Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition by Marietta Holley (page 3)

sympathetic, the Little Lady in Black, will walk right out of the picture and come towards ’em, time and agin she’s done it, I’m tellin’ the truth that can be proved.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER X.

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

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

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

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

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

I wuz touched by the tenderness underlyin’ the idee, but sez I, “Have you counted the cost, Josiah?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But,” sez I, “I’m not preachin’, Josiah, I’m eppisodin’.”

“Well, there is a time for eppisodin’ and a time for common sense, and le’ss git along.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Where is Jonesville?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I sez, “Miss Huff said it wuz dretful interestin’, Josiah, I’d kinder like to see it.”

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

“We hain’t Irish!”

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

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

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

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

Under and Over the Sea.

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

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

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

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

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

And I sez, “Id’no, mebby to the moon or Mars.”

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

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

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

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

[Illustration]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, I don’t; I shall see animals enough when I git home in my own barnyard.”

“Well, do you want to go to the Hereafter, Josiah?”

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

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

Sez he, cross as a bear, “I want to go where I can git sunthin’ to eat.”

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

CHAPTER XI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can see here in this country, as in Japan, native workers plyin’ their different trades, mechanics, painters, jewelers, etc., etc. Silk weavers usin’ the same old, onhandy looms they used centuries ago, ivory carvers fashionin’ elephants and other animals, and all on ’em tryin’ to sell to us in their high-pitched voices.

I had quite a number of emotions here in China a musin’ on the oldness and strangeness of their civilization, and wonderin’ if it would ever be merged into a newer, fresher life.

Blandina didn’t share my lofty emotions, she simpered some and said, “I believe they would make lovely husbands if their eyes wuz sot in straighter and they dressed different.”

And I sez, “I wouldn’t admire ’em in that capacity, but after all they would be equinomical husbands. If you had a calico dress kinder wore off round the bottom you could cut it off and make ’em wear it, men’s clothes are so expensive it would be quite a savin’. And you could pass him off for the hired girl if strangers come onexpected, though that is sunthin’ I wouldn’t approve on, fur from it, a hauty sperit goes before a fall, as I told Josiah once when he got on a new kind of collar that held his head up so high he fell over the wood-box.”

But to resoom. The Chinese are curious lookin’, but equinomical, they can live on a few grains of rice a day, and America owes ’em a debt of gratitude anyway for tunnelin’ her Rocky Mountains, buildin’ her big railroads and diggin’ ditches to water the land and make it beautiful that they’re shet out of.

Blandina sez to me as we wended our way out, “No man ort to be turned back out of this country.” She said the Chinee wuz good, industrious, equinomical and peaceable.

And I sez, “Yes, they work well and don’t go round like some other foreigners with a chip on their shoulder. But,” sez I, “Blandina, I will not tell the nation what to do in this matter; there is so much to be said on both sides it must not depend on me to settle it, and they needn’t ask me to.”

I hadn’t more than said these words as we wuz strollin’ along when who should we meet but Royal and Rosy Nelson. I knowed they wuz to be married the very day after we left for St. Louis. We wuz invited but couldn’t go, our plans bein’ all laid and tickets bought, but I sent ’em a handsome present, for I wuz highly tickled with the match.

Truly no rose ever looked sweeter hangin’ on its bough than did Rosy Nelson hangin’ onto the arm of her devoted consort, and he I thought wuz well named, so royal and proud wuz his mean as he introduced his wife.

I kissed her warmly right there in China and promised to make her a all day’s visit soon as I got home, I’m lottin’ on’t.

We talked a little about past troubles caused by Jabezeses and inventions, and the glories of the Fair, and then they strolled off happy as two turkle doves, not needin’ or desirin’ any other company than their own, and showin’ it plain by their actions. Josiah was put out about it for he wanted to find out about how things wuz to home, bein’ highly tickled to meet a male Jonesvillian.

Blandina sez as they walked away, bound up in each other and both on ’em wropped up in the glowin’ mantilly of youth and joy: “Oh, happy, happy wedded souls! how I envy you.”

And Josiah sez in a fraxious axent, “How queer it is that two such smart young folks can look and act so spooney, but thank heaven! it won’t last. It won’t be long before Royal will be willin’ to pass the time o’ day with a Jonesvillian.”

I told him there wuz nothin’ so beautiful as love. “No, nor nothin’ that makes folk act so like pesky fools, they don’t act as though they knew putty.”

I hated such oncongenial idees. But couldn’t deny they wuz spooney, for they wuz, not a small teaspoon but a big silver dinner spoon, and I believe it will last. Not the outward form of the spoon, oh, no, that would be too wearisome to the world and themselves, but the precious metal that forms it. Love is the greatest thing in the world.

Blandina had always lived in a back place and had never heard a graphophone, so bein’ kinder tired, and bein’ nigh a place where they had one, we went in at her request and sot for quite a spell.

And we heard voices and songs gay and sad, marches and melodies, loftiest oratory, maddest mirth and profoundest feeling all comin’ out of a little square box, what a idee!

What a man that Edison is. It seems always like watchin’ the wonderful onseen secrets of nater, like seein’ the mortal made immortal to think that voices we’ve loved and mourned as they wuz hushed in the last stillness can sound out agin, breakin’ our hearts with the same old echoes, the same old sweetness of the voice we loved and lost, talkin’ in mortal words and axents to us when they’ve long, long ago learnt the immortal language, beheld the immortal seens.

Why Cleopatra’s voice might have been stored up as she made love to Antony, or the voice of the relation on her own side, old Mr. Pharo himself orderin’ the Hebrews to git out of his premises, and their back talk about plaguin’ him till he wuz willin’ they should go.

Why even Eve scoldin’ Adam about slackness in gittin’ kindlin’ wood or her pardner complainin’ about her wastefulness and extravagance in usin’ so many fig leaves for her fall suit. Oh, how nateral, how nateral that would sound to wimmen.

Or old Noah’s voice as he stood in the Ark door bagonin and shoutin’ to the animals to walk in male and female. Or his voice kinder soothin’ and patronizin’ tellin’ the female dove to go out and shirk round on the water and see if it wuz safe for the males in the party to go out. Oh, how nateral that would sound to wimmen, soundin’ out through the centuries.

And on and on down the long years, Job’s voice complainin’ of the bitter comfort of his friend’s familiar talk. He’d stood losin’ family and fortune and had stood biles but the seven days’ visitation and the “I told-you-sos” and the advice of well wishers wuz too much for him.

And Solomon’s talk to Miss Sheba and hem to him. And Daniel’s talk by the deep waters, and mebby the Great Voice that said to him:

“Understand!”

And brave Queen Esther’s voice facin’ her enemies and a drunken king, and sweet Ruth’s, and Paul’s incomparable words, and St. John’s. Or the lofty voices of the Patriot fathers as they nobly shrieked for freedom as they threw their pardner’s tea overboard, while they hung onto their whiskey and tobacco that wuz taxed twice as high.

Oh, how their impassioned cries for liberty, and how they would willin’ly sacrifice their wives favorite beveridge ruther than to yield to the tyrant. How nateral, how nateral them noble yells would sound to their descendant females, the Daughters of the Revolution, and all the rest. What would it be for us all to hear them axents, and it could have been done if Edison had been born sooner and that little box had been round.

