Samantha at Coney Island, and a Thousand Other Islands
Date: 2009-04-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Coney Island (New York; N.Y.) -- Fiction

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Title: Samantha at Coney Island, and a Thousand Other Islands

Author: Marietta Holley

Release date: April 1, 2009 [eBook #28467]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AT CONEY ISLAND, AND A THOUSAND OTHER ISLANDS ***

Samantha
at Coney Island

Marietta Holley
[Samantha]

Samantha

AT

Coney Island

AND

A THOUSAND OTHER
ISLANDS

BY

JOSIAH ALLEN’S WIFE

(Marietta Holley)

THE CHRISTIAN HERALD

Bible House, New York

COPYRIGHT, 1911
THE CHRISTIAN HERALD

THE · PLIMPTON · PRESS · NORWOOD · MASS · U · S · A

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE
In Which the Coney Island Microbe Enters Our Quiet Home | 1
CHAPTER TWO
We set sail for Thousand Island Park and have a real good time, but Josiah murmurs about Coney. | 23
CHAPTER THREE
We seek Quiet and Happiness in their beautiful hants and mingle with the pleasure seekers of Alexandria Bay. | 39
CHAPTER FOUR
We enjoy the hospitalities of Whitfield’s aunt’s boardin’-house at the Park, and my pardner goes a-fishin’ | 57
CHAPTER FIVE

Josiah’s imagination about his fishin’ exploits carries him to a pint where I have to rebuke him, which makes him dretful huffy

73

CHAPTER SIX
In which I draw the matrimonial line round my pardner and also keep my eye on Mr. Pomper | 87
CHAPTER SEVEN
In which Josiah proposes to dance and Mr. Pomper makes an advance | 101
CHAPTER EIGHT
In which Mr. Pomper declares his intenshuns an’ gives his views on matrimony | 123
CHAPTER NINE
In which Mr. Pomper makes a offer of marriage and Faith has a wonderful experience | 147
CHAPTER TEN
We Hear a Great Temperance Sermon, but Josiah Still Hankers for Coney Island | 163
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In Which We Return Home, and I Perswaide Josiah to Build a Cottage for Tirzah Ann | 183
CHAPTER TWELVE
In Which Josiah Still Works at His Plan for Tirzah Ann’s Cottage, and Decides to Send His Lumber C. O. W. | 201
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In Which Josiah and Serenus Depart Sarahuptishusly for Coney Island and I Start in Pursuit | 211
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Curious Sights I Seen An’ the Hair-Raisin’ Episodes I Underwent in My Agonizin’ Search for My Pardner | 221
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I Visit the Moon, the Witchin’ Waves, Open Air Circus, Advise the Monkeys, Make the Male Statute Laugh, but Do Not Find Josiah

233

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Wonderful and Mysterious Sights I Saw in Steeple Chase Park, and My Search There for My Pardner | 249
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In Which I Continue My Search for Josiah Through Dreamland, Huntin’ for Him in Vain, and Return to Bildad’s at Night, Weary and Despairin’

273

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Josiah Found at Last! the Awful Fire at Dreamland and the Terrible Sights I Saw There | 293
CHAPTER NINETEEN
We Return to Jonesville and Josiah Builds Tirzah Ann’s Cottage With Strange Inventions and Additions | 309
CHAPTER TWENTY
Faith Comes to Visit Us. We Attend the Camp Meetin’ at Piller Pint, and Faith Meets the Lover of Her Youth | 327

ILLUSTRATIONS

| PAGE
Marietta Holley [Samantha] | Frontispiece
“Serenus Gowdey tramped up and down our kitchen floor swingin’ his arms and describin’ the wonders of Coney Island.” | 8

“The old deacon couldn’t stand such talk. He turned him outdoors, slammed the door in his face, and forbid Faith to speak to him again.”

14

“I liked Castle Rest. It seemed a monument riz up to faithful, patient mothers by the hand of filial gratitude and love.”

49

“I tried to stop him. I didn’t want him to demean himself before the oarsmen tryin’ to find boats that hadn’t been hearn on in hundreds of years.”

68

“‘I won’t wear a veil,’ sez he stoutly. But the next time a gale come from the sou’west I laid the brim back and tied the veil in a big bow knot under his chin.”

83

“‘What does ail you, Samantha, lockin’ arms with me all the time—it will make talk! he whispered in a mad, impatient whisper, but I would hang on as long as Mr. Pomper wuz around.”

99

“As they come nigh me I riz up almost wildly and ketched holt of my pardner and sez I: ‘Desist! Josiah Allen, stop to once!’ The aged female looked at me in surprise.”

132

“‘No,’ sez Mr. Pomper, ‘I want it done as speedily as possible, fer my late lamented left me thirteen children, two pairs of triplets, two ditto of twins, and three singles.’”

144

“Mr. Pomper, thinkin’ he would see better, got up on the bench, and jest as he shouted out ‘How firm a foundation,’ the bench broke and down he come.”

169

“And then he would call in Uncle Nate Peedick and they would bend their two gray bald heads and talk about specifications and elevations till my brain seemed most as soft as theirn.”

196

“‘Serenus and Josiah are havin’ a gay time at Coney Island. I’ve jest had a card from Serenus,’ sez Miss Gowdey. You could have knocked me down with a pin feather.”

215

“I stood before what seemed to be a great city. Endless white towers riz up as if callin’ attention to ’em.” | 227
“On we went under the waterfall, up, up, down, down, and finally shot out jest where we got in.” | 231
The Witching Waves “Folks get into little automobiles and steer ’em themselves.” | 236

“A boat full of men and women set out from the highest peak, shot down the declivity like lightnin’ and dashed ’way out on the other side of the bridge.”

239

“Rows of high-headed mettlesome hosses.” | 247
“I’m tellin’ the livin’ truth, as she towered up in front on me, her breast opened and a man’s face looked out on me.” | 254
“As I went down with lightnin’ speed I had’nt time to think much.” | 259
“Pretty soon it begun to move and one by one they wuz throwed off and went down I know not where.” | 261
“As I went into Dreamland it seemed as if all the folks in the city was there.” | 267
“We got in a small boat and wuz carried round and round till we dived into a dark tunnel.” | 277

“I went forward to see the Head Hunters. I sez to ’em ‘I’ve hearn of your doin’s and I want to advise you for your good.’”

282

“It wuz a sight to see, acres and acres of sand dotted with men, wimmen, and children.” | 287
“I rushed forwards and cried to the lordly beast above, jest ready to spring: ‘Don’t harm Josiah! Devour me instead.’” | 304

“I myself never sot foot on the Bowery; I wuzn’t goin’ to nasty up my mind with it, though I hearn there wuz some good things to be seen there.”

314

“‘The suller!’ He stood agast, perfectly dumb-foundered but wuzn’t goin’ to give in he had made a mistake. It wuz too mortifying to his pride.”

319

“I don’t know how long they stood there, his eyes searchin’ the dear face and findin’ a sacred meanin’ in it.” | 348

CHAPTER ONE

IN WHICH THE CONEY ISLAND MICROBE ENTERS OUR QUIET HOME

3

Samantha at Coney Island and
a Thousand Other Islands

CHAPTER ONE

IN WHICH THE CONEY ISLAND MICROBE
ENTERS OUR QUIET HOME

When Serenus Gowdey got back last fall from Brooklyn, where his twin brother, Sylvester, lives, he couldn’t talk about anything but Coney Island. He slighted religion, stopped runnin’ down relations, politics wuz left in the lurch, and cows, hens, and crops, wuz to him as if they wuzn’t. He acted crazy as a loon about that Island.

Why, Sylvester’ses wife told Miss Dagget and she told the Editor of the Augur’s wife, and she told Ben Lowry’s widder, and she told the Editor of the Gimlet’s mother-in-law, and she told me. It come straight, that Serenus only stayed there nights and to a early breakfast, but spent his hull durin’ time to Coney Island, and he a twin too. She said Sylvester felt so 4 hurt she wuz afraid it would make a lastin’ hardness. And it made me enough trouble too, yes indeed! for he would come and pour out his praises of that frisky, frivolous spot into Josiah’s too willin’ ears, till he got him as wild as he wuz about it.

Why, evenin’s after he’d been there recountin’ its attractions till bed-time, Josiah would be so wrought up he’d ride night mairs most all night. He’d spring up in bed cryin’ out, “All aboard for Coney Island!” or, “There is the Immoral Railway! See the divin’ girls, and the Awful Tower. Get a hot dog; look at the alligators, etc., etc.” I gin him catnip to soothe his nerve, but that didn’t git the pizen out of his system; no, acres of catnip couldn’t.

Oh, how dead sick I’d git of their talk, Coney Island! Luna Park! Well named, I’d say to myself, it is enough to make anybody luny to hear so much about it. Steeple Chase! chasin’ steeples, folly and madness. Dreamland! night mairs, most probable. Why, from Serenus’ talk that I hearn onwillingly about toboggan slides, merry-go-rounds, swings, immoral railways, skatin’ rinks, diving girls, loops de loops, and bumps de bumps, trips to the moon and trashy shows of all kinds I got the idee there 5 wuzn’t nothin’ there God had made, only the Ocean and the little incubator babies, though them two shows wuzn’t what you might call similar and the same size. Why, I myself, with my powerful mind, would git so cumfuddled hearin’ his wild and glarin’ descriptions, that my brain would seem to turn over under my foretop, and I didn’t wonder at Josiah’s bein’ led away by it, much as I lamented it, for he soon declared that go there he would.

In vain I reminded him that he wuz a deacon and a grand-father. He said he didn’t care how many deacons he wuz, or how many grand-fathers; he wuz goin’ to see that beautiful and entrancin’ place with his own eyes. I tried to quell him down, but couldn’t quell him worth a cent, with Serenus firin’ him up on the other side.

One Sunday, Elder Minkley preached an eloquent sermon describing the glories of the New Jerusalem, and Josiah said goin’ home that from Serenus’ tell, the elder had gin a crackin’ good description of Coney Island.

I groaned aloud. And he sez, “You may groan and sithe all you’re a minter; I shall see that magnificent place before I die.”

“Well,” sez I coldly, “I don’t want to talk 6 about it Sunday. If you’ve got to talk about shows and Pleasure Huntin’, do it week days, and don’t pollute this sacred day with it.”

“Pollute nothing!” sez he, and we didn’t speak for over two milds. But another weariness wuz ahead on me, and another strain on my overworked ear pans. Jest about this time, Whitfield Minkley, our Tirzah Ann’s husband, got jest as much carried away and enthused over some other Islands, though he had more to show for his het up state of mind. One thousand and seventy wuz the number of islands he fell voylently in love with and tried to make us the same. He had been to Canada on bizness and went through them islands, and wuz overcome by their extreme beauty. I’d heard that Whitfield’s islands wuz as beautiful as anything this side of the Heavenly gardens. Still, with Serenus on one side praisin’ up Coney, and Whitfield on the other praisin’ up his islands, I got so dead tired of ’em that I wished there wuzn’t a single island on the hull face of the earth. Yes, extreme weariness had got me so low down as that.

One evenin’, Serenus had been there and talked three hours stiddy, describin’ the charms and attractions of his island. The rush and roar 7 of the mechanical amusements, so wonderful they made scientific men wonder. The educated animals that showed how fur animals could be made to reason and understand. The constant hustle and bustle of the immense crowds, ever comin’, ever goin’, ever movin’, never stoppin’. He stood up some of the time describin’ the wonders and splendors there, and tramped up and down our kitchen floor, swingin’ his arms and actin’, till, when he left at late bed-time, Josiah wuz pale with longin’, and when I got up to lock the door and let out the cat, my head seemed to go round and round, and I had to hang onto the door nob to stiddy myself.

And the very next forenoon Whitfield and Tirzah Ann and little Delight come to spend the day. Her name is Anna Tirzah, but I called her Heart’s Delight, she wuz so sweet and pretty, and we’ve shortened it into Delight. I wuz glad to see ’em and done well by ’em in cookin’. I had a excelent dinner started—roast fowl and vegetables and orange puddin’, etc.—but Whitfield, jest as soon as he sot down, begun to descant on the beauty of his islands. I groaned and sithed out in the buttery. “Islands agin! I had one island last night till bed-time, and now I’ve got one thousand and seventy ahead on me.”

8

“Serenus Gowdey tramped up and down our kitchen floor swingin’ his arms and describin’ the wonders of Coney Island.” (See page 7)

9

He begun jest as I put my potatoes on to bile, I wuz goin’ to smash ’em with plenty of cream and butter; I hearn him till dinner wuz on the table, and I wuz turnin’ out the rich, fragrant coffee and addin’ the cream to it, and his praise on ’em wuz still flowin’ in a stiddy stream, and then I asked him, in one of his short pauses for breath, how Grout Nickelson’s rumatiz wuz.

He answered polite but brief, and resoomed the subject nearest and dearest. I then, with dizzy foretop and achin’ ear pans, tried to turn his mind onto politics and religion, no avail. I tried cotton cloth, carbide, lamb’s wool blankets, Panama Canal, literatoor, X rays, hens’ eggs, Standard Oil, the school mom, reciprocity, and the tariff; not a mite of change, all his idees swoshin’ up against them islands, and tryin’ to float off our minds there with hisen. I thought of what I’d hearn Thomas J. read about Tennyson’s character, who “didn’t want to die a listener,” and I sez in a firm voice, “I’ve had a letter from Cousin Faithful Smith. She’s comin’ here next spring to make a visit.”

Whitfield said he should love to see Cousin 10 Faith, but whilst she wuz here, we all ort to go to the Thousand Islands.

Sez Josiah firmly, “We ort to take her to Coney Island,” and he went on rehearsin’ Serenuses praises, and the education and the bliss one could git there. He rid his hobby nobly, but Whitfield, bein’ young and spry, could ride his hobby faster and furder, till finally Josiah got discouraged, and sot still a spell, and then scratched his head, and went out to the barn. And Whitfield seated himself with ease on his hobby, which pranced about us till, well as I love the children, I felt relieved to see ’em go, for my head felt as if the river wuz rushin’ through it. And after they left and we driv over to the post office, it seemed as if the democrat wuz a boat and the dusty road a broad, liquid stream, down which we wuz glidin’ and the neighin’ of the old mair (we had to leave her colt to home) wuz the snort of a steamer. My dreams that night wuz about the Saint Lawrence, kinder swoshy and floatin’ round.

Well, the cold winter passed away, as winters will, if you have patience to wait (or if you don’t either, to be exact and truthful). The shiverin’ earth begun to git a little warmer, 11 kinder shook herself and partly throwed off the white fur robe she’d wore all huddled round herself so long, and as the sun looked down closter and more smilin’ it throwed it clear off and begun to put on its new green spring suit. Them same smiles, only more warm and persuadin’ like, coaxed the sweet sap up into the bare maple tops in Josiah’s sugar bush and the surroundin’ world, till them same sunny smiles wuz packed away in depths of sugar loaves and golden syrup in our store room. Wild-flowers peeped out in sheltered places; pussy willows bent down and bowed low as they see their pretty faces in the onchained brook; birds sung amongst the pale green shadders of openin’ leaves; the west wind jined in the happy chorus. And lo! on lookin’ out of our winder before we knowed it, as it were, we see Spring had come!

And with the spring come my expected visitor, Faithful Smith. She is my own cousin on my own side, called by some a old maid. But she hain’t so very old, and she’s real good-lookin’—better than when she wuz a girl, I think, for life has been cuttin’ pure and sweet meanin’s into her face, some as they carve beauty into a cameo. She’s kinder pale and her sweet soul seems to look right out at you from her soft gray 12 eyes, and the lay of her hull face is such that you would think, if the fire of happiness could be built up under it (in her soul), it would light up into loveliness.

She wuz disappinted some years ago (or I d’no what you would call it) when she sent the man away herself. But she had a Bo when she wuz a girl by the name of Richard West. Dick West wuz the fullest of fun you ever see, though generous and good hearted; but he boasted on not believin’ anything, and Faithful’s father, bein’ a church member of the closest kind, and she brung up as you may say, right inside the tabernacle, with her Pa’s phylakracy hangin’ on the very horns of the altar, you may know what opposition Richard got from her Pa and her own conscience. Her conscience, as so many good girl’s consciences are, wuz a perfect tyrant, and drove her round—that, and her Pa. He wanted to be a good man, but wuz bigoted and couldn’t see no higher than the top of the steeple, and didn’t want to. And take these facts, with her deep true love for Richard, you may know she got tossted about more’n considerable.

Richard would make fun right in meetin’—make fun of their religious observances—and 13 finally, though he wuz good natured, and did all his pranks through light-hearted mischief and not malice, yet at last he did git mad at the old deacon, who wuz comin’ it dretful strong on him with his doctrines and exhortin’ him, tellin’ him he wuz a lost soul and had been from before his birth. Then Richard sassed him right back and told him he didn’t believe in his idee of the Deity.

The old deacon couldn’t stand such talk. He turned him outdoors, slammed the door in his face, and forbid Faith to speak to him again. She obeyed her Pa and her own conscience; but it seemed to take all the nip out of her life. You see, she loved this young man; and when anyone like Faith loves it hain’t for a week or a summer, but for life.

He writ to her burnin’ words of love and passion, for he loved her too in the old-fashioned way Adam did Eve—no other woman round, you know. And the words he writ wuz, I spoze, enough to melt a slate stun, let alone a heart, tender and true. She never writ a word back, and at last she wouldn’t read his letters and sent ’em back onopened. That madded him and he went on from bad to worse, swung right out into wickedness. He seemed to git harder and harder, and finally seein’ he could make no more impression on Faith than he could on white clear crystal, he went off west, as fur as Michigan at first, so I hearn, and so on, I don’t know where to.

14

“The old deacon couldn’t stand such talk. He turned him outdoors, slammed the door in his face, and forbid Faith to speak to him again.” (See page 13)

15

Well, Faith lived on in the old home, very calm and sweet actin’, with a shadder on her pretty face, worryin’ dretful about her lover, so it wuz spozed. But at last it seemed to wear off and a clear white light took its place on her gentle forward, as if her trouble had bleached off the earthly in her nature so her white soul could show through plain. Mebby she’d got willin’ to trust even his future with the Lord.

Dretful good to children and sick folks and them that wuz in trouble, Faith wuz. Good to her Pa, who wuz very disagreable in his last days, findin’ fault with his porridge and with sinners, and most of them round him. But she took care on him patient, rubbed his back and soaked his feet, and read the Sams to him, and reconciled him all she could, and finally he went out into the Great Onknown to find out his own mistakes if he had made any, and left Faith alone.

The house wuz a big square one with a large front yard with some Pollard willers standin’ 16 in a row in front on’t, through which the wind come in melancholy sithes into the great front chamber at night where Faith slept, or ruther lay. And the moon fallin’ through the willers made mournful reflections on the clean-painted floor, and I spoze Faith looked at ’em and read her past in the white cold rays and her future too.

She hired a man and his wife to live in part of the house, and she herself lived on there, a life as cold and colorless as a nun’s. But there wuz them that said that she loved that young West to-day jest as well as she did the day they parted, bein’ one of the constant naters that can’t forgit; that she kep’ his birthdays every year, but sarahuptishously, and on the anniversary of the day she parted with him, nobody ever see her from mornin’ till night.

The tall Pollard willers wuz the only ones that could look down into her chamber, and see how she looked, or what she wuz doin’. And they never told, only jest murmured and sithed, and kinder took on about it in their own way. But the next day, Faith always looked paler and sweeter than ever, they said.

Well, I wuz glad enough to see Faith. I think a sight on her and she of me, and we had 17 a real good time. Josiah sez to me the day after she come, “She is the flower of your family!”

And I told him I didn’t know as I should put it in jest that way, and he might jest as well be mejum, sez I, “You’re quite apt to demean the relation on my side, and if you take it into your head to praise one of the females, you no need to go too high.”

“Well,” he repeated, “she is the flower of the Smith race. Of course,” sez he, glancin’ at my liniment and then off towards the buttery full of good vittles, “I always except you, Samantha, who I consider the fairest flower that ever blowed out on the family tree of Smith.”

Josiah is a man of excelent judgment. But to resoom backward, I had a dretful good visit with Faith and enjoyed her bein’ with us the best that ever wuz. Instead of makin’ work she helped, though I told her not to. She would wipe and I would wash, and we would git through the dishes in no time. She hunted round in my work basket and found some nightcaps I’d begun and would finish ’em, put more work on ’em than I should, for I slight my every day sheep’s-head nightcaps. But she trimmed ’em and cat-stitched ’em, till they wuz beautiful to look upon. She wuz always very sweet and 18 gentle in her ways. As wuz said of her once, she entered a room so quietly and gracefully, she made all the other wimmen there feel as if they’d come in on horse-back. Now that I hadn’t seen her for some time, it seemed as if I hadn’t remembered how lovely and interestin’ she wuz.

We had a good visit talkin’ about the world’s work, and reciprocity, and Woman’s suffrage—which we both believed in—and hens, both settin’ and layin’. And we talked about the relation on our two sides. Of course, some of the wimmen hadn’t done as we thought they ort to; but we didn’t run ’em, only wuz sorry they wuz so different.

There wuz Aunt Nancy John and Aunt Nancy Jim, widders of the two old Smith twins. I told Faith I wuz sorry they wuzn’t more like her mother and mine, our mothers wuz so much better dispositioned, and fur better lookin’, and didn’t try to color their hair and act younger than they wuz; and Uncle Preserved’s boy, a lawyer, I told Faith it wuz a pity he wuzn’t more like our Thomas Jefferson, though it wuzn’t to be expected that there could be two boys amongst the relations so nearly perfect as Thomas Jefferson wuz; but I didn’t act 19 hauty, only wuz sorry he hadn’t turned out so well.

And Uncle Lemuel’s two girls, I said I wouldn’t want it told out of the family, but they wuz extravagant and slack, and their houses didn’t look much like Tirzah Ann’s and Maggie’s house. But we hadn’t ort to expect many such housekeepers as our children wuz. And we talked about the Thousand Islands and she promised to go out with Josiah and me the next summer if nothin’ happened. And Josiah then and there, tried to make us promise to go to Coney Island on our way there. “On our way,” sez I, “it would be five hundred milds out of our way!”

“And well worth it!” sez he, “to see what Serenus see, and hear what Serenus hearn. Why I git so carried away jest hearin’ about that magnificent spot that I have to fairly hang onto myself to keep from startin’ there to once bareheaded.”

“I know it, Josiah; you’ve acted luny about it. And if jest hearin’ about it harrers your nerve so, what would seein’ it do?”

“My nerve ain’t harrered,” he sez.

Sez I, “Can you deny I have had to give you quarts of catnip after you have had a seancy 20 with Serenus about that frivolous spot, full of hilarity and temptation?”

“Because you have drownded out my insides with catnip, it hain’t no sign I needed it. And I tell you, Samantha Allen, you may demean that grand glorious place all you’re a minter; I shall see it ere long. It is the shinin’ gole I have rared up in front of me and I’m bound to set on it.”

Sez I, “If you hain’t got any nobler gole than that ahead on you I pity you from the bottom of my heart.” And to kinder skair him I sez agin, “Do you, a Christian deacon, want to act frisky and go pleasure-huntin’ at your age?”

“Why,” sez he, “Serenus sez it is the most entrancin’ly beautiful and fascinatin’ spot on earth. He sez, and can prove, it is the biggest playground in the hull world, to say nothin’ of what you can learn there, and folks come from foreign countries jest to see it. Their first question when they land is, ‘Where is Coney Island? Lead me to it!’”

“Oh shaw!” sez I.

“Well, it is so, and why should such droves of folks go there if it hain’t worth it? Serenus sez and can prove, that a million folks go there in one day sometimes, and hundreds of thousands most every day.” 21

Sez I solemnly, “Do you remember the him, ‘Broad is the road that leads,’ you know where. ‘And thousands walk together there.’ Do you want to walk with ’em, Josiah?”

“Yes, I do, and lay out to.”

Oh how deep the pizen had gone into his solar system! I see scarin’ didn’t do no good, so I tried tender talk to wean him from the idee. I told him I thought too much on him to resk him there in such crowds. He wuz too small boneded and his head too weak to grapple with the lures and temptations that would surround him, and I’d never give my consent to his goin,’ much less lead him into temptation.

“Lead your granny!” sez he in a rough axent. And that wuz all the good my lovin’ talk did.

Faith said she didn’t care about goin’. But we took her to visit the children, though the day I took her to Whitfield’s he had of course, jest like Josiah, to ride that hobby of hisen which raced and cavorted round us, till before night he got us both most as wild as he wuz about the Islands. But she had to go from our house to Uncle Ornaldo Smithses, and had promised to visit friends out to Ohio durin’ the summer. I hated to have her go.

CHAPTER TWO

We set sail for Thousand Island Park and have a real good time, but Josiah murmurs about Coney.

25

CHAPTER TWO

WE SET SAIL FOR THOUSAND ISLAND
PARK AND HAVE A REAL GOOD TIME,
BUT JOSIAH MURMURS ABOUT CONEY.

Soon after, Whitfield wuz obleeged to go to Canada agin on that bizness and go through them Thousand Islands, and said he felt like jumpin’ off the boat, swimmin’ ashore and buyin’ the hull on ’em, they wuz so entrancin’ly lovely. But by holdin’ onto his principles and patience (of course he’d got quite a lot of patience, he’d been married a number of years) he managed to git through without jumpin’ off the boat and tacklin’ the job of buyin’ ’em, but said to himself, “If my life is spared to finish up that bizness I’ll come back and buy ten or a dozen.”

So sure enough on his way back he stopped off at Alexandria Bay and tackled a real estate agent to see what he would ask for a few islands close to the beautiful Bay. He had a idee, I spoze, of locatin’ the relation on his side and hern round on the different Islands, mebby an 26 island apiece. But to his surprise and horrow he found that the price for the smallest one wuz appallin’. But he vowed that if it took every cent of money he had (and he’s quite well off) he would own a piece of one big enough for a house.

So, after searchin’ both by water and by land, he found a buildin’ spot he felt able to buy. It wuz on one end of an island that wuz called Shadow Island, mebby because the shadder of the tall trees upon it wuz mirrored so plain in the water, makin’ it look as if there wuz another and fairer isle below.

There wuz a big empty house standin’ on one end of the Island, the owner bein’ in Europe and not wantin’ to rent it. There wuz a portion of it smooth and grassy, though the grass wuz kinder thin in places, the rocks come up so clost to the surface. But as I told Whitfield, stun is cleaner than dirt, and more healthy, unless you have ’em both throwed at you, in that case dirt is more healthy. He said the spot wuz dry and there wuz some hemlock and pine trees standin’ on one end on’t, and under ’em wuz a carpet of the rich brown leaves and pine needles that Whitfield thought would be beautiful for little Delight to play in. 27

And on the spot he’d picked out for a house the soil wuz deep enough for a good suller. Tirzah Ann always did love sullers; she kinder took to ’em. She has to go down suller most the first thing when she comes home visitin’. She never seems to want anything, only to sort o’ look round. Some say her ma wuz so; but there is worse things to take to than sullers, and I wuz glad enough there wuz a place there where Tirzah Ann could have one.

Well, I declare I fell in love with the place myself. And he beset us to go out and see it, and early in the summer we sot sail, the hull on us, for the Thousand Island Park, a good noble campin’ ground, though middlin’ hot in some spots. I’ve been asked what made it so much hotter there round the Tabernacle than it was up to Summer Land, where the Universalists wuz encamped. And I don’t spoze it is because they believe in hotter places, but it kinder sets folks to thinkin’. Both places are pleasant and cool enough in moderate weather.

I hadn’t no idee that so beautiful a spot wuz so nigh us. For as near as we’ve lived to ’em, Josiah and I never laid eyes on them islands before. But I’ve hearn of folks that lived within’ hearin’ of Niagara Falls that never see 28 that grand and stupendous wonder of the world; they didn’t see it just because they could. Queer, hain’t it? But it is a law of nater, and can’t be changed.

So one warm lovely mornin’ we sot out. We went by way of Cape Vincent which we found afterwards wuzn’t the nearest way, but we didn’t care, for it gin us a bigger and longer view of the noble St. Lawrence. Cape Vincent is a good-lookin’ place, though like Josiah and myself, it looks as if it had been more lively and frisky in its younger days. Pretty soon the big boat hove in sight. We embarked and got good seats, Whitfield full of bliss to think he wuz started for his islands.

And sure enough, tongue can never tell the beauty and grandeur we floated by that afternoon; nor pen can’t, no, a quill pen made out of a eagle’s wing couldn’t soar high enough. And my emotions, as I took in that seen, would been a perfect sight if anybody could got holt of ’em, as I rode along on that mighty river that is more like a ocean than a river, holdin’ the water that flows from the five great inland seas of North America, the only absolutely tide-less river in the world. It is so immense in size that the spring freshets that disturbs other big 29 rivers has no effect on its mighty depths, though once in a while, every three years, I think it is, the river draws in her old breath in an enormous sithe two or three feet deep, and stays so for some time. I d’no what makes it nor nobody duz. But truly there is enough in this old world to sithe about, as deep sithes as a mortal or a river can heave.

But to resoom forwards. The beautiful river bore us onwards, the green shores receedin’ on each side till pretty soon it got to be not much shore but seemin’ly all river, all freshness and freedom and blue sparklin’ water, and blue sky above. Nater wuz foldin’ us in her faithful arms and sweepin’ us away from the too civilized world into the freshness and onstudied beauty of her own hants.

I sot there perfectly entranced, and nothin’ occurred to break my rapt musin’s save my pardner’s request for a nut cake and a biled egg, and a longin’ murmer about Coney Island and a wish that he wuz started for there. But that didn’t seem to quell my emotions down. I handed the food to him with a hand that seemed some distance off from my real self.

The first big island we went by wuz called Carleton. Standin’ on it, loomin’ up tall and 30 solemn and mysterious, wuz some high stun towers. They stood up there as if tellin’ us how little we knew. They looked like great exclamation points set there to express the futility of our boasted knowledge.

Who built them chimblys? Who started the fires under ’em? Who drinked the tea that wuz steeped there? What kind of tea wuz it? Did the water bile? How did them tea drinkers feel and look and act while them chimblys carried off the smoke of their fire? What wuz their highest aspirations and idees? What wuz their deepest joy and keenest pain? What goles did they see ahead on ’em, and did they ever set down on them goles? I can’t tell nor Josiah can’t. A hundred years ago one moulderin’ old head-stun leaned over the grave of one of that company. Wuz it a glad or a sad heart that rested there in that ancient grave? Well, the sadness or the joy is jest as much lost and forgot as the smoke that wafted up towards the sky on the June and December mornin’s of 1600 odd.

As I thought of all these things, them lofty towers riz up like gigantick skeleton fingers outstretched mockin’ly. They seemed to be sayin’ to me and Josiah and the world at large, “You 31 may boast of your inventions, your marvels of this age, your civilization, your glory, your pryin’ into dark continents and unexplored regions of land and science. But what do you know anyway? Of what consequence are you? How soon your life and your memory will be utterly wiped out and forgotten. How soon the careless sun will forget the shadow you cast on the earth’s bosom. How soon the green grass of the forgettin’ earth will grow fresh and untrodden and cover up the traces of your eager footsteps, no matter how deep you thought you had made the track you walked in. How soon it is all wiped away as if it had never been. And Mom Nater, instead of weepin’ over your loss, goes on wreathin’ new flowers for new hands to gather, and mebby forgits to drop even a bud on the dusty mound where you lay sleepin’—the sleep of long forgetfulness.

“Of what account are you anyway? Poor blind voyagers, floatin’ by me jest as so many generations have gone past—canoe and white sails floatin’ along, floatin’ along, comin’ in view of me in the fur blue hazy distance, comin’ into the broad light before me and glidin’ off and disappearin’ in the shadows. Forever and ever, new ones comin,’ comin’, goin’, goin’, year after 32 year, generation after generation. And here we have stood calm, settled down, pintin’ up into the heavens where our history is gathered up, where the ones that made our history are gathered like the drops of spray from the river that has washed on the shores at our feet, and then evaporated up agin into the blue sky.”

And as I lost sight of them stun towers in the distance, they seemed to say, “Float on, poor voyagers; float along with your pitiful little crumbs of knowledge and wisdom carried so proudly. How soon the shadows will drift apart to take you into ’em and then close up and hold you there forever. And out of the shinin’ west new faces will come growin’ plainer and plainer as the boat draws near; they will shine out full and clear in front of me and then glide away into the mist—I shall lose sight of ’em jest as I do of you to-day. Comin’! comin’! goin’! goin’! They will look at me and wonder jest as you do to-day, and I will say to ’em jest as I do to you, ‘Hail and farewell!’”

Oh what emotions I did have! And I hadn’t more’n got to this pint in my meditatin’, when I hearn a voice on the off side on me (Josiah wuz on the nigh side).

The voice said, “Oh how I wish I could be 33 put back there jest a minute and see what them tall towers see when they wuz built!”

I felt that here wuz a congenial soul and I felt friendly to him as one would hail a familiar sail when they wuz floatin’ on foreign waters. The voice went on:

“Oh how I wish I could be a fly, and fly back there for a hour.”

Instinctively I looked round. The speaker weighed three hundred pounds if he did an ounce, and the idee of his bein’ turned into a fly seemed to bring down my soarin’ emotions more than considerable. Truly, we ort to be careful how we handle metafors. If he’d said he wanted to be changed into a elephant or a camel, or even a horse, it wouldn’t have seemed so curious, but a fly!!! Dear me!

Clayton is a good-lookin’ drowsy sort of a place, and kinder mixed up lookin’ from the aft forecastle, where I stood; but at last the little foot bridge that connected us with the shore wuz took up, the old boat gin a loud yell to skair the children and young folks back from the water’s edge, and the boat riders from fallin’ off the boat, and we sot out agin and floated along.

And now pretty soon the islands grew closter 34 and closter together, and we wouldn’t no more than go by one lovely one, than another more perfect lookin’ hove in sight, and then another and another, each one seemin’ly more beautiful than the last.

Some times we would go clost up to the shore, by islands whose green forests swep’ clear down to the water’s edge, makin’ the water look green and cool and shady, and the water would narrow itself down between two houses seemin’ly jest to be accomodatin’, and run along between ’em like a little rivulet with water lilies and buttercups dippin’ down into it on each side and boys wadin’ acrost. Jest think on’t, that big noble-sized river, dwindlin’ itself down jest to obleege somebody.

And sometimes big houses would loom up jest above the water’s edge, their daintily shaded winders lookin’ down into the green waves and reflected there, anon a stately mansion would set back a little with towers and pinnacles risin’ above the green trees, and cool shady walks windin’ by summer houses and bright posy beds, and gayly dressed folks walkin’ along the beautiful paths, and mebby a pretty girl settin’ in a boat, and a hull fleet of boats filled with gay pleasure seekers would glide along like gayly 35 plumed sea birds, and fur in the distance and on every side white sails would sail on like bigger birds of white plumage, all set out for the Isle of Happiness.

I pinted out the metafor to Josiah.

“Isle of Happiness?” he sez, sort o’ dreamy like. “That’s right. Serenus sez its everywhere, all over the place.”

“What place?” sez I, suspicion darkenin’ my foretop.

“Why, Coney Island,” sez he, “that’s the only Isle of Happiness I ever hearn tell on.”

I gin him a look. “Would you compare Coney Island with the beautiful Isle of Happiness that the poets sing on?” I sez, severe like.

“Where is it?” sez he.

