Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife 2 – Holley · Verses Across
Literature · Humor
Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife 2Chapter 2
18
Literature · Humor
Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife 2
Chapter 2
HolleyEnglish
As the snortin' and skornful actin' engine tore my body away from Jonesville, I sot nearly bathed in tears for some time till I wuz aware that little Tommy wuz weepin' also, frightened I spoze by his grandma's grief, and then I knew it wuz my duty to compose myself, and I summoned all my fortitude, put my handkerchief in my pocket, and give Tommy a cream cookey, which calmed his worst agony. I then recognized and passed the compliments of the day with Miss Meechim and Dorothy and pretty little Aronette, who wuz puttin' away our wraps and doin' all she could for the comfort of the hull of us. Seein' my agitation, she took Tommy in her arms and told him some stories, good ones, I guess, for they made Tommy stop cryin' and go to laughin', specially as she punctuated the stories with some chocolate drops.
Dorothy looked sweet as a rose and wuz as sweet. Miss Meechim come and sot down by me, but she seemed to me like a furiner; I wuz dwellin' in a fur off realm Miss Meechim had never stepped her foot in, the realm of Wedded Love and Pardner Reminiscences. What did Miss Meechim know of that hallowed clime? What did she know of the grief that wrung my heart? Men wuz to her like shadders; her heart spoke another language.
Thinkin' that it would mebbe git my mind off a little from my idol, I asked her again about Robert Strong's City of Justice; sez I, "It has run in my mind considerable since you spoke on't; I don't think I ever hearn the name of any place I liked so well, City of Justice! Why the name fairly takes hold of my heart-strings," sez I; "has he made well by his big manufactory?"
"Why, yes, fairly well," sez she, "but he has strange ideas. He says he don't want to coin a big fortune out of other men's sweat and brains. He wants to march on with the great army of toilers, and not be carried ahead of it on a down bed. He says he wants to feel that he is wronging no man by amassing wealth out of the half-paid labor of their best years, and that he is satisfied with an equal and reasonable share of the labor and capital invested. He has the best of men in his employ and they are all well paid and industrious; all well-to-do, able to live well, educate their children well, and have time for some culture and recreation for themselves and their families. I told him that his ideas were Utopian, but he says they have succeeded even better than he expected they would. But there will come a crash some time, I am sure. There must be rich and there must be poor in this world, or the Scriptures will not be fulfilled."
Sez I, "There ain't no need to be such a vast army of poverty marching on to the almshouse and grave, if it wuzn't for the dram-shop temptin' poor human nater, and the greed of the world, and the cowardice and indifference of the Church of Christ. Enough money is squandered for stuff that degrades and destroys to feed and clothe all the hungry and naked children of the world."
"Oh," sez Miss Meechim, "I don't believe all this talk and clamor about prohibition. My people all drank genteelly, and though of course it was drink that led to the agony and divorces of three of my sisters, and my father's first downfall, yet I have always considered that moderate drinking was genteel. Our family physician always drank genteel, and our clergyman always kept it in his wine cellar, and if people would only exert self control and drink genteel, there would be no danger."
"How duz Robert Strong feel about it?" sez I.
"Oh, he is a fanatic on the subject; he won't employ a man who drinks at all. He says that the city he is founding is a City of Justice, and it is not just for one member of a family to do anything to endanger the safety and happiness of the rest; so on that ground alone he wouldn't brook any drinking in his model city. There are no very rich ones there, and absolutely no poor ones; he is completely obliterating the barriers that always have, and I believe always should exist between the rich and the poor. Sez I, 'Robert, you are sacrilegiously setting aside the Saviour's words, "the poor ye shall always have with you."'
"And he said there was another verse that our Lord incorporated in his teachings and the whole of his life-work, that he was trying to carry out: 'Do unto others as ye would have them to do unto you.' He said that love and justice was the foundation and cap-stone of our Saviour's life and work and he was trying in his weak way to carry them out in his own life and work. Robert talked well," sez she, "and I must confess that to the outward eye his City of Justice is in a happy and flourishing condition, easy hours of work, happy faces of men, women and children as they work or play or study. It looks well, but as I always tell him, there is a weak spot in it somewhere."
"What duz he say to that?" sez I, dretful interested in the story.
"Why, he says the only weak spot in it is his own incompetence and inability to carry out the Christ idea of love and justice as he wants to."
"I wish I could see that City of Justice," sez I dreamily, for my mind's eye seemed to look up to Robert Strong in reverence and admiration. "Well," sez she, "I must say that it is a beautiful place; it is founded on a natural terrace that rises up from a broad, beautiful, green plain, flashing rivers run through the valley, and back of it rises the mountains."
