martin took out his purse and took out a roll of
-bills and handed ’em to Adrian, and sez he,
-“Hand that to your sister; I was going to give it
-to her last night&mdash;it is for a necklace she wanted.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_696">[Pg 696]</span>
-Be careful of it,” sez Martin as Adrian took it;
-“it is five thousand dollars, and that is worth
-taking care of, little partner.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, they sot off, and I went back into a little
-settin’-room acrost the hall from Martin’s study
-and took up a book and went to readin’.</p>
-
-<p>It wuz a interestin’ book, and I wuz carried
-away&mdash;some distance away from the big city and
-trolley cars.</p>
-
-<p>When I heard a hum of a good many voices
-in Martin’s room, and the door bein’ open, I
-couldn’t help hearin’ what they wuz a-sayin’. It
-seemed to be a deputation of some kind a-askin’
-Martin for some favor or other.</p>
-
-<p>For I heard him say out loud, “I am sick of
-these complaints.”</p>
-
-<p>His tone wuz cold&mdash;cold as a iceberg. There
-wuz one man amongst ’em who seemed to be the
-speaker; he sez, “We are workingmen; we have
-homes and families. We work hard every day.
-We leave our children, that we may go away and
-earn food and clothing for them; our houses
-are the best that we can afford, but the best that
-we can pay for lay in the populous region where
-so many lives are lost by these cars. I know you
-are the owner of that line, and we have come to
-appeal to you.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_697">[Pg 697]</span></p>
-<p>Sez Martin agin, “I am sick to death of these
-everlasting complaints.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp56" id="i_698" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_698.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>Sez Martin agin, “I am sick to death of these everlasting
- complaints.”</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>His tone wuz cold&mdash;cold as a frog, and I see
-from his voice that he wuz mad&mdash;mad as a wet hen.</p>
-
-<p>The man that answered him I could see from
-where I sot wuz evidently jest a plain workin’-man,
-jest like ’em that you meet in droves at 7
-o’clock in the mornin’ and six at night.</p>
-
-<p>But I liked his looks&mdash;he looked rugged and
-honest, and his voice had a uncultured ring of
-common sense and honesty, and at times a deep
-sorrer and sense of wrong touched it to a rude
-eloquence.</p>
-
-<p>Martin sez, and his tone wuz cold and smooth
-as a icesuckle in a January mornin’&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“What is it that you want me to do, anyway&mdash;tell
-me as briefly as you can, for my time is
-valuable.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez the man agin, “We are workingmen and
-poor, and we do not expect to have many things
-that rich people have, but we do want our children
-to be educated. They must go out alone to their
-schools while their mothers are at home working
-to make a decent home for them, and they cannot
-follow them only with their thoughts and
-prayers.</p>
-
-<p>“These cars going with the swiftness of lightning
-through these thronged streets, with no safeguard to
-protect them, are the means of making fathers’ and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_699">[Pg 699]</span>mothers’ hearts ache with fear and dread.</p>
-
-<p>“One of my own children, a bright little lad, my
-only son, dear to me as my own life, was crushed
-down by them on his way to school.” The man’s
-voice broke here, for a rush of feeling swep’ up agin
-his voice, and stopped it.</p>
-
-<p>“Another of these men lost a child, another saw
-an old mother crushed down before his eyes as she
-tried to cross the street, another&mdash;”</p>
-
-<p>“There is no need of repeating all this to me.
-What do you want me to do?” I see by Martin’s
-voice that he wuz madder than that wet hen a-settin’,
-and obstinate.</p>
-
-<p>“We want to have you give orders to go more
-slowly through crowded places and put fenders on
-the cars, so as to lessen the peril as much as may be,
-so we poor people, who have to live and labor in
-these dangerous places, can carry a lighter heart to
-our hard daily toil.”</p>
-
-<p>“Leave me your address,” sez Martin sharp and
-cold, “and I will communicate with you.” Then
-sez he, “James, show these men to the door. Good-morning,”
-sez he. The door closed on the men, and
-Martin crossed the hall with a quick step, and come
-right into the room where I sot. In his haste to
-git out of their sight he had, as the sayin’ is,
-“jumped from the fryin’-pan into the fire.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_700">[Pg 700]</span></p>
-
-<p>For I sez, and tears wuz in my eyes as I sed it&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“You will grant their request, Martin?”</p>
-
-<p>“No, I will not grant their request;” and he
-went on sarcastically, “I don’t know what you
-people want. Do you want to do away with cars
-and railroads and go back to ox-teams and pillions?