“Why,” sez I, “It ain’t ennywheres. Its a metafor of the brain.”

“Is it ketchin’?” sez he. “Seems to me I’ve hearn tell of that disease before!” And then before I could gin him an indignant response, he stuck his fingers in his ears and sot there grinnin’ like a jimpanzee all the time I wuz speakin’ out my mind. But to resoom.

Anon a bridge would rise up its fairy arch and connect two islands together, each one holdin’ a mansion that looked like a palace, 36 and the bright awnin’s of the winders, the pillars and pinnacles, and gay colors, reflected in the water makin’ fairy palaces below as well as above, and made the hull seen as we journeyed on one of enchantment, that would made the grand Vizier of Bagdad turn green with envy. And every palace, mansion, and cottage had its pretty boat-house, with the water layin’ there smooth and invitin’ waitin’ for the boats to be lanched on its bosom, actin’ for all the world like a first class family stream, warranted to carry safe and not kick and act in the harness. And then mebby the very next minute it would swell itself out agin, and be twenty or thirty milds acrost, rushin’, hurryin’, and dashin’ itself along, hastenin’ to the sea.

Actin’ as if it had sunthin’ dretful pressin’ and important to tell it, and mebby it had. Who knows the language of the liquid waves as they whisper to each other on sunny beaches and at the meetin’ of placid waters, makin’ love to each other like as not—one tellin’ the other of the sweet cow-slip and ferny medders it had to leave at the loud call of its love, the River. The River murmuring back deep words of worship and gratitude at the feet of its newly arrived love. 37

And then mebby the comin’ rivulet complains, moanin’ kinder low and sorrowful, as it swashes up on sharp stuny beaches, for what it left behind. Meadows and orchards full of May’s rosy blossoms, low grassy shores fringed with flowers and fresh, shinin’ grasses. And white, dimpled baby feet mebby that waded out in its cool shallows. Pretty faces that bent over its sheltered pools, as in a lookin’ glass, wavin’ locks that scattered gold light down into the water, bright eyes that shone like stars above it. I shouldn’t wonder a mite if it missed ’em and tried to say so in its gentle, pensive swish, swash, swish.

And then mebby the River resented it and kinder roared at it; mebby that is what it is sayin’ in its louder and more voylent tones, upbraidin’ it for lookin’ back to its more single and lonesome career, when it now has Him! Him! Rush! Roar! Crush! Roar! Roar!

We can’t tell what the river is talkin’ about, in its calm gentle moods or its voylent ones. Who knows what the loud angry scream and screech of the deep waves say as the tempest and storm presses down on ’em and the Deep answers back in a voice of thunder, with its great heart beatin’ and heavin’ up and throbbin’ 38 in its mad pain and frenzy? Who knows what it is roarin’ out, as it meets opposin’ forces, wave and rock, and dashes aginst ’em—fightin’ and dashin’ and tryin’ to vanquish ’em like as not? Who can translate the voice of the waters? I can’t, nor Josiah, nor nobody.

CHAPTER THREE

We seek Quiet and Happiness in their beautiful hants and mingle with the pleasure seekers of Alexandria Bay.

41

CHAPTER THREE

WE SEEK QUIET AND HAPPINESS IN THEIR BEAUTIFUL HANTS AND MINGLE WITH
THE PLEASURE SEEKERS OF ALEXANDRIA BAY.

Sometimes we would sail through the green water, so clost to the shore we could almost pick off some of the cedar and pine boughs as we went past, and we could look off into the green and sunny aisles of the trees into beautiful solitude and quiet. And we’d want to foller Quiet and Happiness back into them beautiful hants. And then agin, we’d float by an island where there would be lots of white tents, with wimmen and children and men and boys standin’ out wavin’ their handkerchiefs and shoutin’ to us, good natered and sociable.

And agin we’d go by a kinder high island with a tall, noble mansion standin’ up on it with towers and balconies, and winders all ornamented off, and flags a-flyin’. And every house and every tentin’ ground had their own little 42 wharfs runnin’ down into the water and boats hitched to ’em, jest as we’d hitch the old mair and colt to a hitchin’ post. And most of ’em had picturesque boat-houses painted up like the houses.

And all of these pretty houses and towers and flags and boats and everything wuz reflected down into the water, so there wuz handsome pictures above, and still more extremely beautiful ones below. For the sunlight shadow pictures wuz more beautiful fur than the reality, as is often the case. Every little sail-boat and canoe had its white shadder floatin’ along by it, shinin’ out from the blue and sea-green surface of the water.

Josiah wuz turrible interested in tryin’ to see if the reflections wuz exactly like the real seen up above, and he kept leanin’ over the edge of the boat tryin’ to turn his head upside down so’s to git a better look, and at last he nearly fell overboard into the water only I grabbed him quick.

Sometimes,—I don’t know what made it,—there would be long lines of light in different colors layin’ on the water; long waveless furrows of palest amethyst, lilock, pale rose-color, and pearl, soft green and blue, way off 43 and near to, wide and long and changin’ all the time. Why, some of the time it would seem as if the surface of the river wuz a shinin’ pavement made of them glowin’ and lustrous colors, that you might walk out on. And then agin, cold Reality would say to you that if you tried it, you’d most probable git drownded.

Anon we went by a island with a house standin’ on it, the hull thing seemin’ly nothin’ but house right in the strongest current of the river, and on the end of the island wuz a wheel fixed that run all the machinery of the house, lightin’ it, and pumpin’ water, and runnin’ the coffee mill and sewin’ machine, and rockin’ the cradle, for all I know.

The river waitin’ on ’em, and doin’ it cheerful. A soarin’ soul of power and might, so strong that a wink from its old eye-lids could swallow up a fleet of ships, and a flirt of its fingers overthrow a army of strongest men and toss ’em about like leaves on an autumn gale. To see such a powerful, noble body, that wuz used to doin’ the biggest kind of jobs, quietly bucklin’ down pumpin’ water to supply a tea-kettle, and churn a little butter, mebby!

Why, thinks I, what a lesson to hired girls that is, they’re always so fraid of doin’ a little 44 more than it is their place to do. They’re so fraid of settin’ back a chair, if it is their place to cook, and so afraid of bilin’ a egg if it is their place to slick up the house. Why, it wuz a lesson in morals to see that big grand river crumplin’ down to do housework for a spell.

Frontenac Island used to be called Round Island, I guess because it wuz kinder square in shape. It is a handsome place with a immense hotel[A] settin’ back most a quarter of a mild, and jined by a long railed balcony with another, makin’ room enough, it seemed to me, for an army. The broad, handsome path leadin’ up to it wuz bordered with beautiful flowers and shrubs, lookin’ lovely against the vivid green of the lawn.

I liked the name Frontenac first rate, and Point Vivian, and the name of the hotel on St. Lawrence Park, Lotus, seemed highly appropriate for the idle hours of rest and pleasure in the balmy summer-time.

And that park, while it could pass itself off for an island, wuz really the main land. And if you wanted a doctor on a dark, stormy night, you could get one without going on the wild 45 waves; and if you got skairt in the night and sot off to run, you could run as fur as you wanted to without gittin’ drownded.

I spoke to Josiah about this and he agreed with me, though he took the occasion to bring in Coney Island, much to my shagrin.

“I wish,” sez he, “I wish we could stop off somewheres and git a hot dog.”

“A hot dog?” sez I, consternation showin’ in my foretop. “Don’t you know that dogs roamin’ round loose and overhet in this sultry weather is apt to git mad and bite you?”

“’Tain’t that kind of animile I mean. I mean the kind they eat—in Coney Island.”

“Do they eat dogs in Coney Island?” I asks in a faint voice.

“Yes,” sez he.

“And would you eat enny on’t?”

“Why not?” sez he.

“Why not?” I cries regainin’ my voice to once. “Josiah Allen, have you became a canibal like them as lives in heathen lands and welcomes civilized folks with open mouths?”

“Oh,” sez he, “’tain’t nothin’ like that. These dogs hain’t made o’ people. No, they air made from sassiges and cooked in front of 46 a open grate fire. They call ’em hot dogs and Serenus sez—”

I didn’t gin him no chance to tell what Serenus sez. I sez many things to him there and then that wuz calculated to make him forgit Coney Island for awhile.

But to resoom forwards. We went by a big castle that wuz built up on a hill on a island of considerable size with quite a grove of trees on it. It wuz a noble, gray stun castle, with high towers and pinnacles shinin’ up toward the blue sky—Castle Rest, its name wuz, and I thought most probable anybody could rest there first rate. The one that built it and the one it wuz built for, had gone up into another castle to rest, the great Castle of Rest, whose walls can’t be moved by any earthly shock. A good little mother it wuz built for, a hard-workin’, patient, tired-out little mother, who wuz left with a house full of boys, and not much in the house, only boys. How she worked and toiled to keep ’em comfortable and git ’em headed right, washin’, cookin’, makin’, and mendin’; learnin’ ’em truthfulness, honesty, and industry with their letters; teachin’ ’em the multiplication table and the commandments; trimmin’ off their childish faults, same 47 as she did their hair; clippin’ ’em off with her own anxious lovin’ hands. Mebby puttin’ a bowl on their heads and cuttin’ round it, or else shinglin’ ’em. But ’tennyrate doin’ her best for them, soul and body, till she got ’em headed right. Some on ’em givin’ their hull lives to help men’s souls, lovin’ this old world mebby for their ma’s sake, because it held so many other good wimmen; for they jest about worshipped her all on ’em. And one of her boys, while the rest of ’em wuz helpin’ men and wimmen to build up better lives, he wuz buildin’ up his creed of helpfulness and improvement in bricks and mortar, tryin’ to do good, there hain’t a doubt on’t.

Mebby them walls didn’t stand so firm as the others did, and tottled more now and then. Strange, hain’t it, that solid bricks and stuns, that you feel and see, are less endurin’ and firm than the things you can’t see—changed lives, faith, hope, charity, love to God, good-will to man, and that whiter ideals and loftier aims and desires may tower up higher than any chimbly that ever belched out smoke.

Curious it is so, but so it is. But ’tennyrate this one son rode on his sleepin’ cars right into millions, and his first thought wuz how he could 48 please best the little Mother. So he built a castle for her. Tired little feet, walkin’ the round of humble duties, waitin’ on her small boys, did they ever expect to tread the walls of a castle? Her own too. I’ll bet it seemed dretful big to her, or would anyway if it hadn’t been so full, so runnin’ over full of the love and thoughtfulness of all of her boys—and Love will fill and glorify cottage or castle.

But here she come yearly and gathered her strong, stalwart sons about her, welcomin’ them with the same old tender smile, and constant love, and she, wropt completely round in the warm atmosphere of their love and devotion. Year after year went happily by till the last time came, and she went away out of her high castle into a still higher one. But I liked Castle Rest, for it seemed a monument riz up to faithful, patient mothers fur and near, rich and poor, by the hand of filial gratitude and love.

Comfort Island is real comfortable lookin’, and Friendly Island looked friendly and neighborly. And Nobby Island looked grand and stately instead of nobby, the great house settin’ up there on a high rock with big green lawns and windin’ paths under the shade trees, and the bright faced posies on its tall banks peekin’ over to see their faces in the deep water below, and mebby lookin’ for the kind master who had gone away to stay.

49

“I liked Castle Rest. It seemed a monument riz up to faithful, patient mothers by the hand of filial gratitude and love.” (See page 48)

50

And pretty soon our boat sorter turned round and backed up graceful into Alexandria Bay, and we hitched it there and lay off agin the harbor real neighborly. There wuz two hotels there in plain sight, each one on ’em as long as from our house to Miss Derias Bobbettses, all fixed off with piazzas and porticos and pillows and awnin’s and handsome colors from the basement clear up—up—up to the ruff, and the grounds laid out perfectly beautiful. Grass plats and terraces and long flights of stairs, and glowin’ flower beds and summer houses and long smooth walks and short ones, and everything. And folks all the time santerin’ up and down the terraces and walks, and up and down the piazzas and balconies.

It beat all what a lot of steam yots and sailboats there wuz all round us. It seemed as if every island had a boat of its own and had sent ’em all to Alexandria Bay that mornin’. I thought mebby they’d hearn we wuz comin’, and they wuz there to git a glimpse of us. But Whitfield said the boats come to git the mail, and mebby it wuz so. 51

Every yot wuz tootin’ on its own separate engine; it made the seen lively but not melogious. One of the boats had a whistle that sounded as if you’d begin to holler down real low and then let your voice rise gradual till you yelled out jest as loud as you could, and then died down your yell agin real low.

It sounded curous. I hearn it wuz tryin’ to raise and fall the eight notes, and it riz and fell ’em I should judge.

Some of the yots had a loud shrill whistle, some a little, fine clear one; then one would belch out low and deep some like thunder. And anon our steamer thundered forth its own deep belchin’ whistle, and turned round graceful and backed off, and puffed, puffed back agin down the bay.

As we turned round, a bystander, standin’ by, spoke of Bonnie Castle. It stood up sort o’ by itself on a rock one side of Alexandria Bay. And I wondered if Holland’s earnest soul that had thought so much on’t once, ever looked down on it now. For instance when the full moon wuz high in the cloudless sky, and Bonnie Castle riz up fair as a dream, with blue clear sky above, and silence, and deep blue shinin’ water below—and silence. And mebby some 52 night bird singin’ out of the pretty green garden to its mate in the cool shadows. I wondered if the lovin’ soul who created it ever looked down from the blessed life, with love and longin’ to the old earth-nest—home of his heart. I spozed that he did, but couldn’t tell for certain. For the connection has never been made fast and plain on the Star Route to Heaven. Love rears its stations here and tries to take the bearin’s, but we hain’t quite got the wires to jine. Sometimes we feel a faint jarrin’ and thrill as if there wuz hands workin’ on the other end of the line. We feel the thrill, we see the glow of the signal lights they hold up, but we can’t quite ketch the words. We strain our ears through the darkness—listening! listening!

Right acrost from Alexandria Bay is Heart Island; you’d know it at night if you couldn’t see the island, for a big heart of flashin’ electric lights is lifted up on a high pole, that can be seen fur and near. As well as the big shinin’ cross of light that is lifted up every night on another island nigh by in memory of a sweet soul that used to live there, and is lookin’ down on it now, more’n as likely as not.

Heart Island is owned by a rich New York man. It is almost covered with buildin’s of 53 different sizes and ruined castles (the ruins all new, you know; ruined a-purpose), the buildin’s made of the gray stun the island is composed of. And there are gorgeous flower beds and lawns green as emerald, and windin’ walks lined with statuary, and rare vases runnin’ over with blossoms and foliage, and a long, cool harbor, fenced in with posies where white swans sail, archin’ up their proud necks as if lookin’ down on common ducks and geese. There wuz ancient stun architecture, and modern wood rustic work, and I sez to Josiah, “They believe in not slightin’ any of the centuries; they’ve got some of most every kind of architecture from Queen Mary down to Taft.”

And he sez, “It is a crackin’ good plan too; amongst all on ’em they’re sure to git some of the best.”

“Yes,” sez I, “and it shows a good-hearted sperit too, not wantin’ to slight anybody.”

Jest then I heard a bystander say, “Amongst all the places to the Islands, this place and Browney’s take the cake.”

Brownings is another beautiful place just round the corner where the flower-garlanded rocks looks down into the deep clear waters anxious to see their own beauty. And a handsome 54 residence a little back and a big farm full of everything desirable.

Only a little way acrost from Alexandria Bay is Westminster Park, a handsome little village, with a big hotel set back under its green trees and lots of cottages round it. A nice meetin’ house too, and everything else for its comfort. And all the way to the Methodist place we wuz bound for, fair islands riz up out of the water, crowned with trees and houses and tents and everything. No sooner would you go by one, than another would hove in sight. Anon we come in sight of a little village of houses fringin’ the shore, called Fair View, and our next stoppin’ place wuz the Camp ground. I’d hearn, time and agin, they wuz so strict there you’d have to pay for every step you took from the ship to your boarding place. And if you said anything, you would have to pay so much a word; or if you sithed, you’d have to pay so much a sithe, or breathe deep you would have to pay accordin’ to the deepness of your breath.

But it wuzn’t no such thing; we never paid a cent, and I sithed deep and frequent on the way up from the wharf, for weariness lay holt of me and also little Delight. She preferred hangin’ onto me ruther than her parents. And 55 I’d hearn that you’d be fined for laughin’, and for a snicker or giggle; but I heard several snickers (Whitfield is full of fun, and young folks will be young folks, and talk and laugh) and not one cent did we see asked for ’em. Why, I’d hearn that they wouldn’t let a good smart whiff of wind land there on Sunday. The trustees kep’ ’em off and preached at ’em, and made ’em blow off Clayton way.

And I wuz told that the Sea Serpent (you know he always duz like summer resorts), took it into his head to go to the Islands one summer and happened to git to the Thousand Island Park on Sunday, and wuz swoshin’ round in the water in front of the dock, kinder switchin’ his tail and actin’. And the trustees got wind on’t and went down with rails and tracts and they railed at him, and exhorted him and made him fairly ashamed of bein’ round on Sunday. And wantin’ to do a clean job with him, bein’ dretful mad at his bein’ out on the Sabbath day, they got a copy of their laws and restrictions governin’ the Park, and they said when the serpent hearn that long document read over, he jest switched his tail, kinder disgusted like, and turned right round in the water and headed off for Kingston. 56

But I don’t believe a word on it. I don’t believe much in the sea serpent anyway, and I don’t believe it ever come nigh the Thousand Island Park grounds—only the usual old serpent of Evil, that the good Christians there fight agin all they can.

[A]

The great hotel which Samantha here describes was destroyed by fire in August last.

CHAPTER FOUR

We enjoy the hospitalities of Whitfield’s aunt’s boardin’-house at the Park, and my pardner goes a-fishin’

59

CHAPTER FOUR

WE ENJOY THE HOSPITALITIES OF WHITFIELD’S AUNT’S BOARDIN’-HOUSE AT THE PARK, AND MY PARDNER GOES A-FISHIN’

Whitfield’s aunt kep’ a small boardin’-house at the Park. Of course we knew it would be fur more genteel to go to the hotel, which loomed up stately, settin’ back on its green lawn right in front of us, as the ship swep’ into the harbor.

But Josiah sez, “The tender ties of relationship hadn’t ort to, in fact musn’t be broke by us, and Miss Dagget would probable feel dretful hurt if she knowed we wuz to the Park and had passed her coldly by.” (She didn’t ask half so much for our boards as the hotel did; that wuz where the boot pinched on my pardner’s old feet.)

Whitfield said we had better go to Aunt Dagget’s that night anyway, so we went. We found she lived in a good-lookin’ cottage, and we had everything we needed for comfort. She wuz a tall, scrawny woman, with good 60 principles and a black alpacky dress, too tight acrost the chest, but she seemed glad to see us and got a good supper, broiled steak, creamed potatoes, and cake, and such, and we all did justice to it—yes indeed.

After supper we walked out to the post office, and round in front of the houses—very sociable and nigh together they are. It must be dretful easy to neighbor there, most too easy. Why, I don’t see how a woman can talk to her husband on duty, if he goes in his stockin’ feet, or stays out late nights, or acts; I don’t see how she can do the subject justice and not have everybody in the encampment know it. Too neighborly by fur!

But off some little distance, good-lookin’ houses stood with Seclusion and Solitude guardin’ their front doors—likely guards them be, and beloved by Samantha. And back of the Island, glancin’ through the trees, wuz the same clear blue sparklin’ waters of the St. Lawrence. They said they wuz Canada waters, but I didn’t see no difference, the water wuz jest as blue and sparklin’ and clear.

We retired early and our beds wuz quite comfortable, though as I told Josiah, I had seen bigger pillers, and I wuz more settled in my 61 mind, as to whether the feathers in ’em wuz geese or hen.

He said he wuz glad to lay his head down on anything that would hold it up.

And after I remembered that Miss Dagget’s bed wuz jest the other side of the thin board partition. I sez, “Yes, Josiah, with weariness and a easy conscience, any bed will seem soft as downy pillows are.”

The next day I felt pretty mauger and stayed in my room most of the time, though Josiah and the children sallied round considerable. But after supper I felt better and went out and set down on the piazza that run along the front of the house, and looked round and enjoyed myself first rate.

Way off, between the trees and between the houses, I could see the dear old Saint meanderin’ along, blue and gold colored where the sun struck the shining surface. And, dearer sight to me, I could catch a glimpse through the interstices of the trees, of my beloved pardner and little Delight in her white dress and flutterin’ blue ribbons walkin’ along by his side. Whitfield and Tirzah Ann had gone santerin’ off some time before.

The hour and the seen wuz both beautiful 62 and soothin’. The little streets between the houses stretched out on every side, some on ’em bordered with trees. Gay awnings wuz over the doors and winders, flowering shrubs and posies set off the yards, and the piazzas ornamented by the good-lookin’ folks settin’ out on chairs and benches, the wimmen in light, pretty summer gowns, and there wuz babies in their perambulators perambulatin’ along and pretty children runnin’ and playin’ about.

Anon or oftener a group of good-lookin’ cottagers would sally out of their houses and santer along, or a pedestrian in a hurry would walk by. It seemed like the land where it is always afternoon, that I’d hearn Thomas J. read about,

The island valley of Avilion,
Where falls not rain or hail or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly—
Deep meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows, crowned by summer sea.

It wuz a fair seen! a fair seen! and my soul seemed attuned to its perfect harmony and peace. When all of a sudden I hearn these strange and skairful words comin’ like a sharp shower of hail from a clear June sky:—

“Malviny is goin’ to freeze to-night!” 63

There wuz a skairful axent on the word “freeze” that seemed to bring all of Malviny’s sufferin’s right in front of me. But so strong is my common sense that even in that agitatin’ time I thought to myself, as I wiped the perspiration from my foretop, “Good land! what is Malviny made of to be even comfortable cool to say nothin’ of freezin’.” And my next thought wuz, “What sort of a place have I got into?” Truly, I had read much of the hardenin’ effects of fashion and style, but I little thought they would harden so fearful hard. None of these men and wimmen settin’ on them piazzas had gin any more attention to the blood-curdlin’ news that a feller creeter so nigh ’em wuz perishin’, no more than if they’d seen a summer leaf flutterin’ down from the boughs overhead.

I thought of the rich man and Lazarus, only kinder turned round and freezin’ instead of burnin’. I felt bad and queer. But anon he drew nigh the porch I wuz settin’ on and looked up into my face with the same harrowin’ statement, “Malviny is a-goin’ to freeze to-night!”

And I said, with goose pimples runnin’ down my back most as bad as I mistrusted as Malviny had, “Who is Malviny?” 64

He stopped and sez, “She is my wife.”

His indifferent mean madded me and I sez, “Well, you good-for-nothin’ snipe you, instead of traipsin’ all over the neighborhood tellin’ of your wife’s state, why hain’t you to home buildin’ a fire and heatin’ soap stuns and bricks, and steepin’ pepper tea?”

“What for?” sez he, amazed like.

“Why, to keep Malviny from freezin’.”

“I don’t want to stop it,” sez he.

Sez I, “Do you want your wife to freeze?”

“Yes,” sez he.

Sez I, lookin’ up and apostophrizin’ the clear sky that looked down like a big calm blue eye overhead, “Are such things goin’ on here in a place so good that folks can’t git a letter Sundays to save their lives, or embark to see their friends if they’re dyin’ or dead; is such a place,” I groaned, “to condone such wickedness!”

Sez the man, “What harm is there in Malviny’s freezin’?”

Sez I, “You heartless wretch, you! if I wuz a man I’d shake some of the wickedness out of you, if I had to be shot up the minute afterwards!”

“What harm is there in freezin’ ice-cream?” sez he. 65

Sez I, astounded, “Is that what Malviny’s freezin’?”

“Yes,” sez he.

I sunk back weak as a cat.

Sez he, “I bring it round to the cottages every time Malviny freezes; they give me their orders if they want any.”

“Well,” sez I in a faint voice, “I don’t want any.” Truly I felt that I had had enough chill and shock for one day.

Well, Whitfield and Tirzah Ann come in pretty soon and she wuz all enthused with the place. They’d been up the steep windin’ way to Sunrise Mountain, and gazed on the incomparable view from there. Looked right down into the wind-kissed tops of the lofty trees and all over ’em onto the broad panaroma of the river, with its innumerable islands stretched out like a grand picture painted by the one Great Artist. They had seen the little artist’s studio, perched like a eagle’s nest on top of the mountain. Some dretful pretty pictures there, both on the inside of the studio and outside.

And they had stopped at the Indian camp, and Tirzah bought some baskets which they see the Indians make right before their eyes out of the long bright strips of willow. And I spoze, 66 seein’ the brown deft fingers weavin’ their gay patterns, Tirzah Ann wuz carried back some distance into the land of romance and Cooper’s novels, and “Lo the Poor Indian” Stories. She’s very romantick.

And she’d gone into the place where they blow glass right before your eyes and then cut your name on it. I couldn’t do it to save my life. I might jest as well give right up if I wuz told that I had got to blow jest a plain bottle out of some sand and stuff. And they blow out the loveliest, queerest things you ever see: ships in full sail with the ropes and riggin’ of the most delicate and twisted strands of brilliancy; tall exquisite vases with flowers twisted all about ’em. Posies of all kinds, butterflies, cups, tumblers, etc. They had been into all the little art and bookstores, full of pictures and needle work, shells, painted stuns, books, and the thousand and one souvenirs of all kinds of the Thousand Islands. When Josiah come in he said he had interviewed ten or a dozen men about Coney Island—all on ’em had been there—I wuz discouraged, I thought I might jest as well let him loose with Serenus.

Well, Whitfield of course couldn’t wait another minute, without seein’ Shadow Island, 67 so the next day we went over there right after dinner. Josiah proposed enthusiastickly to fish on the way there. Sez he, “Samantha, how I do wish we could git a periouger to go in.”

“A what?” sez I.

“A periouger,” sez he, “that we could go fishin’ in, a very uneek boat.”

“Uneek!” sez I, “I should think as much. Where did you ever ever hear on’t?”

“In Gasses Journal, Gass used to go round in ’em.”

Sez I, “That book wuz published before George Washington wuz born, or Bunker Hill thought on.”

“What of it?” sez he; “that wouldn’t hender a periouger from bein’ a crackin’ good convenience to go round on the water in, and I’m goin’ to try to git one to-day. I bet my hat they have ’em to Coney Island.”

I tried to stop him. I didn’t want him to demean himself before the oarsmen and onlookers by tryin’ to find boats that hadn’t been hearn on in hundreds of years. But I couldn’t git the idea out of his head till after dinner. Then he wuz more meller and inclined to listen to reason. It wuz a oncommon good meal, and he felt quite softened down in his mean by the time he finished. And Whitfield’s boatman he’d engaged come with a good sizeable boat and we sot sail for Shadow Island.

68

“I tried to stop him. I didn’t want him to demean himself before the oarsmen tryin’ to find boats that hadn’t been hearn on in hundreds of years.” (See page 67)

69

When we got there the sun wuz tingin’ the tops of the trees with its bright light, but the water on the nigh side, where we landed, wuz cool and green and shadowy. Dretful fresh and restful and comfortable that hot muggy day.

We disembarked on the clean little wharf and walked up to the lot Whitfield had bought. It wuz a pretty place in a kind of a holler between high rocks, but with a full and fair view of the river on the nigh side, on the off side and on the back the tall trees riz up. The site of the house mebby bein’ so low down wuz the reason that there wuz good deep earth there. Tirzah Ann spoke of that most the first thing:—

“I can have a good suller, can’t I?”

Whitfield spoke first of the view from the river, and little Delight sez, “Oh what soft pretty grass.”

Josiah looked round for a minute on the entrancin’ beauty of the water and the islands and up into the green shadders of the trees overhead, and then off into the soft blue haze that wrapped the beautiful shores in the distance. 70 After gazin’ silently for a minute he turned to me and sez, “Didn’t you bring any nut cakes with you? I’d like one to eat whilst I think of another Island far more beautiful than this, where I yearn to be.”

I groaned in spirit but handed him the desired refreshment, and then we talked over the subject of the cottage. Whitfield thought it would be splendid for the health of Tirzah Ann and the children, to say nothin’ of their happiness. She and Delight both looked kinder pimpin’, and he sez, “Mother, I’ve got the lot, and now I am going to lay up money just as fast as I can for our house; I hope we can live here in a year or two anyway.”

Well, we stayed here for quite a spell, Whitfield and Tirzah Ann buildin’ castles higher than Castle Rest, on the foundations of their rosy future, underlaid with youth and glowin’ hope—the best-lookin’ underpinnin’ you can find anywhere. And little Delight rolled on the green moss and built her rosy castles in the illumined present, as children do. And I looked off onto the fur blue waters some as if I wuz lookin’ into the past. And furder off than I could see the water, the meller blue haze lay that seemed to unite earth and heaven, and I 71 looked on it, and way off, way off, and thought of a good many things.

Josiah wuz tryin’ to ketch a fish for supper; the boatman had a pole and fish hook, but he couldn’t ketch any, he hadn’t any nack; it takes nack to ketch fish as well as worms.

CHAPTER FIVE

Josiah’s imagination about his fishin’ exploits carries him to a pint where I have to rebuke him, which makes him dretful huffy

75

CHAPTER FIVE

JOSIAH’S IMAGINATION ABOUT HIS FISHIN’ EXPLOITS CARRIES HIM TO A PINT WHERE I HAVE TO REBUKE HIM, WHICH MAKES HIM DRETFUL HUFFY

The next morning we went over to Alexandria Bay on a tower. We walked up to the immense hotels past the gay flower beds that seemed to be growing right out of the massive gray boulders, and great willer trees wuz droppin’ their delicate green branches where gayly dressed ladies and good-lookin’ men wuz settin’. And in front wuz fleets of little boats surroundin’ the big white steamboats, jest as contented as big white geese surrounded by a drove of little goslins.

I’d hearn that the great hotel that wuz nighest to us looked by night jest like one of the fairy palaces we read about in Arabian Nights, and one night we see it. From the ground clear up to the high ruff it wuz all ablaze with lines of flashin’ light, and I sez instinctively to myself, “Jerusalem the golden!” 76 and “Pan American Electric Tower!” And I d’no which metafor satisfied me best. ’Tennyrate this had the deep broad river flowin’ on in front, reflectin’ every glowin’ light and buildin’ another gleamin’ castle down there more beautiful than the one on land. Josiah’s only remark wuz “Coney Island!” Everything seems to make him think on’t, from a tooth pick to a tower. Ten thousand electric lights wuz the number that lit up that one house, so I hearn.

The big engine and chimney they use to turn the water into glorious light, towers up behind the hotel, and made such a noise and shook the buildin’ so that folks couldn’t stand it, and they jest collared that noise as Josiah would take a dog he couldn’t stop barkin’ by the scruff of the neck and lock it up in the stable, jest so they took that noise and rumblin’ and snaked it way offen into the river in a pipe or sunthin’, so it keeps jest as still now up there as if it wuzn’t doin’ a mite of work. Queer, hain’t it? But to resoom.

It wuz indeed a fair seen to turn round when you wuz about half way up the flower strewn declivity and look afar off over the wharf with its gay crowd, over the boats gaily ridin’ at 77 anchor, and behold the fairy islands risin’ from the blue waves crested with castles, and mansions and cottage ruffs, chimblys and towers all set in the green of the surroundin’ trees.

And, off fur as the eye could see, way through between and around, wuz other beautiful islands and trees covered with spires and ruffs peepin’ out of the green. And way off, way off like white specks growin’ bigger every minute, wuz great ships floatin’ in, and nearer still would be anon or oftener majestic ships and steamers ploughin’ along through the blue waves, sailin’ on and goin’ right by and mindin’ their own bizness.

Well, when at last we did tear ourselves away from the environin’ seen and walk acrost the broad piazzas and into the two immense hotels, as we looked around on the beauty of our surroundin’s, nothin’ but the inward sense of religious duty seemed strong enough to draw us back to Thousand Island Park, though that is good-lookin’ too.

But the old meetin’ house with its resistless cords, and the cast-iron devotion of a pardner wound their strong links round me and I wuz more than willin’ to go back at night. Josiah 78 didn’t come with us, he’d gone fishin’ with another deacon he’d discovered at the Park.

Well, we santered through the bizness and residence streets and went into the free library, a quaint pretty building full of good books with a memorial to Holland meetin’ you the first thing, put up there by the hands of Gratitude. And we went into the old stun church, which the dead master of Bonnie Castle thought so much on and did so much for, and is full of memories of him. Whitfield thinks a sight of his writings; he sez “they dignify the commonplace, and make common things seem oncommon.” Katrina, Arthur Bonniecastle, Miss Gilbert, Timothy Titcomb the philosopher, all seemed to walk up and down with Whitfield there.

And while there we took a short trip to the Lake of the Isles, a lovely place, where instead of boats full of gigglin’ girls with parasols, and college boys with yells and oars, the water lilies float their white perfumed sails, and Serenity and Loneliness seem to kinder drift the boat onwards, and the fashion-tired beholder loves to hasten there, away from the crowd, and rest.

Every mind can be suited at the Islands, the 79 devotee of fashion can swirl around in its vortex, and for them who don’t care for it there are beautiful quiet places where that vortex don’t foam and geyser round, and all crowned with the ineffable beauty of the St. Lawrence.

And we sailed by the Island of Summer Land (a good name), where a beloved pastor and his children in the meetin’ house settled down so long ago that Fashion hadn’t found out how beautiful the Thousand Islands wuz. They come here for rest and recreation, and built their cottages along the undulatin’ shore in the shape of a great letter S. It wuz a pretty spot.

When the boat wuz ready to go back at night I wuz, and wuz conveyed in safety at about six p.m. to the bosom of my family. I say this poetically, for the bosom wuzn’t there when I got back; it hadn’t come in from fishin’ yet, and when it did come it wuz cross and fraxious, for the other deacon had caught two fish and he hadn’t any. He said he felt sick, and believed he wuz threatened with numony, but he wuzn’t; it wuz only madness and crossness, that kinder stuffs anybody up some like tizik.

Well, Whitfield found a letter that made it 80 necessary for him to return to Jonesville to once, and of course Tirzah Ann, like the fond wife and mother she wuz, would take little Delight and go with him. But after talkin’ to Josiah, Whitfield concluded they would stay over one day more to go fishin’. So the very next mornin’ he got a big roomy boat, and we sot out to troll for fish. The way they do this is to hitch a line on behind the boat and let it drag through the water and catch what comes to it. And as our boat swep’ on over the glassy surface of the water that lay shinin’ so smooth and level, not hintin’ of the rocks and depths below, I methought, “Here we be all on us, men and wimmen, fishin’ on the broad sea of life, and who knows what will tackle the lines we drop down into the mysterious depths? We sail along careless and onthinkin’ over rush and rapid, depth and shallow, the line draggin’ along. Who knows what we may feel all of a sudden on the end of the line? Who knows what we may be ketchin’ ontirely onbeknown to us? We may be ketchin’ happiness, and we may be layin’ holt of sorrow. A bliss may be jerked up by us out of the depth; agin a wretchedness and a heart-ache may grip holt the end of the line. Poor fishers that we be! settin’ in our 81 frail little shallop on deep waters over onknown depths, draggin’ a onceasin’ line along after us night and day, year in and year out. The line is sot sometimes by ourselves, but a great hand seems to be holdin’ ours as we fasten on the hook, a great protectin’ Power seems to be behind us, tellin’ us where to drop the line, for we feel sometimes that we can’t help ourselves.”

