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Title: Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition

Author: Marietta Holley

Release Date: May 19, 2004  [eBook #12386]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AT THE ST. LOUIS
EXPOSITION***


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SAMANTHA AT THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION

BY

JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE (MARIETTA HOLLEY)

ILLUSTRATIONS BY CH. GRUNWALD

1904







LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[Transcriber's note: These are the captioned halftone illustrations.
There are several other uncaptioned line drawings.]

He showed 'em in a careless way as much as fifteen dollars in cash

Josiah's good nater returnin' with every mouthful he took

It is the big crowd that is surgin' through the Pike to and fro, fro and
to

"I hain't Theodore. I'm President of a Gas Company."

She laid her pretty head in my lap, sobbin' out, "What shall I do? What
shall I do?"

Good land! I couldn't sort 'em out and describe them that passed by in
an hour. _Frontispiece_





SAMANTHA AT THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION


CHAPTER I.

I had noticed for some time that Josiah Allen had acted queer. He would
seem lost in thought anon or oftener, and then seemin'ly roust himself
up and try to act natural.

And anon he would drag his old tin chest out from under the back
stairway and pour over musty old deeds and papers, drawed up by his
great-grandpa mebby.

He did this last act so often that I said to him one day, "What under
the sun do you find in them yeller old papers to attract you so,
Josiah?"

But he looked queer at me, queer as a dog, as if he wuz lookin' through
me to some distant view that interested him dretfully, and answered
evasive, and mebby he wouldn't answer at all.

And then I'd see him and Uncle Sime Bentley, his particular chum, with
their heads clost together, seemin'ly plottin' sunthin' or ruther,
though what it wuz I couldn't imagine.

And then they would bend their heads eagerly over the daily papers, and
more'n once Josiah got down our old Olney's Atlas and he and Uncle Sime
would pour over it and whisper, though what it wuz about I couldn't
imagine. And if I'd had the curosity of some wimmen it would drove me
into a caniption fit.

And more'n a dozen times I see him and Uncle Sime down by the back
paster on the creek pacin' to and fro as if they wuz measurin' land. And
most of all they seemed to be measurin' off solemn like and important
the lane from the creek lot up to the house and takin' measurements, as
queer lookin' sights as I ever see, and then they would consult the
papers and atlas agin, and whisper and act.

And about this time he begun to talk to me about the St. Louis
Exposition. He opened the subject one day by remarkin' that he spozed I
had never hearn of the Louisana Purchase. He said that the minds of
females in their leisure hours bein' took up by more frivolous things,
such as tattin' and crazy bed-quilts, he spozed that I, bein' a female
woman, had never hearn on't.

And my mind bein' at that time took up in startin' the seams in a blue
and white sock I wuz knittin' for him, didn't reply, and he went on and
talked and talked about it.

But good land! I knowed all about the Louisana Purchase; I knowed it
come into our hands in 1803, that immense tract of land, settlin'
forever in our favor the war for supremacy on this continent between
ourselves and England, and givin' us the broad highway of the
Mississippi to sail to and fro on which had been denied us, besides the
enormous future increase in our wealth and population.

I knowed that between 1700 and 1800 this tract wuz tossted back and
forth between France and Spain and England some as if it wuz a immense
atlas containing pictured earth and sea instead of the real land and
water.

It passed backwards and forwards through the century till 1803 when it
bein' at the time in the hands of France, we bought it of Napoleon
Bonaparte who had got possession of it a few years before, and Heaven
only knows what ambitious dreams of foundin' a new empire in a new
France filled that powerful brain, under that queer three-cornered hat
of hisen when he got it of Spain.

But 'tennyrate he sold it in 1803 to our country, the writin's bein'
drawed up by Thomas Jefferson, namesake of our own Thomas Jefferson,
Josiah's child by his first wife. Napoleon, or I spoze it would sound
more respectful to call him Mr. Bonaparte, he wanted money bad, and he
didn't want England to git ahead, and so he sold it to us.

He acted some as Miss Bobbett did when she sot up her niece, Mahala Hen,
in dressmakin' for fear Miss Henzy's girl would git all the custom and
git rich. She'd had words with Miss Henzy and wanted to bring down her
pride. And we bein' some like Miss Hen in sperit (she had had trouble
with Miss Henzy herself, and wuz dretful glad to have Mahala sot up), we
wuz more'n willin' to buy it of Mr. Bonaparte. You know he didn't like
England, he had had words with her, and almost come to hands and blows,
and it did come to that twelve years afterwards.

But poor creeter! I never felt like makin' light of his reverses, for do
not we, poor mortals! have to face our Waterloo some time durin' our
lives, when we have fought the battle and lost, when the ground is
covered with slain Hopes, Ambition, Happiness, when the music is
stilled, the stringed instruments and drums broken to pieces, or givin'
out only wailin' accompaniments to the groans and cries of the dyin'
layin' low in the dust.

We marched onward in the mornin' mebby with flyin' colors towards
Victory, with gaily flutterin' banners and glorious music. Then come the
Inevitable to crush us, and though we might not be doomed to a desert
island in body, yet our souls dwell there for quite a spell.

Till mebby we learn to pick up what is left of value on the lost field,
try to mend the old instruments that never sound as they did before. Sew
with tremblin' fingers the rents in the old tattered banners which Hope
never carries agin with so high a head, and fall into the ranks and
march forward with slower, more weary steps and our sad eyes bent toward
the settin' sun.

But to stop eppisodin' and resoom. I had hearn all about how it wuz
bought and how like every new discovery, or man or woman worth while,
the Purchase had to meet opposition and ridicule, though some prophetic
souls, like Thomas Jefferson, Mr. Livingstone and others, seemed to look
forward through the mists of the future and see fertile fields and
stately cities filled with crowds of prosperous citizens, where wuz then
almost impassable swamps and forests inhabited by whoopin' savages.

And Mr. Bonaparte himself, let us not forgit in this proud year of
fulfilled hopes and achievement and progress how he always seemed to set
store by us and his words wuz prophetic of our nation's glorious
destiny.

I had knowed all about this but Josiah seemed to delight to instruct me
as carefully as a mother would guide a prattlin' child jest beginnin' to
walk on its little feet. And some times I would resent it, and some
times when I wuz real good natured, for every human bein' no matter how
high principled, has ebbs and flows in their moral temperatures, some
times I would let him instruct me and take it meekly like a child
learnin' its A-B abs.

But to resoom. Day by day Josiah's strange actions continued, and at
intervals growin' still more and more frequent and continuous he acted,
till at last the truth oozed out of him like water out of a tub that has
been filled too full, it wuz after an extra good meal that he confided
in me.

He said the big celebration of the Louisana Purchase had set him to
thinkin' and he'd investigated his own private affairs and had
discovered important facts that had made him feel that he too must make
a celebration of the Purchase of the Allen Homestead.

"On which we are now dwellin', Samantha," sez he. "Seventy-four acres
more or less runnin' up to a stake and back agin, to wit, as the paper
sez."

Sez I, "You needn't talk like a lawyer to me, Josiah Allen, but tell me
plain as a man and a deacon what you mean."

"Well, I'm tellin' you, hain't I, fast as I can? I've found out by my
own deep research (the tin trunk wuzn't more'n a foot deep but I didn't
throw the trunk in his face), I've discovered this remarkable fact that
this farm the very year of the Louisana Purchase came into the Allen
family by purchase. My great-great-grandfather, Hatevil Allen, bought it
of Ohbejoyful Gowdey, and the papers wuz signed the very day the other
momentous purchase wuz made.

"There wuz fourteen children in the family of old Hatevil, jest as many
as there is States in the purchase they are celebratin' to St. Louis.

"And another wonderful fact old Hatevil Allen paid jest the same amount
for this farm that our Government paid for the Louisiana Purchase."

"Do you mean to tell me, Josiah, that Hatevil Allen paid fifteen
millions for this farm. Will you tell me that? You, a member of the
meetin' house and a deacon?"

"Well, what you might call the same, it is the same figgers with the six
orts left out. Great-granther Allen paid fifteen dollars for this piece
of land, it wuz all woods then."

"Another of these most remarkable series of incidents that have ever
took place on this continent, Thomas Jefferson wuz a main actor in the
Louisana Purchase. He has left this spear some years ago, and who, who
is the father of Thomas Jefferson to-day?"

I didn't say nothin', for I wuz engrossed in my knittin', I wuz jest
turnin' the heel of his sock and needed my hull mind.

"And," sez he, smitin' his breast agin, "I ask you, Samantha, who is the
father of Thomas Jefferson to-day?"

I had by this time turned the heel and I sez, "Why, I spoze he's got the
same father now he always had, children don't change their fathers very
often as a general thing."

"Well, you needn't be so grumpy about it. Don't you see that these
wonderful coincidences are enough to apall a light-minded person. Why,
I, even I with my cast iron strength of mind, have almost felt my brain
stagger and reel as I onraveled the momentous affair.

"And I am plannin' a celebration, Samantha, that will hist up the name
of Allen where it ort to be onto the very top of Fame's towerin' pillow,
and keep it in everlastin' remembrance.

"And I, Samantha," and here he smote himself agin in the breast, "I,
Josiah Allen, havin' exposed these circumstances, the most remarkable in
American history, I lay out to name my show the Exposition of Josiah
Allen. And I've thought some times that in order to mate mine with the
St. Louis show, as you may say, I'd mebby ort to call myself St.
Josiah."

"Saint Josiah!" sez I, and my axent wuz that icy cold that he shivered
imperceptibly and added hastily, "Well, we will leave that to the future
to decide."

"But," sez he firmly, spruntin' up agin, "if the nation calls on me to
name myself thus I shall respond, and expose myself at my Exposition as
Saint Josiah."

Sez I anxiously, "I wouldn't expose myself too much, Josiah. You
remember the pa that took his weak-minded child to the ball, and told
him to set still and not speak or they would find him out.

"And they asked him question after question and he didn't say a word,
and finally they begun to scoff at him and told him he wuz a fool, and
he called out, 'Father, father, they've found me out.'"

Josiah sez snappishly, "What you mean by bringin' that old chestnut up I
cant see."

"Well," sez I, "I shan't sew the moral on any tighter." But he kep' on
ignorin' my sarcastick allusion.

"To keep up the train of almost miraclous incidents marchin' along
through the past connecting the St. Louis and the Allen Purchase like
historical twins, I'm goin' to spend on the Exposition of Josiah Allen
jest the amount paid for the other original purchase, and I may, for
there is no tellin' what a Allen may do when his blood is rousted up, I
may swing right out and pay jest the same amount St. Louis is payin' for
her Exposition."

"Fifty millions!" sez I with emotions of or--or to think I had a pardner
that would tell such a gigantic falsehood, and instinctively I thought
of a story I'd hearn Thomas Jefferson tell the evenin' before.

He said three commercial travelers wuz talkin' before an old man from
the country whose loose fittin' clothes were gently scattered with
hay-seed. The first one told with minute particulars of a Western
cyclone that had lifted a house and sot it down in a neighborin'
township. The next one said that he wuz knowin' to the circumstances and
how the cyclone swep back and brought the suller and sot it down under
the house. And the third one remembered vividly how the cyclone went
back the second time and brought the hole the suller left and
distributed it round under the new site.

The old man listened with deep interest, and said he wuz glad he'd had
the privelige of hearin' 'em, for their talk had cleared up a Bible
verse he'd long pondered over.

They wuz astounded to think their talk had awakened religious
meditations. But the old gentleman said their conversation had cleared
up that passage where it said:

"Annanias come forth."

He said it wuz now plain to him that it meant that these three drummers
should stand before Annanias, the Prince of Liars, he takin' his place
behind 'em, the fourth in the rank of liars.

But this is neither here or there I only mention it as comin' into my
mind instinctively and onbeknown to myself as I hearn Josiah Allen's
remark, it came and went, as thoughts will, like a lightning flash, even
as I wuz repeatin' the words agin in wonderment and horrow.

"Fifty million dollars!"

"No, I said to you, Samantha, that in our conversation we would leave
out the orts, fifty dollars wuz what I meant. But as I said this is what
I've thought when my brain wuz fired with ambition and glory of histin'
the name of Allen up where it ort to be and will be. But when my blood
has quieted down and I took a dispassionate view of the affair I have
thought it would be more in keepin' with the old traditions of the Allen
family, to spend jest fifteen, I can do a noble job with Uncle Sime's
help and Ury's, with exactly the same sum that wuz paid for these
purchases."

I see he wuz jest bound to ignore the millions. But I knowed it wouldn't
do any good to keep twittin' him of it. And then he went on to describe
more fully the Exposition of Josiah Allen that he'd been plottin' for
weeks and weeks. He said that he and uncle Sime had used up two hull
pads of writin' paper at a cost of five cents each, plannin' and
figurin'. But he didn't begrech the outlay, he said. He wuz layin' out
to have the lower paster used as a tentin' ground for the hull Allen
race, and the Gowdeys if he decided they wuz worthy to jine in, he
hadn't settled on that yet. The cow paster wuz to be used for
Equinomical and Agricultural displays and also Peaceful Industries and
Inventions, and the lane leadin' up to the barn from the lower paster he
laid out to use as a Pike for all sorts of amusements, pitchin' quaits,
bull-in-the-barnyard, turnin' hand-springs and summer sets, etc., etc.

Sez I coldly, "It would draw quite a crowd to see you and Deacon Gowdey
standin' on your two old bald heads turnin' a summer set."

"Oh, I laid out to have younger people in such thrillin' seens, Ury and
others." And then he went on to describe at length his Peaceful Industry
Show.

I couldn't sot still to hear it only I felt I wanted to know the worst
and cope with it as a surgeon probes to the quick in order to cure.

He thought he could git Aunt Huldy Wood, who wove carpets, to set up her
loom for a few days under the big but-nut tree, and be weavin' there
before the crowds. He said she wuz a peaceful old critter and would show
off well in it. And Bildad Shoecraft, another good-natured creeter, he
could bring his shoe-making bench and be tappin' boots. He could not
only show off but make money at the same time, for he spozed that many a
boot would be wore down to the quick walkin' round viewin' the
attractions. And Blandina Teeter he spozed she could run my sewin'
machine under the sugar maple. And he thought mebby I would set out
under the slippery ellum makin' ginger cookies or fryin' nut-cakes, in
either capacity he said I wuz a study for an artist and would draw
crowds.

"The wife of Josiah Allen fryin' nut-cakes, what a sound it would have
through the world."

"No, Josiah," sez I, "I shan't try to fry nut-cakes in a open lot
without ingregients or fire."

"Well, mebby you'd ruther be one of the attractions of the Pike,
Samantha. I hain't goin' to limit you to one thing. As the pardner of
the originator of this stupengous scheme you are entitled to respect.
There is where Napoleon, the other great actor in these twin dramas,
missed it, he didn't use his wife as he ort to. But jest see the
wonderful similarity in these cases. He had two step-children; the wife
of Josiah had two; I am smaller in statute than my wife; so wuz
Napoleon."

"You spoke of your Peaceful Inventions, Josiah," sez I, wantin' to git
his mind off, for truly I begun to fairly feel sick to the stomach to
hear his talk about himself and the Great Conqueror.

"Oh, yes, Samantha, that in itself will be worth double the price of
admission."

"Then you expect to ask pay, Josiah?"

"Certainly, why not? Do they not ask pay at the twin celebration?

"But you spoke of inventions; I shall let the rest of the Allens show
off. Lots of 'em have invented things, but of course my inventions will
rank number one. There is my button on the suller door I cut it out of
an old boot leg. Who ever hearn of a leather button before, and it works
well if you don't want to fasten the door tight. Then there is that self
actin' hen-coop of mine that lets a stick fall down and shuts the door
when the hen walks up the ladder."

"But no hen has ever clim the ladder yet, Josiah."

"No, perhaps they hain't yet, but I'm expectin' to see 'em every day,
'tennyrate paint that coop a bright red and yaller and it will attract a
crowd.

"And then there is that travelin' rat trap of brother Henzy's, you know
his grandmother wuz an Allen, I shall mayhap let him appear. And then
there is all my farmin' implements and the rest of the Allen's I lay out
to be just to all, and let 'em all come and show off in my Agricultural
show.

"But of course there has got to be a head to it; Napoleon wuz the head
of the other Purchase, and I'm the head of this. In short, Samantha, I
am _It_."

Oh, how full of pride and vain glory he wuz, and I knowed such feelin's
would have to be brung down for his spiritual good. I realized it as he
went on,

"I tell you, Napoleon and I would have made a span, Samantha, if he
could been spared till now."

Oh how shamed I wuz to hear such talk, but I sot demute for reasons
named, and he sez agin, "I thought mebby you would want to be one of the
attractions of the Pike, Samantha; I lay out to have livin' statutes
adornin' the side of the lane leadin' up from the beaver medder to the
horse trough."

"Livin' statutes!" sez I, coldly, "I don't know what you mean by them."

[Illustration]

"Why, I thought for a few cents I could git a lot of children and old
folks to be white-washed for a day or two and pose as statutes. It would
be a new thing and a crackin' good idee, for livin' statutes that can
wink, and bow, and talk, and walk round some, I don't believe wuz ever
hearn on before."

"No indeed," sez I, "but I can tell you, Josiah Allen, I've played many
strange parts in the role of life at your request, but I tell you once
for all I shall never, _never_ be whitewashed and set up for a statute,
you can set your mind to rest on that to once."

"Mebby you'd ruther be a Historical Tabloo, Samantha; I lay out to have
beautiful ones, and I thought I wouldn't confine myself to the States,
but would branch out and have the foreign nations represented
figuratively.

"A naval battle between Russia and Japan would draw; if I could fix some
floats on the creek my stun boat could represent Russia, and Deacon
Huffer's Japan, I jest as lives mine would be blowed up and sunk as not,
'tain't good for much. And if I did have that I would have the Russian
Bear set on the shore growlin', and the Powers furder back lookin'
pleasantly on. You might be a Power, Samantha, if you wuzn't a female."

"No, thank you, Josiah, I don't hanker after the responsibility for good
or evil that ort to hang onto a Power."

"I'd be the Russian Bear myself, Samantha, with our old buffalo robe,
only I've got everything else to do; I could grasp holt of things and
squeeze 'em tight and growl and paw first rate."

"I wouldn't try to take that Russian Bear's job of graspin' and growlin'
and pawin' onto me, Josiah, if I wuz in your place; it would tucker
anybody out."

"The Eagle of France," sez he dreamily, "could be represented in reduced
form, as artists say, by Solomon Bobbett's old Bramy rooster with some
claws tied on. And Scotland, the land knows there is thistles enough
along the cow path to represent her if they're handled right. And for
Ireland I might have two fellers fightin' with shelalays, Ury could make
the shelalays if he had a pattern."

I knit away with a look of cold mockery on my face that I spose worried
him, for he sez, "I wish I could git you interested in my show,
Samantha. Mebby you'd want to represent Britanny scourin' the blue seas,
you always thought so much of the Widder Albert. You could enact it in
the creek where the water is shaller. You've got a long scrubbin' brush,
I always thought you looked some like Britanny, and you do scrub and
scour so beautiful, Samantha."

"No, Josiah, you'll never git me into that scrape, not but what Britanny
may need help with her scrubbin' brush. But I shan't catch my death cold
makin' a fool of myself by tacklin' that job."

"Oh, you could wear my rubber boots. But I shall not urge the matter, I
only thought we two countries are such clost friends and I wanted you to
have the foremost character, but I can probable git someone else to
enact it. But the strain is fearful on me, Samantha, to have everything
go on as it should."

His looks wuz strange. I could see that he wuz all nerved up, and his
mind (what he had) wuz all wrought up to its highest tension; I knowed
what happened when the tension to my sewin' machine wuz drawed too
tight--it broke. And my machine wuz strong in comparison to some other
things I won't mention out of respect to my pardner. I felt that I must
be cautious and tread carefully if I would influence him for his good,
so I brought forth the argument that seldom failed with him, and sez I:

"If I hadn't no other reason for jinin' in these doin's, cookin' has got
to be done and how can a statute or a Historical Tabloo bile potatoes
and brile steak and make yeast emptin's bread perked up on a pedestal or
posin' in the creek, and you know, Josiah, that no matter how fur
ambition or vain glory may lead a man, his appetite has got to be
squenched, and vittles has got to be cooked else how can he squench it."

And to this old trustworthy weepon I held in all his different plans to
inviggle me into his preposterous idees and found it answered better
than reason or ridicule. But even this failed to break up his crazy
plan. His hull mind (what he had) wuz sot on it.




CHAPTER II.


I felt dretful and how I wuz goin' to break it up and git his mind off I
couldn't tell; I talked it over with the children. They wuz goin' to be
mortified to death by the idee if carried out and they told me in
confidence and the woodhouse kitchen, "It must be stopped!"

And I sez, "How is it goin' to be stopped? I've handled every weepon I
know how to lay holt on. I've pompied him, cooked the very best of
vittles, argued with him, eppisoded, but all to no use, he's as sot as a
hen turkey on a brick bat, and I've got to the end of my chain."

Sez Tirzah Ann, "Have you tried readin' historical novels to him?"

"No," sez I, "I don't dast to be _too_ hash with him, your pa's health
hain't what it wuz, I dassent take too hash measures."

Sez she, "Have you tried readin' poetry?"

"Yes," sez I, "I have read Pollock's Course of Time most through to him,
and the biggest heft of 'Paradise Lost,' and I read the last named with
deep feelin', I can tell you."

"Didn't it do any good?"

"Not a mite," sez I. "He would choke me off in the soarinest passages to
boast about some crazy side-show at his Exposition."

Tirzah Ann sithed and sez, "I don't know what can be done."

Thomas J. is more practical and sez, "Can't you git his mind on some
work? Hain't there sunthin' that ort to be done round the farm? Or in
the house?"

"Id'no," sez I. "He can't plow or reap in February or pick gooseberries
or wash sheep. But I know what ort to be done in the house, I tried my
best to git him at it in the fall, I do want a furnace and hot water
pipes put in to heat the house. We most freeze these cold days, and it
is too much for your pa when Ury is away to tend to the fires."

"That's just the thing!" sez Thomas J., "get him interested in that and
he will forgit all about the Allen Exposition by the time it is done."

But I sez in a discouraged way, "If I couldn't git him at it in the fall
Id'no how I'm goin' to now."

"But it is worth tryin'," sez Thomas J., "for his scheme must be broke
up, and if you git your furnace in now it will be all ready for another
fall."

"Well," sez I, "I can try." And so I begun that very night on a new
tact, or ruther the old tact in a new way, I told him how sot Thomas J.
wuz on our havin' a furnace and hot water pipes put in.

Josiah thinks his eyes of his only son, and I see it kinder moved him,
but he wouldn't give his consent, and sez:

"What do you want hot water pipes and a furnace for in the summer?"

Sez I pintin' to the snowy fields, "Do you call this summer, Josiah? And
Thomas J. sez it will be so nice to have it all ready in the fall. And I
do wish, Josiah, you would hear to me."

"Well, well, I am hearin' you, hain't I, and been hearin' for a year
back, I hain't deef as an adder!" And he jammed his hat down over his
ears and went to the barn. But there wuz a sort of a waverin' expression
to his linement that made me have hopes.

Well, when I had, with the children's help and an enormous expenditure
of good vittles and eloquence, brought him round to the idee, I found I
had another trial worse than the first to contend with. Instead of
hirin' a first rate workman who knew his bizness, he wuz bound, on
account of cheapness, to hire a conceited creeter who thought he could
do anything better than anyone else could.

He knew how to milk, Jabez Wind did, and how to clean stables, and
plough and hoe corn. But he felt he could do plumbin' better than them
who had handled plumbs for years. And when I see Josiah wuz sot on
hirin' him to do the job I felt dretful, for he wuz no more fit for it
than our brindle cow to do fine sewin', or our old steer to give music
lessons on the banjo. He wuz a creeter I never liked, always tryin' to
invent sunthin' and always failin. But Josiah insisted on havin' him
because he wuz so much cheaper.

And I sez, "You'll sup sorrow yet, Josiah Allen, with your tendency to
save and scrimp. Jabez Wind don't know nothin' about such work; he
hain't got any shop or tools and I don't want him meddlin' round my
house. We want the rooms warmed good and we don't want a big noise and
racket, as I've hearn they make sometimes, I couldn't stand it with such
noise and cracklin' goin' on day and night."

"Oh," sez Josiah, "that's one great beauty of Jabezeses invention, it is
perfectly noiseless, not a murmur or gurgle from one year's end to the
other, and so easy to tend. Jest twice a year, he sez, to put a pail of
water in the upper tank, two pails of water a year to insure summer
warmth, no dirt, no noise, not much like luggin' in wood from mornin'
till night, breakin' your back cuttin' and splittin' it and litterin' up
the house."

The idee of the perfect stillness did tempt me, I so love comfort and
quiet, and also not havin' to sweep up after chips and kindlin' wood.
But yet how did we know these things wuz so? And agin I sez, "How do you
know he can do all this? He hain't got any tools."

Sez Josiah, "He's got idees if he hain't got tools. A man can borry
tools, but he can't dicker for such idees as Jabez has got. See the
things he's undertook."

Sez I, "Anybody can undertake things; his idees hain't made him rich or
famous. That air ship of hisen he wuz goin' to sail to Europe on, rared
up and spilt him in his uncle's back yard. And his automobile, when he
sot off on it and headed it for the road it backed up and took him down
that steep hill back of the barn into the creek, where it kep on
ploughin' up dirt and slate stuns till his uncle stopped it by main
force and lifted Jabez out from under it drippin' like a water rat. And
his machine for perpetual motion, his ma uses it now for clothes bars,"
sez I. "What has he ever done to merit your encomiums?"

"Well," sez he, "he's bound to succeed this time. His idees are some
like the hardware man's at Jonesville only Jabez'es are more deep and
not nigh so expensive." I never liked Jabez Wind and shouldn't if I'd
seen him settin' swingin' his legs off the very top of Fame's pillow. He
wuz oncongenial to me, made so from the beginin'. I never knew any
particular hurt of him, but he seemed so much like his own sir name, so
puffed up and onsubstantial. He wuz middlin' well off to start with, or
his ma wuz, but he had used up all her property in his different
enterprises.

Now I dote on inventors, they wear a halo in my partial eyes. They're
the greatest men of our day, and I mentally kneel at their feet, but
gold always has counterfeits. The real inventor, made by the Deity to
carry out his plans, is modest, silent, broodin' over his great secrets,
away from the multitude where angels minister to him. But Jabez wuz
loud, boastin', arrogant, his pert impudent face proclaimin' the great
things he wuz goin' to do, but never did. He wuz in love, too, or what
he called love, with a girl that wuz a prime favorite of mine, sweet
little Rosamond Nickleson, she and I wuz such great friends she often
used to come and stay a week at a time with me.

When Jabez Wind came to Jonesville, Rosy wuz about the same as engaged
to a good sensible young farmer, Royal Nelson, who lived three milds
above Jonesville on the old stage road. He wuz a stiddy, likely young
man, who owned a nice farm well stocked, wuz good lookin', good
appearin', but ruther bashful and retirin', which made him some times in
company a little awkwud in his manners, and most offish where he wanted
to please most. But he had a good mind, and his heart wuz pure gold, and
he loved Rosy with the deep earnest love, such undemonstrative men often
cherish for the one woman in the world for them. His calm gray eyes
would light up with the pure light of deathless love when they rested on
the sweet face of little Rosy. And he wuz always tryin' to help her in
some way, lookin' out for her interest, he seemed to love to protect and
wait on her in a way that argued well for the future, but mebby it wuz
this constant and almost slavish devotion that made her slight him, she
had got so used to his stiddy love that she didn't appreciate it as
she'd ort to.

He had paid attention to Rosy for most three years. I thought mebby he
wuz such a manly chap he didn't want to hurry her, she wuz so young, but
everybody spozed they wuz as good as engaged when Jabez Wind come to
Jonesville to live with his uncle, old Kellup Wind. He lost his wife,
and Miss Wind, his brother's widder, come to keep house for him and
brung Jabez with her. I hurn it wuz the bargain she wuz to have two
dollars a week and Jabez'es board. That showed me what he wuz, a young
man twenty-five years old hangin' on to his mother's apron strings to
support him, or ruther hangin' onto her hard workin' fingers, she wuz a
good housekeeper.

Well, Jabez made such a splurge in the social pool of Jonesville
society, he made such florid eloquent boasts of the wonderful things he
wuz goin' to do in the near future; his clothes wuz so showy, and his
looks so showy (shaller I called it), with beady shiny black eyes, red
cheeks, mustache and whiskers naturally red like his hair, but dyed
black, and he played the fiddle so sweet, the girls said, and he sung
comic songs so bea-eu-ti-ful, and he danced so light that he become a
general favorite in Jonesville society and the girls all seemed to seek
after him. But from the first he singled out Rosy as the object of his
special patronizin' affection. She wuz well off, her pa left her a good
property in money besides bein' so pretty and good herself.

And she, girls are so queer, the best of 'em, from the very fact that
his affection wuz so patronizin' and down stoopin' to her, and kinder
oncertain, for onlike Royal he would have spells of slightin' her and
waitin' on other girls, why mebby for this very reason she seemed to be
carried some distance away with him, and believed all his grand idees
and looked forward to the realization of his stupendious schemes, high
soundin' schemes, which had took him no furder than the middle of the
creek and his uncle's back yard.

His uncle didn't believe in him no more than I did, but stood it with
him on account of Karen, bein' a man that loved domestic comfort, and
havin' lived in dirt, on pan-cakes and canned meats durin' different
rains of incompetence materialized in hired girl form, before Karen
come. But Karen worshipped Jabez, his highest mounts of future eminence
seemed too low for his footstool in her adorin' eyes, somehow the very
loftiness of his airs to her, his own mother who supported him and
bought his clothes, seemed to render him more precious in her eyes.
Wimmen are queer, queer as dogs.

Well, Jabez knew I wuz onwillin' to have him tackle the job of warmin'
our house with his new water pipe invention, because I had spoke my mind
about it when he and Karen had been over to spend the evenin', and Karen
come over the next mornin' ostensibly to borry a cup of molasses, she
wuz lookin' wore out, she'd worked so hard the day before, doin' a big
washin' and bringin' the water from the creek, and I sez, "Why didn't
Jabez bring it for you?"

"Oh, he wuz so busy with his inventions I couldn't bear to disturb him,"
sez she, holdin' her hand to her achin' side, "my son is the greatest
genius in the world and folks will admit it yet, he's a young man of a
thousand."

Sez I, "I should think more on him, Karen, if he should go to work and
take care of you instead of you at your age workin' so hard to take care
of him."

She married when she wuz quite well along in years and wuz gittin' old
now and hadn't ort to work so hard. But her pale face lit up, "Oh, he
will take care of me luxuriously when he's completed some of his
inventions."

"But," sez I pityin'ly, "you know they hain't worked yet, any on 'em.
You hung your washin' yesterday on the remains of his Perpetual Motion,
and his motor carriage bein' dug up from the creek, his uncle uses it as
a hen coop."

"Oh, but they will be successful, they will."

"I hope so, but I feel it my duty to tell you that I feel dubersome
about it, dretful dubersome."

"But," sez she, "the New Perpetually Gushing Hot Water Tank is goin' to
make us independently rich. He's takin' the plans now of Luman Heath's
kitchen stove and riggin' up the machinery; Luman is to pay him
lavishly, you know Luman's wife is my own cousin."

I see how it wuz, Karen's friends, to please her, wuz willin' to offer
up their sure comforts and solid foundations as a sacrifice on the altar
of friendship and the thought come over me, mebby I'd ort to. But it did
seem as if I couldn't.

Sez Karen, "If it is a success at cousin Luman's, as it is dead sure to
be, Jabez is goin' to take it to the St. Louis Exposition."

"He thinks the foreign powers will want to treat with him for it. But I
told him I would ruther he would let our Government have it. But
'tennyrate he won't let the Powers git the better of him in the contract
and control it and enrich themselves at his expense. He will get his
onparelled idees patented before he takes it to St. Louis, it wouldn't
be safe not to. I spoze the papers will be full of it."

Such talk didn't seem to move me a mite, but it impressed Josiah
dretfully and he sez, "I shall have this new invention stand next to my
hen coop at the Exposition of St. Josiah."

I shuddered and turned the subject round quick as I could. Well, Karen
labored with me over two hours, dwellin' in particular on the perfect
stillness of the heatin' apparatus, and agin as before that thought
tempted me awfully, for I'd hearn the cracklin' snappin' sounds that
sometimes comes from steam heat and dreaded to have it reproduced in my
home, and seein' my looks Karen amplified on the idee, How sweet it
would be in December to set down in a rockin' chair in the still warmth
of a day in July and go through the winter in that luxurious lovely way.
She talked till she had to go home almost on the run, for she said
Jabez'es mind worked so hard it exhausted his body completely so she had
to have the most nourishin' food ready for him at the very minute or he
would break right down. But to the last she praised up Jabez'es work.
But I wouldn't say a encouragin' word furder than this, "I feel
dubersome about it, Karen, dretful dubersome."

That afternoon Rosy come over to stay all night, and she too tackled me
on the subject. He had asked her to, always hangin' onto some woman for
help. But with her too I used the same tick-tacks I had with Karen, I
said mildly after each modest plea for his great genius, and how well he
would do the work, "I feel dubersome about it, Rosy, dretful dubersome."

Then she, too, sweetly spoke of the summer warmth, and the entire
absence of noise, and agin that thought tempted me, but I sez, "How do
you know, Rosy, that it will be entirely noiseless?"

"Oh, I know it will, Jabez sez so. He is sure to succeed, and it will
help him so to have your influence, he expects to publish a book of the
greater eulogies from noted people on this new invention, and he intends
to have your name head the list. When you say this perfectly noiseless
machine heats your house too warm in the coldest weather, what a help it
will be to him, and your name will be first," she repeated agin.

"He'd better have the President and Cabinet come first," sez I dryly,
dry as a chip in dog days.

"No, he spoke about that, but thought he would have them come next to
yours, and I approved of it," sez she affectionately, "and so did his
ma.

"He will git out the book as soon as he comes home from the St. Louis
Exposition with all the big eulogies he gits there on his inventions."

I groaned to myself and got up quick and went into the buttery and took
a drink of cold water, I felt so kinder sickish. Well at modest
intervals she would politely and gently tackle me about it, at the table
and while she wuz washin' dishes, but I held firm, though very
considerate and tender to her. I mogulated my axent low and gentle and
looked mild at her over my specs, as I washed and she wiped, but my
words wuz ever the same.

"I feel dubersome about it, Rosy, dretful dubersome."

At last Josiah's temper riz up and he vowed he wouldn't dally any
longer, sez he, "I earned this money by the sweat of my brow and I'm
goin' to use it as I'm a minter, and I'm a minter have these water pipes
put in by Jabez Wind." (He got the money by sellin' a colt, Id'no as
there wuz any great sweat about it).

But he wuz bound to have it done, and he did. And for reasons named I
dassent cross him too fur and put my foot right down on the plan. And
the children sez, "Better anything, mother, than his celebration. If he
don't tear the house down over your head let him go on." (_Let him_! I
guess I _had_ to let him.)

Jabez come on with all his riggin'. He'd borrowed tools of the hardware
man at Zoar, another of Karen's cousins, and obtained the furnace and
pipes on credit, I spozed.

I made all the preparations I could in case of disaster. Took up the
carpets in that part of the house, took down the curtains and moved the
furniture, used all the precautions I could to escape with life and limb
if possible, and insure the safety of my dear but misguided pardner, and
then I sot down in the parlor bedroom, the furthest I could git without
goin' upstairs, and let the tide of events sweep by me or sweep me away,
and I didn't know which it would be. I had to be downstairs anyway, for
(though Philury helped), I had to stand with my hand on the hellum, so
to speak, and see to everything. What made it worse, too, it come on the
coldest snap we'd had all winter.

Well, one of the main arguments by Jabez and Josiah wuz the speed with
which this work wuz to be accomplished. The hull thing wuz to be done
and we settin' down fannin' ourselves inside of three days, but for over
four weeks our house wuz a perfect pandemonium of noise and confusion.

Iron pipes lay round in every direction, screws and vises, nuts and
hammers, wrenches and irons of all shapes and descriptions strewed the
house from top to bottom, and ashes, dirt and dust wuz rampant, and
Jabez rennin' up and down stairs, to and fro, talkin' loud about what a
success he wuz makin' of it and how everything wuz workin' jest as he
wanted it to, and boasted in particular every time he come acrost me,
ashakin' with the cold, how perfectly still and noiseless it wuz goin'
to be, and how luxurious and almost enervatin' would be the warmth. And
I sez, rubbin' my cold hands and pullin' my heavy woolen shawl closter
round me, "It would be a little different than it is now if it wuz
still, or if it wuz warm." And agin I shivered in the frigid air and
sez:

"You guaranteed we wouldn't be torn up here over three days, and it wuz
four weeks yesterday."

"That is because I have took such extra precautions to have it perfectly
noiseless. Never," sez he impressively, "from one year's end to the
other will you ever hear a sound from that apparatus, not the least
murmur or echo of a sound."

"Well, I hope not," sez I, "and I hope to gracious it will be finished
some time, for I'm most freezin' and Josiah is takin' cold, as I can
see."

"No I hain't nuther," sez Josiah, his voice soundin' real wheezy and
husky out from under his heavy wool comforter.

Sez I, "You be cold, Josiah Allen, your nose is blue this minute."

"Well, what if it is! I always liked that color anyway, I'd ruther have
it blue that red as madder," sez he glancin' at my most prominent
feature.

Sez I, "It is the bitter cold that has turned our noses, Josiah Allen,
and when is it goin' to end?"

"It is going to end to-morrow mornin', at seven A.M. we start the fire,
and then," sez he proudly, "I will set down in perfect summer heat, calm
and happy, and you, too." For I spoze my oncomplainin' misery appealed
to his latent manhood; and it had been latent in him for some time. But
he wuz driv most beyend his strength, and the cold wuz almost Klondikey,
I could make allowance for him. Well, the next day passed, and the next
and the next, and finally, jest four weeks and four days after he had
guaranteed to have it finished, Jabez hautily announced, and Josiah
proudly proclaimed, a fire could be started. Karen wanted to be with us
in the first trial of the heat, so she appeared on the seen, so
triumphant and overjoyed it fairly made her worn haggard face look
considerable brighter.

Rosy had come to spend the day and stay all night, invited by Karen to
witness her son's triumph. But I onbeknown to anybody, feelin' I needed
a strong arm and cool brain to depend on, had beset Royal Nelson to come
and stand by me that day and night, I didn't say Rosy wuz to be there
for fear he wouldn't come, for I could see by his white cheeks and sad,
yet cool lookin' eyes, that he'd about gin her up. He said to once that
he would come, and his sad eyes kinder laughed as he added, "I will
stand by you in your affliction."

Well, Jabez, with his face gay and joyous and his tongue waggin',
weighted down with big, boastful words, headed the procession down
suller; Josiah and Ury filled up the furnace and built the fire, Jabez
seemin'ly willin' they should do the work, he's so lazy. Rosy, Karen and
I remained upstairs, Philury and I tryin' to mop and sweep up some of
the dirt, and before long I hearn a buggy drive up, and see it wuz Royal
Nelson, and in a few minutes he come in lookin' solid and reliable as
ever.

Well, the upper tank had been filled, and at the welcome news the fire
wuz beginnin' to burn bright we all went upstairs watchin' to see the
grateful heat come up, and some of our hands wuz on the pipes every
minute, when a low hollow rumblin' wuz hearn down in the suller, growin'
louder and louder every minute till it got to be perfectly terrific, and
Jabez run down there, his coat tails almost layin' level in his haste,
and Josiah most fallin' over him, and Royal follerin' on more tranquil
lookin' but excited all through I could see.

Ury stayed by us a spell, but as the deep hollow noise strengthened to a
loud roar, accompanied by a strange rushin', gurglin' sound, comin'
nearer and nearer, he seized Philury by the arm and rushed her outdoors
through the snow, not stoppin' till they got to the barn, then he leggo
of her and stood in the barn door to reconnoiter. It wuz a awful and
skairful seen. I couldn't blame Ury, but like Sara of old, I felt that I
must stay by my stuff, and Rosy and Karen hung to each other, and both
hung onto me, all on us tremblin' like three popple leaves.

Finally, jest as the three men come hurryin' back into the room to
rescue or die with us I spoze, the boilin' water gin a louder, angrier
roar, and riz up out of the tank three feet into the air and poured and
steamed and deluged all over the floor. Well wuz it I took up the
carpet. But Josiah Allen, to prove he feared no danger, had insisted on
leavin' the dressin' gown he worshipped hangin' up in the clothes press
where the tank wuz. Alas! alas! as he brung it out drippin' and steamin'
from the fiery bath, where wuz the once gay colors? Them tossels and red
palm leaves on yeller ground that had so lately been the light of his
eyes and desire of his heart? Who could tell which wuz palm leaves and
which wuz yeller ground? And as for the red tossels, their glory had
departed forever. Josiah groaned aloud as he bore it out leavin' a
watery wake of red and yeller all the way to the kitchen, where I
follered him and told him, so strong is woman's love in the hour of
trouble, "Dear Josiah, I am sorry for you, but I told you jest how it
would be."

He dashed it onto the floor and hollered out, "You didn't tell me
nothin' about it! you never said the word dressin' gown! and I'd like to
know what you're sorry about, it is nothin', only a valve has bust or
sunthin'."

"Yes," sez I sadly, "I guess it is a sunthin'." Here he kicked aginst
the suller door so hard one of the panels has been shaky to this day,
and run down there, Jabez follerin' him, while I seized a dipper and a
twelve quart pail and hurried up to the flooded deestrick, which we
commenced to bail out like a sinkin' boat, Royal, Karen and Rosy helpin'
me, and Ury havin' his first fears squenched by the overflow of water
(which he expected he said would blow off the hull ruff and top story of
the house), he and Philury laid to and helped.




CHAPTER III.


Well, Jabez said it wuz the sudden change from cold to hot water that
had caused the overflow, so we put the biler on the kitchen stove and
the caldron kettle in the woodhouse, and het water bilin' hot and filled
the empty tank, Josiah groanin' loud as he lugged it up and sayin' when
he thought I didn't hear him, "Oh, gracious Heavens! is this two pails a
year?"