-Here a few men take a big risk, put all
-their capital into an enterprise, doing the public
-an incalculable good, and then they have to be badgered
-night and day by the very ones they have
-benefited, and by a set of philanthropic fools.” I
-guess he meant me by that last term, but I didn’t
-care; I wouldn’t have cared if he’d called me a plain
-fool&mdash;I knew I wuzn’t. When you are out a-ketchin’
-a tiger you don’t care for a muskeeter’s bite;
-no, your mind is sot on the tiger.</p>
-
-<p>I sez, “The cost is but triflin’ to one of your
-means. Why not do it?”</p>
-
-<p>“Because I am capable of attending to my own
-business, and I am not to be bossed by a lot of
-workingmen and wild-eyed reformers and sentimental
-idiots&mdash;I’ll do what I please.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Mebby you will, Martin, and mebby you
-won’t.”</p>
-
-<p>Jest as I said these words a cry come up from
-the streets&mdash;“A child run over! a lady killed! a
-child and a lady killed!”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_701">[Pg 701]</span></p>
-
-<p>“There,” sez Martin, actin’ impatient and mad
-as anything&mdash;“there is another text for you, Cousin
-Samantha; and probably the whole car full of people,
-who have rode all over the city for five cents, will
-all join in and shriek at me as a murderer and a villain,
-because a couple of fools have started to cross
-the track just in front of a car; in nine cases out of
-ten the fault is their own.”</p>
-
-<p>But the cries outside grew louder and louder, and
-finally Martin went to the winder, kinder flingin’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_702">[Pg 702]</span>himself along in a sort of a impatient way; and
-he had been nagged considerable&mdash;I had to admit
-it.</p>
-
-<p>He went to the winder, which looked down onto
-the broad street below. He looked a minute; then
-shriekin’ out&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“My God! my God!”</p>
-
-<p>He fell down jest like a log at my feet.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp92" id="i_701" style="max-width: 30em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_701.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>He fell down jest like a log at my feet.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And what wuz the sight that struck him down
-like a arrer?</p>
-
-<p>Two men of the very deputation that had jest
-left the house wuz bearin’ between ’em the crushed
-form of a little boy&mdash;gold curls wuz hangin’ back
-from the velvet cap. A kind hand had covered the
-little disfiggered face with a handkerchief. Behind,
-two more of the men and a policeman wuz carryin’
-the crushed, senseless form of Alice.</p>
-
-<p>I hearn all about it afterwards. There wuz a
-florist jest acrost from Martin’s, where a little bend
-in the road made it impossible to stop. Little
-Adrian had jumped out of the carriage and run to
-choose a bokay of flowers to gin to me. They wuz
-the English voyalets he loved so well. One of ’em
-wuz in the buttonhole of the little velvet coat.</p>
-
-<p>Dear little creetur!</p>
-
-<p>And as he ran back the flowers fell; he stopped
-to pick ’em up, and the car swep’ down on him.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_703">[Pg 703]</span>Alice see his danger, she jumped to save him, only
-to be struck down herself.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, what tongue of men or angels shall describe
-the seen that follered and ensued.</p>
-
-<p>Martin layin’ in a dead faint, like death to all appearance&mdash;and
-it is blood relation to it. Little
-Adrian layin’ white and cold on a couch in the reception-hall,
-where the men had reverently laid him,
-right under the picter of that Eastern mother.</p>
-
-<p>The agony in her dark face seemed to be for him,
-too&mdash;the fair-haired child of the race who condemn
-their barbarity, and practise worse.</p>
-
-<p>And Alice a-layin’ white and onconscious, but
-breathin’ still, in her own room. One round, white
-arm a-hangin’ broken by her side, and blood streamin’
-from a cruel gash in her head.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, the best doctors in the city wuz there in a
-few minutes. But all their genius and wisdom and
-learnin’ could not bring back the spark of life that