I wuz engaged in these deep thoughts as we glided onwards. Josiah wuz wrestlin’ with his hat brim, he would have acted pert and happy if it hadn’t been for that. At my request he had bought a straw hat to cover his eyes from the sun and preserve his complexion, and so fur is that man from megumness that he had got one with a brim so broad that it stood out around his face like a immense white wing, floppin’ up and down with every gust of wind. He had seen some fashionable young feller wear one like it and he thought it would be very becomin’ and stylish to get one for a fishin’ excursion, little thinkin’ of the discomfort it would give him.

“Plague it all!” sez he, as it would flop up and down in front of his eyes and blind him, “what made me hear to you, goin’ a-fishin’ blind as a bat!” 82

Sez I, “Why didn’t you buy a megum-sized one? Why do you always go to extremes?”

“To please you!” he hollered out from under his blinders. “Jest to please you, mom!”

Sez I, “Josiah Allen, you know you did it for fashion, so why lay it off onto me? But,” sez I, “if you’ll keep still I’ll fix it all right.”

“Keep still!” sez he, “I don’t see any prospect of my doin’ anything else when I can’t see an inch from my nose.”

“Well,” sez I, “push the brim back and I’ll tie it down with my braize veil.”

“I won’t wear a veil!” sez he stoutly. “No, Samantha, no money will make me rig up like a female woman right here in a fashionable summer resort, before everybody. How would a man look with a veil droopin’ down and drapin’ his face?”

“Well,” sez I, “then go your own way.”

But the next time a gale come from the sou’west he wuz glad to submit to my drapin’ him; so I laid the brim back and tied the veil in a big bow knot under his chin. Then agin he reviled the bow, and said it would make talk. But I held firm and told him I wuzn’t goin’ to tear my veil tiein’ it in a hard knot. And he soon forgot his discomposure in wearin’ braize veils, in his happiness at the idee of ketchin’ fish, so’s to tell the different deacons on’t when he got home.

83

“‘I won’t wear a veil,’ sez he stoutly. But the next time a gale come from the sou’west I laid the brim back and tied the veil in a big bow knot under his chin.” (See page 82)

84

Men do love to tell fish stories. Men who are truthful on every other pint of the law, will, when they measure off with their hands how long the fish is that they ketched, stretch out that measure more’n considerable.

Well, as I say, as our boat glided on between the green islands, anon in shadder and then agin out in sunny stretches of glassy seas, I looked off on the glorified distance and thought of things even furder away than that. Tirzah Ann wuz engaged in tryin’ to keep the sun out of her face; she said anxiously she wuz afraid she would git a few frecks on her nose in spite of all she could do. Whitfield wuz amusin’ Delight, and Josiah ever and anon speakin’ of Coney Island and askin’ if it wuzn’t time to eat our lunch. So the play of life goes on.

We didn’t ketch much of anything, only I ketched considerable of a headache. Tirzah Ann ketched quite a number of frecks; she complained that she had burnt her nose. Delight did, I guess, ketch quite an amount of happiness, for the experience wuz new to her, and children can’t bag any better or more 85 agreeable game than Novelty. And Whitfield did seem to ketch considerable enjoyment; he loves to be out on the water.

My pardner drew up one tiny, tiny fish out of the depths; it looked lonesome and exceedingly fragile, but oh how that man brooded over that triumph! And by the time we reached Jonesville and he related that experience to the awe-struck neighbors it wuz a thrillin’ and excitin’ seen he depictered, and that tiny fishlet had growed, in the fertile sile of his warm imagination, to such a length, that I told him in confidence out to one side, that if I ever hearn him go on so agin about it, and if that fish kep’ a growin’ to that alarmin’ extent, I should have to tell its exact length; it wuz jest as long as my middle finger, for I measured it on the boat, foreseein’ trouble with him in this direction.

It made him dretful huffy, and he sez, “I can’t help it if you do have a hand like a gorilla’s.”

It hain’t so; I never wore higher than number 7. But I have never seen him since pull out his hands so recklessly measurin’ off the dimensions of that fish, or gin hints that it took two men to carry it up from the boat to 86 the hotel, and insinuate on how many wuz nourished on it, and for how long a time.

No, I broke it up. But Josiah Allen hain’t the only man that stretches out the fish they have ketched, as if they wuz made of the best kind of Injy rubber. It seems nateral to men’s nater to tell fibs about fish. Curious, hain’t it? That is one of the curious things that lay holt of our lines. And wimmen have to see squirmin’ at their feet anon or oftener, game that flops and wriggles and won’t lay still and grows all the time.

CHAPTER SIX

In which I draw the matrimonial line round my pardner and also keep my eye on Mr. Pomper

89

CHAPTER SIX

IN WHICH I DRAW THE MATRIMONIAL LINE ROUND MY PARDNER AND ALSO KEEP MY EYE ON MR. POMPER

The next mornin’ Whitfield and Tirzah went home, Josiah and I thinkin’ we would stay a few days longer. And what should I git but a letter from Cousin Faithful Smith sayin’ that her Aunt Petrie beyond Kingston wuz enjoyin’ poor health, and felt that she must have Faith come and visit her before she went West. So she wuz goin’ to cut short her visit to the Smithses and go to her Aunt Petrie’s on her way to the West, and as she had heard Josiah and I wuz to the Islands, she would stop and stay a few days with us there. And as the letter had been delayed, she wuz to be there that very day on the afternoon boat. So of course Josiah and I met her at Clayton. And I went to the boardin’-house keeper to see if I could git her a room. 90

But she wuz full, Miss Dagget wuz; and when anybody is full there is no more to be said; so with many groanin’s from my pardner, on account of the higher price, we concluded we would git rooms at the hotel, that big roomy place, with broad piazzas runnin’ round it and high ruffs. And as Josiah said bitterly, the ruffs wuzn’t any higher than the prices. And I told him the prices wuzn’t none too high for what we got, and I sez, “We are gittin’ along in years and don’t often rush into such high expenses, so we’ll make the venter.”

And he groaned out, “Good reason why we don’t make the venter often, unless we want to go on the Town!”

And then he kinder brightened up and wondered if he couldn’t make a dicker with the hotel-keeper to take a yearlin’ steer to pay for our two boards.

And I sez, “What duz he want of a yearlin’ steer here in the midst of a genteel fashion resort?”

And he snapped me up and said he didn’t know as there wuz anything onfashionable or ongenteel about a likely yearlin’. Sez he, “I’ll bet they’d take it at Coney Island.”

“Well, what would he do with it here?” sez I. 91

“Why, do as I do with it; let it grow up and make clear gain on its growth.”

“Oh shaw!” sez I, “he couldn’t have it bellerin’ round amongst the gay and fashionable throng.”

“It wouldn’t beller,” sez he, “if he fed it enough.”

I broke it up after a long talk, for I wouldn’t let him demean himself by askin’ the question and bein’ refused, and then he said he wuz goin’ to ask him if he would take white beans for his pay, or part of it, or mebby, sez he, “he would like to take a few geese.”

“Geese!” sez I, “what would they want with geese squawkin’ round here?”

“Why,” sez he, “you know they would look handsome swimmin’ round in the water in front of the hotel. And he might gin out, if he wuz a mind to, that they wuz a new kind of swans; they do such things at Coney Island.”

Sez I, “Are you a deacon or are you not? Are you a pillow in the meetin’ house or hain’t you a pillow?”

“I didn’t say he had got to do thus and so, I said he might if he wanted to.”

Sez I, “You keep your geese and pray to not be led into temptation.” And then the truth 92 come out, he hated the geese and wanted to git rid of ’em. Men always hate to keep geese, it is one of their ways, though they love soft pillows and cushions as well as wimmen do, or better, it is one of their curious ways to love the effects of geese dearly and hate the cause and demean it.

Well, by givin’ up the best part of the forenoon to the job I ground him down onto not tryin’ to dicker with any barter, but to walk up like a man and pay for our two boards. Faith is real well off and kinder independent sperited, and I knew she wouldn’t let us pay for hern, and at last we got a good comfortable room for ourselves and one for Faith, not fur from ourn. Both on ’em looked out onto the beautiful river, and I had lots of emotions as I looked out on it, although they didn’t rise up so fur as they would, if I hadn’t had such a tussel with my pardner, so true it is that chains of cumberin’ cares and Josiahs drag down the aspirin’ soul-wings for the time bein’. But I laid out to take sights of comfort in more tranquil and less dickerin’ times, in lookin’ out on the beauty and glory of the waters, and fur off, into the beautiful distance lit with the mornin’s rosy light, and “sunset and evenin’ star.” 93

We sot off on the afternoon boat for Clayton. Faith seemed real glad to see us and we visey versey. And it wuz a joy to me to see her admiration of the Islands as we swep’ by ’em and round ’em on our way to the Park.

We got back in time to git ready for supper in pretty good sperits; the dinin’ room wuz large and clean and pleasant, the waiters doin’ all they could for us, and we had a good supper and enough on’t. And speakin’ of the waiters, most of ’em wuz nice boys and girls, tryin’ to git an education; some on ’em had been to college and wanted to earn a little more money to finish their education, and some wuz learnin’ music and wanted more money to go on with their lessons—good plan, I think—they will be as likely agin to succeed as if they wuz sot down and waited on. It is a good thing, as the Bible sez, “to bear the yoke in your youth,” and though I spoze the yoke weighed down considerable heavy on ’em, specially on excursion days, and when there wuz folks hard to please, yet I thought they will come out all right in the end.

Some on ’em wuz studyin’ for the ministry, and I thought they would git a real lot of patience and other Christian virtues laid up agin 94 the time of need. Though here, as in every other walk of life, there wuz some that wuz careless and slack.

But to resoom forwards. I see at the table there wuz the usual summer tourists round me, care-worn fathers and weary dyspeptic mothers with two or three flighty, over-dressed daughters, and a bashful, pale son or two, and anon a lady with a waist drawed in to that extent that you wondered where her vital organs wuz. And how could any live creeter brook the agony them long steel cossets wuz dealin’ the wearer? You could see this agony in the dull eyes, pale face and wan holler cheeks wearin’ the hectic flush of red paint. And the little pinted shues, with heels sot in the very center of the nerves, ready to bring on prostration, and blindness.

Right by that agonized female would be a real lady. English, mebby, with a waist the size the Lord give and Fashion had not taken away. With good, sensible shues on, dealin’ out comfort to the amiable feelin’ feet; rosy cheeks, bright eyes, all bearin’ witness to the joys of sensible dressin’ and sensible livin’.

And then there wuz bright pert-lookin’ young wimmen, travelin’ alone in pairs, and havin’ 95 a good time to all human appearance. Anon good-lookin’, manly men, with sweet pretty wives and a roguish, rosy little child or so. Sad lookin’ widder wimmen, some in their weeds, but evidently lookin’ through ’em. Anon a few single men with good-lookin’ tanned faces, enjoyin’ themselves round a table of their own, and talkin’ and laughin’ more’n considerable. Respectable, middle-aged couples, takin’ their comfort with kinder pensive faces, and once in awhile a young girl as adorably sweet and pretty as only American girls can be at their best.

But on my nigh side, only a little ways acrost from us sot the ponderous man I remembered on my journey thither who wanted to be a fly. Furder and furder it seemed from amongst the possibles as he towered up sideways and seemed to dwarf all the men round him, though they wuz sizeable. And gittin’ a better look at him, I could see that he had a broad red face, gray side whiskers and one eye. That one eye seemed to be bright blue, and he seemed to keep it on our table from the time we come in as long as we sat there.

That evenin’ in the parlor he got introduced to us. Mr. Pomper, his name wuz, and we all 96 used him well, though I didn’t like “the cut of his jib,” to use a nautical term which I consider appropriate at a watering-place.

But go where we would, that ponderous figger seemed to be near. At the table he sot, where that one eye shone on us as constant as the sun to the green earth. In our walks he would always set on the balcony to watch us go and welcome us back. And in the parlor we had to set under the rakin’ fire of that blue luminary. And if we went on the boats he wuz there, and if we stayed to home there wuz he.

And at last a dretful conviction rousted up in me. It come the day we went the trip round the Islands. We enjoyed ourselves real well, until I discerned that huge figger settin’ in a corner with that one eye watchin’ our party as clost as a cat would watch a mouse. Can it be, sez I to myself, that that man has formed a attachment for me?

No, no, it cannot be, sez I to myself. And yet I knowed such things did occur in fashionable circles. Men with Mormon hearts hidden under Gentile exteriors wuz abroad in the land, and such things as I mistrusted blackened and mormonized the bosom of Mr. Pomper, did 97 happen anon and oftener. And I methought if so, what must I do? Must I tell my beloved companion? Or must I, as the poet sez, “Let concealment, like a worm in the rug, feed on my damaged cheek?”

But thoughts of the quick, ardent temper of my beloved companion bade me relinquish the thought of confidin’ in him. No, I dassent, for I knew that his weight wuz but small by the steelyards, and Mr. Pomper’s size wuz elephantine, with probably muscles accordin’. No, I felt I must rely on myself. But the feelin’s I felt nobody can tell. Thinks I, “It has come onto me jest what I have always read and scorfed at”; for I had always thought and said that no self-respectin’ female need be inviggled unless she had encouraged the inviggler, or had a hand in the invigglin’. But alas! with no fault of my own, onless it wuz my oncommon good looks,—and of course them I couldn’t help,—here I wuz the heroine of a one-eyed tragedy, for I felt that the smoulderin’ fire burnin’ in that solitary orb might bust forth at any time and engulf me and my pardner in a common doom.

But two things I felt I could do; I could put on a real lot of dignity, and could keep a eagle 98 watch onto my beloved pardner, and if I see any sign of Mr. Pompers attacktin’ him, or throwin’ him overboard, I felt the strength of three wimmen would be gin to me, and I could save him or perish myself in the attempt. In accordance with them plans, when Mr. Pomper approached us bringin’ us some easier chairs, I confronted him with a look that must have appauled his guilty mind, and when he sez to me:

“It is a pleasant day, mom.”

I looked several daggers at him and some simiters, and never said a word. And when a short time afterwards he asked me what time of day it wuz, pretendin’ his watch had stopped, I looked full and cold in his face for several minutes before I sez in icy axents, “I don’t know!” Every word fallin’ from my lips like ice-suckles from a ruff in a January thaw, and then I turned my back and went away from him.

Vain attempt! What wicked arts men do possess! He pretended to believe I wuz deef, and with that pretext he dasted to approach still nearer to me and kinder hollered out:

“What time of day is it?”

I see I must answer him, or make a still more sentimental and romantick seen, and I sez, with extreme frigidity and icy chill, “I don’t know anything about it.”

99

“‘What does ail you, Samantha, lockin’ arms with me all the time—it will make talk!’ he whispered in a mad, impatient whisper, but I would hang on as long as Mr. Pomper wuz around.” (See page 100)

100

And then I turned on my heel and walked off. In such noble and prompt ways did I discourage all his overtoors, and every time I see him approach my pardner, if they wuz anywhere near the outer taff-rail of the boat, I would approach and lock arms with Josiah Allen, killin’ two birds with one stun, for that act both ensured safety to my heart’s idol, and also struck a blow onto Mr. Pomperses nefarious designs. He see plain that I idolized my pardner. Once or twice, so hardly is oncommon virtue rewarded in this world, Josiah spoke out snappishly:

“What duz ail you to-day, Samantha, lockin’ arms with me all the time—it will make talk!” he whispered in a mad, impatient whisper, and he would kinder wiggle his arm to make me leggo’; but secure in my own cast-iron principles, I would hang on as long as Mr. Pomper wuz round.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In which Josiah proposes to dance and Mr. Pomper makes an advance

103

CHAPTER SEVEN

IN WHICH JOSIAH PROPOSES TO DANCE AND MR. POMPER MAKES AN ADVANCE

The day wuz a tegus one to me, borne down as I wuz by the constrainin’ atmosphere of a onwelcome and onlawful attachment. And it took all the principle I had by me to git up even a emotion of pity for the one-eyed watcher, whose only recreation seemin’ly durin’ that long, long day wuz to watch our party as clost as any cat ever watched a rat hole, and to kinder hang round us. Faith kep’ pretty clost to me all day and seemed to take a good deal of comfort watchin’ the entrancin’ scenery round us.

Oh what beautiful sights! What enchantin’ views of the water; or, if the light struck it jest right, the long, blue, undilating plain, dotted with gold points of light. Islands with the virgin forest stretchin’ down to the edge of the water, and cool green shadders layin’ on the velvet and mossy sward as you could see as 104 you looked into the green aisles. And all sorts of trees with different foliage, some loose and feathery, some with shinin’ leaves, glitterin’ where the rain had washed ’em the night before; some towerin’ up towards the heavens, shakin’ their heads at the sun; some droopin’ down as if weighted with their wealth of branches and green leaves; anon a tree covered with flowers, and then some evergreens, and anon one that had ketched in its brilliant leaves the red hectic of autumn fever and blazed out in crimson and yeller. And then a hull lot of evergreens standin’ up straight and tall by the water’s edge, and as fur back as you could see, but sort o’ reachin’ out their green arms towards the river. And them on the edge, lookin’ down into the clear depths and seein’ there another island, a shadow island layin’ beautiful and serene with nothin’ disturbin’ its beauty but the shinin’ ripples wavin’ the fairy branches below, like the soft wind rustlin’ the tree tops overhead.

So we sailed on by hamlet and town, rounded tree-crowned promontores, swep’ out into broader vistas stretchin’ out like a lake, anon goin’ by a big island lookin’ like the shore of the mainland, goin’ right up aginst it seemin’ly, as if the boat must strike it and git onto wheels 105 and travel as a wagon if it calculated to proceed onwards at all. But jest as we would think in a nautical way: “Land ahoy! land ahoy! oh, heave out and walk afoot,” jest as these nautical terms would be passin’ through our alarmed foretops, the boat would turn its prow slowly but graceful, round to a port-the-helm, or starboard ditto, and we would glide out through a narrow way onbeknown to us, onto a long, glassy road layin’ fair and serene ahead.

Then more islands, then more narrer channels, then more broad ones. By Fiddler’s Elbow, named Heaven knows for what purpose, for no fiddle nor no elbow wuz in sight, nothin’ but island and water and rock all crowned with green verdure. Mebby it dates back to the time we read of when the stars sung together, and if stars sing, why shouldn’t islands dance, and if islands dance it stands to reason they must have a fiddle and one on ’em must fiddle. I do not say this is so, but throw out this scientific theory as one of singular interest to the antiquarian and historian of the Thousand Islands.

Anon we entered the Lost Channel, agin the antiquarian sperit is rousted up as we inquire, 106 “When wuz it lost? and how long? And when wuz it found agin, and who found it?” Way back in the dawn of creation, did the dimplin’ channel git kinder restive and try to run off by itself, and flow round and act? Or did the big leap down Niagara skair it so that it run away and never stopped runnin’ until it got all confused and light-headed among these countless islands, and wandered away and got lost and by the side of itself?

Deep antiquarian conundrums; stern geological interests! In grapplin’ with ’em I leaned over the taff-rail of the boat and looked way down into the blue green depths, seekin’ a answer. But the shinin’ waves on top seemed to glitter mockin’ly and fur down, down in the green waves, there seemed to look back a sort of a pityin’ gleam that said to me:

“Poor creeter! pass on with your little vague theories and conjectures; you don’t know any more about me than the rest on ’em do, who have tried to write about me.” I felt kinder took back and queer. So vain are we that we don’t like to have our carefully constructed theories overthrown. But even as I mused, a voice said to the right of me—a woman talkin’ to her little boy: 107

“The Lost Channel was named from the fact that durin’ a war a large body of troops got lost here in the channel in the late autumn and could not find their way out, and was overtaken by the bitter cold and perished here.”

Well, mebby if is so, I d’no. But I wuzn’t knowin’ to it myself, nor Josiah wuzn’t. Well, onheedin’ our facts or fancies, the river bore us onwards on its breast. Past high green boulders risin’ up from the water with nothin’ on ’em, not even a tree; jest gray rock lookin’ some like a geni’s castle frownin’ down onto the intruders into their realm. Then anon a pile of high gray rocks crowned as the Sammist sez “with livin’ green.” Then in a minute more a little landlocked bay with placid water sweepin’ back into a pretty harbor, tree shaded, and mebby a boat anchored there like a soul at rest, or mebby a sail-boat with two young hearts in it driftin’ down the sea of their content, as the tiny waves rippled round their oars. Then a grand big mansion lookin’ down onto us kinder superciliously. Then a small, pretty farm house with snug outbuildings, a man lookin’ at us from the open barn door, and some children playin’ round the doorstep. Then a big island with grassy shores or wooded depths; then a tiny 108 island, not too big for a child’s playhouse, and some that wuz only a bit of rock peekin’ out of the water.

And fur off all the time when we could see it wuz the blue hazy distance full of beauty; ever-changin’ glimpses of loveliness, givin’ place to new beauties. Fur off, fur off sometimes we could see distant pinnacles and towers, all bathed in the blue shinin’ mist. And as the rapt eyes of our Fancy gazed on ’em, they might have been the towers of the New Jerusalem, the Golden city, so dreamlike, so inexpressibly lovely did they seem faintly photographed aginst the soft blue distant heavens.

But cold Reality said in her chillin’ practical whisper, “It’s nothin’ but Gananoque or Clayton,” and she went on, “They hain’t anything like the New Jerusalem, either of them.”

Alas for us poor mortals! who drive or are driv by the two contendin’ coharts of Imagination, Idealized Fancy and practical Reality. And she always will have the last word, Reality will, and her voice is loud and shrill, and it penetrates into the warm, sweet Indian summer air, where Fancy dwells and where we sometimes visit her for brief intervals. Too brief! too brief! for cold Reality is always hangin’ 109 round; she is always up and dressed ready to put in her note.

I mentioned the metafor to Josiah and he sez, “Yes, it minds me of the man who was brought up before the judge by his wife. She complained he hadn’t spoke to her for five years. The judge ast him if that were so, and he said, ‘Yes, that’s so.’ ‘But why,’ sez the judge, ‘why hain’t you spoke to your wife for five years?’ And the man sez, ‘Because I didn’t want to interrupt her.’” Josiah declares it is true, but I believe it is jest a slur on wimmen.

But to resoom. Swiftly, silently we sped on with the islands about us, the blue sky overhead and the shadow islands below. And innumerable boats appeared far and near, some with white sails lifted, and followed below by a white shadow sail, and anon a big steamer would glide along, loaded down to its gunwale with crowds of gay pleasure seekers, who would wave their snowy handkerchiefs and salute us, the steamer backin’ ’em with its deep grum voice. Or anon we could see a big dark barge sailin’ along, and Fancy would whisper to us as we gazed on its mysterious dark sides without a soul in sight:

“It may be the phantom of some old Pirate 110 ship, condemned for its sins to cruise along forever in strange waters, homesick for its native seas.” But Reality spoke right up jest as she always will and said it wuz probable some big lake steamer heavy loaded with grain or some great Canadian boat. And then a new seen of beauty would drift into our vision and take our minds off and carry ’em away some distance. Oh, it is no wonder that Faith’s soft eyes grew more tender and luminous.

Josiah felt the beauty of the seen, he felt it deeply, but everybody knows that beauty affects folks differently, it always seems to sharpen up my dear companion’s appetite, and three cookies in as many minutes wuz offered up on the shrine of his vivid appreciation, and two nut cakes.

We got back to our hotel, the sun about an hour high. Jest before our bark swep’ into the haven, and while Josiah and Faith had crossed over to the opposite side of our bark, I hearn a voice on the off quarter windward, and I turned round and see to my dismay that it wuz Mr. Pomper. He sez to me in a low voice, while his looks spoke volumes of yellow colored literatoor: “I wish to speak a few words to 111 you alone, mum. Can you give me the opportunity?”

I looked him full in that eye of hisen, a hauty cold look, a look as much as 40 degrees below freeze, and said nothin’ else but jest that look.

“I have somethin’ very important to say to you. Can you hear me?”

Words wuz risin’ to my tongue that would wither him forever, and end the vile persecutions I wuz undergoin’, when before I could speak the gang plank wuz charged back agin Mr. Pomper’s foot in a way that made him leap back like a sportive elephant, and for the moment I wuz free. But as I wended my pensive way up to the hotel, I made up my mind that if he ever approached me agin I would plainly tell him what wuz what, and so end my purturbations of mind; for I felt if it wuz to go on much longer I should lose a pound of flesh, and mebby a pound and a half, in the stiddy wearin’ persecution I wuz undergoin’. And that night at dinner as I ketched the light smoulderin’ in that lonely orb, as it wuz bent on our table, and the corner in parlor and piazza where we wuz ensconced, I wondered anew what wuz the attractions that kep’ Mr. Pomper so stiddy at my shrine, And I got so 112 that I almost hated the good looks that wuz ondoin’ him and me too. And I looked into the glass dreamily as I wadded up my back hair and did up the front, and pinned my cameo pin onto my rich cotton and wool parmetty, and wondered if it wuzn’t my duty to leave off that pin, and change that parmetty for calico, and sort o’ frowzle up my hair onbecomingly in order to wean him from me. But alas! my principles did not seem able to git up onto that bite, so weak are we poor mortals after all our aspirin’ efforts.

One curious thing I have ever noticed among men (and wimmen too) and that is the ease and facility with which they will slip out of statements and idees they have promulgated, and turn around in their tracts as easy and graceful as a dummy before a show case. Now there wuz a party to be gin to the hotel for a charitable purpose, each man and woman present givin’ 25 cents, and then havin’ a social time afterwards, and as the object wuz good I sez to my pardner, “I would like to attend to it.” And he acted fairly skairt and horrow struck at the idee and went on eloquent about old folks at our ages, and with our professions, and our rumatiz, follerin’ up gayety and show. Sez he, 113 “The place for us evenin’s is in our own room readin’ our Bibles and Tracks.”

And I sez as I calmly wadded up my back hair and smoothed my foretop, “Well, I spoze I can go alone if you feel so.”

Then another thought seemed to roust him up; Jealousy seemed to strike her sharp prongs into his slender side, and he sez bitterly, “Yes, goin’ down alone into a perfect mawlstrom of men flirtin’ and actin’!”

“The mawlstrom won’t hurt me,” sez I, “I hain’t goin’ nigh it.” But even as I spoke I thought of Mr. Pomper, and sez to myself, Can I help him from comin’ nigh me? And as if in answer to my onspoken thoughts my pardner sez:

“Mawlstroms will draw anybody in onbeknown to them; they’re deadly dangerous!” And I see him gin a kin’ of a shiver. I wuz touched to the heart by the thought of his devotion, and as I fastened my cameo pin more firmly into the rich folds of parmetty at my neck, I sez:

“Dear Josiah, I don’t know but you’re right. I feel as though I want you near me to protect me.” That melted his heart, but alas, did not affect his pocket book, and he sez, “I would go 114 down with you in a minute, Samantha, but jest consider on the 50 cents we would spend there, how much comfort that would bring to some lonely widder, mebby a blind woman, who is a-hunger and ye fed her not.”

I looked stiddy at him and sez I, “Josiah Allen, will that poor widder git that fifty cents?”

He answered evasive, and I went on, “It is easy to make the excuse that the money you are asked for in charity will do so much more good somewhere else, but,” sez I sternly, “the money don’t git there, and you know it.” He still kep’ his hand in his pocket round that pocket book I believe, whilst he took a new tact: “The air, Samantha, in that room will be stiflin’, and if I should take you into that place and you should stifle, I should die away myself, I couldn’t live a minute without you, dear Samantha,” sez he.

Well, my tizik wuz pretty bad in crowded places and suffice it to say, that though his arguments didn’t convince me, they sort o’ overpowered me for the time bein’, and we stayed in our own room.

Now to show the facility with which folks will turn right round and revolve, I will tell 115 how Josiah seemin’ly forgot mawlstroms, bad air, rumatiz, ages, meetin’ housen, principles, etc., and turned right round on the pivot of his inclination. A day or two after he heard down in the office about the dancin’ parties they had in the parlor anon or oftener, and he come up into our room enthused with the idee and wanted to branch out and go that night, and I sez:

“What about mawlstroms and gayety, Josiah Allen?”

“Oh,” he sez, “I shall be there to protect you, Samantha, no mawlstrom can draw you in and destroy you, whilst I have a drop of blood left in my veins! I’ll protect you here, and I’d protect you at Coney Island,” sez he—(that idee never left his mind I believe).

“What about the bad air?” sez I.

“Oh the winder will probable be open, and you can take your turkey feather fan with you.” And then I dropped my half jocular tone and sez in deadly earnest:

“Be I leanin’ on a Methodist pillow or be I not? Have I a deacon by my side or haven’t I?”

But Josiah seemed calm and even gay sperited under my two reproachful orbs that poured their search lights into his very soul, and he sez: 116

“From all I hear it hain’t a wicked dance at all, but jest a pretty dancin’ party down in the parlor, jined in by men and wimmen and their children and mebby their grand-children, and it is always so sweet,” sez he, “to see a man and his grand-children dancin’ together. Oh, if Delight wuz only here!” sez he.

I riz up and sez in almost heart breakin’ axents:

“Josiah Allen, be you a thinkin’ of dancin’ yourself?”

“No,” sez he, “no, Samantha, I jest want to look on a spell, that’s all.”

But there wuz a look in his eyes that I hated to see, for I had seen it many times in the past, and it had always foreboded trials to me and humiliation to my pardner. How queer human critters be! what strange and mysterious tacts they will git on and how they will foller up them tacts and fads of theirn. But I d’no as human critters are any worse about follerin’ up their tacts and fads and follerin’ ’em blind, than old Mom Nater is. Now who hain’t noticed her queer moods and how prolonged they be, and how sudden and onexpected they will come onto her? When she takes it into her head to have a pleasant spell of weather, how she’ll 117 foller it up, clear skies, pleasant days and nights for weeks and weeks. And if she takes it into her head to have it rain, how she will keep the skies drippin’ right along for most all summer. And then when she has a dry spell, how dry she is! no matter how much the dwindlin’ creeks and empty wells and springs complain, she has got to carry out her own idees till she gits ready to change.

Josiah Allen, since I had been his pardner had took many a fad into his old head, which he had carried out as only Nater or a man can carry ’em, onreasonable, mysterious, out of season, but bound to let ’em run. Sometimes in the past it had been a desire for singin’ base that had laid holt on him, base in every sense the word can be used. Then agin he had painful and prolonged spells of wantin’ to be genteel and fashionable, then anon political ambition had rousted up his rusty old faculties and for months and months Coney Island had been his theme, and wuz now, and so on through a long roll of characters he had desired to play in the drama of life.

But dancin’! never did I expect to see that man with his age and his profession and his achin’ old bones, wantin’ to dance. But so it 118 wuz, as will be seen in the follerin’ pages. Queer as a dog folks are on this planet, and I d’no but the Marites and Jupiters and Saturnses are jest as queer. But to quit eppisodin’ and resoom forwards agin.

I have always found that it hain’t best to draw the matrimonial rope too tight round your pardner’s jungular veins. I see he wuz sot on goin’ and I felt I would ruther he would go with me who could have some savin’ control over him, than to have him git reckless and sally off alone. So it wuz settled that we should go that night at early candle light. And Faith wuz to go with us. Yes, I, Josiah Allen’s wife, had gin my consent to go to a dance. But jest so the environin’ cord of circumstances gits us all wound up in its tangles time and agin. And as the way of poor weak mortals is, havin’ made up my mind to go I tried to bring to mind all the mitigatin’ circumstances I could. I thought of how the lambs capered on the hillside, how the leaves on the trees danced to the music of the south wind, and how even the motes swung round with each other in the sunlight. And then I thought of how David danced before the ark, and how Jeptha’s daughter danced out to meet her father (to be 119 sure she had her head took off for it, but I tried to not dwell on that side of the subject). And then I remembered how I did love music, and in spite of myself I felt kinder chirked up thinkin’ I should enjoy quite a long spell on’t. And thinkses I, if dancin’ is a little mite off from the hite Methodists ort to stand on, music is the most heavenly thing we can lay holt of below, so I sort o’ tried to even up them two peaks in my mind and lay a level onto ’em and try to make myself believe they struck about a fair plane of megumness, and shet my eyes to the idee that it slanted off some and wuz slippery.

Oh what weak creeters we be anyhow! Well, that night there wuz goin’ to be a extra big party, and I wuz for startin’ at once after supper, for truly I felt that I wuz performin’ a hard and arjous job, and as my way is I wuz for tacklin’ it to once and gittin’ over it. Yes, I felt it wuz goin’ to be a wearin’ job to git Josiah Allen to that parlor durin’ them festivities and back agin with no damage or scandal arisin’ from the enterprise.

But Faith sez, “It will be too early, they won’t begin to dance till eight. We eat at six.” And I sez, “For the land’s sake! if I’d 120 got to dance I should begin early and stop early, so’s to git a little rest.” And she sez:

“Young folks don’t think about that.”

Well, we compromised on half past seven (most bed-time). And when Faith knocked at our door at that epoch of time we wuz all ready. Josiah had carefully combed his few locks of gray hair upwards over his bald head, had donned a sweet smilin’ look, and a cravat, gayer fur than I approved of (he’d bought it durin’ the day onbeknown to me). And I had arrayed my noble figger in my usual cotton and wool brown dress, brightened up at the neck and sleeves with snowy collar and cuffs, and further enriched by the large cameo pin. I also carried a turkey feather fan that harmonized in color with my dress. I looked exceedingly well and felt well.

And Faith, I sez proudly to myself, a sweeter face and prettier dress won’t be seen there to-night. She did look lovely. Her soft eyes shone, her cheeks looked pinky, her hair, a sort of a golden brown with some gray in it, crinkled back from her white forward and wuz gathered in a loose knot on the top of her head with a high silver comb. Her dress wuz thin and white and gauzy, and though it wuz considerable 121 plain it wuz made beautiful by the big bunch of pale pink roses at her belt and bosom, jest matchin’ her cheeks in color.

I wuz proud of her. And I felt quite well about my other companion, for as I glanced at the small kerseymear figger and pert bald head, I sez to myself, “He makes a much better escort than none at all.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

In which Mr. Pomper declares his intenshuns an’ gives his views on matrimony

125

CHAPTER EIGHT

IN WHICH MR. POMPER DECLARES HIS INTENSHUNS AN’ GIVES HIS VIEWS ON MATRIMONY

As our party sort o’ swep’ gracefully down into the hall, we thought we would step outdoors for a minute for a breath of fresh air. It looked gay and almost fairy-like out there. The two broad piazzas wuz all lit up with colored lights and baskets of posies hung down between ’em full of bloom, and the broad piazzas and wide flight of steps leadin’ up to ’em wuz full of folks in bright array, walkin’ and talkin’ and laughin’ makin’ the seen more fair and picture-like. And in front wuz the long grassy lawn with its gay flower beds, and the long walk down to the wharf all sparklin’ with lights, and beyend, in front of it all, lay the deep river, with its sighin’ voice borne in on the stillness, jest as in the hearts of every one of that throng, way back beyend the gayety and sparklin’ mirth lay the deep sea of their own inner life, with its melancholy 126 hantin’ memories, its sighin’ complainin’ voices, its deeps that nobody else could fathom.

And while we stood there, I wrapped in reverie and a gray zephyr shawl, a broad beam of light wuz cast from somewhere fur off, shinin’ full and square first one side then the other side of the river. Nearer and nearer it seemed to be comin’ towards us, and wherever that light fell a picture wuz brung quick as a flash of lightnin’ out of the darkness.