I didn’t wonder that Blandina wuz enthused, it is enough to enthuse anybody that never has hearn it, she said she laid out to go every day three or four times a day and stay jest as long as she could.

One of the most remarkable sights we see on the Pike wuz Jim Key, a horse that is valued at a hundred thousand dollars, who travels in his own private car. A horse that can read and write, spell, understand mathematics, go to the post office, git mail from any box, give chapter and verse of Bible text where the horse is mentioned, uses the telephone, and is so intelligent you expect him to break out in oratory any time.

Josiah wuz spell bound here, I could hardly tear him away. And sez he:

“The first thing I do when I go home will be to send the colt to the deestrick school.”

I told him the teacher wouldn’t want him whinnerin’ round amongst her scholars, and mebby gallopin’ and snortin’ round the schoolroom.

But he wuz as firm as adamant in his idee. And Id’no what I shall do about it. But spoze the trustees will have to head him off.

Josiah wanted to go and see the Fire Fighters, he said he thought he could git some idees to tell the brethren that wuz in the fire company, and Blandina and I wanted to see the Esquimeaux Village. We went on, Josiah promisin’ to meet us there. And as we went I said:

“I’ve sung for years about Greenland’s icy mountains, but never spozed I should set my eyes on ’em.” For there towerin’ up to the skies wuz immense ice mountains peaked and desolate lookin’, and inside it looked worse yet. A bare snowy place broken by cold lookin’ water dotted with ice islands and surrounded by tall ice peaks. I don’t spoze it wuz real ice and snow, but looked like it.

And there wuz reindeers hitched to sleds, and the low round huts of the natives lookin’ jest like the pictures in our old Gography. And there wuz some white bears natural as life, and dog teams haulin’ sledges, toiling up the steep cliffs hitched tantrum. The natives wuz queer lookin’ little creeters, dark complexioned, dressed in furs and thick costooms. But little Nancy Columbus born at the World’s Fair, Chicago, wuz cute as she could be.

There wuz a big street show at the other end of the Pike and this place wuz most deserted by sight-seers, and Blandina and I sot down on a bench by the side of one of these little housen to rest. As we did so we hearn the voice of oratory comin’ from the other side, where some Esquimeaux seemed to be gathered with open mouths and wonderin’ linements. The orator seemed to be finishin’ his address in words as follers:

“Let us not permit ourselves to be spiritually incapacitated by quandaries regarding the control of earthly matter. Let us circumnavigate the ethereal realms of unexplored ether, quander the unquanderable until the everlastin’ stupendiousness of the whyness of the what shall dawn on the enraptured vision, and precipitate the effulgent tissues of ethereal matter in one glorious pulchritude of transcendentalism.”

As the speaker paused for needed breath Blandina clasped her hands and sithed out, “Oh, what glorious eloquence! I never hearn anything like it!”

And I sez, “I never did but once, I know that voice, though I hain’t hearn it for twenty years; that is Prof. Aspire Todd.” And I thought to myself, he is practicin’ over a speech, and thought the Esquimeaux would stand it better than tribes less humble and good natered. And so it turned out; he hoped he would be invited to speak at a scientific meetin’ to take place in Festival Hall in a day or two, and bein’ to the Inside Inn he’d tried to orate his speech in his own room, but it is built so shammy you can hear things from one end to the other, and they threatened him with horse whippin’ on one side and lynchin’ on the other, and bein’ drove to it he tried it on the Esquimeauxs. They stood it pretty well, though I noticed one or two on ’em weepin’ bitterly, not knowin’ what ailed ’em.

Well, to resoom backward, I sez to Blandina, “I hearn Aspire Todd at a Fourth of July celebration in Josiah’s sugar bush.”

“Oh,” sez Blandina, claspin’ her hands, “would it be possible for you to introduce me to that noble being?”

Sez I, “You like his talk then?”

“Oh, yes!” sez she, shutting her eyes and clasping her hands. “His matchless eloquence is beyond praise.”

“So ’tis,” sez I, “way beyond my praise. But I can introduce you if you want me to; he visited me that time he wuz in Jonesville and stayed to supper.” So as he come round the corner of the buildin’ follered by some bewildered lookin’ natives I put out my hand and sez, “I don’t know as you know me, Professor Aspire Todd, but you visited me in Jonesville. I am Josiah Allen’s wife.”

He grasped my hand almost warmly and sez, “Indeed my memory retroacts readily on that delightsome remembrance.”

And then I introduced Blandina, knowin’ I wuz makin’ her perfectly happy by so doin’. He’d growed old considerable, which I didn’t blame him for and didn’t see as he could help it, twenty years havin’ gone by. His hair, which wuz still long and hung down over his turn-down collar, wuz streaked with gray. But he still had the same kind of a curious, sentimental, high-flown look to him.

I didn’t admire his looks, but Blandina’s manners to him wuz worshipful, and it seemed to agree with him first rate, he seemed really to take to her. And as he asked to accompany and go with us to the next exhibit, I fell in with it, and when my pardner come walked ahead with him while Professor Todd follered with a perfectly blissful Blandina, and before they parted he arranged a rondevoo next day with Blandina.

I wuz beat out when I got home and Miss Huff sent Aunt Pheeny up to my room with a glass of hot lemonade and some crackers, supper not bein’ quite ready owin’ to shiftless works in the kitchen. Molly wuz in my room also sweet as a June rosy. Aunt Tryphena wuz quiverin’ with excitement, and she sez, “Lazy, good for nothin’ things! but it hain’t what they _do_ that I mind but it is their iggorance I despise.”

Sez Molly, “If they are ignorant you ought to overlook it, Aunt Pheeny.”

[Illustration]

“Overlook it!” sez she, turnin’ an’ facin’ us with her hands on her portly hips. “I hain’t used to no such trash. When anybody has lived with the highest nobility they can’t stomach such low down niggers. Why, I used to have ’em kneelin’ at my feet, four or five at a time, askin’ what I’d have for dinner. And that poor, iggorent, low-down cook in the kitchen told me jest now I lied about Prince Arthur, that there never wuz such a prince, and I sez to her, ‘How any black nigger can stand makin’ bakin’ powder biscuit and tell such lies is a mystery to me.'”

“Well, you know Princes are not common in this country,” sez I.

She drew herself up more hautily, “Such a Prince as that hain’t common in no country! Why he’s so handsome and good the very birds in the trees will stop singin’ to listen to his talk, and the grass turn brighter green where he’s stepped on it, and the May-flowers peek up and blush with happiness if he looks at ’em.”

“How come you to leave him, Aunt Pheeny, if he wuz so perfect?”

“I tole you before,” sez she with dignity, “that when he went off to school I wuzn’t in no ways bound to stay with ole Miss. She wuz jealous, you know, jealous of me. Prince Arthur made more of me, we used to sing together, you know I’ve sung in Concorts and Operations, been a star in ’em. Ole Miss couldn’t sing no more than a green frog. And he always said when he got married I wuz to live with him, that nachully sot up his Ma’s back, and I santered off one day, never tole her I wuz goin’, but jest lifted up my train, I wore long pink and blue satin dresses then, and I jest santered out the house over to Californy and Asia and so on to Chicago, and then hired out to Miss Dotie’s ma. And here I is!” sez she firmly, and took up the empty tray and departed.