-had flown away from little Adrian’s body.</p>
-
-<p>And then afterwards the clergyman come and
-whispered consolin’ words to Martin in his darkened
-chamber.</p>
-
-<p>But not all the preachin’ since Adam can make
-death other than death.</p>
-
-<p>Martin didn’t want the clergyman&mdash;he wanted to
-be alone. He wouldn’t see anybody, and he lay
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_704">[Pg 704]</span>still and cold after his senses come back&mdash;so still
-and cold that the doctors feared for his sanity, and
-even for his life.</p>
-
-<p>The first glimpse of interest he showed wuz when
-they told him that there wuz a
-chance for Alice to live.</p>
-
-<p>He turned his face towards the
-wall (so the nurse told me, a good,
-faithful creeter with a strong
-breath, caused by stimulants, I believe).</p>
-
-<div class="figleft illowp47" id="i_704" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_704.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>A faithful creeter with a strong
-breath, caused by stimulants, I
-believe.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Sez she, “I went to the foot
-of the bed and looked up, and
-see tears a-streamin’ down his
-white face. But I dare not speak
-to him,” sez she&mdash;“no, I dare not.”</p>
-
-<p>Sez she, “His face had that
-look on it that it frightened me,
-and it gave me such a turn that
-I feel weak yet. I guess,” sez she,
-“I will take a drop to nerve me
-up. Don’t you want a drop of
-stimulant, too?” sez she.</p>
-
-<p>“No, indeed,” sez I, “I don’t!”</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez I, “poor creeter, do everything you
-can for him, for the hand of the Lord has dealt
-sorely with him. And,” sez I, “I would gladly
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_705">[Pg 705]</span>help him if I could, but I can do nothin’ but pray
-for him.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, there wuz a big funeral in the church
-where little Adrian had been baptized when he wuz
-a baby.</p>
-
-<p>The minister, a very eloquent and high-priced
-one, preached a beautiful sermon about the inscrutable
-mysteries of our lives, and the mystery
-of the Providence who should take, in sech
-a onforeseen and onheard-of way the child of
-sech a man, who had spent his hull life for the
-good of the people&mdash;that angelic man, who wuz
-a-layin’ now in his palatial home at the pint of
-death.</p>
-
-<p>These last words affected the congregation dretfully.
-A maiden jest behind Martin’s pew and a
-widder jest in front (who both had hopes) sallied
-away and partially fainted, and the widder had to
-be borne out by the sexton.</p>
-
-<p>And as she wuz heavey, it bore hard on him. The
-old maid revived in time to see the widder carried
-out. Widders always will go further and resk
-more than the more single ones.</p>
-
-<p>And the maiden wuz wroth for fear that Martin
-should hear of it that she didn’t go so fur herself as
-the widder did.</p>
-
-<p>I myself didn’t faint nor shed tears. I sot up
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_706">[Pg 706]</span>straight in that luxurious pew and kep’ a-sayin’ in
-my heart&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, God help that wretched man! God help
-and comfort him, for nothin’ else can!”</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_707">[Pg 707]</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="h2sub">“GOOD-NIGHT, LITTLE PARDNER.”</p>
-
-<p>Wall, that night after the funeral I wuz called
-down into the parlor to see a stranger&mdash;a good deal
-devolved on me in that awful time; I kep’ calm, or
-tried to, and that calmness wuz like a paneky to
-’em round me, and they didn’t see the tumult of
-pity and grief that wuz a-goin’ on inside of my
-heart onbeknown to ’em.</p>
-
-<p>I went down into the hall, and there I found a
-handsome, noble-lookin’ young man, whose face
-wuz so white with anguish and dread that I knew
-before he spoke who he wuz, and sez I right out
-the first thing, a-holdin’ out both my hands&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Alice is better.”</p>
-
-<p>He grasped holt of my hands as if he wouldn’t
-never let go.</p>
-
-<p>Sez he, “God bless you for saying that!” He
-wouldn’t go into the parlor, nor set down, or nothin’.