It seemed some like the day of Judgment shinin’ through the darkness of men’s lives and bringin’ out the hidden things. Way out in the distance where nothin’ could be seen but blackness and shadows, the beam would fall and a island would stand out plain before us, houses with men and wimmen on the piazzas, a boat house, a boat with men and wimmen and children in it. You could see for one dazzlin’ minute the color of their garments, and the motion of their hands and arms, then the sea of darkness would engulf ’em agin, and on the nigh side out of the darkness would shine out a vision of the shore with trees standin’ up green and stately, and you could see the color of leaf and bough and almost the flutter of their leaves. A green lawn, rosy flower beds, a pretty cottage, 127 faces at the windows, agin darkness swallowed it up, and broad and brilliant the great shaft of light lay on the blackness, and on the shinin’ water fur ahead a boat stood out vivid. Its white sail shone, the young man at the helm with uplifted head wuz wavin’ a greetin’, the girl in the other end of the boat looked like a picture in her broad hat and white wrap, and beyend ’em and all round ’em, wuz little boats, and fur ahead a big steamer.

Anon it wuz turned sideways, and a dark mysterious craft wuz seen sailin’ by mysteriously, one of the big lake vessels goin’ I know not where. Anon a dazzlin’ flash swep’ right across us, bringin’ Faith and me and my pardner out into almost blindin’ relief, his bald head shinin’ in the foreground, his cravat gleamin’ almost blindin’ly, and with music and bright light shinin’ from the cabin winders, and decks loaded with gay passengers, the Search Light Steamer swep’ up to the wharf.

The ball had not yet arrove at its hite when we entered the festivious hall, so we readily found seats in a commogious corner. On one side on me wuz my pardner, on the off side sot Faith in her serene beauty. In front of me and on each side the gay crowd of dancers. 128

Pretty young girls arrayed in every color of the rain-bow. Handsome young men, ditto homely ones, little children as pretty as posies with their white dresses and white silk stockin’s and slippers dancin’ as gayly as any of the rest, all on ’em big and little, graceful and awkward, swingin’, turnin’, glidin’ along, swingin’, turnin’, all keepin’ time to the sweet swayin’ tones of the music, music that seemed sometimes to bear my soul off some distance away and swing it round and dance with it a spell, and then whirl it back agin to the Present and Josiah. It wuz a queer time, but very riz up and enjoyable in spite of some little sharp twinges that come anon or oftener, which might have been conscience, but which I tried to lay off onto rumatiz.

Two wimmen wuz talkin’ near us, sez one of ’em, “There he goes agin, see him prancin’ round.” And she motioned to a young chap I’d noticed who seemed to be the most indefatigable dancer in the hull lot, and his face wuz determined lookin’, as if his hull life depended on gallopin’ round the room, and as if he never wuz goin’ to stop.

“See him,” sez the woman, “that young man’s father and grand-father would have 129 swooned away if they’d thought that any of their kin would dance.”

“Wuz they so good?” sez the other woman.

“No,” wuz the reply, “they had all sorts of narrowness, sins and coniptions, but they thought dancin’ wuz the wickedest thing ever done. This boy wuz brought up as strict as a he nun, and now see him prancin’ round!”

And I spoke up and sez, “I hope he will prance off some of them hereditary sins, if he’s got to prance.” They looked round at me considerable cool and I said no more. But everybody wuzn’t so clost mouthed, for pretty soon a old lady come and sot down in a chair by the side of me—Faith had moved a little back—and she sez:

“I want to dance; I love it dearly.”

I looked up at her in amaze. Her cheeks wuz fell in. Her brow wuz yellered and furrowed with years, and though her dress wuz gay she couldn’t conceal Time’s ravages.

“Dance,” sez I kinder dreamily and brow beat, “well, why don’t you dance?”

Sez she, “I don’t know any of the gentlemen here.”

I felt a movement on my nigh side and see that Josiah wuz leanin’ forward in deep interest, 130 and thinkses I, he is sorry for her folly, he has a noble heart. Well, ere long she riz up and went out into the hall, and I mused on what I had so often mused on—how necessary it wuz for everybody to keep on their own forts—sixty years had fled since dancin’ wuz her becomin’ fort, now a rockin’ chair and knittin’ work wuz her nateral fort, but she didn’t realize it.

Well, the dancin’ kep’ on, the music pealed out sweet peals, heavenly sweet, heavenly sad, and I wuz carried some distance away from myself and heeded not what wuz passin’ by my side. Anon a dance come on that wuz called a German. In some of the figgers they seemed to be givin’ presents to each other, and had these presents kinder strung onto ’em, same as savages ornament themselves with beads and things, though these wuz quite pretty lookin’ and seemed made up of posies and ribbins and pretty little trinkets. And then the lights wuz lowered and I see a long line of figgers come glidin’ in, keepin’ step to the music, each one bearin’ a pretty little colored lantern. And as I looked on my eyes wuz almost stunted and blinded by a sight I see. Who wuz the couple bringin’ up the rear? Wuz it—it could not be—but 131 yet it wuz my pardner, leadin’ in the ancient dame, who wuz footin’ it merrily on her old toes, or as merrily as she could, liable to fall down every step with rumatiz and old age. And what did my pardner bear in his hand!

That very day in goin’ about the place he found in a store an old tin lantern, a relic of the past someone had left there to be sold. It wuz a lantern that used to be in vogue before Josiah Allen wuz born, a anteek tin lantern with holes in the sides, and one candle power. He had bought it greedily, sayin’ it wuz jest like one his grandpa had when he wuz a child.

He had left it in the office, and had lit that lantern and wuz now hangin’ along in the rear of that gay procession, with that mummy-like figger, a jest, a byword and a sneer, for laughter riz up round ’em and sneers follered ’em as they swep’ onwards. As they come nigh me I riz up almost wildly and ketched holt of my pardner and sez I:

“Desist! Josiah Allen, stop to once!”

The aged female looked at me in surprise and feeble remonstrance, and sez she:

“Can it be that you’re jealous?”

132

“As they come nigh me I riz up almost wildly and ketched holt of my pardner and sez I: ‘Desist! Josiah Allen, stop to once!’ The aged female looked at me in surprise.” (See page 131)

133

Even in that awful moment my powers of deep reasonin’ didn’t desert me and I said:

“If I wuz goin’ to be jealous I wouldn’t be of a animated mummy, or livin’ skeleton!” And to my companion I sez, “Josiah Allen, if you don’t set down here by me, I will part with you to once before the first Square or Justice I can ketch!”

He see determination on my eye-brow, and as they wuz in the extreme rear of the line, and it didn’t break up nothin’, I ketched the lantern out of his hand and blowed it out, and put it under his chair as he sot down in it. And then to her I sez with a almost frozen politeness:

“I’d advise you, mom, to soak your feet and go to bed.”

She vanished. But to my pardner my voice lost that icy coldness and become het up with indignation, and I sez, “What tempted you, Josiah Allen, to make a perfect fool of yourself—a show for hollow worldlings to sneer at!”

“Fool!” sez he in bitter axents, “you call me that when I wuz strictly actin’ out what you’ve always ordered me to do. You’ve always told me to be good to females, to put myself out and make a martyr of myself if necessary for their good. But it is the last time!” sez he bitterly, “the very last time I will ever have anything 134 to do with your sect in any way, shape or manner. I get no thanks from you for anything I do, and the worm may jest as well turn first as last.”

“Do you pretend to say, Josiah, that you did this to please me?”

“Yes mom, I do! I did it to please you, and to take that woman’s part. You hearn her say she wanted to dance, but no man wuz forthcomin’.”

“Dance!” sez I, “dance at ninety years old!”

“She hain’t much more’n eighty,” sez he, “I don’t believe. But anyway, you won’t git me into such a scrape agin. Your sect may be trod on for all that I care. They may set round till they grow to their chairs and be trompled down into the ground—and I jest as soon tromple on a few myself,” sez he recklessly.

Oh dear me! what a mysterious curous trial pardners be more’n half the time! but still I feel that they pay after all.

Let him talk as he would I knew he wuz only carryin’ out that fad to try to be genteel and fashionable, and oh how much trouble I’ve seen, from first to last, with that sperit in my pardner!

Well, we didn’t stay down much longer. Faith had stepped out of the long winder 135 behind us and wuz lookin’ off onto the glorified river durin’ this contrary temps, and as I glanced out of the winder to look for her I see the huge form of Mr. Pomper hoverin’ in the foreground, and I sez to Josiah, “I think it is time to retire and go to bed.”

And Faith bein’ ready to go, we ascended to our rooms. As we passed one of the landin’ places on the staircase where some chairs wuz placed, I see the ancient dame settin’ and sarahuptishously rubbin’ her ankle jints. She straightened up and looked kinder coquetishly at my pardner, but he swep’ by her as if she wuz so much dirt under his feet. Truly he seemed to be carryin’ out his plan of ignorin’ my sect and passin’ ’em by scornfully. I may see trouble with that sperit in him yet.

The next mornin’ Josiah wanted Faith and I to go out with him fishin’ and have a fish dinner, a sort of a picnic, on some island on the fishin’ grounds. That’s quite a fashionable entertainment. They fish till they git real hungry I spoze, and then the boatman puts into some sheltered cove, and the party goes on shore, builds a fire and cooks some of the fish they have got, and make coffee, and with the nice lunch they took from the hotel, they have a 136 splendid dinner I spoze, and take sights of comfort.

Why lots of folks there would go out day after day early in the morning, and stay until night, and then would walk proudly in with a long string of fish, and would lay ’em on the desk in the office, and a admirin’ crowd would gather round to look at ’em and wonder how much they weighed. Why wimmen and children would catch fish so big that it is a wonder they could draw ’em into the boat, and I spoze they did have help from the stronger sect (stronger arms I mean). And besides the fish I spoze they ketch happiness and health.

Well, Josiah wuz rampant to go. He said he wanted to surprise the crowd in the hotel and the hull of Well’s Island with the fish he would git, and then I spoze the idee of the dinner wuz drawin’ him onward. I brung up several arguments, such as the danger, fatigue, etc., but he stood firm. But I had one weepon left that seldom failed, and as a last resort I drawed that weepon, and he fell woonded to once. Sez I, “Do you have any idee, Josiah Allen, how much it is goin’ to cost you?”

His linement fell. He hadn’t thought on’t. I see him silently draw a boatman into a corner 137 and interview him, and I hearn no more about a fishin’ picnic.

The very evenin’ after this, Fate and Mr. Pomper gin me a chance to carry out the plan I’d laid out heretofore. Josiah had stepped over to the post office, and Faith had walked over with him at my request, for she had a headache, and I told him to walk down to the wharf with her and see if the cool air wouldn’t do her good. So she had put a black lace scarf over her pretty golden hair and went off with him.

Well, there wuz big doin’s at the Tabernacle that night, and it wuz a off night for music, and I found the parlor nearly deserted when I walked in and sot down in my accustomed easy chair. And no sooner had I sot down seemin’ly than Mr. Pomper’s massive form emerged onto the seen, and he drawed up a chair and sot down by my side.

Agreably to the plans I had laid down in my mind, I did not object to the move. But though a picture of calmness on the outside, inwardly I wuz callin’ almost wildly on my powers of memory, tryin’ to think jest what Malviny had done, one of the immortal Children of the Abbey, when Lord Mortimer approached her with his onlawful suit, and I tried also to 138 recall what the Mountain Mourner had done in like circumstances, but before I had half done interviewin’ them heroines in sperit my mind wuz recalled into the onwelcome present by Mr. Pomper’s voice in my left ear:

“I asked you, Josiah Allen’s wife,” sez he, “to listen to me, for I felt that you wuz the most proper person for me to state my feelings to. Since you and your party have entered this house,” sez he, “I have had a great conflict goin’ on between my mind and my heart.”

“Ah indeed! have you?” sez I, liftin’ my nose at a angle of from forty to fifty degrees.

“Yes,” sez he, “I have had a great struggle between my heart and my common sense, and in the battle that ensued, Common Sense and Reason has had to retire into the background, and Heart has triumphed.”

“It is a great pity!” sez I, “Common Sense and Reason had much better come out ahead,” and agin I lifted my nose to its extremest limit, and looked swords and prunin’ knives at him.

“That is just what most folks would say, I am aware, but listen to my story before you judge. I must reveal to you the state of my heart and affections!” 139

How sure it is that when a kag is tapped the contents will run out no matter whether it is wine or water. At them bold words accompanied by the ardent rollin’ of that lone orb, my well-laid plans all left my mind, nothin’ wuz left but pure principle and devotion and loyalty to my pardner. The full kag emptied its contents over his nefarious purposes, and I bust out almost onbeknown to me and sez:

“It is no use; it is vain, it is worse than vain! it is wicked!”

“What,” sez he, “is she engaged to another?”

“Who?” sez I, turnin’ like lightnin’ and facin’ him.

“Why, Miss Smith, your niece or grand-child who is with you. That beauchious creature!” sez he.

“Faithful Smith!” sez I faintly, “is she the one you are talkin’ about?”

“Yes,” sez he, “your grand-daughter, is she not?”

“My grand-daughter!” sez I in deep contempt, “she is my own cousin on my own side.”

“I thought,” sez he, “from her looks and yours that she might be your grand-child, but that is of no moment,” sez he.

“It is of moment!” sez I, “she is uncle 140 Leander Smith’s own child, and though she is a few years younger than I be, it has always been said and thought all over Jonesville and Loontown that I hold my age to a remarkable extent. And though I think my eyes of Faith I won’t thank you or anyone else for callin’ her my grand-child!”

“But yet,” sez he, “that’s a tender, sweet relationship. What I want to say to you is in relation to Miss Smith, she looks sad but beauchious. I like her looks. You may have noticed that I have occasionally glanced in the direction of your party.”

“Yes,” sez I, “Heaven knows I have noticed it!”

“Yes,” sez he, “as I have looked upon her face from day to day a conflict has been wagin’ in my heart, and though you may be surprised at the result (for I am very wealthy) I have decided to make her glad and joyous once more.”

He paused, as if for a reply, and I sez, “How did you mean to tackle the job?”

“By makin’ her my wife,” sez he.

The mystery wuz all explained, my dignity and my beloved pardner’s safety all assured. I felt a feeling of infinite relief, and yet I felt like a fool, and I blamed him severely for this 141 ridiculous contrary temps that had occurred in my mind.

“Of course,” sez he, “it is a great rise for her, I have hearn that she hain’t worth much, as I count wealth, and as we are speakin’ in confidence, I will say that there is a rich widder here who has hopes of me, and mebby I’ve gin her some encouragement, kinder accidental, as you may say, but I ort to know better. Widdowers can’t be too careful; they do great harm, let ’em be as careful as possible. They tromple right and left over wimmen’s hearts do the best they can. But since I have seen Miss Smith and witnessed her sad face I have done a sight of thinkin’. Here the case lays, the widder is strong, she can stand trouble better. The widder is happy, for she has got that which will make any woman happy—health, wealth, and property. And I’ve been turnin’ it over in my mind that mebby Duty is drawin’ me away from the widder and towards the maid. It hain’t because the widder is homely as the old Harry that influences me, no not at all. But the thought of lightenin’ the burden of the sad and down hearted, makin’ the mournful eyes dance with ecstasy, and the skrinkin’ form bound with joy like—like—the 142 boundin’ row on the hill tops. Now as the case stands marry I will and must. My wife has already been lost for a period of three months lackin’ three weeks. She sweetly passed away murmurin’, ‘I am glad to go.’”

“No wonder at that!” I sez, “no wonder!”

“Yes, she wuz a Christian and she passed sweetly up into the Hevings, thank the Lord!” sez he lookin’ acrost onto Faith’s sweet face, for she had come back and set down acrost the room.

“She is better off, I hain’t a doubt on’t!” sez I fervently.

“I don’t know about that. I did well by her, and she felt as well as myself, that to be my wife wuz a fate not often gin to mortal wimmen.”

“That is so!” sez I fervently, “that is so!”

“Yes she wuz proud and happy durin’ her life. I did everything for her. I killed a chicken durin’ her last sickness onasked, jest to surprise her with soup. She lived proud and happy and died happy.”

“I hain’t a doubt that she died happy.”

“No,” sez he, “and now I must make a choice of her successor. It is a hard job to do,” sez he. 143

“No doubt on’t,” sez I, “no doubt on’t!”

“Yes, whatever woman I choose, some must be left, pinin’ on their stems, to speak poetically. I can’t marry every woman, that’s plain to be seen.”

“Yes, thank Heaven! that’s a settled thing,” sez I lookin’ longin’ly at my pardner, who wuz leanin’ aginst the door and conversin’ with the man of the house on his chosen theme, for anon or oftener I hearn the words—Coney Island! Dreamland—Luny Park, etc., etc.

“No, and my choice made, I want it done as speedily as possible, for my late lamented left as a slight token of her love thirteen children of all ages, rangin’ from six months up to twelve years, two pairs of triplets, two ditto of twins, and three singles.

“My wealth lays in land mostly. I never believed in idle luxuries, only comfort, solid comfort, and my wife will have a luxurious home of a story and a half upright, and a linter, groceries and necessaries all provided, and all she will have to do will be the housework and gently train and care for the minds and bodies of the little ones, with some help from the oldest set of triplets, and make my home agin an oasis of joy, a Eden below. Oh! how happy she will be!” sez he, “Nestlin’ down like a wanderin’ dove in the safety and peace and pride of married life. When can I see Miss Smith?” sez he. “Or will you tell her in advance of her good fortune?”

144

“‘No,’ sez Mr. Pomper, ‘I want it done as speedily as possible, fer my late lamented left me thirteen children, two pairs of triplets, two ditto of twins, and three singles.’” (See page 143)

145

“No indeed!” sez I, “I make no matches nor break none. You will have to do your own errents.”

CHAPTER NINE

In which Mr. Pomper makes a offer of marriage and Faith has a wonderful experience

149

CHAPTER NINE

IN WHICH MR. POMPER MAKES A OFFER OF MARRIAGE AND FAITH HAS A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE

Faith had got up and gone out onto the piazza, and he riz up ponderously and proudly and follered her. And onless I put cotton in my ears, I couldn’t help hearin’ what wuz said. I could hear his proud axent and her low gentle voice in reply.

Sez he, “Miss Smith, of course you hain’t known me long, but I feel that we are well acquainted. I have watched you when you hain’t known it.”

I could imagine just how wonderingly the soft gentle eyes wuz raised to his as he went on:

“Yes, I have kep’ my eye on you, and I will say right out that I like your looks and your ways, and I feel that you are worthy of being promoted to the high honor I am about to heap onto you, by askin’ you to be my wife.”

I heard a little low, skairt ejaculation and a chair pushed back. 150

“Your wife! oh no, no, you are mistaken!”

Then his voice in soothin’ axents, “There, set down agin, set down. I knew you’d take it so. I knew it would overcome you, but I say you are worthy on’t, and you needn’t never be afraid I’ll throw it in your face that I am rich and you—and you––”

Then I hearn a swish of a dress float along, quick steps acrost the piazza, a door shet, and anon Mr. Pomper come back to me.

“Jest as I told you, mom, stunted,” sez he, “fairly stunted and broke down by the suddenness of the good news. I’ll give her time to git used to the idee. I won’t say no more at present.”

“No,” sez I dryly, “I wouldn’t if I wuz in your place, I’d go and rub some ile into my head or sweat it, or sunthin’.”

“What for?” sez he in surprise, “why should I bathe my head, or annoint it?”

“Oh nothin’,” sez I, “if you don’t think it needs softenin’ up and illuminatin’.”

Well, I went up to my room and in a few minutes Faith come in, and she went right by me and looked in the glass. She wuz pale and seemed to be kinder tremblin’. She studied her face intently in the lookin’ glass, then sez 151 she, “What is there in my face, what have I done?” sez she, “How have I looked, that that awful man dare insult me? Oh, I must have looked weak or acted weak, or he wouldn’t have dared to!” and she busted out cryin’.

And I sez soothin’ly, “It hain’t the worst thing that could happen to you. A offer of marriage hain’t like a attack of yeller fever, or cholera, or even the janders, nor,” sez I, “it hain’t like losin’ friends, or a plague of grasshoppers, or––”

And I spoze there hain’t no tellin’ onto what hites of eloquence I might have riz to cheer her up. But all of a sudden she bust out a-laughin’ with the tears standin’ in her big eyes and runnin’ down her cheeks.

“There,” sez I, “you see I’m right, don’t you?”

“Oh you dear, delicious Samantha!” sez she, and she throwed her arms round me and kissed me. I kissed her back and then I went on brushin’ my hair for the night. I hadn’t nothin’ on but my skirts and dressin’ sack, but I didn’t mind her. And she went and sot down by the winder and looked off into the west. Fur off the blue hazy distance lay like another country. The moonlight lay on the waters, 152 a white sail fur off seemed to float into dreamy mist. She sot there still, and a queer look seemed to come into her face. I felt that she wuz thinkin’ of him, the lost lover of her youth. I felt that she wuz with him and not with me. I thought from the looks of her face she might think he had been insulted by the rude feet that had assayed to walk into the kingdom where he had rained, and rained still, I believe. Sez I to myself, mebby she is walkin’ with him in the past, and mebby in the futer, how could I tell, I felt queer and wadded up my hair with emotions that never before went into them hair pins.

After I had finished I sot down, as my habit is, to read a few verses of Skripter, to sort o’ carry with me in my journey through the unknown realms of Sleep. And as I make a practice of openin’ wherever I happen to—or I don’t really like that word happen—I let the book open where it will, and I wuz jest readin’ these words:

“Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes, the signs and the great miracles.”

When I hearn through my readin’, as one will, the whistle of the night boat comin’ in, and the noise of many steps goin’ along the walk below. 153 Then I opened the book agin and went on with my readin’:

“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but these things that are revealed belong to us.”

When sunthin’ made me look up, Faith wuz bendin’ forward lookin’ out of the winder, though she couldn’t see anyone that wuz passin’ on account of the ruff, and I see a look that I never see before on any face, it wuz all rousted up, illuminated, glad, triumphant, sad, glowin’, blessed, and everything else.

And I said, “What is it, Faith, what do you see?”

Sez she, “I don’t know.”

And I said then, “What do you think it is?”

And she sez, “Cousin Samantha, do you think that those who are far away ever return to the hearts that are mourning for them? Is there any way that souls can meet while the bodies are far apart?”

“Why yes,” sez I, “I have always thought so, I have always thought they had some way of tellin’ us they wuz nigh without usin’ language we know anything about. Many is the time I’ve expected visitors that I hadn’t seen or hearn from in some time, and sure enough 154 they’d come jest as I seemed to think they would. And letters! how many a time all of a sudden I would most know I wuz goin’ to git a letter from somebody, and sure enough when Josiah would go to the post office he’d bring it back with him. How them folks hundreds of milds away managed to let me know they wuz thinkin’ of me on paper, or how I knew these friends wuz approachin’ onbeknown to me, I don’t know nor Josiah don’t.

“There wuzn’t no U. S. stamp on these messages, nor earthly hands didn’t bring the tidin’s of these visitors. No the post-masters and messengers on that mysterious Route keep perfect silence as to where they be, or who they be. But they are at work all the same, though who they work for, or how they work, how can we tell? The strange rays of light that flash through the darkness of dense bodies makin’ visible what has been onseen since the creation, hasn’t discovered these highways yet, mebby they will. The strange new air route messages that travel acrost the stormy Atlantic may run right acrost these mysterious highways,” and for a minute my mind follered off on them strange, strange tracks, Marconi roads lighted by X-rays and leadin’ who knows where. 155

When my mind kinder come back agin to what we wuz talkin’ about I resoomed, “And if this happens to us as it duz time and agin in regard to friends and well wishers, how much more it is likely to be true of those we love and who love us. This strange knowledge and fore-warnin’ is not material, it is independent of the body or any workin’s of the mind that we understand, and how do we know how fur reachin’ and universal that law is if our eyes wuz not held so we could discern it? If these fine senses wuz not so unused, and as you may say bed-rid by disuse, how do we know how truly near to us may be those who in our blindness we say are fur away, how do we know but their spiritual self, their real self, may be nearer to us than our neighbors in the flesh, and those who sit by our firesides, though our mortal eyes may not see them, and oceans and seas may divide us and mebby the Deepest River. What do we know about the onseen roads that lay all about us, leadin’ from Loontown and Jonesville and from one continent to the other, and mebby up through the clear fields of Light? What do we know about them still mysterious streets windin’ mebby from our home and hearts to Thomas Jefferson’s, and so on, mebby 156 from star to star? And what do we know of the travelers that go up and down on ’em and outward and homeward? These roads don’t need any surveyor to lay ’em out, or path-master to clear ’em of snow and dirt, no weeds grow up by the wayside, nor dirt lays in the track.

“No, clear and broad and unobstructed the luminous pathways may lay all round us onknown to us. Noiseless chariots, swifter than our imaginations can grasp now, may cleave these star routes, connecting one land to another, and mebby jinin’ immense distances to our planet, as easy as we can hitch up and go to Jonesville.

“We don’t see these noiseless conveyances, lighter and swifter than thought, nor the forms they waft to us from afar. We can’t hear their voices, but our soul listens! We feel their nearness! For a blessed moment we are thrilled with the bliss of their presence, their full comprehension of pity and love.

“‘Dear ones!’ our heart cries, ‘where are you? Come nearer! Let our eyes behold you!’ Our soul peers longin’ly through the mist of earthly blindness, looking! listening!’”

I wuz carried some distance away from myself 157 by my deep eppisodin’ when a sigh from Faith brung me down and landed me on terry firmy agin and I sez,

“Why do you ask this question to-night, dear?”

“Because,” sez she in a tremblin’ voice, “I feel that someone long gone and lost is near me to-night, I feel the presence nearer than you are now,” sez she, puttin’ her little white tremblin’ hand on my own.

“I am not mistaken,” sez she with streaming eyes, “I know that in whatever world or distant way that soul may be dwellin’, it is with me to-night. It frightens me!” sez she, white as a cloth, “And it fills me with the blessedness of Heaven!” And she smiled with her big luminous eyes. She wuz tremblin’ like a popple leaf.

“Well, well,” sez I, “shet up the winder, and take a little catnip tea. I’ll steep it on my alcohol lamp, and go to bed. You’ve been excited too much to-night.” I knew, though she didn’t say so, that the very idee of catnip wuz repugnant and oncongenial to her at that time, but I felt that I had reason and common sense on my side. Faithful hain’t over strong, and had been through considerable excitement, 158 besides I hearn the distant step of my pardner, and his voice parleyin’ with the hall boy for sunthin’.

And though the subject broached by Faith, and believed in by me, wuz as interestin’ to me as a subject could be, yet I felt then, and feel now, that though transcendentalism may be more agreable talkin’ matter, and may be indulged in at times, yet such commonplace subjects as herb drink has to be brung forwards and sort o’ hung onto by our minds, in order to anchor ’em as it were to the land of Megumness, where I would fain tarry myself and have my near and dearest dwell. But Faith said she didn’t want any catnip, and jest before Josiah come in she kissed me good night, and I said, “Good night, dear, and ‘God be with you till we meet again.’”

I knew she thought everything of that him, and thought mebby it would sort o’ quiet her some since she rejected the paneky I spoke of. But her face at the very last looked white and riz up and luminous, and her eyes shone. I felt queer.

The next day wuz Sunday and Josiah and I went to the Tabernacle to meetin’. Faith havin’ a headache didn’t go. But before I go any 159 furder I will back up the boat and moor it to the shore, while I tell you what the result wuz so fur as Mr. Pomper wuz concerned. At the breakfast table next mornin’ he cast languishin’ glances at Faith, and then looked round the room proudly as much as to say:

“Gentlemen and ladies, behold my choice, and I hain’t sorry I chose her out of the throng of waitin’ wimmen.”

But some time durin’ that day he found out his mistake. I don’t know exactly how Faith managed to pierce the rhinocerous hide of his self-conceit with the truth, but she did somehow let him know that his attentions wuz futile, futiler than he ever mistrusted his attentions could be.

But he wuzn’t danted and down-casted more’n several minutes, I guess, for anon I see him walkin’ with a woman almost as ponderous as he wuz, and as she wuz all janglin’ with black jet and as humbly as humbly could be, I mistrusted that he had gone back to his allegiance to the widder, and I think he looked happier than I had ever seen him. He looked as if he wuz rejoiced that his temporary thraldom to sentiment wuz over, and common sense and practical gain wuz in the ascendancy agin. 160 And though it hain’t much matter, I will say I read his marriage in the paper the next week:

“Amaziah Pomper to Euphrasia, relict of Elnathan Fatt.”

But I d’no as Faith knew anything about it, for she didn’t stay with us only a few days longer, she went on to visit her aunt Petrie and so on to the Ohio, makin’ a solemn promise to me to stop and visit us on her way home the last of September. Well, I will now onhitch the boat and row back, and then let it sail on down the stream of history. As I said, the next day after that singular experience of Faith’s wuz Sunday, and my pardner and I went to the Tabernacle. We wuz told that there wuz to be oncommon exercises that day owin’ to the visit of a great Evangelist from the West. Lots of folks had come on the night boats so as to be there to hear him. For if the angel Gabriel wanted to preach there to lost sinners, he couldn’t land there on Sunday unless he swum or come cross lots (that is, unless he flowed down). The folks on that island are too good to let anyone come there to meetin’ unless they come sarahuptishously. I asked a trustee once why it wuz wicked for folks to ride there to meetin’. 161

And he said, “A merciful man is merciful to his beast.”

Sez I, “A steamer hain’t a beast, and if it wuz, it wouldn’t tucker it out much to come over from the bay or Clayton.” And he said the sailors would have to toil to git ’em there.

“So the driver and the horses have to toil to git sinners to meetin’ on the main land,” sez I. And he said, “The steamers would make noise and confusion, and disturb the sweet Sabbath calm.” I felt there wuz some truth in this, though it wouldn’t make nigh so much noise as the thousands of church bells clangin’ out church time in cities and villages.

Sez he, “If we allowed boats to land here we should be overrun with excursionists who don’t care for Sunday as a day of holy quiet and rest, and our peaceful Sabbath would be turned into a carnival of pleasure seekers, flirtations, giggles, brown paper parcels, egg shells, cigar smoke and sandwiches.”

And I sez, “Like as not that is so.” And I felt that mebby he wuz in the right on’t. But some don’t like it and feel that they’d ort to take the resk.

CHAPTER TEN

We Hear a Great Temperance Sermon, but Josiah Still Hankers for Coney Island

165

CHAPTER TEN

WE HEAR A GREAT TEMPERANCE SERMON, BUT JOSIAH STILL HANKERS FOR CONEY ISLAND

Ever since I had been to the Thousand Island Park, my mind had roamed onto that idee of the Tabernacle with a sort of or. It is a big impressive word and one calculated to impress a stranger and sojourner. And so when we made up our minds to attend to it I almost instinctively put on my best alpacky dress (London brown) and I also run a new ribbin into my braize veil and tied it round my bunnet so it would hang in graceful folds adown the left side of my frame, I also put on my black mitts and my mantilly with tabs; of course I carried my faithful umbrell.

I looked well. Faith had a bad headache, I guess the job of gittin’ that information into Mr. Pomper’s head had tuckered her out, so I and my pardner sot off alone. All the way there my mind wuz real riz up thinkin’ I wuz 166 goin’ to see sunthin’ very grand lookin’ and scriptural, and I said over and over to myself a number of times with deep respect and or, “Tabernacle! Tabernacle!”

Yes, I felt some as if I wuz the Queen of Sheba and Josiah wuz Solomon, though I might have knowed, my pardner lacked the first ingregient in Solomon’s nater, wisdom. And I probable wuzn’t so dressy as Miss Sheba, ’tennyrate I hadn’t no crown or septer, a brown straw bunnet and umbrell meetin’ my wants better, but not nigh so dashy lookin’. But my feelin’s all come from the name of the place we wuz bound for, and the patriarchical, Biblical past my mind wuz rovin’ round in. Yes, my mind wuz rousted up and runnin’ on the trimmin’s of the Ark and Temple. I thought like as not I should see purple curtains hung on shinin’ poles, jest so many cubits long and high, and gorgeous carpets to walk on and ornaments and fringes and tossels.

I would not ask questions, but I wuz prepared for splendid lookin’ things and lots of ’em. Well, if you’ll believe me there wuzn’t a thing there that I expected to see, not a ornament or curtain or tossel, and nothin’ but jest common ground to walk on like our suller bottom or 167 dooryard. And long benches all through it as fur as the eye could reach almost.

The platform wuz big as most meetin’ housen, but bare and plain, and there wuz what seemed to be sheets hung up round the hull concern, though rolled up so we could see out all round us. There wuz only one way it come up to my idees, and that wuz the cubits. I should think it wuz jest about as many cubits long and broad as anything ever wuz or ever will be. They say it will hold five thousand folks, and I should judge they wuz all there that mornin’, and had brung their children and relations on both sides.

They wuz havin’ a song service when we went in, and to hear five thousand voices or so fillin’ that Tabernacle full of high and inspirin’ melody, wuz indeed a treat. It filled it so full that it oozed out of the sheets on all sides and soared up through the encirclin’ green trees, up, up towards the blue sky, and no knowin’ how much furder it did go upwards, clear up to Heaven like as not, for that place we have always been told is the home of music. It wuz sunthin’ to remember as long as you lived to hear that great flood of melody flow out and swash and sway round us, bearin’ us some distance away from ourselves. 168

My Josiah tuned up and sung jest as loud as any of ’em, but his singin’ would have sounded better if he had sung the tune the rest did. He sung the tune he had always been used to singin’ hims in, he is dretful sot on it, and don’t like to change. But as he seemed to enjoy it so much, and the great rush of melody wuz so powerful his voice wuz onnoticed. The him wuz, “How firm a foundation ye saints of the Lord.”

Mr. Pomper wuz jest ahead on us, and thinkin’ he would see better, I spoze had got up on the bench, and jest as he shouted out with the rest, “How firm a foundation,” the bench broke and down he come, but in the big volume of sound, his yell of fright wuzn’t heard no more than the note of a mosquito in a cyclone.

In the intervals of silence Josiah sot and made comments to me on the surroundin’ seen, that alas made me know his mind wuzn’t riz up on such hites as mine wuz. He commented on the looks of the men around him, and cast the idee in my face that there wuzn’t any on ’em so good lookin’ as he wuz, or nigh so distinguished in their means. I felt sorry to think he wuz so blinded, though of course he looks good to me. And he talked about the wimmen and advanced the idee that they well might take pattern by his pardner in their looks and deportment. Josiah after all is a man of good sense.

169

“Mr. Pomper, thinkin’ he would see better, got up on the bench, and jest as he shouted out ‘How firm a foundation,’ the bench broke and down he come.” (See page 168)

170

As I looked round me, I liked the place more and more. What need wuz there of upholstery and carpets? Brussels never turned out such a carpet as old Mom Nater had spread all round that Temple of hern. Old Gobelin never wove such tapestry. No Empress of the wonder-laden East ever had hung in her boodore such a marvelous green texture as drooped down in emerald canopies above us. No golden lamp ever gin such a light as sifted down over the matchless green overhead, to light that solemn sanctuary. No organ ever gin out such sweet sound as the birds warbled anon or oftener. No jeweled ornaments ever sparkled on a altar like the emerald and gold winged butterflies flutterin’ round that sacred hant, amongst the wild flowers that blossomed even up to the door. And it seemed as if the soul could soar up easier somehow when you could look right into the blue mystery of the sky, the trackless path that souls mount up on in prayer and praise. Somehow plaster and mortar seem more confinin’. 171 Though I d’no as it really makes any difference. Heaven is over all, and the soul’s wings can pierce the heaviest material, bein’ made in jest that strong and delicate way, but yet it seemed more free and soarin’ somehow, and as if the path heavenward wuz clearer.