Then we all gathered in the front chamber agin watchin' events to come,
Jabez boastin' louder than ever how like a charm it would work, and
Karen opholdin' him. But Josiah looked anxious as I could see. When agin
that loud angry roar begun in the suller, and agin Ury ketched Philury
round the waist, for she wanted to stand her ground, but he yanked her
down stairs and half way acrost the back yard. He loves her dearly and
thinks it a man's place to protect his pardner. He didn't go so fur this
time, but had almost onbeknown to himself sought safety for his dear
Philury in flight.

Agin Jabez and Josiah and Royal rushed down suller. The dretful roar
ended in a higher more steaminer volume of water than before, agin we
laid to and bailed it out, our ranks bein' reinforced anon by the
returnin' Ury and Philury, and anon furder by Josiah, Royal, and Jabez.
Jabez didn't boast quite so loud now, and I wuz glad to see that Rosy
kinder cuddled up closter to Royal as she wielded the dipper, as if she
thought him a refuge in time of storm.

Well, from that time, about three in the afternoon, till ten P.M. the
programmy wuz stidy over and over. Fillin' the tank, low snortin' and
rushin' of the waters up and down, chasin' along the pipes in every
room, hammerin', kickin', shootin', like enraged artillery, at last
thundering like the most skairful clap of thunder and then with a
fearful roar the volume of water would mount up and pour into the spare
room and drizzle down into the settin' room below, takin' off the
plasterin' in spite of our very best efforts to bail it out. Over and
over agin wuz the wearisome and soul tuckerin' job carried out, varied
every time by Ury ketchin' Philury and fleein' with her, but the
distance shortened every time, till at last he fled with her no furder
than the top of the kitchen stairs. Karen's horrow struck, mortified
looks, Jabez'es entire absence of boastin', which in itself wuz dog
queer, and Rosy's instinctive turning to Royal for protection, which wuz
gladly granted.

Over and over the seen wuz enacted, Jabez every time turnin' some screw
or valve or sunthin' and prophesyin' every time it would go right the
next time, but said it with feathers droopin', so to speak, more humble
like and doubtful. My poor pardner as he lugged up two heavy pails of
water at half-past nine P.M., I hearn him say:

"Oh, gracious, Peter! is this two pails a year? This makes more'n a
hundred pails I've carried up to-night myself besides Ury's and
Jabezs'es." It wuzn't so, he hadn't carried up more'n thirty or forty
twelve quart pails. But yet I pitied him. Well, that also thundered and
deluged and guyzered out onto the floor accompanied by the drips and
drizzles into the settin' room, Ury's flight with Philury, Karen's
mourns, and Josiah's groans, for he had lost his pride and openly
groaned and jawed at Jabez and sez to him:

"You dum fool you! you don't know beans from a broom stick! I wouldn't
trust you to make splinters to do up a dog's leg!" And Jabez jawed back
again, and Josiah sez, "I'll make you pay heavy damages for this job,
and I've as good a mind as I ever had to eat, to give you a good
floggin' with a rawhide." And as he grew madder and madder he went on:

"This is your perfectly noiseless apparatus is it?" sez he pintin' down
towards the thunderin' roar, "this is your summer heat, hain't it?"
pintin' to the shiverin' crowd. "This is your freedom from
labor-two-pails-a-year job! one hundred pails of water have I lugged
upstairs to-night if I have a pint! Now," sez he, makin' towards him,
"do you start out of this house before I fall on you and rend you."
Karen screamed and rushed between 'em and fell onto Jabez and dragged
him off with her, he seemin' glad to go.

Well, we let the fire go down as low as we could without goin' out, and
went to bed shiverin' and half froze, but with soap stuns and hot-water
bags we made out to git through the night. In the mornin' a sorry seen
greeted us, coldness, discomfort, broken plasterin' and dirt, and no
prospect to all appearance of havin' any better times. The only gleam of
light I could see in the hull prospect wuz that Josiah in his excitement
and wretchedness had seemin'ly forgot that he'd ever mentioned the
Exposition of St. Josiah.

Well, right after breakfast Karen come over lookin' as if she hadn't
slep' a wink and sez she, "Jabez lay awake all night studyin' on it and
he knows now where he made the mistake, he pinted one small lead pipe up
where it ort to been pinted down, he can make it all right in an hour."

Well, Josiah, so sure it is that the hottest love soonest cools, vowed
that Jabez should never step his foot into the house agin. And I wuz
glad enough to see that Rosy agreed with him.

But I wuz naterally made more megum, and thought, any port in a storm,
and a hour won't be much anyway. If we've stood all this dirt and
confusion for five weeks we could stand it a hour longer.

"Well," sez Josiah, "I shall go into the woods for a jag of maple, I
won't see him, I dassent, for I should fall on him and destroy him if I
did."

So he went after a load of maple wood and Jabez come and tinkered and
hammered and pounded and then sayin' with some of his pride returned
into his port:

"It will go now like clock work."

He filled the tank and lit the fire agin with Ury's help. But I wuz glad
enough that Josiah wuz absent, for this time the noise wuz so skairful
that when Ury ketched Philury round the waist and absconded with her, he
didn't stop till they had ploughed through the snow clear past the old
hen house.

I, too, ketched Rosy by the arm and run and stumbled along most to the
barn before I remembered myself and regained my faculties, so to speak,
it wuz so turrible this time the loud, angry, roarin', hissin' noise.

Karen nobly stood by Jabez, who I must say stood by his job in that
respect, but I guess they went out into the hall, I thought I ketched a
glimpse of 'em, as I havin' regained my faculty, run in. We got in jest
after the deluge poured out agin, higher, louder and more steaminer than
ever, and when what few scraps of plaster remained on the settin' room
had fell victims to the bilin' flood. Well, we let the fire go down agin
and cowered over the kitchen stove that day, and agin went shiverin' to
bed. That night the weather moderated, and with a low fire in the
furnace, and the heat from the kitchen stove, we kep' middlin' warm. We
cleaned up the plaster, mopped the floor and wuz comparitively
comfortable for three days. The fourth night the fire in the furnace riz
up onbeknown to us in the night, and the first we knew we wuz waked up
by what we thought a loud clap of thunder overhead, accompanied by a
loud roar, and shakin' of the walls, and Josiah started up in bed and
sez, "Is the house struck, Samantha? Who ever heard of thunder at this
time of year? Or is it a earthquake?"

But I gittin' holt of my conscientiousness quicker than he did, sez,
"Josiah Allen, it is that heatin' apparatus." And to confirm my words we
hearn the angry loud roar and the water splurgin' out over our heads and
drizzlin' down through the laths in the next room. Even as I spoke Rosy
come down stairs in her pretty pink wrapper, and sez she half asleep,
but wholly afraid, "Oh, Aunt Samantha, I do wish Royal was here! what a
fearful time!" sez she.

And if you'll believe it, so onselfish is a woman's heart, even in the
midst of her deepest tribulations, and so kinder sentimental, her words
sent a faint ray of joy over my heart, some like the pale light of a
star shinin' out over a wild western tornado. But before I could reply
Ury come runnin' down stairs holdin' Philury, faithful critter that he
wuz, and Josiah yelled at him: "Do you go over to Kellup Wind's and
bring that cussed fool over here, and if he don't take out that
invention of his under ten minutes I will have the law on him, and whip
him within an inch of his life!"

It wuz half-past three and we all got up, and I got breakfast by lamp
light. Ury come back and said Jabez had been studyin' for the hull of
the last three days and said he wuz absolutely sure now he knew what
ailed it, it wuz the little piece of pipe that led to the tank, it wuz
set in the wrong place, it would take about twenty minutes to fix it so
it would be entirely right. Josiah hollered out, "Be we goin' to be used
by that dum fool to try his experiments on? Let him take it out or I
will take it out and throw it at him!"

But Karen had writ a note to me, pleadin' with me as a sister in the
meetin' house, to let Jabez have this sole chance, and I showed this
note to Josiah and sez, "For Karen's sake mebby we'd better let him try
it."

"For Karen's sake!" he yelled out, "why should we pompey her? It is all
_her_ fault. What did she let him live for when he wuz a babe? She is to
the bottom of it, if it hadn't been for her lettin' him live we
shouldn't be in this state, up at midnight, hungry as bears, cold as
frogs, and our house a wreck!"

But how true it is the noisest grief is soonest squenched. At last he
gin in and Jabez attacked it agin, and tinkered and puttered at it all
day, I watchin' Josiah clost for fear he would surround Jabez and fall
on him and demolish him in his anger. But all the difference his work
made it seemed as if the noise wuz a little louder and the flood more
tumultious and rushin' if it could be tumultiouser and rushiner. And by
my advice Jabez fled out of the suller door and streaked it for home
cross lots, for I feared that my beloved pardner might be led by his
righteous wrath, even into salt and buttery.

Jest as Jabez streaked it home, I watchin' him from the buttery window
and also keepin' my pardner at bey in the milk room, I see a buggy drive
into the yard, and wuz I not glad to see the manly form and calm quiet
face of Royal Nelson. After he drove his handsome span of grays into the
horse barn he come in and I see his linement looked considerable
brighter and happier, brightenin' still more as he met Rosy's sweet
smiles and cordial words.

She wuz sick of Jabez, sick as lobely could make her. And her old love
and leanin' on Royal Nelson had come back in full force. Her fancy for
Jabez had been light and transitory as his sir-name. And as I see their
happy means as they met, I felt that even the wreck and ruin about us
wuz mebby not too dear a price to pay for their future happiness. The
first thing Royal and Ury did, Josiah helpin' 'em, wuz to take out the
furnace and pipes, the hull caboodle on 'em, and then went over to
Jonesville and bought a new furnace and got a good responsible man to
put it in that very day. They telephoned to that hardware man to Zoar to
come and take away the remains of that invention, and how he settled
with Jabez I never knew, for Karen hushed it up, but I know there is a
coldness between 'em and they don't speak.

Well, the places all bein' made in the walls, and this man bein' a good
workman, who had learnt his trade, that night about eight P.M. the hull
job wuz done, and stillness and genial warmth made the place seem almost
like Heaven compared to what it had been. The next day a man come and
plastered overhead, Ury and Philury helped clean the floors and put down
the carpets, and in three day's time everything wuz happy and calm and
quiet, and Josiah wuz beginnin' to recover from the effects of too
voylent wrath upon his nerve.

Our noses had regained their natural color, and on the third day Rosy
with a last warm kiss and sweet smile on me and visey versey went home,
Royal carryin' her in his new covered buggy, drawed by them two handsome
gray horses. They wuz engaged, and their plans all made, they wuz to be
married in the summer and go to the St. Louis Exposition on their
weddin' tower.

And I thought, as I see 'em drive off, happy as a king and queen in the
bright moonlight, how true it is our brightest joys often come through
darkest tribulations. Rosy's and Royal's happiness wuz enough in itself
to pay me abundantly for my tribulations. And then my settin' room new
plastered and Josiah would never consented to tear it off, and it wuz
lumpy and streaked and broken, and here it wuz new plastered over smooth
as glass.

Oh! thinkses I how thankful I ort to be and how I ort to forgit the
troubles of the night in the joys of the mornin'.

And crownin' blessin' of all Josiah had seemin'ly forgot all about the
Exposition of Josiah Allen. He hadn't mentioned it for days and the
children and I wuz full of hope, it wuz broke up. But, alas! in this
world how little you can tell what is broke and what hain't.

And the news Josiah brung home, what comfort there wuz in the thought--I
like Karen and felt to rejoice with her. It seemed that Luman Heath, not
havin' heard of our afflictions, had let Jabez go on with his work the
very next day after he finished here. And the Perpetually Gushing Hot
Water Tank wuz the death blow to Jabez Wind's inventive ambition, and
alas! proved almost the death blow to Luman Heath's beloved ones, the
hull family circle on 'em.

He attached it to the kitchen stove, which wuz a perfect steamer to burn
and heat up. And fixed it so that instead of the hot water goin' acrost
the room to the kitchen sink as he meant to have it, it jest squirted
right up into the air bilin' hot, so they had a perfect fiery geyser
there in their kitchen. Jabez run for his life, it had hit him in the
face.

They wuz Methodist folks with lots of children well brung up and they
never thought of havin' such doin's in their house, but the bilin'
crater pourin' down hot water come so sudden and onexpected onto 'em
that three of the little children wuz scalded most to-death as they sot
on the floor readin' Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." And Luman,
bald-headed, too, the fiery flood descended onto him while he wuz tryin'
to bear his wife, who fell into hystericks, into the settin' room, he
wuz hit on top by the bilin' torrent and blistered right on his bare
head as big as your hand.

He laid his wife down half faintin', told the screamin' children to look
out for her and keep out of the kitchen, hollered for the hired man to
go after a doctor, and fell back into a kind of spazzum. He bein' a good
man who wouldn't swear, or rare round kep in his feelin's more. The
children got over it before he did, bad as they wuz scalded, they
screamed and yelled and let off considerable steam that way. But he wuz
bed sick for weeks holdin' onto his wrath and bein' too good to jaw and
kick Jabez, the doctor said made it worse than if he had kicked some.

But to resoom backwards. The hired girl wuz the coolest of any of 'em,
she went into the kitchen with a waterproof and umbrella, and tried to
turn the nozzle of the Perpetual Gushing Hot Water Tank out-doors, and
havin' to use both hands, and bein' smart and quick witted, she put the
coal scuttle on bottom side up, and though blinded by it and some
scalded, she made out to turn the fury of it out through the kitchen
winder where it steamed and squirted and poured out bilin' water onto
the flower beds and acrost 'em into the road, scaldin' passers by, and
bein' a perfect horrow and mystery to 'em. It wuz big and powerful,
there hain't no doubt of that.

Well, owin' to the hired girl's courage, by the time the doctor got
there the tank wuz emptied, and the torrent had subsided into a drizzle.
Luman Heath didn't prosecute Jabez, bein' such a good man, and how I
honor him for it, how I honor him for not actin' and swearin'. The
doctor may say what he wants to, he wuz noble to bear it as he did. I
have seen kickin' and actin' in times of trial, and how I honor a man
who can refrain, and he got well as quick, I believe, as though he had
acted.

But as I wuz sayin' the greatest relief that come to the community from
our trials wuz as follers. Take it with his doin's at our house and
Luman Heath's, Jabez Wind had evidently had enough of inventions. He
hired out for a year the very next day after the eppisode, to work for
twenty dollars a month on a farm, house rent, wood, and cow furnished.
Kellup Wind is goin' to live with a daughter, and Karen is blissful at
thought of keepin' house for Jabez. Good creeter! I hope she will have a
little rest now. I said I meant to go and see her jest as soon as she
wuz settled.

Well, for two days my feelin's of joy and thankfulness wuz onclouded.
But alas, poor mortals! that plant the flowers of their happiness on
earthly sile, they must see 'em wither before their face and eyes anon
or oftener like Jonah's gourd.

The third day, whilst I wuz settin' happy and calm in my frame in my
warm peaceful settin' room often liftin' my eyes contentedly to the
satin smooth ceilin'.

What wuz my emotions of grief and horrow to see Josiah rise up, haul out
his tin trunk where he'd carefuly stored away the plans of the St.
Josiah Exposition, and go to studyin' 'em agin with renewed vigor,
sayin':

"I hope to gracious I can have my mind clear now to go on and plan my
Exposition; this dum work has set me back turribly."

I let my work fall into my lap and gin vent to some sithes, so deep they
wuz almost groans, whilst the bitter waters of disappintment trickled
over my hopes and drownded 'em out. Had I got to go through another
siege of argument and persuasion and extra vittles? Could my too hard
worked oratory hold out, and also my provisions?

I see the children next day and told 'em how it wuz, that their Pa
seemed more sot on his plan than ever, and talked more excited and
earnest about it than I had ever seen him. For it did seem as if his
deep ambitions dammed up for a time by furnaces and Jabezeses, had broke
loose into a wider, deeper current than ever. He talked incessantly
about it day and night, laid on his plans, and reached out onto new
ones.

The children sez to me agin: "Mother, it must be stopped at all
hazards!"

And agin I wep', and sez to 'em: "How can it be stopped?"

Tirzah Ann looked completely squelched and could do nothin' only weakly
ask: "If I spozed I could git him to play on a accordeon, she kinder
thought that some time she'd hearn of some man, somewhere havin' his
mind soothed by one."

"Accordeon!" sez I. "You couldn't git his mind offen that plan if you
gin him one of the golden harps we read about."

Tirzah Ann subsided, only sayin': "We would all be the town's talk, and
it would probable kill her with mortification."

Thomas J. sot still with his brow knit in deep thought and sez "I will
try one thing more."

I never knew exactly how Thomas J. worked it, or what he paid 'em, but I
know that a day or two after, the prices them livin' statutes asked
Josiah for bein' whitewashed, wuz sunthin' perfectly exorbitant, and so
with the Powers and the Peaceful Inventors. He never could stood it with
his closeness.

Thomas J. didn't appear outwardly, but wuz the power behind the thrones,
so I spoze. When Josiah wuz taxed with these fearful expenses (they writ
it in letters to him) his plan tottled ready to fall. And of course I
stood ready and follered it up with eloquent arguments, tenderness and
the very best of vittles. Neither on 'em could carried the day alone,
but all together conquered. He gin in. The plan tottered over and fell
onto him, and my pardner, to continue the metafor, lay under the ruins
as squshed and mute as if he wuz never goin' to git up agin.

But when his wild emotions of ambition and vanity and display wuz all
broke up a settled melancholy hovered down onto him and draped him like
a black mantilly. He seemed all onstrung, and all my efforts to string
him up agin seemed vain.

I strove to hide my apprehensions under a holler veil of calmness and
even hilarity; I give him catnip with a smile on my lip but deep
forebodin' in my mind, and the same with thoroughwert. But catnip didn't
nip his ambition and thoroughwort wuzn't thorough enough to restore his
cheerfulness.

I encouraged him to go to the lake fishin' with Deacon Henzy, though I'd
suffered more than I had ever told from similar occasions. Deacon Henzy
loves hard cider and keeps a kag on tap durin' the summer, he sez it is
for his liver, but liver or no liver it hain't right.

I hain't goin' to make no insinuations about their doin's though sister
Henzy has approached me on the subject time and agin, she hain't so
clost mouthed as I am. But I will merely say that when they got back
their two breaths didn't smell as two deacon's breaths ort to smell. But
I didn't say nothin' about it outside and shan't, I use tack. I spoke
on't to Josiah at the time, yes indeed I hearn the call of Duty and
obeyed.

But as I wuz sayin', though it trompled on all my feelin's and
forebodin's I urged 'em to go agin and they went. And I shan't tell how
their breaths smelt when they got back--it hain't best, only simply
sayin' that Josiah took an empty pint fruit can with him that mornin'
when he went over to the Deacon's to start, and I never inquired what he
took it for, so fur will a female let even her principles be outraged
when the life of her beloved companion is at the stake--I tried to think
he wuz goin' to take milk in it.

But the small string of tiny fish wuz all he ketched out of the deep
waters, he didn't ketch any cheerfulness or happiness for himself or me,
only disappintment and shagrin for I felt if I didn't use all my tack
mebby the meetin' house would try to set down on him. Two deacons! the
very idee on't!

But I kep' mum and dressed the fish myself and fried 'em in butter, only
hopin' I wouldn't lose 'em in the fryin' pan, but Josiah didn't seem to
relish 'em no better than he would side pork, and agin I felt baffled,
and rememberin' the fruit can, a element of guilt also mingled with the
baffle. Biled vittles with a bag puddin' which he loved almost to
idolatry I put before him in vain; I petted him; I called him "dear
Josiah" repeatedly; I fairly pompeyed him, but no change could I see, I
felt turrible.

He still kep' a runnin' down and I didn't know when he would stop
runnin' and I shuddered to think where he might run to. At last in spite
of Josiah's onwillingness I sent for Doctor Bombus. He come and took his
wrist in hisen and Josiah sez kinder mad actin': "What do you want to
feel of my polt for? My polt beats all right!"

He looked at his tongue, Josiah stickin' it out as if he wuz makin' a
face at him. He inquired about symptoms, all of which Josiah answered
snappishly, the examination over, the doctor walked the floor back and
forth with one hand under his coat tail and the other in his breast in
deep thought and then said:

[Illustration]

"My diagnosis denotes no diametrical and insurmountable difficulties but
I would recommend a temporary transition or in other words a change of
climate."

"Change of climate!" muttered Josiah, "I guess anybody that lives in
this state gits changes enough, from torrid to zero in twenty-four hours
lots of times--I'd like to know where you wintered!"

"Nevertheless and notwithstanding," sez Doctor Bombus, blandly ignoring
Josiah's muttering impatience, "I can but recapitulate my former
prescription, a temporary translation from surrounding environment."

And he gathered up his saddle bags and went out, bagoning me out into
the hall as he did so. And then he advised me to take him to the St.
Louis Exposition.

But I sez, "I dassent, I'm afraid it would open his woonds afresh, he
knowed all the circumstances that had caused his sickness." But he wuz a
Homeopath and believed in takin' the same kind of medicine backward and
forward as it were, sunthin' as the poem runs:

Tobacco hic when you're well will make you sick,
Tobacco hic will make you well when you're sick.

I told him I thought it wuz a hazardous undertakin', and I hardly dast,
but he informed me in words more'n two inches long that he could do
nothing more for him, and if I didn't foller his advice it would be at
my own peril.




CHAPTER IV.


I felt turrible. What wuz I to do to do right? How wuz I to handle this
enormous prescription, St. Louis Exposition, and give it in proper doses
to the beloved patient? I knowed the size of the mind I had to deal
with, I knowed the size of the medicine I wuz told to deal out to that
mind.

Could it stand the strain? Could that small citadel stand a assault of
such magnitude without crumplin' and crumblin' right down? Dast I
venter? And then agin dast I disobey the imperative advice of Doctor
Bombus? So I wuz tossted to and fro like the waves of the sea.

But one thing I wuz determined on, I wouldn't start alone with him in
the state he wuz in, for if he should lose his mind in that immense
place how could I find it with no one to help me? It would be worse than
lookin' for a cambric needle in a hay-mow.

I knew how the shafts of calumny and envy might be aimed at me by his
relations, so I would take along one on his side to share my
responsibility, so if he did lose his mind and couldn't find it agin,
they couldn't find fault with me and say I hadn't done my best. So I
proposed that his niece, Blandina Teeter, should go with us, she is well
off and a willin' creeter.

[Illustration]

Josiah didn't seem to care either way, but languidly remarked that if he
did go he wanted a sky blue neck-tie. That wuz the first sign of
interest he had took in anything, and I hailed it as a good omen but got
the tie as dark a blue as I dast.

Blandina Teeter, formerly Allen, is a widder with a tall spindlin'
figger pale complected, with big light blue eyes that ruther stand out
of her head, and a tall peaked forehead with light hair combed down
smooth on both sides with scalops made in it by hand. She is good
natered to a fault, you know you can kill yourself on milk porridge, and
though folks don't philosophize on it you can be too good to be
comfortable.

She is a natural lover of mankind, nothin' light in it, jest a deep
meetin' house love. She wuz born that way onbeknown to her I spoze, and
so I d'no as I ort to blame her for her soft ways. I hadn't seen her for
some years and had kinder forgot how soft and squshy she wuz in her
nater, and I declare for't when I got her and Josiah both together, had
marshaled my forces, as you may say before my mind's review, I didn't
know how I wuz goin' to git 'em to St. Louis and back agin hull. It did
seem to me that if I got through all right with Josiah, she wuz that
soft and meller she would spile on my hands anyway.

But she wuz the only one on his side available in the position of second
chaperone to Josiah and so I took my chances.

She had been a widder some years; Teeter had used her shameful, spent
her property and throwed her round considerable, but still she kep' up
her perennial love and passionate adoration of man. And thinkses I it
will work well anyway with her Uncle Josiah, for lovin' all mankind as
she did from infancy to age, I knowed that bein' the only male in the
party she would keep her eye on him.

Blandina wuz more than willin' when I explained matters to her. She said
she felt that men wuz such precious creeters that too much care could
not be took of 'em, and that it would give her the greatest pleasure to
surround her Uncle Josiah with all the care that a most devoted
affection could dictate.

She's an awful clever critter, it hain't good nater that she lacks. But
there is sunthin' wantin' in her, I believe it is common sense.

But we sot out, I with considerable misgivin' at heart, but calm and
cool on the outside, clad as I wuz in dignity and a gray braize delaine
dress and a bunnet of the same color, I also wore my costly cameo pin
fastened in my linen collar. Some gray lisle thread gloves and a rich
Paisley shawl completed my _toot a sembly_.

Blandina had on a soft yellerish dress, I guess it wuz lawn it looked
most as soft as she did, and a hat that kinder drooped 'round her face
trimmed with crushed strawberry roses. She also wore some open-work
mitts, and a lace long shawl that had been her ma's.

Josiah had on his pepper and salt costoom, and in my partial eyes he wuz
beautiful, but, oh, so sad, so deprested. Would the gloom ever be lifted
from his beloved liniment? So my heart questioned itself as we helped
ourselves out of the Democrat, Ury tendin' to the trunks.

It wuz a Monday mornin', for I felt that I wanted to tackle this job
jest as I would a three weeks' washin', the first day of the week. Ury
shook our hands firmly but sadly, promisin' to the last to see to things
and not let the cows into the garden, and keep the buttery door shet up
nights, for though the cat is not a habitual snooper, yet she will
sometimes snoop.

The car wuz crowded, mebby folks had hearn of our goin' and wanted to
ride a spell with us. 'Tennyrate Josiah and I had to be separated at the
outset of our journey, he settin' with a man acrost the aisle; Blandina
got a seat with an aged gentleman while I sot down with a pale
complected woman in deep mournin'. Or at least what mournin' she had wuz
deep. She wore a thick crape veil and black cotton gloves. But her dress
wuz chocklate delaine. The mournin' wuz borryed, she told me most as
soon as I sot down.

She wuz on the way to the funeral of her father. He had lived with her,
but died while he wuz on a visit to her sister. She wuz feelin' dretful
and said she didn't know what she would do without him; she took on real
bad, and I sez, "Yes, losin' a pa is an awful loss."

"Yes," sez she, "pa wuz a dretful good man. I don't see what we're goin'
to do without him; we shall miss him so makin' line fences. He knew all
about where they ort to stand."

I wuz kinder took back. But then come to think it over I see it wuz
better to be missed in line fences than not at all. She got out at the
next station, and my own pardner took the vacant seat by my side, and on
and on we wuz whirled from the peaceful shores of Jonesville to the
pleasures and dangers of the great city.

As I said, I wanted to get to St. Louis the first of the week, but
Josiah took it into his head that he wanted to visit his nephew, Orange
Allen, who lives in the Ohio, and under the circumstances it wuz not for
me to cross him in anything that wuz more or less reasonable. So we
stopped there and had a good visit. He keeps a dairy farm and owns forty
cows besides a wife and three young children; he is doing well. His pa
havin' a horticultural and floral turn of mind, named his two boys Lemon
and Orange. His girls are Lily, Rose and Violet. Lily is dark complected
and so fat that she looks like a pillar with a string tied in the
middle, and Rose and Violet are as humbly as they make but respectable.
Folks ort to be more cautious in namin' children, but they're all
married quite well, and we had a good visit with 'em, stayin' most of
the time at Orange's.

And I see with joy that the shadder on my pardner's face lifted quite a
little durin' our stay there, but of course this belated us and we
didn't git to St. Louis till Saturday late in the afternoon. St. Louis
is a big sizeable place. Mr. Laclede cut the tree for the first
log-house in the forest where St. Louis now stands in 1764. America had
several cities all started at that time, but St. Louis jest put in and
growed, and now it is the fourth city in the United States. It's an
awful worker, why it produces more in its factories than is produced by
the hull of thirty-seven States, jest think on't! And it has thirty-two
million folks to buy the things it produces. Twenty-seven railways run
into it; the city rules itself and leads the world in many manufactures.
They say it is the richest community in the world, and I couldn't
dispute it, for they seemed jest rollin' in riches all the while I wuz
there; wuzn't put to it for a thing so fur as I could see.

It is noted for its charities; it has the biggest Sunday-school in the
world, two thousand three hundred and forty-four children in one
school--jest think on't! Its Union railroad station is the finest in the
Universe, so they say, and jest the buildin' covers twenty acres. And it
has the greatest bridge over the greatest river in the world.

But everything has its drawbacks, the water there hain't like Jonesville
water; I don't say it to twit 'em, but it is a solemn truth, the water
is riley, they can't dispute it. I'd love to hand 'em out a pailful now
and then from our well, and would if I had the chance--how they would
enjoy it.

Blandina and I wanted to go to once to Miss Huff's, a woman we used to
know in Jonesville who keeps a small boardin' house.

But Josiah, who had seen pictures on't, wanted to go to the Inside Inn.
He said they'd advertised cheap rooms, it would have a stylish sound to
tell on't in Jonesville and it would be so handy and equinomical for we
wouldn't have to pay entrance fees. So to please him, which wuz the main
effort of us two chaperones, we went there. We wuz tired to death that
night anyway, and wanted a quiet haven and wanted it to once, for truly
when Josiah pinted out the elegant buildin's that we passed I looked
coldly on 'em, and said that there wuzn't one that looked so good to me
as a goose feather piller would. And I had made up my mind that I
wouldn't take a note or act as a Observer at all till Monday mornin'. So
I faced the crowd and the Fair ground as not seein' 'em as it were,
carryin' out my firm idee to begin' the job as Observer and Delineator
the first day of the week.

The Inside Inn we found wuz a buildin' as big as the hull of our
neighborhood and I d'no but part of Loontown and Zoar, it wuz immense.
And everywhere you'd look you would see this sign pasted up:

"Pay In Advance! Pay In Advance!"

Josiah acted real puggicky about it, he said he believed they had hearn
we wuz comin' and got them signs printed for fear we would cheat 'em out
of their pay or wuzn't able to pay. And he sez, "I'll let 'em know I am
a solid man and have got money!" And he took out his little leather bag
where he keeps the most of his money and showed 'em in a careless way,
as much as fifteen dollars in cash.

I told him it wuz venturesome to show off so much money, but he said he
wuzn't goin' to have 'em insinuatin' in this mean underhanded way that
we couldn't pay our bills.

Blandina would pay her own bills, but then she's got plenty and Josiah
said, "Let her pay for herself if she wants to." And I said:

"Well, I spoze it will make her feel better to pay her way."

"Yes," he sez, "and it makes me feel better too."

A young chap took our satchel bags and went to show us our room, and we
went through one long hall after another, and walked and walked and
walked, till I thought we should drop down. And finally Josiah stopped
in his tracks and faced the feller, and sez he:

"Look here, young man, what do you take us for? We hain't runnin' for
mail carriers, and we hain't niggers trainin' for a cake walk. We'd love
to git a room and set down some time to-day!"

"Yes, sir," sez the man, "we are most to your rooms." And he turned and
begun to go down stairs, and we follered him down two flights and
started for a third one, and then Josiah faced him agin:

"What in Tunket ails you, anyway? Because we come from the country we
don't propose to be put down suller amongst your cabbages and turnips! I
want you to take us to some good rooms; I've paid in advance, dum you!
and I'm goin' to stand for my rights."

"Yes, sir," sez the man, "they're good rooms."

And I knowin' we wuz three to one and if he wuz leadin' us off into a
trap to git Josiah's money we could overpower him, I wunked for Josiah
to keep still, but he wouldn't, but kep' on mutterin' whilst the man led
us down two more flights, and into some quite good rooms, only if you'll
believe it there wuz a tree growin' right up through our room as big as
Josiah's waist.

And that made Josiah as mad as a hen agin, and he told the man, "We've
been imposed upon ever since we entered this house. You knew we lived on
the outskirts of Jonesville, and you've took liberties with us that you
wouldn't if we had come from the heart of the village. But I'll let you
know we're knowed and respected, and Jonesville will resent it to think
you've put us in with trees, tryin' to make out we're green, I spoze."

But the man wuz up two flights of stairs by this time. And I quelled
Josiah down by sayin' we would try to make the best on't. The hotel is
built on a side hill, that's why we had to come down stairs; there are
four stories more in the back than in front, and they wouldn't let 'em
cut down all the trees so they had to build right round 'em.

But I ruther enjoyed it, and hung my mantilly up on it, there wuz some
nails that somebody had left in it, and the tabs hung down noble. And as
I told Josiah, "Trees are kinder sociable things anyway."

"Sociable!" he groaned. "We don't need trees in order to be sociable."
And sure enough, on both sides on us wuz goin' on private conversations
that we could hear every word on. It wuz a very friendly place.

Well, I het up my little alcohol lamp and made a cup of tea and we had
lots left in our lunch basket. So I called Blandina, her room wuz only
jest a little ways from ourn, and we had a good lunch and felt
recooperated.

We slep' as well as we could considerin' the size and hardness of the
mattress and pillows, and the confidences that wuz bein' poured into us
onbeknown from both sides.

The house is built dretful shammy. Why I hearn that a man weighin' most
three hundred took a room there, and comin' in one evenin' dretful tired
from the day's tramp on the Fair ground leaned up heavy aginst the wall
to pull off his boots, and broke right through into the next room.

And that room wuz occupied by a young married couple. You know it wuz
dretful fashionable to marry and go to St. Louis on your tower. So
they'd follered Fashion and the star of Love and wuz havin' a first rate
time.

They had been there several days, and this evenin', he thinkin' his eyes
of her, and feelin' very sentimental as wuz nateral, wuz readin' poetry
to her, she settin' the picture of happiness and contentment with her
feet on a foot-stool, her pretty hands clasped in her lap, and her eyes
lookin' up adorin'ly into hisen as he read:

"Oh, beautious love, sweet realm of joy,
No wild alarm shall ere thy sweet calm break."

When crash! bang! down come the partition with a half dressed man on
top, brandishin' aloft a boot and screamin' like a painter, as wuz only
natural. He broke right into Love's Sweet Realm and skairt 'em into
fits.

She fell to once into highstericks, and he, when he recovered
conscientiousness threatened to lick the man, and everybody in St.
Louis, and made the air blue with conversation that the Realm of Love
never ort to hearn on, and wouldn't probable for years and years if it
hadn't been for this _contrary temps_.

I hearn this, but don't say it is so; you can hear most anything and it
held us in all right.

The next day, bein' Sunday, Josiah thought it would be our duty to stay
on the Fair ground and see the Pike, etc. But I sez: "Josiah, we will
begin this hefty job right, we will go to meetin'."

So we went out into the city and hunted up a M.E. meetin' house and
hearn a good sermon and went into class meetin' and gin testimonies both
on us. And Blandina bein' asked to by a man went forward for prayers and
sot for a spell on the sinners' bench. She's been a member for years,
but she's such a clever creeter she wants to obleege everybody.

Well, havin' done our three duties we went back peaceful and pious in
frame and went to walk in of course to our own temporary home. But what
do you think! that misuble, cheatin' man at the gate asked us to pay to
git in. We hearn afterward that this wuz a dishonest man and wuz sent
off.

"Pay!" sez Josiah. "Pay to come home from meetin'? Did you want us to
hang round the meetin' house all day and sleep on the steps? Or what did
you want?"

The man kep' that stuny look onto him and sez, "Fifty cents each."

Josiah fairly trembled with rage as he handed out the money, and sez he
in a threatenin' way, "You hain't hearn the last of this, young man.
Square Baker of Jonesville will git onto your tracks, and you'd better
have a tiger after you than have him when he's rousted up. Pay for
comin' home from meetin', it is a disgrace to the nation! Call this a
land of liberty when you have to pay for comin' home from meetin'!"

And sez he, as he took his change back, "Do you know what you're doin'?
You're drivin' Samantha and me away from this place, and Blandina." And
sez he, with an air of shootin' his sharpest arrer, "We shall go to Miss
Huff's to-morry."

And so we did. Blandina and I wanted to go there in the first place, so
we felt well about it. We had fulfilled our duties as chaperones to the
fullest extent, and had also got our own two ways in the end, which is
always comfortin' to a woman.

We found Miss Huff settled in a pleasant street in a good comfortable
home, not so very fur away from the Fair ground. She's a widder with one
son, young and good lookin', jest home from school; and a aged parent,
toothless and no more hair on his head than on the cover of my glass
butter dish. And I'll be hanged if I knowed which one on 'em Blandina
paid the most devoted attention to whilst we wuz there, but nothin'
light and triflin'.

She is likely, her morals mebby bein' able to stand more bein' so sort
o' withy and soft than if they wuz more hard and brittle, they could
bend round considerable without breakin'.

And Miss Huff had also a little grand-niece, Dorothy Evans, whose mother
had passed away, and Miss Huff bein' next of kin had took into her
family to take care of. Dretful clever I thought it wuz of Miss Huff.
Dorothy's mother, I guess, didn't have much faculty and spent everything
as she went along; she had an annuity that died with her, but she had
been well enough off so she could hire a nurse for the child, an elderly
colored woman, Aunt Tryphena by name, who out of love for the little one
had offered to come to Miss Huff's just to be near the little girl.

And Dotie, as they well called her, for everyone doted on her, wuz as
sweet a little fairy as I ever see, her pretty golden head carried
sunshine wherever it went. And her big blue eyes, full of mischief
sometimes, wuz also full of the solemn sweetness of them "Who do always
behold the face of the Father."

I took to her from the very first, and so did Josiah and Blandina. The
hull family loved and petted her from Miss Huff and her old father down
to Billy, who alternately petted and teased her.

To Aunt Tryphena she wuz an object of perfect adoration. And Aunt
Tryphena wuz a character uneek and standin' alone. When she wuz made the
mould wuz throwed away and never used afterwards. She follered Dorothy
round like her shadow and helped make the beds and keep the rooms tidy,
a sort of chamber-maid, or ruther chamber-woman, for she wuz sixty if
she wuz a day.

Besides Aunt Tryphena Miss Huff had two more girls to cook and clean.
She had good help and sot a good table, and Aunt Feeny as they called
her wuz a source of constant amusement and interest; but of her more
anon.

We got to Miss Huff's in the afternoon and rested the rest of that day
and had a good night's sleep.

In the mornin' Josiah, who went out at my request before breakfast to
buy a little peppermint essence, come in burnin' with indignation, his
morals are like iron (most of the time).

He said a man had been advisin' him to take the Immoral Railway as the
best way of seein' the Fair grounds as a hull before we branched out to
see things more minutely one by one.

"Immoral Railway!" he snorted out agin.

"I hope you didn't fall in with any such idee, Josiah Allen." And I
sithed as I thought how many took that kind of railway and wuz whirled
into ruin on't.

"Fall in with it! I guess the man that spoke to me about it thought I
didn't fall in with it. I gin that feller a piece of my mind."

"I hope you didn't give him too big a piece," sez I anxiously; "you know
you hain't got a bit to spare, specially at this time."

Oh, how I watched over that man day by day! I wanted the peppermint more
for him than for me. I laid out if he seemed likely to break down to
give him a peppermint sling.

Not that I am one of them who when fur away from home dash out into
forbidden paths and dissipation, but I didn't consider peppermint sling
wrong anyway, there hain't much stimulant to it.

Well, we started out for the Fair in pretty good season in the mornin',
Billy Huff offered to go and put us on the right car, so he walked ahead
with Blandina, Josiah and I follerin' clost in their rears. Blandina
looked up at him and follered his remarks as clost and stiddy as a
sunflower follers the sun. She had told me that mornin' whilst I wuz
gittin' ready to start that he wuz the loveliest young man she had ever
met, and a woman would be happy indeed who won him for her consort. And
I said, as I pinned my collar on more firmly with my cameo pin, that I
presoomed that he would make a good man and pardner when he growed up.

And she said, "Difference in age don't count anything when there is true
love." Sez she, "Look at Aaron Burr and Lord Baconsfield," and she brung
up a number more for me to look at mentally, whilst I wuz drapin' my
mantilly round my frame in graceful folds.

But I told her I didn't seem to want to spend my time on them old ghosts
that mornin', havin' such a big job on my hands to tackle that day as
first chaperone to Josiah, and I got her mind off for the time bein', by
the time I had fastened on my mantilly so the tabs hung as I wanted 'em
to hang.




CHAPTER V.


Josiah wuz for goin' into the show by the entrance nighest to Miss
Huff's, but I said, "No, that may do for other times, but when I first
enter this Fair ground as a Observer" (for in our visit to the Inside Inn
we wuz only weary wayfarers, too tired to observe, and the Sabbath we
felt wuz no time to jot down impressions). No, this day I felt wuz in
reality our _dayboo_, and I sez impressively, "I will not go sneakin' in
by any side door or winder, I'm goin' to enter by the main gateway."

Josiah kinder hummed:

"Broad is the road that leads to death
And thousands walk together there."

But when he found we could go in there at the same price he didn't
parley further, and Billy took us to the car that would leave us where I
wanted to be.

The main entrance is in itself a noble sight worth goin' milds and milds
to see, a long handsome buildin' curvin' round gracefully some in shape
like a mammoth U only bendin' round more at the ends, and endin' with
handsome buildin's, and tall pillars decorate the hull length and flags
wave out nobly all along on top.

Mebby it wuz meant for a U and meant Union, a name good enough for
entrance into anything or anywhere. And if it wuz I approved on't, and
would encouraged 'em by tellin' 'em so if they'd asked me beforehand.
Union! a name commandin' world-wide respect, writ in blue and gray on
millions of hearts, sealed with precious blood.

The centre of the long buildin' peaks up and arches over you in such a
lofty and magnificent way that you feel there some as Miss Sheba must
have felt when she went to visit Mr. and Miss Solomon or the Misses
Solomon, I spoze I ort to say, he had a variety of wives, though it is
nothin' I ever approved on, and would told him so if I'd had the chance.

But good land! Mr. Solomon never had any sights to show Miss Sheba
approachin' this Fair, I wouldn't been afraid to take my oath on't.

We riz the flight of steps which hundreds and hundreds could rise
similtaneously and abreast, paid our three fares and went in. And when
you first stand inside of that gate the beauty jest strikes you in your
face some like a great flash of lightnin', only meller and happifyin'
instead of blindin'.

And the vastness of it as you look on every side on you impresses you so
you feel sunthin' as you would if you wuz sot down on the Desert of
Sara, and Sara wuz turned into vistas of bewilderin' beauty towards
every pint of her compass.