"Like as the mountains are about Jerusalem," sez I.
"Yes, a beautiful clear stream rushes down the mountain side from the melting snow on top, but warmed by the southern sun, as it flows through the fertile land, it is warm and sweet as it reaches Robert's place. And Robert says," continued Miss Meechim, "that that is just how old prejudices and injustices will melt like the cold snow and flow in a healing stream through the world. He talks well, Robert does. And oh, what a help he has been to me with Dorothy!"
"What duz she say about it?" sez I.
"She does not say so, but I believe she thinks as I do about the infeasibility as well as the intrinsic depravity of disproving the Scriptures."
"Well," sez I, "Robert was right about the mission of our Lord being to extend justice and mercy, and bring the heart of the world into sweetness, light and love. His whole life was love, self-sacrifice and devotion, and I believe that Robert is in the right on't."
"Oh, Robert is undoubtedly following his ideas of right, but they clash with mine," sez Miss Meechim, shakin' her head sadly, "and I think he will see his error in time."
Here Miss Meechim stopped abruptly to look apprehensively at a young man that I knew wuz a Jonesville husband and father of twins. He was lookin' admirin'ly at Dorothy, and Miss Meechim went and sot down between 'em, and Tommy come and set with me agin.
Tommy leaned up aginst me and looked out of the car window and sez kinder low to himself:
"I wonner what makes the smoke roll and roll up so and feather out the sky, and I wonner what my papa and my mama is doin' and what my grandpa will do--they will be so lonesome?" Oh, how his innocent words pierced my heart anew, and he begun to kinder whimper agin, and Aronette, good little creeter, come up and gin him an orange out of the lunch-basket she had.
Well, we got to New York that evenin' and I wuz glad to think that everybody wuz well there, or so as to git about, for they wuz all there at the deepo, excep' them that wuz in the street, but we got safe through the noise and confusion to a big, high tarven, with prices as high as its ruff and flagpole. Miss Meechim got for her and Dorothy what she called "sweet rooms," three on 'em in a row, one for each on 'em and a little one for Aronette. But I d'no as they wuz any sweeter than mine, though mine cost less and wuz on the back of the house where it wuzn't so noisy. Tommy and I occupied one room; he had a little cot-bed made up for him.
Indeed, I groaned out as I sot me down in a big chair, if he wuz here, the pardner of my youth and middle age, no room Miss Meechim ever looked on wuz so sweet as this would be. But alas! he wuz fur away. Jonesville held on to my idol and we wuz parted away from each other. But I went down to supper, which they called dinner, and see that Tommy had things for his comfort and eat sunthin' myself, for I had to support life, yes, strength had to be got to cling to that black string that I had holt on, and vittles had to supply some of that strength, though religion and principle supplied the biggest heft. Miss Meechim and Aronette wuz in splendid sperits, and after sup--dinner went out to the theatre to see a noted tragedy acted, and they asked me to accompany and go with 'em, for I spoze that my looks wuz melancholy and deprested in extreme, Aronette offerin' to take care of Tommy if I wanted to go.
But I sez, "No, I have got all the tragedy in my own bosom that I can 'tend to." And in spite of my cast-iron resolution tears busted out under my eyeleds and trickled down my nose. They didn't see it, my back wuz turned, and my nose is a big one anyway and could accommodate a good many tears.
But I controlled my agony of mind. I walked round with Tommy for a spell and showed him all the beauties of the place, which wuz many, sot down with him for a spell in the big, richly-furnished parlors, but cold and lonesome lookin' after all, for the love-light of home wuz lackin', and looked at the glittering throng passing and repassing; but the wimmen looked fur off to me and the men wuz like shadders, only one man seemed a reality to me, and he wuz small boneded and fur away. And then we went to our room. I read to Tommy for a spell out of a good little book I bought, and then hearn him say his prayers, his innocent voice askin' for blessin's from on high for his parents and my own beloved lonely one, and then I tucked him into his little cot and sot down and writ a letter to my dear Josiah, tears dribblin' down onnoticed while I did so.