She wuz a good singer, her voice full of the sweetness and heart searchin’ pathos of her race. And her wild flights of imagination never hurt anyone but herself.

Well, after supper, which they called dinner, I felt considerable better. Josiah stayed down in the parlor talkin’ to Grandpa Huff and Billy, and Molly come up in my room agin and sot with me, whilst twilight let down her soft gray mantilly round us and pinned it to the earth with silver stars (metafor).

I always take it as a great compliment when folks confide the deepest secrets of their heart to me. And Id’no why it is, but they most always do; I mean them that I take to nachully. Sometimes I’ve felt first rate by it and spozed it wuz because I had such a noble riz up look to my face. But Josiah sez it is because I have such a soft look that folks think they can pour their griefs into me and they will sink in, some like water into cotton battin, and they can lose sight of their sorrows for a spell and relieve ’em some. Well, Id’no which it is, but ‘tennyrate as Molly sot there with me lookin’ as wan and pale as a white rose on a cold November evenin’ she told me the whole story, hid from her own folks but revealed unto a Samantha.

Josiah may say what he’s a mind to, but I believe it is the natural nobility of my linement that drawed it from her. While she wuz away visitin’ this school chum in a southern city she met a young chap handsome as Appolyan, I knew from what she said, and so talented and gifted, I could see in a minute they had fell in love voylently from the very first time they met, and day by day the attraction growed till they wuz completely wropped up in each other. She said he seemed to worship her.

But strange, strange thing! with all the love he showed her, in every word and act, he left her without a word, only a sort of a wild note saying he could not endure the wretchedness of seeing a heaven so near that he could not hope to enter, and after that silence, deep, dark and onbroken silence and despair. “And my heart is broken!” sez she, as she laid her pretty head in my lap sobbin’ out, “What shall I do! Oh, what shall I do!”

She wep’ and cried and cried and wep’, and I wep’ with her, my snowy handkerchief held in one hand, the other hand tenderly caressin’ the bowed head in my lap. But as she said the word Silence it brung up sunthin’ I had read that very day, and I sez:

“Dear, did you ever hear of enterin’ into the Silence?”

“Yes,” sez Molly, liftin’ her tear wet, sweet face, “I have a friend who enters into the Silence for hours, and she says that everything she greatly desires and asks for at that time, is given her. She calls it the New Thought.”

“And I call it the Old Thought, Molly, older than the creation of man. And what they call Entering into the Silence, I call Waiting on the Lord. And what I call prayer, they, from what I read, most probable call waking up the solar plexus, whatever that may be. But it don’t make much difference what a thing is called, the name is but a pale shadow compared to the reality. Disciples of the New Thought, Christian Scientists, Healers, Spiritualists, etc., are, I believe, reaching out and feeling for the Light as posies growin’ in a dark suller send out little pale shoots huntin’ for the sunlight. And so I feel kinder soft and meller towards the hull caboodle on ’em though I can’t foller all their beliefs.

“For I, as a member of the M.E. meetin’ house, call this great beneficient over-rulin’ Power that sot the world spinnin’ on its axletrees and holds it up, lest it dashes aginst the planets, and directs the flight of the tiny bird fleeing before the snows; this Mighty Force that controls us from the cradle to the grave, but which we cannot see no more than we can see His servants, the cold and wind that freezes us or the warmth and love that blesses us. This Power, that whether we scoff or pray, holds us all in the hollow of His mighty hand, I call God the Father, Son and Holy Guest, and believe it once took mortal shape and dwelt with humanity to uplift and bless it. And that love, that torture, crucifixion and death could not slay still yearns over this sad old world, still as the comforting Guest makes its home in human hearts that love and trust.”

Molly sot still with her pretty head leaning aginst me and I went on, “In the story of His life and death, that volume that holds the wisdom of the old and ripened glory of the new, that holy book sez, ‘He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under shadow of the Almighty.’

“What a place to abide in, Molly, the shadow of the All Loving, the All Mighty one, a shadow that casts glowing light instead of darkness like our earthly shadows, a pure white light in which, lookin’ through the eye-glass of faith we can read the meanin’ of all the sorrows and perplexities and troubles he permits us to endure, and find every word on ’em gilt edged with glory.

“Spiritualists, Christian Healers, etc., may name this what they will. Disciples of the New Thought may call it the Silence, but I shall keep right on callin’ it the Secret Place of the Most High. And He who inhabits that sacred place has promised that if you reverently and obediently enter and dwell therein and trust in Him, He will give you the desire of your heart.

“So all you’ve got to do, Molly, is to do as he tells you to, obey and trust Him jest as the child trusts his pa, and asks him for what he wants most, you must ask Him for the desire of your heart, and if it is best for you, dear, He will bring it to pass.”

“Do you think so?” sez she, brightenin’ up more’n considerable.

“No, I don’t think so. I _know_ it.”

Well, them consolin’ words, for thought is a _real thing_, and I jest wropped her round with my tenderness and compassion, I guess they comforted her some, ‘tennyrate she promised me sweetly that she would obey and trust, and I felt considerable better about her.

I wuz sorry for her as sorry as I could be, but I had a strong feelin’ inside of my heart (mebby some wise, sweet angel whispered it to me) that everything would come out right in the end, and Molly would git the desire of her heart.

She’s belonged to the meetin’ house for years. But sometimes members git some shock that jars ’em and sends ’em out of the narrer road for quite a spell and they git kinder lost gropin’ through the dark shadders of earthly disappointment and sorrow. Nothin’ but the light that streams down from above can pierce them glooms, and I knowed by the sweet light that lit up Molly’s linement that her face wuz turned in the right direction and she wouldn’t look sideways, behind or before, but would seek for light and help from above.

CHAPTER XII.

Well, for the next week we had a busy time, goin’ to the Fair most every day, sometimes all together, but not stayin’ together long, for most always we’d meet Professor Todd somewhere and he and Blandina would pair off together (I jest as willin’ as anybody ever wuz).

Molly had a young schoolmate who lived in St. Louis, and sometimes they would spend the day together at some reception or other. But most of the time Josiah and I paid our two attentions to the Fair stiddy, a travelin’ about and seein’ all we could.

And one mornin’ Josiah asked me before breakfast, jest as cool as if he wuz proposin’ a glass of lemonade with ice in it, if I didn’t want to go to Jerusalem that mornin’.

Jerusalem! City of our Lord! Oh, my soul, think on’t! As he said the words I looked at him and then some distance through him and beyond, and entirely onbeknown to myself I begun to hum over that old him:

“Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest, Beneath thy contemplation sink heart and soul oppressed. We know not, oh, we know not what joys await us there.”

And Josiah broke in and sung the last line with me (or what he called singin’).

“What radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare.”

But I knowed that singin’ that time of day would be apt to draw attention, specially as Josiah’s singin’ wuz very base and my sulferino hain’t what it wuz, and I hastened to say:

“Yes, Josiah, I want to go.”