There wuz broad, smooth paths leadin' out on every side all on 'em full
of folks from every country in the world, and clad in every costoom you
ever see or ever didn't see before. Folks in plain American dress side
by side with dark complected folks wropped up seemin'ly in white sheets,
jest their black-bearded faces and flashin' eyes gleamin' at you from
the drapery. Then there would be mebby a pretty young girl with a
rose-bud face under a lace parasol. Two sweet-faced nuns in sombry black
with their pure white night caps on under their clost black bunnets and
veils, and follerin' them some fierce lookin' creeters in red baggy
trousers embroidered jackets and skull caps with long tossels on 'em;
Persians mebby, or Arabs.

As Josiah looked at these last I hearn him murmur as if to himself, "Why
under the sun didn't Samantha put in my dressin' gown with tossels, and
the smokin' cap Thomas J. gin me, I could showed off some then."

But I pretended not to hear him for my eyes wuz fastened on the passin'
pageant. Smart lookin' bizness men with handsome well-dressed wives and
children, then a Injun with striped blanket, beaded moccasins and
head-dress of high feathers. Then a American widder, mebby a plain one,
and mebby grass; then some more wimmen. Then some Chinamen with long
dresses and pig-tails follered by some gawky, awkwud country folks; some
more smart-lookin' Americans. Some English tourists with field-glasses
strapped over one shoulder. Some Fillipinos in yellerish costoom. Then a
kodak fiend ready to aim at anything or nothin' and hit it; then some
Scotchmen in Tarten dress and follerin' clost some Japans, lots and lots
of them scattered along. Then some brown children and their mothers, the
children dressed mostly in a sash and some beads, and some more pretty
white children dressed elaborate, and some niggers, and some soldiers,
and some more wimmen, and more folks, and some more, and some more, in a
stiddy and endless stream.

Good land! I couldn't sort out and describe them that passed by in an
hour even, no more than I could sort out and describe the slate stuns in
Jonesville creek, and you well know that wagon loads could be took out
of one little spot.

Josiah said to me, "Why jest to look at this crowd, Samantha, pays
anybody for comin' here clear from the Antipathies."

Sez I, "Josiah, you mean the Antipodes."

"I mean what I say!" he snapped out, "and les's be movin' on, no use
standin' here all day."

He don't love to be corrected. But truly that immense and strangely
assorted crowd constantly comin', constantly goin' and changin' all the
time wuz a sight well worth comin' from Jonesville to see, even if we
didn't see a thing more. But, oh, what didn't we see! what a glorious
sight as our eyes left the crowd and looked 'round us. Why the wonder
and beauty on't fairly struck you in the face some like a flash of
lightnin' only more meller and happifyin'.

There you are in the beautiful Court of St. Louis. And right in the
centre sets Saint Louis himself on a prancin' horse, holdin' up a cross,
I wuz glad to see that cross held up as if in benediction over all the
immense crowd below, it seemed as if it begun the Fair right, jest as it
begins the week right to go to meetin' Sunday.

I always sot store by Saint Louis. Leadin' them Crusades of hisen to
protect Christians and free the Holy Land from lawless invaders. How
much I thought on him for it. Though I could advised him for his good in
lots of things if I'd been 'round.

Now his marryin' a girl twelve years old who ort to been in pantalettes
and high aprons, I should tried to break it up, I should told him plain
and square that I wouldn't have heard for a minute to his marryin' our
Tirzah Ann at that age. She shouldn't married him if he'd been King
Louis twenty or thirty instead of nine. But I wuzn't there and he went
on and had his way, as men will.

But he acted noble in lots of things, made a wise ruler and a generous
one, lived and died like a hero. And I was glad to see him riz up in
such a sightly place, holdin' up the cross he wuz willin' to give his
life for.

He looked first rate, he wore a sort of a helmet and had a cloak on,
shaped some like my long circle cape, only it didn't set so good, and I
wuz sorry they didn't have my pattern to cut it by. Hisen kinder curled
up at the back, they ort to cut it ketterin'. Two noble statutes stood
on each side on him, kinder guardin' him as it were, though he didn't
need it as long as he clung to the cross. Scattered all along by the
side of the broad paths wuz little green oasises, on which the
splendor-tired and people-tired eyes could rest and recooperate a
little.

In front of you quite a little ways off on each side stood immense
snow-white palaces each one on 'em seemin' more beautiful than the last
one you looked at, full of sculptured beauty and with long, long rows of
pearl white collumns and ornaments of all kinds. Beyond, but still as it
were in the foreground, as it ort to, high up on a lofty pedestal stood
the statute of Peace.

My pardner, who for reasons named, wuz inclined to pick flaws in this
glorious Exposition, sez to me:

"What's the use of sculpin' Peace up on so high a monument and showin'
her off as if she wuz safe and sound, and then histin' cannons up right
by her throwin' balls that will travel twenty milds and then knock her
sky high."

I sithed, but almost onbeknown to myself looked at the Cross, and hoped
that that divine light would go ahead through the wilderness of world
warfare makin' a safe path, so Peace could git down from her high
monument bime-by and walk round some through the world without gittin'
her head blowed off.

Smilin' and gleamin' jest beyond wuz the bright sunny waters on which
little boats painted in bright colors with gay awnin's wuz glidin' about
here and there, and bursts of melodious song come from the gayly attired
boatmen anon or oftener. And furder on wuz the Grand Basin, a large
beautiful piece of water, and back on't down a green hill seventy feet
high leaps and bounds and gurgles and sings three glitterin' cascades,
each one seemin' to start out from a splendid buildin' up on the hill.

The ones on the side smaller, but the middle one a grand and stately
palace called Festival Hall, and jinin' these three buildin's together
are what they call the Collonnade of States. A impressive row of
snow-white pillows, and on them pillows, settin' up in the place of
honor, are big statutes of female wimmen, fourteen in number, symbolic
of the original States of the Louisiana Purchase.

I wanted to go right up to Festival Hall the first minute, it didn't
seem fur it wuz through such seens of bewilderin' beauty, but a
bystander standin' by said it wuz half a mild.

But Josiah kinder nudged me and said, "Mebby we'd better take the
Immoral Railway. With you by my side, Samantha, I feel I can face its
dangers."

Sez I, "Where has your principle gone that you had this mornin',
Josiah?"

"I have got it, Samantha, jest the same; I hain't used none this time o'
day. But I thought I would kinder love to tell the brethren I'd rid on
it." And before I could parley with him he asked that same bystander, a
good lookin' iron gray man,

"Where is the Immoral Railway?"

"The Intre Moral Railway starts there," sez he, pintin' to a place quite
nigh to us.

"Intre Moral," sez I to myself; "that is a good name." And as we wended
our way to it through the crowds of folks of every name and nation I sez
to myself, "I'd love to ride on it." For havin' naterally so scientific
and deep a mind I love to trace back words like little rivulets, to
their source, and see where they spring from. For meandering through the
ages they gather lots of foreign stuff and take queer turns.

Intre Moral, I took it that that meant extra moral. I liked the sound
on't, and we got on and rode quite a spell, and see everything we could,
and when we went clear 'round on that, we got onto a big ortomobile and
rid 'round on that so's we could see the hull Fair as it were in one
picture, before we examined its glories more minutely one by one.

[Illustration]

And I should have took sights of comfort viewin' the magnificent seens
spread out and growin' and changin' every minute if I hadn't had to kep'
one eye onto Josiah Allen all the time, or as you may say two eyes, one
my own gray orb and the other the eye of my specs. The seen wuz so
hugely grand, so magnificently stupendous, and the mind that it wuz my
duty as first chaperone to guard wuz so small I sez to myself, could it
be bombarded by that immense grandeur and not utterly collapse. But
Blandina wuz on the other side on him, so I didn't feel as I should had
the responsibility devolved on me alone.

But he bore it well. He looked off on the seen grander than anything
Fairy Land ever dremp on or ever will, I believe. And then he looked
pensively at my silk bag where I'd stored all the cookies and nut-cakes
it would hold, to keep up his strength between meals.

And so gradually I dropped my agonizing anxiety and let my eyes drink in
the onequalled beauty of the seen as we went by the tall glorious
palaces towerin' up in white magnificence. Past sparklin' water spaces
filled with gay pleasure craft full of happy white-robed voyagers. Past
the spans of arched bridges leadin' from one seen of glory to another,
past tall white shafts carryin' up to the listenin' Heavens deeds of
glory and valor.

Past white statutes more beautiful than poet's dreams, risin' up from
green velvet lawns or marble terraces. Broad highways would dawn on our
vision, anon vistas of incomparable beauty way off, way off as fur as we
could see would open up other views jest as fair. Anon the columned
walls of some nearby palace would seem to close in the view, and then
agin the fur vision, and anon the blue waters flowin' on and on. And
scattered all over the ground roamed the happy people, men, wimmen and
children of every name and nation, clothed in every garb that folks ever
wore under the sun, and some, it seemed to me, made up jest for that
occasion, as Eve started her new fashion of fall dress, only this wuzn't
made of leaves, no indeed! fur from it.

But I believe the foreign costoom we see most of all wuz the Japan. And
all through the Fair that nation seemed to show off in the very first
rank. Well, I wuz willin', I always kinder liked 'em, they're so polite
and courteous to everybody, and as for makin' storks and folks settin'
on nothin' and lookin' perfectly comfortable settin' on it, they go fur
ahead of anybody else, and they have lots of other noble qualities. In
cleanin' house time, now I have fairly begreched the ease and comfort of
them Japanese housewives who jest take up their mat and sweep out, move
their paper walls a little mebby and there it is done.

No heavy, dirt-laden carpets to clean, no papered walls and ceilings to
break their back over, no trumpery brickaty brack to take care of and
dust and make life a burden. Kind hearted, reverent to equals and
superiors--trained to kindness and courtesy and reverence in childhood
when American mothers are ruled and badgered by short skirted and
roundabout clad tyrants.

I set store by the Japans and am glad to hear how fast they're pressin'
forwards in every path civilization has opened; science, art and the
best education. And wuz glad to see so many of 'em here. They could give
Uncle Sam a good many lessons if he wuz willin' to take 'em. But good as
he is he is a heady old creeter, and won't be driv into anything and has
a powerful good opinion of himself.

But to resoom forwards. After we'd gone the complete 'round of the Intre
Moral Railway and ortemobile we got out agin on the Plaza not fur from
where we embarked, and at my request we took a boat. Josiah chose one of
the handsomest ones with the front end kinder bowin' up and a
bright-colored awnin' over it; they called it a gondola.

The gondolier had bold flashin' black eyes and a gay suit that struck
Josiah's fancy, and I knowed by his looks he wuz meditatin' on what
Might Have Been. I felt that he wuz in fancy rowin' a boat up our creek
in a red coat and green hat with yeller feathers mebby, carryin' sister
Submit Tewksbury or sister Gowdey, sailin' towards his own Exposition of
St. Josiah. There wuz a sad pensive look on his liniment that belonged
to ruined hopes and blighted emotions.

Blandina whispered to me she thought the gondolier a image of beauty and
wondered if he had a companion; she said she believed he would be
devoted to a wife if he had one that looked up to him.

I answered her like one talkin' onbeknown to herself, two of my eyes and
my spectacles furtively watchin' the liniment of my beloved pardner, and
my speritual eyes feastin' on the perfect loveliness of the seen. Broad
smooth waters how beautiful they were, dotted with craft similar to ourn
and freighted with happy voyagers dartin' here and there, and some of
the boats wuz the queerest shapes, one on 'em looked jest exactly like a
big white swan, and there wuz one, if you'll believe it, that looked
like a sea serpent, I wouldn't have rid in it for a dollar bill, though
Josiah said he'd love to tell Deacon Henzy that he'd straddled the old
sea serpent and rid to shore on it.

But I sez, "Good land, Josiah, you don't ride on the outside on it,
there is a place fixed inside somewhere for passengers."

But most of the boats wuz handsome. Anon the water lay smooth and fair
about us, and fur off we could see immense fountains risin' right up out
of the glassy surface, sprayin' up and glitterin' down floods of rainbow
glory.

Agin we landed on terry firmy I a feelin' as if we wuz roamin' through
Fancy's fields, for it seemed as if cold Reality never could have
planned anything approachin' what wuz all round us. For as you draw nigh
the glittering Cascades you fairly stop bewildered by the beauty, and
most want to shet your eyes on it, not knowin' what path to choose where
all are so bagonin' full of allurements and the hull world seemin' to be
allured there by 'em. On one side the glory of the waters dashing,
sparkling, bounding along down, with fountains sprayin' up every little
while, and white statutes smilin' down on us nigher by. On the other
side green verdure and beyond and on every side the glory of the water,
and above us the most magnificent buildin' in the world flanked on each
side with the long Colonnade of States.

And speakin' of statutes, jest think of the sculptured groups we passed
by that eventful day, more'n I could describe in a month of Sundays.
Louis and Clark, the very men I'd read about in Gasses Journal, how I
wished their eyes could see and their ears hear me. How interested and
proud they would have been to hear me tell how even as a child I loved
to hear mother Smith read about their journeyin's into the new and
onexplored country, findin' swamps and stumps and savages, where now wuz
smilin' gardens and palaces. Then there was Robert Livingstone, and
Franklin, noble high souled old creeter, I always loved him in a meetin'
house sense, drawin' down lightnin' and so forth--he wuz the very Pa of
electricity as you may say.

And James Monroe, and Boone, and Settin' Bull, yes there wuz Settin'
Bull settin' or ruther standin' right in that great company. And all on
'em mute and onafraid, onmindful of the presence of a Samantha and
Josiah, I felt to pity 'em.

But the noblest meanin' statute of all in my eyes wuz right in front of
the main Cascade. There stood a immense statute of Liberty, raisin' the
veil of Ignorance and protectin' Truth and Justice. Ignorance don't want
her eyes oncovered, she'd 'drather keep on blind as a bat. But Liberty
hain't goin' to mind her, she wuz bound to git the bandages off; I
wanted to encourage her in it and I waved my hand towards her and smiled
in lovin' greetin'. Josiah thought I wuz flirtin', and asked me
anxiously if I'd got sight of any man from Jonesville. I wouldn't dain
to reply to him--at my age! and with my reputation to carry round! The
idee!

Well, when we stood on the stun balcony over the spot where the central
cascade gushes out, what a seen lay spread out before us. You can look
off two milds one way and most a mild another. And wuz there ever in the
world milds so crowded full of beauty and each beauty differin' from the
other as one star differs from another in glory. Eight magnificent
palaces are in full sight, their walls bathed by the blue waters, and
beyond 'em, interspersed by green foliage, wuz a perfect wilderness of
towers, minarets, domes, banners, battlements.

I hain't goin' to describe what I looked down on, for I can't. No, if I
had a big book of synonyms to the words Grand and Glorious and used
every one on 'em tryin' to describe that seen I couldn't begin to do
justice to it, and so what is the use of tryin' with the Jonesville
vocabulary.

And if I can't describe it, don't for pity sake ask Josiah Allen to, for
you might know that if I couldn't he wouldn't stand no chance. But I
hearn him gin a sort of gaspin' sithe as he looked, and Blandina I
believe forgot for a few minutes her passionate though chaste,
overrulin' passion.

As magnificent as the hull of St. Louis Exposition is, it naterally has
one spot handsomer than the rest, a particular beauty spot as you may
say. Why every house has it. The beauty of my parlor kinder branches
out, as you may say, from my new rep rocker, a lovely work of art that
cost over six dollars. I keep it in the sightliest place, where the eye
of man can fall on it at first. And the central beauty spot of the Fair
wuz centered in the place I have been talkin' about.

I'd hearn that it wuz some the shape of a fan and we had talked it over
between us, whether it would look like my best paper fan I carry to
meetin' Sundays, or my big turkey feather fan. But, good land! they
dwindled down so in my mind while I stood there that I might be said to
never have sot my eyes on a turkey's feather, or a turkey or anything.
It is a spectacle that once seen is never forgot.

The central spot, or handle of the fan (in allegory), is occupied by
Festival Hall and on either side stretches out the beautiful Collonnade
of States with its lovely and heroic female wimmen settin' up there as
if sort o' takin' care of the hull concern. I spoke to Blandina about
it, how pleased I wuz to see my sect settin' up so high in the place of
honor, and she sez:

"Oh, Aunt Samantha, I cannot rejoice with you, it rasps my very soul to
see men slighted! What would the world do without men?"

"Well," sez I, wantin' to please her, "men do come handy lots of times.
But," sez I reasonably, "the world wouldn't last long if it wuzn't for
wimmen." But to resoom.

At each end of the Collonnade, peakin' up a little higher, is a sort of
a round shaped buildin', beautiful in structure, where food can be
obtained. And knowin' the effect on men of good food I knowed this wuz a
sensible idea, for no matter how festivious a man may be, and probably
is in Festival Hall, yet his appetite stretches out on both sides on him
jest as it wuz depicted here. And female wimmen stand between him and
starvation most of the time. I considered the hull thing highly
symbolical and loved to see it.

But jest think of a magnificent picture containin' all that is most
beautiful in land and water, extendin' in a graceful, curvin' way three
thousand feet. Why that's as fur as from our house over the Ebenezer
Bobbettses, and I d'no but furder, and every foot and inch of it
perfectly beautiful. How much land do you spoze is took up by this
central spot of beauty? Now if I should ask sister Sylvester Gowdey, who
always thinks she knows everything worth knowin', if I should say, "How
much land do you spoze, sister Gowdey, is took up by jest this central
beauty spot of the Fair?" I'll bet she'd say, "Mebby half an acre."

But I'd say, "Melissy, it occupies six hundred acres."

I d'no as sister Gowdey would believe me, but it's so, the livin' truth.
Why, the three Cascades are three hundred feet long. Beautiful in the
daytime as a dream of Paradise! fancy it in the evening when thousands
and thousands of colored lights lend their glowin' charm to the seen.
Why you almost cover your eyes from the bewilderin' glory on't. And as I
said to Josiah, "We shall never see another seen so beautiful till we
see Jerusalem the Golden descend before our rapt vision." And he bein'
kinder fraxious, sez:

"I hain't seen that yet, nor you nuther."

"By the eye of Faith I have, Josiah."

"Well, tain't no time or place for preachin', we better be gittin'
along!"

Right under the main Cascade we went down into a beautiful grotto all
lighted up, with one hull side of the room made of fallin' water. I
never expected to step into such a place. I have felt perfectly
satisfied when I've papered over my dining-room with paper a shillin' a
roll, and it did look well. But what wuz it to this? Refreshments are
served down there clost to the sparklin' liquid side of the room, and
Josiah wantin' to go the hull figure, set down and eat a nut-cake which
I gin him.

They say stimulants can be obtained down here. And mebby they can, them
that seek can generally find, there wuz a serpent in Paradise; but _I_
didn't see any, I spoze the noble look on my face would dant any dealer
in such pizen from displayin' it to me. And it ain't likely that Josiah
with two chaperones would set eyes on any.




CHAPTER VI.


The two side cascades represent the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Josiah
sez in a kinder patronizing way, "They're likely Cascades, but I can't
see in what way they represent oceans."

And I sez, "It hain't _for_ you to know everything, Josiah, you hain't
expected to. Such knowledge would be more than you with your small frame
could stand up under."

"Oh, keep throwin' my size in my face. It's a pity I hain't a giraffe,
then mebby I'd suit you." And he added snappishly, "I'll bet you can't
tell yourself how they look like oceans."

And I sez, "I wuz never any hand to tell all I knew, I always thought it
wuz best to keep one story back."

But to tell the truth I couldn't see how they represented oceans, only
they wuz both water, but so is a teacupful of water, or a spunful.
Another way they differed from the ocean, the water hain't there all the
time, only once in awhile. Josiah, bent on findin' fault, sez:

"Pretty oceans they be! Dry land most all the time."

But I sez, "I've always wished the Atlantic would dry up long enough for
me to go over afoot or with the old mair, like the Israelites over the
Red Sea, I'd start to-morry." I'm afraid of deep water. Why half the
time I'm afraid of our creek and dassent go acrost the foot bridge.

But the water wuz there when we see 'em, and the Cascades wuz beautiful
as a dream and more beautiful than lots of mine, specially when I'm
tired out.

As to representin' the two oceans, I spoze it means them beautiful
golden tinted statutes, the Spirit of the Atlantic and the Spirit of the
Pacific that stands at the head of the Cascades.

Well, we hung round there a long time, and finally at my request we went
into Festival Hall and sot down a spell and rested. And I thought as I
sot there I'd like to ask Sister Gowdey how big she thought this
buildin' wuz. She would never dream it covered two hull acres, but it
duz, three or four thousand people can set in it, and its organ is the
biggest in the world, more than ten thousand pipes in it and each pipe
as full of music as an egg is of meat.

The two pipes havin' the lowest notes a small horse can walk through or
two good-sized men standin' side by side. So you can imagine the streams
of melody that can float through them immense channels. It has one
hundred and forty stops, every one on 'em that will stop if told to
quick as a wink.

It took a train of ten cars to bring it from Los Angelus where it wuz
made. You can imagine how its music fairly shakes the ground and carries
you off your feet, seemin'ly like the very music of the spears.

Good land! what's Tirzah Ann's organ compared to it? And I thought that
wuz as good as any they make, the agent said it wuz; we paid over sixty
dollars for it.

And who do you think dedicated this most beautiful structure that wuz
ever built, to the music of the biggest organ in the world'? Why, it wuz
woman, my own female sect. I tell you it made me proud to think on't. It
wuz told me by one that wuz there that it wuz filled with wimmen on that
occasion, and as many men as could git in after the wimmen wuz seated.

Jest think on't, oh, my sect! who have been used to sneakin' up back
stairs to look down on men seated in state at banquet tables, or peak
from the gallery at the Capitol to see 'em nobly engaged in makin' laws
to govern her, tellin' her how to spend the money she earned herself,
and how long to send her to jail, and where and when to hang her, and
etcetery; while she could only jest peak at 'em. Oh, my soul! wuzn't it
a agreeable state of affairs the doin's here at Festival Hall? As I said
to Josiah as we sot there, "Don't it show my sect is lookin' up?"

And he said he never found wimmen backward in lookin' up, he said he
never see a place that would dant 'em and stop their tongues from
waggin'. He made light of the great incident and would been glad to had
men dedicate it; indeed he jest the same as told me he felt the
Exposition had stood in its own light in not havin' a certain leadin'
man in Jonesville, who wuz way up in political and moral life, havin'
held the offices of path-master and deacon. "But," sez he, with some
bitterness of sperit and speakin' skornfully:

"What if wimmen did dedicate it? They can git up dressed in their silks
and shiffoniers, and talk, talk, but they can't vote no matter how well
off they be. They've got to pony up and pay taxes and toe the mark in
law jest as men tell 'em to."

"Why," sez he, warmin' with his subject, "we men can set on you in
juries and you can't help yourselves, and hang you and so forth. And you
W.C.T.U. wimmen would have to let your tax money go to pay for drinkin'
shacks if we men of Jonesville, and the world, took it into our heads to
make you. Why," sez he, lookin' more and more big feelin' as he went on,
as why shouldn't he, as he recounted men's glorious advantages,

"Nate Flanders, who is most a fool, can vote and make you knuckle down
and do as he tells you to. And don't you remember that time the 'lection
run so clost they got up old bed-ridden Nate Haskins, whose brain had
been softenin' for years, and his wife had to dress him and git him
ready for the pole, he callin' on his wife, Nancy, to put on every
identical garment and tell where it went, and when they got him to the
pole he wouldn't vote because Nance wuzn't there to tell him which
ticket to vote. She'd jest kep' that voter alive for years, and been
head and hands for him, but she couldn't vote and he could."

Everybody has seen hosses run off the track when they wuz goin' too
fast; Josiah wuz so engaged in runnin' wimmen's pride down, he didn't
realize where he wuz gallopin' to. "And there wuz Jane Ellis who lost
her husband and two boys through drinkin', she had to let her tax money
be used to help nominate a license man, who opened a liquor saloon right
under her nose, and the last boy she had took to drinkin' and killed
himself last week drunk as a fool."

"I'd be ashamed to boast of that, Josiah Allen, I'd be ashamed on't."

"Well," sez he, lookin' kinder meachin', "I didn't say I approved of
that, I only said it to prove how weak and triflin' a thing woman really
is in the eyes of the law." And the rubber-like self-esteem of a male,
havin' sprung back in full force, he went on:

"Why, Miss Corkins, up to Zoar, that pays bigger taxes than any man in
town, earnt it all herself too in the millionary bizness, why, that
snub-nosed nigger that drives for her can vote, and she can't. And then
I'd talk about dedicatin' the biggest buildin' in the world, singin'
hims on the biggest organ and lettin' a few men into the back door--I
wouldn't feel so big about it if I wuz you.

"Why, we men jest throw such little compliments in the way of females to
keep you contented, jest as I throw crumbs from the table to Bruno to
home and pat him on the back. He knows he can't come to the table. We
men jest hang onto the ballot; wimmen hain't goin' to git holt of that
in a hurry and boss us round, no indeed!"

Oh, how obstrepolous and important he did talk and act! And Blandina
lookin' up so admirin' at him and agreein' to every word he said, jest
for all the world like an anty, seemed to rile me worse than anything
else. But as long as I couldn't dispute a word he said, knowin' it wuz
as true as gospel, I kep' demute, and hoped he would take it for a
dignified silence that wouldn't dain to argy.

Well, we had our lunch in a box and a bottle of cold tea, and we eat it,
and rested quite a spell, Josiah's good nater returnin' with every
mouthful he took, till by the time we got ready to start out agin, he
wuz as clever a critter as I want to see.

I wanted to tackle the Palace of Arts next, as it wuz quite nigh by
considerin'. The Fair grounds are so immense that you have to travel
quite a distance to git anywhere. But Josiah said he wanted to see
sunthin' that wuz of practical use, ondervaluin' beauty, the great
Power, as some do. He wanted to see sunthin' solid, such as mines and
metals. And of course Blandina jined in with him, and though that is
what I wanted of her, as second chaperone, it provoked me time and agin;
queer, hain't it?

So as that too wuz quite nigh by, we went to the Palace of Mines and
Metals. It wuz a beautiful buildin', the walls covered with ornamental
carvin' and ornaments, and two tall pillars standin' up each side of the
entrance as if they wuz two Genis jealously guardin' the Under World
from intrusion. But we got by 'em. And what didn't we see there?
Everything that wuz ever dug out of the earth, and the way it wuz
discovered, mined and made useful to man.

Gems, precious stuns, granite, marble and all the processes for cutting
and polishing. Minerals of all kinds, natural mineral paints and
fertilizers, cement, luminants and waters. Asbestos, mica, coal, coal
oil and all the machinery for refining and storing it. Displays for
natural gas, petroleum; everything relating to lighting mines; safety
lamps; oils; electricity; acetyline. Most interestin' display in
geology; all kinds of rocks; crystal; clay; ores; nickel and all the
metals for making iron and steel and makin' 'em right there before you.
Explosives used in the Under World. Everything relating to the workin'
of salt mines; oil wells; metals, photographs; maps, illustrating how
these riches of the earth wuz deposited, and all the machinery for
collecting and making them useful to man.

And there wuz a place where we could see a miner's cabin, and miners at
work, blasting, draining, driving tunnels, drilling, traveling
underground. A gold mill; a New Mexican turquoise mine; a lead, zinc and
copper mine, all working there before us; and a coal mine discovered
there on the Exposition grounds, an underground railway connected these
two mines. And all sorts of mineral waters, queer things they be flowin'
side by side out of the same ground as different as water and wine. And
there wuz a foundry and mint for makin' money.

Imagine a buildin' coverin' nine acres full of such interestin' sights,
and thirteen acres out-doors. For you must remember that it wuz not only
the riches of America's Under World, but the wealth of England, France,
Germany, Sweden, Italy, Japan and in fact every foreign nation. Josiah
reveled in it, and so did Blandina vicariously. And I enjoyed it too,
for I always wuz wonderin' what wuz goin' on under my feet, and now I
had a glimpse on't.

Well, we stayed there a long time and went from there into Manufactures
Buildin', when who should we meet but Uncle Giles Petigrew, a M.E.
deacon who used to live in Zoar but who had moved to St. Louis some
years before. We used to know him well. He wuz a old man when he left
Zoar, and had lost four wives a runnin' before he left there, and of
course I didn't know how many he'd lost since he come West, I see he
wore a mournin' weed, and mistrusted he'd lost another, and so it turned
out. It beats all what bad luck he has had. He wuzn't to blame for any
one on 'em, 'tennyrate them that passed away at Zoar, and I spozed it
wuz jest the same here. Never pizened any of 'em, or divorced 'em or
anything, it wuz jest his bad luck.

He seemed real glad to see us and wuz dretful chipper for a man most a
hundred; he got hold of my hand and shook it as if he never would leggo,
and went right on confidin' in me about his lost companion, what a
treasure she wuz, and what a loss.

And I sez, "Your wives wuz real nice wimmen, most all on 'em wuz, or
them that I knowed."

"Oh, yes," sez he, "and these blows that has fell on me has most
onmanned me."

And I sez in pityin' axents, "You won't try to git another wife, will
you, Uncle Giles?"

"Yes, I shall, as long as the Lord keeps a takin', I shall--is that
woman with Josiah a widder?"

I answered evasive, and kinder stepped in between him and Blandina, I
didn't want her to hear what he wuz sayin', I dassent. It wouldn't been
best for her to married a man most a hundred. And I knowed her soft
nater made her a willin' martyr to widower's wiles. Age made no
difference to Blandina. And I dassent venter to let him git nearer to
her. So I bid him a hasty good-by and linked my arm into hern and led
her away. She lookin' back and sayin', "How agreeable and willin' a
lookin' man that wuz," and I hurried her on fast to Manufactures
Buildin'--stoppin' by the way to see the beautiful Sunken Garden.

The display in Manufactures is so large that they fill two immense
palaces, Manufacturers and Varied Industries, and you'd git lost you
couldn't help it, amongst the bewilderin' and endless native and foreign
displays, only the aisles are divided off into streets and squares, all
the same width, so you can git 'round first-rate. And if you had ten or
fifteen years you could spend here you might possibly see most of the
displays of your own native land and all the foreign countries. These
two palaces cover twenty-eight acres, as big as Luman Gowdey's farm that
he gits a good livin' on, and the hull twenty-eight acres are full of
interestin' sights. You can walk nine miles in it right ahead--as fur as
from Jonesville way up to Zoar, and back agin.

And jest think of every single thing that wuz ever manufactured from a
hatpin to a rose-wood bedstead, and from a needle to a piano, and there
it wuz in plain sight if you could git to it, for truly you got
bewildered amongst the endless displays. Furniture, upholstery, all
sorts of cloth, silk, wool and cotton that wuz ever woven, all kinds of
silver and gold, and pearl and jet and shell and ivory articles that wuz
ever used, clocks, watches, jewels, embroideries, laces, carpets,
curtains, wall paper, stationery, hardware, glass and crystal, furs,
bronze, ironware, leather goods, stained glass, artists' supplies,
tailor shop, rubber store, toy store.

But good land! what is the use of tryin' to name 'em over? I couldn't do
it if I had a blank book as big as a dictionary and writ it full. But
you can jest think of everything manufactured you ever see, or ever
didn't see and there it wuz, and more and more and more, and I might
fill pages with "mores," but what use would it be.

But one of the best things we see at the hull Fair wuz there in the
Palace of Varied Industries. For to the thinkin' mind, the countless
display of articles, the marvels and magnificence of this Exposition is
not its main value, but its educational worth, its power to inspire and
teach the people of the world better ways of living and working, how to
make the most and best of life for themselves and others. And among the
educational exhibits one of the most interestin' to my mind is the one I
speak on in the Varied Industries Palace.

The company that displays this has other interestin' exhibits at
different places at the Exposition, but here they have a display that I
wish the head of every big concern that employs labor could see and
study and take to heart. This company employs thousands of men and
wimmen in makin' a machine that wonderfully simplifies labor.

But where the real educational value comes in hain't in the machine
itself, or the makin' on't, though that's interestin', but the way this
company treats its employees.

You sit in a neat little theatre, fitted up with easy seats, and
electric fans and every comfort, and right in front of you, throwed onto
a big screen, are pictures from real life showin' Capital and Labor
dwellin' together like a lion and a lamb, and the child Justice leadin'
'em.

Here you see and hear in the interestin' talk of the lecturer pictures
from the old time, when the company first begun its work up to the
gigantic plant and immense buildings of to-day. You see a woman tryin'
to warm some coffee over a radiator, they say the president of the
company see that, and it first made him think of furnishin' a lunch room
with a kitchen and every convenience for his employees.

You see pictures of the women employees goin' to their work a half hour
later than the men, so the cars won't be so crowded. You see 'em at
their recreation time of fifteen minutes, at ten in the forenoon and
three in the afternoon, goin' through their physical exercises, or some
other recreation to brighten 'em up for the rest of the day.

Then you see 'em at their clubs and classes, or playing tennis or
baseball, or in the big auditorium built for their use, listenin' to
some great orator or fine musician. These employees are not drudges, but
joy is labor and labor is joy.

Then there is a picture showing a street of the homes of these
employees, pretty houses with windows and doorways covered with vines
and bright blossoms, makin' a picture of what some say is the most
beautiful street in the world.

And there are pictures of noted people who have been there to study and
learn their methods, folks from foreign countries, who will carry the
blessed and beautiful example seen here to other lands. In one view is a
Prince and Princess who went there to learn their ways, lookin'
admirin'ly on. In another is a Cardinal givin' his benediction to
thousands of the happy workers.

It is a sermon better than is often preached, what you see there in that
little theatre. It is Love and Labor and Beauty and Joy walkin' hand in
hand. I wuz highly tickled with it, and spent a glad hour here.

But Josiah and I thought we'd seen enough for one day, and would go
home. But Blandina wanted to look over the articles of men's wearin'
apparell a little more; I don't see what comfort they wuz to her but she
said, "They brought back memories." And I spoze they did make her think
of Teeter and mebby his possible successor. But one thing, I believe,
that made her want to stay, we met Billy Huff jest as we wuz comin' out
of the buildin', and Blandina proposed that she should stay a little
longer with him and I gin a willin' consent, more willin' it seemed to
me than Billy wuz, though he couldn't refuse to escort home a guest of
the house.

But Josiah and I went home and both on us used some anarky on our tired
limbs, and he cleaned the mud offen our shoes, for truly it wuz faithful
and stuck by us.

It had rained the night before and that made it dretful muddy, Josiah
acted real grouty about it and sot there mutterin' and complainin' about
the mud till I got kinder wore out and sez:

"For mercy sake! I guess you've seen mud before, Josiah Allen. Think of
our Jonesville streets after a heavy rain."

"Well, they never wuz so muddy that I lost the old mair in 'em, and a
man told me to-day that they lost a elephant here the other day, it went
right down in the mud out of sight, and they never see hide or hair of
him agin."

"Don't you believe that, Josiah Allen; it hain't no such thing, I hearn
all about it, the elephant didn't go clear in. He didn't go more than
half in, they could see his back all the time and they got him out all
right."

"Well, that's furder in the mud than the old mair ever went enough
sight, and I never could have faced my country agin, if the streets had
been so muddy at my Exposition."

"Don't be pickin' flaws all the time, Josiah. There is enough of beauty
and grandeur here to satisfy any common man."

"But I hain't a common man, Samantha, and never wuz called so."

"Well, oncommon then, there is enough beauty here to satisfy an oncommon
man."

That seemed to molify him, and he gin in that it wuz a pretty good show.
But in many things inferior to what hisen would have been if he'd
carried it out. But I discouraged all such morbid idees and led his mind
off onto sunthin' else.

That evenin' whilst Josiah went out to mail a letter Blandina come into
my room and sez the first thing, "Aunt Samantha, I love him passionately
but my love is scorned by him."

And she busted into tears. I didn't ask no questions, but from Billy's
icy demeanor at supper table and Blandina's sentimental grief-stricken
linement I mistrusted she'd made overtoors to him that had been
rejected.

But I tried to turn her mind 'round by showin' her a letter I'd jest got
from Maggie, my son, Thomas Jefferson's wife, tellin' me that her sister
Molly, who had been visitin' a college friend in the South, had come
home much sooner than she had been expected and seemed run down and most
sick.

But she wuz bound to go to the Fair and they thought it wouldn't hurt
her to go, as there didn't seem to be anything serious the matter with
her only she seemed melancholy and out of sperits, it seemed to be her
mind that wuz ailin' more than her body. And would I if there wuz room
in my boardin' place take her in and mother her a little. Maggie
couldn't come herself, she wuzn't feelin' strong enough, and Thomas J.
won't leave her, specially if anything ails her, no indeed! he jest
worships her, and visey versey she him.

I can't deny my first thought on readin' the letter wuz, another straw
to be laid on the back of the camel, meanin' myself in metafor. But my
second thought wuz I should be glad to have her come, for she is a
lovely girl and I set store by her. She's been away to school and
college for years, but I had often seen her durin' her vacations at
Thomas Jefferson's.

Maggie had showed her letters to me that she had writ whilst she wuz
away South on this visit to her friend. One young man's name run through
'em like the theme to a great melody, and then all to once stopped, and
though Maggie and I hadn't passed a word on the subject I mistrusted
more than Maggie mistrusted I did about the cause of Molly bein' so
deprested.

Young folks will be young folks! young blood can't run slow and stiddy,
and how young hearts can ache, ache. The tide that youth sails out on is
a restless one, it has its passionate tides, lit by glowing sunshine,
and anon by the glare of the tempest. It flows ever and anon smooth, and
then agin rough rocks of disappointment checks its swift glad flow, and
what it calls despair, but which dwindles down into nothin' more than
regret time and agin. It has its low tides, full of the sobbin' of
waters that are flowin' back to the depths, and everything seems lost
and gone. But anon the tide flows back again and so it goes on, storm
and dull calm, sunshine and tempest, and they don't know which is the
hardest to endure. That's why youth is so beautiful, so glorious, so
tragic.

How I wished I could take Molly (for I loved her) and lift her clear
over the breakers into the calm of the deeper, smoother waters that the
home going boat finds when it is nearing the nightfall. The calm waters
lit by a light, soft and stiddy but sort o' sad like, not like the
dancin' sunlight of the mornin', oh no! when the tired mariner looks
back over the voyage and gits ready to cast anchor in the Home Haven.

But I knowed I wuz onreasonable to even wish it, for grim old Experience
must stand at the hellum every time in everybody's life, and folks
hadn't ort to expect dyin' grace to live by; Molly had got to weather
the storm of life whether or no and I couldn't help it. But to stop
eppisodin' and resoom.

I made a practice of writin' down mornings before I started for the Fair
the places I wanted to see that day if the rest of the party consented,
and I writ down that mornin' Liberal Arts, Fisheries, Educational
Buildin', Electricity, Machinery, Transportation, Horticultural and
Agricultural Buildin's and etcetery.

Josiah wanted to know what etcetery meant, and I told him any other
place we wanted to see which he said wuz reasonable, and he thought
probable he should have to go to some shows on the Pike, he said he had
met Uncle Sime Bentley the day before and they talked it over and
decided that it seemed to be their duty as solid stiddy men to go to
some of the worst shows, specially them that had pretty girls in 'em, so
they could be convinced of their iniquity and warn the young
Jonesvillians. He said they would take their advice as quick agin if
they could warn 'em from experience.

"But Josiah," sez I, "I wouldn't take such a distasteful, hateful job
onto me, it hain't your duty to make such a martyr of yourself,
specially as you hain't well."

But Josiah said he'd always said "He wouldn't put his hand to the plow
and look back," and he and Uncle Sime had talked it all over and agreed
they would make the sacrifice for the good of Jonesville. But I meant to
break it up; I knowed it wuzn't his duty to nasty up his mind, hopin' to
do good by it, when I could never git it cleaned up agin as clean as it
wuz before.




CHAPTER VII.


Aunt Tryphena come in to make up our room whilst we wuz argyin' about
it. She come earlier than common, for she said she wuz goin' herself to
the Fair that day and take Dotie, who hadn't been at all. I told her it
would be a job to take care of a child in that big crowd.

But she said, "I'd rather take care of Miss Dotie than to eat any time.
And as for the crowd it wuz nothin' to crowds she'd been in when she
lived in Paris with Miss Louise and Prince Arthur. She had took him when
he wuz a little boy to the Boy Bolony and the Champin Eliza when there
wuz millions of folks there." She wuz always talking of Prince Arthur,
which I fancied wuz a pet name for a child, and still given to the young
man she wuz constantly talkin' about through her pride and love for him.

Aunt Tryphena wuz from slave parentage, but she had always lived in
white families since a child, so she had little of the peculiar dialect
of her race. But she wuz black as the Founder of Evil himself, tall and
thin with a mighty head of wool white as snow, which she covered with a
yellow turban about her work. She had abnormal powers of falsehood, not
for profit or to make trouble, but jest simple lying for lie's sake. The
most incredible stories she would string off, and nothing pleased Billy
more than to git her to goin', as he called it.

He would call our attention silently and reach behind her when she wuz
about her work and turn an imaginary crank in her back, and then in the
same pantomime would jump back as if in fear of the fatal power he'd
invoked, but would wickedly delight in the endless stream of talk let
forth, occasionally asking a few questions, enough to keep her going.
She would lean on top of her broom and tell of her former adventures
thrilling enough and lengthy enough to fill a dozen lives. But
everything had happened to her personally, very few noted people but she
had seen and been on intimate terms with, very few far distant countries
but what she had visited, "Santered through," as she termed it.

In a fine disregard for geography she would tell of stepping from
Chicago over to the Phillippines, and so on to London and then to
Europe. She detailed many adventures in Paris and described places that
made us think that she had some time lived there. She said she went
there with Miss Louise and her son, Prince Arthur, when he wuz little,
as his nurse. And she described him as having all the virtues of his sex
with none of its frailties. She said she had his picture which she would
show us some day. She described his mother as a "proud piece," almost
putting her down on a level with "poor white trash," which wuz the
deepest depth her plummet of contumely could reach. And she described
her as holding her son by her apron string, as she termed it.

She said he had been home this summer on bizness down South and had come
to see her, which Billy said wuz true, a very handsome and elegant young
gentleman having called twice to see his old nurse during the spring and
summer.

She said he come to see her on his arrival at St. Louis on some bizness
connected with the Fair, and then he santered off to Saratoga for a few
weeks, and then on to ole Virginny and New Zealand, and then back to St.
Louis to attend to his bizness agin about the Fair. She said he wuz pale
and sad the last time she see him, and she mistrusted his ma had been
cuttin' up. She sez:

"You know she _lacks_." That wuz Aunt Tryphena's greatest condemnation
to say folks lacked. She never told what they lacked, but left it to the
imagination of the hearer; from her expression you would imagine they
lacked all the cardinal virtues and them that wuzn't cardinal. She said
his ma wuz sick and kep' the Prince right under her feet, and he'd gone
back now to be with her leaving St. Louis only a week or so before we
come.