For we had promised to write to each other every day of our lives, else I could not, could not have borne the separation, and I also begun a letter to Philury. I laid out to put down things that I wanted her to 'tend to that I thought on from day to day after I got away, and then send it to her bime by. Sez I:
"Philury, be sure and put woolen sheets on Josiah's bed if it grows colder, and heat the soap stun for him and see that he wears his woolen-backed vest, takin' it off if it moderates. Tend to his morals, Philury, men are prone to backslide; start him off reg'lar to meetin', keep clean bandannas in his pocket, let him wear his gingham neckties, he'll cry a good deal and it haint no use to spile his silk ones. Oh, Philury! you won't lose nothin' if you are good to that dear man. Put salt enough on the pork when you kill, and don't let Josiah eat too much sassage. And so no more to-night, to be continude."
The next morning I got two letters from my pardner. He had writ a letter right there in the deepo before he went home, and also another on his arrival there. Agony wuz in every word; oh, how wuz we goin' to bear it!
But I must not make my readers onhappy; no I must harrow them up no more, I must spread the poultice of silence on the deep gaping woond and go on with the sombry history. After breakfast Miss Meechim got a big, handsome carriage, drawed by two prancin' steeds, held in by a man buttoned up to his chin, and invited me to take Tommy and go with her and Dorothy up to the Park, which I did. They wuz eloquent in praises of that beautiful place; the smooth, broad roads, bordered with tall trees, whose slim branches stood out against the blue sky like pictures. The crowds of elegant equipages, filled with handsome lookin' folks in galy attire that thronged them roads. The Mall, with its stately beauty, the statutes that lined the way ever and anon. The massive walls of the Museum, the beautiful lake and rivulets, spanned by handsome bridges. It wuz a fair seen, a fair seen--underneath beauty of the rarest kind, and overhead a clear, cloudless sky.
Miss Meechim wuz happy, though she didn't like the admiring male glances at Dorothy's fresh, young beauty, and tried to ward 'em off with her lace-trimmed muff, but couldn't. Tommy wuz in pretty good sperits and didn't look quite so pale as when we left home, and he wonnered at the white statutes, and kinder talked to himself, or to Carabi about 'em, and I kinder gathered from what he said that he thought they wuz ghosts, and I thought that he wuz kinder reassurin' Carabi that they wouldn't hurt him, and he wonnered at the mounted policemen who he took to be soldiers, and at all the beauty with which we wuz surrounded. And I--I kep' as cheerful a face as I could on the outside, but always between me and Beauty, in whatsoever guise it appeared, wuz a bald head, a small-sized figger. Yes, it weighed but little by the steelyards, but it shaddered lovely Central Park, the most beautiful park in the world, and the hull universe for me. But I kep' a calm frame outside; I answered Miss Meechim's remarks mekanically and soothed her nervous apprehensions as well as I could as she glanced fearfully at male admirers by remarkin' in a casual way to her "that New York and the hull world wuz full of pretty women and girls," which made her look calmer, and then I fell in to once with her scheme of drivin' up the long, handsome Boolevard, acrost the long bridge, up to the tomb of Our Hero, General Grant.
Hallowed place! dear and precious to the hull country. The place where the ashes lie that wuz once the casket of that brave heart. Good husband, kind father, true friend, great General, grand Hero, sleeping here by the murmuring waters of the stream he loved, in the city of his choice, sleeping sweetly and calmly while the whole world wakes to do him honor and cherish and revere his memory.
I had big emotions here, I always did, and spoze I always shall. But, alas! true it wuz that even over the memory of that matchless Hero riz up in my heart the remembrance of one who wuz never heroic, onheeded and onthought on by his country, but--oh! how dear to me!
The memory of his words, often terse and short specially before meal-time, echoed high above the memory of him who talked with Kings and Emperors, ruled armies and hushed the seething battle-cry, and the nation's clamor with "Let us have peace."
But I will not agin fall into harrow, or drag my readers there, but will simply state that, in all the seens of beauty and grandeur we looked on that day--and Miss Meechim wanted to see all and everything, from magestick meetin' houses and mansions, bearin' the stamp of millions of dollars, beautiful arches lifted up to heroes and the national honor, even down to the Brooklyn Bridge and the Goddess of Liberty--over all that memory rained supreme.
The Goddess of Liberty holdin' aloft her blazin' torch rousted up the enthusiastick admiration of Dorothy and Miss Meechim. But I thought as I looked on it that she kinder lifted her arm some as I had seen my dear pardner lift his up when he wuz a-fixin' a stove pipe overhead; and that long span uniting New York and Brooklyn only brought to me thoughts of the length and strength of that apron-string to which I clung and must cling even though death ensued.
Well, after a long time of sight-seeing we returned to our hotel, and, after dinner, which they called luncheon, I laid down a spell with Tommy, for I felt indeed tuckered out with my emotions outside and inside. Tommy dropped off to sleep to once like a lamb, and I bein' beat out, lost myself, too, and evening wuz almost lettin' down her mantilly spangled with stars, when I woke, Tommy still sleepin' peacefully, every minute bringin' health and strength to him I knew.