Breakfast wuz kinder late that mornin’, and little Dorothy come into my room, she slep’ jest acrost from us, and she begun to tell me to once about a meetin’ she’d been to the night before with Aunt Pheeny. And to make talk with her I asked her what the text wuz, and she sez:

“Jesus the quilt.”

Josiah wuz horrified, and it did sound bad, and he begun to reprimand her sharp, but I sez:

“Tell me all about it, Dotie.”

And come to find out, it wuz “Jesus the Comforter,” and her little bedspread wuz sometimes called a quilt and sometimes a comforter. And I told Josiah how necessary it wuz not to condemn children before searching into their motives. But Dotie wuz evidently thinkin’ about the sermon she had hearn so lately, and she went on to ask, “Was Jesus a Jew?”

And I sez, “Yes, dear.”

“Why,” sez she, “I always thought Dod wuz a Presbyterium.”

That wuz her Aunty Huff’s persuasion, which she nachully thought couldn’t be improved on.

Dotie had a little straw hat on that time o’ day and I asked her what it wuz for, and she sez, “Oh, I carry my papers in it, I’m writin’ a book.”

Grandpa Huff always carried papers in his hat, and she copied him. I asked her what her book wuz about, and how she wuz gittin’ on with it and she said:

“It wuz about a lady, a buggler and a ghost, and I’ve killed ’em all and that’s as fur as I’ve got.”

Killin’ a ghost! a burglar and a heroine, I thought what a noble start for a sensational novel.

But the breakfast bell rung jest then, and I took the little warm hand in mine and led her down to breakfast.

Well, after breakfast Josiah and I sot out in good season for Jerusalem.

Molly wanted to go to the British Building to see a school friend of hern that she thought might be there, and Blandina offered to accompany her. They wuz goin’ to stop at a number of places on the way, and we agreed to meet at noon sharp at the English Building.

We went into the walled city of Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate, through a tall arched entrance in the stun wall. Within wuz lots of carriages and horses and camels and donkeys and men, wimmen and children, some in strange and startlin’ costooms, but the first thing Josiah spoke on wuz the name of a restaurant, “A Fast,” it wuz over a door clost by.

“A fast,” sez he, “that don’t look very encouragin’ in a eatin’ house. If it wuz Brek Fast it would look more hopeful.”

“You’ve had your breakfast, Josiah, and a good one. Don’t be thinkin’ of vittles so much in such a place as this.”

“I shall think of what I’m a minter, and you can’t break it up, mom!”

Truly he spoke the truth; I could cling to his arm, drink out of the same cup, set in the same chair, lay my head on the same piller, and yet, he might be millions of milds from me in sperit, ’round with other wimmen for all I knew. Queer, hain’t it?

Yes, he wuz thinkin’ of food right here in this Holy City. As for me, a perfect troop of lofty emotions wuz sweepin’ through my mind, as I looked ’round me on the very same seen our Lord had looked at. Low old-fashioned stun housen such as He might have entered in, men and wimmen clad in long robes such as He wore.

And to think of seein’ the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows, that He walked, carryin’ the agony of humanity, and the pityin’ compassion of divinity.

And the Nine Stations of the Cross where our Lord stopped to rest on that bitter journey, toiling up the steep hill carrying up the heavy cross and the woes and sins of the world, awful! beautiful Calvary! sacred, heart-breaking, holy place. How my soul burnt within me thinkin’ of all this as I stood in the Holy City.

And there wuz the Tower of David, the Shepherd king. I always liked David, though I could advised him for his good in lots of things. He didn’t do right by Ury, and he ortn’t to had so many wives, if he’d scrimped himself a little in ’em, mebby his son, Solomon, wouldn’t had so many, and one is enough, as I told Josiah.

“Yes,” sez he with intense conviction in his tone. “One wife is enough for any man, heaven knows, and anybody that hankers after more than one is a fool!”

I didn’t really like his axent; he’d been layin’ it up, I guess what I said about vittles, but I didn’t mind it.

And we went through the different quarters of the city. The little stores and bazars by the side of the street wuz full of real nice things to sell, rich Eastern woven goods, embroideries, cushions, curtains, rugs, lamps, jewels, ornaments, trinkets of all kinds, etc., etc. There is more than a hundred of these little booths and stores in Jerusalem, and all full of handsome things. I loved to look at ’em, though Josiah tried to draw me away.

Sez he, “You don’t want to buy here; you can do as well agin in Jonesville tradin’ off your butter and eggs, and probable git a chromo throwed in.”

I didn’t argy, but I bought a string of beads for Tirzah Ann and a pipe for Thomas J., the wood of which growed on the Mount of Olives, so the man said.

I told Josiah they would prize ’em high havin’ come from Jerusalem.

And he said, “They never see Jerusalem,” he said they wuz growed over in New Jersey, and when I asked him how he knew, he said he re_cog_nized the berries and the grain of the wood.

But he couldn’t no such thing, and I presoom the man told considerable truth. And we see Rabbis, Turkish cavalry, common people livin’ in the queer little housen jest as they did in Jerusalem, and the priests goin’ through their religious ceremonies jest the same. And we went through the Citadel and the different public buildin’s.

There wuz lots of wimmen and girls on the streets, some on ’em sellin’ posies for charity, I bought two little bunches, one on ’em I put in Josiah’s buttonhole, though he objected and said it would probable make talk for a man of his age and dignity to be trimmed with flowers.

They wuz real pretty girls, with white veils on over their dark hair, their lustrous eyes lookin’ out at us as they might have looked at the Postles.

And there wuz cunnin’ little donkeys that anybody could ride if they wanted to, and camels with gorgeous trappings kneelin’ down ready for folks to mount and be carried ’round the streets. Josiah stood ready to pay the ten cents apiece to give us the pleasure of a ride.

But I declined the treat. I sez, “We don’t ride the old mair hoss back to home, and I don’t hanker after bein’ histed up onto a camel’s hump, or to see you in that perilous poster.”

He said he’d love to tell the bretheren we’d rid ’em, but seein’ I wuz sot agin it he gin up.

The streets smell bad and are so narrer I don’t see how they would manage if two buggies met; one would have to back out, they couldn’t git by each other.

The old Roman barracks are bare and dreary lookin’, but dretful interestin’ to me for there our Lord stood to be judged by Caesar like a lamb before the shearer, and he said, “I wash my hands of this matter, I find no fault in this man.”

I wish Caesar had had more gumption. His wife could see furder ahead than he could. But that is often the case, as I tell Josiah.

And we went through St. John’s Hospice, and the Mosque of Omar. That is a monstrous big building with a great round dome on top, two broad flights of steps lead up into it, we clumb the nighest one and went inside. The high dome is lined with colored mosaic, and looks first-rate, but I didn’t pay much attention to that for right underneath the centre is an exact reproduction of the rock where Abraham offered up Isaac, or got ready to. How Love and Duty tugged at Abraham’s heart and most tore it into as he stood there, and what faith he had. It is heart-breakin’ to think on’t, though it all come out right in the end, as the hardest things will if we cling to Duty.

But Josiah wuz gittin’ worrisome and wanted to go, but I sez, “Josiah, I must see Solomon’s Temple.”