Bein' asked why she left Miss Louise she wuz more reticent, only
remarking that after Prince Arthur went to college she wanted a change,
so she had strolled over to South America, and from there to Asia and so
on to Chicago where she wuz hired as nurse to Miss Dotie, and when her
ma died and the child wuz taken by its great-aunt, Miss Huff, she had
been willing to help the latter through the Exposition, for she wuz a
nice woman and didn't lack.

But we could see that her real reason wuz to be with the child--faithful
creeter she wuz, though queer, queer as they make. And to see the little
creature's white snow and rose face resting lovingly and confidingly
aginst the black cheeks, you knew that Aunt Tryphena had good in her.
Little children are good detectives, like the sun that photographs
hidden virtues and failings in the human face, so a child's intuition
brought from the heaven they have so lately left, takes the best
impressions of a person's real character. Children and animals live so
near Nature's heart they can detect real diamonds from the false, no
paste glitter can deceive 'em. Aunt Pheeny had qualities, or Dotie
wouldn't have loved her so well, and I felt it a great compliment that
she seemed to like me.

Well, as observed heretofore we had took a hefty job that day, and we
proceeded first to the Educational Buildin'. It wuz a noble lookin'
structure with a row of snowy pillows all 'round it; a good many think
it is the handsomest buildin' on the Fair ground, and as I said to
Josiah, it ort to be considerin' the greatness and importance of the
work it displays, for our free schools, our educational advantages, are
the pride and glory of our country.

"Yes, Samantha," sez he, "I hearn a man say yesterday education wuz the
very bull work of our country, meanin' you know, Samantha, it wuz strong
as a bull."

"Oh, you hain't got it jest right, Josiah, bulwark don't mean jest that,
but you've got the sperit of it," I hastened to say, for he don't love
to be corrected.

And here in this buildin' we see everything relating to schools from
kindergarten to university, training schools, where children wuz to
work, schools for the blind, deaf and dumb in operation; the work of
labratories going on before you; departments in drawing, music,
agricultural colleges; experiment stations, forestry, engineering
schools and institutions, libraries, museums, education of the Indian
and negro, evening industrial schools, business and commercial schools,
people's institutes, and every way and manner of mind training.
Photograph, charts, maps, and not only all our own educational exhibits,
but England, France, Germany, Russia, China, and in short all the
foreign countries.

We stayed a good while there and I would have loved to stay longer, but
Josiah got worrisome and wanted to go on to Electricity Buildin' which
wuz next in our programmy. And here I took more solid comfort than in
any place I'd been, beholdin' the marvelous works wrought by the
greatest discovery of the ages. That wonderful Force that has power to
overcome space, save or slay. It is intelligent, can talk over the ocean
and under it, talk with wires, and if a wire hain't handy it will take a
beam of light and talk on that, and it can git along without either one,
for here is the biggest wireless telegraph station ever built; visitors
can talk on it from city and city, jest throwin' their words out into
the air and this onseen agency carries 'em along to the one sent to and
nobody else--wonderful hain't it? Wonderful to meditate on the great
onseen forces all about us, mysterious viewless shapes, nigh to us,
helpin' us, journeyin' on errents of mercy to and fro on paths we can't
see, leadin' up and down from star to star from heaven to earth mebby.

And curious, hain't it, that the noble and ardent discoverers who have
tried to git friendly with them Great Forces and introduce 'em to the
world have been called ignorant and pagan, when if these scoffers knowed
it there is no paganism or ignorance to be compared to that of bigotry
and intolerance.

And we see there dynamos of all kinds, motors, storage batteries, all
sorts of power machines. Electric railway equipments of every kind,
telephone stations for talking with wires and without 'em, all kinds of
electric lighting, arc lamps, electro-chemical displays. And in one
place they show the way Niagara wuz made to yield up her resistless
power to work for mankind. Labratories for all sorts of electrical
exhibits and research work. Electricity purifying water, making it safe
to drink, wuz one of its best exhibits.

There wuz everything there it wuz possible to show in electricity and
magnetism, not only in our own country, but the work and discoveries of
all the foreign countries in this most interestin' of fields.

There is another wireless telegraph and telephone station in the Model
City that we visited another time. You walk into this room and you don't
hear anything more than the ordinary noise the big crowd makes passin'
to and fro. And the air about you don't seem any different from jest
plain Jonesville air. Your human eyes and ears can't discover any
difference.

But you jest take up a receiver and put it to your ear and lo, and
behold the atmosphere all about you is full of voices, near and fur off,
strains of music. It's a sight.

And I sez to Josiah, "Who knows but some happy soul some happy day may
discover the secret of _seeing_? Who knows what divine visitors are this
minute coming and going over these onseen routes connecting our souls
with distant ones, connecting one land to another, one planet to another
like as not."

And growin' some eloquent, I kep' on, "We don't hear the sound of their
footsteps lighter and more noiseless than the down of a blossom, shod as
they are with the softness of silence. We don't hear the rustle of their
garments, woven of frabic [sic] lighter than air. We can't see their
tender faces no more than we can see the sweet breath of the rose. If
they lay their tender hands on our foreheads they rest there so light
and tender we fancy it is only a breath of air touchin' our fevered
brows bringing a sudden rest and comfort.

"If they speak to us when we're tired out and heartbroken we hear their
voices only in our souls that are suddenly and strangely consoled. If
their eyes ever look into our eyes filled with the divine pity and
sweetness of their all comprehendin' love and sympathy, we only know it
by the sudden sunshiny light and warmth that fills our being. But
sometime, somewhere, some happy soul may see and comprehend what we now
faintly apprehend."

Josiah whispered, "Samantha Allen, do you realize what you're doin'?
You're attractin' attention and makin' talk, come along! this is no time
for eppisodin', if there ever _is_ a right time."

And bein' brung down to earth agin I found to my great surprise I wuz
sayin' this out loud entirely unbeknown to myself. And I follered my
pardner out of the buildin'.

But to resoom backwards. We thought we would go from the Palace of
Electricity to that of Transportation, and I feelin' real tired thought
I would take a chair a spell (eloquence is tuckerin' specially when
you're walkin' afoot), and I proposed that we should all take chairs for
a spell. But Josiah said he didn't want any chair, and Blandina of
course follered suit and said she felt jest like Uncle Josiah, she
wouldn't set down if she could.

But I sez, "Well, I think I will take one," and Josiah ruther
onwillin'ly said he would git one for me, and sez he, "I'll see how much
the man will throw off if I push the chair myself."

Sez I, "The man wouldn't trust a perfect stranger with a chair."

Then Josiah wondered if he couldn't borry the loan of a wheelbarru that
would hold me up. He could trundle me along as well as not.

Sez I, "I shall not enter the Palace of Transportation, Josiah Allen, in
a wheelbarrow."

"Well, I could probable git in Machinery Hall a pair of big castors and
fix 'em onto your shoes, and Blandina and I could push you 'round like a
buro. What do you think of that?" sez he anxiously.

"I shall not enter into any such operation!" sez I. "How it would look!"

"I d'no as it would look so dretful, you standin' up straight and easy,
and Blandina and I pushin' you along, and 'tennyrate I guess it would
look as well as bein' throwed onto the town! chairs cost like the old
Harry."

Sez I, "Don't worry, I shall pay with my own butter money." And so I
did, and rid to Transportation Buildin' with Josiah and Blandina walkin'
by my side. We entered one of its sixty doors, and the first thing we
sot our eyes on up in plain sight, but fur ahead wuz the wheels of a
great locomotive weighin' more than two hundred thousand pounds,
revolvin' 'round in dizzy speed. They said it went by compressed air,
another wonder, jest common air that you could dip up in your hand and
not think you had anything in it, and yet if managed right had power
enough to turn all the machinery we see goin'. Around this monster
engine wuz electric head-lights throwin' dazzlin' beams in every
direction. The hull thing well named, the Spirit of the Twentieth
Century. And all 'round it wuz grouped models showing the development of
the inventor's dream from the first rough effort at an engine up to the
most perfect specimen of to-day. All sorts of electrical railways,
freight and work cars, tracks, switches, signals, carriages,
ortomobiles, motor vehicles, naval architecture, models, boats,
steamships, men-of-war, battleships of the line.

Exhibits of all sorts, illustrating inland transportation in India,
France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and every other foreign country. You
could see to once that there wuz ways enough to travel, and if you
stayed to home it wuz your own fault.

Well, we went from there to Machinery Buildin', that bein' writ down
next on my pad. But as we walked along, I considerable riz up in my
mind, owin' to what I'd seen, who should we come acrost but the widder
Whisher of Loontown, a woman we knew well. She wuz settin' on a bench
cryin' as if her heart would break, and I sez:

"Why, sister Whisher, what is the matter?" (She wuz sister in the
meetin' house.)

She had a paper in her hand and held it out to us, "Jest see that! I
found it in the pocket of my innocent boy!" pintin' to a coat layin' by
her.

"Why," sez I, "that paper is took more than any other almost; I like it
myself first-rate, its editorials are the brightest and smartest you'll
find anywhere."

"Oh, but it is so sensational! so vulgar, so demoralizin' to the tender
and innocent heart of youth. And to think that my spotless child that I
have guarded so sedgously from every breath of evil should have it
concealed in his pocket. I have always burnt every copy I've found." And
agin she sobbed, and agin I sez:

"Sister Whisher, don't take it so to heart; he'll have to weather worst
storms than this on the sea of life. And you can't expect to be with him
always and stand to the hellum."

"Oh, but Reginald Heber is so innocent, so pure-hearted; almost an
angel," sez she, "I have been so afraid that he wuz too perfect for this
sinful world!" And her tears flowed afresh.

Well, I see I couldn't plug up this flowin' fountain of tears with
sympathy or reason, so we mogged along. Widder Whisher wuz always kinder
soft and she'd made a perfect idol of Reginald, who wuzn't any better
than common children so fur as I could see.

And after goin' a few steps, Josiah and I in advance, Blandina a little
in our rears, who should we see comin' directly towards us but Reginald
Heber himself. He evidently didn't notice who we wuz, but wuz merely
takin' note of a new victim, for after takin' fair aim at my stomach he
bent his head down and went, "Choo, choo!--choo, choo!" like a engine
and run towards me at full speed, and bunted his round shingled head
right into my stomach with almost the force of an arrer shot out of a
catamount, yellin' all the while like a demon.

"Git out of the way, you old four-eyed devil you!"

Makin' light of my spectacles, I spoze, though truly I wuz too weak to
reason. After doublin' me up in agony he sought safety in flight. But my
indignant pardner ketched him by his little short-tailed coat and
dragged him back to his ma, hollerin' at her:

"I'll give you a specimen of your innocent boy! He's jest the kind of an
innocent angel I'd love to take a hemlock shingle to, and would, if it
wuzn't for makin' talk." And he told the hull thing before I could
interfere.

She wept afresh, but sez she, lookin' at the whimperin' and strugglin'
Reginald H., "How soon the demoralizin' effects of that paper shows----"

But Josiah continued on in that same loud axent, his liniment red as
blood with anger, "If I had your darling to deal with a spell, there
would be a change in him, or a funeral appinted, and the body would be
ready at the time sot, I can tell you that!"

Josiah wuz fearful excited and by the side of himself. Such voylent
language is almost a perfect stranger to him, but he feared for my
bones. But I found after walkin' 'round a spell that they wuz intact,
but the pain in my stomach hung about me all day, and that night, no
matter how high my standin' wuz in the W.C.T.U., I had to take a
peppermint sling.

But to resoom backward. Machinery Buildin' wuz an immense beautiful
palace. And when I tell you its contents are valued at eight millions
you won't expect me to disscribe the hull on 'em, no, it hain't
reasonable. When we entered we see the first thing a engine of over
fifty thousand horse-power.

Now, jest think on't, a one horse-power hain't to be despised. Why, I've
thought our old mair power when she wuz hitched onto a bob sled wuz
powerful. But jest think of fifty thousand horse-power. Why, if they wuz
hitched in front of each other with lines about the usual length, the
line would reach more than a hundred miles. Why, the very idee is
staggerin' to the intellect.

But, there it was right there before our eyes grindin' out power to run
this monster Exposition, and not complainin' or needin' the whip as the
fifty thousand horses would, only jest knucklin' down stiddy to the
work, groanin' considerable loud, and who blames it. And you could see
everything in the line of engines from the little half horse-power gas
engine, about half the mair's strength, about cow power, mebby, and from
this up to a steam turbin of eight thousand horse-power, a rotary steam
engine. And in the Belgian exhibit wuz a gas engine of three thousand
horse-power, a common sized horse can be driv through its cylinders, it
takes about thirty tons of coal a day to run it. And there wuz a big
French steam engine turnin' three hundred and thirty times a minute. And
there wuz a great hydraulic press from Germany that exerts the terrific
pressure of ninety thousand pounds to the square inch--what would it be
to the yard? My brain hain't powerful enough to tackle the idee.

Well, there wuz every kind of machinery in the world from all the
foreign countries as well as ours, and the methods of making and running
them. And we stayed there till my head seemed to turn 'round and 'round,
and I told my pardner I must git out into the open air or I should begin
to turn 'round and revolve in spite of me. I spoze I did look bad, and
Josiah said we would go and have lunch. He said there wuz a caff right
'round the corner, as he pronounced cafe it sounded like a young cow.
But the idee wuz good, and after we eat quite a good meal and rested a
little we started to tackle Agricultural Buildin' which wuz writ next on
my pad.

It wuz quite a journey there, in fact, as I've said before, you have to
walk a long distance to git anywhere, but jest before we got there we
see sunthin' that made us forgit for the moment our achin' limbs. On the
side of a slopin' hill at the bottom of the long flight of stairs, that
lead up to the north entrance of Agricultural Hall is the most wonderful
clock that wuz ever seen on this globe, and I don't believe they've got
anything to beat it in Mars or Saturn.

I can't give you much idee of it by writin', nobody can, but I can
probably describe it so you can see it goes ahead of your own clock on
the kitchen wall or mantelry piece. To begin with how long do you spoze
the minute hand is? The minute hand on our clock is about three inches
long, and the minute hand to this is fifty feet long, and its face is
about three hundred feet 'round and all made of the most beautiful
posies.

Why, the figures that mark the hours are fifteen feet long, most three
times as long as my pardner, if he lay flat as a pan-cake to be measured
by a pole, jest think of that and these figgers are all made of bright
colored foliage plants. The ornaments 'round the face of the clock is a
border of twenty-five different plants, each one fifteen feet wide. Some
different from the ornamental wreath 'round our clock face, that hain't
more'n half an inch wide, if it is that. Our clock has a picture
underneath of old Time with his scythe a mowin' down the hours and
minutes as his nater his. And I told Josiah how beautiful and symbolical
it wuz to think old Time had laid down his scythe for a spell, and wuz
measurin' off the hours here in this Fairy Land with beautiful posies.

And Josiah said, "The hours ort to be marked here with canes and
crutches," he said his legs ached like the toothache.

The distances are awful and I couldn't deny it, and you do git tuckered
out, but then, as I told Josiah, jest think what you're tuckered for.

And he said, "When you're as dead as a door-nail he didn't know what
good some steeples and flags wuz goin' to do you, or floral clocks." I
mistrusted he'd walked too fur lately, and had strained the cords of his
legs, and his patience too much, though the last-named wuz easy hurt and
always wuz.

But Josiah took out his watch and looked at it and said he'd promised to
meet a man on important bizness, and he'd meet us at a certain spot in
Agricultural Hall in jest one hour.

I asked him what bizness it wuz, and he hesitated a little and said as
he hurried away that it wuz "Bizness connected with the meetin' house,"
and I asked him "What meetin' house?" and he didn't answer me, he wuz
walkin' off so fast--_mebby_ he didn't hear me.

Well, Blandina and I stayed lookin' at this wonderful clock for some
time, and she said that the man that invented this clock wuz a powerful
genius and how she did wish she could meet him. She said such a man
needed a kind and lovin' companion to take every care offen him and pet
him and make of him.

The machinery of this clock, what makes it go, is up above a little ways
on the hill in a small pavilion. There are glass doors, and you can look
in and see the works of the clock. A great bell there strikes off the
hours and quarter hours, and there is a big hour-glass there too. One
thousand electric lights light it up at night so folks can see day or
night jest how time is passin' away.

Agricultural Building is the largest on the ground. The two palaces of
Agriculture and Horticulture stand up on a beautiful hill surrounded by
orchards, gardens, vineyards, shrubs, vines of all sorts. This outside
exhibit covers fifty acres. There are beautiful lakes full of the rarest
aquatic plants, from the great Egyptian lotus, whose leaves are large
and strong enough to hold up a good-sized child, and all kinds of
smaller plants, but jest as beautiful; indeed, there is everything rare
and lovely in that display that ever grew in water or on land, and they
make it one of the most beautiful places of the hull Exposition.

The enormous display outside and inside covers seventy acres, and every
inch on 'em beautiful and instructive. The twenty acres covered by
Agricultural Hall contains everything relating to the soil and its
cultivation, everything that Mother Earth gives to man, all the tools,
implements of every kind used in agriculture, ploughs, reapers, mowers,
threshers, etc., run by horse-power, steam or electricity.

Among the ploughs we see a small old-fashioned one made of wood, used by
Daniel Webster when he wuz a poor farmer boy. Workin' hard at his humble
work but his boyish mind, most probable, sot on sunthin' fur above,
lookin' at the hard soil ahead on him that he must break up, with them
wonderful, sad, eloquent eyes of hisen, and seein' visions, no doubt,
and dreamin' dreams. Callin' out to his oxen or horses, "gee," or "whoa"
as the case might be, and they not sensin' the fact that this voice wuz
goin' to give utterance to silver-tongued, heart thrillin' eloquence in
the highest places of Europe and his native land.

As I looked at it pensively I pictured the tired boy holdin' the onhandy
handles of the plow and trudgin' along behind his team through the long
sultry days, and thought to myself, what hopes and dreams and ambitions
wuz turned over by that old plow as well as green-sward.

Right by that little plow wuz a big powerful one that went by
electricity. A sight that would probable looked as strange to Daniel,
could it have appeared to him then, as any of his wildest day-dreams
materilized.

And there wuz all the methods of irrigation, draining, engines,
wind-mills, pumps, farm wagons, all kinds of fruit, sugar canes,
vegetable sugar, candy stores, confectionery displays, vegetables of all
kinds that wuz ever hearn on, some on 'em of such monster size that you
never dremp on 'em, unless it wuz in a night-mair.




CHAPTER VIII.


Well, the time had arrived when we promised to meet Josiah at the
appinted rondevoo. Indeed Blandina, went a little ahead of time, for as
second chaperone she said it might be he would get there a little early,
and bein' naturally high-sperited he might get impatient, and she said
men ort to be guarded from anything that would wear on their tempers,
jest as much as possible.

So I looked 'round a little more, and when I got to the place appinted,
there sot Blandina readin' extracts from "The Noble Achievements of Men"
in a paper cover, which she carried 'round in her pocket. But no Josiah
wuz there.

Minutes passed; my happiness and peace of mind passin' off faster than
the minute hand, and no Josiah. A quarter of a hour passed, and still no
sign of that dear man. And when half an hour had gone by I busted into
tears, and Blandina I could see wuz torn with anxiety and offered to go
out into the streets of St. Louis and hunt for him. She mistrusted he
had wandered off the Fair ground, and that clever creeter wuz willin' to
leave all the allurements that wuz allurin' her here to hunt for him.

I sez, "I don't believe he is there. But, oh, where shall we find him?
and what state will he be in when found!" Knowin' the past as we did, we
feared for the worst. But jest then Billy Huff happened to pass by and
stopped and asked what wuz the matter.

"Oh!" sez I, with the tears runnin' down my cheeks in copious as
torrents, "my pardner is lost!"

"Where did you lose him?" sez he.

I told him how it wuz and he sez, "I'll bet I can find him for you; I
remember his talkin' last night about a certain place."

[Illustration]

Sez I in tearful axents, "Oh, do! do try, and ease the heart of a
distracted companion."

But when he mentioned the place he thought he wuz I repelled the
insinuation with scorn. It wuz one of the most hilarious and vain places
of revelry at the Fair, where there wuz lots of bally girls and
etcetery, and I sez:

"No, indeed! He may have gone into some meetin' house and wandered up
into the steeple onbeknown to him, or some educational exhibit, or Bible
rooms, but never, never in that place."

But yieldin' to his arguments I consented to go with him sayin' we would
stay at the door while he reconoitered. But jest as we got to the door
who should we see comin' out radiant and smilin' but Josiah Allen and
Uncle Sime Bentley.

Billy sez, "What did I tell you?"

I couldn't frame a reply, I had no frame that fitted the remark, but as
Billy disappeared to once it didn't matter. When Josiah ketched my eye
and the look it wore, the blush of shame mantiled his cheek--or wuz it
remorse?--I couldn't tell, they look some alike.

And he sez, "We went in, Samantha, to look for a missin' man, and my
corn ached like furiation jest as we wuz passin' the door, and I
couldn't seem to walk another step, and it looked some like rain and I
knew you wouldn't want me to spile my new coat----"

And Uncle Sime chimed in, "We wuz took faint both on us jest as we got
to the door and had to set down, and I mistrusted I should find cousin
Zekiel there," and then happenin' to remember, both at the same time,
they begun to say how they went for the good of the meetin' house.

Sez I in frigid axents, "Say no more!" And I turned onto my heel and
walked coldly away.

But Blandina whispered to me, "Oh, be merciful, Aunt Samantha, men have
such powerful intellects, that Shows that would almost ruin a woman,
don't affect them hardly any. Speak tenderly to him," sez she, "and I
myself will gently accost Mr. Bentley."

So she stepped back to his side and Josiah advanced and walked by me
still pourin' out excuses. Why he gin enough reasons to excuse a
regiment let alone one small deacon.

But Blandina seemed to lose her efforts, for Uncle Sime talked real
grouty to her, he has never had a idee of marryin' anybody since his
wife died and he mistrusts wimmen are runnin' after him. You know male
widowers do git that idee into their heads, them that are as humbly as
Time in the Primer, and a onmarried woman can't ask 'em about the
weather, or sheep, or anything but what they mistrust some hidden
warmth, and pride themselves on how attractive they be. It's a sight.

As nigh as I could find out the minute Josiah Allen left me he took the
railway and hurried to the wicked place where he and Uncle Sime wuz to
meet, expectin' to git back in ample time to meet us. But they wuz so
took up with the show they dallied, and so retribution and a indignant
pardner overtook 'em. Well, we took the Intremoral railway and went back
to finish Agricultural Hall, for that bein' writ on my pad I wanted to
complete it so fur as we could, of course it would took months to do
justice to it.

We got there in a few minutes, and Josiah, as might be expected, wanted
to see the food exhibits, so we went where there wuz all kinds of food
made of vegetable products, all kind of grain, flour mills where you
could see wheat go in one end and bread come out the other, bakeries,
kitchens, tea and coffee pavilions and every sort of animal food
products, milk and cream in every form, fresh and preserved cheese and
butter dairies, all sorts of dairy tools, churns, separators, cheese
presses and vats, everything connected with makin' butter and cheese,
transporting and distributing. Starch factories, broom factories, market
gardening in all branches.

Grasses, all sorts of fodder for cattle, raised in every country of the
world, and the best methods of raising. Everything relating to poultry,
artificial hatching and raising. Every kind of crop raised in every
country of the world and the best methods of raising and handling them.
As in cotton, you can see it from the tiny seed clear to the cotton
mill, so in corn, you see everything that is manufactured from it and
how it is done--meal, breakfast foods, starch, bread, pastry, baking
powders, yeast, from a kernel of corn up to mills and manufactories. And
so it wuz in everything raised in our own country and all over the
world.

And there wuz a display of insects, bees and everything relating to
honey and wax. Silk worms and their work and products, cochineal and all
kinds of useful insects and their work, and hurtful insects and methods
of destroying them, and so on and so on and so on. I couldn't tell all I
see if I should try a week, and what we see wuzn't a drop to a fountain.
The immense buildin' is divided off into streets and blocks jest like a
city, and you might roam through them streets a month and find sunthin'
new and interestin' every day and hour.

Well, from there we went to Horticultural Hall, or we had started for
there when Josiah made a observation about the size of a potato he had
seen in Agricultural Hall, that I had to in the cause of Truth and Duty
object to, the size he mentioned was a twelve-quart pail, and I said:

"Josiah, take off a few quarts from that pail. For the good of your soul
take off two quarts anyway."

"Not a quart!" sez he, "nor a spunful."

Well, we had words about it, Blandina as usual siding with her uncle,
and it ended with their goin' back with a string, which Josiah produced
from his pocket to measure it, I offering to stay by a certain statute
till they got back. And as I stood there lookin' at the stiddy passin'
crowd and philosophizin' on it as my nater is, I wuz accosted by a
strange lookin' man, as I took it to be (I say It for reasons named
hereafter).

"Josiah Allen's wife, I am happy to meet you; I knew you at once though
it is so long since we met." In the meantime it had gripped holt of my
hand with fervor.

I drawed back and sez, "Sir!" (I thought it favored that gender most)
"Sir, I think you are mistook."

"Oh, no, you are Josiah Allen's wife; I am Dr. Mary Walker."

"Oh!" sez I in a relieved axent, as I returned the warm grasp of her
hand, "I am glad to meet you, Mary."

She's done some good things in her life, takin' care of poor wounded
soldiers, etc., and I honored her for 'em. Though I don't approve of her
costoom, as I told her in the conversation that ensued, after we'd
talked considerable about the Fair and kindred matters. For I see as we
stood there behavin' ourselves, curious eyes wuz bent on her and
onbecomin' epithets hurled at her by them who knowed no better. She
seemed oblivious to 'em, but I asked her if she wouldn't rather wear
less noticeable attire.

And she said she cared not for ribald remarks as long as her motives wuz
pure.

And I said we could carry pure motives under a headdress of peacock's
feathers standin' up straight over our foreheads, but wouldn't it be
better to carry 'em under a bunnet?

"No better!" sez she. "Not a whit."

"Well, easier?" sez I. "Wouldn't it be easier for ourselves and
bystanders?"

Sez she, "I care not for Public Opinion!"

"But," sez I, "as long as we've got to live clost neighbor to Public
Opinion wouldn't it be easier for us to fall in with his idees a little
on comparatively unimportant things than to keep him riled up all the
time? It seems to me that if folks want to impress their personality on
the world it is better to do it by noble deeds and words than by
startlin' costooms."

Sez she, "My dress is fur more comfortable than the ordinary dress of
females."

Sez I reasonably, "Short dresses are a boon and a blessin', but in my
opinion they can be short enough for comfort and still not infringe on
man's chosen raiment. And as for pantaloons, men are welcome to 'em so
fur as I'm concerned, and also tall hats, they hain't nothin' I hanker
for either on 'em."

Sez she, "We have a right to wear any clothes we see fit."

Sez I, "We have a right to plow green sword, shingle a steep barn ruff,
or break a yoke of steers. But the question is, will it pay in comfort
or economy to do this? As for me, I'd ruther be in the house in a
comfortable dress and clean apron, cookin' a good dinner for Josiah, or
settin' down knittin' his socks whilst he duz the harder work he is by
nater and education fitted for. But everybody to their own mind. And so
fur as I am concerned I'd ruther attract attention by doin' sunthin'
worth while, sunthin' really noble and good, than by tyin' a red rag
round my fore-top. But as I say, folks are different, and I am fur from
sayin' that my way is the only right way."

Mary kinder waived off some of my idees and went on and spoke of her
work on the battlefield and how necessary her dress wuz in such a place.

And I sez, "Mary, I've always honored you for your noble work there. But
I believe I could lift up the head of a dyin' man easier in a loose
gingham dress and straw bunnet tied on, than I could in your tight
pantaloons and high hat, but howsumever the main thing is that the man
is lifted, and he doubtless wouldn't quarrel about the costoom of his
preserver. The main thing in this world, Mary, is the work we do, the
liftin', or tryin' to lift; the day's work we do in the harvest field of
Endeavor. And I spoze a few trousers more or less hain't goin' to count
when we carry in our sheaves. Though I must say to the last, Mary
Walker, I could carry 'em easier in my dress than I could in yourn."

[Illustration]

In the heat of our good-natered conversation Mary had slipped her hand
through my arm and neither of us noticed it, so wropped up wuz we in the
topics under discussion, when I hearn Blandina's voice behind me sayin',
"Oh, what a noble lookin' man Aunt Samantha is talkin' to and how
affectionate actin'; how sweet it will be to meet him." And then I hearn
a sharp raspin' voice clost to me sayin':

"Sir, I will thank you to onhand my wife!"

I wouldn't hardly have knowed my pardner's voice, such burnin' anger
showed in it and wuz depictered on his liniment as I turned round and
faced him. And he went on:

"Samantha, have I lived with you most a century to be deceived in you
now?"

His turrible emotions had onhinged his reasonin' faculties, we hain't
lived together so long as that, but I didn't dane to argy, I only sez
with calm dignity:

"Miss Walker, this is my pardner, Josiah Allen."

"_Miss_!" sez he in a overbearin' axent, "_Miss_ Walker!" He looked as
if he thought it wuz a conspiracy hatched up between us to deceive him.

"Yes," sez I coolly, "Miss Walker, Dr. Mary Walker."

"Oh!" sez Josiah, in his surprise and relief not offerin' to bow or
shake hands or nothin'. "Dear Samantha, I've hearn on her." And he
turned and linked his hand in my other arm so for a minute we looked
like three twins perambulatin' along. In the meantime I introduced
Blandina, who looked bewildered and disappointed.

But Dr. Mary Walker remembered a engagement, and to my relief took leave
on us. And I said a few words to Josiah on the danger and cruelty to me
of his hasty opinion and suspicion and in the cause of Duty I mentioned
the late eppisode of himself and Uncle Sime, and he seemed mortified and
apologetic for as many as three minutes. But it didn't last, it never
duz with his sect. And we went on to Horticultural Hall, Josiah on the
way reluctantly showin' me the string he had measured the potato with.
He had to take off several quarts offen that pail, jest as I told him he
would, and it made him fraxious.

But he lost his shagrin on the way, it wuz buried under the acres of
posies and beautiful shrubs and trees through which we wuz passin'.
Every rare posy you ever hearn on wuz there and them you never dremp on,
and trees, some beautiful and familiar, and them with strange and
beautiful foliage. Little lakes, where gold and silver fish played and
dotted over with the rarest and loveliest water plants and blossoms,
shrubs runnin' over with bloom, why, there wuz acres of jest rosies. And
in the middle of a six-acre rose garden stood a handsome statute of one
of my own sect, Flora by name, jest lookin' down as if she owned the
hull on't, and wuz proud and happy to be there, as well she
might--she'll never git into such a delightful spot agin, I don't
believe.

And there wuz pleasant walks windin' round every which way and once in
awhile a big tree shadin' a cozy nook where you could sit down and enjoy
the beauty and perfume. It wuz good to be there, and it seemed as if the
hull world had the same mind about comin' and wuz all there walkin'
about or else settin' down enjoyin' themselves.

Horticultural Buildin' is big enough and full enough to keep folks busy
a month. Right in the centre, in a place as long as from our house clear
over to she that wuz Submit Tewksbury's and I d'no but furder, wuz a
display of fruit, all kinds of fruit of every shape and size that grow
in every climate from frigid to torrid, and every country from Greenland
to Asia, it wuz a sight. Then there wuz a display of every kind of
horticultural machinery and implements, glass housen, aquariums,
ferneries, all sorts of ornaments for gardens.

All kinds of small fruits and how to grow 'em, everything relating to
the culture of vines, vineyards, wine cellars. All sorts of ornamental
plants and flowers, models of fruit in wax and plaster, baskets and
bunches of flowers, conservatories, all flowering plants from every
country and the way to grow them. All sorts of seeds, grass, fruit trees
of all kinds, and the best way to prune and plant them.

Josiah told me he thought we could git round and see what wuz in this
buildin' in four weeks, but I felt dubersome about it and told him we
would have to go a pretty good jog if we did. Blandina thought she could
git round in three weeks if she had some good man's arm to lean on the
most of the time.

But 'tennyrate, after stayin' there and lookin' round a long time, I
told Josiah I wuz tired enough to go home, so we went.

I wuz most melted too, for St. Louis weather is tuckering to them that
can't stand heat. It made Josiah real worrisome time and agin. And one
thing he said about it put a idee into my head that I never had thought
on, I thought it wuz real smart.

Somebody wuz lamentin' the fact in our hearin' that so many thieves and
villains of all sorts had congregated at St. Louis this summer, and
Josiah sez:

"It's a first rate thing for sinners to come here to git acclimated, as
it were, before they die."

I hadn't thought on't, but felt there wuz sunthin' in it, for truly the
burnin' climate of the place I don't want to speak on by name, must be
easier to bear after visitin' St. Louis than to plunge into it from
cooler and more northern States. And still I don't know why we should
want to make it easier for 'em, I spoze it wuz our pityin' naters that
made us think ont.

The weather wuz simply burnin' hot, no other word describes it, oveny,
furnacy hot! and Josiah said, and well said, it set folks to thinkin'
and inclined 'em to take warnin' and mend their ways. Sez he, "Two days
of St. Louis weather wuz worth more to sinners than the sermons of a
month of winter Sundays."

Truly in heat it wuz a great object lesson. I wore my brown lawn dress
day after day, havin' no chance to wear my rich alpacky, as I wanted to,
to kinder show off before Miss Huff, and Blandina presented the wilted
appearance of a long slim cabbage leaf plunged in bilin' water.

I believe Josiah's groanin's and takin's on and mutterin's helped him to
bear it better than if he had held in. Not that I told him so, no, I
told him it wuz onmanly to carry on so. But truly the heat wuz fearful,
our clothin' stuck to us and prespiration and sweat run down our faces.

The next day it wuz so hot I felt kinder mauger and stayed to home.
Blandina and Miss Huff went half a day, and in the afternoon Blandina
went to a big department store in the city to git some thinner
underwear, and I got awful skairt about her. Miss Huff gin her the most
minute directions about where it wuz and what car to take, it wuzn't a
great ways off, and she ort to got back at four o'clock anyway.

But time run along, four struck, then five and then six, and I wuz
gittin' dretful worried about her when she come in tired enough.

Sez I, "I wuz awful worried about you, Blandina. Did you git lost?"

"No." She said she got onto the right car and the conductor wuz a
dretful handsome and fascinatin' man, and she went to git off at the
right street, and kinder backed off, she always duz git off that way,
and the conductor thinkin' she wanted to git on, he smiled so sweet and
held out his hand to help her on so she would git on again. And that
happened over and over. She not wantin' to hurt his feelin's and slight
him by not takin' holt of his hand and climbin' on agin. Till finally
she did show some good sense, she asked the man standin' on the platform
if he would help her off, for she had been tryin' to git off for the
last five stations. So she had to take a car back, but the conductor wuz
humbly and gruff and she got along all right, but it belated her.

Sez I, "What made you do it, Blandina?"

"Oh," sez she, "he looked so winnin' and invitin' I didn't want to hurt
his feelin's."

Sez I, "You'll sup sorrer yet, Blandina, by your wantin' to obleege
everybody. You ort to look out for yourself some, you're alltogether too
good to be comfortable."




CHAPTER IX.


Well, Josiah went that day with Billy Huff, he santered off without any
system or plan, and wouldn't take my pad though I offered it to him. But
I guess they jest poked round miscelaneous, as you may say, seein' jest
what they happened to run into. And in some of their travels they met
Barzelia Trimble, a woman lecturer, she's young and good lookin' and
smart as a whip, and I guess she made much of Josiah, 'tennyrate she gin
him tickets to her lecture.

She said she'd met a man whose brother-in-law's cousin had bought a dog
once of a neighbor of mine, and so feelin' so well acquainted with me
she sent me the tickets, and did hope we would come. She said she felt
that she knew us both so well that it would be a treat to her.

The way she come to see Josiah that day, Billy had met her at school
where she lectured.

Josiah wuz very anxious that we should both go. He remembered the dog.

But I sez, "I thought you didn't believe in wimmen's lecturin' and
havin' rights, Josiah."

"Well, I don't believe in 'em, but the tickets wuz gin to us, fifty
cents right out of her pocket, and she'll expect us. She said it would
make her feel more homelike to have us present."

"Well," sez I, "I don't know as I feel so very intimate with her, I
never see the dog, but her idees on wimmen's rights is sensible, I've
read about 'em."

And that kinder headed Josiah off onto a new tact; we had had a dretful
good supper, and I believe Miss Trimble had made a sight on him, I
believe she had flattered and pompeyed him and for the time bein' he
felt soft in sperit towards the sex.

And 'tennyrate men's moods are like the onfathomable sea, sometimes
turbulent, throwin' up stunny arguments and sandy ones, and agin flowin'
calm and smooth as ile, and this wuz one of the gently swashin' ones.

"Id'no," sez he, "and I told her so, what wimmen want rights for, or to
vote; I never wanted wimmen to vote, I told her they wuz too good, they
wuz too near angels to have rights. You know I've always said so,
Samantha, and I wuz readin' a piece a day or two ago, writ by one of the
first ministers in the country, and he said that wimmen hadn't ort to
want any rights; they ort to be riz up on a pedestal and I say so too."

And I sez, "No, Josiah, I can't go into that with all the rest I have to
do, and it seems onreasonable in that minister to want wimmen to climb
up onto pedestals when they have to do their own housework."

"Well, I say it hain't onreasonable. You ort to be up on one, Samantha."

(How much Miss Trimble must have made on him. He wuz so oncommon clever,
and he never wuz megum, poor creeter!) I didn't really want to git into
an argument at that time o' day, but I see he wuz on the wrong tact, and
I felt I must convince him, so I sez in reasonable axents:

"I jest as lives be on a pedestal as not, I'd kinder love to if I could
set, I always did enjoy bein' riz up, if I had nothin' to do only to
stay up there some time, but wimmen have to git round so much it
wouldn't work. How could I take a tower histed up like the car of
Juggernaut or a Pope in a procession. I couldn't get carriers for one
thing, and I wouldn't give a cent to be carried round anyway with my
dizzy spells, I should more'n as likely as not fall off. But that hain't
the main reason I'm agin it, it is too tuckerin' a job for wimmen."

"Tuckerin' to be enthroned on a pedestal with the male sect lookin' up
to you and worshippin' you. You call that tuckerin'?" sez he.

"Yes," sez I, "I do. How under the sun can I or any other woman be up on
a pedestal and do our own housework, cookin', washin' dishes, sweepin',
moppin', cleanin' lamps, blackin' stoves, washin', ironin', makin' beds,
quiltin' bed quilts, gittin' three meals a day, day after day, biled
dinners and bag puddin's and mince pies and things, to say nothin' of
custard and pumpkin pies that will slop over on the level, do the best
you can; how could you keep 'em inside the crust histin' yourself up and
down? And cleanin' house time----"

"Mebby," sez I honestly, "it would come handy in whitewashin' or fixin'
the stovepipe, but where would it be in cleanin' mop-boards, or puttin'
down carpets, or washin' winders, or doin' a three weeks washin', or
bilin' soap? or pickin' geese? They act like fury shot up on the barn
floor. How could you git our old gander up on a pedestal? His temper is
that fiery, to say nothin' of settin' or standin' on it and holdin' on
to the old thing and pickin' it. And raisin' chickens and washin' old
trousers and overalls, and cleanin' sullers and paintin' floors and
paperin', and droudgin' round all the time, as a woman has to to keep
her house comfortable.

"And pickin' black-caps and strawberries, and churnin' big churnin's of
butter, and pickin' wool, to say nothin' of onexpected company comin',
and no girl. Let a lot of company come to stay all day the relations on
your side and the work not done, and me posin' like a statute, lookin'
down on you and your sect, you'd feel like a fool and jaw, you know you
would. I presoom you'd throw your boot-jack at me and threaten to part
with me, and how mean that would be in you when I did it at your
request. 'Tain't anything any woman would go into if she wuz let alone."

"And then think of the thrashers and silo fillers comin' in hungry as
bears, what would they say? No dinner cookin' and I on a pedestal, why
it would be the town's talk. Or you comin' home from Jonesville on a
cold night fraxious as a dog and sayin' you should die off if you didn't
have supper in ten minutes. How could I git it on time perched up there?

"I say it can't be done, and it is onreasonable for men to want it, and
at the same time want wimmen to do her own housework. For these men,
every one on 'em, would act like fury if their house wuzn't clean and
their clothes in order, and meals on time. And you must know it would
jest about kill a woman to be doin' all this and histin' herself up and
down a hundred times a day, and mebby half dead with rumatiz too. Why,
it would be worse for me than all the rest of my work, and you hadn't
ort to ask it of me."

Josiah looked real huffy and sez, "I hain't the only man that's wantin'
it done; men have always been sot on it. There's been more'n a wagon
load of poetry writ on it and you know it. Men have always said a sight
about it, I hain't alone in it," he snapped out.

"No," sez I honestly, "I've hearn it before. But you see it wouldn't
work, don't you? And I believe I could convince every man if I could git
to 'em and talk it over with 'em. And I don't see where the beauty on't
would come in; of course a woman couldn't change her clothes and put on
Greek drapery right in the midst of cleanin' the buttery shelves or
moppin' off the back steps. And to see a woman standin' up on a pedestal
with an old calico dress pinned up round her waist and a slat sunbunnet
on and her pardner's rubber boots, and her sleeves rolled up, and her
face red as blood with hard work, and her hands all swelled up with hot
soap suds and lye, what beauty would there be in it? It always did seem
onreasonable besides bein' so tuckerin' no woman could stand it for a
day."

He looked mad as a hen and sez he, "They could manage it if their minds
wuz strong enough."

Sez I, "It seems to me it would depend more on the strength of their
legs, specially if the pedestal wuz a high one. I never could git up
onto it at all if I should go into it without gittin' up on a chair and
then on a table. No woman no matter how strong she wuz could git more
than two meals a day under the circumstances."

Josiah looked worried and sez, "Well, mebby there has been too much said
about it, mebby it would be jest as well to leave pedestals to
statters."

And I sez, "It is as well agin. Wimmen couldn't stand it with all they
have to do."