Miss Meechim and Dorothy had been to some of the big department stores where you can buy everything under one ruff from a elephant to a toothpick, and have a picture gallery and concert throwed in. They had got a big trunk full of things to wear. I wondered what they wanted of 'em when they wuz goin' off on another long journey so soon; but considered that it wuzn't my funeral or my tradin' so said nothin'.
Anon we went down and had a good supper, which they called dinner, after which they went to the opera. Aronette tended to packin' their clothes, and offered to help me pack. But as I told her I hadn't onpacked nothin' but my nightgown and sheepshead night-cap I could git along with it, specially as sheepshead night-caps packed easier than full crowned ones.
So I took Tommy out for a little walk on the broad beautiful sidewalks, and it diverted him to see the crowds of handsomely dressed men and women all seemin' to hurry to git to some place right off, and the children who didn't seem to be in any hurry, and in seein' the big carriages roll by, some drawed by prancin' horses, and some by nothin' at all, so fur as we could see, which rousted up Tommy's wonder, and it all diverted him a little and mebby it did me too, and then we retired to our room and had a middlin' good night's rest, though hanted by Jonesville dreams, and the next morning we left for Chicago.
Dorothy had never seen Niagara Falls or Saratoga, so we went a few milds out of our way that she might see Saratoga's monster hotels, the biggest in the world; and take a drink of the healin' waters of the springs that gushes up so different right by the side of each other, showin' what a rich reservoir the earth is, if we only knew how to tap it, and where.
We didn't stay at Saratoga only over one train; but drove through the broad handsome streets, and walked through beautiful Congress Park, and then away to Niagara Falls.
It wuz a bright moonlight night when we stood on the bridge not far from the tarven where we had our sup--dinner. And Dorothy and Miss Meechim wuz almost speechless with awe and admiration, they said "Oh, how sublime! Oh! how grand!" as they see the enormous body of water sweepin' down that immense distance. The hull waters of the hull chain of Lakes, or inland Seas, sweepin' down in one great avalanche of water.
I wanted dretfully to go and see the place where the cunning and wisdom of man has set a trap to ketch the power of that great liquid Geni, who has ruled it over his mighty watery kingdom sence the creation, and I spoze always calculated to; throwin' men about, and drawin' 'em down into its whirlpool jest like forest leaves or blades of grass.
Who would have dremp chainin' down that resistless, mighty force and make it bile tea-kettles; and light babys to their trundle beds, and turn coffee mills, and light up meetin' houses, and draw canal boats and propel long trains of cars. How it roared and took on when the subject wuz first broke to it. But it had to yield, as the twentieth century approached and the millennium drew nigh; men not so very big boned either, but knowin' quite a lot, jest chained that great roarin' obstropulous Geni, and has made it do good work. After rulin' the centuries with a high hand nobody dastin' to go nigh it, it wuz that powerful and awful in its might and magesty, it has been made to serve, jest as the Bible sez:
"He that is mightiest amongst you shall be your servant," or words to that effect.
But it is a sight, I spoze, to see all the performances they had to go through, the hard labor of years and years, to persuade Niagara to do what they had planned for it to do.
But as I say, this great giant is chained by one foot, as it were, and is doin' good day's works, and no knowin' how much more will be put on it to do when the rest of its strength is buckled down to work. All over the great Empire State, mebby, he will have to light the evenin' lamps, and cook the mornin' meals, and bring acrost the continent the food he cooks, and turn the mills that grinds the flour to make the bread he toasts, and sow the wheat that makes the flour, and talk for all the millions of people and play their music for them--I d'no what he won't be made to do, and Josiah don't, but I spoze it is a sight to see the monster trap they built to hold this great Force. We wanted to go there, but hadn't time.
But to resoom backwards a spell. Miss Meechim and Dorothy was perfectly awe-struck to see and hear the Falls, and I didn't wonder.
But I had seen it before with my beloved pardner by my side, and it seemed to me as if Niagara missed him, and its great voice seemed to roar out: "Where is Josiah? Where is Josiah? Why are you here without him? Swish, swash, roar, roar, Where is Josiah? Where? Roar! Where?"
Oh, the emotions I had as I stood there under the cold light of the moon, cold waters rushin' down into a cold tomb; cold as a frog the hull thing seemed, and full of a infinite desolation. But I knew that if Love had stood there by my side, personified in a small-sized figger, the hull seen would have bloomed rosy. Yes, as I listened to the awestruck, admirin' axents of the twain with me, them words of the Poet come back to me: "How the light of the hull life dies when love is gone."