The breezes kind of hung off and didn’t come in. Josiah said they wuz afraid to land on Thousand Island Park for fear of bein’ fined for travelin’ on Sunday, but it wuzn’t so, they didn’t come because it wuz so sultry and kinder muggy.

I’d hearn that the man who wuz goin’ to preach wuz a dretful smart man, a Evangelist and Temperance Lecturer. A man so gifted and good that folks would go milds and milds to hear him, he seemed to hold the secret of inspirin’ men and wimmen, and rousin’ ’em out of their cold icy states, and drawin’ ’em right along towards the mounts he habitually stood on. He’d done sights of good, sights on it.

And anon I see a stir round the preacher’s stand that made me know the speaker of the day, the great Revivalist and Temperance worker had come. And most immegiately a tall figger passed through the crowd that made 172 way for him reverentially. There wuz a smile and a good look on his face for all the bretheren round him, some like a benediction, only less formal. As he come out on the stand and stood before us I could see that there wuz a light shinin’ on his face as if ketched from some heavenly and divine power. His eyes wuz soft and deep lookin’, as if he knew jest how mean and weak humanity wuz, and wuz sorry for folks, and would like to tell ’em the secret he had found out, how to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, specially the devil.

His smile wuz sad and sweet, jest about half-and-half. His features wuz good, and his hair, which wuz light brown to start with, wuz considerable gray round his forward. His voice wuz like the sound of deep waters that penetrates through all lighter voices and that you hear through ’em all, jest as you hear the voice of the great River through all the murmurin’s of the trees and bird song on the shore. He gin out a him in that sweet melogious voice that wuz as good as singin’ or better. The him told how, though we could not climb up into Heaven to bring the Lord Christ down, yet how love had still its Olivet and Faith its Galilee. And one verse wuz: 173

The healing of that seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch it in life’s care and stress
And we are strong again.

And oh the truth of them verses! As that man read and prayed and spoke, that seamless dress seemed to float along by us, worn by the pityin’ Christ, we laid holt on it with our yearnin’ longin’s and outreachin’ sperits, and felt that strength had gone out of it into our souls.

His prayer seemed to bring Heaven so near to us that we could almost look in. He asked the Lord to draw nigh to us, and He did. He asked Him to help us bear our daily trials and temptations, and the weary wearin’ cares of life, and we felt that He would help us. We felt that that sweet strong appeal for the Comforter to come into our lives to bless and strengthen us for good work, wuz answered then and there.

The Word he read wuz that incomparable chapter in Hebrews, in which Paul tells of the mighty works wrought by faith, of them who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, stopped the mouths of lions, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in 174 fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life agin. And on to the end of that matchless chapter.

And the text wuz, “Wherefore seeing we are encompassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”

And then follered a sermon that wuz better than any I ever hearn in my life, and I have sot under splendid preachers in my day. But this, though delivered in simple language wuz so helpful, lifting us, holding us up, so we could ketch a glimpse of the right way and inspire us with the strength to foller it.

He pinted out to us the sins that so easily beset us, easily indeed. Not the old sins of Adam and Noah and the rest—patriarchal sins that made us feel reproachful towards the old sinful patriarchs and comfortable toward ourselves. No, he pinted out the besettin’ sins that are rampant and liable to ruin us in the nineteen hundreds. After speakin’ of the other deadly sins that are liable to lay holt on us, such as oncharitableness, envy, jealousy, bigotry, intolerance, injustice, over-weaning ambition, and other personal and national sins, he spoke at 175 length of that monster sin, that national disgrace, Intemperance.

I spoze it wuz some as if when you tapped a barrel filled with pure water, why pure water would flow out of it. And I spoze he wuz so full of his great life work aginst that gigantick evil Intemperance, that them ideas had to flow out when the plug of silence wuz removed. And readin’ what he had about them who through faith had stopped the mouth of lions, escaped the edge of the sword, I spoze he wanted to make his hearers feel that they too could so arm themselves with faith and the power of His might, as to stop the mouths of these nineteenth century lions, overthrow the laws entrenched in lion-like strength in the stronghold of National protection, and escape the edge of the sword of personal greed and selfishness, and put to flight the army of the aliens from God and the good of humanity.

And I spoze when he thought of them wimmen who had received their dead raised to life agin, he thought of the yearly sacrifice to Intemperance, the thousands and thousands of husbands, sons, brothers who are struck by the death blight now, makin’ ready to fall into those oncounted graves. And he wanted to roust 176 ’em up and save their souls and bodies alive and give them back to these wimmen agin, raised from the dead.

Yes, his warnin’s and appeals wuz all directed to this present time and preached to us. He never mentioned them old Egyptians who wuz all dead and drownded out years ago, both by the Red sea, and the long swosh of the sea of Time, or the old Jews and Hebrews, nor he didn’t dwell on science or philosophy, but he pressed the truth home to the hearts of his hearers, how the Lord Jesus had once dwelt upon earth, how He had passed through all the cares and sufferings that we wuz passing through, how He wuz tempted by the sins, pained by the griefs of the world, and how He pitied us and would help us.

As I say, instead of Bible crimes that had been committed centuries ago, he dwelt strong and as if his hull heart wuz in his words on that terrible national crime back of most all the other sins and crimes of to-day. That stands a huge black shape blocking up the world’s progress, that we ort to try our best to fight aginst, and how we had a Helper. And his idee wuz that good men, clergymen and such, who are wont to stand off and look down on the battlefield, ort to buckle on their armor and 177 join in the warfare. And he said that if sometimes the battle smoke hid the form of our great High Priest and Helper we mustn’t forgit that He wuz there, lookin’ on, seeing how the battle went between the Right and the Wrong, and giving His help towards the right side in His own good time, and he gin us to understand that:

All the blood that falls in righteous cause,
Each crimson drop shall nourish snowy flowers,
And quicken golden grain bright sheaves of good,
That under happier skies shall yet be reaped.

“For,” sez he:

When Right opposes Wrong, shall Evil win?
Nay, never; but the years of God are long.

And he counseled his hearers to keep on and work—work and follow the leadin’ of Him who shall conquer all sin and evil.

It wuz a grand and powerful effort. It wuzn’t so flowery as I’ve hearn, but the strength, the pathos of it wuz wonderful. I didn’t wonder as I hearn him talk of what I’d been told that day by different ones of how people flocked to hear him, how he might have the choice of big city churches with big salaries accordin’, but he had chosen to stay by the common people. 178 Had elected that he would not have wealth and station, that he would go about tellin’ of the love of God, urgin’ men to accept Him, goin’ about doin’ good.

As we listened to him, everything seemed possible, the right seemed possible to do, it almost seemed as if we felt the crown restin’ on our tired foretops. And he ended the sermon as he had begun it with a few words from the Book, “Now bretheren quit ye like men, be steadfast, strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.” And then agin he breathed out his very soul in prayer, and we wuz lifted up some distance towards the Better Country. As he ended his words we all heaved some long sithes and seemed to fall down some distance, and found ourselves to our great surprise still on the old earth.

A enthusiastick little woman, who’d shouted out, “Amen!” with the best of ’em sez to me, “Wasn’t that sermon a grand one?”

“Yes,” sez I, “it come right from his heart, and went to mine. It lifted me up some distance above the earth,” sez I.

“Yes,” sez she, “the Elder is one of the saints on earth, but we are afraid he hain’t long for this world.” 179

“Why?” sez I.

“He don’t take any care of himself. He lives alone with an old housekeeper who is dretful slack and don’t have any faculty, and he don’t have things for his comfort, though he don’t complain. He gits no end of money, but gives it all away, or it is wasted to home. I went to his house once on business,—I am from the West,” sez she,—“and it wuz so bare and desolate lookin’ that I almost cried. He ort to marry,” sez she, “I have five daughters myself, and three onmarried nieces and they all say the same thing, that he ought to be married to some woman who would jest worship him, for no woman could help it, and take care on him. For,” sez she with a shrewd look, “the smartest men and the most spiritual ones are the most helpless, come to things of this world.”

“Yes,” sez I, “our minister to Jonesville could no more make a mess of cream biscuit than he could fly. He is great on the Evidences, and a great Bible expounder, but he couldn’t sew on a button so it wouldn’t pucker the cloth, if he should cry like a babe.”

“No,” sez she, “I presume not, my girls are splendid with the needle, and good cooks, and so religious—it’s a sight! and so are my sister’s 180 three girls, though they don’t quite come up to my five.”

Well, there wuz a stir in the crowd. The Elder had come down and wuz shakin’ hands right and left with them that crowded up to him. The little woman pressed towards him and I wuz drawed along in her wake by the crowd, some as a stately ship is swep’ on by a small tug and the flowin’ waves. And anon, after shakin’ hands with her, he took my hand in hisen. A emotion swep’ through me, a sort of electric current that connects New Jerusalem to Jonesville and Zoar. He bent his full sweet penetratin’ look onto me, it seemed to go through my head clear to my back comb, and he sez,

“Have I met you before?”

“Yes,” sez I, “in sperit, we have met, I want to thank you for the words you have said this day. It seems to me I shall be good for some time, it seems that I must after hearin’ your discourse, and I want to thank you for it, thank you earnest and sincere.”

He smiled sort o’ sad and yet riz up, and sez, “We are all wayfarers here on a hard journey, and if I can help anyone along the way, it is I who should be thankful, and,” sez he, “may God bless you, sister!” 181

And he passed on.

But he seemed to leave a wake of glory behind him as he went, some like the glow on the water when the sun walks over it, a warmin’ life givin’ influence that comes from a big soul filled with light and goodness. I seemed to be riz up above the earth all the way back to the hotel, though in body I wuz walkin’ afoot by the side of my pardner. He too wuz enthused by the sermon—I had reconized his little treble voice shoutin’ out “Amen!” and he said now that it wuz grand, powerful!

“Yes,” sez I, “and good and holy and tender!”

“Yes indeed!” sez he. And he added, “Speakin’ of tenderness, I do hope the beef will be tenderer than it wuz yesterday. I don’t believe they have such beef to Coney Island.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In Which We Return Home, and I Perswaide Josiah to Build a Cottage for Tirzah Ann

185

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IN WHICH WE RETURN HOME, AND I PERSWAIDE JOSIAH TO BUILD A COTTAGE FOR TIRZAH ANN

The next afternoon Faith started on her visit to her aunt beyend Kingston. And immegiately after her departure, Josiah said he’d got to go home right away. Sez he, “It hain’t right to leave Ury to bear all the brunt of the work alone.”

Sez I, “Ury has got over the hardest of the work, and writ so.”

“Well,” sez he, “I’m a deacon and I can’t bear the thought of religious interests languishin’ for my help.”

Sez I, “Seven folks wuz baptized last Sunday: the meetin’ house wuz never so prosperous.”

And then he went on and said political ties wuz drawin’ him, and he brung up fatherly feelin’s for the children, and cuttin’ up burdocks, and buildin’ stun walls, and etcetery. But bein’ met with plain Common Sense in front of all these things, he bust out at last with 186 the true reason: “I hain’t no more money to spend here, and I tell you so, Samantha, and I mean it!”

And I sez, “Why didn’t you say so in the first place, it would have been more noble.”

And he said a man didn’t care much about bein’ noble when they’d got down to their last cent (he’s got plenty of money, though I wouldn’t want it told on, for rich folks are always imposed upon, and charged higher).

Well, suffice it to say, we concluded to go home the next day and did so. And though I felt bad to leave the horsepitable ruff where I’d enjoyed so much kind and friendly horspitality yet to the true home lover there are always strong onseen ties that bind the heart to the old hearth stun, and they always seem to be drawin’ and tuggin’ till they draw one clear back to the aforesaid stun and chimbly. Josiah paid for our two boards like a man, and we embarked for Clayton and from thence traveled by cars and mair to our beloved home.

And right here let me dispute another wicked wrong story, we never had to pay a cent for gittin’ offen the Thousand Island Park. It is a base fabrication to say folks have to pay to git out. They let us out jest as free and easy as 187 anything, and I thought they acted kinder smilin’ and good feelin’. What a world of fibs and falsehoods we are livin’ in!

We got home in time for supper and at my companion’s request I took off the parfenalia of travel, my gray alpacky, and havin’ enrobed myself in a domestic gingham of chocklate color and a bib apron, I proceeded to help Philury git a good supper. The neighbors all flocked in to see us and congratulate us on our safe return from the perils and temptations of worldly society. And Josiah wuz indeed in his glory as he told the various deacons and church pillows that gathered round him from time to time, of all his fashionable experiences and dangerous exploits while absent.

Of course my time wuz more took up by my female friends, but anon or oftener I would ketch the sound of figgers in connection with fish that wuz astoundin’ in the extreme. But when I would draw nigh the subject would be turned and the attention of the pillows would be drawed off onto yots, summer hotels, Tabernacles, etc., etc. Well such is life. But anon the waves of excitement floatin’ out insensibly from the vortex in which we had so lately revolved round in, gradually abated and went 188 down, and the calm placid surface of life in Jonesville wuz all we could see as we looked out of our turret winders—(metafor).

Gradually the daily excitement of seein’ the milk cans pass morning and night, and the school children go whoopin’ schoolward and homeward, wuz the most highlarious excitement participated in. A few calm errents of borryin’ tea and spice, now and then a tin peddler and a agent, or a neighborhood tea drinkin’, wuz all that interrupted our days serene.

And old Miss Time, that gray headed old weaver, who is never still, but sets up there in that ancient loom of hern a weavin’, while her pardner is away mowin’ with that sharp scythe of hisen from mornin’ till night, and from night till mornin’, jest so stiddy did she keep on weavin’. Noiseless and calm would the quiet days pass into her old shuttle (which is jest as good to-day as it wuz at the creation). Silent days, quiet days, in a broad stripe, not glistenin’ or shiny, but considerable good-lookin’ after all. Then anon variegated with moon lit starry nights, blue skies, golden sunsets, deep dark, moonless midnights, all shaded off into soft shadders.

And then givin’ way to a stripe of hit or miss, 189 restless hours, days when the “Fire won’t burn the stick and the kid refuses to go,” small excitements, frustrated ambitions, etc.

Anon a broad gray stripe, monotony, deadly monotony, and lonesomeness, gray as a rat both on ’em, all loosely twisted together makin’ a wide melancholy stripe. Then a more flowery piece, golden moments, mounts of soul transfiguration, full understandin’, divine hopes and raptures, heart talks, illuminations, all striped in with images of golden rod, evergreen trees pintin’ up into the friendly blue heavens, that leaned down so clost you could almost see into the Sweet Beyond. Singin’ rivulets, soarin’ birds, green fields, rosy clouds. Anon a plain piece, some slazy, as the shuttle seemed to go slower and kinder lazy, and then agin quick strong beats that made the web firm as iron.

Mebby that wuz the time that old Mr. Time hung up that old scythe of hisen for a few minutes on the top bars of the loom, and got in and footed it out for his pardner for a spell, while she rested her old feet or wound her bobbins for another stripe. But such idees are futile, futiler than I often mean to be. ’Tennyrate and anyway all the time, all the time the 190 shuttles moved back and forth to and fro, and old Miss Time’s tapestry widened out.

That summer my pardner had a oncommon good streak of luck, he sold two colts and a yearlin’ heifer for a price that fairly stunted us both, it wuz so big. And his crops turned out dretful well, and he jest laid up money by the handfuls as you may say. And one day we wuz talkin’ about what extreme good luck we’d had for the past year, and we also talked considerable about Tirzah Ann and little Delight, and how they wuz both pimpin’ and puny. The older children away to school wuz doin’ first rate both in health and studies, but Tirzah Ann’s health wuz such that Whitfield had to keep a girl and pay doctor’s bills, and I sez to Josiah:

“I am sorry for ’em as I can be, and if this goes on much longer there don’t seem much chance of Whitfield’s buildin’ his house on Shadow Island this summer.”

And Josiah sez, “No indeed! if he can pay the doctor’s bills and help, he will do well. But,” sez he, “he is goin’ to have quite a good job up to his folkses.”

His uncle, Jotham Minkley, who is forehanded and a ship builder up in Maine, had invited Whitfield to come and take charge of some 191 bizness for him, and he said he must bring Tirzah Ann and Delight. So it wuz arranged that they wuz goin’ to stay for some time. We all thought the change would do Tirzah Ann good, and then Whitfield had been promised good pay for his work. And then wuz the time I tackled my pardner on the subject I had thought over so long. He looked so sort o’ mournful over the hard times Whitfield wuz havin’, and Tirzah Ann’s and Delight’s enjoyment of poor health, that I thought now wuz the appinted time for me to onfold this subject to him. This idee wuz that while Whitfield and Tirzah Ann wuz away up to Maine we should build a pretty little house for ’em on Shadow Island. “For,” sez I, “the health and life of Tirzah Ann and Delight may hang in the balances, and if anything will help ’em I believe that dear old Saint Lawrence will.” But Josiah demurred strongly on account of the expense. In fact I had to use some of my strongest arguments to convince him of the feasibility of my plans.

One of my arguments wuz that in all probability all our property would before long descend onto the children, and so why not use some now for ’em, while they wuz sufferin’ for the use 192 on’t. That wuz one of my arguments, and my other one wuz, that he couldn’t take any of his property with him. But he had got kinder mad and when I told him in a solemn tone, “Josiah Allen, you know you can’t take any of your property with you when you die,” he snapped out, “I don’t know whether I can or not; it won’t be as you say about it.”

“Well,” sez I, in lofty axents and quotin’ Skripter, “there is only one way you can take your property with you, and that is to send it on before you. Make friends with the Mammon of your wealth so that when you fail here it may receive you into a everlastin’ habitation. Turn it into angels of Gratitude and Love that may be waitin’ to welcome you. Do good with your money. Lend to the Lord,” sez I.

And Josiah wuz so pudgicky, he snapped out, “I didn’t know as the Lord wanted to borry any money.”

But I gin him such a talkin’ to that I brung him to a sense of his sinful talk, and right then while he wuz conscience smut for as much as seven minutes, I brung him round to the idee of buildin’ the house. But it wuz a gradual bringin’.

Of course he begged and beseeched to build it 193 on Coney Island. Sez he, “I wouldn’t begrech the money but spend it lavish, if the house sot there. I could go there and spend months and months of perfect bliss, and learn more there in one day than I could in years in Jonesville.”

“Where would you build it?” sez I in frosty axents.

“Well, the top of one of them tall mountains in Luna Park Serenus tells on would be a good spot, near the beautiful waterfall where the boats full of happy Hilariors dash down the steep declivity and bound way off onto the water and sail away. The view would be so lively and inspirin’, it would be equal to havin’ a brass band in your bedroom.”

“Yes, jest about like that,” sez I. “Do you know what them mountains are made of? They’re jest about as solid as your idees.”

“Well, I might build it on the other side of Surf Avenue, nigh that long line of dashin’ horses Serenus depicters, that go racin’ and cavortin’ round and round, bearin’ the gay and happy Hilariors on their backs.”

“How much do you spoze a lot would cost there, Josiah, if you wuz ravin’ crazy enough to want it? All the property in Jonesville 194 wouldn’t buy a spot big as a table cloth, and I d’no as it would a towel.”

“Well,” sez he real sulky, “I can let my mind dwell on it, can’t I? That is some comfort.”

“I wouldn’t think on’t too much, you don’t want to tire your mind, it hain’t over strong, you know.”

It beats all how sometimes when you are doin’ your very best for your pardners, they don’t like it. He acted huffy.

But at last it wuz settled, Tirzah Ann’s cottage wuz to be begun the minute they left, it wuz to be kep secret from ’em, and we wuz to have a surprize party there, to welcome ’em home. Well, from the very day it wuz settled begun my trials with Josiah Allen about the plan. My idee wuz to employ a first rate architect, but he sez:

“I can tell you, Mom, if that plan is made I shall make it. There hain’t an architect in the country that could begin with me in drawin’ up this plan.” Oh how I sithed and groaned when I see his sotness, and knowed he wuz no more fit for the job than our old steer to give music lessons on the banjo.

He went to the village that afternoon and obtained two long blank books (oh that they 195 could have stayed blank) and three quires of fool’s cap paper (well named) and a bottle of red ink and one of blue ink, besides black, and a dozen pencils of different colors, and after these elaborate preparations he begun drawin’ up his plans.

He would roll up his sleeves, moisten his hands, and go to work early in the mornin’, and set and pour over ’em all day, every stormy day, and every night he sot up so late goin’ over ’em that he most underminded his health, to say nothin’ of the waste of my temper and kerseen. And then he would call in uncle Nate Peedick and they would bend their two gray bald heads together and talk about “specifications” and “elevations” and “ground plans” and “suller plans” till my head seemed to turn and my brain seemed most as soft as theirn.

196

“And then he would call in Uncle Nate Peedick and they would bend their two gray bald heads and talk about specifications and elevations till my brain seemed most as soft as theirn.” (See page 195)

197

And sometimes Serenus Gowdey would be called in to aid in their deliberations, though their talk always led off onto Coney Island and rested there, he didn’t git no other idees out of him. Josiah never called on a woman for advice and counsel, not once, though a woman stood nigh him who wuz eminently qualified to pass a first class judgment on the plan. But no, it wuz males only who gin him their deepest thoughts and counsels. Once in awhile I would ask how many stories he wuz layin’ out to have it, and how big it wuz goin’ to be, and every time I asked him he said:

“Wimmen’s minds wuz too weak to comprehend his views. It took a man’s mind to tackle such a subject and throw it.”

And that would mad me so that it would be some time before I would ask him agin, and then curosity would git the better of me and I would ask him agin sunthin’ about it, but his reply wuz always the same:

“Wimmen’s minds wuz too weak and tottlin’ to tackle the subject.” So all the light I could git wuz to hear him talk it over with some man. I see that there wuz a great difference of opinion between ’em. Josiah, true father of Tirzah Ann, seemed anxious mainly to unite display and cheapness. Uncle Nate seemed more for solidity and comfort. Sez Josiah to him:

“It is my idee to have the house riz up jest as high as the timbers will stand, the main expense anyway is the foundation and floorin’ and I would rise up story after story all ornamented off beautiful and cheap, basswood sawed off in pints makes beautiful ornaments, and what a show it would make round the 198 country, and what air you could git up in the seventh or eight story.”

So he would go on and argy, regardless of common sense or Tirzah Ann’s legs. And then Uncle Nate would reply:

“Josiah, safety lays on the ground, and in this climate more liable each year to tornadoes and cyclones, the only safety lays in spreadin’ out on the ground. Build only one story,” sez he, “and a low one at that, and let it spread out every way as much as it wants to.”

“But,” sez Josiah, “to have every room on the bottom would take up all the lot and lap over into the river.”

“Better do that,” sez Uncle Nate, “than to have your children and grand-children blowed away. Safety is better than sile,” sez he solemnly. And then I hearn ’em talkin’ about a travelin’ woodhouse. Josiah advoctated the idee of havin’ the woodhouse made in the form of a boat, only boarded up like a house, and have big oars fixed onto the sides on’t so’s it could be used as a boat, and a house. Sez he:

“How handy it would be to jest onmoor the woodhouse and row over to the main land and git the year’s stock of wood, and then row back agin, cast anchor and hitch it onto the house 199 agin.” But Uncle Nate demurred. He thought the expense would be more than the worth of usin’ it once a year.

“Once a year!” sez Josiah. “You forgit how much kindlin’ wood a woman uses.” Sez he, “When she that wuz Arvilly Nash worked here I believe we used a woodhouse full a day. If we had a floatin’ woodhouse here, we should had to embark on it once a day at least and load it up with shavin’s and kindlin’ wood. Samantha is more eqinomical,” sez he.

“But,” sez Uncle Nate, “I hearn that Whitfield’s folks wuz layin’ out to use a coal oil stove durin’ the summer.”

Josiah’s face fell. “So they be,” sez he.

But he wuz loath to give up this floatin’ woodhouse and went on:

“How handy it would be for a picnic, jest fill the woodhouse full of Highlariers and set off, baskets, bundles and all. It would do away with parasols; no jabbin’ ’em into a man’s eyes, or proddin’ his ears with the pints of umbrells. Or on funeral occasions,” sez he, “jest load the mourners right in, onhitch the room and sail off. Why it would be invaluable.”

But Uncle Nate wuz more conservative and cautious. He sez, “What if it should break 200 loose in the night and start off by itself? It would be a danger to the hull river. How would boats feel to meet a woodhouse? It would jam right into ’em and sink ’em—sunk by a woodhouse! It wouldn’t sound well. And row boats would always be afraid of it, they’d be thinkin’ it would be liable to come onto ’em at any time onbeknown to ’em, ’twouldn’t have no whistle or anything.”

“Yes it would,” sez Josiah hautily; “I laid out to fix it somehow with a whistle.”

“But it couldn’t whistle itself if it sot off alone.”

“Well,” sez Josiah, scratchin’ his head, “I hain’t got that idee quite perfected, but I might have a self actin’ whistle, a stationary self movin’ gong, or sunthin’ of that kind.” But I didn’t wait to hear any more; I left the room, and I shouldn’t wonder if I shet the door pretty hard.

CHAPTER TWELVE

In Which Josiah Still Works at His Plan for Tirzah Ann’s Cottage, and Decides to Send His Lumber C. O. W.

203

CHAPTER TWELVE

IN WHICH JOSIAH STILL WORKS AT HIS PLAN FOR TIRZAH ANN’S COTTAGE, AND DECIDES TO SEND HIS LUMBER C. O. W.

Wall the next evenin’, Josiah would make the plan all over, would rub out red marks and put in blue ones, and then rub ’em out with his thumb and fore finger, and then anon, forgittin’ himself, he’d rub his forward with the same fingers, till he looked like a wild Injun started for war. And he would sithe heart breakin’ sithes, and moisten his hands in his mouth, and roll up his shirt sleeves, and toil and toil till he seemed to git a new plan made after Uncle Nate’s idees, as squatty and curous lookin’ as I ever see as I glanced at it in a cursory way. And he would work at that till some new man come round with some new idee and then he would (goin’ through with all the motions and acts I have depictered) make a new one. And so it went on till finally in the fullness of time Josiah produced 204 a dockument which he said wuz the finest plan ever drawed up in America.

Sez he, “I have at last reached perfection.”

“I spoze you’ll let me see it now it is finished,” I sez.

“Yes,” sez he, “I’ve always been willin’ to give you all the chances I could of improvin’ and enlargin’ your mind, all that a woman’s mind is strong enough to bear. I am willin’, Samantha, that you should look at it and admire it, now it is too late for you to advocate any changes.”

Sez I coldly, “If I am goin’ to see the plan, bring it on.”

He laid it before me with a hauty linement and stood off a few steps to admire it. It wuz drawed up handsome, with little ornaments in blue and yeller ink runnin’ all round the porticos and piazzas, which wuz in red ink. But on a closer perusal I sez to him:

“What room is this where the walls and ceilin’ are all ornamented off so?”

“The settin’ room,” sez he.

Sez I, “Where are the winders?”

“The winders?” sez he, lookin’ closter at it.

“Yes,” sez I, “as the ornaments are all fastened on now there hain’t no winders and no room for any.” 205

“By thunder!” sez he, the second time in my life that I ever hearn him use that wicked swear word.

And I sez, “I should think you would be afraid to be so profane, you a deacon and a grand-father!”

But he paid no attention to my remarks, but sez agin out loud and strong, “By thunder! I forgot the winders.”

“You profane man you!” sez I, pintin’ to another room, “what room is this?”

Sez he in a lower and more mortified tone, “It is the parlor.”

Sez I, “How be you goin’ to git out of this room if you wuz built into it? There hain’t no door nor no place for one. You couldn’t git out of the room unless you climbed up through the chimbly and emerged onto the ruff, and,” sez I, “there hain’t a sign of a stairway to git up into the chambers, nor no chamber doors.”

But all the answer my pardner made wuz to snatch up the paper and tear it right through the middle, and sez he, “There, I hope you’re satisfied now! it is all your doin’s!”

Sez I, “How, Josiah?” I spoke with calmness, for a long life passed by the side of a man had 206 taught me this great truth, that every man from Adam to Josiah will blame a woman for every mistake and blunder they make, no matter of what name or nater, from bringin’ sin into the world, to bustin’ off a shirt button.

So I sez with composure, “How did I do it, Josiah?”

“Well,” sez he, “the day I finished that plan you had company, and you and Miss Gowdey and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury kep’ up such a confounded clackin’ that a man couldn’t hear himself think!”

Sez I, “Josiah, you finished the plan the next day.”

“Well,” sez he, “I kep’ thinkin’ of the clack. Now,” sez he, “I’m goin’ to build a house by rote and not by note. I will git me away from wimmen, and when I’m on the lot with the timber before me, my mind will work clear.”

Sez I, “Do hear to me now; do git a good builder to lay out the plan, one that knows how.”

“Well, I shan’t do no such thing!”

Sez I, “Then do git a first rate carpenter!”

“No, Samantha, I shan’t git any man to be bossin’ me round. I shall git some humble man that knows enough to drive a nail, to carry out my 207 views and be guided by me. There is so much jealousy in every walk of life now, that when a man that shows originality and genius comes forth from the masses, there is immegiately a desire to keep him back and hide his talents.” Sez he, “I’m afraid of this sperit so I am goin’ to git a man that can do what I tell him and ask no questions; in these conditions,” sez he, “I can swing right out and do justice to myself.”

“Then you do have some few fears about your plans yourself?”

Sez he, “Let me once git into a place where my mind can work, I’ll show what I can do, let me once git away from meddlin’ and clack.”

But that night of his own accord (I’d had a uncommon good supper) he acted real affectionate and more confidentialer than he had for weeks, an’ he sez, “There is one thing, Samantha, I’m bound to have, and that is a mullin’ winder.”

“A what?” sez I. “A mullin winder; what is that?”

“Why a winder made out of mullins,” sez he hautily.

Sez I, “How do you make it? Mullin leaves are thick and the stalks tougher than fury, how do you make winders out of ’em?” 208

“That,” sez he proudly, “is the work of a architect to take stalks of the humble mullin and transfer it into a tall and stately winder.”

Sez I, “I don’t believe it can be done. How would you go to work to do it?”

Sez he, “It would be fur from me, Samantha, to muddle up a woman’s brains any more than they be muddled naturally, tryin’ to inform her how this is done. I only say there will be a mullin’ winder in the house.”

Sez I, “Hain’t you goin’ to have a bay winder?”

“That depends on whether there will be room for the bay. But as to the ventilation, on that pint my plans are made. I believe a house should be ventilated to the bottom instead of the top. Air goes up instead of down, a house should be ventilated from the mop boards, I think some of havin’ em open like a trap door to let the air through. Sime Bentley sez have a row of holes bored right through the sides of the house to let in the air, and when you didn’t want to use ’em plug ’em up, when you want a little air take out one stopple, when you want a good deal take out a hull row of plugs. That’s a good idee,” sez Josiah, “but I convinced him that it lacked one important thing, the air 209 didn’t come up from the bottom as I consider it necessary for health and perfect ventilation.”

Sez I dryly, “You might have the holes bored through into the suller!” My tone wuz as irony as a iron tea-kettle, but he didn’t perceive it.

“That is a woman’s idee,” sez he, “rip up a breadth of carpet every time you want a little air, keep a man down on his knee jints the hull of the time tackin’ down carpets and ontackin’ ’em. Nothin’ ever made a woman so happy as to see a man down on his marrer bones tackin’ down a carpet, unless it is seein’ him takin’ it up and luggin’ it outdoors, histin’ it up on a line and beatin’ it. No, my idee is the only right one, ventilate from the mop boards.”

Well, true to his hauty resolution to not share his grand success and triumph with anybody he went the next day and hired a man by the name of Penstock. He had been a good carpenter in his day, but his brain had kinder softened, yet he could work quite fast, and sez Josiah:

“He’s jest the man for me. He won’t be jealous, he will carry out my views and not steal my plans or my credit. There is a lumber dealer out to the Cape owin’ me for a horse, and I propose to buy of him and have the things 210 landed at Shadow Island.” Sez he, “I am a solid influential man, and they will send the boards and charge ’em to me, or send ’em C. O. W.”

“C. O. W.?” sez I. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh,” sez he, “that’s a bizness phrase wimmen don’t understand, we men use it often.”

“But what duz it mean? Most things mean sunthin’, at least they do in wimmen’s bizness.”

“Well, I don’t want to muddle up your head with such things, Samantha, but if you must know, it means Collect All Winter, meanin’ that I can have till spring to pay it up.”

“How do you spell all?” sez I.

“Why o-w-l of course.”

And I sez, “With wimmen that spells owl, a bird that pertends to great wisdom but don’t know anything. Send your things C. O. W. by all means!” sez I wore out. “Send ’em along and spell your all, o-w-l. I think it is a highly figurative and appropriate expression.”

“Well, that is what I thought you would say as fur as you could see into it,” sez he hautily, and in the same axent he asked me if I had packed up a extra pair of socks for him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

In Which Josiah and Serenus Depart Sarahuptishusly for Coney Island and I Start in Pursuit

213

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IN WHICH JOSIAH AND SERENUS DEPART SARAHUPTISHUSLY FOR CONEY ISLAND AND I START IN PURSUIT

That afternoon I see Josiah and Serenus leanin’ on the barnyard fence talkin’ dretful earnest, I spozed about the Plan. But when I went to put my milk pans in the sun I hearn the same old story Coney Island! Dreamland! Luny! Bowery! etc., and I hurried into the house. When Josiah come in he sez, “I guess I’ll invite Serenus to go with me.”

Sez I, “Why should you invite him to go to Shadow Island?”

“Oh he’s got such good judgment,” sez he.

I felt dubersome, but bein’ so mellered in sperit by his consentin’ to build the cottage I didn’t stand out. And they started the next mornin’ at sunrise for Shadow Island as I spozed. Till the next day but one Miss Gowdey come over to borry a drawin’ of tea and she sez,

“Serenus and Josiah are havin’ a gay time at 214 Coney Island. I’ve jest had a card from Serenus.”

You could have knocked me down with a pin feather. But so powerful is my mind, though it seemed to roll to and fro under my foretop and my knees wobbled under me, I did up the tea with marble composure and a piece of paper, and she sot off with it, and then I fell into a rockin’ chair with almost frenzied forebodin’s. What! what wuz Josiah Allen doin’ in that place of folly and fashion? Could he keep his innocence amidst the awful temptations? I’d hearn there wuz places there where folks stood on their heads; wuz his brain strong enough to stand the jolt?

Spozein’ them iron horses should kick him over? Spozein’ he got wrecked on the Immoral railway? Or went up on the Awful Tower and fell off? Spozein’ the elephants should tread on him? Or the boyconstructors or tigers git after him? Or he should go to the moon and git lost there and be obleeged to stay? Oh the wild fears that raced through my foretop; mebby they wuzn’t reasonable but they gored me jest the same. What must I, what could I do? I couldn’t tell.