And so we ended by bein' real congenial in our two minds and thinkin'
considerable alike, which is indeed a comfort to pardners. And we read
our chapter in the Bible and had family prayers jest as we do to home.
For I would not leave off all the good old habits of my life because my
body wuz moved round a little. And we had a good night's rest and sot
out in good season the next mornin' for the Exposition.

The next mornin' grandpa Huff said to the breakfast table that he did
wish he had someone to read to him that day, everybody wuz goin' to the
Fair and he wuz goin' to be left alone. So Blandina, clever creeter that
she is, said she would stay and read to him from his favorite volume,
Foxe's Book of Martyr's, and also from Lamentations and Job. Billy said
his grandpa wuz never happy only when he wuz perfectly miserable. We
have all seen such folks.

So Josiah and I sot off alone, and he bein' in good sperits and bein'
gin to new and strange projects, proposed that we should take an
ortomobile. I didn't favor the idee and said:

"Id'no about it, Josiah, I feel kinder skairful about ortos, I fear that
it might prove our last ride."

"But," sez he, "with a good shuffler there hain't any danger."

But I still wuz dubersome and sez, "Mebby it would end by our shufflin'
off our mortal coils, as Mr. Shakespeare tells on."

"You don't wear 'em, Samantha, nor never did, nor I don't wear a
pompodoor" (he meant this for a joke for his head is most as bare as a
sass plate).

And he went on, "It would be a very stylish and genteel ride. I'd love
to tell brother Gowdey about it. The bretheren will expect it of me as a
live progressive Jonesvillian minglin' here with the noblest in the land
to cut sunthin' of a dash."

But seein' that I still looked dubersome he sez, "I don't feel very
rugged this mornin' and I dread the crowded car; Id'no but I should
faint away in 'em if I sot out."

That of course settled the matter. As his anxious chaperone I consented
to the project and he went and got the showiest one he could find. He
didn't look for character or stability, only for gildin' and red paint.
And we embarked, Josiah with a proud liniment, as if he wuz introducin'
me into gay life and fashionable amusements. The man wuz to take us to
the Fair ground for so much, and Josiah feelin' so neat had paid him in
advance, and there wuz another party waitin' for him. And the speed that
shuffler put on wuz sunthin' awful.

The first few minutes before we got to goin' that terrific speed Josiah
liked it, and seemed to look patronizin'ly down on the people walkin'
afoot that we passed by and pity 'em. But anon the man got to goin'
faster and faster and Josiah's liniment underwent a change and he
hollered out to me, for the noise wuz so loud and skairful he had to
yell:

"Samantha, I don't believe it is right for members of the meetin' house
to be goin' at such a gait."

And I hollered back to him, "It hain't none of my doin's, it hain't
nothin' I wanted," I a hangin' onto my bunnet strings and tryin' to keep
my bunnet on. As for the tabs of my mantilly I had gin up tryin' to curb
'em down, and they waved out like a pirate's flag in a cyclone only a
different color.

Finally Josiah hollered to the shuffler, "I want you to curb in your
machine! I'm a deacon, and have got my station in the Jonesville meetin'
house to think on. Hold it in, I say!"

The shuffler glanced round at us as calm as a goggle-eyed clam and never
dained to answer, and seemin'ly urged on the orto to redoubled speed.

Oh, the awfulness of the seen! the terrific noise soundin' on my ear
pans till it seemed as if them pans must break down, the dirt a flyin',
my pardner standin' up with his whiskers and coat tails wavin' in the
breeze. His hat blowed off and by almost superhuman exertions I ketched
it and carried it in my hand, thinkin' it wuz safer than on his head.

He a yellin', "Stop, I tell you! Whoa! back up! Dum your dum picter,
whoa I say!"

For the last few milds Josiah rid standin' all I could do and say.
Yellin' at the shuffler, hollerin' whoa to him, and appealin' to Heaven
and me simultaneous as it were, for mercy and succor.

[Illustration]

And that shuffler payin' no more attention to him than as if he wuz a
fly, not a hoss fly, but jest a common fly. Only he would look back at
us once in awhile through them big goggles of hisen that most curdled my
blood to see 'em.

At last Josiah, seemin' to give up all hope, sunk back and grasped holt
of my tab and sez, "Good-bye, Samantha, if you git through alive
remember I died tryin' to save you." His emotions and the dirt choked
him, and he faintly added:

"Tell the bretheren and see that it is put in the Jonesville Augur, that
I died a hero's death tryin' to save my pardner." And his grasp on my
tabs become almost hysterical.

But at that minute the entrance gate wuz reached and the orto stopped so
abruptly, that Josiah who had got up agin, wuz precipitated into my lap.
But he got out immegiately, and the minute he and I stepped onto terry
firmy he turned and shook his fist at the man and sez he, "If it wuzn't
for the crowd and Samantha's feelin's, I would whip you within an inch
of your life! Oh, if I only had you in a ten acre lot you'd feel the
wrath of a lion when it wuz rousted up!"

But I laid my hand on him and led him away, I knowed such seens wuz bad
for his nerve. He trembled like a popple leaf, and the minute we got
through the gate I had to set down with him and deal out four nut-cakes
before he wuz himself agin.

I wuz determined this day to go to the Palace of Fine Arts, so we did
and I put in a time of almost perfect happiness there. We went into
Government Building entrance that day, and I proposed to Josiah that we
should stop at Liberal Arts Building on the way, and he at first
demurred and sez:

"Samantha, you're too liberal by half now for folks with our means and
Id'no as I want you to spend your time in such a display." He said he
would rather take me to the display of Economics, and sez he, wantin' to
persuade me to go with him, "Wimmen has countless virtues, but to my
mind her crownin' excelence is to be equinomical."

But I explained to him that exhibit didn't mean bein' liberal with money
but it wuz jest a step behind Fine Arts, and sez I, "I should think you
would want to see the place where this Exposition wuz dedicated in the
presence of one of the biggest crowds that wuz ever gathered together."

So we stopped there a little while, and could have spent days there with
interest and profit. The foreign countries have splendid exhibits here
as well as our own.

Everything in typography and books, everything possible in photography;
models of light-houses; dams; geographical maps; Egyptian, Hebrew and
Imperial surveys. Scientific demonstrations in liquid hydrogen and that
queer substance, radium.

I wuz dretfully interested in that wonderful new discovery and sez I to
myself as I looked at it, "As little as there is of you there is enough
to overturn big systems of science and philosophy, and begin a new
history of the inside of the world." I wuz glad my sect had discovered
this and thought it wuz one of the best things she had done in a number
of years.

And there wuz all kinds of hygienic displays, chemical and engineering
works. China had a dretful interestin' exhibit, ancient manuscripts,
books published thousands of years before our kind of type wuz invented.
Weapons that wuz old when Mr. Confucious wuz livin'. Armor, costumes,
musical instruments, queer lookin' things them wuz as I ever see and
nothin' I would want to play on. Photo engineering, electrotyping,
lithography, typewriting; telescopes of all kinds from tiny ones up to
ones that weigh four thousand pounds. The latest medical and surgical
instruments. The piano from the first one made up to the present
automatic instruments of all kinds; stringed instruments, church organs;
displays in civil and military engineering; machinery for making good
roads; rock crushers, water purifying, and so on and so on and so on.

The time spent in this buildin' is full of education as well as
interest. There wuz some beautiful statutes too decoratin' this
buildin', most on 'em I wuz proud to see wuz figgers of my own sect.

But having sot out for the Palace of Fine Arts we anon wended our way
thither. It is a beautiful building, or ruther there are four massive
buildings connected together to form this Palace of Art. There are three
big buildings in front and an annex, the central building built of stone
and brick is the only permanent buildin' in this enormous Exposition so
naturally they would make it as perfect as possible.

And it is crowded full of beauty. In fact turn where you would you would
see such glowing landscapes, such beautiful faces, such perfect
sculpture that you git all mixed up, and when you thought it over you
couldn't remember whether some picture or statute that stood out in your
memory wuz in the U.S. exhibit or the French, or German, or Italian, or
etc., etc.

In lookin' back and thinkin' on't and tryin' to git 'em in the right
place in your mind it is as difficult as it would be in walking through
a big clover meadow and tryin' to sort out the clover blossoms and
describe 'em one by one and tell in jest what corner of the lot you
found 'em. It can't be done; in such an immense field of art your brain
sort o' fills up and turns round and round and you git mixed. But as I
say some of the pictures and statutes stayed in my memory so I couldn't
dislodge 'em and don't want to, no indeed!

Now there are three noble figgers at the entrance that you can't forgit.
Inspiration standin' up above the main entrance is jest where she should
be. Inspiration, breath of the Most High breathed into some of His
children below anon or oftener, and then on each side is Truth and
Nature. Nature, the kind All Mother, Truth, the divine one. How sweet to
find 'em all there together guardin' and consecratin' these walls. You
went in feelin' safer with such gardeens at the portal.

I must say though that Truth didn't have any clothes on, she wuz jest
settin' there on top of the world jest as naked as she could be, she
could have wore one of my bib aprons as well as not, durin' the Fair
anyway, whilst there wuz so many folks round and she would have looked
enough sight better to me and been jest as truthful. But howsumever I
knew she wuz likely, her face wuz innocent and beautiful.

As I said it is some of the pictures and statutes that stand out
clearest in my memory, but there wuz everything else there admirable and
choice in art, paintings in oil, wax; on canvas, wood, enamel, metal,
fresco paintings on walls and ceilings. Water colors, chalk, pastel,
ivory, pyrography. Engravings, etchings, figgers in marble, metal,
plaster. Carvings in ivory, stone, wood, etc. Architectural designs of
all kinds; mosaics; art work in glass, earthen ware, leather, metal;
artistic book binding and etc., etc., etc., and I might spread these out
into volumes.

And didn't my soul jest spread her wings here in delight, to speak in
flowery language. What pictures of beauty dawned on my rapt eyesight,
faces sweet as wuz ever dremp on, sad faces, tragic faces, old faces and
young faces; children sweet and bonny as wuz ever seen. Youth and love,
age and manhood and gratified ambition, princes and paupers, life and
death.

Landscapes full of the dewy freshness and joy of the morning, night
seens dark and full of mystery and melancholy. Mountain and valley, hill
and dale, ocean and rivulet. Every phase of human joy and sorrow wuz
depictered there, and every phase of peaceful and warlike life. It wuz a
sight. If I could stayed there a year right in them walls I might have
got round mebby and seen what I wanted to and as long as I wanted to.

But of course this wuzn't to be, for one thing the Fair would be closed
before and then Josiah wouldn't gin his consent anyway. He got kinder
worrisome as it wuz and didn't want to stay so long as we did, and after
a hour or so I compromised with him, gin him nut cakes occasionally and
anon when we would enter a new gallery he would set down by the door
till I had got through lookin'.

As I said some of the pictures and statutes clung to my memory as if
they'd been throwed at my mind so powerful that they jest stuck there
and couldn't be dislodged even by all the later multitude of sights
throwed over 'em.

There wuz one by Whistler full of the subtle mystery that he wrops round
his figgers. Why you know he has painted one that to them that are
sympathetic, the Little Lady in Black, will walk right out of the
picture and come towards 'em, time and agin she's done it, I'm tellin'
the truth that can be proved.

In the "Mystery of the Night," the female figger dimly discerned through
the veil of mist seems the incarnation of the mystery of sky and sea,
the infinite solemnity, and peace and loneliness of the night.

There wuz pictures that made you happy, and some that sort o' sent a
chill to your sperit, like Millais' "Chill October," as you looked at it
you almost felt the chill, mournful breeze that you knew wuz sweepin'
along.

Some queer pictures like the "Ghost Dance" kinder lingered in the
vestibule of your mind. You know your mind has got more different rooms
in it than any house that wuz ever built, and some pictures and folks
don't git into the very inmost rooms; they never git furder than the
doorstep.

There are three pictures by the King and Queen of Portugal, all on 'em
picturin' humble life. The King's show a peasant drivin' cattle to
water. I wondered if he didn't wish, when he painted it, that he wuz
that care-free herder, who could sing and whistle and wear easy shues,
and throw on any old clothes, and santer out into the dewy mornin' and
do as he wanted to.

One of the Queen's wuz a farm wagon, such as they carry farm produce in,
but sometimes I spoze load up with merry girls and boys for a happy
outing in the green woods.

I shouldn't wonder if when she wuz dead tired of the cares, formalities
and burdens of a queen, she wished she wuz one of them happy young girls
riding off in a cotton frock on the old farm wagon into some joyous
picnic.

The other one of hern wuz a cute little donkey and over all on 'em wuz
bright sunlight and soft shadow. They done well. I wished I could
encouraged 'em by tellin' 'em so--a word of praise sometimes duz so much
good, to anybody from peasant to king.

Among the statutes that I see to the Fair that stood up straight in my
mind wuz Light and Darkness. Darkness wuz in the form of two men, one on
'em crouched low with his arm over his face drawin' his mantle to hide
from the light. The other male is liftin' his head but his eyes are
still shot, evidently he feels the dawn of sunthin' better and he's
waking up, while standin' erect is the graceful figger of a female,
beautiful and noble, full of boundin' life and light, holdin' up high
over her head a star. She wants to wake up the hull world to the light.

Dakota wuz pictured as a lady with precious few clothes on; she looked
old in her face, and I told Josiah it wuz a shame to see a woman that
age with such a low-necked dress on. It wuz cut down to the bottom of
her waist. And lots of the men staters wuz wearin' low necks. I didn't
like it, but Josiah remarked that he'd always said:

"A vest and coat cut low neck would make a man look dressy, and he
believed he should have one made for best."

I looked coldly at him and said it looked bad enough to see young folks
dress in that way without old folks cuttin' up and actin'.

Lots of the statutes would looked as well agin if they'd had me to
advise 'em about their clothes, but still take the pictures and statutes
of the Fair as a hull they're magnificent and a honor to the nations.
There are a thousand statutes, all beautiful and inspirin', to be seen
there on the Exposition grounds.

I wuz glad to see the statute of Dr. Jenner, who discovered vaccination,
tryin' it first on his own son. When it is the law for doctors to try
their medicine first on their own folks, miscelaneous patients will feel
safer. Dr. Jenner acted honorable toward humanity at large. I told
Josiah I hoped the boy got along well and didn't git hit on the arm
while it wuz sore.

And he said, "I wouldn't worry over folks I never neighbored with, and
I'd better tend to my own companion, who wuz starvin' slowly by my
side."

He couldn't been so very hungry havin' eat so many nut-cakes since
breakfast, but I dealt out some more to him.

Well, we stayed in the Art Gallery a long time, so long that Josiah
complained bitterly and sez, "If you stay as long in every buildin' when
will we git round to see the Pike?" Truly Josiah longed for that place
day by day, but as first chaperone of the party I tried to delay him
from goin', knowin' that it must come sometime but gladly puttin' off
the day.

But I sez soothin'ly, "I shan't want to stay so long at any other
place." And it bein' past our lunch time we went and had a good meal,
and of course Josiah's crossness subsided with every mouthful he took
and his liniment looked like a cosset lamb's in amiability when I
proposed we should go to the Fishery Buildin', it wuzn't so very fur
from there considerin', though as I have said before every place is a
good ways off from anywhere else. You'd have knowed the buildin' by the
great fish that wuz sculped over the entrance. It wuz a bigger fish than
wuz ever lied about in male fish stories, and that's sayin' enough;
connected with this is also an exhibit of forestry and game. We went
into the part devoted to forestry first, there are several acres
outdoors as well as inside devoted to this display, and what didn't we
see there in trees, plants, woods of every kind, forest growth tree
planting, all sorts of useful wood, pine, spruce, hemlock, cedar, all
the hard woods, and everything made of wood; wood pulp, barrels,
baskets, turpentine, alcohol.

In the United States exhibit wuz immense pictures illustrating our
forests, methods of lumbering, lumber camps, forest fires, etc., etc.
There wuz displays of different species of trees and plants, forest
botany, structure and anatomy of woods, saw-mills, seeds and plants of
all kinds, and all the different woods and products of wood from Egypt
to Japan, barks, roots, cork, rubber, gums, oils, quinine, camphor,
varnish, wax, dye-woods, lumber, staves, why there wuz over two hundred
different kinds of wood from Argentina alone.

Josiah, who wuz real interested here, sez, "I'd love to have brother
Gowdey step in here a minute; he's proud as a peacock of his strip of
woodland, he thought he covered the hull field of forestry with his wood
pulp and maple sugar. I guess his pride would be took down a little."

"Well," sez I, "let's look on it as showin' the greatness and wonder of
Providence and be humble and admire."

"I shall look at it as I'm a minter!" he sez. But I guess he wuz more
reverential for a spell.

And there wuz all the plants and leaves used in medicine, and mushrooms,
truffles, seeds and plants and implements for gathering and preserving;
drying houses, nurseries, basket work, grass work. It seemed as if
everything that could be known about trees and plants could be learnt
here, and though we knowed we hadn't time or convenience to take all the
knowledge in, no, our heads wuzn't big enough, but they felt crowded
full as we left this buildin'. And that I felt wuz the crownin' glory of
this fair, the new idees and knowledge of better ways and things that
wuz learnt in all these exhibits, and wuz destined in the future to bear
fruit and bless the world.

In the Fishery department we see all the products of the great water
world that makes up more than half of our earth. Every kind of fish that
ever swum, from a whale to a minnie, salt water and fresh water fish,
and them that are half fish and half animal, and aquatic birds and
aquatic plants of all kinds, and plants that seem half way between
vegetable and animal. Sea grass, shells of all kinds, pearls,
pearl-shells, corals, sponges, skins and furs, illustrations, paintings
and casts illustrating water life of all kinds, fishing grounds. All
kinds of boats, nets, traps, rods, reels, lines, fish curing
establishments, aquariums, and so and so on and so on, and I might write
them "so ons," indefinitely but what would be the use?

Jest imagine everything that is discovered and brought to light by them
that go down to the sea in ships and there it wuz.




CHAPTER X.


West of the forestry buildin' growin' right out of the ground is a
immense map of the United States covering five acres of ground, gravel
walks mark the State and coast lines, and each State is sot out in its
own native flowers.

There it wuz, you could look right down onto it jest like a map, from
the rocky shores of Maine down to Florida.

Josiah wuz simply infatuated with the sight and I myself thought it wuz
a great idee and I sez:

"Josiah, this is a plan worthy of Uncle Sam to immortalize what is
dearest to him in living colors."

"Yes, indeed!" sez he, and after a minute's thought he added, "Others
can foller suit and set them that are dearest to 'em out-doors. If I
live till another spring, Samantha," sez he firmly, "I will set you out
in the paster. The dooryard would be too small to do justice to you. Ury
and I will plant you in the middle of the ten acre lot."

I wuz touched by the tenderness underlyin' the idee, but sez I, "Have
you counted the cost, Josiah?"

"I know it will cost, you're hefty and big boneded and I'd want you
heroic size, but we needn't have your hull frame made in posies, I could
plant you in different seeds and raise you like a crop, and sell you in
the fall. Beans would look well in different colors."

He see my look of cold irony as he spoke of sellin' me, and added, "Or I
could set you out mostly in pusley if you'd ruther, the garden is full
of it."

"I shall never be sot out in pusley, Josiah Allen, I always hated it.
The hull thing is as crazy as anything you ever undertook."

"Crazy or not it will be did; summer squash would look well and be
equinomical, I could probable train 'em so you'd seem to be holdin' the
squashes in your arms."

"Give up the hull skeem, Josiah Allen; don't try to combine love and
economy so clost."

But he vowed he wouldn't give it up, and I spoze I may see trouble
weanin' him from the idee.

That night whilst I wuz restin' a little in my room after supper, Josiah
havin' stayed down in the parlor a spell talkin' to granpa Huff and
Billy, Blandina come into my room. She wuz all fagged out, but under the
fag you could see that expression of perennial good nature and love to
man.

She said she'd been readin' all day to grandpa Huff and as near as I
could make out he'd kep' her right down to them blood-curdlin' chapters
where they fried the martyrs in ile and briled 'em on grid-irons. She
looked dretful tired and I told her I wouldn't gin in and read such
stuff all day.

But she said Mr. Huff wuz anxious to hear it and she wuz perfectly
willin' and more than willin' to please him, for sez she smilin' in a
queer sort of a way and sort o' bridlin' a little, "I'm anxious to do
anything for him I can because I love him devotedly."

I wuz fairly stunted. "Love him?" sez I, "why how long ago wuz it that
you loved his grandchild passionately? Why," sez I, "Blandina, you seem
to rob the cradle and the grave for objects of affection."

"Yes, I did love Billy with perfect devotion till I found that my
affection wuz driven back like a dove from the rest it fain would made
in his youthful heart, and now it has settled down upon his grandpa's
bosom. Mr. Huff needs a companion, Aunt Samantha. He needs a tender
female companion to journey by his side over the rough pathway of life.
And, oh, I do feel that this world is a cold rough place and my heart,
like that wanderin' dove I spoke on, sithes to find rest."

"Well," sez I reasonably, "mebby a dove would be safe to rest on grandpa
Huff, but I don't believe he could stand the weight of a hen. Why, he's
ninety if he's a day, Blandina."

She didn't reply but sot lookin' mournful but clever, and agin she sez,
"This is a cold world."

"Not here it hain't, not in St. Louis," sez I, wipin' my heated forward,
but she went on:

"My heart has gone out to him without any will of my own. I feel that he
has the makin' of a noble man in him."

And I sez, "I guess he's made about all he can be on this spear." But
seein' her mournful looks I added, "You're a clever critter, Blandina,
that's what's the matter with you, you're so good hearted you mistake
good nater and pity for love more'n half the time. I don't believe," sez
I feelin'ly, "I ever see a cleverer creeter than you are." And I meant
it, every word I said.

But she repeated agin, "I love him, Aunt Samantha, with a pure, deep
devotion."

"Well," sez I, "if I wuz in your place I would take a little catnip tea
and go to bed. I'll steep some for you over my alcohol lamp." I knowed
it wuz her good nater and her nerves that wuz wrought up instead of her
heart, though catnip is good for the heart for all I know. She'd got all
nerved up readin' them dretful things and felt queer, I wuz sorry for
Blandina to think she wuz so very sensitive to masculine influence. She
refused the catnip tea but took the other half of my advice and went to
bed, and I sez to myself, I declare I don't know what the good nater of
that creeter will lead her into and I most wished she wuz back in
Jonesville where that trait of hern wouldn't have so much room for
showin' off and so many objects to practice on, but I felt safe about
grandpa Huff, for I knowed that even if he'd been strong enough to stand
up to be married, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren wouldn't let
him.

Well, the next morning Molly come, havin' arrived on a sleeper. I
welcomed her warmly. She's a sweet girl, with big eyes soft and brown as
the shallers in our trout brook and a shadder in 'em now some like the
dark places where the deep water is. Hair about the same color, done up
in a shinin' coil on the top of her head, but where it would git loose a
little kinder curlin' and crinklin' about her white forward and round
white neck. A sweet sad expression on her lips, cheeks white as snow now
but meant to be pink and a pretty plump figger. She wuz very beautiful
and called so by good judges.

And I wuzn't surprised that Billy Huff fell immegiately and voylently in
love with her to his own discomfiture and the great enrichment of them
that sold perfumery and hair-oil. But I knowed it wouldn't hurt him any,
it wuz only a new face to hang up for the present in the gallery of a
boy's Fancy. Aunt Tryphena fairly worshipped her. She immegiately rose
to the top place in her gallery of perfect beings. Nothing wuz too good
for her, no service she could render her wuz too hard, she almost soared
up to that pinnacle on which her Prince Arthur dwelt. Dotie became her
willin' adorer and Miss Huff couldn't do enough for her.

But to resoom backward a little. Molly didn't want to go to the Fair
ground that morning, wantin' to rest and recooperate, so Josiah,
Blandina and I sot forth a little later than common. There wuz a
stoppage of the cars some ways from the gate and we got out and walked
thinkin' we'd git there quicker, Josiah started to step off first when
Blandina rushed past him, waved him back, and descended herself right
into the midst of horses heads and huffs and yells and profanity from
two drivers who wuz stoppin' the way and wuz revilin' each other, and
after we got safe onto the sidewalk and wuz walkin' along I sez to her:

"You ort to be more careful, Blandina, or you'll find yourself killed
some day and trompled on, I wuz skairt for you."

"Oh, I didn't think about myself, I wuz only thinkin' of savin' dear
uncle Josiah, it wuzn't so much matter about me. A woman's life you know
is not worth anything compared to a man's."

"Oh, shaw!" I sez, I wuz driv to it, and I sez it agin, "Oh, shaw!"

"Why, Aunt Samantha, you know it has been decided that that is so. It
has been settled by law that a female's life is worth only half as much
as a man's. Don't you remember last spring in Brooklyn it wuz settled
once for all that a female child's life wuzn't worth only half as much
as a male child?"

Sez I, "I remember a man's saying so, I don't remember it wuz proved; I
myself thought it wuz about as hefty a thing as a judge ever undertook
to try to set a value on two human lives with all their glorious and
terrible possibilities, and," sez I, eppisodin' a little but walkin'
along all the time, "how did that man know but the soul of a Florence
Nightingale would wake up in that girl and bless the world for all time?
And how did he know but the boy would prove a Benedict Arnold or a
Guiteau? An evil influence to curse the world forever. It wuz a hefty
job, and if Josiah had been judge I wouldn't let him undertook it, or if
he had I'd had him set an equal value on what God and nater and human
affection had made equal."

"Well, well," sez Josiah, "le'ss git along unless you want to stay here
and preach all day on the sidewalk."

"But," sez I, "I'm not preachin', Josiah, I'm eppisodin'."

"Well, there is a time for eppisodin' and a time for common sense, and
le'ss git along."

He acted real grumpy, I guess he'd thought more on me, if I had
pretended I thought his life wuz worth double mine. But I wouldn't say I
thought so not even for love's sake. And mebby he squirmed because I
said I would have him do thus and so. Men are so queer! you can't always
tell jest where the shue pinches, but you know by their actin' and
behavin' that it pinches somewhere.

But Blandina sez, evidently reconnoitering the past seen in her memory,
"No livin' bein' will ever make me think a man's life is not worth more
than a woman's." Well, she felt so and I couldn't make her over at this
late day, she'd been made too long, so Common Sense, with whom I always
try to be on the most intimate terms, told me I hadn't better multiply
any more words with her. Josiah's liniment wuz some clouded till his
mind wuz took up by seein' some horses with hats on which truly wuz
needed in that torrid heat, and he forgot his temporary shagrin in
visions of the future.

Sez he, "The first work I do when I git home will be to git a hat for
the old mair; I won't have to buy one, Tirzah Ann's last summer hat will
be jest the thing. You know that one trimmed with red roses and shiffon
and long lace streamers. Your hats ain't dressy enough; why the old mair
hain't quite twenty-one, hain't old enough to vote even if her sect had
the privelige. She's young and ort to dress young. That hat will be jest
the thing. And what a sensation we will make enterin' Jonesville on a
Sunday mornin', the mair, myself and you, we shall attract world-wide
attention." But that minute we got to the gate and entered in. I never
shall ride after the mair with a hat on, and pink roses and long lace
streamers, never. But didn't argey about it.

Well, Josiah couldn't be held off any longer, he would go to the Pike
that mornin'; I told him it wuzn't writ in my pad.

And he sez, "Dum that pad! Am I goin' to be held in by that pad, and led
round by it all summer? I'm goin' to the Pike to-day and you can do as
you're a minter." And Blandina jined in of course and said that if dear
Uncle Josiah's mind wuz sot on it it wuz best to go, and she sez kinder
low to me, "it wuzn't right to cross a man unless it wuz absolutely
necessary."

I wuz goin' to twit her and tell her that as first chaperone I wuz the
one to settle these matters, but I see Josiah wuz gittin' too agitated,
one look at his gloomy face made me think of the past, and I gin in as
gracefully as I could, and we wended our way thither with no more
parley, and Josiah, as soon as our heads wuz turned that way, begun to
brighten up and look better, and so about one-half of my mind and sperit
wuz satisfied. And sometimes I think you can't be satisfied any more
than that on this spear wherever you go, and whatever you see, specially
if you have a man to deal with that is more or less fraxious and
worrisome. To ease his mind and temper you'll git led into strange and
devious paths time and agin.

But to resoom forward. The Four Cowboys on a Tear guardin' the entrance
to the Pike confronted us and in their wild and boysterous hilarity
seemed to my agitated and forebodin' sperit to shadow forth what we
would find inside their domain. They wuz a strange and skairful set,
their clothes wuz rough and disheveled and so wuz their linements. They
all on 'em brandished aloft a pistol, seemin' to be on the lookout for
someone to shoot. Their horses wuz on the dead gallop and you knowed by
the expression on their faces jest what blood curdlin' yells wuz issuin'
from their throats.

Why, if you'll believe it they wuz goin' at such a gallopin' prancin'
gait that the feet of one of their horses never touched the ground, all
four of his feet wuz gallopin' through the air. Josiah sez as he looked
at it:

"I would give a dollar bill to Ury in a minute if he could learn the
colt to do that trick, gallop along without his feet touchin' the
ground. Jest think what a sensation it would make to the Jonesville
fair. The old mair is too old of course to git the trick."

"Yes," sez I, "I guess her feet will never be lifted altogether from the
ground till they are turned up in their last rest. But I wouldn't try,
Josiah Allen, to imitate that roarin' and rakish set if I wuz in your
place, you a member of the meetin' house."

"Oh, keep throwin' that meetin' house in my face, I should think you'd
git tired ont but don't spoze you will."

And Blandina sez, "Oh, Aunt Samantha, don't be too harsh on them happy
young men, it is only their high sperits. They would probable settle
down and make the best of husbands if they had a tender and loving
companion. I wonder," sez she, "if they wuz took from life and if
they're here to the Fair I do so like the looks of one on 'em, I believe
we would be congenial."

I hurried 'em along, the one she pinted out had his pistol raised the
highest of the lot and he looked the most rakish.

But you forgot the looks of the cow-boys as you stood at the entrance
and got a full view of the Pike. A perfect flood of all the colors of
the rainbow, and towers and steeples and domes and crescents, and
ornaments of all kinds busts on your vision, and at the same time your
ear-pans are assailed by a noise like the sound of many waters, it is
the big crowd that is surgin' through the Pike to and fro, fro and to,
and keep at it night and day.

The great crowd seen here all the time shows how much the average human
craves amusement and recreation. For the Pike is the amusement street of
the Exposition. And a bystander standin' by told us that it extended a
mild and a half from the Lindel entrance where we entered clear up to
the Skinker road.

"What Skinker is that?" sez Josiah to the man. "Is he any relation to
the Skinkerses up in Zoar? Old Ethan Skinker had a boy who come West.
Most probable you've seen him here; I know most every stranger that
comes to Jonesville."

"Where is Zoar?" sez the man, an uppish lookin' creeter, but sunk in
ignorance, for when Josiah sez, "Zoar is four milds from Jonesville,"
sez the man:

"Where is Jonesville?"

And Josiah sez to me, "I'll be jiggered, Samantha, if this man at this
age of the world don't know where Jonesville is."

"Well," sez I coolly, "we hain't expected to civilize all creation,
Josiah." And as we had jest come to the entrance of the Tyoleran Alps I
wouldn't let Josiah stop and parley with him any furder. He wuz kinder
snickerin' to himself, a ignorant onmannerly creeter.

I had told Josiah and he fell in with the idee to once (he is clost)
that we wouldn't try to see all the sights of the Pike. But this bein'
the first one we come to we thought we would enter and we found it wuz a
highly interestin' spectacle.

There wuz lofty snow-crowned mountains, some on 'em that seemed fur
away, and some nigher by, a lake lyin' smooth and placid at their feet.
Its shore wuz dotted with trees, and little picturesque cottages nestled
on its banks.

Anon a large fair city spread out at the foot of the serene mountains.
Then you would come to an immense castle, so nigh the mountain that it
seemed to grow out of it with its ivied walls and lofty towers pierced
with quaintly paned windows. Crowds of sightseers passin' in and out its
lofty arched entrance and walking through the grounds outside.

Another castle, handsomer yet, wuz the castle of Linderhof, which stands
in stately magnificence at the foot of the mountain, but furder away
from it. Rows of clipped evergreens stand along its white terraces and
masses of foliage on each side. A white monument towered up to the sky
in the centre of its beautiful lawn in front, and nigher by there wuz a
big leapin' fountain guarded on each side by statutes of female wimmen
reclining at ease but seemin' to have their eye on the hull beautiful
seen and tendin' to things, as wimmen have to.

Then anon you would come to a little village with pretty houses, mostly
gables. There wuz a mountain torrent with several bridges over it that
foamed and dashed along through the quaint little place. Pretty girls in
their gay national costume accosted us from the verandas anon or oftener
wantin' to sell sooveneers.

Josiah noticed the price they asked and hurried me onwards. They wuz
real pretty girls so I didn't mind so much goin' on (married wimmen will
understand my feelin's. We have to keep one eye out more or less).

There is a little chapel and below it cut from solid rock is a statute
of Andreas Hofer, victorious soldier, lover of country, but like many
another hero he had to suffer martyrdom for it. But his grateful
countrymen keeps his memory green. I wuz glad to see it.

It wuz a pretty place: the lofty mountain side with cow bells tinkling
along the winding roads, the cool pretty villages below, chimes sounding
from high towers, the peasants singing their national songs, the bands
ringing out their stirring melodies. And you could take a tram car and
go through some of the loveliest seens in the Alps. We stayed there some
time.

I have hearn since that them mountains wuz holler and they keep beer and
stimulants there, Id'no how true it is. But I sez, "If it is so it is
symbolical of where such stuff and its dealers will find themselves if
they don't repent, down in the dirt and the dark, keepin' company with
the Prince of Darkness. But I didn't see hide nor hair of any of 'em and
don't know as there wuz anything to see."

I kinder wanted to go into the Irish Village, and said so; I remarked
that you could buy Irish linen and lace there right on the spot. But
Josiah sez, thrustin' his portmoney deeper in his pocket, "Id'no why we
should go in there, we hain't Irish."

But I sez, "Miss Huff said it wuz dretful interestin', Josiah, I'd
kinder like to see it."

But Josiah gin another deeper thrust to his portmoney and must have
strained his pocket and sez in terser, hasher axents:

"We hain't Irish!"

And I sez kinder short, "Id'no as we're Alps." But I didn't argy there
wuz so many folks round, wimmen have to choke off time and agin and
conceal their shagrin' and their pardner's actin'.

Miss Huff had told me a lot about it. She said they had a real House of
Parliament and you could drive in jaunting cars through Lake Kilarney
region and the rocky road to Dublin that we've all hearn about.

Blarney Castle is used here as a theatre with stirring national plays
going on and there is an Irish arch over nine hundred years old, and in
a village here is an Irish national exhibit together with a Scotch
display, laces, linens, carpets, etc., and there is a gallery of famous
Irish beauties. She said it wuz as good as a visit to Ireland to study
the country and the looks and ways of the people.

But as I say, Josiah hurried me past the long, many windowed front of
the Irish Industrial Exhibit with its gay flags wavin' out on top
bagonin' us to come in, past the famous St. Lawrence gate, Droggeda, one
of the most famous relics in all Ireland, with its tall towers and its
noble archway filled with crowds of sightseers, for he had seen right by
the side of that gate a big roundin' entrance arch with the round world
poised above it and above the arch in letters as high as he wuz:

Under and Over the Sea.

And of course he wuz bound to indulge in that luxury. And it wuz
thrillin' in the extreme though I stood it better than he did.

The first thing you see is a submarine boat, you can see this plain from
the Pike and the passengers embarkin' on it, two hundred and fifty can
be carried by this boat at one time, and Josiah led us onto it with a
excited linement, but he tried to look brave and fearless.

But the sights we see down there wuz enough to dismay a man weighin' far
more than Josiah. You could look right out of the boat on the dashin'
waves, water above you and on every side and see the strange monsters of
the deep, and the queer marine growths and blossoms. Imagine seein'
whales up over your head comin' right towards you, and Id'no but there
wuz leviathians, I guess there wuz, they wuz big enough.

Anon you come to the river Seine in Paris and swoop up to the top of
Eiffel Tower. Blandina sez holdin' onto my tabs, "From the bowels of the
earth up to the vaulted heavings!"

I said tabs, but I meant tab, for Josiah had holt of the other with an
almost frenzied grasp, and sez he, "Where will we go next, Samantha?"

And I sez, "Id'no, mebby to the moon or Mars."

And Blandina in trembling axents sez, "I wish I wuz safe at Mars."

Her ma is old but got her faculties. And Josiah sez with chatterin'
teeth and quaverin' voice as he looked down from the dizzy hite onto
Paris, "If I git through this alive I shall be glad to tell the brethren
about it."

Far below us lay the illuminated city, for it wuz night, and a beautiful
seen but sort o' melancholy. And sure enough, as if to prove my words
true, here at the very top of the tower wuz an air-ship on which we took
flight through the boundless fields of air. Paris died on our vision,
then we floated over many cities and harbors, up the English Channel,
anon the lights of London are passed and we are high up above the ocean.
Weird and wild is the seen, the moon comes up, black clouds rise, and
the voice of the winds is heard, then the rumbling of thunder and the
forked lightning darts its baleful glare at us.

Josiah whispers, "Samantha, have you got on your gold beads?"

[Illustration]

I wear 'em under my collar but most always take 'em off in a thunder
storm not wantin' to be struck in my neck. And I seen him furtively
gittin' ready to throw away his jack-knife. But at that minute the storm
calms down and Josiah replaces his knife jest as we enter New York
harbor. A flight over sea and land, forest and city, and we land agin at
the Exposition.

As we disembarked Josiah grasped holt of my hand ostensibly to help me
but really in tender greeting, and sez in fervid axents, "I wouldn't
have you take that trip alone, Samantha, without me with you to protect
you, not for worlds."

"No," sez Blandina, "what would we have done without dear Uncle Josiah
by our side?"

I didn't argy but felt that he wouldn't with his size and weight made
much headway agin them whales and water monsters to say nothin' of
danger by drowndin' and fallin' from the sky. But he felt neat and we
wended our way on.

Josiah said he didn't care about goin' to Asia, and I said it wuz a pity
not to when we wuz so nigh, but he kinder hurried me on.

I told him that the Streets of Seville interested me, for it wuz planned
by a woman, the only woman who ever received a concession in a amusement
street of a Exposition.

And Josiah sez, "I shall spend my money on sunthin' of more importance;
it probable all runs to crazy quilts and tattin."

But it wuz no such thing, it wuz perfectly beautiful, as I've hearn
folks say that have been there. But I see he wuz beginnin' to look
kinder mauger, and as first chaperone I sez anxiously, "Where do you
want to go, dear Josiah? Do you want to go to Hagenbecks Animal Show?"

"No, I don't; I shall see animals enough when I git home in my own
barnyard."

"Well, do you want to go to the Hereafter, Josiah?"

"No, we shall git there all right if we keep on without my payin' out
money. I told you I wuzn't goin' to pay to go in to all these places."

"Well, do you want to go to France or Ceylon or Persia? Or Cairo? Or
where do you want to go?"

Sez he, cross as a bear, "I want to go where I can git sunthin' to eat."

And I sez, "Dear Josiah, I've been so took up I forgot your appetite; we
will go to once." And havin' heard that good food could be got in Japan
we hastened thither.




CHAPTER XI.


We entered Fair Japan through a big gateway a hundred feet high. It wuz
called the Temple of Kiko, it wuz all covered with carvin' and gold
ornaments. And they say it couldn't be made now of the same materials
for a million dollars. It would been magnificent lookin' if it hadn't
been for what looked like serpents wreathin' up the pillars in front. I
hate snakes! and they're the last ornaments I would ever sculp over my
front door.

Blandina said they wuz dragons, and mebby they wuz. 'Tennyrate they wuz
fastened to the pillars and didn't offer to hurt us. We got quite a good
meal, but queer, in a tea-house on the borders of the lake. They had the
best tea I ever drinked. I asked 'em how long they steeped it, and how
much they put in for a drawin', but they bein' ignorant didn't seem to
understand me. But I enjoyed bein' there, for whilst our inner men and
wimmen wuz bein' refreshed our minds wuz enriched by this real picture
of life in Japan, for in there it is jest as if we had traveled
thousands of milds and wuz sot down in the real Japan.

After the edge of Josiah's hunger wuz squenched he begun to look about
him and praise up the looks of the Geisha girls that wuz dancin' or
rather posterin' in their pretty modest way, and some on 'em playin' on
queer lookin' instruments that looked some like my carpet sweeper.

These girl musicians wuz settin' on the floor dressed in what seemed to
be gay colored night gowns, and they looked well enough, kinder innocent
and modest lookin'. But I told him it wuzn't becomin' in a old man and a
professor to be so enthusiastick over young girls dancin' and playin'.

And he sez, "Oh, well, fetch on your girl blinders and I'll put 'em on.
But till you git 'em for me and harness me up in 'em I've got to look
round some."

But I told him there wuz enough for him to see besides girls and there
wuz. For it beats all what long strides the Japans have made in every
branch of education and culture. If they keep on in the next century as
they have in this some of the so-called advanced nations will have to
take a back seat and let this little brown, polite people stand to the
head. But then they have been cultured for hundreds of years, though
lots of folks don't seem to know it.

But I am sorry to say it wuzn't the high art and culture of Japan that
Josiah wuz most interested in, but the queer things, such as the strange
stunted trees trained into forms of men and animals hundreds of years
old and no higher than a common chair, and lots of 'em not so high. And
there wuz roosters with tails twenty-five feet long.

Josiah said he wuz bound to git an egg and see if he could hatch one.

And I sez, "Where would it roost? It's tail is long agin as the hen
house is high."

Well, he said in the summer it could roost on top of the barn with its
tail kinder hangin' down and out over the smoke house.

But it wuzn't a minute before his eyes wuz took up with some images,
some big ones covered with the most exquisite carvin', down to them so
small, if you'll believe it, they wuz carved out of a single kernel of
rice. And there wuz gold fish and a hundred other kinds of fishes, and
you see there the common houses of the people and people livin' in them
jest as they do in their own country, and a royal palace, arched
bridges, lanterns hangin' everywhere, pagodas, temples, lagoons with
ornamental boats, cascades, etc. All made a pretty picture, though
curious.

Then in Asakusa, a native village of Japan, is forty stores and there
you see the most beautiful display of rugs, carved ivory and wood,
porcelain, jewels, fans, paintings, etc., and the workmen busy making
'em right before your eyes. And in the narrer streets jugglers,
acrobats, fortune tellers are giving their mysterious performances.
There are bands of music, jinrikishaws with men harnessed up in 'em, and
you can ride in 'em if so inclined.

There wuz quite a number of places on the Pike that we passed that I
kinder wanted to see, but Josiah wuzn't willin' to pay out too much
money, and what interested me most wuz the foreign countries that I had
never had a chance to see, they havin' the misfortune to be so fur from
Jonesville. But when we got to the Chinese Village, it had such a
magnificent and showy front that Josiah never made an objection to goin'
inside.

I wuz dretful glad to go there, you know it is nater to want to do what
you can't. And China has been so determined to keep Josiah and I and the
world out of her empire, I wuz glad enough to git in, and wuz real
interested lookin' at them queer yeller pig-tailed little creeters with
dresses on, and their funny little houses.

There wuz a big Chinese theatre, and a Joss house where they worship
Joss, whoever he or she may be, I wanted to have their religion
explained to me, there wuz a guide there to do it.

But Josiah said that as a deacon he wouldn't countenance it, for I might
be led into idolatry. And when I argued with him he whispered to me:

"Samantha, if you insist on hangin' round their meetin' house here any
longer I shall say out loud, 'By Joss!'"

At that fearful threat I started on, I wouldn't let him demean himself
before the heathen.

You can see here in this country, as in Japan, native workers plyin'
their different trades, mechanics, painters, jewelers, etc., etc. Silk
weavers usin' the same old, onhandy looms they used centuries ago, ivory
carvers fashionin' elephants and other animals, and all on 'em tryin' to
sell to us in their high-pitched voices.

I had quite a number of emotions here in China a musin' on the oldness
and strangeness of their civilization, and wonderin' if it would ever be
merged into a newer, fresher life.

Blandina didn't share my lofty emotions, she simpered some and said, "I
believe they would make lovely husbands if their eyes wuz sot in
straighter and they dressed different."

And I sez, "I wouldn't admire 'em in that capacity, but after all they
would be equinomical husbands. If you had a calico dress kinder wore off
round the bottom you could cut it off and make 'em wear it, men's
clothes are so expensive it would be quite a savin'. And you could pass
him off for the hired girl if strangers come onexpected, though that is
sunthin' I wouldn't approve on, fur from it, a hauty sperit goes before
a fall, as I told Josiah once when he got on a new kind of collar that
held his head up so high he fell over the wood-box."

But to resoom. The Chinese are curious lookin', but equinomical, they
can live on a few grains of rice a day, and America owes 'em a debt of
gratitude anyway for tunnelin' her Rocky Mountains, buildin' her big
railroads and diggin' ditches to water the land and make it beautiful
that they're shet out of.

Blandina sez to me as we wended our way out, "No man ort to be turned
back out of this country." She said the Chinee wuz good, industrious,
equinomical and peaceable.

And I sez, "Yes, they work well and don't go round like some other
foreigners with a chip on their shoulder. But," sez I, "Blandina, I will
not tell the nation what to do in this matter; there is so much to be
said on both sides it must not depend on me to settle it, and they
needn't ask me to."

I hadn't more than said these words as we wuz strollin' along when who
should we meet but Royal and Rosy Nelson. I knowed they wuz to be
married the very day after we left for St. Louis. We wuz invited but
couldn't go, our plans bein' all laid and tickets bought, but I sent 'em
a handsome present, for I wuz highly tickled with the match.

Truly no rose ever looked sweeter hangin' on its bough than did Rosy
Nelson hangin' onto the arm of her devoted consort, and he I thought wuz
well named, so royal and proud wuz his mean as he introduced his wife.

I kissed her warmly right there in China and promised to make her a all
day's visit soon as I got home, I'm lottin' on't.

We talked a little about past troubles caused by Jabezeses and
inventions, and the glories of the Fair, and then they strolled off
happy as two turkle doves, not needin' or desirin' any other company
than their own, and showin' it plain by their actions. Josiah was put
out about it for he wanted to find out about how things wuz to home,
bein' highly tickled to meet a male Jonesvillian.

Blandina sez as they walked away, bound up in each other and both on 'em
wropped up in the glowin' mantilly of youth and joy: "Oh, happy, happy
wedded souls! how I envy you."

And Josiah sez in a fraxious axent, "How queer it is that two such smart
young folks can look and act so spooney, but thank heaven! it won't
last. It won't be long before Royal will be willin' to pass the time o'
day with a Jonesvillian."

I told him there wuz nothin' so beautiful as love. "No, nor nothin' that
makes folk act so like pesky fools, they don't act as though they knew
putty."

I hated such oncongenial idees. But couldn't deny they wuz spooney, for
they wuz, not a small teaspoon but a big silver dinner spoon, and I
believe it will last. Not the outward form of the spoon, oh, no, that
would be too wearisome to the world and themselves, but the precious
metal that forms it. Love is the greatest thing in the world.

Blandina had always lived in a back place and had never heard a
graphophone, so bein' kinder tired, and bein' nigh a place where they
had one, we went in at her request and sot for quite a spell.

And we heard voices and songs gay and sad, marches and melodies,
loftiest oratory, maddest mirth and profoundest feeling all comin' out
of a little square box, what a idee!

What a man that Edison is. It seems always like watchin' the wonderful
onseen secrets of nater, like seein' the mortal made immortal to think
that voices we've loved and mourned as they wuz hushed in the last
stillness can sound out agin, breakin' our hearts with the same old
echoes, the same old sweetness of the voice we loved and lost, talkin'
in mortal words and axents to us when they've long, long ago learnt the
immortal language, beheld the immortal seens.

Why Cleopatra's voice might have been stored up as she made love to
Antony, or the voice of the relation on her own side, old Mr. Pharo
himself orderin' the Hebrews to git out of his premises, and their back
talk about plaguin' him till he wuz willin' they should go.

Why even Eve scoldin' Adam about slackness in gittin' kindlin' wood or
her pardner complainin' about her wastefulness and extravagance in usin'
so many fig leaves for her fall suit. Oh, how nateral, how nateral that
would sound to wimmen.

Or old Noah's voice as he stood in the Ark door bagonin and shoutin' to
the animals to walk in male and female. Or his voice kinder soothin' and
patronizin' tellin' the female dove to go out and shirk round on the
water and see if it wuz safe for the males in the party to go out. Oh,
how nateral that would sound to wimmen, soundin' out through the
centuries.

And on and on down the long years, Job's voice complainin' of the bitter
comfort of his friend's familiar talk. He'd stood losin' family and
fortune and had stood biles but the seven days' visitation and the "I
told-you-sos" and the advice of well wishers wuz too much for him.

And Solomon's talk to Miss Sheba and hem to him. And Daniel's talk by
the deep waters, and mebby the Great Voice that said to him:

"Understand!"

And brave Queen Esther's voice facin' her enemies and a drunken king,
and sweet Ruth's, and Paul's incomparable words, and St. John's. Or the
lofty voices of the Patriot fathers as they nobly shrieked for freedom
as they threw their pardner's tea overboard, while they hung onto their
whiskey and tobacco that wuz taxed twice as high.

Oh, how their impassioned cries for liberty, and how they would
willin'ly sacrifice their wives favorite beveridge ruther than to yield
to the tyrant. How nateral, how nateral them noble yells would sound to
their descendant females, the Daughters of the Revolution, and all the
rest. What would it be for us all to hear them axents, and it could have
been done if Edison had been born sooner and that little box had been
round.

I didn't wonder that Blandina wuz enthused, it is enough to enthuse
anybody that never has hearn it, she said she laid out to go every day
three or four times a day and stay jest as long as she could.

One of the most remarkable sights we see on the Pike wuz Jim Key, a
horse that is valued at a hundred thousand dollars, who travels in his
own private car. A horse that can read and write, spell, understand
mathematics, go to the post office, git mail from any box, give chapter
and verse of Bible text where the horse is mentioned, uses the
telephone, and is so intelligent you expect him to break out in oratory
any time.

Josiah wuz spell bound here, I could hardly tear him away. And sez he:

"The first thing I do when I go home will be to send the colt to the
deestrick school."

I told him the teacher wouldn't want him whinnerin' round amongst her
scholars, and mebby gallopin' and snortin' round the schoolroom.

But he wuz as firm as adamant in his idee. And Id'no what I shall do
about it. But spoze the trustees will have to head him off.

Josiah wanted to go and see the Fire Fighters, he said he thought he
could git some idees to tell the brethren that wuz in the fire company,
and Blandina and I wanted to see the Esquimeaux Village. We went on,
Josiah promisin' to meet us there. And as we went I said:

"I've sung for years about Greenland's icy mountains, but never spozed I
should set my eyes on 'em." For there towerin' up to the skies wuz
immense ice mountains peaked and desolate lookin', and inside it looked
worse yet. A bare snowy place broken by cold lookin' water dotted with
ice islands and surrounded by tall ice peaks. I don't spoze it wuz real
ice and snow, but looked like it.

And there wuz reindeers hitched to sleds, and the low round huts of the
natives lookin' jest like the pictures in our old Gography. And there
wuz some white bears natural as life, and dog teams haulin' sledges,
toiling up the steep cliffs hitched tantrum. The natives wuz queer
lookin' little creeters, dark complexioned, dressed in furs and thick
costooms. But little Nancy Columbus born at the World's Fair, Chicago,
wuz cute as she could be.

There wuz a big street show at the other end of the Pike and this place
wuz most deserted by sight-seers, and Blandina and I sot down on a bench
by the side of one of these little housen to rest. As we did so we hearn
the voice of oratory comin' from the other side, where some Esquimeaux
seemed to be gathered with open mouths and wonderin' linements. The
orator seemed to be finishin' his address in words as follers:

"Let us not permit ourselves to be spiritually incapacitated by
quandaries regarding the control of earthly matter. Let us
circumnavigate the ethereal realms of unexplored ether, quander the
unquanderable until the everlastin' stupendiousness of the whyness of
the what shall dawn on the enraptured vision, and precipitate the
effulgent tissues of ethereal matter in one glorious pulchritude of
transcendentalism."

As the speaker paused for needed breath Blandina clasped her hands and
sithed out, "Oh, what glorious eloquence! I never hearn anything like
it!"

And I sez, "I never did but once, I know that voice, though I hain't
hearn it for twenty years; that is Prof. Aspire Todd." And I thought to
myself, he is practicin' over a speech, and thought the Esquimeaux would
stand it better than tribes less humble and good natered. And so it
turned out; he hoped he would be invited to speak at a scientific
meetin' to take place in Festival Hall in a day or two, and bein' to the
Inside Inn he'd tried to orate his speech in his own room, but it is
built so shammy you can hear things from one end to the other, and they
threatened him with horse whippin' on one side and lynchin' on the
other, and bein' drove to it he tried it on the Esquimeauxs. They stood
it pretty well, though I noticed one or two on 'em weepin' bitterly, not
knowin' what ailed 'em.

Well, to resoom backward, I sez to Blandina, "I hearn Aspire Todd at a
Fourth of July celebration in Josiah's sugar bush."

"Oh," sez Blandina, claspin' her hands, "would it be possible for you to
introduce me to that noble being?"

Sez I, "You like his talk then?"

"Oh, yes!" sez she, shutting her eyes and clasping her hands. "His
matchless eloquence is beyond praise."

"So 'tis," sez I, "way beyond my praise. But I can introduce you if you
want me to; he visited me that time he wuz in Jonesville and stayed to
supper." So as he come round the corner of the buildin' follered by some
bewildered lookin' natives I put out my hand and sez, "I don't know as
you know me, Professor Aspire Todd, but you visited me in Jonesville. I
am Josiah Allen's wife."

He grasped my hand almost warmly and sez, "Indeed my memory retroacts
readily on that delightsome remembrance."

And then I introduced Blandina, knowin' I wuz makin' her perfectly happy
by so doin'. He'd growed old considerable, which I didn't blame him for
and didn't see as he could help it, twenty years havin' gone by. His
hair, which wuz still long and hung down over his turn-down collar, wuz
streaked with gray. But he still had the same kind of a curious,
sentimental, high-flown look to him.

I didn't admire his looks, but Blandina's manners to him wuz worshipful,
and it seemed to agree with him first rate, he seemed really to take to
her. And as he asked to accompany and go with us to the next exhibit, I
fell in with it, and when my pardner come walked ahead with him while
Professor Todd follered with a perfectly blissful Blandina, and before
they parted he arranged a rondevoo next day with Blandina.

I wuz beat out when I got home and Miss Huff sent Aunt Pheeny up to my
room with a glass of hot lemonade and some crackers, supper not bein'
quite ready owin' to shiftless works in the kitchen. Molly wuz in my
room also sweet as a June rosy. Aunt Tryphena wuz quiverin' with
excitement, and she sez, "Lazy, good for nothin' things! but it hain't
what they _do_ that I mind but it is their iggorance I despise."

Sez Molly, "If they are ignorant you ought to overlook it, Aunt Pheeny."

[Illustration]

"Overlook it!" sez she, turnin' an' facin' us with her hands on her
portly hips. "I hain't used to no such trash. When anybody has lived
with the highest nobility they can't stomach such low down niggers. Why,
I used to have 'em kneelin' at my feet, four or five at a time, askin'
what I'd have for dinner. And that poor, iggorent, low-down cook in the
kitchen told me jest now I lied about Prince Arthur, that there never
wuz such a prince, and I sez to her, 'How any black nigger can stand
makin' bakin' powder biscuit and tell such lies is a mystery to me.'"

"Well, you know Princes are not common in this country," sez I.

She drew herself up more hautily, "Such a Prince as that hain't common
in no country! Why he's so handsome and good the very birds in the trees
will stop singin' to listen to his talk, and the grass turn brighter
green where he's stepped on it, and the May-flowers peek up and blush
with happiness if he looks at 'em."

"How come you to leave him, Aunt Pheeny, if he wuz so perfect?"

"I tole you before," sez she with dignity, "that when he went off to
school I wuzn't in no ways bound to stay with ole Miss. She wuz jealous,
you know, jealous of me. Prince Arthur made more of me, we used to sing
together, you know I've sung in Concorts and Operations, been a star in
'em. Ole Miss couldn't sing no more than a green frog. And he always
said when he got married I wuz to live with him, that nachully sot up
his Ma's back, and I santered off one day, never tole her I wuz goin',
but jest lifted up my train, I wore long pink and blue satin dresses
then, and I jest santered out the house over to Californy and Asia and
so on to Chicago, and then hired out to Miss Dotie's ma. And here I is!"
sez she firmly, and took up the empty tray and departed.

She wuz a good singer, her voice full of the sweetness and heart
searchin' pathos of her race. And her wild flights of imagination never
hurt anyone but herself.

Well, after supper, which they called dinner, I felt considerable
better. Josiah stayed down in the parlor talkin' to Grandpa Huff and
Billy, and Molly come up in my room agin and sot with me, whilst
twilight let down her soft gray mantilly round us and pinned it to the
earth with silver stars (metafor).

I always take it as a great compliment when folks confide the deepest
secrets of their heart to me. And Id'no why it is, but they most always
do; I mean them that I take to nachully. Sometimes I've felt first rate
by it and spozed it wuz because I had such a noble riz up look to my
face. But Josiah sez it is because I have such a soft look that folks
think they can pour their griefs into me and they will sink in, some
like water into cotton battin, and they can lose sight of their sorrows
for a spell and relieve 'em some. Well, Id'no which it is, but
'tennyrate as Molly sot there with me lookin' as wan and pale as a white
rose on a cold November evenin' she told me the whole story, hid from
her own folks but revealed unto a Samantha.

Josiah may say what he's a mind to, but I believe it is the natural
nobility of my linement that drawed it from her. While she wuz away
visitin' this school chum in a southern city she met a young chap
handsome as Appolyan, I knew from what she said, and so talented and
gifted, I could see in a minute they had fell in love voylently from the
very first time they met, and day by day the attraction growed till they
wuz completely wropped up in each other. She said he seemed to worship
her.

But strange, strange thing! with all the love he showed her, in every
word and act, he left her without a word, only a sort of a wild note
saying he could not endure the wretchedness of seeing a heaven so near
that he could not hope to enter, and after that silence, deep, dark and
onbroken silence and despair. "And my heart is broken!" sez she, as she
laid her pretty head in my lap sobbin' out, "What shall I do! Oh, what
shall I do!"

She wep' and cried and cried and wep', and I wep' with her, my snowy
handkerchief held in one hand, the other hand tenderly caressin' the
bowed head in my lap. But as she said the word Silence it brung up
sunthin' I had read that very day, and I sez:

"Dear, did you ever hear of enterin' into the Silence?"

"Yes," sez Molly, liftin' her tear wet, sweet face, "I have a friend who
enters into the Silence for hours, and she says that everything she
greatly desires and asks for at that time, is given her. She calls it
the New Thought."

"And I call it the Old Thought, Molly, older than the creation of man.
And what they call Entering into the Silence, I call Waiting on the
Lord. And what I call prayer, they, from what I read, most probable call
waking up the solar plexus, whatever that may be. But it don't make much
difference what a thing is called, the name is but a pale shadow
compared to the reality. Disciples of the New Thought, Christian
Scientists, Healers, Spiritualists, etc., are, I believe, reaching out
and feeling for the Light as posies growin' in a dark suller send out
little pale shoots huntin' for the sunlight. And so I feel kinder soft
and meller towards the hull caboodle on 'em though I can't foller all
their beliefs.

"For I, as a member of the M.E. meetin' house, call this great
beneficient over-rulin' Power that sot the world spinnin' on its
axletrees and holds it up, lest it dashes aginst the planets, and
directs the flight of the tiny bird fleeing before the snows; this
Mighty Force that controls us from the cradle to the grave, but which we
cannot see no more than we can see His servants, the cold and wind that
freezes us or the warmth and love that blesses us. This Power, that
whether we scoff or pray, holds us all in the hollow of His mighty hand,
I call God the Father, Son and Holy Guest, and believe it once took
mortal shape and dwelt with humanity to uplift and bless it. And that
love, that torture, crucifixion and death could not slay still yearns
over this sad old world, still as the comforting Guest makes its home in
human hearts that love and trust."

Molly sot still with her pretty head leaning aginst me and I went on,
"In the story of His life and death, that volume that holds the wisdom
of the old and ripened glory of the new, that holy book sez, 'He that
dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under shadow
of the Almighty.'

"What a place to abide in, Molly, the shadow of the All Loving, the All
Mighty one, a shadow that casts glowing light instead of darkness like
our earthly shadows, a pure white light in which, lookin' through the
eye-glass of faith we can read the meanin' of all the sorrows and
perplexities and troubles he permits us to endure, and find every word
on 'em gilt edged with glory.

"Spiritualists, Christian Healers, etc., may name this what they will.
Disciples of the New Thought may call it the Silence, but I shall keep
right on callin' it the Secret Place of the Most High. And He who
inhabits that sacred place has promised that if you reverently and
obediently enter and dwell therein and trust in Him, He will give you
the desire of your heart.

"So all you've got to do, Molly, is to do as he tells you to, obey and
trust Him jest as the child trusts his pa, and asks him for what he
wants most, you must ask Him for the desire of your heart, and if it is
best for you, dear, He will bring it to pass."

"Do you think so?" sez she, brightenin' up more'n considerable.

"No, I don't think so. I _know_ it."

Well, them consolin' words, for thought is a _real thing_, and I jest
wropped her round with my tenderness and compassion, I guess they
comforted her some, 'tennyrate she promised me sweetly that she would
obey and trust, and I felt considerable better about her.

I wuz sorry for her as sorry as I could be, but I had a strong feelin'
inside of my heart (mebby some wise, sweet angel whispered it to me)
that everything would come out right in the end, and Molly would git the
desire of her heart.

She's belonged to the meetin' house for years. But sometimes members git
some shock that jars 'em and sends 'em out of the narrer road for quite
a spell and they git kinder lost gropin' through the dark shadders of
earthly disappointment and sorrow. Nothin' but the light that streams
down from above can pierce them glooms, and I knowed by the sweet light
that lit up Molly's linement that her face wuz turned in the right
direction and she wouldn't look sideways, behind or before, but would
seek for light and help from above.




CHAPTER XII.


Well, for the next week we had a busy time, goin' to the Fair most every
day, sometimes all together, but not stayin' together long, for most
always we'd meet Professor Todd somewhere and he and Blandina would pair
off together (I jest as willin' as anybody ever wuz).

Molly had a young schoolmate who lived in St. Louis, and sometimes they
would spend the day together at some reception or other. But most of the
time Josiah and I paid our two attentions to the Fair stiddy, a
travelin' about and seein' all we could.

And one mornin' Josiah asked me before breakfast, jest as cool as if he
wuz proposin' a glass of lemonade with ice in it, if I didn't want to go
to Jerusalem that mornin'.

Jerusalem! City of our Lord! Oh, my soul, think on't! As he said the
words I looked at him and then some distance through him and beyond, and
entirely onbeknown to myself I begun to hum over that old him:

"Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest,
Beneath thy contemplation sink heart and soul oppressed.
We know not, oh, we know not what joys await us there."

And Josiah broke in and sung the last line with me (or what he called
singin').

"What radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare."

But I knowed that singin' that time of day would be apt to draw
attention, specially as Josiah's singin' wuz very base and my sulferino
hain't what it wuz, and I hastened to say:

"Yes, Josiah, I want to go."

Breakfast wuz kinder late that mornin', and little Dorothy come into my
room, she slep' jest acrost from us, and she begun to tell me to once
about a meetin' she'd been to the night before with Aunt Pheeny. And to
make talk with her I asked her what the text wuz, and she sez:

"Jesus the quilt."

Josiah wuz horrified, and it did sound bad, and he begun to reprimand
her sharp, but I sez:

"Tell me all about it, Dotie."

And come to find out, it wuz "Jesus the Comforter," and her little
bedspread wuz sometimes called a quilt and sometimes a comforter. And I
told Josiah how necessary it wuz not to condemn children before
searching into their motives. But Dotie wuz evidently thinkin' about the
sermon she had hearn so lately, and she went on to ask, "Was Jesus a
Jew?"

And I sez, "Yes, dear."

"Why," sez she, "I always thought Dod wuz a Presbyterium."

That wuz her Aunty Huff's persuasion, which she nachully thought
couldn't be improved on.

Dotie had a little straw hat on that time o' day and I asked her what it
wuz for, and she sez, "Oh, I carry my papers in it, I'm writin' a book."

Grandpa Huff always carried papers in his hat, and she copied him. I
asked her what her book wuz about, and how she wuz gittin' on with it
and she said:

"It wuz about a lady, a buggler and a ghost, and I've killed 'em all and
that's as fur as I've got."

Killin' a ghost! a burglar and a heroine, I thought what a noble start
for a sensational novel.

But the breakfast bell rung jest then, and I took the little warm hand
in mine and led her down to breakfast.

Well, after breakfast Josiah and I sot out in good season for Jerusalem.

Molly wanted to go to the British Building to see a school friend of
hern that she thought might be there, and Blandina offered to accompany
her. They wuz goin' to stop at a number of places on the way, and we
agreed to meet at noon sharp at the English Building.

We went into the walled city of Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate, through a
tall arched entrance in the stun wall. Within wuz lots of carriages and
horses and camels and donkeys and men, wimmen and children, some in
strange and startlin' costooms, but the first thing Josiah spoke on wuz
the name of a restaurant, "A Fast," it wuz over a door clost by.

"A fast," sez he, "that don't look very encouragin' in a eatin' house.
If it wuz Brek Fast it would look more hopeful."

"You've had your breakfast, Josiah, and a good one. Don't be thinkin' of
vittles so much in such a place as this."

"I shall think of what I'm a minter, and you can't break it up, mom!"

Truly he spoke the truth; I could cling to his arm, drink out of the
same cup, set in the same chair, lay my head on the same piller, and
yet, he might be millions of milds from me in sperit, 'round with other
wimmen for all I knew. Queer, hain't it?

Yes, he wuz thinkin' of food right here in this Holy City. As for me, a
perfect troop of lofty emotions wuz sweepin' through my mind, as I
looked 'round me on the very same seen our Lord had looked at. Low
old-fashioned stun housen such as He might have entered in, men and
wimmen clad in long robes such as He wore.

And to think of seein' the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows, that He
walked, carryin' the agony of humanity, and the pityin' compassion of
divinity.

And the Nine Stations of the Cross where our Lord stopped to rest on
that bitter journey, toiling up the steep hill carrying up the heavy
cross and the woes and sins of the world, awful! beautiful Calvary!
sacred, heart-breaking, holy place. How my soul burnt within me thinkin'
of all this as I stood in the Holy City.

And there wuz the Tower of David, the Shepherd king. I always liked
David, though I could advised him for his good in lots of things. He
didn't do right by Ury, and he ortn't to had so many wives, if he'd
scrimped himself a little in 'em, mebby his son, Solomon, wouldn't had
so many, and one is enough, as I told Josiah.

"Yes," sez he with intense conviction in his tone. "One wife is enough
for any man, heaven knows, and anybody that hankers after more than one
is a fool!"

I didn't really like his axent; he'd been layin' it up, I guess what I
said about vittles, but I didn't mind it.

And we went through the different quarters of the city. The little
stores and bazars by the side of the street wuz full of real nice things
to sell, rich Eastern woven goods, embroideries, cushions, curtains,
rugs, lamps, jewels, ornaments, trinkets of all kinds, etc., etc. There
is more than a hundred of these little booths and stores in Jerusalem,
and all full of handsome things. I loved to look at 'em, though Josiah
tried to draw me away.

Sez he, "You don't want to buy here; you can do as well agin in
Jonesville tradin' off your butter and eggs, and probable git a chromo
throwed in."

I didn't argy, but I bought a string of beads for Tirzah Ann and a pipe
for Thomas J., the wood of which growed on the Mount of Olives, so the
man said.

I told Josiah they would prize 'em high havin' come from Jerusalem.

And he said, "They never see Jerusalem," he said they wuz growed over in
New Jersey, and when I asked him how he knew, he said he re_cog_nized
the berries and the grain of the wood.

But he couldn't no such thing, and I presoom the man told considerable
truth. And we see Rabbis, Turkish cavalry, common people livin' in the
queer little housen jest as they did in Jerusalem, and the priests goin'
through their religious ceremonies jest the same. And we went through
the Citadel and the different public buildin's.

There wuz lots of wimmen and girls on the streets, some on 'em sellin'
posies for charity, I bought two little bunches, one on 'em I put in
Josiah's buttonhole, though he objected and said it would probable make
talk for a man of his age and dignity to be trimmed with flowers.

They wuz real pretty girls, with white veils on over their dark hair,
their lustrous eyes lookin' out at us as they might have looked at the
Postles.

And there wuz cunnin' little donkeys that anybody could ride if they
wanted to, and camels with gorgeous trappings kneelin' down ready for
folks to mount and be carried 'round the streets. Josiah stood ready to
pay the ten cents apiece to give us the pleasure of a ride.

But I declined the treat. I sez, "We don't ride the old mair hoss back
to home, and I don't hanker after bein' histed up onto a camel's hump,
or to see you in that perilous poster."

He said he'd love to tell the bretheren we'd rid 'em, but seein' I wuz
sot agin it he gin up.

The streets smell bad and are so narrer I don't see how they would
manage if two buggies met; one would have to back out, they couldn't git
by each other.

The old Roman barracks are bare and dreary lookin', but dretful
interestin' to me for there our Lord stood to be judged by Caesar like a
lamb before the shearer, and he said, "I wash my hands of this matter, I
find no fault in this man."

I wish Caesar had had more gumption. His wife could see furder ahead
than he could. But that is often the case, as I tell Josiah.

And we went through St. John's Hospice, and the Mosque of Omar. That is
a monstrous big building with a great round dome on top, two broad
flights of steps lead up into it, we clumb the nighest one and went
inside. The high dome is lined with colored mosaic, and looks
first-rate, but I didn't pay much attention to that for right underneath
the centre is an exact reproduction of the rock where Abraham offered up
Isaac, or got ready to. How Love and Duty tugged at Abraham's heart and
most tore it into as he stood there, and what faith he had. It is
heart-breakin' to think on't, though it all come out right in the end,
as the hardest things will if we cling to Duty.

But Josiah wuz gittin' worrisome and wanted to go, but I sez, "Josiah, I
must see Solomon's Temple."

It wuz quite a few steps away, but I didn't begrech the time or journey,
and jest as we wuz goin' up the steps, who should we meet comin' out but
Jane Olive Perkins (_nay_ Gowdey) once a Jonesvillian, but now livin' in
Chicago, but visitin' her old home and relation quite often.

She wuz dressed beautiful, her neck and bosom sparklin' with diamonds. I
don't approve of such dressin' in the street, but Jane Olive wuz always
showy.

She held out both hands in joyful greetin' (the meanin' of which I
mistrusted afterwards). We talked about the splendor of the Fair and our
own two healths, and the Jonesvillians, and then she sez:

"I am so delighted to meet you, Josiah Allen's wife, for I know you will
want to give to a noble cause I am workin' for, you and dear Mr. Allen.
It is a cause that ort to be first in every feelin' heart, and I knew
you'd give liberal."

I'd forgot my portmoney that mornin' and didn't want right there in
Solomon's Temple to dicker with Josiah for money, I knowed it would make
him fraxious. And I wuz havin' such a lot of lofty emotions there at
Jerusalem, I didn't want to bring 'em down by havin' words with my
pardner. And I knowed too that "dear Mr. Allen" would be apt to say hash
things that would bring him down in Jane Olive's estimation, he's so
clost and he never liked her to begin with.

So I said I couldn't very well stop and tend to it right there in
Solomon's Temple, and she asked me for my address and told me she should
come and see me. She wuz stayin' at a big tarven not so very fur from
Miss Huff's, and said she'd brought her orto and shuffler with her from
Chicago.

Well, she bid us a tender adoo, sayin' the last thing "_owe Revwah_," or
sunthin' like that and Josiah sez to me:

"Who's she twittin' us on? I don't owe nobody by that name, nor never
did, not a cent, I'm a man that pays my debts."

And I sez, "Dear Josiah, nobody that knows you can dispute it."

Jane Olive kinder smiled and passed on, and I'dno but in Fancy I and the
public may as well set down on the steps of Solomon's Temple, and I'll
tell about who Jane Olive Perkins wuz. She wuz Jane Olive Gowdey, and
married Samuel Perkins, old Eliphilet Perkinses second boy, and folks
thought she done mizable when she married him. Sam hadn't been put to
work much bein' sort o' weakly so his folks thought, he looked kinder
peaked.

But I spoze Sam enjoyed pretty good health all the time onbeknown to his
folks and wuz kinder savin' up his strength, layin' it up as you may say
for the time o' need, so he had it all when he wuz married. A master
hand he wuz to save things and make 'em count. For all he never did any
work to speak on, he had more proppity laid up than any of the Perkins
boys when he wuz married, he had saved so and sort o' speculated and
laid up.

He wuz kinder mean too, runnin' after wimmen at that time, though
onbeknown to Jane Olive or his folks, but it come out afterwards, he wuz
awful sly. When he married Jane Olive Gowdey that wuz a surprise too,
for Bill, the oldest boy, wanted her the worst way and everybody spozed
they wuz engaged. A good creeter Bill wuz, virtuous as Joseph, or any of
the old Bible Patriarchs, and virtuouser than lots of 'em.

But Sam, in jest that way of hisen, laid low and sort o' did the best he
could with what he had to do with, sort o' speculated and increased her
likin' for him on the sly (mean fellers will git ahead of good ones five
times out of ten, wimmen are so queer). And lo and behold! the first
Jonesville knew they up and got married.

They moved to a big city where Sam got a chance to travel for a grocery
store, and Jane Olive opened a inteligence office, where for an ample
consideration she furnished incompetent help to distracted housekeepers,
receivin' pay from both victims, and they laid up money fast. Then he
went into pork and first we knew Sam wuz a very rich man, lived in great
style, kep' his carriage, but wuz awful mean, so we heard, hadn't no
morals at all to speak on so fur as wimmen wuz concerned, and we had
hearn that Jane Olive not bein' over and above happy in marriage, and
forgittin' to all appearance she had ever dickered with mistress and
maid, wuz tryin' her best to work her way in among the aristockracy, she
wuz dretful ambitious and so wuz Sam, they wanted to go with the first.

She did everything she could to foller their example, she dressed up in
satin and diamonds and trailed 'round to theatres and operas and hung
over dry goods counters, and kep' her maid and coachman and butler, or
that's what folks say, I don't even know what a butler is expected to
do, or Josiah don't. "Butler," sez I when I hearn on't, "I can't imagine
what a butler duz."

And Josiah sez, "A coachman is to coach, and a waiter is to wait, and a
butler must be to buttle."

Sez I, "Buttle what? Or who? Or when?" But he couldn't tell. Well, Sam
he did everything to git into the first and be fashionable, he embezzled
a lot, broke down two or three times with enormous profit to himself,
spent his money like water, wuz jest as mean as he could be, went over
to Europe now and then, did everything he could do to be fashionable and
act like a man of the world, and finally he led astray a little girl
that lived with 'em, a motherless little girl they had took, pretty as a
pink too, and affectionate dispositioned. Jane Olive turned her
outdoors, of course, when she found it out. It wuz in the fall of the
year, and the night before Christmas the girl with her baby in her arms
jumped into the river and wuz drownded.

Her father had some spunk and took Sam up, but he wuz always sly and
looked ahead, and he proved that she wuz a day or two older than the age
of consent, and he got let off triumphant and her father had to pay the
cost, besides the funeral expenses, and grave stun.

Such smartness riz Sam up considerable amongst his mates and he wuz sent
to Congress most immegiately afterwards, and it wuz owin' to his
powerful arguments that the age of consent wuz lowered a year or two; I
believe he brought it down to about ten years. He wuz thought a sight on
by his genteel male friends, so they say, he worked so powerful for
their interest. He brought down the licenses on saloons and bad housen a
sight, and made almost Herculanean efforts to have saloons scattered
broadcast through the country without _any_ license to pay. I spoze
there never wuz a more popular statesman. He worked too hard though, and
had to retire to more private life to reap the fruits of his efforts.
And he kep' right on, so they say reapin' 'em ever since, cuttin' up and
actin', but always actin' jest inside the law and always cuttin' up the
same.

He had the gift of gab and he made eloquent public speeches, tellin'
what boons saloons and kindred places wuz to the community. I spoze
there never wuz a more popular legislator.

But, of course, such high honors cast dark shadders, and one night after
he'd made a powerful speech at the openin' of a saloon he owned, a old
one made over into gorgeous beauty, he got a good hoss whippin', and by
some wimmen too.

Perkins had made a great speech himself and wantin' to show off to the
world that it wuz real respectable (they had this saloon kinder graded
off, weaker drinks in one place leadin' up gradual to brandy and
whiskey), he got a minister, a well-meanin' man, so I hearn, who made a
prayer and then they all sung the Doxology:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow--

Askin' God to bless what He'd cursed. What must God thought on't! For He
and they well knew all the sin and pain, poverty and crime that flowed
out of saloons, the ontold losses and danger to community, the
brutality, fights, murders, crimes of all kinds.

Praise Him all creatures here below--

When that minister knowed the stuff he wuz dedicatin' rendered all
creeters here below, no matter how smart they wuz nachully, incapable of
tellin' whether they wuz on their head or their heels, blessin' or
cussin'. When a man is drunk as a fool how can he praise anything? It is
all he can do to navigate his own legs within' and weavin' along under
him, ready to crumple down any minute into the gutter. He'd look well
tryin' to sing gospel hims when he can't tell what his own name is, or
speak it if he could.

Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts

Why, I don't see how they dasted to sing that when they knowed that the
Heavenly Host couldn't have flowed through such places without bein'
liable to git their feathers pulled out in some of the drinkin' carouses
held there. As liable agin for their pure eyes must be dimmed with
tears, tears for the eighty thousand victims turned out yearly from
these resorts. Innocent youth changed to reckless wickedness, noble
manhood turned to brutes falling from honorable places in society down
into drunkards' loathsome lives, drunkards' dishonored graves.

How could these pityin' sperits help weepin' over it? And the long,
agonized procession follerin' on--pale, wretched mothers, once happy
wives, now hungry, broken-hearted wrecks, with pinched, starved children
clingin' to their ragged skirts. The idee of askin' this pure heavenly
Host to praise God for what brought all this to pass!

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Why, I believe that Satan himself, though he loved to see the work go
on, would be ashamed to sing the Doxology there. I don't believe you'd
ketch him at it, for he is so smart he would see in a minute how it
would look to praise God for such a place as that when he had said
plain:

"Cursed is he that putteth the cup to his neighbor's lips."

And Satan knowed jest as well as Josiah and I and the world did, that
saloons wuz made a purpose for this.

"And no drunkard hath eternal life." And that minister wuz ordained to
help people attain that life, not to help 'em lose it.

I don't see what he wuz thinkin' on. Of course, the top of the long
slippery descent to ruin is quite cheerful lookin', lit up with false
lights, hollow mirth, false hopes and dreams lurin' the victims on and
down. But he knowed how slippery it wuz, how impossible it wuz for
ordinary men to stand up when they got to slidin' down. He knew that
nothin' but God's grace wuz strong enough to reach down and haul 'em up
agin to level ground.

A few men are so strong-footed they can grip on and stay 'round the top
for some time, and I presoom this minister, bein' a good-natered man
would been glad to had 'em all hung on there, but he must have knowed
they wouldn't and couldn't. He'd seen 'em leggo thousands and thousands
every year, he knowed what made 'em fall. And he might jest as well made
a prayer and sung a hymn over a murderer's knife, because he wanted it
to cut bread but knowed it would and did murder, as to done this.

For no matter what he wanted he knowed intemperance is evil and only
evil. And pattin' a pizen viper and callin' it "angel" and singin' the
Doxology over it hain't goin' to change its nater, its nater is to
sting, and its bite is death.

And the God they dasted to invoke said of the drink the place wuz made
to sell, "It biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder," and the
end thereof is death.

I don't know what that good man could be thinkin' on to dast. But then
as long as our Government opholds it, I spoze he thought he might.

But I wish I'd been there to told him how it wuz goin' to look to me and
Josiah and the world, and what slurs wuz goin' to be cast onto the
sacred cause of religion by it.

I couldn't tell him what harm it wuz goin' to do; no, eternity is none
too soon to count that up. Awful waves of influence sweepin'
along--sweepin' along clear from to-day to the Day of Judgment; I can't
bear to think on't; I'm kinder sorry for him, and am glad enough it
hain't my Josiah that has got that ahead on him. I wish he'd ondo now
what he's done as fur as he can, he'd feel better, I believe, I know
that I and the meetin' house would and Josiah.

But, 'tennyrate, no matter how Satan wuz laughin' and sneerin' and
angels bendin' down from the gold bars of Heaven lookin' through their
pityin' tears hopin' it must be a mistake, not believin' it possible
that them prayers and hims could come from a man-killin' saloon. And
coverin' their eyes with their droopin' wings when they found it wuz
so--they sung it through and the minister, for he wuz a stiddy man, went
home in good season. And Perkins also started home walkin' afoot, it wuz
so little ways.

And as I said, some wimmen sot on him and hoss-whipped him. Some of
these wimmen's husbands had been ruined and killed by the Poor Man's
Club. And there wuz some mothers whose little boys of seven and eight
had been coaxed with brandy-soaked candy into another saloon Perkins
owned. For this saloonkeeper had boasted, Perkins backin' him, that
money spent enticin' the young and innocent to drink, whilst they wuz
easily influenced, wuz money well spent.

For of course, as good calculators, they had to in the interest of their
profession provide new recruits to take the place in the staggerin'
ranks of the hundred thousand they annually killed off. And this
saloonkeeper, helped on by Perkins, had the name of the most active boy
and girl ruiner among the thousands in the city, though they all did a
flourishin' bizness.

Two or three of Perkins' saloons made a specialty of sellin' drink to
girls, and their mothers who lay their heads on their pillows at night
and found 'em like thorns and fire under their heads, thinkin' of the
pretty warm-hearted girls who had to be away from mother's care to earn
their livin', out to service and in manufactories and elsewhere. And
some rich mothers, whose girls wuz away to school----

These mothers thinkin' what a weak thing a girl's will wuz when drink
had drownded out the small self-control they had, and youthful passion
and temptation urgin' 'em on, and the company Perkins nachully drawed
'round him.

These mothers whose boys and girls wuz like pieces of their own hearts,
and these wives in the grief made recklessness of despair, made a hash
vow that they would break up Perkinses saloons or die in the attempt, so
they sot on him that night and gin him good drubbin'.

But they couldn't do much, for the police, of course, horrified by their
onparalelled and onprovoked crime, hustled the wimmen off to jail, and
escorted Perkins home with honor. But to resoom backwards.

I will git up (in fancy) from the steps of Solomon's Temple and go on
in.

This is a complete copy of the magnificent temple built by Solomon, the
wisest man in the world. Though like all wise men he had his foolish
streaks, seven hundred wives is too many for one man to git along with,
I should told him so if I had lived neighbor to him. I'd say:

"Mr. Solomon, if you have the name of knowin' so much show your
smartness by gittin' rid of six hundred and niney-nine on 'em; keep jest
one, pick her out, take your choice, but discharge the rest. Set 'em up
in dressmakin' or millionary or sunthin' to git a livin' by, and settle
down peaceable with one." Mebby he'd hearn to me and mebby not, men are
so sot in their way.

But to resoom. Here we stood in that splendid temple which was the
wonder of the world, and see the tabernacle the old Hebrews carried with
'em through the parted waves of the Red Sea and their journeyin's
through the wilderness for forty years, led by the pillow of fire.

What feelin's I had as I looked on it and meditated, what riz up
feelin's them old four fathers that carried it must have had, and them
that follered on, led as they wuz by heavenly light, fed by heavenly
food. How could they acted as they did, rambelous often and often,
wanderin' from the right road, but still not gittin' away from the
Divine care.

And there wuz a picture forty feet long, as long as our barn, showing
the old Hebrews encamped before Mount Sinai, where Moses received the
Law that rules the world to-day (more or less). Heaven drawin' so nigh
to earth that hour that its light fallin' on Moseses face made it too
glorious for mortal eyes to look on.

And I'dno but one of them mountains we see wuz where Moses stood after
his forty years journey, castin' wishful eyes onto the Promised Land,
not bein' able to enter in because of some past error and ignorance. And
I thought, as I stood there, how many happy restin' places we plan and
toil for and then can't enter in and possess through some past error and
mistake caused by ignorance as dense as Moseses ignorance. What a lot of
emotions I had thinkin' this, and how on top of another mount the great
prophet and law-giver wuz not, for God took him.

I wuz lost and by the side of myself, but Josiah's voice reached me up
in the realm of Reverie and brought me back.

"What ails you, Samantha? Do you lay out to stand here all day?" And I
tore myself away.

Well, there wuz movin' pictures describin' the Holy Land and we see 'em
move, and dissolvin' views of the same and we see 'em dissolve, and at
last Josiah got so worrisome I had to go on with him. We laid out to
stop to Japan and France, they bein' right on our way, and I sez, "We
might as well stop at Morrocco." For as I told Josiah, while we wuz
travelin' through foreign countries we might as well see what we could
of the people, their looks and habits.

But he sez to once, "You don't want to buy any Morrocco shues, Samantha,
they don't wear nigh so well as calf-skin and cost as much agin." And
sez he, "We won't have more than time to go through Japan and France and
do justice to 'em." So we went on.




CHAPTER XIII.


The Japan exhibit is on a beautiful hill south of Machinery Palace.
There are seven large buildin's besides the small pagodas and all filled
with objects of interest. It seems as if the hull kingdom of Japan must
have taken hold to make this display what it is. And how they could do
it with a big war goin' on in their midst is a wonder, and shows beyend
words what wonderful people the Japans are.

There are two kinds of exhibits, one by the allied business interests or
Government and the other by individuals. But they all seem to work in
harmony, havin' but one idee, to show off Japan and her resources to the
best advantage, and the display wuz wonderful, from a royal pavilion,
rich in the most exquisite and ornate decorations down to a small bit of
carving that mebby represented the life long labor of some onknown
workman.

In the Transportation Buildin' is a map one hundred feet long, showing
the transportation facilities of the Empire, a perfect network of
railways and telegraph and telephone wires, showin' they have other ways
of gettin' 'round there besides man-carts and jinrikshas, yes, indeed!
it is a wonder what they have done in that direction in fifty years.

The postal exhibit shows they delivered eight hundred and sixteen
million pieces of mail last year, and every post-office has a bank, the
school children have deposited in them eleven millions. I wish our
country would do as well. The exhibit of the steamships show jest as
much enterprise, and how world-wide is their commerce. The saloon of one
of the steamships is a dream of beauty and luxury.

The Temple of Nikko is ornamented by wonderful carving in catalpa,
chrysantheums, etc., and in it in glass cases are the most beautiful
specimens of their embroidery, tapestry, pottery. One pair of vases are
worth ten thousand dollars. As you leave this Temple you see on each
side the finest specimens of Japanese art, painted and embroidered
screens, all kinds of metal, laquear and ivory work; exquisite vases and
priceless old delft wear, and there is a model Japanese house, you feel
that you'd love to live in it. There is one spring room in it that holds
the very atmosphere of spring. The tapestry and crape hangings are
embroidered with cherry blossoms, its one picture is a sweet spring
landscape. Low green stools take the place of stuffy chairs and sofas.
And there wuz an autumn room, autumn leaves of rich colors wuz woven in
the matting and embroidered in the hangings, the screens and walls white
with yellow chrysantheums.

Then there wuz a gorgeous Japan room with walls of exquisitely carved
laquear wood, massive gilt furniture, rich embroidered silk hangings,
and the ceiling wuz a beautifully carved flowery heaven with angels
flying about amidst the flowers. This one room cost forty-five thousand
dollars.

And we see lovely embroidered cloths, porcelain, shrines, urns,
cabinets, chairs all wrought in the highest art, silks of every
description, and sights and sights of it. Fans, parasols, lanterns,
fireworks of all kinds, mattings, straw goods, cameras, etc., etc.

In the mining display is a model of one of their copper mines, and you
see they have the largest furnace in the world, and they not only mine
on land but under the sea, it beats all how them Japanese do go ahead.
There are tall gold and silver bars showing how much they have mined in
these metals.

Their educational exhibit shows the same wonderful energy and
advancement. There is a compulsory educational law and twenty-two per
cent. of the children attend school. There are schools for the blind,
deaf and feeble-minded, and a display of all their excellent methods of
education, from kindergarten to the imperial university.

In the Palace of Electricity on a map thirty feet high and twenty-five
feet wide, you see pictures of Japan's great engineering work, Lake Biwa
Canal, connecting the Lake with Kioto. Irrigating, electricity making,
electrical apparatus invented by them, they have nearly twenty-five
thousand telephones, long and short distance.

In the tea exhibit you see everything relating to this beverage, tea
houses, experimental farms and over one hundred different kinds of tea
are shown. Rice is shown in every stage of its growth, tobacco, fruit,
canned goods.

You can enter the Forestry and Fish departments through a temple built
of twenty different kinds of wood. Here you see all the native forest
woods, bamboo takin' the lead. Their fish and their methods of fishing
are shown off, charts of their fishing grounds and boats. The Japanese
section of the Palace of Fine Arts has the best samples of sculpture,
painting and pottery.

But the crownin' beauty of the Japanese display is the Enchanted Garden
(well-named). A charmin' little lake lies in the midst of flower beds
and hedges, dotted by aquatic flowers. Beds of hydrangeas and
chrysantheums and other bright flowers glow in the sunlight. A pretty
summer house stands on a little island and bending over the water are
dwarf pine trees brought from Japan. At one end is a waterfall, and
there is a pleasant tea house where pretty Japan girls serve tea on the
broad galleries.

Beyend the lake you see a model Japanese house and not fur off is the
headquarters of the Japanese commission. Near the top of the hill is a
large pavilion made of wood and bamboo. It is used as a reception room,
and here you see Japanese costooms from the earliest day to the present.
Here are pictures of the Emperor and Empress. There is a display here
also of the Red Cross society, medical boxes of army and navy, etc. This
is the only hint this courteous country gives of the great war going on
at home that would stop the exhibit of most any other country. They are
a wonderful people and are making swift strides to the front in every
direction. I took sights of comfort here and so did Josiah.

I said a big war would stop the exhibit of most every country--it has
stopped Russia--she don't have much show here to the Fair, they wanted
to, and laid out to, but couldn't on account of havin' to go to war. It
is dretful busy this year, killin' off men, and sendin' out men all the
time to be killed, so of course, it can't devour the same time in more
peaceful occupations.

I wuz really sorry, for I always liked the Zar. Of course, we don't
visit back and forth, he havin' the misfortune to not live neighbor to
us. But I always thought he wuz likely, real smart and good-natered,
lovin' his wife and babies devotedly, settin' a splendid example in this
direction to other high potentates who act and behave more or less.

And his Peace Proclamation, like a tall white monument riz up for men
and angels to admire. How its pure luminous light lit up this dark earth
and streamed clear up to heaven, the blessed influence it shed abroad
wuz so beneficient and divine. How much I and the hull world thought
on't.

And here it is all broke to smash, for of course, it wuz right in his
way and he had to tromple on over it, he and the squadrons he called to
war.

I don't know exactly the right or wrong on't, it is hard sometimes to
keep track of ethics in a Jonesville quarrel, and when two big Empires
git to cuttin' up and actin' and sassin', and dastin' each other to do
thus and so, I can't be expected to know all the ins and outs of their
dispute.

But I do know this, that the beautiful Peace Monument is smashed all to
pieces under the feet of the thousands and thousands of men sent out to
murder and be murdered, and it is doubtful to me if the Zar can ever
contoggle it up agin to be as strong as it wuz before. You know he will
nachully git his muscles and will and temper kinder stiff jinted leadin'
the armies and gittin' so awful mad.

But, there they be, these two great nations, Japan and Russia, sendin'
out their peaceable and well-behaved sons by the thousands and hundreds
of thousands to cut each other to-pieces, shoot, maim and murder each
other, for that is what war is, it is on purpose to kill men, the
greatest crime in the civil calendar.

As I told Josiah one night to Miss Huff's, as I laid down a paper givin'
the details of a bloody battle which wuz headed "A Great Victory."

Victory! the idee! hundreds of men borne bleeding from the field
suffering tortures worse than death and every pang they felt twice
suffered by them that loved 'em, watching and waiting at home in
agonized suspense, hundreds more layin' with their white, dead faces
upturned to heaven as if in mute appeal and wonder that such a horror as
war could be in a world where the words of the gentle Christ had been
hearn.

Sez I, "I can't understand it, Josiah, John Jones gits mad and kills one
man, a small boneded man too, and weakly, couldn't live long anyway, and
John had been abused by him shameful and wuz dretful mad at him. A
horrified state law clutches John Jones and kills him. Public Opinion
sez good enough for John, it will keep other murderous-minded men at bay
mebby.

"But I always loved justice, and if a king gits mad and kills or causes
to be killed hundreds of thousands of men I can't see why he if
successful should be admired for it, have a monument riz up to show
forth his nobility and school boys be taught to emulate his greatness."

Josiah said, "That wuz different, a war between nations wuz planned
ahead, it wuzn't murder."

"But," sez I, "if John Jones had planned killin' his man he would git
hung the sooner."

"Well," sez Josiah, "great national quarrels has to be settled some way.
Nations wouldn't go to war unless they wuz aggravated."

Sez I, "John Jones wuz aggravated. Murders hain't generally planned or
committed in class meetin's, and love feasts."

"Well," sez Josiah, scratchin' his head, "it is different."

But I sez, "How different, Josiah, they are both murders."

Sez Josiah, "I guess I'll go down to Grandpa Huff's room and borry the
World." But I kep' thinkin' on't after he left about war and what it
wuz. Rivers of human blood flowin' through ruined countries, follered by
the horrible specters of pestilence, disease and famine, moral and
financial ruin. Acres and acres of graves filled with forms once full of
throbbing life and hope and dreams of future happiness, cut down like
grass before the mower. Wives, mothers, sisters, sweethearts see the sun
of their life's joy go down in blackness, their heaven of love and
happiness changed into a hell of misery by somebody's quarrel,
somebody's greed and ambition. How many of the common soldiers who make
up the great body of the army know or care about the right or wrong of
their cause. They go into the fight like dumb-driven cattle, suffer and
die and make their loved ones die a hundred deaths jest because they are
hired to do it, hired to murder their fellow men, jest as you would hire
a man to cut down a grove of underbrush. They go out to this wholesale
slaughter to kill or be killed, to meet all the black awful influences
that foller the armies, go gayly to the sound of bugle and drum.

It is the common people who bleed and die, it is the hearts of the
common people that are wrung; it is their wives and orphan children who
have to struggle along and strive and die, or live and suffer by this
cause.

And who can tell the moral, physical and financial ruin, the sickenin'
and terrible effects of evil habits formed there, the sin and woe that
like a black cloud follers the army? The recordin' angel himself can't
do the sum till the day of judgment, not till then can he add up the
broad, ever-widenin' effects of evil and sorrow that follers a great war
and that shall go on and on till time shall be no more.

Calm judicial eyes lookin' back at this problem from the happy days when
Peace and Love shall rule the world, from the era when Courts of
Arbitration will settle national differences, will look back on the
bloody godless warfare of to-day with more horrow than we do on the
oncivilized doin's of our savage ancestors.

It is strange, hain't it, to think eighteen centuries of Christian
teaching hain't wiped the blood stains off the face of the earth, as it
would like to? Yes, indeed! our Lord's words are luminous with Charity,
Peace and Love. But the vengeful black clouds of war sweep up between
the nations and the Sermon on the Mount and hides its words so they
can't, or don't heed 'em.

And I d'no what's goin' to be done. I guess them that don't believe in
war must keep on givin' in their testimony, keep peggin' away at Public
Opinion and constant droppin' will wear away stun.

But to resoom backwards. We stayed so long in Japan that I couldn't
devote so much time to France as I wanted to, for they too had a fine
display. The most beautiful exhibit we saw was the reproduction of the
Grand Trienon, the favorite home of Napoleon, brought from all
appearances from Versailles with its famous garden and sot down here in
St. Louis.

There is a big central pavilion and on each side wings, each terminating
in a pavilion joined by tall marble columns. The ruff is surrounded by a
balustrade ornamented by vases and beautiful statutes. The same
balustrade extends the hull length of the building below, five hundred
and thirty-four feet.

And below it stretches the beautiful garden, terraces, lake, fountains,
statutes, rare flowers, shrubs and trees. Winding walks in which the
great Conqueror might have walked with his brain teemin' with ambitious
plans. I didn't want to leave the garden it was so beautiful, but time
wuz passin' and we went inside and went through room after room, each
one seemin'ly more beautiful than the one we had seen last. The
picture-room wuz specially beautiful filled as it is with treasures of
French art. And all the rooms wuz gorgeous with tapestries, elaborate
carving, sculpture, painting, the most exquisite decorations of all
kinds showing what a beauty and pleasure-loving race can gather about it
of beauty and grandeur if it sets out to.

And France shows off well also in manufactures, electricity, machinery,
transportation, etc. All together this is the best exhibit she has ever
made, and she has reason to be proud on't.

England makes a good show in products and processes in every Exposition
building. In the Palace of Varied Industries she gives a model of one of
her charming country houses, a model indeed of comfort and luxury.

Her national pavilion is built of red brick and stone and is a
reproduction of the Orangery, a building two hundred years old. It wuz
Queen Ann's favorite home, and I didn't blame Ann a mite for lovin' it.
As I walked through the beautiful and stately rooms I thought I would
have loved to neighbor with Ann and spend some time with her.

The gardens outside are so beautiful you don't want to leave 'em, shaded
avenues, terraces, flower beds, yew and box shrubs trained into shapes
of lions and big birds. Josiah wuz entranced here, and as he stood lost
in admiration of them green animals growin' right out of the ground, he
sez:

"My first job in Jonesville is cut out, Samantha."

As first chaperone I looked at him tenderly and sez, "Don't jar your
mind too much, Josiah, don't dwell on tuckerin' things."

"But," sez he, pintin' to the green form of the lion growin' right out
of the ground, "do you see what a impressive and noble figger the old
mair is goin' to cut when Ury and I sculp her out of the pig-nose apple
tree? We can do it by odd jobs, and the apples hain't good for nothin'
anyway."

But I sez, "You can't prune apple trees into figgers, Josiah, it takes
different trees, and that is too big anyway."

"That's a woman's way of talkin'; I want her in heroic size, she's
worthy on't. I expect," he went on, "the road will be jest lined with
Jonesvillians, and we'l see 'em hangin' over the orchard fence lookin'
on and admirin' the beautiful statter, I think I can see her now, head
up, tail out, mane a flutterin'--you'll see, Samantha."

"Oh, dear!" sez I, "I expect I will see more than I want to."

But goin' on a little furder we see what put such vain and onpractical
idees out of his head. We wandered into a spot where there wuz
old-fashioned flowers, such as grow in the green meadows and hedges of
old England, and there wuz some old wimmen wrinkled and gray, poorly
clad, lookin' at them daisies and cow-slips and laughin' and cryin' over
'em.

They wuz fur from the old home and the summer time of youth and love, a
half century of years and dreary wastes of sea and land lay between 'em,
but these cow-slip blows and daisies took them back to their youth and
the sunny fields they wandered in with the young lover whose eyes wuz as
blue as the English violets, while their own cheeks wuz as rosy as the
thorn flowers.

When the hull world lay hid in a rosy mist, and they wuz the centre of
it, and life wuz new, and hope and happiness gilded the future, and the
Fairy land of America wuz beckonin' to 'em out of the rosy mist.

Fifty years of dusty, smoky tenement life, hard work, child-birth,
rearing children, toil, disappointment, pain--where wuz they? They had
all gone. They wuz eighteen agin; they wuz pickin' the rosy blooms in
the dear home land, and love wuz whisperin' to 'em that they wuz sweeter
than the flowers.

I took out my snowy handkerchief and almost cried myself, the tears just
run down my face, and Josiah blowed his nose on his bandanna, and I
believe furtively wiped his eyes. But men never love to betray such
sentimental emotion, and most immegiately he asked me in a gruff tone
for a fried cake, and I handed him one absently and as one who dreams,
and we went on and met the girls at the rondevoo appointed.

I'd had my supper and wuz restin' in my room, Molly and Blandina had
gone for a walk accompanied by Billy Huff, and Josiah had gone down to
set with grandpa Huff a spell, when Aunt Tryphena come in and said a
lady wuz there to see me; I asked her who it wuz, and she said:

"I don't know, but guess it is some 'big bug trash,' 'tennyrate she come
in a antymobile that stands to the door without hitchin'."

I knowed in a minute it wuz Jane Olive Perkins and told her to bring her
up to my room. And she entered with more than her usual gushin' warmth
of manner, and told me the first thing that I grew better and younger
lookin' every year.

But I kinder waved the idee off and told her, I didn't feel so young as
I did twenty or thirty years ago.

I acted well. (But then I spoze I do look remarkable young for one of my
years, and I admired her good horse sense in seein' it so plain.) But
she looked real mauger, and I sez:

"You look kinder beat out, Jane Olive, hain't you well?"

Yes, she said she wuz well, but had so many cares that they wore on her.

"Why," sez I, "you don't try to do your housework alone, do you?"

No, she said she had ten servants.

So I knowed she didn't have to do the heaviest of her work, but her face
looked dretful tired and disappinted and I knowed it wuz caused by her
efforts to git into fashionable society, for I'd hearn more about it
since I come here, Miss Huff knowed a woman that lived neighbor to her,
she said that in spite of all Sam Perkinses money and Jane Olive's
efforts she couldn't git so fur into the circle of the first as she
wanted to, though she had done everything a woman could do.

Went off summers where the first went and winters too. When it wuz
fashionable to go to springs and seasides she went and ocean trips and
south and north, and when it wuz the fashion to go into the quiet
country she come to Jonesville.

And now she wuz tryin' a new skeem to git into the first, she got up a
name for bein' very charitable. That took her in, or that is part way
in, for her money went jest as fur and wuz jest as welcome to heathens
and such as if it wuzn't made out of pork. It went jest as fur as the
money that wuz handed down from four fathers or even five or six fathers
who wuz small farmers and trappers in Manhattan years and years ago. Her
money went jest as fur as though it had descended onto her from the sale
of the mink skins and cabbages of the grandpas of the 400.

Well, as I say, this did more than all her other efforts put together,
and took her inside furder, for givin' as much as she did they had to
invite her to set down on the same charitable boards where these genteel
females wuz settin'. And when a passel of wimmen are settin' down on one
board they have to be more sociable and agreeable like, than if they wuz
settin' round on different piles of lumber.

So Jane Olive wuz highly tickled and gin money freely. And now I don't
want it understood that Jane Olive done every mite of this work and gin
every cent of money for the speech of people or to git on in fashionable
life. No, she wuz kinder good hearted and felt sorry for the afflicted.
Her motives wuz mebby about half and half, half goodness and half
ambition, and that is I spoze a little worse than the average, though
motives will git dretfully mixed up, evil is worse than Canada thistles
to git mixed with good wheat.

When some good object rises up and our souls burn within us aginst wrong
and injustice and bigotry and such, we may think in our wropped moments
that our motives are all good. But most always some little onworthy
selfish motive will come sneakin' in by some back door of the heart and
wiggle its way along till it sets down right by the side of our highest
whitest motives and stays there onbeknown to us. It is a pity that it is
so, but human nater is human nater and we are all on us queer, queer as
dogs. Once in awhile you'll see some rare soul that seems as if all
onworthy motives have been driv out by the angels of divine Purity and
Endeavor, but they're scurce, scurce as hen's teeth.

Jane Olive wuz highly tickled with her success, and then, as is the way
of human creeters, when she'd done well she wanted to do better. She
wanted to outdo the other females settin' on the boards with her, she
wanted her board to tip higher than theirn, so she took it into her head
to build a Home for Fallen Wimmen in that end of the city where she
lived. She said that there wuz sights and sights of wimmen that had
fallen round there, and sights that wuz fallin', and I spozed there wuz.
I spozed that anywhere that Sam Perkins lived there would be apt to be,
and she took the idee of buildin' a home for 'em, it wuz a first rate
thought, but in my opinion it didn't go fur enough, it didn't cover the
hull ground.

Well, Jane Olive had gin of her own money ten thousand dollars and had
raised nine thousand more, twenty thousand would build it, and she wuz
collectin' round even in St. Louis when she met anybody she thought
would give; she knowed how the welfare of humanity, specially female
humanity, lay down on my heart, therefore she tackled me.




CHAPTER XIV.


She talked real eloquent about it, and kinder begun to shed tears. She's
a capital hand to git money, she could always cry when she wanted to
when she went to school, did it by holdin' her breath or sunthin'.

And when I say that I don't want it understood that I believe she did
all her cryin' that way. No, I spoze she could draw on her imagination
and feelin's to that extent and git 'em so rousted up that she did
actually shed tears, wet tears jest like anybody, some of the time, and
some she made, so I spoze.

Well, when she begun to cry I looked keen at her and sez, how much she
made me think of herself when we went to school together. And she
stopped sheddin' tears to once and acted more natural and went on to
tell about her skeem. She said female vice wuz stalkin' round fearful,
fallen wimmen appeared on the streets with shockin' frequency, sunthin'
must be done for these lost souls or their blood would be on our dress
skirts.

She told me how much she'd gin to this object and how much ministers had
gin and how they wuz all goin' to preach sermons about these poor lost
wimmen and try to wake the public up to the fact of the enormity of
their sins and the burnin' need of such an institution.

She talked powerful about it, and I sez: "Jane Olive, I've gin a good
deal of thought to this subject, and I think this house of yourn is a
good idee, but to my mind it don't cover the hull ground. Now I will
give five dollars for the Home for Fallen Wimmen and the other five for
the Home for Fallen Men."

Sez she, and she screamed the words right out: "There hain't any such
institution in the hull city!"

"Why, there must be!" sez I. "It hain't reasonable that there shouldn't
be. Why, if a man and a woman go along over a bridge together, and both
fall through, and are maimed and broke to pieces, they are carried to a
male and female hospital to be mended up. Or if they fall through a
sidewalk or anywhere else they have to both be doctored up and have the
same splints on and rubbed with the same anarky, etc."

"That's very different," sez Jane Olive.

"Why different?" sez I. "If they both fall morally their morals ort to
be mended up agin both on 'em. The woman ort to be carried to the Home
for Fallen Wimmen, the Home for Magdalenes, and the men to the Home for
Fallen Men, the Home for Mikels."

"There hain't no such place!" sez Jane Olive agin decidedly.

Sez I, "Did you ever inquire?"

"No," sez she, "I wouldn't make a fool of myself by inquirin' for such a
thing as that, Home for Mikels! I don't know what you mean by that
anyway."

"Why," sez I, "fallen men angels. You know Mikel wuz a angel once and he
fell."

"Well, there is no such place," sez she, tossin' her head a little.

"Well," sez I, "you ort to know, you're from the city and I hain't; but
I know that if there hain't such a place it's a wicked thing. Just look
at them poor fallen men that are walkin' the streets night after night,
poor creeters goin' right down to ruin and nobody trying to lead 'em up
agin to the way of safety and virtue--poor fallen, ruined men! I feel to
pity 'em."

Sez Jane Olive, "Oh, shaw! they don't feel ruined, they're all right,
I'll resk them."

"How do you know how they feel? Take a tender hearted, innocent man,
that some bad, designin' woman has led astray, led him on till she has
betrayed and ruined him, and he feels that the screen door of society is
shet aginst him----"

"Oh, shaw!" sez Jane Olive agin. "The door of society hain't shet aginst
the man, it never is."

"Then," sez I, "there is sunthin' wrong with the door and it ort to be
tended to."

Sez she, "Things are winked at in a bad man that hain't in a bad woman."

"Not by me," sez I firmly. "The man won't git a wink out of me more or
less than I would give to the woman."

"It don't hurt a man," sez Jane Olive. "And," sez she, "no self
respectin' man goes to any place that hain't licensed and respectable."

"If such houses are respectable," sez I, "and the law makes 'em so, why
hain't the wimmen called so that keep 'em? Why hain't the wimmen looked
up to that work there?"

Sez Jane Olive, "You don't talk no good sense at all."

Sez I, "Jane Olive, I am spozin'. Mark you well, I don't say they are
respectable; I say they are the depths of infamy. But I am talkin' from
the standpoint of legislators and highest officials, and if they call
'em respectable, and throw the mantilly of law and order over 'em it is
only justice to let the mantilly spread out, so it will cover the males
and females too. Agin I quote the words of the poet to you, 'what is
sass for the goose ort to be sass for the gander.'"

Says she, "Such things are looked on so different in a man, they can
hold their heads up jest as high as they did before."

"Not if I had my way," sez I. "If the female is dragged off to the Home
for Fallen Wimmen let the same team come back and haul the men off to
the Home for Fallen Men, tie 'em up with the same rope, preach to 'em
from the same text, let 'em out when they've both repented and want to
do better. That's my scheme," sez I.

"Oh, shaw!" sez Jane Olive, "it wouldn't work."

"Why not?" sez I. "I'll bet if that course wuz took for the next five
years with fallen men you wouldn't have to raise so much money for
fallen wimmen; I'll bet it would ameliorate their condition more than
anything else would."

"It don't hurt a man," sez Jane Olive agin.

"Why don't it hurt 'em?" sez I. "If it makes a woman so bad the hull
world calls her ruined and lost, and prints her name out in the daily
papers, as they always do, givin' her full name and address and sayin'
some wild young man (but nameless) of respectable family was implicated,
and talks of her as if Heaven wuz shet aginst her, and she has got to
pray and repent in sack-cloth and ashes all the rest of her days, and
never, never git her old place back in the eyes of the community, it
hain't reasonable to spoze it don't hurt a man a mite to fall at the
same time and in the same way. There is no sense in it, and I'll bet if
you hunt round in your city you'll find where fallen men are kep' hid
away till they can repent and reform.

"Why," sez I, "men's hearts and souls and morals are made out of exactly
the same stuff that wimmens be. And as I said before, let a man and a
woman fall out of a high winder together it smashes him jest as bad as
it duz her. They have to be carried off to hospitals jest the same, the
same doctor tends 'em, the same medicine has to be administered to 'em
and they have to come back slowly to health agin. It takes the same
length of time to lose the marks of the woonds and bruises, and they
have to hobble round on the same kind of crutches. And why under the
sun, moon and stars there is any difference in the woonds on their souls
and morals I can't see, nor I don't believe you can."

Agin she snorted and acted real high headed, and sez she, "There hain't
no such a Home as that you're talkin' about, and never wuz."

"Well," sez I, "then it is high time there wuz." And I went on real
eloquent, "Poor fallen men have been neglected too long and their ruin
will lay on our doorsteps if we don't do sunthin' to help 'em; I won't
give a cent to help fallen wimmen, who have had ten times as much
preachin' to 'em and as much done for 'em, till justice has been done to
fallen men. Poor mizable creeters! They'll find out they've got one
friend that will stand by 'em if they've never had a mite of pity or
help or encouragement held out to 'em before in the world. It is high
time sunthin' wuz done for 'em; and when you who live right in the midst
of fallen men come here and say you've started a home for 'em, where
there will be preachin' to 'em, and encouragement gin 'em to repent and
reform, when you've come and told me you've started this job I'll give,
and give liberal."

She sot kinder demute for a minute, and I went right on, and sez I, "I'd
have a immense big house built if I had my way so's to accommodate 'em
if I could git a house big enough. And I would set 'em there in immense
rows and let 'em meditate on their sins a spell and I'd have good likely
preachers of both sects go and preach to 'em about fallen men and fallen
wimmen, and how they could git up agin with God's help if they tried
hard enough to. And I'd have pictures hung on the wall of Mikel and
Magdaline and them old fallen men castin' stuns at fallen wimmen and
what the Lord said about it. And then to kinder encourage 'em and show
'em to what they might rise up to, if they repented and reformed, I
would have pictures of some likely he angels flyin' round up in a purer
air and----"

I wuz almost carried away and by the side of myself with this beautiful
and inspirin' picture I'd cunjered up in my heated brain, when she broke
in all wrought up with excitement and horrow with a new thought that had
dawned on her:

"Why," sez she, "if you did that, if you shet up such men there wouldn't
be a man left outside." And she sort o' screamed out, "Where would I git
a coachman to drive for me or a butler?"

"Drive yourself," sez I sternly, "and buttle too; if that is so, but I
don't believe it."

But she still looked most wild with excitement and horrow, and agin she
sez, "It would take away every man in the world! and what would we do
for men?" sez she.

"Do!" sez I, all wrought up, "Do without 'em if that is the case, though
I don't believe it; but if it is so it's high time we begun fresh,
educate and bring up men babys in the right way, and begin agin; start a
new world with 'em, jest as you'd start a new kind of gooseberry or
anything. But I don't believe a word on't, not a word. I believe there
are good men in the world, lots and lots of 'em."

"I know there hain't," sez she.

And I sez, "I know there is."

And we disputed back and forth several times but didn't convince each
other. You can see jest how it wuz, it wuz the example of our own
companions that wuz influencin' us in our opinions. She havin' lived
with a perfect sardeen and he-wretch, thought all men wuz like him, I
nerved up by the thought of my noble-minded (though small) companion
held my faith firm as a iron anchor that the world wuz full of good men,
scattered here and there like good wheat among the tares, and I felt and
knowed that the tearers wuz fur scurser than the wheat.

But Jane Olive riz up and kinder let her train flop out over the floor,
she'd held it up as she come in.

I bid her a cordial good-by and told her to come and see me in
Jonesville, but she acted kinder cold and hauty and I hain't much hopes
that she will foller my advice.

Josiah came in pretty soon, and when I told him about it he acted real
huffy and agreed with Jane Olive, and resented the idee of a Home for
Fallen Men. Blandina, who come while we wuz talkin' about it to borry a
few needlefuls of white thread, she shed tears and said she wouldn't
mortify men by namin' a home like that for thousands of worlds like
this.

And Josiah acted puggicky all the evenin'. But I knowed I wuz in the
right on't. Truly the path of duty is a thorny one anon or oftener.

We went into the Fair the next mornin' by what they call the Skinker
Entrance, and we hadn't hardly got in when Josiah sez to me, pintin' to
a small low house, "What do you spoze they show there, Samantha? It must
be pretty poor if they can't afford shingles or a tar ruff."

And sure enough the ruff wuz covered with straw. It wuz a low buildin'
built of sunthin' that looked like stun. But come to find out it wuz the
cottage of Robert Burns, and I hastened my steps, Josiah and Blandina
follerin' on.

For low as that buildin' is, lookin' like a ant hill almost by the side
of the high red granite administration buildin', that little cabin holds
memories that soar up higher than the peakedest, highest ruffs on the
Fair ground. The Home of Robert Burns, the Poet of the People. How his
inimitable poetry come troopin' through my mind as I walked through the
low rooms, there is only four on 'em, kitchen, settin' room, store room
and stables.

I didn't approve of havin' the stables so nigh the livin' rooms, and
should have advised Robert's wife to stood her ground and not had it.
But I wuzn't there, and she gin in probable, and mebby she wanted it so,
it wuz handy, you could open the door and milk into your coffee cup if
so inclined. The bed is built in the kitchen wall; I spoze they couldn't
afford anything better, and 'tennyrate that humble bed pillowed the form
that will walk down the ages crowned with honor and lovin' memories,
while many monarchs who at that time rested on carved rose-wood have
sunk into oblivion.

The people are not goin' to forgit their poet. He who taught that no
matter what the rank, a man wuz a man "for a' that." Who sung and
dignified the humble pleasures of the poor. "The Cotter's Saturday
Night" will be remembered when many a scientific tome and eloquent poem
writ in long words is dust and ashes. And the scathing irony and wit
satirizing the ignorant rich, the scorn of meanness and bigotry, the
love of liberty and justice the melting tenderness of his love poems,
the People he loved and wrote for, will not forget.

The big open fireplace might have been the one immortalized in his
poetry. There wuz a high clock like the one that told him the hours,
anxious hours, weary hours, happy hours, hours radiant with the poet's
inspiration. Despairin' hours full of anxiety and dread for the wife and
children he loved. It told the hours of day and night too, for Robert
did love what he called a good time, and I presoom Bonnie Jean read the
face of that old clock with anxiety and weariness writ in her own face
when the small hours struck and her Robbie wuz away with gay companions.

And with what despairin' grief did she read its calm old face while her
poet writ this sad truth:

"I'm wearin' awa' to the Land o' the Leal."

And there wuz a cupboard with blue and white dishes and a sugar bowl
that he and Bonnie Jean had used. Oh, warm fingers, tired fingers! how
long you've been dust, and the little piece of metal still endures. Oh,
my soul! the wonder and the pity on't.

There are chairs, tables, spinning wheel, etc., similar to those that
were in the Burns cottage. But there is a reel that wuz used by Bonnie
Jean herself, I took holt on't tryin' to bring to my mind what emotions
she had time and agin as she reeled her threads on and off, love,
anxiety, ambition, fear, hopes and sorrows; how they twined and ontwined
in her faithful breast as the reel turned, emotions stilled long ago,
long ago.

And there wuz the very griddle and toaster with which Bonnie Jean
toasted the bread for her Robbie. Many and many a time her heart, I
presoom to say seemin' to git seared in the burnin' fires of jealousy
whilst the bread wuz toastin'. For Robert wuz a man of many fancies, and
though a wife through pride or affection may seem blind to such things,
yet burns will smart and "jealousy is as cruel as the grave."

But many a time also whilst she toasted her bread her heart would bound
with joy and pride thinkin' of some triumph the man she loved had won,
or rememberin' some words of love and appreciation he had whispered in
her ear, which made the dark world over in a minute into a bright one,
for wimmen's hearts beat the same in Ayr or Jonesville, and Bonnie Jean
wuz proud of her poet lover and loved him. And he loved her the biggest
heft of the time, and mebby all the time; men are queer in such things
and their ways past findin' out.

'Tennyrate my heart bent in homage to his genius and his bravely borne
poverty and sufferin'. And I wished, oh, how I wished that some of the
pride and honor showered on him now the world over could have brightened
his hard life when it wuz needed. But it wuzn't to be, I wuzn't there to
advise folks, or to cheer him and Jean up by my warm appreciation and
good vittles. And I reluctantly tore myself away from the memory-hanted
spot.

Molly wuz dretful interested here too, but naterally wanted to ride in
the Intremoral railway and see all she could, it bein' her first visit.
So as I had spoke of wantin' to see the air-ships we went there next and
then to the Philippines.

Sister Sylvester Bobbett laughed when I told her that probable Josiah
and I would go to the next Exposition through the air.

Sez she, "You might jest as well talk about goin' through the ground."

But I wuz glad to see that other folks realized the importance of the
subject, for they have given as much space to air navigation as for all
the other modes of transportation put together. The buildin' covers
about fourteen acres--I wonder what Sister Bobbett would say to that,
the walls are thirty feet high, the lower twelve feet, air tight, the
upper eighteen feet lattice work.

Part on't is a sort of a harbor for their air-ships to light in. They
say they need a still harbor away from boisterous winds jest as much as
water ships do. This is the first Air-Ship harbor ever built. Josiah
said it wuz the humbliest buildin' on the Fair ground, and it wuzn't a
beauty so fur as architecture goes.

But I sez, "Handsome is as handsome duz! I don't spoze," sez I, "that
Noah's Ark wuz a beauty, but he started a new world with it, and I
believe this buildin' holds the great hope and promise of the future in
the way of transportation, and it looks good to me."

It stands between Physical Culture Hall and the Hall of Lady Managers. I
wuz glad it wuz where wimmen could keep an eye on 'em and keep 'em from
bein' run on. In one corner on't is two stalls, jest as they have horse
stalls in barns, but these stalls are one hundred and eighty feet long
and forty feet wide. There wuz most ninety entries for the contest. If
they make a speed of twenty milds an hour they git a prize of one
hundred thousand. I would like to know what Sister Bobbett would think
of that.

Josiah said he believed they wuz dangerous, but the head of this company
told me with his own mouth that he had traveled over fifteen States in
air-ships and had never been hurt or even skairt, and I told Josiah that
wuz more than he could say of our wheel-barrow that had never been out
of Jonesville. Josiah went out one dark night to shet the barn door and
fell over it, and it rared up on him and throwed him; he wuz skairt to
death thinkin' it wuz a burglar who wuz tryin' to fight him.

I had to take the lantern and go out and rescue him, and I hain't goin'
to tell how he kicked that wheel-barrow when he re_cog_nized it, and the
language he hurled at it. It wuz onbecomin' a deacon, and I told him so.

Next to the Hall of Electricity, the great onseen Wizard that sways the
world, this Hall of Air-Ships wuz interestin' to me, for it is the
transportation of the future. Baby eyes blinkin' now at the canopys of
their cribs will look up and see the blue sky above 'em cleft by the
white wings of great ships of the air sailin' to and fro with no
treacherous rocks to dash aginst, no forests to subdue or mountains to
tunnel, no roads to break, to and fro, back and forth shining white
aginst the crimson sunset, aginst the rosy dawn, and the cloudless noon.
Oh, what a sight for the eyes that will behold 'em! I wish I could stand
it till then, but most probable I can't, and I wouldn't want to anyway
if Josiah couldn't be there to see 'em with me; and his health hain't
what it wuz, his liver is bad. But I think sometimes that Josiah and I
may look on and behold this glorious sight from some cloudy terrace of
the Better Country; I'd love to if we could. But 'tennyrate it will be
seen by them that live long enough.

I took solid comfort and lots and lots of it wandering round seeing
these immense Travelers of the Sky and askin' questions and lookin'
forward towards the glories that is to be.

Josiah and Blandina didn't enjoy it so much as I did, though Josiah,
always wantin' to embark in some new enterprise, thought he should go up
in one whilst he wuz there. He said he wanted to brag on't to Deacon
Henzy and Deacon Huffer. And I told him that wuzn't the right sperit to
show, it wuzn't the sperit of a true Discoverer tryin' to solve the
problems of the future through love for God and humanity.

And he said he guessed he knew what he took comfort in and what he
didn't.

Well, we rid round considerable so's to give Molly a view of the
Cascades and big buildin's, and then we went on to the Philippines. This
is the largest single exhibit at the Fair and covers forty-seven acres
of beautiful woodland and water spaces, and is the largest colonial
display ever made. I told Josiah as we walked towards it, Molly and
Blandina goin' a little ahead, "What wuz the use of travelin' so fur to
see our new possessions?"

"Yes," sez he; "no use spendin' so much money."

This wuz to me one of the most interestin' exhibits at the Fair. And I
thought it a first rate idee to show off to the world the almost
limitless wealth as well as the hard problems that face Uncle Sam in his
new possessions, for like a careful pa he will see that they learn how
to take care of themselves before he sets 'em up in independent
housekeepin'.

We went over a fine bridge, copied from one of their own into the walled
city of Manila. Here in one room you see all of its war exhibits,
immense cannons, the blow guns of the Negritos; axes the Iggorote
head-hunters used to cut off the heads of their enemies. The Moro cris,
the wooden guns and bamboo cannons and home-made powder used in 'em by
the insurgent army with the rough machinery used in makin' it.

Wanderin' on you see the nita huts of the Visayans, big handsome fellows
they are and pretty refined wimmen, and hear their weird melodies as
they are at work making their beautiful bamboo furniture, and weaving
their handsome blankets, etc.

You see on the hillside the huts of the Negritos, black little creeters.
Then you see the Iggrotes, a real village, some of the housen brought
from their own land and the rest built here by them from their own
materials. It is jest as though you stepped over to the mountains of
Luzon and see 'em at their simple housekeepin'.

I whispered anxiously to Josiah to keep clost watch of his own head, for
though they promised to not pursue their favorite pastime till they got
back home agin, yet I didn't know what might happen, though I felt he
wuzn't in so much danger, his bald head bein' so slippery and nothin' to
lay holt on, still I kep' a clost watch on that dear head all the while
we wuz there.

Josiah didn't sense his own danger, but whispered, "I'm glad enough
Bruno is to home." They will eat dogs and dance their war dances, but I
spoze I couldn't hender 'em, so didn't try to advise 'em. Some on 'em
didn't have clothes enough on to be decent unless you call the tatooin'
on their naked bodies, clothes. I see Josiah looked at 'em with
interest, and he wondered if common ink and diamond dyes could be used,
and if Ury could handle 'em.

And I hurried him on to the encampment of the Moros. Here we see the men
and wimmen dressed in silk and satin, but cut after patterns I would
never let Josiah wear or wear myself. Some of these Moro girls are quite
handsome in their bright striped mantillys, their long hair hanging down
under their gay turbans. One of these villages is on land and one built
on bamboo poles over the water. Jest open sheds covered with nipa
leaves. Anyone with rumatiz couldn't stand it in 'em.

But what took Josiah most of all wuz the tree dwellers, their houses are
built up in the highest trees they can find, and they git to 'em by
ladders they pull up after 'em; as he looked on 'em I see in Josiah's
reminescent eye dreams of summer housen in our ellums and maples, and I
hurried him on. Blandina said she could be perfectly happy up there with
a congenial companion, and I knowed she wuz thinkin' of Aspire Todd; but
she never could git him up there, for his tongue is the strongest part
on him.

We all admired the Native Scouts; they live in a little village of tents
in a beautiful piece of woodland. There are four companies, Visayan,
Tagalog, Maccabebe and Ilicano. Their band of music, and the band of
eighty pieces of the native constabulary are called the finest at the
Exposition. When they march they all seem to be one body; so smooth and
even are their movements, they are called the most perfectly drilled
soldiers in the country.

Jest think on't, if they show off so now what will they do at the next
Exposition. There are ten large buildings containing their enormous
display of art and science, education, agriculture, horticulture,
manufactures, commerce, etc. Some of the statutes and pictures are
beautiful; you couldn't tell some of 'em from them brought from abroad.
But folks don't seem to realize that some of the Filippinos are as
refined and cultured as if they come from the middle of Boston.

Their forestry exhibit is the finest ever brought to any Exposition and
contains everything relating to the fifty million acres of Philippine
forests, splendid timber, over fifteen hundred different kinds of wood,
rattans, gutta percha, dye stuffs, trees yielding oil, gums, rosin, etc.
The mineral exhibit shows how rich these islands are in gold, copper,
coal and other minerals. In agriculture you see the great display of
fibres, Manila hemp which brought 'em over twenty-two millions last
year, ropes made from bamboo, cocoa-nut, rattan. Sugar, tobacco, coffee,
hats, baskets and other articles made from palm leaves, bamboo, rattan
and nito, colored by their own native dyes. In the flower display are
the most rare and exquisite orchids growing jest as common there as
weeds along the Jonesville road. One interestin' display wuz a map built
out doors showin' more than 2,000 islands, their shape and comparitive
size.