"Oh," sez Miss Meechim, as we walked back to the tarven, takin' in the sooveneer store on the way, "oh, what a immense body of water! how tumultous it sweeps down into the abyss below!" I answered mekanically, for I thought of one who wuz also tumultous at times, but after a good meal subsided down into quiet, some as the waters of Niagara did after a spell.
And Dorothy sez, "How the grand triumphal march of the great Lakes, as they hurry onwards towards the ocean, shakes the very earth in their wild haste."
I sez mekanically, "Yes, indeed!" but my thoughts wuz of one who had often pranced 'round and tromped, and even kicked in his haste, and shook the wood-house floor. Ah, how, how could I forgit him?
And at the sooveneer stores, oh, how I wuz reminded of him there! how he had cautioned me aginst buyin' in that very spot; how he had stood by me till he had led me forth empty-handed towards the tarven. Ah well, I tried to shake off my gloom, and Tommy waked up soon after our return (Aronette, good little creeter! had stayed right by him), and we all had a good meal, and then embarked on the sleeping car. I laid Tommy out carefully on the top shelf, and covered him up, and then partially ondressed and stretched my own weary frame on my own shelf and tried to woo the embrace of Morphine, but I could not, so I got up and kinder sot, and took out my pad and writ a little more in my letter to my help.
Sez I, "Philury, if Josiah takes cold, steep some lobely and catnip, half and half; if he won't take it Ury must hold him and you pour it down. Don't sell yourself short of eggs, Josiah loves 'em and they cost high out of season. Don't let the neighbors put upon him because I went off and left him. Give my love to Waitstill Webb and Elder White, give it to 'em simeltaneous and together, tell 'em how much I think on 'em both for the good they're doin'. Tell Arvilly I often think of her and what she has went through and pity her. Give a hen to the widder Gowdey for Christmas. Let Josiah carry it, or no, I guess Ury had better, I am away and folks might talk. The ketch on the outside suller door had better be fixed so it can't blow open. Josiah's thickest socks are in the under draw, and the pieces to mend his overhalls in a calico bag behind the clothespress door. Guard that man like the apples in your eyes, Philury, and you'll be glad bime by. So no more. To be continude."
Agin I laid down and tried to sleep; in vain, my thoughts, my heart wuz in Jonesville, so I riz up agin as fur as I could and took my handkerchief pin offen the curtain where I had pinned it and looked at it long and sadly. I hadn't took any picture of Josiah with me, I hadn't but one and wuz afraid I should lose it. He hain't been willin' to be took sence he wuz bald, and I knew that his picture wuz engraved on my heart in deeper lines than any camera or kodak could do it. But I had a handkerchief pin that looked like him, I bought it to the World's Fair, it wuz took of Columbus. You know Columbus wuz a changeable lookin' critter in his pictures, if he looked like all on 'em he must have been fitty, and Miss Columbus must have had a hard time to git along with him. This looked like Josiah, only with more hair, but I held my thumb over the top, and I could almost hear Josiah speak. I might have had a lock of his hair to wep' over, but my devoted love kep' me from takin' it; I knew that he couldn't afford to spare a hair with winter comin' on. But I felt that I must compose myself, for my restless moves had waked Tommy up. The sullen roar of the wheels underneath me kep' kinder hunchin' me up every little while if I forgot myself for a minute, twittin' me that my pardner had let me go away from him; I almost thought I heard once or twice the echo, Grass Widder! soundin' out under the crunchin' roar and rattle of the wheels, but then I turned right over on my shelf and sez in my agony of sperit: Not that--not grass.
And Tommy called down, "What say, grandma?" And I reached up and took holt of his soft, warm little hand and sez: "Go to sleep, Tommy, grandma is here."
"You said sunthin' about grass, grandma."
And I sez, "How green the grass is in the spring, Tommy, under the orchard trees and in the door-yard. How pretty the sun shines on it and the moonlight, and grandpa is there, Tommy, and Peace and Rest and Happiness, and my heart is there, too, Tommy," and I most sobbed the last words.
And Tommy sez, "Hain't your heart here too, grandma? You act as if you wuz 'fraid. You said when I prayed jest now that God would watch over us."
"And he will, Tommy, he will take care of us and of all them I love." And leanin' my weary and mournful sperit on that thought, and leanin' hard, I finally dropped off into the arms of Morphine.