-But it got to be my stiddy practice to go down
-into that hall two or three times a day to gin him
-news, and as the news grew brighter every day, jest
-so his face grew brighter, till it got luminous with
-joy and gratitude the day I told him that Alice
-wuz out of danger.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_708">[Pg 708]</span></p>
-
-<p>Wall, there come a day, long to be remembered,
-when Martin sent for me. I wuz the first one he
-asked to see. He couldn’t talk much, and I jest
-grasped his hand and sez&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“I have been prayin’ for you, Martin.”</p>
-
-<p>“I knew it,” he whispered, “I knew you would.”</p>
-
-<p>And that wuz about all I could say. But I spoze
-he felt the pity and sympathy that oozed out of my
-sperit onbeknown to me as I looked down onto
-that broken-hearted man, and he seemed to like to
-have me round his room.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, it wuz weeks before I could go home,
-Josiah a-bearin’ up nobly, aided by Philury, and
-a-bravely eatin’ pancakes in her hours of too burdened
-haste, and a-writin’ to me to stay if I could
-be of any comfort to ’em.</p>
-
-<p>Noble man that he is, though small boneded
-I am proud of him&mdash;a good deal of the time I am.</p>
-
-<p>Wall, there come a time when Martin, a-settin’
-up in his study and a-lookin’ over his papers, sent
-for me, and spoke to me for the first time of
-Adrian.</p>
-
-<p>He didn’t cry. His speechless grief wuz beyend
-that relief, but he gin me to understand that his life
-wuz a blank to him now.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Martin, remember<span class="pagenum" id="Page_709">[Pg 709]</span> that Alice is left to
-you&mdash;you have one child left.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” sez he, “but I want my boy!!” and he
-busted right out into tears, and buried his face in
-his hands.</p>
-
-<div class="figright illowp82" id="i_709" style="max-width: 15em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_709.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>He busted out into tears and buried his face in
-his hands.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Sez I, “Martin, do you remember what the dear
-little boy said&mdash;he wuz a-goin’ to be your
-pardner?”</p>
-
-<p>He groaned, “Why do you speak of
-that? Do you want to kill me?”</p>
-
-<p>“I want to help you, Martin.”</p>
-
-<p>“Do you ever think
-that Adrian can be your
-pardner now, better than
-he ever could if he wuz
-on earth&mdash;as much better
-as the glorified sperit
-is above our common
-humanity?”</p>
-
-<p>But agin he groaned
-out, “I want my boy!”</p>
-
-<p>“It is hard, Martin,” sez I, a-layin’ my hand on
-his bowed-down shoulders.</p>
-
-<p>“It is hard to know that the sweet little voice is
-silent on earth, but he can hear you&mdash;he is a-hearin’
-you this minute; he hears the language of your
-sperit as you vow to ondo the past so fur as you
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_710">[Pg 710]</span>can&mdash;to go on in the futer and work for the poor,
-as he wanted to.</p>
-
-<p>“You can’t go agin these strong desires of your
-little pardner, Martin&mdash;you’ve got to hear to ’em.
-He is your pardner now jest as much as he ever
-wuz, and more, only he has gone over the deep
-waters into another country to tend to the interests
-of the firm there. It is a country where the Right
-is always done, where things that are wrong here
-are made right&mdash;he will help you, Martin. He
-wanted to work for the poor; why not let
-him?”</p>
-
-<p>He lifted his white face, tears a-streamin’ down
-it, but as my meanin’ dawned on him his mean grew
-a little mite brighter.</p>
-
-<p>Sez I, “He is a-workin’ now for ’em.” Sez I,
-“I see in the new look in your eyes the divine
-work of your pardner.</p>
-
-<p>“He is helpin’ you this minute to think softer
-thoughts. He is helpin’ you to remember that you
-are to spend your money and his&mdash;for you told him
-that it belonged to you both equally&mdash;in helpin’ the
-poor, in helpin’ to surround their lives with safeguards,”
-sez I, a-wantin’ to strike while the iron
-wuz hot.</p>
-
-<p>“You are a-goin’ to git some fenders right off,
-Martin.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_711">[Pg 711]</span></p>
-<p>“Order five hundred of them right off&mdash;send for
-a thousand of them.”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” sez I, “Martin, be megum. You’ve got
-to be megum in fenders as well as any other goodness.