But most of all I wuz interested in the educational exhibit. So anxious
have they been to learn night schools have had to be established. The
big normal school building in Manila is handsome enough for any American
city, and the smaller district and industrial schools are doing jest as
good work. Our Government sent five hundred and forty teachers there in
1901, and now we have about seven hundred there. I took comfort in
seein' the great work they have done, as well as the church and private
schools, and how well they're learning and getting along.

Anyone could spend five weeks at least jest at the Philippine display,
and find abundance to interest 'em all the time in the educational, art,
manufacturing, horticultural, agricultural and other displays, but we
hadn't no five weeks to spend, so we had to move on, but I felt proud
enough to see what my revered Uncle Sam had done and wuz doing.

Truly he took a big job on his hands to take care of such an immense
family, and differin' so widely in cultivation, temperament and clothes,
to lead the ignorant ones into civilization and keep peace in the family
and among his own folks.

He'll have as hard work to do it as that widower I hearn on who had
three or four children of his own, and married a widow who also had a
number, and then they had several, and one day she came callin' to her
husband, "Come quick! come quick! Your children and my children are
fightin' with our children."

But Uncle Sam will be on hand, he'll wade right in with a birch gad or a
spellin' book, jest which he thinks they need most at the time, and
settle the differences all right, and I believe it will be a star in his
crown in time to come: turning the savages and cannibals that inhabit
part of these new possessions into good American citizens.

I don't spoze I shall see the day when this shall fully come to pass,
and mebby the babies of to-day will be great-grandpas before it takes
place, but it will be, I believe, and so duz Josiah.

Yes, he's doin' a good job by his step-children, I guess they would be
called that seein' he stepped in when they wuz poor and oppressed and
took 'em under his care.

I honor him for it, but wish he would do as well by his steal children,
the dark complexioned ones stole away from their own land to be slaves
and drudges for his white children.

He'll mebby tell me they wuz ignorant and degraded and wuz better off
here than in their own land, but I'll say back to him, "Samuel, Josiah
and I would probable be in a better house and more high-toned society if
some king or other should steal us and carry us away from our humble
farm to their palace. But do you spoze we would enjoy ourselves as well?
No indeed!"

And 'tennyrate they're here, the problem that lays so heavy on the
Southern and Northern heart and conscience and the riddle gits harder
and harder to solve. The lurid blaze of livin' torches makes bloody
blindness in the eyes of them that look on and light them fires. The
disgraceful glare flames out, shamin' you in the eyes of the world, and
streams up to the pityin' heavens askin' for justice.

Mebby you'll tell me you don't see how you can help it, but Samuel, you
must try, for though there are here and there oasises in the gloom
lighted up by education and inteligence still there remains the great
multitude of your steel children that you ort to help, you ort to do as
well by them settin' in long rows right on your very doorstep as you're
doin' for them six thousand milds off. Sinners must be punished by law,
else what is law made for? Order must be kep', the helpless protected,
but you know, Samuel, that if some of the disgraceful seens that are
bein' enacted here right under your dear old nose took place amongst
your adopted Philippine children or even amongst your protejays in
Turkey or China you would send out a warship to once. I am sorry for
you, Samuel, and think the world on you, but faithful are the woonds of
a friend; you must hear the truth once in awhile or who knows what would
become on you, you might puff up with proud flesh and have to have an
operation, and I guess you will anyway before you git through with this
problem.

I presoom you want me to advise you what to do, only bein' a man you
hain't really wanted to come out and ask me. Josiah acts jest like that
lots of times.

So I'll say to you, I honor you, Samuel, for what you're doin' for these
foreign children, but I want you to do jest as much to home. I want you
to send teachers and found schools at your own expense; you're four
handed and able to do it. And Id'no but you had better buy land in their
own home you stole them from, buy a small farm for each one that wants
to go. Travelers say that in the Valley of the Nile, a country with
similar climate and soil to the south land where they wuz born, is an
unoccupied place big enough for each one to have a small farm of their
own. I want you, Samuel, to buy this land for 'em, take 'em back there
at your own expense, all that want to go. There are plenty of the young
and enterprising who would go full of the hope of foundin' a new
republic for their own race, where they can expand and grow strong away
from parlyzing influence of racial and social hatred.

There would be lots of 'em who wouldn't want to go, and why can't you,
Samuel, I'd say, buy them a little home here, for instance, on the vast
unoccupied area of Florida? Let 'em have the hull state if necessary;
let each family have their little piece of land, and then make 'em work
it; send teachers, found schools, teach 'em to be self sustaining and
self respecting.

Samuel would probable sass me back and say, You can't teach a nigger to
respect himself and stand upright.

And I'd say, "'Tain't so, Sam, but if it wuz, centuries have been spent
by the white race in teachin' this people to be dependent and helpless,
to not think for themselves, to lean entirely on the judgment and
justice of the white people (weak reeds to lean on anon or oftener)."

And then I'd say, "Samuel, you did a foolish thing after the Civil war,
you did it with the best of motives, and you needn't be skairt, I hain't
goin' to scold you for it, but it wuz jest like turnin' a company of
babies out into the world and tellin' 'em they wuz jest as tall and
inteligent as their pas and mas and they must go on and take care of
themselves, and with their utter lack of all knowledge and strength take
an equal part in public affairs. How could these babies do it, Samuel, I
would say. But you wuz gropin' along most blind in them dark days, and
you did the best you knowed how to then. But when you see you've made a
mis-step you must draw your foot back and start off agin jest like a
elephant crossin' a weak bridge, I've seen 'em go down into the water
and wade ruther than resk it. You may have to wade through deep waters
to fix it all right, but that would be better than to fall through a
weak bridge and break your neck.

"It is because I think so much on you, Samuel, that I talk so plain to
you, for I don't want you to git the name Miss Eben Simmons got. She
jest spent her hull mind and income on foreign missions and let her own
children go so dirty and ragged they wuz a disgrace to Jonesville. I
want you and Miss Simmons to not scrimp in your foreign charities but
begin to home and make your own dependent ones comfortable."

I presume I could convince him if I had time enough, but we are busy
creeters, Samuel and I, both on us, and Id'no as he'd have time to argy
back and forth with me, but it would be well for him if he did, men must
have wimmen advise 'em if they ever expect to amount to anything.

But to resoom forwards. These thoughts wuz runnin' through my head as we
wended our way around, it did my soul good, as I said, to see the
progress these Filipinos are makin', and to meditate on the fact how
enterprisin' Uncle Samuel is when he sets out. Why jest think on't, he's
taught them Filipinos more English in four years than the Spaniards
taught 'em their language in the four hundred years they took care on
'em.

I wuz so proud and happy as I thought on't that I stepped considerable
high as I walked along, and I hearn a profane bystander say (wicked
creeter to think on't),

"That woman has took too much stimulant."

And Josiah sez, "What ails you, Samantha? You walk as if you wuz
follerin' a band of music."

And I wuz, it wuz the music of the Future that sounds out in my ears
anon or oftener, sweet inspirin' strains that even Josiah can't hear if
his head lays on the same piller.

It sings of an ignorant, oppressed race changed into an enlightened
prosperous one, this great work done by our own country, this song comes
floatin' into my ears over the wide Pacific. And another louder strain
comes from nigher by made tender and pathetic by years of oppression and
suppressed suffering that could find expression in no other way than
this heart searching pathos. And blending with it, ringing over and
above it, triumphant happy echoes telling of real freedom of mind and
conscience, the true liberty.




CHAPTER XV.


Well, Blandina wanted to go to the Anthropological Buildin'. She said
Professor Todd had recommended it. I should knowed he would choose that
spot in preference to any other. I hadn't a idee what it meant, but
didn't feel obleeged to tell her so, but spozed it wuz sunthin' hard to
tackle, judgin' from the name, but told her I wuz willin' to go to see
_it_ or _her_ or _him_, not knowin' which it would turn out to be. But
come to find out it wuz everything relatin' to the history of man, and
spozed that wuz one reason why Blandina wuz interested in it.

It wuz a monstrous big buildin', and in it and outside on't wuz exhibits
from all the different countries of the world, showin' the difference in
the races of mankind, their difference through all the ages, anatomy,
industries, customs, education, different religious rites, games, books
and pictures, maps illustrating mankind and his works, etc., and I could
fill a dozen pages with etcs., and not half exhaust the contents of the
immense buildin'.

Blandina wuz in her glory here, she wuz studyin' in full magesty the
history of her idol, man. But as I told her, I spozed the term, man,
included woman also. But she looked dubersome, she didn't like the idee
I could see, and Josiah didn't. But I knowed I wuz right, and I guess
Molly thought so too.

This is the most complete gathering of the world's people and races that
has ever been got together, and includes different types, from the
smallest pigmies from Central Africa to the Patagonian giants. Josiah
wuz delighted to learn of the strength of these pigmies, how they kill
elephants and rhinocerhorses, and sez he, "I tell you, Samantha, it
hain't size that counts, it is most always the smallest men that are the
smartest, looked at Napoleon and me."

But I whispered to him to keep still, for he wuz attractin' attention,
and I led the way to see the giants. But he looked coldly on 'em, and
sez he:

"They hain't thought much on, it speaks about their mean statter in the
guide books."

But I thought to myself how handy it would be to have one on 'em in the
neighborhood to rent out by the day to whitewash overhead or shingle the
barn; they wouldn't even have to git up in a chair, and Id'no but they
could lay a chimbly standin' on the ground; they wuz immense.

And there wuz displays of the works and habits and native surroundin's
of the lowest types from the beginnin' of the stun age up to the present
finished glory of Jonesville and the world at large. And I wondered
what, what would be the glory showed off a hundred years from now, what
hites would men stand on, sailin' round through the air and comin' from
other planets to the show like as not jest as easy as we come from
Jonesville. And where will Josiah and I be then? That wuz another
thought that hanted me, and what would we be lookin' on? 'Tennyrate I
hope we will be together wherever it is.

But to resoom. There wuz the skin housen of the Indians from Mexico and
the display of the Ainu tribes from Japan; red negroes from Central
Africa, and all the Indian tribes left in North America, so fast meltin'
away like the leaves of the forest before the march of winter. Basket
makers from California and Arizonia, bead workers, arrow workers, all
carryin' on their work before us and goin' through their ceremonies and
playin' their games.

And there wuz the tradin' post, with the agent cheatin' the Injuns jest
as nateral as life, so I spoze. Mexico had a wonderful collection,
native books on Maguey paper, amulets of gold, sculpture, carved idols,
remarkable lookin', though I wouldn't worship one on 'em not for a
dollar bill.

Egypt, where Civilization first started, had to crumple down and send
her best treasures to the fur away West. Oh, how fur, how fur
Civilization has traveled since she left the Lotus land. And she hadn't
better set down yet and fold her hands. She's got a good many jobs
before her that I could pint out to her right here in America.

And there wuz a hull Egyptian tomb, mummies, ancient pottery, necklaces
and beads took out of old Egyptian tombs. Oh, where wuz the throbbin'
hearts that beat agin them with boundin' life and joy? So much stronger
and greater than the fragile things, yet gone to dust and ashes
centuries ago, while these senseless toys outlive 'em and are brought
thousands of milds to be looked on by a strange race. And there wuz
scarabes, symbols, strange lookin' things as I ever see and piles on
'em.

And there wuz a display showing how they first started fire, which they
worshipped when first discovered as the Red Flower God, and everything
up to its present development. And so with the earliest attempts at
makin' weapons, blades of bamboo and wood, hammered copper up to the
deadly life destroyers of to-day.

And in one room wuz the priceless treasures of the Vatican, and a
exquisite collection of the Jubilee presents of the Widder Albert carved
ivory gems, beautifully set jewels, fans, feathers, leather work and
wrought gold, carved ebony, sandal-wood, embroidered silk and velvet
caskets, silver prayer wheel (though she never used it I'll warrant, no
quicker than I would) gold boxes from Africa, Burmah and all her
provinces; gold and velvet harnesses and saddle cloths, chains and
plumes; a chair of state of carved ivory; kneeling cushion in rich
embroidered velvet; elephants' tusks mounted on ebony and on rosewood;
there are thirty cases in all, and as I looked on 'em, lent to this
Exposition by his Gracious Majesty, King Edward VII, jest as willin' as
I'd lend sister Bobbett a drawin' of tea, my feelin's pretty nigh
overpowered me and I almost bust into tears, but knowin' Josiah's state
of nerves I kep' up and restrained myself in a measure.

But I noticed Blandina wuz beginin' to act restless and looked at her
watch, and finally she said that Professor Todd had promised to meet her
at the Anthropometric Display.

Sez I, "I should know that of all the places in the world that would be
his chosen rondevoo."

"Yes," sez she, "he has got such exquisite taste--in dress."

I don't believe she had a idee what it wuz, I believe she thought from
what she said that it wuz some kind of men's clothes, or scarf pins
mebby. I myself didn't even hazard a inward guess, but made up my mind
to be resigned to the sight whatever it wuz and bear up under it the
best I could.

But we found out it included all kinds of measures, attitudes and
angles, photographs, moulds, casts and rates of pulsation, measurements
of respiration, tryin' to measure and estimate as well as they can the
different physical values of the different races and people, it wuz a
sight to see it.

Sure enough Professor Todd wuz there, and I willin'ly resigned her into
his care. He offerin' to see her home after the illumination. I knowed
he wuz to be trusted, and they went off, Blandina lookin' up happy and
adorin', he happy, patronizin' and lookin' down. Both on 'em contented
creeters. He leadin' her a willin' victim to where the biggest named
articles wuz and explainin' 'em to her in words more'n two inches long,
I'll bet, but if anybody is happy that's enough. And though it is
puttin' the wagon considerable ways before the horse, I may as well tell
a conversation I overheard between Professor Todd and Blandina later in
the day. Molly and Josiah wuz interested in lookin' at a display a
little ways off, and I'd sot down for a spell restin' my tired head on
my hand, and closed my eyes, for they too wuz so weary I felt I should
almost be ashamed to face them two gray orbs in the lookin'-glass, for I
knowed I had worked 'em too hard, and no knowin' when they would git any
rest, for it seemed as though the more we see the more there wuz to see.

And I sot there lost in wistful retrospection of the view from our back
door where there wuz but one object in front of me, and that wuz a plain
barn with no cupolas or minarets, or towers or domes on it. No, jest a
plain barn with a slidin' door enriched and bejeweled when open only by
the form of my beloved pardner. And the only vista visible the grassy
path that led round the hen house to the ash-barrel, and the only
ornamental water, the waterin' trough embellished only by the green moss
on its sides.

I felt I'd seen too many ornaments, I most knowed I should never hanker
agin for a minaret or a mosque, or a steeple or a crescent, or a wavin'
banner, or gildin', I felt that my heart would never more long and pine
for water to squirt up in the air or drizzle down three or four hundred
feet, nor for statutes or peaks or pillers. No, I almost felt I should
have Dave Yerden saw off the top of the whatnot because it riz up in a
sort of ornamental fashion, and I almost despised the thought of the M.
E. steeple in Jonesville, to such wicked and reckless lengths will
over-weariness lead one. But jest as I wuz rebukin' myself to myself, I
hearn jest on the other side on me the voices of Blandina and Professor
Aspire Todd. He wuz evidently continuing a conversation begun sometime
before.

"Oh, that lost companion of mine! oh, that beauchious female so
humilitous in her sweet humility, so super-conscious of man's superior
attainments, she seemingly only existed to minister to my corporial
necessities."

"Well she might, Professor, well she might," sez Blandina. "Any woman of
right feelin' would feel only too blest and honored to do the same."

"I experienced from the first moment my eyes rested on you," sez the
Professor in solemn axents, "a sensation, or a feeling, as you may say,
that you wuz my affinity, that your soul wuz congenial, and every
transitory period of time that has progressively advanced since then has
but intensified the impression."

Though I couldn't see her, I could feel Blandina simper. But at that
minute Josiah interrupted the dialogue by askin' where Samantha wuz, and
I come forward and jined 'em. Blandina looked radiantly happy, and I
motioned to Molly and Josiah to come on, I knowed they would rather have
our room than our company. For I remembered I wuz onmarried myself once,
and though my sperit wuz never incarnated in the personality of a
Blandina, yet I had a vivid remembrance of the time when Love first laid
holt on me, and I well remembered the feelin's I felt at the ardent
attentions of a Josiah.

Professor Todd might not be an object of admiration to me, indeed he wuz
not, fur from it! But one of the last things we learn in life is not to
judge other folks attachments and desires by our own liking, and not to
condemn other people for having fur different ideals than our own. I had
found out that Professor Todd wuz likely and respectable and well off,
and if Blandina had got to git along through life without knowin' much,
she had better git along with a protector and under comfortable
circumstances. So I stood ready to give away the bride at any time, for
to tell the truth I had worried about her future, not knowin' but I had
her on my hands for life. But true to my principles I felt that I would
make no matches nor break none, but would only smooth the path for True
Love to trundle along in.

Josiah wuz blind as a bat to what I see, and wanted to know, "What
Blandina wuz pokin' round with that fool for?"

Truly men can't see through a stun wall or a matrimonial movement with
anything like the clearness of a woman. As I wended my way onwards I
felt jest as sure in my mind how it would end as I did two months
afterwards when I see 'em at the altar.

But to resoom backwards. Josiah, Molly and I wended our way off to
another department of the immense buildin', goin' from one display to
another, and could have stayed a week and seen sunthin' new every
minute.

I took sights of comfort at the Indian schools. Seein' on one side the
old poor oncivilized way of living, habits and customs; and then to see
what education and culture had done and wuz doing for 'em, what swift
strides they wuz makin' along the road that leads upwards. And to see
'em workin' away right before us at all the industrial trades, to see
inteligence in the eyes that had held savagery, to hear the inteligent
conversation in place of gutteral axents, I wuz highly tickled.

And I sez to Josiah and Molly, "I hope Uncle Sam will do well by all the
folks he's gardeen over, the Indians, Negroes, Philippinos and all, I
believe he means well by the hull on 'em, but he has so much on his
hands he don't know which way to turn, and I spoze it will be some time
before he gits 'round to do what he wants to for all on 'em, and," sez
I, "they had better in the mean time try to git along and do all they
can for themselves, it will be best for 'em anyway."

I wuz walkin' along with my Josiah in a quiet part of the grounds, if
any of 'em can be called so, 'tennyrate there wuzn't many round when I
hearn some workmen passin' along say, "There is the President."

And lookin' round eagerly and anxiously I see a good-lookin' man with
eye glasses settin' on a bench readin' a paper. And I knowed to once
that it wuz our Teddy, so dear to the heart of them that set store by
manliness, fearlessness, bravery, bright badges from Heaven's mint
shinin' on the breast of a man faithful to wife, children and country.
He didn't look exactly like his pictures, but I knowed pictures didn't
always favor their originals, specially in newspapers. I wuz highly
tickled to see him, for I had some errents for him, and wanted to advise
him for his good, and I advanced with outstretched hand and sez "Mr.
President, I am delighted to see you!"

He shook hands and said polite, "You have the advantage of me, mom."

"Yes," sez I, "folks see your face in the papers." I mentioned my name
and then went right on to say, "I wanted to tell you the first thing, I
hadn't nothin' to do with that slightin' piece about you you probable
read in the Jonesville Auger. The Nation knew I had writ for it, and for
the Gimlet, and I wuz awful afraid you'd think it wuz me, and be mad at
me, but I'm as innocent as a infant babe. Keturah Snyder writ it, and
she's been through with trials enough to make her bitter but bein' so
mad she sez things she can't prove. Now she thinks you could kep' her
from bein' turned out of the Jonesville post-office and you could keep
the price of meat down. No use arguin' with her, she sez you had it in
your power to squelch some of the Trusts, and didn't do nothin' but
talk.

"And that Post-Office scandal, she said she spozed you wuz goin' to make
public samples of them stealers, but it all squizzled out, nothin' done
about it, only jest talk. And you remember she said in her piece, 'she
wuz turned out of the post-office for borryin' five cents from the
Government, and bein' backward with another five, ten cents in all, and
them post-office clerks in Washington stealin' hundreds of thousands and
nothin' done.'" Here Theodore tried to say sunthin', and knowin' he wuz
such a fluent talker I wuz bound to git my explanation in before he
begun, for I wouldn't interrupted him for the world after he got to
goin'.

Sez I, "I wanted you to know jest what reason she had for bein' so mad
and writin' it, for I knowed you wouldn't feel so mortified about it.
The way on't wuz, she wuz in the Office, and hadn't baked that week
owin' to the cat tippin' over her yeast, she's so petickular she won't
use boughten, and a hull load of company driv up onexpected at leven
forty-five. The baker come and not havin' a cent of change by her, and
he refusin' to trust her jest out of meanness, she knowin' she wuz to
have some money paid her in the mornin', jest borrowed five cents from
Uncle Sam. I don't say it wuz right, she'd better made biscuit, but I
say she wuz punished pretty hash for that and two other small things,
for bein' half distracted by her cares, she forgot to cancel three
letters, the first mistake she'd made in the three years she'd been in
office. One wuz a drop letter, so Uncle Sam wuz only out five cents.
Well, you know Theodore, that when trials come, they come as Shakespeare
said, 'Not as single spiders but hull battles on 'em,' or words to that
effect.

"Right on top of that Baker come the Inspector. He discovered the
deficit of ten cents, and also that other incident, where I got mixed up
in the Jonesville P.O. Scandal. Keturah had to have help in the office
once in awhile, and two men wanted to work for her, Nate Yerden and Sam
Pendergrast. She didn't like Nate, and she did like Sam, and I don't
spoze it made much difference in her feelin's, but Sam kep' sheep and
did gin her yarn for a pair of stockin's, and jest out of pure kindness
I colored it for her in my indigo dye tub.

"I never thought of committin' any sin, let alone one with such a big
name, Misprision of Treason and Maladministration of Justice, I believe
he called it. Why, for a spell I thought I should have to be shot up,
Josiah wuz skairt to death, and told him he never hearn of such crimes,
and sez he, 'I'll bet you can't find 'em in the Velosipeder.'

"He meant the Encyclepeder, but poor man he wuz most crazy. I emptied
out my blue dye and don't know as I shall ever set up another. And
Keturah raveled out her stockin's and gin back the yarn, I got off with
the awfulest talkin' to I ever had, and warnin's never, never to trifle
in such a heedless and wicked way with Public Matters and the sacred
rights of the people. But Keturah, poor thing! wuz jest turned right out
of office root and branch. She knowed what high influence duz in
politics, and she got Thomas Jefferson to argy with the Inspector and
tell him jest how it wuz. But he said the dignity of a great Nation wuz
at stake and out she must go.

"Keturah wep' and cried, and reminded him the yarn wuz gin back and how
small the sum wuz. And he said, 'A straw showed which way the wind
blowed, and the Nation must trust its public servants implicitly, or
where would be the safety of the people.'

"Then Keturah sassed him and said if a straw showed the direction of the
wind in Jonesville, how wuz it with the dead loads and stacks of straw
in Washington, sez she, they're so heavy with rottenness and corruption
they can't blow. You'll remember that powerful figger of speech in the
article. I told her it would make you mad as a hen and I spoze it did.
And I felt it my duty to molify you and tell you that a honester creeter
never lived than Keturah, and it wuz only these extronnery circumstances
that made her borry the ten cents. And workin' out by the day and eatin'
codfish as she duz, makes her more morbid, kinder salts her blood I
believe, and she lays it to you onjustly, for meat bein' so high that
she can't buy any.

"Ive told her time and agin it wuzn't your fault. But she sez you might
hold in the Trusts some if you wuz a minter.

"She sez you had 'em in your power once and could made a sample on 'em
but didn't, and so, sez she, I've got to live on codfish, and the flour
trust is bringin' up flour so Id'no but I'll have to eat saw-dust bread.
You remember them powerful metafors in the Auger. I wanted to explain
all this and I also had some errents of my own."

He made another effort to speak, but knowin' his remarkable eloquence,
and that I wouldn't try to git a word in after he begun, I should enjoy
his talk so, I kep' on:

"I want to be open and above board, Theodore, jest as you are nachelly.
And that other piece you remember that come out about the same time in
the Jonesville Gimlet I'll tell you plain that I approved on it, though
I didn't write it. You remember it begun with this quotation:

"'They enslave their children's children
Who make compromise with sin.'

"And it went on to talk about our great dignified Nation bein' a pardner
in Saloons, ruinin' men, breakin' wimmen's hearts, starvin' children,
committin' theft, murder, adultery, arson, helpin' on fights, death and
ruin, jest goin' in snux, as you may say with all this for the money got
out of it; it said that though there wuz many great evils to face and
overthrow, there wuz none that brutalized the race and agonized the
hearts of the people like this, and though all sin left its mark, no
other sin changed a man so into the loathsome body and soul wrecks, that
drunkenness did, and all for a little money.

"It wuz a powerful piece, and as full of facts as a brick is of sand. It
told jest how much money Uncle Sam got out of every drunkard he made. My
memory hain't what it wuz, Theodore, and I can't tell exactly jest how
much money it would be in Uncle Sam's pocket to make your four bright
good boys drunkards, and finish up the job and land 'em in the
drunkard's grave, via the saloon and gutter. But if you stood by and see
it goin' on before your face as so many thousands of proud and lovin'
fathers have to, you would think a million dollars of such blood money
wuz too cheap, yes indeed!

"That tells the hull story, Theodore, I could throw statistics at you
till you wuz black and blue, about our country spendin' for what is
useless and ruinous to soul, body and estate, one billion four hundred
millions a year, and about the hundred thousand drunkards that stumble
along into the staggerin' slobberin' ranks every year, and drop into the
drunkard's grave. I could eppisode eloquent to you about all this but
what's the use; you're real smart and you know all about it. You've seen
on every side on you the beast drivin' out the angel in man, you've seen
the staggerin' army march by you to ruin. You've seen the saloons spring
up by the thousands on every side, for the purpose of makin' drunkards,
you've seen wives murdered by them that promised to protect 'em, you've
seen children driv to starvation and the streets by it; you've seen
Poverty drive Prosperity out everywhere the curse fell. And you've seen
nothin' good come from it, nothin' at all, only the money that Uncle Sam
takes with one hand, and pays out with the other, for law's machinery to
punish the criminals he makes, and prisons, jails, reformatories, poor
houses, orphan's homes, cheap coffins, etc.

"No use my tellin' you all this for you know it, but you love your boys,
and I want you to promise me to do by other boys as you'd want me to do
by yourn if I see the Saloon tryin' its best to entice 'em, and see
their bright innocent eyes beginnin' to enjoy the deathly glitter on't.
You'd want me to slam that door to and keep 'em out. Put my shoulder
blade agin it, prop it up with all the strength I could git holt on in
law and gospel, so they couldn't git in. And that's what I want you to
do, Theodore, I want you to help keep out other children jest as dear to
their fathers and mothers as your children are to you. And you know that
you and their mother would ruther see 'em lay dead at your feet, than to
see 'em enter that door with the doom of the place on 'em.

"It's a heavy door, Theodore, loaded down with greed and lowest
passions, you can't shet it alone, nor I can't, but I would feel guilty
as a dog if I didn't try my very best. Public Opinion backed by Law is
what has got to slam that door to and lock it. But you and I can help,
and you can do more than I can, and I want you to promise me to do all
you can."

Agin I see he wuz strugglin' for speech, and I hurried to git my last
words in, "I believe you want to do right, and I will encourage you by
tellin' you that Josiah is goin' to vote for you, though we hain't got
nothin' agin Mr. Parker. He's close-mouthed, which is a good quality,
though it can be carried too fur.

"A neighbor of ourn had warned her girl to not be too familiar with the
hired man, a good Christian he wuz too. And once when her ma wuz gone he
asked her where the milk pail wuz, and she wantin' to be on the safe
side wouldn't say a word. That wuz bein' too cautious, and a good many
think he's been a little too mute about some things, he didn't tell jest
where his politics wuz. But then the tongue is a onruly member and has
to be curbed in, and I guess he means well. And Mr. Davis, too, of
course he's gittin' along in years. But jest think of Methusaler, Mr.
Methusaler's folks would call Mr. Davis nothin' but a child."

Here he blurted right out, "I hain't Theodore, though I've been took for
him before, I'm President of a Gas Company."

I wuz mortified for most a minute, but come to think it over I knowed
such seeds of truth as I'd been a scatterin' couldn't help but do good
even if the sile wuzn't so rich as I'd spozed.




CHAPTER XVI.


Well, the next week we had a busy time, Josiah and Molly and I went
mostly together, Blandina most always meetin' Professor Aspire Todd
somewhere nigh the entrance, I guess it wuz planned, but 'tennyrate I
wuz willin', plan or no plan.

And we visited every interestin' spot from Morocco to the Model City and
from Physicial Culture Hall to Nevada.

There wuz a meetin' that scientific folks held there, and its main aim
seemed to be to make light of the religion of Christ. It madded Josiah
dretfully, and he sez, "I feel it my duty as a deacon to go and give in
my testimony and break up such wicked doin's."

Sez I, "Josiah you let 'em alone. You couldn't break it up, nothin' but
the power of the God they deny could do it. But we'll punish 'em by not
goin' near 'em. That will mortify 'em and mebby make 'em see where they
stand, denyin' the power that gives em the breath they spend in such
folly." So when Sunday come agin we went to the same M.E. meetin' house
and hearn a splendid sermon on what the Christian Religion had done for
the World. And we visited Lincoln's Cabin and I had probable fifty
emotions a minute all the time I wuz there thinkin' of that wise,
child-hearted man and what he did for humanity.

And I had about the same emotions in Grant's Log Cabin. Noble creeters,
both on 'em! They wuz cramped for room in these humble homes, and wuz
probable put to it for comforts. But they have room enough now, the
Great World claims 'em, and they will walk down the ages together
crowned with the love and reverence of the people.

And Josiah wanted to see the Boer War, and though a war wuz nothin' I
wanted to see I felt I musn't cross him. And all the while I sot there
seein' them contendin' armies contend I wuz thinkin' of poor Oom Paul
and his brave fight for liberty, and at last losin' all and dyin'
broken-hearted in a strange land.

But onbeknown to myself these words come to me:

"The mills of the gods grind slowly
But they grind exceedingly small."

I can't look ahead and see jest what they're grindin' out for this brave
people and them that conquered 'em, nor Josiah can't.

And I took solid comfort in the Hall of Lady Managers seein' how well
they managed. In this Exposition there is no seperate place fenced off
for wimmen's exhibit. They carry the idee here that good work is equally
valuable when done by man or woman. They claim that works of art,
invention, manufacture, etc., are as sexless as religion, and you know
our Lord said plain of men and wimmen, "Ye are one in Christ."

I wuz glad enough to see it, it seems to bring us nigher to the day of
justice and true liberty for all. That glorious day hain't dawned yet
(wimmen are still classed in law with idiots, criminals and lunaticks).
But by standin' on tip-toe I can catch a faint glow in the East showin'
that the day is goin' to break in rosy splendor bime-by.

I cant begin to tell jest where we went or what we see, enough
'tennyrate I felt to last me through life, but time hurried on jest as
usual and brought the last days of our stay here.

I told Josiah that I never would go home without seein' President
Francis and thankin' him for the treat he'd gin us.

Josiah didn't want to go but I sez, "David will expect it of me, it's
only showin' him common politeness. You know I brought the children up
to always thank the folks that entertained 'em. And such a entertainment
as this! Do you spoze I am goin' to slight and mortify him by not
noticin' it and thankin' him? No, indeed!"

Josiah argyed and said that "he guessed if everybody follered David up
and thanked him he would have his hands full."

"But," I sez, "Other folks can do as they're a mind to, I shall do my
duty," so I went up to his office follered by a onwillin' Josiah, and
advanced towards him where he sot alone at his desk.

He's a dretful handsome man, sometimes smart men are humbly, and it is a
treat to find one that combines beauty, smartness, and faculty, for it
took more than smartness alone to plan this show, it took faculty and
tack, sights and sights of tack. For as I told him, after I'd introduced
myself and shook hands cordially with him, sez I:

"I couldn't leave without thankin' you for the great treat you've gin
us, and to tell you how I appreciate what you've done for us." Sez I,
"I'm a housekeeper and know what it is to fix up for company and how
much work it is to git two or three rooms and the front steps and door
yard all right for half a dozen folks for jest one afternoon, and then
to clear up and ornament as you have more'n twelve hundred acres, and
have so many visitors come right onto you and settle down for a six
months' stay, I don't see how you stand it.

"Why last winter I had six of the relation on my side and on hisen,
snowbound to our house for a week, and I thought I should go distracted
tryin' to keep the house clean, and suit 'em all in vittles, and some on
'em jealous thinkin' I gin the others a better bed, and the other
relation comin' in to see 'em and kinder disputin' and twittin' 'em as
relation will, and kinder jealous of me because they wuz visitin' me
instead of them, and my folks callin' me extravagant in vittles--I had a
dretful time. And what wuz it compared to what you're goin' through with
fifteen thousand visitors settlin' right down on you for a six months'
visit, some on 'em smart and high headed, some not knowin' putty, some
good-natered and easy to please, some quarrelsome, some awful petickular
and fussy about their vittles, some that will eat dogs, some too dressy,
some that will go most naked, and hundreds of millions comin' and goin'
all the time, and more than thirty millions of your own folks
complainin' and sassin' you as your own folks will. Payin' out fifty
millions and mebby called extravagant for it--why what a time you're
havin'!

"And I wanted to tell you how I appreciated what you're goin' through,
and thank you from the bottom of my heart for givin' me and Josiah such
a great treat, and also Blandina.

"And if you ever come to Jonesville I want you to feel free to come
right to our house and stay as long as you can. Though of course I can't
do for you what you've done for me, but I'll kill a hen and make a bag
puddin', and do the best I can."

He thanked me real polite and said "if he wuz ever in Jonesville he
should certainly come and see me."

And I sez, "How I do wish it wuz so you could come this fall. We're
goin' to have a big Harvest Entertainment for the benefit of the Grange,
and you do have such a talent for gittin' up sunthin' interestin', your
advice would be onvaluable about ornamentin' the hall and givin' 'em all
a equal show. Of course every mother wants her children to speak the
openin' piece, and every man wants the best place to show off his
squashes and rutabagers. Pomona wants the hall trimmed one way, and
Cerius 'tother way, whilst Flora and Hygea are settin' on the fence. I
d'no how it will turn out and whether or not it will lead to bloodshed.

"If we only had your faculty and your tack to fall back on what a boon
it would be, for you must have gone through with as much agin with
everybody wantin' the best place.

"But I know it is too much to ask of you with all this doin's on your
hands, millions of visitors comin' and goin' and thousands of help to
look after, and I shan't say a word to you about it, only wishin' you
could be there to enjoy it with us when it is ready.

"And now thankin' you agin for all you've done for us I will bid you
adoo." And I shook hands with him almost warmly.

He seemed glad and relieved about sunthin' as we took leave, I guess it
wuz because I thought so high on him.

And bein' wunk at by me, Josiah Allen advanced and held out his hand and
said, "how de do," and "good-bye," at the same time, and I sez to kinder
smooth it over, "In this world, Mr. Francis, it is hail and farewell
time and agin."

And then we bowed ourselves out, I'd told Josiah to be sure and not turn
his back. And we got along first-rate, only onfortinat'ly jest as we got
to the door we backed into the Chinese Minister and his party who wuz
jest comin' in.

But then, as I told Josiah as we went down the steps when he wuz blamin'
me for this _contrary temps_, as men always will blame their pardners
for most everything, I sez:

"China is used to bein' backed into by foreigners, I guess they'll
overlook it."

I didn't bandy words with Josiah, I knowed I'd done my duty and that
kep' me serene. When you're follerin' a star you don't mind the bite of
a nat.

The last week of our stay in St. Louis Aunt Trypheny on leavin' the Fair
ground one day wuz struck by the twenty-mule team that perambulates the
ground, was knocked down and carried to an emergency hospital on the
Fair ground. The head doctor there wuz Miss Huff's nephew, and she got a
little room for her till she could be moved with safety.

The day before we went home Josiah went down into the city to do a few
errents for the bretheren, Blandina had gone with Aspire Todd to visit a
sister of hisen (they wuz engaged), and I had been to work gittin' ready
to leave the next mornin', and Molly and I wuz goin' in the afternoon to
take a last look at the Fair, and she come into my room as I wuz gittin'
my bunnet on with her hands full of the most beautiful flowers she could
get, and proposed that we should go and see Aunt Pheeny and cheer her up
a little.

Sweet creeter, I hadn't thought on't. The hospital wuz quite a distance
off from where we had laid out to go, and I knowed I would be tired as a
dog anyway. But not wantin' to be behind hand in good works I said I
would go with her, and I selected some of the nicest of the fruit I had
bought to take home to the grandchildren, and put in my silk bag for
her, and put on my mantilly and told her I wuz ready. And then that dear
child proposed we should take Dorothy with us, knowin' Aunt Trypheny
would ruther see her than any Emperor or Zar, and I gin my consent to
that, and we sot off, Dotie happy as a Queen at goin' with us.

Well, Aunt Pheeny wuz glad enough to see us, specially Dorothy. But we
found her blissful in mind anyway for she told us the first thing her
Prince Arthur had been there to see her and had been gone only a few
minutes, and she showed us a couple of gold pieces he had gin her, big
enough to bear witness to his goodness of heart as well as his wealth.
She said with her linement all aglow (she never liked her) that his
mother had died two months ago leaving him a free man, he had stayed
with her and devoted himself to her because he thought it wuz his duty,
and since her death he had been on a long journey, it seemed, she said,
as if he wuz hunting for something or other, though what she didn't
know. And he had promised her that some time in the future she should
come and live with him, and sez she, with her characterestic irreligion,
"If I had my choice to live with him or in heaven I wouldn't look at
heaven." The idee! We give her the fruit and flowers and asked her if
she had everything for her comfort, and she said:

"Yes, indeed! 'tain't much here like the ironfirmary I wuz sent to in
Chicago. I wuz jest as white as you are, Miss Molly, when I went there,
and them iggorent doctors jest turned my skin black as tar; I wuz so
mortified when I come to my senses and found what they'd done and I wuz
a nigger, I jest leaped out o' bed and rushed right out into the street,
I wuz so mortified. But 'twuzn't no use, I wuz a nigger, and so I've
been ever since."

And all the time she wuz tellin' this, Dotie's little white arms wuz
'round her neck and she was pattin' the black cheeks. And as she
finished she said lovingly, "Pheeny is nice! Pheeny is pretty! Pheeny
has got white teef!" And indeed they did glisten like ivory in the
blackness of her face as she held the baby clost to her heart with broad
smiles.

Well, we made quite a long call and cheered her up considerable by
listenin' to some more of her most eloquent and unlikely fabrications,
and then bid her good-bye. A man's gray kid glove lay on the table and a
little book, and she said Prince Arthur had forgot them.

Well, jest as we passed out of the long corridor, Dotie, who wuz looking
back, cried out, "There is Pheeny's Prince Arthur!" And refused to stir
another step till she went back to see him. She said Aunt Pheeny had
showed her his picture and that wuz the Prince that could do anything.
Aunt Pheeny I spoze had filled her mind full of stories of his
perfections, she said he'd gone back to git his glove and book, and she
would wait and see him.

I wuz in a hurry and wuz for goin' on, but Molly, sweet-natured thing,
said we might sit down on the bench for a few minutes and then Dotie
would be willing to go. So we sot down and Dotie begun to state with
much excitement her reasons for wanting to stay, sez she:

"Billy has been bolsting to me that he see a Prince to the Fair, a real
live meat Prince. He wuz bolsting about it, and said Aunt Pheeny didn't
have no Prince, but I see his picture my own self, and I'll let Billy
know that Aunt Pheeny did have a nice live, meat Prince and I see him.
And there he comes now!" sez she, she wuz a little in advance of us and
could see furder. And sure enough we hearn a quick light step coming
down the corridor, it come nigher and nigher, a handsome elegant-looking
young man turned the corner right by us, Molly looked up--and had the
desire of her heart.

       *       *       *       *       *

He left his friend's house and Molly, thinking his duty kept him by his
mother, and he had decided it was wrong to ask a young happy girl to
enter the shadow of selfish invalidism with him. He didn't say jest
that, but I knowed it from what he didn't say as well as from what he
did. The minute he wuz free he had flown to his friends where they had
met. The house wuz closed, the family in Europe, he didn't know where,
he had tried in vain to find her, and wuz jest on the eve of departing
for Europe that afternoon to try to find his friends hoping to get a
clue of her. Had she not gone to the hospital that day, had she come a
little earlier or a little later, had she not humored Dorothy by
waiting, they would not have met. That's what worldlings might say, but
I didn't say it even to myself. She wuz safe, she could not have been
either too early or too late. She had like a little child, asking its pa
for a gift, asked her Lord for the desire of her heart and jest as he
promised, he brought it to pass, usin' that bare corridor jest as he
might the Valley of the Nile, or the Rocky Mountains if necessary. The
hull world is but a tiny doorstep leadin' up to the shinin' pavilion of
divine love.

They wuz led towards each other, she couldn't miss her way, he couldn't.
The broad ocean rolled between 'em and mountain and valley, but they wuz
both led by the hand like two little children out May-flowering with
their ma--they _had_ to meet.

Well, Josiah met us, accordin' to promise in front of Festival Hall, and
we stayed to the illumination, Dotie havin' gone home with Miss Huff
before dark.

Molly and Arthur stood on the high terrace with light fallin' all 'round
'em and before 'em, their faces needin' no light, so bright wuz they
with heart sunshine. Josiah and I sot a little in the shadder, but where
we could see plain. And one by one like brilliant jewels dropped from an
endless storehouse of glory, lights sprung out along the front of the
stately white palaces, adown the broad avenues they shone in gleamin'
lines and clusters, and starred with brilliance all the long glorious
vistas. Broad beams of crimson, gold and azure changin' every minute
fell on the cascades, the flowers gleamed out from the emerald grass
like jewels of every color.

Music riz softly from the lagoon, the great organ pealed out in
triumphant notes, and my heart boyed up on waves of beauty and melody
follered the strains heavenward as if it didn't ever want to come back
agin to earth and Jonesville.

But as my eye fell on Josiah's face I knowed that where the star of Love
went it wuz my duty and joy to foller it. He wuz gittin' worrisome and
wanted to go, and so I sez:

"Beautiful! beautiful! Ivory City, farewell!"



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