215

“‘Serenus and Josiah are havin’ a gay time at Coney Island. I’ve jest had a card from Serenus,’ sez Miss Gowdey. You could have knocked me down with a pin feather.” (See page 214)

216

But all of a sudden I thought of what Serenus said about a woman twice my size dressed in gaudy red, forever takin’ after folks—What would Josiah do if she took after him? And no doubt she would, for looked at through the magnifying lens of Absence and Anxiety he looked passingly beautiful. As I thought of her I knowed what I would do. Sez I, “I will go and tear him away and bring him back to duty and his mournin’ pardner.”

But how could I go, wuz my next thought? How dast I venter there alone? I lacked both courage and a summer suit. But when did Samantha ever fail to lay holt of Duty’s apron strings when they dangled in front of her? Better go clothed in a righteous purpose and a old parmetty than in the richest new alpacky and a craven sperit.

I knowed that if I had wanted a hobble skirt or a hayrem, or a hip cosset there wuz no time to git ’em. But Heaven knows I didn’t want ’em, treasurin’ as I did the power to walk and breathe. Suffice it to say the next mornin’ the risin’ sun gilded my brown straw bunnet and umbrell as I descended from the car at the Grand Central.

Havin’ walked round and round, and through and through that immense depo, huffin’ it from 217 as fur as from our house to Jonesville, gittin’ lost time and agin, and bein’ found and sot right by onlookers and bystanders, in the fullness of time I emerged out on’t with a deep sithe of relief.

Believin’ as I do that the great beneficent Power that fills the ether about us, will bring us the help our sperit desires if we ask for it, it didn’t surprise me that almost the first man I met after I left the press and turmoil of the throng, wuz Deacon Gansy, who moved from Jonesville and is now runnin’ a provision store in New York.

I inquired for my cousin Bildad Smith of Coney Island and told him I wuz goin’ there. Sez I, “You know Bildad’s wife is runnin’ down.” Which wuzn’t a lie, but on the very edge on’t, for what did I care for her enjoyment of poor health? And he said he wuz goin’ down there in his delivery auto to carry ’em some fresh butter and eggs and he would take me. I thought it wuzn’t a chance to refuse. Bildad runs a eatin’ house on Coney Island.

So I sot off with Deacon Gansy, and after goin’ through Chaos and Destruction on lower New York streets, and Williamsburg bridge, and acrost it, for all the folks in New York and 218 Brooklyn wuz there that day—and after passin’ through crowded, hustlin’, bustlin’ streets, we found ourselves anon on the broad beautiful Ocean Avenue smooth as glass and as broad as from our house to hern that was Submit Tewksbury’s and I guess wider. Bordered on each side with four rows of noble trees with paths between ’em. The deacon said there wuz over ’leven thousand trees along that avenue, and I didn’t dispute him.

He got real talkative and kinder bragged on how much money he wuz makin’, said he’d bought a place up in Harlem, and sez he, “I’ve got another auto for pleasure drivin’.”

Sez I, “Is it pleasure to drive a car through such crowded places as we’ve been through to-day?”

And he said it wuz, if folks wouldn’t act mean. Sez he, “Last Sunday I took my wife out in the country and a old man in a buggy kep’ right in front of me and wouldn’t turn out, and I had to squeeze through between him and the ditch.”

“Did you git through safe?” sez I.

“Yes, I did, but I had to bend my mud guard right up agin his hoss’s side and scraped the skin raw, and raked its collar off.”

“What did the old man say?” sez I. 219

“I never heard such language out of the mouth of man, and of course as a deacon I couldn’t listen to such profanity, so I hurried right away.”

“Hadn’t you ort to return the hoss collar, Deacon?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t stop to listen to such wicked talk.”

That wuz jest like deacon Gansy; he thought he wuz awful religious but I always felt dubersome about it.

But on we went through the matchless beauty of the drive. And anon we ketched a view of the blue tostin’ waves of the Atlantic, the air jest as fresh and invigoratin’ as when it blowed unto Columbuses weary foretop when he discovered us. And like his dantless cry to his fearful pilot, so my soul echoed the same cry to my deprestin’ fears:

“Sail on, and on, and on,” to the goal of our own desires. Our two quests wuz some different, he wuz seekin’ a new continent and I an old Josiah. But I knowed the Atlantic breezes never blowed on two more determined and noble linements than hisen and mine. And I felt that we would have been real congenial if he hadn’t died too soon, or I been born too late.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Curious Sights I Seen An’ the Hair-Raisin’ Episodes I Underwent in My Agonizin’ Search for My Pardner

223

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE CURIOUS SIGHTS I SEEN AN’ THE HAIR-RAISIN’ EPISODES I UNDERWENT IN MY AGONIZIN’ SEARCH FOR MY PARDNER

Bildad’s folks wuz glad to see me. They visited us jest before they moved there, so I felt free. But not one word did I say about my quest for Josiah. No, such is woman’s deathless devotion to the man she loves, I’d ruther face the imputation of frivolity and friskiness, and I spoze they think to this day I went to Coney Island out of curosity and Pleasure Huntin’, instead of the lofty motives that actuated me. I knowed Bildad’s wife wuz most bed-rid so I would be free to conduct my search with no gossip or slurs onto Josiah.

And another reason for goin’ there: I knowed the savin’ sperit of my pardner, and I thought he would ruther git a free meal than to keep his incognito incog. And sure enough Bildad’s first words wuz, “Why didn’t you come with Josiah yesterday? He wuz here to dinner.”

“Where is he now?” sez I. 224

Sez Bildad, “The last time I see him he wuz startin’ to take a trip to the Moon.”

Oh what a shock that wuz, Josiah goin’ to the moon; and yet even as he spoke I felt a relief, knowin’ man’s fickle nater, that the only inhabitant I ever hearn on in the moon wuz an old man instead of a woman. For few indeed are the men that will stand without hitchin,’ and as for girl blinders, they won’t wear ’em, much as they need ’em from the cradle to the grave.

“When wuz he layin’ out to return?” sez I in a tremblin’ voice.

“Oh they take trips there every half hour.”

Thinks I, to-day I go there myself, and Josiah Allen will come down to earth agin’ if I know myself. But not one word did I say to demean my pardner. Breakfast wuz ready and I sot down. But my emotions filled me up. I couldn’t seem to have any place for meat vittles, I couldn’t eat anything but some bread and butter and a glass of milk. A female settin’ by me sez, “You’re not goin’ to eat loose milk, are you?”

“Loose!” sez I, “Why should milk be tied up? I never wuz afraid on’t.”

“I mean milk that hain’t bottled,” sez she. 225 “I wouldn’t eat loose milk for the world.” And she being enthusiastick gin a long eulogy of the good men who wuz tryin’ to save poor babies by givin’ ’em pure milk, and she talked bitter about the men who opposed the idee for fear it would pauperize the babies.

And I told her it wouldn’t make much difference with the babies pizened by microby milk whether they died pauperized or onpauperized.

Well, I didn’t know whether the milk wuz loose or tight, but I eat it rapidly, so’s to begin my hunt. I’d slep’ some on the cars, and when I had changed my parmetty waist for a brown gingham shirt waist, and washed my face, and brushed back my hair, I wuz ready to start. The room they gin me wuz so small I thought I would have to go out in the hall to change my mind. But I did manage to change my waist. Bildad’s old colored woman wuz singin’ as she made the bed in the next room that old him “Pull for the Shore.” She sung:

“Pull for the shore, brother,
Pull for the shore,
Heed not the rollin’ pins,
Bend to the oar—

Leave the poor old straddled wreck
And pull for the shore.”

226

She didn’t git the words right, but her voice wuz melogious, and as I listened my soul parodied the words to suit my needs. Yes, I felt that I must “bend to the oar” of my purpose, I must not “heed the rollin’ waves” of weariness and anxiety, must leave “the poor old stranded wreck” of my domestic happiness and security and pull for Josiah.

Luny Park wuz only a few steps from Bildad’s and anon I stood before what seemed to be a great city, gorgeous below and way up above the thronged streets and mountains and flower-decked declivities, endless white towers riz up as if callin’ attention to ’em. And I didn’t know but the place had been lied about, and I asked a bystander if any of ’em wuz meetin’ house steeples.

He laughed in derision at me, and I passed on and come to a lot of girls dressed up in red, and settin’ in chariots like them old Roman females used to go to war in. I asked one on ’em if she wuz layin’ out to go to Mexico, and she replied “Ten cents,” and shoved out a piece of paper to me.

227

“I stood before what seemed to be a great city. Endless white towers riz up as if callin’ attention to ’em.” (See page 226)

228

I see she wuz luny as the park, but didn’t argy, and passed on furder when a man out of a row of great tall men dressed in red, took the piece of paper from me. He took it right out of my hand, and if there is anything wrong goin’ on between him and the girl that gin it to me I hain’t to blame, and want it understood that I hain’t.

Anon I see a dancin’ pavilion big enough for all the folks in Jonesville and Zoar to dance in at one time. But I never thought of dancin’ or two-steppin’ myself, though the music wuz enticin’ to them easy enticed. But knowin’ the infinite variety of fads my pardner had indulged in, I cast some searchin’ glances at the dancers and two-steppers as I went past, but to my relief I see that he wuz not among ’em.

On the left side, as I strolled along, I see a big butcher shop, with hull sides of beef, mutton, pork, hams, chickens, etc., hangin’ up. And a long counter, piled full of invitin’ lookin’ pieces ready to roast or brile. The butcher in a clean white apron stood behind the counter. Everything looked good and clean, but I’d hearn of city meat givin’ toe main pizen, and knowin’ Josiah’s fondness for meat vittles—I asked anxiously, “Are you sure the critters this meat come from hadn’t got cow consumption, or hog cholera?”

A friendly female standin’ by said, “Every 229 mite of that is candy.” And she offered me a piece of sassidge, and asked which I preferred, wintergreen or peppermint.

I answered mekanically that I seasoned my sassidge with sage and pepper. Agin she affirmed that everything in the butcher shop wuz candy.

I didn’t argy, but merely said, “It is enough to deceive the very electioneers.”

Sez she, “I spoze you mean politicians, and that’s so, if they’re deceived anyone can be.”

I wuz talkin’ Bible but didn’t explain, and walked onwards. The F. F. (friendly female) come too, and pretty soon we come to what they called a new-matic tube and the F. F. explained it to me, sez she, “You are shet into a car made of iron and it runs with a deafenin’ roar into a dark tunnel, and all to once the car slides down twenty feet and dashes through another dark tunnel and then comes out where you went in. If it wuzn’t for the dretful noise,” sez she, “it would seem like a grave. Don’t you want to try it?”

“No, mom,” sez I, “I shan’t git into any coffin’ and grave till my time comes.”

“Well,” sez she, “I’m goin’ into the Scenic Railway, won’t you come too?” And not 230 wantin’ to act hauty and high-headed I bought a ticket and went in with her. It looked some like a great high rock with a cavern hollered out, and a huge devil’s head with a waterfall flowin’ out of its mouth. I knowed the devil couldn’t hurt us as long as he kep’ his mouth full of water. So we got on a car with about ten other folks and they locked us in and we went right up I calculated about half a mild, though I didn’t measure, and then we sailed off and first I knew there wuz Havana Harbor, war ships, forts, etc., and the city. But we didn’t stop for refreshments, for all of a sudden down we went probably half a mild right straight down. I ketched holt of the F. F. and she ketched holt of me. When all to once we wuz to the North Pole, ice, snow drifts, white bears, etc., surrounded us and a sign with Dr. Cook on it.

The F. F. riz up and yelled to the conductor to stop. Sez she, “I want to get out to the Pole, I want to discover it! I want to git my name in the papers! I want to be talked about!” sez she.

We wuz goin’ up a tremengous mountain, and he sez, “Set down or you will git your name in the death notices.”

Whether he laid out to kill her I don’t know, 231 for she set down. And jest then somebody yells, “Here we go down to the bottomless pit.”

I sez to the F. F., “I can’t believe it! ’Tain’t so! It must be Pugatory!”

But there wuz the sign, “Hell.”

“On we went under the waterfall, up, up, down, down, and finally shot out jest where we got in.” (See page 232)

“Oh!” I groaned out in agony, “what have I ever done to merit this! Have I ever been mean enough to Josiah?” But there they wuz, fiery pits, big devils and little ones with pitchforks and darts, etc. Only one thought assuaged my torment, my Josiah wuzn’t there. But in a 232 minute up we went, up—up—and come out to an open place, where I see what I thought wuz Heaven, but it wuz only Coney Island, but after what I’d been through even that worldly frivolous spot looked heavenly to me. On we went under the waterfall, up, up, down, down, through hot countries and cold, and finally shot out jest where we got in.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I Visit the Moon, the Witchin’ Waves, Open Air Circus, Advise the Monkeys, Make the Male Statute Laugh, but Do Not Find Josiah

235

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I VISIT THE MOON, THE WITCHIN’ WAVES, OPEN AIR CIRCUS, ADVISE THE MONKEYS, MAKE THE MALE STATUTE LAUGH, BUT DO NOT FIND JOSIAH

The Witching Waves is a track that moves up and down in waves. Scientific folks say that it is a mechanical wonder. I couldn’t see how it wuz done. I couldn’t make one to save my life. Folks git into little automobiles and steer ’em themselves and first they know some unseen power under ’em lifts the track right up, and of course their car goes too with it. Then anon the track will go way down, and they with it, mebby meetin’ another car down there, and they will be all mixed up, but first they know the track will hist up agin under ’em and they have to foller it up agin. Dretful curious spot, well called Witching Waves. But every owner of an auto sees curious times, and feels witchin’ waves, yes indeed!

Why, I hearn about a little girl who happened 236 to hear a man swearin’ dretfully at sunthin and he apoligized.

“Oh,” sez she, “I’m used to it, my papa owns a car.” But ’tain’t necessary to swear at ’em, it don’t do no good, besides the wickedness on’t.

The Witching Waves “Folks get into little automobiles and steer ’em themselves.” (See page 235)

But jest as I wuz moralizin’ on this, I hearn a bystander talkin’ about the Trip to the Moon. And rememberin’ what Bildad said I sot out for the air-ship that took folks there. To tell the truth, I’d always hankered to see what wuz on the moon. Not to see that old man of the moon 237 (no, Josiah wuz my choice); but I always did want to know what wuz on the other planets, and though I’m most ashamed to say it, after all my talk agin Coney Island, yet if it hadn’t been for the kankerin’ worm of anxiety knawin’ at my vitals, I should have enjoyed myself first rate as the air-ship sailed off, with a stately motion, for the moon.

I had watched the passengers with a eagle vision but no Josiah embarked, but the air-ship sailed off, the earth receeded, we wuz in the clouds, anon we passed through a big thunder storm, I wuz almost lost in thought watchin’ sea and ocean when the captain called out:

“The Moon! the Moon!”

And we alighted and got off, I a-thinkin’ what and who wuz I to see in thet place I’d always hankered for. Strange shapes indeed, foreign to our earth, birds, dragons, animals of most weird shape. Anon I see a little figger, queer-lookin’ as you might spoze. I accosted the little Moony, my first words bein’ not a question of deep historical research, you would expect a woman with my noble brain would ask, about that onexplored country. No, my head didn’t speak, it wuz my heart, that gushed forth in a agonized inquiry. 238

“Have you seen Josiah? Have you seen my beloved pardner? Is he in the moon?”

His words in reply wuz in moon language, nothin’ I ever hearn in Jonesville or Zoar, and anon he begun to sing in that moony language, and I see I wuz wastin’ time, I must conduct my quest myself.

But oh, the seens I passed through! And oh, the queer moon landscapes! the queer moony animals and moon creeters I passed! But all in vain, no Josiah blessed my longin’ vision. And with my brain turnin’ over and my heart achin’, I agin entered the air-ship and returned to terry cotta; or mebby I hain’t got it right in my agitation, mebby I’d ort to say visey versey. ’Tennyrate I found myself out in Luny Park agin.

Well, what wuz to be my next move? Fur up a steep hite I see water pourin’ down a deep abyss and a boat full of men and wimmen set out from the highest peak, shot down the declivity like lightnin’ and dashed ’way out in the water on the other side of the bridge where I wuz standin’; but my idol wuz not among ’em.

I see a great checker-board raised up, so big it wuz played with human creeters instead of beans or kernels of corn. But no Josiah wuz there movin’ and jumpin’, or bein’ jumped as the case might be.

239

“A boat full of men and women set out from the highest peak, shot down the declivity like lightnin’ and dashed ’way out on the other side of the bridge.” (See page 238)

240

On one side riz up a high mountain full of green shrubs and flowers, and windin’ round and round from the bottom clear to the top, went cars filled with men and wimmen, boys and girls, up, up, down, down, as fur as from our house to Betsy Bobbet Slimpsey’s; but no Josiah wuz among the winders up or the winders down.

Even as I looked, a elephant passed me with stately tread, bearin’ on his richly ornamented back a small-sized man with a bald head; but it wuzn’t Josiah’s baldness or his small, meachin’ figger.

Two high tiers of balconies stretched along on one side, ornamented off with white pillows and posies where folks could set and eat their good meals, and enjoy the music and the never ceasing gayety. Beneath ’em, above ’em and beyond ’em, as fur as they could, see, towers, pinnacles, battlements, steeples, palms, flowers, color, light, music, and the endless, endless procession of pleasure hunters passin’ below. Rich men, poor men, wimmen in satin and serge, shiffon and calico, babies, boys and girls.

I made the calculation that about a million 241 folks could be accommodated on them balconies. I may have got one or two too many; I didn’t stop to count.

Lower down run a low, ornamented ruff, coverin’ hundreds of little tables where folks could set and git soft drinks and hard. The hard drink’s true to its name everyway. For when did the Whiskey Demon ever turn out anything but hard, from the time it exhilerates the consumer till it drives him away from love, home, friends, happiness, and at last gives him a final hard push, sendin’ him into a onlamented grave!

But truly no one has time to moralize or eppisode to any extent amidst the music, laughter and gay voices, the endless procession passin’ by. To most a seen of happiness, but to me they seemed like shadders; the Reality of life, my beloved pardner, wuz lost, lost to me. A pleasant lookin’ female standin’ by, seein’ the emotion in my face, and wantin’ to cheer me up, I spoze, sez:

“Have you tried the Loop de Loop?”

I answered with a sad dignity, “Yes, I’ve done considerable tattin’ in my day.”

“Mebby you’d like to try the Bump de Bump.” 242

I sez, “No, I’ve enjoyed enough of that since comin’ in here.”

Sez she, “Have you seen the monkeys keepin’ house?”

“No,” sez I, “but I will.” And sure enough, there wuz a big family of monkeys housekeeping. Some eatin’ dinner in the dining room, some doin’ different kinds of housework, sweepin’, operatin’ the dumb waiter, payin’ bills, etc. Some in the settin’ room readin’ the newspaper. And there is a band of sixty monkey musicians. And I hearn they’re learnin’ bridge whist; I wuz sorry to hear that, and I sez to the oldest and wisest lookin’ monkey:

“You’ll sup sorrow if you go into bridge whist, gamblin’ and wastin’ good daylight in civilized sports, when you might be hangin’ from tree tops, and chasin’ each other ’round stumps, in a honest, oncivilized way. If you don’t look out your ladies will foller the example of the Four Hundred and be thinkin’ of a divorce and big alimony next.”

He looked impressed by my noble anxiety on their behaff, but didn’t say nothin’. But mebby he’ll hear to me. A little boy standin’ by sez, “Ma, Jimmy Bates sez that he and I and everybody descended from monkeys—did I, ma?” 243

“I don’t know,” sez she, “I never knew much about your father’s family.”

I didn’t stay long at the Open Air Circus, though it wuz a big place and sights goin’ on there; bare-backed riders, Japanese jugglers and acrobats, tight-rope walkers, elephants and camels with folks on their backs, with Arabians and East Indians in their native costumes takin’ care of ’em.

Not fur off I see a male statute; lots of folks wuz congregated in front of it, and I went up too, and I sez to a female bystander, “I always did love to see statutes. But this one’s linement is humblier than most on ’em.”

When if you’ll believe it it turned round and sez, “Thank you, mom, for the compliment.” It acted mad.

Another man stood like a statute, and the woman I had spoke to sez, “You can git a dollar if you can make that man laugh.”

And I sez, “I can.”

Sez she, “I don’t believe it; I’ve read to him lots of the humorous stories in the late magazines, and he looked fairly gloomy when I got done.”

And I sez, “I don’t wonder at that, I do myself. They’re awful deprestin’.” 244

And she sez, “I’ve held up in front of him the funny colored supplements to the Sunday papers, and I thought he’d cry.”

“Well,” sez I, “I’ve pretty nigh shed tears over ’em myself, they made me so onhappy.”

“How be you goin’ to make him laugh?” sez she.

“You watch me and see,” sez I. So I went up to him and got his eye and told him over a lot of laws our male statesmen have made, and are makin’. License laws of different kinds, but all black as a coal. How a little girl of twelve or fourteen, pronounced legally incapable of buyin’ or sellin’ a sheep or a hen, can legally sell her virtue and ruin her life. How pizen is licensed by law to make men break the law, and then they are punished and hung by the law for doin’ what the law expected they would do.

How a woman can protect her dog by payin’ a dollar, but can’t protect her boy with her hull property and her heart’s blood. How mothers are importuned by male statesmen to bring big families into a world full of temptation and ruin, but have no legal rights to protect them from the black dangers licensed by these law-makers.

His face looked so queer, I worried some thinkin’ I should git him to cryin’ instead of 245 laughin’; but I hurried and told him how our statesmen would flare up now and then and turribly threaten the Mormon who keeps on marryin’ some new wives every little while, and then elect him to Congress, and sculp his head on our warship to show foreign nations that America approves of such doin’s. And I told him how girls and boys, hardly out of pantalettes and knee breeches, could git married in five minutes, but have to spend months and money to break the ties so easily made and prove they are morally fit to care for the children born of that careless five minute ceremony.

His linement looked scornful at the idee. And I told him how they tax wimmen without representation, and then spend millions rasin’ statutes to our forefathers for fightin’ agin the same thing. And how statesmen trust wimmen with their happiness, their lives and their honor, but deny ’em the rights they give to wicked men, degenerates, and men whose heads are so soft a fly will slump in if it lights on ’em. To such men (as well as better ones) they give the right to govern the wimmen they love, their good inteligent wives and mothers, rule ’em through life, and award punishment and death to ’em. 246

“And such men,” sez I, “say wimmen don’t know enough to vote.”

The very idee wuz so weak and inconsistent that it made the man statute hysterical, and he bust out into a peal of derisive laughter, and I took my dollar and walked off, though I knowed enough could be said on this subject to make a stun statute hystericky. I lay out to send the dollar to the W. C. T. U.

Jest after this I met Bildad, and he sez, “I jest see Josiah; he wuz in Steeple Chase Park, talkin’ with some girls there.”

I didn’t wait to ask what they wuz talkin’ about, I hoped it wuz religion, but felt dubersome, and hurried there fast as I could. I crossed the automobile track where crowded cars wuz runnin’ all the while round and round, past the rows of big high headed mettlesome hosses (this is a pun; they wuz made of metal).

But I passed ’em all as if they wuzn’t there; for my mind wuz all took up with the thought, should I find my pardner there talkin’ with them girls, and if so, what would be the subject of their conversation? Josiah is sound; but the best of men have weak spots in their armor which the glance of a bright eye will oft-times pierce through and do damage. So, to protect 247 my dear pardner from danger, I pressed forward and wuz let in by a good-lookin’ man for twenty-five cents. He gin me a paper locket and told me to be sure and not lose it. It had a man’s face on it, and I d’no but he thought I would treasure it on account of that.

I didn’t argy with him, but jest looked him coldly in the face and sez, “I am no such a woman, I have got a pardner of my own, though I can’t put my hand on him this minute.” And I passed on.

“Rows of high-headed mettlesome hosses.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Wonderful and Mysterious Sights I Saw in Steeple Chase Park, and My Search There for My Pardner

251

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE WONDERFUL AND MYSTERIOUS SIGHTS I SAW IN STEEPLE CHASE PARK, AND MY SEARCH THERE FOR MY PARDNER

Steeple Chase Park is most as big as Luny Park, but is mostly one huge buildin’ covered with glass, and every thing on earth or above, or under the earth, is goin’ on there, acres and acres of amusements (so-called) in one glass house.

As I went in, I see a immense mirror turnin’ round and round seemin’ly invitin’ folks to look. But as I glanced in, I tell the truth when I say, I wuzn’t much bigger round than a match, and the thinness made me look as tall as three on me.

“Oh,” sez I, “has grief wore my flesh away like this? If it keeps on I shan’t dast to take lemonade, for fear I shall fall into the straw and be drowned.”

A bystander sez, “Look agin, mom!”

I did and I wuzn’t more’n two fingers high, and wide as our barn door. 252

I most shrieked and sez to myself, “It has come onto me at last, grief and such doin’s as I’ve seen here, has made me crazy as a loon.” And I started away almost on a run.

All of a sudden the floor under me which looked solid as my kitchen floor begun to move back and forth with me and sideways and back, to and fro, fro and to, and I goin’ with it, one foot goin’ one way, and the other foot goin’ somewhere else; but by a hurculaneum effort I kep’ my equilebrium upright, and made out to git on solid floorin’. But a high-headed female in a hobble skirt, the hobbles hamperin her, fell prostrate. I felt so shook up and wobblin’ myself, I thought a little Scripter would stiddy me, and I sez, “Sinners stand on slippery places.”

“I see they do!” she snapped out, lookin’ at me; “but I can’t!”

I sez to myself as I turned away, “I’ll bet she meant me.” But bein’ tuckered out, I sot down on a reliable-lookin’ stool, the high-headed woman takin’ another one by my side—there wuz a hull row of folks settin’ on ’em—when, all of a sudden, I d’no how it wuz done or why, but them stools all sunk right down to the floor bearin’ us with ’em onwillin’ly. 253

I scrambled to my feet quick as I could, and as I riz up I see right in front on me the gigantick, shameless female Bildad had as good as told me Josiah had been flirtin’ with. I knowed her to once, the gaudy, flashin’ lookin’ creeter, bigger than three wimmen ort to be; she wuz ten feet high if she wuz a inch. As she come up to me with mincin’ steps, I sez to her in skathin’ axents:

“What have you done with my innocent pardner? Where is Josiah Allen? Open your guilty breast and confess.” And now I’m tellin’ the livin’ truth, as she towered up in front on me, her breast did open and a man’s face looked out on me. My brain tottled, but righted itself with relief, for it wuz not Josiah; it wuz probable some other woman’s husband. But I sez to myself, let every woman take care of her own husband if she can; it hain’t my funeral.

And I hurried off till I come out into a kinder open place with some good stiddy chairs to set down on, and some green willers hangin’ down their verdant boughs over some posy beds. Nothin’ made up about ’em. Oh how good it looked to me to see sunthin’ that God had made, and man hadn’t dickered with and manufactured to seem different from what it wuz. Thinks I, if I should take hold of one of these feathery green willer sprays it wouldn’t turn into a serpent or try to trip me up, or wobble me down. They looked beautiful to me, and beyond ’em I could see the Ocean, another and fur greater reality, real as life, or death, or taxes, or anything else we can’t escape from.

254

“I’m tellin’ the livin’ truth, as she towered up in front on me, her breast opened and a man’s face looked out on me.” (See page 253)

255

Settin’ there lookin’ off on them mighty everlastin’ waves, forever flowin’ back and forth, forth and back, the world of the flimsy and the false seemed to pass away and the Real more nigh to me than it did in the painted land of shams and onreality I had been passin’ through. And as I meditated on the disgraceful sight I had seen—that gaudy, guilty creeter with a man concealed in her breast. For if it wuzn’t a guilty secret, why wuz the door shet and fastened tight, till the searchlight of a woman’s indignant eyes brought him to light?

Thinkin’ it over calmly and bein’ reasonable and just, my feelin’s over that female kinder softened down, and I sez to myself, what if there wuz a open winder or door into all our hearts, for outsiders to look in, what would they see? Curious sights, homely ones and beautiful, happy ones and sorrowful, and some 256 kinder betwixt and between. Sacred spots that the nearest ones never got a glimpse on. Eyes that look acrost the coffee pot at you every mornin’ never ketched sight on ’em, nor the ones that walk up and down in them hidden gardens. Some with veiled faces mebby, some with reproachful orbs, some white and still, some pert and sassy.

Nothin’ wicked, most likely; nothin’ the law could touch you for; but most probable it might make trouble if them affectionate eyes opposite could behold ’em, for where love is there is jealousy, and a lovin’ woman will be jealous of a shadder or a scare-crow. It is nateral nater and can’t be helped. But if she stopped to think on’t, she herself has her hid-away nooks in her heart, dark or pleasant landscapes, full of them, you never ketch a glimpse on do the best you can. And jealous curosity goes deep. What would Josiah see through my heart’s open door? What would I see in hisen? It most skairs me to think on’t. No, it hain’t best to have open doors into hearts. Lots of times it would be resky; not wrong, you know, but jest resky.

Thus I sot and eppisoded, lookin’ off onto the melancholy ocean, listenin’ to her deep sithes, 257 when onbid come the agonizin’ thought, “Had Josiah Allen backslid so fur and been so full of remorse and despair, that his small delicate brain had turned over with him, and he had throwed himself into the arms of the melancholy Ocean? Wuz her deep, mournful sithes preparin’ me for the heart-breakin’ sorrow?” I couldn’t abear the thought, and I riz up and walked away. As I did so a bystander sez, “Have you been up on the Awful Tower?”

“No,” sez I, “I’ve been through awful things, enough, accidental like, without layin’ plans and climbin’ up on ’em.” But Hope will always hunch Anxiety out of her high chair in your head and stand up on it. I thought I would go upstairs into another part of the buildin’ and mebby I might ketch a glimpse of my pardner in the dense crowd below.

And if you’ll believe it, as I wuz walkin’ upstairs as peaceful as our old brindle cow goin’ up the south hill paster, my skirts begun to billow out till they got as big as a hogsit. I didn’t care about its bein’ fashion to not bulge out round the bottom of your skirts but hobble in; but I see the folks below wuz laughin’ at me, and it madded me some when I hadn’t done a thing, only jest walk upstairs peaceable. And 258 I don’t know to this day what made my clothes billow out so.

But I went on and acrost to a balcony, and after I went in, a gate snapped shet behind me and I couldn’t git back. And when I got to the other side there wuzn’t any steps, and if I got down at all I had to slide down. I didn’t like to make the venter, but had to, so I tried to forgit my specs and gray hair and fancy I wuz ten years old, in a pig-tail braid, and pantalettes tied on with my stockin’s, and sot off. As I went down with lightnin’ speed I hadn’t time to think much, but I ricollect this thought come into my harassed brain:

Be pardners worth all the trouble I’m havin’ and the dretful experiences I’m goin’ through? Wouldn’t it been better to let him go his length, than to suffer what I’m sufferin’? I reached the floor with such a jolt that my mind didn’t answer the question; it didn’t have time.

All to once, another wind sprung up from nowhere seemin’ly, and tried its best to blow off my bunnet. But thank Heaven, my good green braize veil tied round it with strong lutestring ribbon, held it on, and I see I still had holt of my trusty cotton umbrell, though the wind had blowed it open, but I shet it and 259 grasped it firmly, thinkin’ it wuz my only protector and safeguard now Josiah wuz lost, and I hastened away from that crazy spot.

“As I went down with lightnin’ speed I had’nt time to think much.” (See page 258)

As I passed on I see a hull lot of long ropes danglin’ down. On top of ’em wuz a trolley, and folks would hang onto the handle and slide hundreds of feet through the air. But I didn’t venter. Disinclination and rumatiz both made me waive off overtures to try it. 260

Pretty soon I come to a huge turn-table, big as our barn floor. It wuz still and harmless lookin’ when I first see it, and a lot of folks got onto it, thinkin’ I spoze it looked so shiny and good they’d like to patronize it. But pretty soon it begun to move, and then to turn faster and faster till the folks couldn’t keep their seats and one by one they wuz throwed off, and went down through a hole in the floor I know not where.

As I see ’em disappear one by one in the depths below, thinks I, is that where Josiah Allen has disappeared to? Who knows but he is moulderin’ in some underground dungeon, mournin’ and pinin’ for me and his native land. Of course Reason told me that he couldn’t moulder much in two days, but I wuz too much wrought up to listen to Reason, and as I see ’em slide down and disappear, onbeknown to myself I spoke out loud and sez:

“Can it be that Josiah is incarcerated in some dungeon below? If he is, I will find and release him or perish with him.”

A woman who looked as if she belonged there, hearn me and sez, “Who is Josiah?” “My pardner,” sez I, and I continued, “You have a kind face, mom; have you seen him? Have you seen Josiah Allen?”

261

“Pretty soon it begun to move and one by one they wuz throwed off and went down I know not where.” (See page 260)

262

“Describe him,” sez she, “there wuz a man here just now hunting for some woman.”

“Oh, he is very beautiful!”

“Young?” sez she.

“Well, no; about my age or a little older.”

“Light complexion? Dark hair and eyes? Stylish dressed?”

“No, wrinkled complexion, bald, and what few hairs he’s got, gray.”

She smiled; she couldn’t see the beauty Love had gilded his image with.

Sez I, “If he’s incarcerated in some dungeon below, I too will mount the turn-table of torture, and share his fate or perish on the turn table.”

Sez she, “There is no dungeons below; the folks come out into a vast place as big as this. There is just as much to see down there as there is here, just as many people and just as much amusement.”

“Amusement!” sez I in a holler voice.

After I left her, I see a whisk broom hangin’ up in a handy place, and it had a printed liebill on it, “This whisk broom free.” And as my parmetty dress had got kinder dusty a slidin’ and wobblin’ as I had slode and wobbled, I went to brush off my skirt with it, when all 263 of a sudden somebody or sunthin’ gin me a stunnin’ blow right in my arm that held the brush. I dropped it without waitin’ to argy the matter, and I don’t know to this day who or what struck me and what it wuz for. But my conscience wuz clear; I hadn’t done nothin’.

I santered on and entered an enclosure seemin’ly made of innocent lookin’ fence rails. I wuz kinder attracted to it, for it looked some like the rail fence round our gooseberry bushes. But for the lands sake! it wuzn’t like any fence in Jonesville or Zoar, for though it looked innocent, it shet me in tight and I couldn’t git out.

I wandered round and round, and out and in, and it wuz a good half hour before I got out, and I d’no but I’d have been there to this day, if a man hadn’t come and opened a gate and let me out. Only one thought kep’ up my courage in my fruitless wanderings. It wuz all done in plain sight of everybody, and I could see for myself that Josiah wuzn’t kep’ there in captivity.

There wuz a tall pole in the middle of the Amaze, as they call it (well named, for it is truly amazin’), and the liebill on that pole read, 264 “Climb the pole and ring the bell on it, and we will give you a prize.”

I didn’t try to climb that pole, and wouldn’t if I had been a athleet. How did I know but it would turn into a writhin’ serpent, and writhe with me? No, I thought I wouldn’t take another resk in that dredful spot. And I wuz glad I thought so, for jest a little ways off, some honest, easy lookin’ benches stood invitin’ the weary passer-by to set down and rest and recooperate. And right there before my eyes some good lookin’ folks sot down on ’em trustin’ly, and the hull bench fell over back with ’em and then riz up agin, they fallin’ and risin’ with it.