-Why order a thousand fenders for one hundred
-cars?</p>
-
-<p>“But,” sez I, “Martin, I will send for ’em.”
-And I did, that very day, not knowin’ but he
-would be some like Pharaoh, and his heart would be
-hardened before night. I told his secretary within
-a hour, and he ordered ’em before sundown on my
-word. Oh, they think high on me&mdash;all on ’em!
-He dassent refuse to take my orders.</p>
-
-<p>But I’d no need to have worried&mdash;no, indeed! I
-felt ashamed to think I had let my mind sally back
-to that old Egyptian Pharaoh.</p>
-
-<p>Martin’s repentance didn’t prove to be short-lived
-and evanescent&mdash;no, indeed!</p>
-
-<p>He divided his property equally between himself
-and his little pardner. He invested his pardner’s
-money to the best of his knowledge, and every cent
-of the interest of that money, and it is a immense
-sum&mdash;millions of dollars. He uses it only as the
-steward of his pardner. It all goes to help the
-poor&mdash;to try to defend ’em from dangers, temporal
-and speritual, from want, and from the worst
-of all dangers&mdash;Ignorance and Crime.</p>
-
-<p>Dear little Silent Pardner! I wonder<span class="pagenum" id="Page_712">[Pg 712]</span> if you
-know it? I wonder if, when grateful hearts rise in
-prayer, callin’ you the saviour of their lives and
-happiness&mdash;I wonder if them prayers and grateful
-thoughts bloom out in some divine way, as they
-reach the Heavenly country, so you can see the
-desire of your little heart, and know that it is
-granted?</p>
-
-<p>Are you ever permitted to come down in the
-stillness of a Summer evenin’ and stand clost by the
-side of that white-haired old man, who grew old so
-fast after you left him, whose heart yearns for you,
-and who is a-tryin’ so faithfully to carry out his little
-pardner’s wishes? He sez that sometimes he
-feels that you are so near to him that he almost expects
-to see your face blossom out of the dark, like
-the evenin’ star out of the misty twilight. And so
-he can live, he sez.</p>
-
-<p>Did you stand in the church when Alice wuz
-married to the man she loved? A ray of gold light
-shone out sudden and luminous and lit her sweet
-face as she took her solemn vows.</p>
-
-<p>Wuz it you, little Pardner? wuz the joy and glory
-in your face permitted to shine for a moment on
-the one you loved, in the supreme hour of her
-life?</p>
-
-<p>We can’t tell this, little Adrian, but we see
-your work goin’ on from day to day, and we bless
-you for it.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_713">[Pg 713]</span></p>
-
-<p>We see it in the safety and protection thrown
-around the masses, protectin’ ’em from physical
-and moral ills; in the great free school which bears
-your name; in the Adrian Home, where sick and
-poor children find a home and tender care; in the
-University, where your picter hangs over the doorway&mdash;a
-doorway where any poor, ignorant boy may
-enter, and go out a scholar; in the large, plain
-church, whose best ornament is the stained-glass
-winder bearin’ your name in gold letters, where a
-pure Christianity is taught to all, rich and poor, and
-the Blessed Master is brought near to sad lives by
-the anointed lips of consecrated genius&mdash;where
-rich and poor worship the God man together.
-The poor givin’ their strength and good-will, the
-rich givin’ their wealth and learnin’, and so becomin’
-a strong bulwark, protectin’ society from the
-high flood of undisciplined passions&mdash;Ignorance
-and Crime.</p>
-
-<p>Do you see it all, little Pardner? Sometimes I
-think you do.</p>
-
-<p>I am writin’ this at the open winder you looked
-out of as you sed you would work for the poor.</p>
-
-<p>And as I think how you have worked for ’em,
-and are still a-workin’, my heart is as full of the
-
-thought of you, little Adrian, as the voyalets you
-loved are filled with their strong, onseen perfume.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_714">[Pg 714]</span></p>
-
-<p>And as I set askin’ these questions, the twilight
-shades are fallin’, the evenin’ star shines bright above
-the golden west.</p>
-
-<p>And wuz that the odor of English voyalets that
-swep’ by the open winder on the night breeze?
-There’s a bed of ’em down in the garden. Did the
-soft breeze come from that way&mdash;or further off?</p>
-
-<p>But I stop and lean out of the winder and say&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>“Good-night, little Adrian&mdash;good-night, little
-Pardner&mdash;till mornin’.”</p>
-
-<p>And wuz that a soft, fur-off echo, or wuz it my
-own thoughts that repeated&mdash;“Till mornin’”?</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="i_714" style="max-width: 20em;">
-  <img class="w100" src="images/i_714.jpg" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><p>FINIS.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_715">[Pg 715]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Other_Works_by_Josiah_Allens_Wife">
-Other Works by Josiah Allen’s Wife.</h2>
-
-</div>
-
-<h3>Poems.</h3>
-
-<p class="hanging2">A Charming Volume of Poetry. By “<span class="smcap">Josiah Allen’s Wife</span>.”
-Beautifully Illustrated by <span class="smcap">W. H. Gibson</span> and other Artists.
-Beautifully bound. Square 12mo, 216 pp.
-Cloth, $2.00.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“Will win for her an honorable place among American poets.”&mdash;<i>Chicago
-Standard.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<h3>Samantha Among the Brethren.</h3>
-
-<p class="hanging2">By “<span class="smcap">Josiah Allen’s Wife</span>.” 100 Illustrations. Square
-12mo, 452 pp. Cloth, $2.50.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p>“It is irresistibly humorous and true.”&mdash;<i>Bishop John P. Newman.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p>“It is full of meat as an egg.... Calculated to do immense good in that
-department of women’s rights which relates to her participation in the great
-work of the Church of Christ, <i>beyond the scrubbing and papering of the meeting-house</i>.”&mdash;<i>Ex-Judge
-Noah Davis.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<h3>Sweet Cicely;</h3>
-
-<p class="hanging2">Or, Josiah Allen as a Politician. A Fascinating Story.
-Square 12mo, 390 pp. 100 Illustrations. Cloth, $2.00.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p>“The interest of the book is immense.... Never was such a defender of
-women’s rights, never was such an exponent of women’s wrongs! In Samantha’s
-pithy, pointed, scornful utterances we have in very truth the expression of
-feelings common to most thoughtful women, well understood among them, but
-rarely finding voice except in confidential intercourses and for sympathetic
-ears.... Alongside of the fun are genuine eloquence and profound pathos; we
-scarcely know which is the more delightful.”&mdash;<i>The Literary World, London, Eng.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<h3>Samantha at the World’s Fair.</h3>
-
-<p class="hanging2">By <span class="smcap">Josiah Allen’s Wife</span>. Over 100 Illustrations by <span class="smcap">C. de
-Grimm</span>. 8vo, 700 pp. Elegantly Bound. Cloth, $2.50;
-Half Russia, $4.00.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>“There is no brighter literary outgrowth of the great event of 1893 than this
-volume (‘Samantha at the World’s Fair’) from the pen of one of America’s happiest
-humorists.”&mdash;<i>The Union Signal, Chicago, Ill.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
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author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-22 09:29:08 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-22 09:29:08 -0800
commit	01b06386e963d5cfc2b23f28b382118675416207 (patch)
tree	2db8ba5569cc72bb18650ea8c07b65aa219ee727
parent	78cec67a24fdbb2525274ea4fd81e3254b32dad4 (diff)