It wuz quite a few steps away, but I didn’t begrech the time or journey, and jest as we wuz goin’ up the steps, who should we meet comin’ out but Jane Olive Perkins (_nay_ Gowdey) once a Jonesvillian, but now livin’ in Chicago, but visitin’ her old home and relation quite often.

She wuz dressed beautiful, her neck and bosom sparklin’ with diamonds. I don’t approve of such dressin’ in the street, but Jane Olive wuz always showy.

She held out both hands in joyful greetin’ (the meanin’ of which I mistrusted afterwards). We talked about the splendor of the Fair and our own two healths, and the Jonesvillians, and then she sez:

“I am so delighted to meet you, Josiah Allen’s wife, for I know you will want to give to a noble cause I am workin’ for, you and dear Mr. Allen. It is a cause that ort to be first in every feelin’ heart, and I knew you’d give liberal.”

I’d forgot my portmoney that mornin’ and didn’t want right there in Solomon’s Temple to dicker with Josiah for money, I knowed it would make him fraxious. And I wuz havin’ such a lot of lofty emotions there at Jerusalem, I didn’t want to bring ’em down by havin’ words with my pardner. And I knowed too that “dear Mr. Allen” would be apt to say hash things that would bring him down in Jane Olive’s estimation, he’s so clost and he never liked her to begin with.

So I said I couldn’t very well stop and tend to it right there in Solomon’s Temple, and she asked me for my address and told me she should come and see me. She wuz stayin’ at a big tarven not so very fur from Miss Huff’s, and said she’d brought her orto and shuffler with her from Chicago.

Well, she bid us a tender adoo, sayin’ the last thing “_owe Revwah_,” or sunthin’ like that and Josiah sez to me:

“Who’s she twittin’ us on? I don’t owe nobody by that name, nor never did, not a cent, I’m a man that pays my debts.”

And I sez, “Dear Josiah, nobody that knows you can dispute it.”

Jane Olive kinder smiled and passed on, and I’dno but in Fancy I and the public may as well set down on the steps of Solomon’s Temple, and I’ll tell about who Jane Olive Perkins wuz. She wuz Jane Olive Gowdey, and married Samuel Perkins, old Eliphilet Perkinses second boy, and folks thought she done mizable when she married him. Sam hadn’t been put to work much bein’ sort o’ weakly so his folks thought, he looked kinder peaked.

But I spoze Sam enjoyed pretty good health all the time onbeknown to his folks and wuz kinder savin’ up his strength, layin’ it up as you may say for the time o’ need, so he had it all when he wuz married. A master hand he wuz to save things and make ’em count. For all he never did any work to speak on, he had more proppity laid up than any of the Perkins boys when he wuz married, he had saved so and sort o’ speculated and laid up.

He wuz kinder mean too, runnin’ after wimmen at that time, though onbeknown to Jane Olive or his folks, but it come out afterwards, he wuz awful sly. When he married Jane Olive Gowdey that wuz a surprise too, for Bill, the oldest boy, wanted her the worst way and everybody spozed they wuz engaged. A good creeter Bill wuz, virtuous as Joseph, or any of the old Bible Patriarchs, and virtuouser than lots of ’em.

But Sam, in jest that way of hisen, laid low and sort o’ did the best he could with what he had to do with, sort o’ speculated and increased her likin’ for him on the sly (mean fellers will git ahead of good ones five times out of ten, wimmen are so queer). And lo and behold! the first Jonesville knew they up and got married.

They moved to a big city where Sam got a chance to travel for a grocery store, and Jane Olive opened a inteligence office, where for an ample consideration she furnished incompetent help to distracted housekeepers, receivin’ pay from both victims, and they laid up money fast. Then he went into pork and first we knew Sam wuz a very rich man, lived in great style, kep’ his carriage, but wuz awful mean, so we heard, hadn’t no morals at all to speak on so fur as wimmen wuz concerned, and we had hearn that Jane Olive not bein’ over and above happy in marriage, and forgittin’ to all appearance she had ever dickered with mistress and maid, wuz tryin’ her best to work her way in among the aristockracy, she wuz dretful ambitious and so wuz Sam, they wanted to go with the first.

She did everything she could to foller their example, she dressed up in satin and diamonds and trailed ’round to theatres and operas and hung over dry goods counters, and kep’ her maid and coachman and butler, or that’s what folks say, I don’t even know what a butler is expected to do, or Josiah don’t. “Butler,” sez I when I hearn on’t, “I can’t imagine what a butler duz.”

And Josiah sez, “A coachman is to coach, and a waiter is to wait, and a butler must be to buttle.”

Sez I, “Buttle what? Or who? Or when?” But he couldn’t tell. Well, Sam he did everything to git into the first and be fashionable, he embezzled a lot, broke down two or three times with enormous profit to himself, spent his money like water, wuz jest as mean as he could be, went over to Europe now and then, did everything he could do to be fashionable and act like a man of the world, and finally he led astray a little girl that lived with ’em, a motherless little girl they had took, pretty as a pink too, and affectionate dispositioned. Jane Olive turned her outdoors, of course, when she found it out. It wuz in the fall of the year, and the night before Christmas the girl with her baby in her arms jumped into the river and wuz drownded.

Her father had some spunk and took Sam up, but he wuz always sly and looked ahead, and he proved that she wuz a day or two older than the age of consent, and he got let off triumphant and her father had to pay the cost, besides the funeral expenses, and grave stun.

Such smartness riz Sam up considerable amongst his mates and he wuz sent to Congress most immegiately afterwards, and it wuz owin’ to his powerful arguments that the age of consent wuz lowered a year or two; I believe he brought it down to about ten years. He wuz thought a sight on by his genteel male friends, so they say, he worked so powerful for their interest. He brought down the licenses on saloons and bad housen a sight, and made almost Herculanean efforts to have saloons scattered broadcast through the country without _any_ license to pay. I spoze there never wuz a more popular statesman. He worked too hard though, and had to retire to more private life to reap the fruits of his efforts. And he kep’ right on, so they say reapin’ ’em ever since, cuttin’ up and actin’, but always actin’ jest inside the law and always cuttin’ up the same.

He had the gift of gab and he made eloquent public speeches, tellin’ what boons saloons and kindred places wuz to the community. I spoze there never wuz a more popular legislator.

But, of course, such high honors cast dark shadders, and one night after he’d made a powerful speech at the openin’ of a saloon he owned, a old one made over into gorgeous beauty, he got a good hoss whippin’, and by some wimmen too.

Perkins had made a great speech himself and wantin’ to show off to the world that it wuz real respectable (they had this saloon kinder graded off, weaker drinks in one place leadin’ up gradual to brandy and whiskey), he got a minister, a well-meanin’ man, so I hearn, who made a prayer and then they all sung the Doxology:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow–

Askin’ God to bless what He’d cursed. What must God thought on’t! For He and they well knew all the sin and pain, poverty and crime that flowed out of saloons, the ontold losses and danger to community, the brutality, fights, murders, crimes of all kinds.

Praise Him all creatures here below–

When that minister knowed the stuff he wuz dedicatin’ rendered all creeters here below, no matter how smart they wuz nachully, incapable of tellin’ whether they wuz on their head or their heels, blessin’ or cussin’. When a man is drunk as a fool how can he praise anything? It is all he can do to navigate his own legs within’ and weavin’ along under him, ready to crumple down any minute into the gutter. He’d look well tryin’ to sing gospel hims when he can’t tell what his own name is, or speak it if he could.

Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts

Why, I don’t see how they dasted to sing that when they knowed that the Heavenly Host couldn’t have flowed through such places without bein’ liable to git their feathers pulled out in some of the drinkin’ carouses held there. As liable agin for their pure eyes must be dimmed with tears, tears for the eighty thousand victims turned out yearly from these resorts. Innocent youth changed to reckless wickedness, noble manhood turned to brutes falling from honorable places in society down into drunkards’ loathsome lives, drunkards’ dishonored graves.

How could these pityin’ sperits help weepin’ over it? And the long, agonized procession follerin’ on–pale, wretched mothers, once happy wives, now hungry, broken-hearted wrecks, with pinched, starved children clingin’ to their ragged skirts. The idee of askin’ this pure heavenly Host to praise God for what brought all this to pass!

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Why, I believe that Satan himself, though he loved to see the work go on, would be ashamed to sing the Doxology there. I don’t believe you’d ketch him at it, for he is so smart he would see in a minute how it would look to praise God for such a place as that when he had said plain:

“Cursed is he that putteth the cup to his neighbor’s lips.”

And Satan knowed jest as well as Josiah and I and the world did, that saloons wuz made a purpose for this.

“And no drunkard hath eternal life.” And that minister wuz ordained to help people attain that life, not to help ’em lose it.

I don’t see what he wuz thinkin’ on. Of course, the top of the long slippery descent to ruin is quite cheerful lookin’, lit up with false lights, hollow mirth, false hopes and dreams lurin’ the victims on and down. But he knowed how slippery it wuz, how impossible it wuz for ordinary men to stand up when they got to slidin’ down. He knew that nothin’ but God’s grace wuz strong enough to reach down and haul ’em up agin to level ground.

A few men are so strong-footed they can grip on and stay ’round the top for some time, and I presoom this minister, bein’ a good-natered man would been glad to had ’em all hung on there, but he must have knowed they wouldn’t and couldn’t. He’d seen ’em leggo thousands and thousands every year, he knowed what made ’em fall. And he might jest as well made a prayer and sung a hymn over a murderer’s knife, because he wanted it to cut bread but knowed it would and did murder, as to done this.

For no matter what he wanted he knowed intemperance is evil and only evil. And pattin’ a pizen viper and callin’ it “angel” and singin’ the Doxology over it hain’t goin’ to change its nater, its nater is to sting, and its bite is death.

And the God they dasted to invoke said of the drink the place wuz made to sell, “It biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder,” and the end thereof is death.

I don’t know what that good man could be thinkin’ on to dast. But then as long as our Government opholds it, I spoze he thought he might.

But I wish I’d been there to told him how it wuz goin’ to look to me and Josiah and the world, and what slurs wuz goin’ to be cast onto the sacred cause of religion by it.

I couldn’t tell him what harm it wuz goin’ to do; no, eternity is none too soon to count that up. Awful waves of influence sweepin’ along–sweepin’ along clear from to-day to the Day of Judgment; I can’t bear to think on’t; I’m kinder sorry for him, and am glad enough it hain’t my Josiah that has got that ahead on him. I wish he’d ondo now what he’s done as fur as he can, he’d feel better, I believe, I know that I and the meetin’ house would and Josiah.

But, ‘tennyrate, no matter how Satan wuz laughin’ and sneerin’ and angels bendin’ down from the gold bars of Heaven lookin’ through their pityin’ tears hopin’ it must be a mistake, not believin’ it possible that them prayers and hims could come from a man-killin’ saloon. And coverin’ their eyes with their droopin’ wings when they found it wuz so–they sung it through and the minister, for he wuz a stiddy man, went home in good season. And Perkins also started home walkin’ afoot, it wuz so little ways.

And as I said, some wimmen sot on him and hoss-whipped him. Some of these wimmen’s husbands had been ruined and killed by the Poor Man’s Club. And there wuz some mothers whose little boys of seven and eight had been coaxed with brandy-soaked candy into another saloon Perkins owned. For this saloonkeeper had boasted, Perkins backin’ him, that money spent enticin’ the young and innocent to drink, whilst they wuz easily influenced, wuz money well spent.

For of course, as good calculators, they had to in the interest of their profession provide new recruits to take the place in the staggerin’ ranks of the hundred thousand they annually killed off. And this saloonkeeper, helped on by Perkins, had the name of the most active boy and girl ruiner among the thousands in the city, though they all did a flourishin’ bizness.

Two or three of Perkins’ saloons made a specialty of sellin’ drink to girls, and their mothers who lay their heads on their pillows at night and found ’em like thorns and fire under their heads, thinkin’ of the pretty warm-hearted girls who had to be away from mother’s care to earn their livin’, out to service and in manufactories and elsewhere. And some rich mothers, whose girls wuz away to school—-

These mothers thinkin’ what a weak thing a girl’s will wuz when drink had drownded out the small self-control they had, and youthful passion and temptation urgin’ ’em on, and the company Perkins nachully drawed ’round him.

These mothers whose boys and girls wuz like pieces of their own hearts, and these wives in the grief made recklessness of despair, made a hash vow that they would break up Perkinses saloons or die in the attempt, so they sot on him that night and gin him good drubbin’.

But they couldn’t do much, for the police, of course, horrified by their onparalelled and onprovoked crime, hustled the wimmen off to jail, and escorted Perkins home with honor. But to resoom backwards.

I will git up (in fancy) from the steps of Solomon’s Temple and go on in.

This is a complete copy of the magnificent temple built by Solomon, the wisest man in the world. Though like all wise men he had his foolish streaks, seven hundred wives is too many for one man to git along with, I should told him so if I had lived neighbor to him. I’d say:

“Mr. Solomon, if you have the name of knowin’ so much show your smartness by gittin’ rid of six hundred and niney-nine on ’em; keep jest one, pick her out, take your choice, but discharge the rest. Set ’em up in dressmakin’ or millionary or sunthin’ to git a livin’ by, and settle down peaceable with one.” Mebby he’d hearn to me and mebby not, men are so sot in their way.

But to resoom. Here we stood in that splendid temple which was the wonder of the world, and see the tabernacle the old Hebrews carried with ’em through the parted waves of the Red Sea and their journeyin’s through the wilderness for forty years, led by the pillow of fire.

What feelin’s I had as I looked on it and meditated, what riz up feelin’s them old four fathers that carried it must have had, and them that follered on, led as they wuz by heavenly light, fed by heavenly food. How could they acted as they did, rambelous often and often, wanderin’ from the right road, but still not gittin’ away from the Divine care.

And there wuz a picture forty feet long, as long as our barn, showing the old Hebrews encamped before Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Law that rules the world to-day (more or less). Heaven drawin’ so nigh to earth that hour that its light fallin’ on Moseses face made it too glorious for mortal eyes to look on.