I hastened away and thought I would go up into the second story agin and mebby ketch sight of my pardner, for the crowd had increased. And as I stood there skannin’ the immense crowd below to try to ketch a glimpse of my lawful pardner, all to once I see the folks below wuz laughin’ at me. I felt to see if my braize veil hung down straight and graceful, and my front hair wuz all right, and my cameo pin fastened. But nothin’ wuz amiss, and I wondered what could it be. The balcony wuz divided off into little spaces, five or six feet square, and I 265 stood in one, innocent as a lamb (or mebby it would be more appropriate to say a sheep), and leanin’ on the railin’, and one sassy boy called out:

“Where wuz you ketched? Are you tame? Wuz you ketched on the Desert of Sara? Did Teddy ketch you for the Government?” and I never knowed till I got down what they wuz laughin’ at.

The little boxes in the balcony wuz painted on the outside to represent animal cages. On the one where I had been wuz painted the sign Drumedary. Josiah Allen’s wife took for a drumedary—The idee!

But the view I got of the crowd below wuz impressive, and though it seemed to me that everybody in New York and Brooklyn and the adjacent villages and country, wuz all there a Steeple Chasin’, yet I knowed there wuz jest as many dreamin’ in Dreamland and bein’ luny in Luny Park. And Surf Avenue wuz full, and what they called the Bowery of Coney Island, and all the amusement places along the shore. And all on ’em on the move, jostlin’ and bein’ jostled, foolin’ and bein’ fooled, laughin’ and bein’ laughed at.

Why, I wuz told and believe, that sometimes 266 a million folks go to Coney Island on a holiday. And I wuz knowin’ myself to over three thousand orphan children goin’ there at one time to spend a happy day, the treat bein’ gin ’em by some big-hearted men. Plenty to eat and drink, and a hull day of enjoyment, candy, pop corn, circus, etc., bright day, happy hearts, how that day will stand out aginst the dull gray background of their lives! And them men ort to hug themselves thinkin’ the thought, over three thousand happinesses wuz set down to their credit in the books of the Recordin’ Angel. And I sez to myself, “Samantha, you ort to speak well of anything that so brightens the lives of the children of the great city.”

As I went into Dreamland Park, it seemed agin as if all the folks in the city wuz there in the immense inner court, surrounded by amusements on every side. They wuz comin’ and goin’, talkin’, laughin’, hurryin’, santerin’, to and fro, fro and to. Lots on ’em talkin’ language I never hearn before, but I thought, poor things, you never had the advantage of livin’ in Jonesville, so I overlooked it in ’em.

267

“As I went into Dreamland it seemed as if all the folks in the city was there.” (See page 266)

268

I see most the first thing as I entered, a place called Creation, and feelin’ dubersome that any thing more could be created than what I’d seen that day, I bought a ticket and went in, and to my glad surprise, I found it wuz some like a prayer meetin’. For a man with a loud preachin’ voice quoted a lot of Scripter most the first thing. After we all got seated it turned dark as pitch all in a minute. But you could dimly see a vast waste of water, kinder movin’ and swashin’ to and fro, as if some great force wuz workin’ down below. And out of the darkness we hearn that Voice:

“In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth, and the Earth wuz without form and void, and darkness wuz on the face of the deep.”

Anon the fiery energy that wuz makin’ a planet, wuz hearn in deafenin’ peals of thunder, and blazed through the sky in sheets of lightnin’ and dartin’ balls of flame, quietin’ down some after awhile. And the Voice continued:

“The spirit of God moved on the face of the deep. And God said, Let there be light; and there wuz light.”

And slowly a faint light dawned and growed brighter and brighter and fleecy clouds appeared. The sky growed golden and rosy in the east, and the sun come up in splendor. Livin’ forms appeared in the water, monsters of all kinds 269 and sizes, queerer than any dog I ever see, and the Voice went on:

“And God separated the water from the land.” Little peaks of land emerged from the water or it seemed as if the water receeded from them, and gradually the dry land appeared, and soon queer livin’ forms appeared on it. And gradually, with green grass and verdure, it become fit for the home of man, and then Adam and Eve appeared. They wuzn’t clothed in much besides innocence, but somehow they didn’t look so immodest as some of the fashonably dressed females of to-day, with dekolitay and peek-a-boo waists, and skin-tight drapery.

There wuz good Bible talk and sacred music all through the show. And I felt as if I had looked on and seen a world made right before my eyes, and that I would dearly love to make a few myself if I had time, and Josiah wuz willin’. I wuz highly delighted with it and said as much to the female who sot next to me. She had a discontented, onhappy face, and I guess she had enough to make her so, for her husband who sot by her kep’ findin’ fault with her all the time, till at last she turned—for you know a angle worm will turn if it is trod on enough—and she sez to me, but meant it for her pardner I knowed: 270

“The lecturer ort to gone on and told how sneakin’ mean Adam treated his wife, eatin’ the apple, I’ll bet down to the very core, and then misusin’ her for givin’ it to him, and puttin’ all the blame on her for bringin’ sin into the world, when he wuz jest as much to blame as she wuz.”

Sez her husband, “You have to slur men all the time, don’t you? You can’t see or hear anything without findin’ sunthin’ to complain of about men. I despise such a sperit; men don’t have it.”

Now, I love justice, and I hate to see my sect imposed upon, and then whenever or wherever I travel, I always bear with me the honorary title I won honorably. Jest as men take with ’em on sea or land their titles of B. A. or D. D., just so I ever carry the title, won by high minded and strenous effort, Josiah Allen’s wife, P. A. and P. I.—Public Adviser and Private Investigator. Here, I thought, is need for a P. A. So I sez to her, yet in a voice her pardner couldn’t help hearin’:

“I hearn once of a husbands’ meetin’ in a revival, when the minister asked every man to git up who had complaints to make about his wife. Every man sprung to his feet to once, except one lone man by the door. And the 271 minister sez, ‘My friend, you are one man in a million who have no complaints to make about your wife.’ The man sez, ‘That hain’t it; I’m paralyzed, I can’t git up.’”

I d’no as the husband I aimed this at took it kind or not, but he didn’t nag his wife any more in my hearin’.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In Which I Continue My Search for Josiah Through Dreamland, Huntin’ for Him in Vain, and Return to Bildad’s at Night, Weary and Despairin’

275

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

IN WHICH I CONTINUE MY SEARCH FOR JOSIAH THROUGH DREAMLAND, HUNTIN’ FOR HIM IN VAIN, AND RETURN TO BILDAD’S AT NIGHT, WEARY AND DESPAIRIN’

Creation wuz such a good show I felt considerable rested and refreshed when it wuz over. And I thought the woman looked quite a little perter; it duz down-trod folks lots of good to have somebody take their part. I felt kinder good to think I had lightened a sister female’s sperit a little, and wuz walkin’ along quite comfortable in mind when like an arrow out of a bo, the old pain and anxiety stabbed me afresh. Another hour gone and Josiah Allen not found! What shall I do? Where shall I turn the eyes of my spectacles? Jest as I wuz askin’ this question to my troubled soul I hearn a boy speak to another one about a futur’ state of punishment in sich a vulgar and familiar way that I turned round to once, carryin’ out my roll of Promisicous Adviser, and I 276 sez, “You wicked boys you, to talk so light of your future states, I wonder you dast! If I wuz your mother and had had your bringin’ up, you wouldn’t dast!”

They looked real impudent at me, and one on ’em sez, “You hain’t the money to go with, that’s what ails you.”

I sez solemnly, “Riches is a snare. I know how hard it is for the eye of a needle to have a camel git through it; I know how the rich man longed for a drop of water. And you’d better meditate on these things and try to git used to heat, instead of talkin’ light about ’em!” I don’t know how much longer I should have gone on as a P. A. and P. I. but the woman I had befriended stepped up and sez, “He means the show there.” And lookin’ up, if you’ll believe it, I see the words “Hell Gate,” and sez she, “I have got two tickets and my husband don’t care about goin’, won’t you go with me?”

I thought to myself, he probably thinks he’ll have chances to sample it in the futur, but mebby he wuz jest sulky. But I only sez to her, “It is the last place I ever laid out to go unless I wuz obleeged to. But lead on,” sez I recklessly, “I’ll foller.” For the thought had come to me onbid, How did I know how fur 277 Josiah Allen had back-slided? How did I know but I’d find him there?

“We got in a small boat and wuz carried round and round till we dived into a dark tunnel.”

But to my great surprise—and I wish Elder Minkley could see it, I thought mebby it would modify his sermons some—the first thing we see wuz a great trough of water, and I said to the woman in surprise, “I never expected that folks would go to this hot place by water!” 278 But we got into a small boat and wuz carried round and round like a whirlpool, till the boat got in the very center, when it dived down into a dark tunnel.

At the further end we climbed out onto a platform, and found ourselves in a long, low-vaulted place, some like a immense tunnel. We could jest ketch a glimpse of a light way off at the end, and we sot off for it, I lookin’ clost and sharp on every side for my pardner, hopin’ and dreadin’ to find him there. When all of a sudden, the most terrific yells and shrieks sounded on every side and we see cages of wild animals on both sides of us movin’ up and down howlin’ and snarlin’.

Sez the woman, “They’re men dressed up as wild beasts.”

Sez I, “Have they got to stay here always? Do you spoze it is wrong doin’ that has changed ’em into wild animals?” Sez I, “Judgin’ from the papers some on ’em wouldn’t need much of a turn.” But oh, I groaned to myself, “Is Josiah Allen turned into a bear or a cammy leapord! Is he here? I don’t believe,” sez I to myself, “he has ever been bad enough to be turned into anything worse than a sheep or a rooster.” And as I didn’t hear any blattin’ 279 or crowin’, and knowed that if he had seen me he would have tried to communicate with his beloved pardner, I felt hopeful he wuzn’t there.

We went on and as soon as we got out she asked me if I didn’t want to see the Incubator babies, and bein’ agreeable to the idee, we went and see ’em. There they lay in glass cases, pretty little creeters lookin’ like wee bits of dolls, I felt sad as I looked down on ’em, and thought on the hard journey them tiny feet must set out on from them glass boxes. What rough crosses the little fingers had got to grasp holt of, and onbeknown to me my mind fell onto the follerin’ poetry—

“Our crosses are made from different trees,
But we all of us have our Calvaries;
We may climb the mount from a different side,
But we all go up to be crucified.”

Of course, I knowed there would be some bright posies wreathed round the crosses; but there would be thorns in them. And though the road might be soft and agreeable in spots, yet I knowed well what hard rocks there wuz in the highway of life to stub toes on, even common-sized toes, and it did seem a pity such 280 little mites of feet had got to git stun bruises on ’em.

Poor little creeters! I thought, little do you know what sadness and ecstacy, what grief and joy, gloom and glory lays ahead on you. I wuz sorry for ’em, sorry as a dog.

And then I didn’t like the idee of the little helpless creeters bein’ laid out on exhibition, like shirt buttons, or hooks and eyes, to be stared on by saint and sinner, by eyes tender or cruel—and voices lovin’ and hateful to comment on. I felt that the place for little babies wuz to home in the bedroom. And I thought nothin’ would tempt me, if Josiah wuz a infant babe, to place him on exhibition like Hamburg edgin’, or bobbinet lace. The very idee wuz repugnant to me. And I wuz more than willin’ when the female asked me if I didn’t want to go and see the midgets, and we went.

And you don’t know what interestin’ little creeters they wuz, mindin’ their own bizness and midgetin’ away. Actin’ out a little play jest as if a company of dolls had come to life, talkin’ and actin’. They seemed to be jest as happy and contented as if they wuz eight or ten feet high and heavy accordin’.

As we left this place the female ketched sight 281 of her husband. He bagoned hautily to her with one finger, and she hastened to jine him. Such is females. And so true it is that love in either sect will rise up above naggin’, or any other kind of pardner meanness.

I went forward alone to see the Head Hunters. And I looked on the brown little folks with a feelin’ of pity. How did I know they had ever had good advice? I felt here wuz a noble chance for a P. A.

So I sez to ’em, “I’ve hearn of your doin’s, and I want to advise you for your good.” They looked at me real stiddy and I went on, “You may think you hain’t so guilty because you only take folkses heads. But for the lands sakes! did you ever stop to think on’t? What can they do without their heads? Of course,” sez I reasonably, “there is a difference in heads. Some folkses heads hain’t got so much sense in ’em as others. I’ve seen ’em myself that I’ve thought a good wooden head would be jest as useful. But they are the best they’ve got, and they’re attached to ’em, and they can’t git along without ’em. And I always thought you might jest as well take their hull bodies whilst you wuz about it. Don’t you see that is so? When it is pinted out to you by a P. A.?”

282

“I went forward to see the Head Hunters. I sez to ’em ‘I’ve hearn of your doin’s and I want to advise you for your good.’” (See page 281)

283

They kinder jabbered over sunthin’ to themselves, and I sez as I turned away, “Now, don’t let me hear of any more such doin’s! Be contented with the heads you’ve got, and don’t try to git somebody elses that don’t belong to you.” Sez I, “Sunthin’ like that, namely stealin’ the interior of folkses heads, has been done time and agin among more civilized folks, and it don’t work; they git found out.”

I left ’em getisculatin’ and jabberin’ in that strange lingo and am in hopes they wuz promisin’ to quit their Head Huntin’, but can’t tell for certain.

As I santered along a female asked me if I had seen the Divin’ Girls, sez she, “There is a immense pond of water, and they are the best divers and swimmers in the world.”

But I sez, “Nobody can dive into deeper depths than I have doven to-day.”

“The ocean?” sez she.

“Oceans of anxiety,” sez I, “rivers of grief.” I spoze my dretful emotions showed on my linement, and to git my mind off she sez, “You ort to see the aligators.”

I’d hearn they had immense tanks of water as long as from our house to Philander Dagget’s, 284 holdin’ thousands and thousands and thousands of aligators, from them jest born, to them a hundred years old, from them the size of your little finger weighin’ a few ounces, to them big as elephants, weighin’ two tons.

But I told her I could worry along for years without aligators, I never seemed to hanker for ’em, I wouldn’t take ’em as a gift if I had to let ’em have the run of the house. Humbly things! though I spoze they hain’t to blame for their looks, or their temperses, which are fierce. And I didn’t go into the big animal house, thinkin’ I wuz so dog tired that I would go back to Bildad’s and come back the next day and see all the animals and birds and the hundreds of other shows I’d had to slight that day, enough to devour days of stiddy sight seein’. The Siege of Richmond, The Great Divide, Switzerland, Congress of Nations, Indian Village, The Orient, Bathin’ Pavilions, Japanese Tea Gardens, and etc.

I did want to see the Shimpanzee who duz everything but talk. And I thought mebby the reason he wuz so close-mouthed wuz because he hearn so much talkin’ he wuz sick on’t, as I wuz, and made a sample of himself. But if he did nobody follered it, no indeed! Why, 285 you jest spozen a hundred swarms of bees big as giants, with buzzes big accordin’, all a swarmin’ and a buzzin’, and you’ll git a little idee of the noise and tumult of Coney Island. But you won’t spozen’ fur enough, I don’t believe. Yes, I laid out to spend considerable time in Dreamland next day. But little did I think of what a day might bring forth, and have got it to think on like them that lose friends, “Oh why didn’t I do thus and so? And now it is too late to wait on ’em, and pay attention to ’em?” But I’m leadin’ a melancholy horse up to a mournin’ wagon, before the thills are on, so I’ll stop eppisodin’ and resoom forwards. Jest outside the gate of Dreamland I met Bildad, and he sez, “Have you found Josiah yet?”

“No,” I sez in despairin’ axents, “I hain’t seen hide nor hair on him.”

And he sez, “Mebby he’s gone in bathin’.”

“No,” I sez, “He took a bath in the wash-tub the night before he come here, and he hain’t a man that will wash oftener than he has to.”

Sez he, “Hundreds of folks take sand baths, lay in the sand and throw it at each other, cover themselves up in it.”

“What for?” I sez.

“Oh, jest for fun. They’ll go into the water 286 mebby, and then come ashore and roll and tumble in the sand, men, wimmen, and children, mostly foreigners,” sez he.

I sez, “It don’t seem as if Josiah would go into that bizness; he always despised sand.”

“Well,” sez he, “as I come by there jest now, I see somebody that looked like Josiah, goin’ towards the beach with a girl by him.”

I turned onto my heel to once and asked sternly, “Where is that beach? And where is that sand?” He told me and I made for it to once. I hain’t got a jealous hair in my head, but I thought I’d go. Well, it wuz a sight to see, acres and acres of sand dotted with men, wimmen, and children. And beyond, the melancholy ocean, also dotted with swimming heads, with bodies attached, so I spozed. Well might Atlantic be melancholy to see such sights, hundreds of folks comin’ out of the water, hundreds goin’ in, and other hundreds walkin’ or rollin’ in the sand or throwin’ it at each other or half covered up with it.

And as for the clothes they had on, I thought no wonder the Ocean and I sithed to see it, no money would tempt me to wear ’em to mill or meetin’, or to let Josiah wear ’em. They didn’t look decent. Either they wuz scrimped for cloth, or they wanted to look so; whichever way it wuz, I pitied ’em.

287

“It wuz a sight to see, acres and acres of sand dotted with men, wimmen, and children.” (See page 286)

288

But where wuz Josiah? On every side wuz folks settin’ and walkin’, and mounds of sand with sometimes a head stickin’ out, or a foot, or a arm, or a nose. I had hard work to keep from treadin’ on ’em. There would be little hillocks of sand with mebby a child’s head or foot stickin’ out.

Anon a mound over a fat man or a woman big as a hay stack. I walked along for some time keepin’ a clost watch on every side, but no Josiah did I see nor no mound I felt wuz hisen, till jest as I wuz ready to drop down with fatigue with my arjous work to keep from treadin’ on folks, I ketched sight of a nose stickin’ out of a small mound that I thought sure I reconized. My heart bounded at the sight. My first look wuz to see if any girl mound wuz nigh him. But there wuzn’t nothin’ but some children’s heads and feet stickin’ about, and I hastened to that nose and poked the sand from it with my umbrell cryin’:

“Dear Josiah! Is this indeed your nose? Have I found you at last?”

When to my horrow a fierce red whiskered face rared itself up from the sand, and jabbored 289 at me in a onknown tongue; onknown the words, but the language of anger can be read in any tongue. Hisen betokened the most intense madness, and I spoze that in my agitation I might have jabbed him some with my umbrell, and I hastened away, tromplin’ as I did so in my haste on various heads and arms, and follered by loud busts of what I most know wuz blood curdlin’ profanity, though not Jonesville swearin’.

Well, I wuz tired out and discouraged. No Josiah, no pardner! I felt some like a grass widder, or I guess it wuz more like a real widder. ’Tennyrate my feelin’s wuz too awful to describe, so lonesome, so cast-down and deprested. And no knowin’ as I would ever feel any better, no knowin’ if that dear man would ever be found. And what would life be without him? Nothin’ but a holler mockery filled with movin’ shadders, the Reality of life gone and lost.

Night wuz comin’ on apace and I thought I might as well abandon my quest for the time, so I returned to Bildad’s feelin’ some as if I wuz a sickly serial readin’—“To be continued in our next.” For I knowed that I would resoom the search bright and early, and find that man or perish in my tracks. 290

Friday—onlucky day, as it has always been called—had gone to jine the days of the past. I sot on the piazza at Bildad’s lookin’ out on the seen that, bewilderin’ as it wuz by daylight, wuz ten times more bewilderin’ly beautiful by night. Like stars in the tropics, the electric lights flashed out over the hull place, the greatest number of electric lights in the same space in the world, I wuz told and believe.

Every pinnacle, battlement, tower, balcony, winder, ruff, wuz edged with the blazin’ fire embroidery. And the tall mountains, palaces, graceful bridges, piers, pleasure places of all kinds, looked fairy like, under the friendly hand of Night. And ’way up to the very heavens Dreamland tower lifted itself, a gigantic shaft of dazzling brilliancy, dominatin’ the hull island. Passingly beautiful tower by night or day, the first thing the homesick mariner sees as he approaches his Homeland.

Thousands and thousands and thousands of gay pleasure seekers trod the walks to and fro. Thousands and thousands more, rich and poor dined in the gay restaurants and balconies, surrounded with flowers and light and music. And still other thousands enjoyed the myriad amusements afforded them. Bildad’s sister, 291 who wuz on a visit there from Hoboken, thinks it aristocratick, and herself more refined and rare to run the place down. Lots of folks do that; they go there and stay from mornin’ till night, go up in the Awful Tower, take in every Bump-de-Bump and Wobble-de-Wobble, and then turn up their noses talkin’ to outsiders about it, as fur as their different noses will turn. She was lame at the time from tromplin’ all over the place for the past week. But she sez to me (with her nose turned up as fur as it could, bein’ a pug to start with):

“It is Common people who come here mostly.” And she kinder glared at me as if mistrustin’ I wuz one of ’em.

And I sez, “Well, you know, Lucindy, who it wuz the common people received gladly, and who dwelt among them? And you know Lincoln said, ‘It must be the Lord liked the common people, He made so many on ’em.’”

She didn’t reply, only with her nose, which looked disdainful. And I sez to myself in astonishment, “Can this be Samantha, praisin’ up what she has always run down?” But I had to own up to myself that though I had seen many places more congenial to me, yet I wuz glad that so many people, some of ’em cut off 292 from the beauty of life, could come here quickly and easily, and forgit their cares and toil for awhile, and go home refreshed and ready to take up their burdens agin. And the children, God bless them! I knowed it wuz indeed to them, the big Wonder Place, and beauty spot of the world and their life.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Josiah Found at Last! the Awful Fire at Dreamland and the Terrible Sights I Saw There

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

JOSIAH FOUND AT LAST! THE AWFUL FIRE AT DREAMLAND AND THE TERRIBLE SIGHTS I SAW THERE

I didn’t go out that evenin’, weariness and rumatiz both kep me to home a settin’ on that piazza. And in vain for me did the countless lights burn and blaze. The great tower that lighted up the deep breast of the Atlantic, for milds and milds, couldn’t light up my gloomy sperit.

Where wuz my Josiah? Where wuz the pardner of my youth? In vain did the melogious music blare out its loudest blares, it brought no bam to my sperit. I sot and looked on the countless hosts passin’ by as if they wuzn’t there, the man I loved wuz not among ’em. I sot there lost in mournful thought till the endless crowd gradually dispersed. The music ceased, the lights went out. The hand of Midnight let down her dark mantilly of repose, spangled with stars, Silence sot on the throne Noise had vacated. 296

The great City of Mirth wuz asleep. Only the Atlantic and Samantha seemed awake, the Ocean’s deep voice sounded out in the same ontranslated language it has from the creation, and will I spoze till there is no more sea. Ontranslated to most, but to me it thundered out, Swish!—Swosh!—Roar! Where is Josiah? Where is Josiah? Where? Where? Swish!—Swosh!—Roar!

I didn’t want to go to bed, but knowed I needed rest for another arjous day of Husband huntin’. I retired to bed but not to sleep. Anxiety and Grief lay on both sides on me and crowded me, and prodded me with their sharp elbows.

But I spoze I must have droze off, for all to once I wuz passin’ through a great silent city. Hours and hours I trod up and down broad stun highways, through endless parks and Pleasure Places, climbin’ interminable flights of marble stairs, walkin’ through immense picture galleries. Days and days went by, whilst I wuz conductin’ this quest through a deserted city, searchin’ for sunthin’ I couldn’t name. Till at last I lay wore out, on a couch, and Josiah wuz bendin’ over me. He had a small green hat sot rakishly on one side, a red neck-tie flashed out, a immense 297 cigar wuz in his mouth, out of which streamed a flame of fire. As he bent over me, and I see his dissolute linement and mean, I groaned out, “Oh Josiah, is it thus we meet?”

“We meet as Highlariers!” sez he gayly, and bent still closter, I spozed he wuz goin’ to kiss me. And so philosophical is my mind asleep or awake, I thought even then, the law couldn’t touch him for it if he did. But before his face met mine, that immense flaming cigar sot fire to the piller case. The flames riz up round me, the smoke entered my nostrils and nose.

I sprung up. Josiah had disappeared, but the smell of fire remained. I hurried to the winder. As I had last seen it all the great pleasure ground seemed fast asleep. Gone wuz the tread of the innumerable multitude. The music of the bands wuz hushed, the cries of the different venders and showmen, automobiles, wagons, the stiddy sound of machinery running the mechanical amusements, and the constant sound of footsteps and voices, that filled the day full, wuz all hushed. Even to the long onshapely animal house Night had brought silence. The hull place looked like a City of Dreams, only the eternal waves washin’ up on the beach, seemed to emphasize the silence. 298

But what wuz that I see over the dim ruffs? A slender spiral of flame shootin’ up through the shadows, and on Dreamland tower a rosy blush seemed to grow on its whiteness. As I watched the flame, it grew larger and larger, and my heart most stopped beatin’, for I knowed what a fire would mean in them unsubstantial buildin’s. And somewhere there under them flimsy ruffs was my Josiah!

The flame increased! Coney Island wuz afire! Made sensitive by anxiety, I had reconized the smoke borne to me on some vagrant breeze.

The long elaborate dream of mine hadn’t lasted a second. It wuz staged in the real Dream Land, for the awful drayma so soon to be enacted there, by the terrible actor, Fire! The most fearful and tragic actor on the hull stage of life.

Fire! Fire! Fire!

Thus did I scream as I throwed on my clothes, I thought at the top of my voice, but I don’t spoze it wuz much above a whisper, for Bildad’s folks didn’t hear me in the next room, through the thin wall, till I rushed to their door and knocked, cryin’ out:

“Bildad, git up! Josiah is afire!” 299

“What you say?” he called back.

“Dreamland is afire! Josiah is in danger! But I will save him or perish!” And I ketched up a two quart pail of water, and rushed out doors. You can’t recall your exact thoughts at such a time, yet I have a ricellection of thinkin’—Josiah is small boneded, and two quarts of water might put him out if he had jest got afire. But where wuz the idol of my soul? I spoze every woman on Coney Island thought them thoughts whether she remembers it or not. Where is he? Will he escape? And men wuz thinkin’, Where is she? Is she safe? Love puts the question, and Fear and Horrer answers it.

As I rushed along cryin’ Fire! winders wuz throwed up, doors opened, and in less time than I can tell on’t, Surf Avenue wuz full of people. Frenzied cries and shouts rung through the air. And as the flames riz higher and higher, so did the shrieks and yells of the crowd, which had swelled to a mob; bells clanged, fire wagons raced and jangled.

Quicker than any seen wuz ever changed at a theatre the Quiet Night wuz turned into Pandemonium. Men, wimmen and children rushin’ every which way—police—firemen—fire bells 300 clangin’—men shoutin’—wimmen shriekin’—and every minute the flames increased!

The firemen did what they could, they worked like giants, but the element they wuz workin’ aginst wuz more powerful than man. Anon burnin’ timbers fell with a crash, clouds of smoke wropped us round and choked us, the firemen sent up streams of water that turned to mountains of steam.

I wuz carried by the screechin’ mob hither and yon with no will of my own. Another element wuz added to the dretful seen. Someone cried out:

“The wild animals are loose!”

Wimmen fainted, and men, wimmen and children screamed louder than ever, expectin’ any minute a tiger or lion or leapord to rush at ’em, or a maddened elephant to tromple ’em down.

They said the sight at that time in the animal house wuz enough to turn the soundest brain, for to save the animals they had to let ’em loose. And as they couldn’t be driven out, at last it wuz a great writhin’, strugglin’ mass of animal forms appallin’ to see, while the ears wuz deafened by the maddened cries of leapords and hyenas—the wild jabberin’ of monkeys, snarlin’ 301 and growlin’ of panthers, tigers and bears, roarin’ of lions—hybrids—hissin’ of serpents—pitiful frightened neighing of ponies, trumpetin’ of elephants. A great screamin’, roarin, hissin’, writhin’, fightin’ mass!

But as they refused to be driven to safety, the keepers after heroic efforts to save ’em, give ’em a more merciful death. It took fur greater heroism to do this, for some of ’em wuz dear pets, and it wuz like slayin’ their own children, and they aimed their revolvers at ’em through tearful eyes.

A bareheaded bystander sez, “The fire started in Hell Gate.”

Sez I, “Jest what you could expect of that place, I never hearn no good of it yet.”

But the wild crowd surged to and fro. Earth and Heaven seemed filled with the dretful roar and confusion—

It wuz a riot of deafenin’ noise and clamor below, and fur fur above, Dreamland Tower flamed up a immense pillar of fire, blazin’ out for the last time over sea and land, and with a dyin’ effort at decoration, crashed down, sendin’ up a shower of golden sparks a hundred feet high.

Jest then a woman sez, “The little Incubator Babies have been forgotten.” 302

“Not by me!” I sez, and I strove to push my way towards ’em, the woman toilin’ along by my side through the inferno of clamor, steam, smoke, and shriekin’ rushin’ humanity. But jest before we got there we met the good doctors and nurses who wuz bearin’ ’em to safety, and I sez to the woman, “It will be a shame if them helpless mites are ever brought back to this place of danger.”

“Danger!” the words rousted up afresh my agonized fears. Where wuz Josiah? Where wuz my idol? The woman tried to comfort me, for I wuz now cryin’ aloud, and callin’ on his name.

She sez, “He will escape; men can git round so much easier than wimmen.”

“Have you a husband in this dretful place?” sez I.

“No,” sez she, “only their dust, I have got three in a vase on my mantle piece in Surf Avenue.” Instinctively I thought “she’d had husbands to burn, but some wimmen can’t get one to save their lives, and them that get one can’t keep track on him.”

But I d’no whether she saved her vase or not, for we wuz parted by the hustlin’, tearin’, scramblin’ mob, and I wuz carried in another 303 direction, choked and blinded, and tossted and torn.

I hearn someone say, “Black Prince is loose, the biggest lion of all!” And sure enough, wild and crazy with the fiery heat and noise, the great beast rushed up and down, the crowd givin’ him the Right of Way. And at last he clim’ up onto a battlement and looked down on the mad seen below, the shoutin’ yellin’ mob bore me onwards, so I stood only a stun’s throw from the spot.

Never agin will there be such a seen presented to the eye of man, as that kingly form, standin’ up above the crowd aginst the background of lurid flame.

But who wuz that standin’ directly beneath, in the very middle of danger? My heart bounded so it most broke through my bodist waist.

Did I not know that small boneded figger? That bald head lit up by the glare of flames? It wuz! it wuz Josiah! My pardner-huntin’ wuz ended, but wuz it to be death at the gole? That agonizin’ thought made me by the side of myself, and entirely onbeknown to me I rushed forwards and cried to the lordly beast above, jest ready to spring:

“Don’t harm Josiah! Devour me instead!”

304

“I rushed forwards and cried to the lordly beast above, jest ready to spring: ‘Don’t harm Josiah! Devour me instead.’” (See page 303)

305

I knowed I would make a better meal for it; Josiah is lean and boney. But I won’t try to make myself out better than I am; I didn’t think of the lion’s digestion, and how Josiah would set on his stomach. My only thought wuz to save my pardner. And with a herculaneum effort I reached his side, and snatched him away jest as a shot rung out and the noble beast fell, his great, shaggy head restin’ on the balustrade, lookin’ down on the crowd below as if in questionin’ agony and contempt, as though his last thoughts wuz:

“Did you tear me away from my own free, beautiful, tropical forest for such a fate as this? Where is man’s boasted wisdom and power? I could have cared for myself, lived and died in happiness and safety, but civilized man has ruined and destroyed the wild beast.”

The rest of that seen is like a dream to me. I guess when the heavy dread and fear I had carried so long, wuz lifted from my brain, it made me light-headed. ’Tennyrate, it don’t seem as if I come fully to myself, till Josiah and I wuz takin’ leave at Bildad’s with tickets for Jonesville in our pockets.

The agony I had went through there, and my joy in his recovery wuz such, that I didn’t throw 306 Josiah’s waywardness in his face (not much of any). But if you’ll believe it—and I don’t spoze you will—he turned the tables ’round, and blamed me. That is often done by pardners of both sects, when they feel real guilty, to try to draw attention off their own misdoin’s, by findin’ fault with their pardners. It has been done time and agin, and I spoze will be, as long as man is man, and woman is woman.

When I told him that I rid down there with Deacon Gansey, that man acted jealous and mad as a hen. He never liked him, they fell out years ago about a rail fence, and wuz hurt. But now he acted furious, and his last words to Bildad wuz:

“I want you to have a funeral for Deacon Gansey before I see you agin, and I’ll pick out the him I want you to sing at his funeral:

“Believein’, we rejoice,
To see the cuss removed.”

But I spoke right up and sez, “Don’t you bury him till he is dead, Bildad, no matter who tells you to.”

And Josiah didn’t like that, or acted as if he didn’t; mebby he wuz subterfugin’ to draw off attention. Truly, pardners is a mysterious 307 problem, and it takes sights of wisdom and patience to solve’ em, and sometimes you can’t git the right answer to ’em then, male or female.

As we left Surf Avenue I looked back on the blackened ruins of what had been the fair City of Dreamland, the broken totterin’ remains of that glorious tower, the black tangled masses of iron and steel, the ruins of the great animal house mixed with the ashes of a hundred and twenty animals, and I see with my mind’s eye that great flat plain of blackened ruins, all cleared away, and green velvety grass, and trees, and fountains sprayin’ over shrubs, and flowers, and white smooth paths windin’ through the bloom and verdure clear down to the clean sand of the water’s verge. And the high fence of Exclusion that shets them from other fair parks along the shore removed, thousands and thousands and thousands of happy children playin’ there in the pure air, takin’ in in one summer day enough strength to last ’em through a crowded, suffocatin’, weary week. And grown folks, rich and poor, tired of city sights and sounds, strollin’ about or settin’ on comfortable seats lookin’ off on the water, or watchin’ the play of their children, the fresh air blowin’ some of their cares and troubles away.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

We Return to Jonesville and Josiah Builds Tirzah Ann’s Cottage With Strange Inventions and Additions

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CHAPTER NINETEEN

WE RETURN TO JONESVILLE AND JOSIAH BUILDS TIRZAH ANN’S COTTAGE WITH STRANGE INVENTIONS AND ADDITIONS

I told Josiah I hoped my vision would come true, and they would make an open park of Dreamland, so the millions who visit Coney Island could git a good look at Mom Nater and old Ocean. “And heaven knows,” sez I, “there would be amusements enough left in Luny, and Steeple Chase Park, and other resorts all along the shore.” And he said he didn’t care a dum what they did with it. Sez he, “They needn’t build it up on my account, for I won’t patronize ’em any more!” And I told him, “I guessed he wouldn’t be missed, specially Sundays and holidays.” And he said, “Miss me or not, they needn’t try to git me there agin, and they may jest as well give up hopin’ to, first as last.”

Sez I, “Can’t you be megum, Josiah? You wuz all carried away with it, and now you’re 312 turned agin it; what makes you turn so fur? Can’t you see the good side to it?”

“No, I can’t, and won’t!”

So we went home some like the Baptist and the Methodist who had a public meetin’ to argy their two beliefs, on which they wuz dretful sot, and they converted each other, so the Baptist went home a Methodist, and the Methodist a Baptist.

I’d been considerable sot agin it, but I went home with the eye of my spectacles able to look on both sides. The side I didn’t like, that it shares with other Pleasure Resorts. And its good side, as a care lightener, and diversion to toil. And a golden Pleasure House to the millions of children who go there every year, many of ’em poor children who get there their only glimpse of rest and light hearted enjoyment.

But my dear pardner can’t be megum; that quality wuz left out when he wuz manufactured. And now if anyone sez Coney Island, he starts for the barn.