And I’dno but one of them mountains we see wuz where Moses stood after his forty years journey, castin’ wishful eyes onto the Promised Land, not bein’ able to enter in because of some past error and ignorance. And I thought, as I stood there, how many happy restin’ places we plan and toil for and then can’t enter in and possess through some past error and mistake caused by ignorance as dense as Moseses ignorance. What a lot of emotions I had thinkin’ this, and how on top of another mount the great prophet and law-giver wuz not, for God took him.

I wuz lost and by the side of myself, but Josiah’s voice reached me up in the realm of Reverie and brought me back.

“What ails you, Samantha? Do you lay out to stand here all day?” And I tore myself away.

Well, there wuz movin’ pictures describin’ the Holy Land and we see ’em move, and dissolvin’ views of the same and we see ’em dissolve, and at last Josiah got so worrisome I had to go on with him. We laid out to stop to Japan and France, they bein’ right on our way, and I sez, “We might as well stop at Morrocco.” For as I told Josiah, while we wuz travelin’ through foreign countries we might as well see what we could of the people, their looks and habits.

But he sez to once, “You don’t want to buy any Morrocco shues, Samantha, they don’t wear nigh so well as calf-skin and cost as much agin.” And sez he, “We won’t have more than time to go through Japan and France and do justice to ’em.” So we went on.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Japan exhibit is on a beautiful hill south of Machinery Palace. There are seven large buildin’s besides the small pagodas and all filled with objects of interest. It seems as if the hull kingdom of Japan must have taken hold to make this display what it is. And how they could do it with a big war goin’ on in their midst is a wonder, and shows beyend words what wonderful people the Japans are.

There are two kinds of exhibits, one by the allied business interests or Government and the other by individuals. But they all seem to work in harmony, havin’ but one idee, to show off Japan and her resources to the best advantage, and the display wuz wonderful, from a royal pavilion, rich in the most exquisite and ornate decorations down to a small bit of carving that mebby represented the life long labor of some onknown workman.

In the Transportation Buildin’ is a map one hundred feet long, showing the transportation facilities of the Empire, a perfect network of railways and telegraph and telephone wires, showin’ they have other ways of gettin’ ’round there besides man-carts and jinrikshas, yes, indeed! it is a wonder what they have done in that direction in fifty years.

The postal exhibit shows they delivered eight hundred and sixteen million pieces of mail last year, and every post-office has a bank, the school children have deposited in them eleven millions. I wish our country would do as well. The exhibit of the steamships show jest as much enterprise, and how world-wide is their commerce. The saloon of one of the steamships is a dream of beauty and luxury.

The Temple of Nikko is ornamented by wonderful carving in catalpa, chrysantheums, etc., and in it in glass cases are the most beautiful specimens of their embroidery, tapestry, pottery. One pair of vases are worth ten thousand dollars. As you leave this Temple you see on each side the finest specimens of Japanese art, painted and embroidered screens, all kinds of metal, laquear and ivory work; exquisite vases and priceless old delft wear, and there is a model Japanese house, you feel that you’d love to live in it. There is one spring room in it that holds the very atmosphere of spring. The tapestry and crape hangings are embroidered with cherry blossoms, its one picture is a sweet spring landscape. Low green stools take the place of stuffy chairs and sofas. And there wuz an autumn room, autumn leaves of rich colors wuz woven in the matting and embroidered in the hangings, the screens and walls white with yellow chrysantheums.

Then there wuz a gorgeous Japan room with walls of exquisitely carved laquear wood, massive gilt furniture, rich embroidered silk hangings, and the ceiling wuz a beautifully carved flowery heaven with angels flying about amidst the flowers. This one room cost forty-five thousand dollars.

And we see lovely embroidered cloths, porcelain, shrines, urns, cabinets, chairs all wrought in the highest art, silks of every description, and sights and sights of it. Fans, parasols, lanterns, fireworks of all kinds, mattings, straw goods, cameras, etc., etc.

In the mining display is a model of one of their copper mines, and you see they have the largest furnace in the world, and they not only mine on land but under the sea, it beats all how them Japanese do go ahead. There are tall gold and silver bars showing how much they have mined in these metals.

Their educational exhibit shows the same wonderful energy and advancement. There is a compulsory educational law and twenty-two per cent. of the children attend school. There are schools for the blind, deaf and feeble-minded, and a display of all their excellent methods of education, from kindergarten to the imperial university.

In the Palace of Electricity on a map thirty feet high and twenty-five feet wide, you see pictures of Japan’s great engineering work, Lake Biwa Canal, connecting the Lake with Kioto. Irrigating, electricity making, electrical apparatus invented by them, they have nearly twenty-five thousand telephones, long and short distance.

In the tea exhibit you see everything relating to this beverage, tea houses, experimental farms and over one hundred different kinds of tea are shown. Rice is shown in every stage of its growth, tobacco, fruit, canned goods.

You can enter the Forestry and Fish departments through a temple built of twenty different kinds of wood. Here you see all the native forest woods, bamboo takin’ the lead. Their fish and their methods of fishing are shown off, charts of their fishing grounds and boats. The Japanese section of the Palace of Fine Arts has the best samples of sculpture, painting and pottery.

But the crownin’ beauty of the Japanese display is the Enchanted Garden (well-named). A charmin’ little lake lies in the midst of flower beds and hedges, dotted by aquatic flowers. Beds of hydrangeas and chrysantheums and other bright flowers glow in the sunlight. A pretty summer house stands on a little island and bending over the water are dwarf pine trees brought from Japan. At one end is a waterfall, and there is a pleasant tea house where pretty Japan girls serve tea on the broad galleries.

Beyend the lake you see a model Japanese house and not fur off is the headquarters of the Japanese commission. Near the top of the hill is a large pavilion made of wood and bamboo. It is used as a reception room, and here you see Japanese costooms from the earliest day to the present. Here are pictures of the Emperor and Empress. There is a display here also of the Red Cross society, medical boxes of army and navy, etc. This is the only hint this courteous country gives of the great war going on at home that would stop the exhibit of most any other country. They are a wonderful people and are making swift strides to the front in every direction. I took sights of comfort here and so did Josiah.

I said a big war would stop the exhibit of most every country–it has stopped Russia–she don’t have much show here to the Fair, they wanted to, and laid out to, but couldn’t on account of havin’ to go to war. It is dretful busy this year, killin’ off men, and sendin’ out men all the time to be killed, so of course, it can’t devour the same time in more peaceful occupations.

I wuz really sorry, for I always liked the Zar. Of course, we don’t visit back and forth, he havin’ the misfortune to not live neighbor to us. But I always thought he wuz likely, real smart and good-natered, lovin’ his wife and babies devotedly, settin’ a splendid example in this direction to other high potentates who act and behave more or less.

And his Peace Proclamation, like a tall white monument riz up for men and angels to admire. How its pure luminous light lit up this dark earth and streamed clear up to heaven, the blessed influence it shed abroad wuz so beneficient and divine. How much I and the hull world thought on’t.

And here it is all broke to smash, for of course, it wuz right in his way and he had to tromple on over it, he and the squadrons he called to war.

I don’t know exactly the right or wrong on’t, it is hard sometimes to keep track of ethics in a Jonesville quarrel, and when two big Empires git to cuttin’ up and actin’ and sassin’, and dastin’ each other to do thus and so, I can’t be expected to know all the ins and outs of their dispute.

But I do know this, that the beautiful Peace Monument is smashed all to pieces under the feet of the thousands and thousands of men sent out to murder and be murdered, and it is doubtful to me if the Zar can ever contoggle it up agin to be as strong as it wuz before. You know he will nachully git his muscles and will and temper kinder stiff jinted leadin’ the armies and gittin’ so awful mad.

But, there they be, these two great nations, Japan and Russia, sendin’ out their peaceable and well-behaved sons by the thousands and hundreds of thousands to cut each other to-pieces, shoot, maim and murder each other, for that is what war is, it is on purpose to kill men, the greatest crime in the civil calendar.

As I told Josiah one night to Miss Huff’s, as I laid down a paper givin’ the details of a bloody battle which wuz headed “A Great Victory.”

Victory! the idee! hundreds of men borne bleeding from the field suffering tortures worse than death and every pang they felt twice suffered by them that loved ’em, watching and waiting at home in agonized suspense, hundreds more layin’ with their white, dead faces upturned to heaven as if in mute appeal and wonder that such a horror as war could be in a world where the words of the gentle Christ had been hearn.

Sez I, “I can’t understand it, Josiah, John Jones gits mad and kills one man, a small boneded man too, and weakly, couldn’t live long anyway, and John had been abused by him shameful and wuz dretful mad at him. A horrified state law clutches John Jones and kills him. Public Opinion sez good enough for John, it will keep other murderous-minded men at bay mebby.

“But I always loved justice, and if a king gits mad and kills or causes to be killed hundreds of thousands of men I can’t see why he if successful should be admired for it, have a monument riz up to show forth his nobility and school boys be taught to emulate his greatness.”

Josiah said, “That wuz different, a war between nations wuz planned ahead, it wuzn’t murder.”

“But,” sez I, “if John Jones had planned killin’ his man he would git hung the sooner.”

“Well,” sez Josiah, “great national quarrels has to be settled some way. Nations wouldn’t go to war unless they wuz aggravated.”

Sez I, “John Jones wuz aggravated. Murders hain’t generally planned or committed in class meetin’s, and love feasts.”

“Well,” sez Josiah, scratchin’ his head, “it is different.”

But I sez, “How different, Josiah, they are both murders.”

Sez Josiah, “I guess I’ll go down to Grandpa Huff’s room and borry the World.” But I kep’ thinkin’ on’t after he left about war and what it wuz. Rivers of human blood flowin’ through ruined countries, follered by the horrible specters of pestilence, disease and famine, moral and financial ruin. Acres and acres of graves filled with forms once full of throbbing life and hope and dreams of future happiness, cut down like grass before the mower. Wives, mothers, sisters, sweethearts see the sun of their life’s joy go down in blackness, their heaven of love and happiness changed into a hell of misery by somebody’s quarrel, somebody’s greed and ambition. How many of the common soldiers who make up the great body of the army know or care about the right or wrong of their cause. They go into the fight like dumb-driven cattle, suffer and die and make their loved ones die a hundred deaths jest because they are hired to do it, hired to murder their fellow men, jest as you would hire a man to cut down a grove of underbrush. They go out to this wholesale slaughter to kill or be killed, to meet all the black awful influences that foller the armies, go gayly to the sound of bugle and drum.

It is the common people who bleed and die, it is the hearts of the common people that are wrung; it is their wives and orphan children who have to struggle along and strive and die, or live and suffer by this cause.

And who can tell the moral, physical and financial ruin, the sickenin’ and terrible effects of evil habits formed there, the sin and woe that like a black cloud follers the army? The recordin’ angel himself can’t do the sum till the day of judgment, not till then can he add up the broad, ever-widenin’ effects of evil and sorrow that follers a great war and that shall go on and on till time shall be no more.

Calm judicial eyes lookin’ back at this problem from the happy days when Peace and Love shall rule the world, from the era when Courts of Arbitration will settle national differences, will look back on the bloody godless warfare of to-day with more horrow than we do on the oncivilized doin’s of our savage ancestors.

It is strange, hain’t it, to think eighteen centuries of Christian teaching hain’t wiped the blood stains off the face of the earth, as it would like to? Yes, indeed! our Lord’s words are luminous with Charity, Peace and Love. But the vengeful black clouds of war sweep up between the nations and the Sermon on the Mount and hides its words so they can’t, or don’t heed ’em.

And I d’no what’s goin’ to be done. I guess them that don’t believe in war must keep on givin’ in their testimony, keep peggin’ away at Public Opinion and constant droppin’ will wear away stun.

But to resoom backwards. We stayed so long in Japan that I couldn’t devote so much time to France as I wanted to, for they too had a fine display. The most beautiful exhibit we saw was the reproduction of the Grand Trienon, the favorite home of Napoleon, brought from all appearances from Versailles with its famous garden and sot down here in St. Louis.

There is a big central pavilion and on each side wings, each terminating in a pavilion joined by tall marble columns. The ruff is surrounded by a balustrade ornamented by vases and beautiful statutes. The same balustrade extends the hull length of the building below, five hundred and thirty-four feet.

And below it stretches the beautiful garden, terraces, lake, fountains, statutes, rare flowers, shrubs and trees. Winding walks in which the great Conqueror might have walked with his brain teemin’ with ambitious plans. I didn’t want to leave the garden it was so beautiful, but time wuz passin’ and we went inside and went through room after room, each one seemin’ly more beautiful than the one we had seen last. The picture-room wuz specially beautiful filled as it is with treasures of French art. And all the rooms wuz gorgeous with tapestries, elaborate carving, sculpture, painting, the most exquisite decorations of all kinds showing what a beauty and pleasure-loving race can gather about it of beauty and grandeur if it sets out to.

And France shows off well also in manufactures, electricity, machinery, transportation, etc. All together this is the best exhibit she has ever made, and she has reason to be proud on’t.

England makes a good show in products and processes in every Exposition building. In the Palace of Varied Industries she gives a model of one of her charming country houses, a model indeed of comfort and luxury.

Her national pavilion is built of red brick and stone and is a reproduction of the Orangery, a building two hundred years old. It wuz Queen Ann’s favorite home, and I didn’t blame Ann a mite for lovin’ it. As I walked through the beautiful and stately rooms I thought I would have loved to neighbor with Ann and spend some time with her.

The gardens outside are so beautiful you don’t want to leave ’em, shaded avenues, terraces, flower beds, yew and box shrubs trained into shapes of lions and big birds. Josiah wuz entranced here, and as he stood lost in admiration of them green animals growin’ right out of the ground, he sez:

“My first job in Jonesville is cut out, Samantha.”

As first chaperone I looked at him tenderly and sez, “Don’t jar your mind too much, Josiah, don’t dwell on tuckerin’ things.”

“But,” sez he, pintin’ to the green form of the lion growin’ right out of the ground, “do you see what a impressive and noble figger the old mair is goin’ to cut when Ury and I sculp her out of the pig-nose apple tree? We can do it by odd jobs, and the apples hain’t good for nothin’ anyway.”