Serenus come home a few days after we did. He’d been on the Bowery of Coney Island that night, Josiah havin’ refused to go to such a lowdown place with him. So as it often is in this strange world, the wrong-doer comes out ahead, 313 for the present. He made a night of it with Jim Cobb, a rural cousin, and not a hair of his head wuz scorched, nor the smell of fire on his garments.

But I wuz proud that Josiah withstood temptation, and told him that I would ruther he had got afire, and burned considerable, than had him yield to the tempter.

I myself never sot foot on the Bowery; I wuzn’t goin’ to nasty up my mind with it, though I hearn there wuz some good things to be seen there. Folks told me I’d ort to gone to Brighton, and Atlantic City, and see the milds of beautiful Pleasure places along the ocean, but I sez, “I thank you, but I’ve seen enough,” though there wuz sights there that I would loved to see.

Among ’em wuz that Mother’s Camp, where thousands and thousands of poor children and their mas go to spend a day in the bracin’ atmosphere. And the children have pure milk, and their mas good tea, and they can go there day after day all they want to. How the children look forward to it, and their mas too.

314

“I myself never sot foot on the Bowery; I wuzn’t goin’ to nasty up my mind with it, though I hearn there wuz some good things to be seen there.” (See page 313)

315

The goodness and helpfulness of such places along the beach, wrops their bright mantillys over some of the other places not so good and makes folks more lenitent to ’em, as they endure a poor husband for the sake of his good wife, and visey versey.

A few days after we got home, Josiah took Penstock and they sot off for a two weeks’ stay at Shadow Island. And a few days after they got there he writ me that they had broke ground for the cottage. And that very day I got my feet wet down to the creek paster huntin’ for a turkey’s nest, and come down with inflamatory rumatiz, and couldn’t walk a step for upwards of four weeks, and Ury’s wife come and took care on me. My head felt bad too, Coney Island had been too much for me—

Well, Josiah would come home Sundays all wrought up and enthusiastick boastin’ what a model house it wuz, jest perfect, and what new and magnificent discoveries he had made to lighten labor, which he wuz goin’ to git patented and probable make our everlastin’ fortune, as well as make Tirzah Ann perfectly happy. And I’d set with my foot on a piller, and hear him go on and forebode and forebode, and I groaned more about the house than I did with the pain in my lim, though that wuz fearful.

Well, after it had been goin’ on for about four 316 weeks, one Saturday when he come home over Sunday, he said the house wuz all up and nearin’ completion, and he carried the idee if he didn’t come right out and say it, that there wuzn’t a mansion in the New Jerusalem that went ahead on’t. My rumatiz and head wuz quite a little better, and he proposed that I should go back with him Monday mornin’ on a short tower and see the house, and be a humble witness and admirer of his glorious triumph (he didn’t say these words right out but carried the idee plain in his linement, and hauty demeanor). Well, I concluded to go, and Philury bandaged up my lim in soft flannel moistened with anarky, and packed various bottles of linement, etc., in my portmanty and Ury took us to the train.

Well I will pass over our voyage to Shadow Island, but in the fullness of time we arrove there, and stood in front of the cottage. The seen all round it wuz fair indeed, but the structure looked queer, queer as a dog. There wuz piazzas and porticos, and ornament piled on ornament cropped out on every side. It wuz weighted down with cheap little sawed out peaks and pints, and triangles perforated with holes for ornaments, but the hull thing looked shiftless, tippin’ and lop sided. I stood lookin’ 317 at it in silence for a long time, it looked so queer that it sort o’ stunted and brow beat me, and my first words wuz spoke as much to my own soul as to my companion, “It looks strange, passin’ strange!”

“Yes,” sez Josiah, “hain’t it a uneek plan?”

“Yes,” sez I, “a uneeker one wuz never seen on this planet.” And agin I seemed to lose myself in strange emotions, it looked so awful, a kind of or mingled with my indignation and regret.

“Nobody will steal them idees!” sez he proudly.

“No,” sez I sadly, “you’re safe from that.” And I sez, as I looked up at the queer, lop sided, flighty, vain thing, “It leans over considerable, Josiah Allen, it is very tippin’.”

He looked worried, but sez in a sort of apology way, “I had it lean over one side on account of havin’ rain water dripp offen the eaves, and have the snow slide off in drifty times. Ruffs have been known to fall in, and I wanted to ensure Tirzah Ann’s havin’ a ruff over her head anyway.”

Agin I looked on in solemn or, and sez wonderin’ly, “What will Tirzah Ann say when she sees it?” 318

“I don’t care,” sez he, “what she sez! if she don’t like it she can lump it!”

But I could see that the tippin’ sides wuz done through a mistake, and he wuz tryin’ to cover it up with a mantilly of bravado and boastfulness. I agin kep’ silence for quite a spell, and my next words, so fur as I remember ’em, wuz, “Where is the suller?”

He stood agast and repeated, “The suller!” He looked perfectly dumb-foundered but wuzn’t goin’ to give in he made a mistake, it wuz too mortifyin’ to his pride, so sez he in faint axents:

“I laid out to build it after the house wuz done.” Sez I, “What wuz you goin’ to do with the dirt?”

“Why, I laid out,” sez he lookin’ helplessly round for a excuse, “I laid out to bring it up in baskets,” and he went on brightenin’ up as a idee struck him—“I’ve observed, Samantha, that dirt is handy for house plants, or to plant seeds in the spring of the year.”

Sez I dryly, “I guess three or four hundred wagon loads won’t be needed for house plants, and after Tirzah Ann sees all that dirt lugged up her suller stairs and through her kitchen she won’t have much time or ambition for posies.”

319

“‘The suller!’ He stood agast, perfectly dumb-foundered but wuzn’t goin’ to give in he had made a mistake. It wuz too mortifying to his pride.” (See page 318)

320

“Well,” sez he, a bright idee occurrin’ to him, “it will be a first rate job for the men to do rainy days. In buildin’ a house there hain’t much a man can do durin’ a hard thunder storm, or hail storm, but they can go right on with the suller jest as well as though it wuz a sunshiny day. That is one great thing that architects have heretofore overlooked, work that men can do durin’ cyclones—I have met that want,” sez he proudly.

“I should think as much,” sez I mekanically, for my thoughts wuzn’t there, they wuz afar with Tirzah with her poor health, and the blow that had got to come onto her, when she see this thing that wuz rared up in front of me.

Well, I went round to the kitchen door, the winders all seemed sot in tottlin’ and shaky, and my pen fails me to tell the looks of them back door steps, they wuz very high here, for the land sloped off sudden, but suffice it to say that I wouldn’t trust even one foot on ’em for a dollar bill. There wuz a great long concern that looked like a huge wooden arm that come out of the settin’ room winder on that side and seemed to reach down to the water, and sez I, “What, for the land’s sake! is that?”

“That,” sez he proudly, “is the crownin’ work of my life! that will make me famous and 321 enormously rich when it becomes known to the world. That is a attachment to hitch onto the sewin’ machine, the churn, the coffee mill or any domestic article where foot or hand power is used, and is to be used in pumpin’ water.”

“Pumpin’ water!” sez I coldly, “what for?”

“Oh, for drinkin’, for irrigatin’, or for any use that water is used for, puttin’ out fires, or anything.”

Sez I coldly, “Do you spoze that Tirzah Ann with her health, is goin’ to set at her sewin’ machine and do fine sewin’, and at the same time pump water from hour to hour?”

“Yes,” sez he, “and hain’t it a beautiful thought, how it will add to her sweet content and happiness as she sets sewin’ on Whitfield’s shirts, and thinkin’ at the same time she is benefittin’ the world at large, quietly and unostentatiously sewin’ on gussets, and makin’ the desert blossom like a rosy all round her; how happy she will be,” sez he.

Sez I, “It is a crazy idee! crazy as a loon! What under the sun would she want to pump hundreds and hundreds of barrels of water for? Half a barrel would last ’em a day for all their work.”

He murmured sunthin’ about a fountain, 322 that might be sprayin’ up in the front yard, and how beautiful it would be, and enjoyable.

And I sez, “Could you set and enjoy yourself lookin’ on a fountain risin’ up and dashin’ jewels of spray all round you, and thinkin’ that every drop wuz bein’ pumped up by the weary feet of your own girl by your first wife? That poor delicate little creeter’s tired feet, toilin’ on hour by hour and day by day.”

He looked real bad, he hadn’t thought so fur, and I went on, “Don’t you know it would make the sewin’ machine go so hard that no woman could run it a minute, let alone for days and weeks?” His linement fell two or three inches. I see he gin up it needed more strength to run it. “And it looks like furiation too,” sez I.

“Look!” He snapped out, “What do you spoze I care for looks!”

But I see his idees wuz all broke up, as well they might be, Tirzah Ann pumpin’ water all day with her feet! the idee!

Well, out on one side of the house I see a great pile of bricks, they seemed to be divided in two piles, one wuz good sound bricks, and one wuz broken some, and I sez, “What are these bricks divided off so fur?” 323

“That,” sez he, “is a sample of how men see into things.”

“How?” sez I.

“Well, I’ll tell you.” And he went on proudly, as if glad to git a chance to show off how fur seem’ and eqinomical he wuz, and to recover from the machinness that had settled down on him like a dark mantilly, while we discussed the suller and pump attachment.

“I got them bricks at a bargain. I hain’t got enough good bricks for the hull chimbly, and so I’m goin’ to have ’em begin the chimbly on top instead of the usual way of beginin’ at the bottom, and then I can see jest how fur my good bricks will go.”

“How be you goin’ to make the top bricks stay up?” sez I, “a layin’ up on nothin’?”

“That is a man’s work,” sez he, “a woman couldn’t understand it if I should explain it.”

“No,” sez I, “Heaven knows no woman on earth would ever understand that idee!”

Well, all I could do he would go that very afternoon and engage a mason to do the work, build the chimbly after his views, beginin’ on top instead of the bottom. But though deeply mortified at it, that wuz jest the move that sot me free from my anxieties about the house, for 324 the mason, who wuz a great case for a joke, made so much fun of the idee, and of the hull structure, that my companion threw up the hull job and told me that the house might go to––for anything he cared. I will never tell the place he said the house might go to, it is too wicked to even think on calmly, it begun with an H and that is all that I will ever tell to anybody.

Well, when Whitfield and Tirzah Ann come back from Maine and went to Shadow Island to see that strange queer lookin’ buildin, I spoze Whitfield laughed till his sides ached. Tirzah cried, they say; cried partly out of sentiment to think her Pa had showed such affection for her as to build the cottage, and partly because it looked so awful, it made her hystericky.

But Whitfield sobered down, and when he come back to Jonesville acted good to Josiah, he seemed to be real thankful to Josiah and me for buildin’ it, and his grateful, affectionate ways kinder took the edge offen Josiah’s humiliation, but then he would probable have sprunted up anyway—mortification never prayed on him for more’n a short time.

Well, the end on’t wuz, Whitfield hired a good carpenter to oversee the work, and some strong 325 workmen who wuz able to lift and lug, there wuz plenty of lumber, and in four weeks the house wuz transmogrified into a good lookin’ cottage. They built on a L, I believe they called it, which they’re to use as a store room, and under that Tirzah Ann is to have her suller, Whitfield wuzn’t the man to deprive her of that comfort. And in some way they straightened up the house, and put in a winder here and there, tore off lots of the ornaments, but left on some of the piazzas, and balconies, and things, and it wuz a pretty and commogious lookin’ cottage. They painted the hull concern a soft buff color, with red ruffs that looked real picturesque settin’ back aginst the dark green of the trees.

And sure enough the first week in September we had our party there. It wuzn’t a surprise—no, Heaven knows the surprise wuz when we first laid eyes on the house as Josiah left it—but it wuz a very agreable party. Tirzah Ann did well by us in cookin’ (of course we helped her) and we all stayed three days and two nights; Thomas J. and Maggie and the children, and Josiah and me. Tirzah Ann and Whitfield stayed longer, so’s to leave everything in first rate order for another year. They sot out some pretty shrubs and made some posy beds under 326 the winders, and planted bulbs in ’em, that they spozed would rise up and break out in sunny smiles when they met ’em another summer. They lay out to take sights of comfort in that house—yes indeed!

And I shouldn’t be at all surprised if it ended by our all havin’ cottages there for summer comfort. It looks like it now. Though I told ’em I’d ruther have our cottage on the main land pretty nigh to ’em; there’s places where the land juts out into the river havin’ all the looks of a island on the fore side, and on the hindside more solidity somehow.

And with the society of the Saint on the front side, and Safety on the hind side, it seems as if anybody could take considerable comfort there.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Faith Comes to Visit Us. We Attend the Camp Meetin’ at Piller Pint, and Faith Meets the Lover of Her Youth

329

CHAPTER TWENTY

FAITH COMES TO VISIT US. WE ATTEND THE CAMP MEETIN’ AT PILLER PINT, AND FAITH MEETS THE LOVER OF HER YOUTH

Accordin’ to her promise Faithful Smith come to Jonesville in the fall and we wuz glad enough to see her.

We had laid our plans to attend the Camp Meetin’ at Piller Pint, and at last the time arriv. The day before the great meetin’, the sky wuz rosy in the mornin’, the distant lake looked blue, and everything bid fair for a good spell of weather.

Josiah iled up the old double harness and washed the democrat off and rubbed it down with shammy skin till it shone like glass. And I prepared a glass can of baked beans brown and crispy, but sweet and rich tastin’ as beans know how to be when well cooked, then I briled two young chickens a light yeller brown, and basted ’em well with melted butter, and had a new quart basin of as good dressin’ as Jonesville ever turned out, and I’ve seen good dressers in my 330 day. And a quart can of beautiful creamed potatoes all ready to warm up, two dozen light white biscuit, a canned strawberry pie, and a dozen sugar cookies reposed side by side in a clean market basket, and by ’em lay peacefully a little can of rich yeller butter and one of brittle cowcumber pickles, and one dozen deviled eggs.

A better lunch wuz never prepared in the precincts of Jonesville.

Oh! and I had some jell too, and cream cheese, and the next mornin’ I made two quarts of coffee all ready to warm up in Sister Meechum’s tent (she had gin permission), and a can of sweet cream to add richness to it, and lump sugar accordin’.

I felt that these wuz extraordinary preparations, but didn’t begrech ’em, part on ’em wuz on Faith’s account. Well, as I say, the preparations wuz all completed the day before exceptin’ the coffee and creamed potatoes, and them wuz accomplised early in the mornin’ while I wuz gittin’ breakfast, and we all sot off triumphant at nine A.M.

It wuz a clear cool mornin’ in lovely autumn. Old Nater hadn’t as you may say finished up her fall job of colorin’ and paintin’, but she wuz all rousted up tendin’ to it. 331

All along the smooth highway leadin’ to the lake, trees and bushes bent over the roadside tinged with crimson and yeller and russet brown, and red, and shaded gold colors mingled with the rich green of the faithful cedars and hemlocks and pines. Sometimes up a high pine tree or ellum a wild ivy had clum and wuz hangin’ on with one hand and wavin’ out to us its banner of gold and crimson as we passed. And fur off the maple forest looked like a vast mass of rose and amber and golden brown, mingled with the deep green of spruces and cedars, and furder off still a blue haze lay over all like a soft veil partly hidin’ and partly revealin’ the glory of the seen. And ever and anon the blue flashin’ waters of the lake could be seen like the soul in a woman’s face, givin’ life and meanin’ to the picture.

Well, anon as we clumb a hill, the hull lake bust out on our vision, it lay spread out broad and beautiful and calm, with the breezes ripplin’ its blue surface into waves, and the sunshine sparkling on its bosom, and down under the hill on a pint of land that stretched out into the water stood the noble grove of trees where the camp meetin’ wuz held. That wuz Piller Pint.

We descended a hill, driv along half a mild or so till we come to a fence and a open pair of bars, 332 in front of which stood two muscular attendants and one on ’em sez, “We take a small fee from them that enter.”

Sez Josiah, lookin’ gloomy, “I spozed religion wuz free.”

“It is free,” sez the man, “but this is only to smooth its way, put up seats and such.”

Sez Josiah, “I didn’t know that Religion had to set down.”

“Sinners have to set,” sez the man.

Sez Josiah, “We hain’t sinners.” But I hunched him and sez, “Pay your fee and go on.” So after a deep sithe he produced his old leather wallet and fished up ten cents out of its depths, and we proceeded on.

The grove wuz a large one, acres and acres of big trees on every side, and vehicles of every description from smart canopy top buggies, and Sarah’s, and automobiles, down to one horse sulkies and rickety buck-boards, and horses of every size and color wuz hitched to ’em. And on the fallen tree trunks sot wimmen and girls, young boys, children, and pairs of lovers wuz walkin’ afoot amidst the deep green aisles. Way in the green depths of the woods you could see the glimpse of a woman’s dress, or see the head of a horse lookin’ out peaceful. 333

But we advanced a little furder as the road led out amongst the trees and pretty soon we come in sight of a large round tent where the meetin’ wuz held, and from which we could hear the voice of hims and oratory, along on both sides of the immense tent, so’s to leave a road between, wuz rows of small tents where the campers dwelt. They stretched on like two rows of white dwellings way off into the green of the woods. Josiah and I are well thought on in Jonesville, and as fur out as Loontown and Piller Pint, and a man soon advanced and gin us an advantageous position, and Josiah hitched the mair and we advanced into the amphitheatre.

The tent riz up like a big white umbrell, or like great broodin’ wings overhead, leavin’ the sides free for the soft air to enter. There wuz rows of seats, boards laid on wooden supports and on one side a high wooden structure, open towards the seats, in which the preachers sot or stood. A wooden railin’ run along in front of that rough pulpit. Under foot wuz the green moss and rich mold of the onbroken forest. And way up over the white tent the tall tree tops arched, and you could look way up into the green aisles of light with glimpses of sunshine between, 334 castin’ shady shadows and golden ones on the grass and moss below.

Folks wuz settin’ round of all sorts, some handsome, some humbly, some dressed up slick, some in rough common attire, but most on ’em looked like good sturdy farmers and their families. The old grand-ma of ninety with bent form and earnest face, side by side with her great grand-child.

I myself with Josiah sot down by a large boneded woman with a big, calm, good-lookin’ face. She had on a dress and mantilly of faded black cashmere; the mantilly wuz wadded, a pink knit woolen scarf wuz wound loose round her neck, she had a small hat of black straw trimmed with red poppies, and she wore a pair of large hoop ear-rings. Her face had the calm and sunshine of perfect peace on it. Her husband, a small pepper-and-salt iron gray man, with sandy hair and a multitude of wrinkles, sot by her, and they had a young child elaborately dressed in red calico between ’em.

Beyond her sot a little slender woman in a stylish dark blue dress and turban, her face alert and eager, lit with deep gray eyes, had the passion and zeal of a Luther or Wesley. On the nigh side of me sot two young girls in pink 335 and white muslin; a father and mother and three children wuz behind us, and on the seat in front wuz some young men and two old ones. I hearn the big calm woman say, “I shall be dretful disappinted if he don’t come to-day.”

“So shall I,” sez the pepper-and-salt man, “I shall feel like turnin’ right round and goin’ back home, but I think he is sure to be here.” Bein’ temporary neighbors I asked who it wuz that wuz expected.

“Why, the great revivalist and preacher who is expected here to-day.”

Sez I, “Who is it?” The woman said she couldn’t remember the name, but he wuz the greatest preacher sence Wesley. He jest went about doin’ good, folks would go milds and milds to hear him, and he drawed their souls and sperits right along with his fervor and eloquence. He is to a big meetin’ at Burr’s Mills to-day, but is expected here for sure. Two hundred had been converted under him at Burr’s Mills. He had been there a week.

I sez, “Whyee! is that so?”

“Yes,” sez the calm woman, and she went on to say, “I hear that he used to be a wicked man, but had some trouble that made him desperate, and finally driv him right into the 336 Kingdom, and sence that he can’t seem to work hard enough for the Master.”

“Well,” sez I, “Saul the scoffer got turned into Paul the apostle, and that same power is here to-day.”

“Speakin’ of the power,” sez the woman, “two wimmen and a man had the power last night, one girl lay speechless for hours, and when she come to said she had been ketched right up into Heaven. She talked beautiful,” sez she.

Sez I calmly, “That’s jest what Paul said, he said he wuz caught up to the Third Heaven.”

Sez Josiah, “That power don’t come to earth to-day, Samantha.”

Sez I, “Who told you it didn’t? I hain’t hearn on’t. Earth hain’t no furder from Heaven now than it wuz then, and the same God reigns.”

“Amen,” sez the pepper-and-salt man, I see he had zeal and religion, but I felt kinder flustrated to be “amened” to in public, and I looked kinder meachin’ I spoze, and the calm woman see I did. And she sez:

“Sister Calvin Martin lays there now in her tent with the Power. She lay there all day yesterday and all night.”

Some of the boys before me begun to titter 337 and snicker at anybody’s havin’ the power, and I sez, eyein’ ’em sternly, “Do you know what you’re laughin’ at, young men? You talk about it real glib, but have you any idee of the greatness and overwhelmin’ might of the Force you’re speakin’ of? That Power wuz at Pentecost in cloven tongues of flame, and strange voices and words that no man could utter. Saul laughed at the Power but it struck him blind in the street, and ketched him up into the Seventh Heaven. When that Power comes down on earth, let sinners quail, and saints look on with or and tremblin’.”

They looked real meachin’. But jest then the Experience meetin’ begun, and a old man with thin white hair and white whiskers framin’ his meek wrinkled face, come forward, and layin’ his hand on the railin’ sez in a kinder tremblin’ voice, “Bless the Lord who has made His servant able to come to this temple in the wilderness, to witness the glory He has poured down on his people. Every camp-meetin’ for years I have thought would be my last, but bless Him who has preserved me to this day.”

“Yes, bless the Lord! Amen! amen!” wuz shouted on every side, and as he stopped after a few minutes’ exhortation, the other ministers 338 and some of the old bretheren crowded round the white headed old saint to shake his hand.

Then a sweet faced little girl in a pink hat got up and said “the Lord wuz precious to her.”

“Amen! amen! Bless His name! He carries the lambs in His bosom!” said the white headed preacher. Then a pleasant lookin’ middle-aged minister related this incident, “A young boy had been converted, and said he had a view of Heaven. A onbeliever tried to frighten him and asked him if he didn’t tremble at the thought. Sez the boy, ‘My feet are on the rock.’

“‘But don’t you tremble?’ sez the infidel.

“‘Yes,’ sez the boy, ‘I do, but the rock under my feet don’t tremble.’”

“Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land,
A weary land, a weary land—
Oh, Jesus is a rock in a weary land—
A shelter in the time of storm.”

High and clear this believin’ song floated through our souls—and up to Heaven.

Then a good lookin’ young man arose and sez, “Did you ever hear of the drunken horse jockey and thief down to Loontown? Well, I’m that man clothed and in my right mind. 339 The Lord stopped me in my evil course, and I am His and He is mine.”

A bystander sez, “That is so, he is a changed man.” Then they all sung:

“There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath its flood
Lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty sta-ains;
Lose all their guilty sta-ains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.”

That is a melogious chorus, but so kinder floatin’ on, and back and forth, that I don’t see how they can ever stop it when they begin. Of course as wuz natural there wuz some there who wuz bashful and made mistakes. A tall slim young man got up, he wuz studying for the ministry, sez he, “My friends, I am a stranger to you all, I am a stranger to myself, and I trust,” sez he, “I am a stranger to my God.”

He left out a “wuzn’t,” he meant that he wuzn’t a stranger to his God. Bashfulness wuz the cause. Madder red wuz pale compared to his face when he sot down, and his tongue wuz thick and husky. I wuz sorry for him. Then a woman riz up with a black bunnet and veil on 340 and white collar and cuffs; she looked like a Quakeress, and I believe that if Emperors and Zars had stood before her she would have been onmoved, she wuz as calm and earnest as Ruth or Esther, or any of our good old four-mothers. Sez she:

“My friends, I see your faces to-day and watch the different expressions upon them. How will these faces look when we meet at the Bar of God? Will peace be on them? Or dismay and everlastin’ regret?”

“Oh yes! The Lord help! Let us hear from some one else!” A slight pause ensued and then there riz up this melogious appealin’ old him:

“Shall Jesus bear the cross alone,
And all the world go free?
No, there’s a cross for every one,
And there’s a cross for me.”

A colored boy got up; he wuz tall and gant with big soft eyes full of the pathetic wisdom and ignorance of his race. He spoke kinder slow and sez, “I wuz sick once and I felt alone. I wuz afraid to die. Now if I wuz sick I shouldn’t be alone, nor afraid, I’ve got somebody with me. Jesus Christ is with me all the time. I hain’t lonesome no more, nor ’fraid.” 341

“Tell your experience, Joe, tell it here!” shouted an old man. Joe stepped forward, took the Bible offen the rustic stand, turned over the leaves to the first page, and slowly and laboriously read, “Darkness was on the face of the earth—and God said, let there be light—and there wuz light.”

He closed the book and looked round with rapt luminous eyes. “That is me,” sez he, “that is my experience.”

“Amen! amen!” shouted the brethren. The little refined lookin’ woman in the blue dress started this verse and sung it through almost alone, in a clear sweet voice:

“I am but a traveller here, Heaven is my home.
Earth’s but a desert drear, Heaven is my home.
Time’s cold and chilling blast, soon will be over past,
I shall reach home at last, Heaven is my home.”

“Amen! amen! Now let us hear from another.” And one after another rose and told of the goodness of God and what He had done for them. The sweet earnest hims floated out ever and anon and over the place seemed to brood a Presence that boyed our sperits up as on wings, and I felt that we wuz there with one accord, and my soul seemed lifted up fur 342 above Jonesville and Josiah, and all earthly troubles.

All to once a woman rose with a light on her face as if she wuz lookin’ on sunthin’ fur above this earth. She delivered a eloquent exhortation in words of praise and ecstasy. More and more earnest and eloquent she grew and lifted up from earthly influences. At last she lifted her hands and stepped out with a swayin’ motion of her body, as if keepin’ step to some onhearn melody that ears stuffed with the cotton of worldliness and onbelief wuzn’t fine enough to ketch, and finally her feet begun to keep step with that mysterious music, that for all I know might have been soundin’ down from the ramparts of the New Jerusalem. Round and round she slowly swayed and stepped. Wuz it to the rythm of that invisible music?

There wuz a look on her pure face as if she wuz hearin’ sunthin’ we didn’t. I wuz riz up and carried away some distance from myself. When still lookin’ up with that rapt luminous face she fell to the ground as prostrate as Saul did on the road to Jerusalem, and lay in that state, so I hearn afterwards, for a day and a night. Jest as she fell that iron gray man yelled out, “Bless the Lord!” 343

And I sez, bein’ all wrought up, “Don’t you know when to say that, and when not to? She might have broke her nose.” He looked queer.

In a few minutes I see a stir round the speakers’ stand, and knew the speaker of the day, the great revivalist from the West, had come. And anon I see a tall noble figger passin’ through the crowd that made way for it reverentially. And lo and behold! I see as I ketched a glimpse of his profile that it wuz the minister I had hearn at Thousand Island Park. The same sweet smile rested on his face as he looked round on his brethren and the crowd before him, some like a benediction, only more tender like, and a light seemed to be shinin’ through his countenance, ketched from some Divine power.

It wuz the same face I had framed that summer day in the Tabernacle at T. I. Park, and hung up in my mind right by the side of Isaiah and St. Paul. Yes, I see agin the broad white forward with the brown hair mixed with gray thrown back from it kinder careless, his eyes had the same sweet sad expression, soft, yet deep lookin’, and pitiful, as if he wuz sorry for us and would love to teach us the secret he had found of how to overcome the world and its sins and sorrows. 344

His prayer had the same power of lifting us up fur above the world and settin’ down our naked souls in the presence of Him who searcheth the heart, searchin’ and probin’ to our consciences, and yet consolin’, puttin’ us in mind of that text, “As a father pitieth his children” and yet wants ’em to mind. It wuz a prayer for help and as if we would git it.

He read in that same sweet, melogious voice I remembered so well, Paul’s wonderful words about how he wuz led from the blackness of unbelief up into the Great Light, and how he wuz caught up into the Third Heaven and saw things so great and glorious that it would not be lawful for man to speak of them, and where he goes on to tell of his belief, his hope and his faith. The text wuz Paul’s words when he recalls those divine hours up on the heights alone with God:

“Wherefore not being disobedient to the heavenly vision.”

And as he went on, as uplifted as I wuz, I felt fearful ashamed to think how many times I had been disobedient to the Heavenly vision, the white ideals that shone out in my mind so high and clear in the mornin’ light, and I wuz so sure I could reach. But havin’ set down to 345 rest in the heat of the day, and bein’ drawn off into the shadders and thickets of environin’ cares and perplexities, I didn’t git nigh enough to grasp holt of, and I whispered as much to my pardner.

And he said he felt different, he had always ever sence he sot out marched right straight towards the Kingdom.

Sez I, “Josiah Allen, hain’t you ever meandered at all from that straight and narrer way?”

“No mom, not a inch, not a hair’s breadth.” I wuz dumb-foundered by his conceit as many times as I had witnessed it.

The sermon that follered wuz white and glowin’ with the light of Heaven. You could see that he had not been disobedient to that Divine vision that had been revealed to him. The deep sweet look of his eyes told of them supreme heights his own soul had reached. Upliftin’, sympathizin’, soul searchin’, callin’ on the best in every heart there to rise up and try to fly Heavenward.

His looks and words rousted up my soul and carried me off so fur from the world and Piller Pint, that I lost sight entirely of the crowd around me. But anon I hearn a voice at my side and I see Faith had come back onbeknown to me (she had been in Sister Meechum’s tent mendin’ a rent in her dress). But when I 346 looked at her I realized how the face of St. Stephen looked. It sez, “His face shone like the face of an angel.” Faith’s looked jest so, only tears wuz slowly droppin’ from her eyes and runnin’ down her white cheeks. Sez I, whisperin’ to her with or in my axents,

“What is it, Faith? What is it, dear? Is it the Power?”

I most knew it wuz, and I wuz mekanically turnin’ it over in my mind what I should do with her if she fell over prostrate, and where I should lay her out. When she turned, her glowin’ awe-struck eyes held a world of joy and glory in each one on ’em.

“Yes, it is the Power, the power and goodness of God.” And she whispered in blissful axents, “It is Richard, Richard redeemed and working for my Master.”

I see it all, it wuz the lost lover of her youth, I read it in her face. You could have knocked me down with a clothes-pin aimed by a infant.

“How come he here?” sez I in a onbelievin’ way.

“God sent him!” She whispered. “He sent this blessedness to me, to know his soul is saved, that he is working for Him.”

I felt queer. 347

That afternoon they met under a ellum tree. He’d found out she wuz there, and asked for a interview, which I see that she granted him. It wuz a pretty spot, clost to the water, with trees of droopin’ ellums and some maples, and popples touched with fire and gold. The autumn leaves made a sort of canopy over their heads, and all round ’em wuz the soft melancholy quiet of the fall of the year. He stood there waitin’ for her.

“Faith!”

“Richard!”

I don’t know how long they stood there, her little cold hands held in his big warm palms, his eyes searchin’ the dear face and findin’ a sacred meanin’ in it, and she in hisen. He wuz pale, his voice trembled like the popple leaves overhead, and visey versey hern.

The settin’ sun glowed warm on the face of the water some as his eyes did, readin’ her sweet face, and some of that fire seemed to glow in his deep blue eyes.

“I had been so wicked, Faith, I had done so much harm, I said I would never seek my own happiness, I would work only for my fellow creatures, striving if I might undo some of my evil work, but I see to-day that I have been an egotist. God would not be offended at my happiness if I could win the dear woman I have loved all these years. You have forgiven me, Faith, I see it in your sweet eyes.”

348

“I don’t know how long they stood there, his eyes searchin’ the dear face and findin’ a sacred meanin’ in it.” (See page 347)

349

Agin he paused, and nothin’ broke the silence but the murmur of the blue waters swashin’ up on the beach, and furder off through the trees some belated campers jest drivin’ onto the ground sung out with clear voices,

“God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform.”

“He led me here to-day. I had not seen your face for twenty years, but this morning, at day dawn, I stood at my open window striving to decide to which place I should go to-day. Through a mistake I was expected in two places. And as I stood thinking, your face dawned on my inner vision as plainly as I see it now, and I had to come here, something told me I must come. He led me here and you also. He has a meaning in this––shall we read it together, Faith?”

And through the arched vista of autumn leaves they could see that the sky beyend the Pint gleamed out like a city of golden palaces. They seemed to be goin’ through its gates––into the glory beyend.

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Table of Contents

- Samantha at Coney Island
- CONTENTS
- ILLUSTRATIONS

- CHAPTER ONE

- IN WHICH THE CONEY ISLAND MICROBE ENTERS OUR QUIET HOME

- CHAPTER TWO

- We set sail for Thousand Island Park and have a real good time, but Josiah murmurs about Coney.

- CHAPTER THREE

- We seek Quiet and Happiness in their beautiful hants and mingle with the pleasure seekers of Alexandria Bay.

- CHAPTER FOUR

- We enjoy the hospitalities of Whitfield’s aunt’s boardin’-house at the Park, and my pardner goes a-fishin’

- CHAPTER FIVE

- Josiah’s imagination about his fishin’ exploits carries him to a pint where I have to rebuke him, which makes him dretful huffy

- CHAPTER SIX

- In which I draw the matrimonial line round my pardner and also keep my eye on Mr. Pomper

- CHAPTER SEVEN

- In which Josiah proposes to dance and Mr. Pomper makes an advance

- CHAPTER EIGHT

- In which Mr. Pomper declares his intenshuns an’ gives his views on matrimony

- CHAPTER NINE

- In which Mr. Pomper makes a offer of marriage and Faith has a wonderful experience

- CHAPTER TEN

- We Hear a Great Temperance Sermon, but Josiah Still Hankers for Coney Island

- CHAPTER ELEVEN

- In Which We Return Home, and I Perswaide Josiah to Build a Cottage for Tirzah Ann

- CHAPTER TWELVE

- In Which Josiah Still Works at His Plan for Tirzah Ann’s Cottage, and Decides to Send His Lumber C. O. W.

- CHAPTER THIRTEEN

- In Which Josiah and Serenus Depart Sarahuptishusly for Coney Island and I Start in Pursuit

- CHAPTER FOURTEEN

- The Curious Sights I Seen An’ the Hair-Raisin’ Episodes I Underwent in My Agonizin’ Search for My Pardner

- CHAPTER FIFTEEN

- I Visit the Moon, the Witchin’ Waves, Open Air Circus, Advise the Monkeys, Make the Male Statute Laugh, but Do Not Find Josiah

- CHAPTER SIXTEEN

- The Wonderful and Mysterious Sights I Saw in Steeple Chase Park, and My Search There for My Pardner

- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

- In Which I Continue My Search for Josiah Through Dreamland, Huntin’ for Him in Vain, and Return to Bildad’s at Night, Weary and Despairin’

- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

- Josiah Found at Last! the Awful Fire at Dreamland and the Terrible Sights I Saw There

- CHAPTER NINETEEN

- We Return to Jonesville and Josiah Builds Tirzah Ann’s Cottage With Strange Inventions and Additions

- CHAPTER TWENTY

- Faith Comes to Visit Us. We Attend the Camp Meetin’ at Piller Pint, and Faith Meets the Lover of Her Youth

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE