Literature · Humor

Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife 25

Chapter 25

HolleyEnglish

We visited a carpenter shop which wuz, I spoze, about like the shop of Joseph, lots of different tools on shelves and nails on the side on't, some like Jonesville shops.

But carpenter there has a different meaning from what it has in Jonesville, it means different kinds of work, carving, making furniture, plows, shovels, as well as buildin' houses. In some such a shop as this our Lord worked with achin' back and blistered hands no doubt, for He worked faithful and stiddy when He wuz subject to his father, Joseph. I suppose his dress wuz much like other Jewish peasantry save in one thing he wore, and this wuz the seamless garment, suggestive, I spoze, of wholeness, holiness. As I thought on't I instinctively murmured these words of our poet:

"The healing of that seamless dress Is by our beds of pain, We feel it in life's care and stress-- And we are strong again."

I looked up to the brow of the hill whereon this city is built, and my mind wuz all wrought up thinkin' of how the Christ stood up in the synagogue and told for the first time of his mission in these incomparable words so dear to-day to all true ministers and lovers of God's words, and all earnest reformers from that day down:

"The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised."

Oh, what a divine mission! not to the great and lofty and happy, but to the poor, the broken-hearted, the bruised and the blind. How his heart yearned over them even as it duz to-day. And how did the world receive it? Just as Truth is received to-day, anon or oftener; they thrust Him out of the synagogue, dragged Him to the brow of this very hill that they might cast Him off. But we read that He passed through the midst of them and went his way, just as Truth will and must. It can't be slain by its opposers; though they may turn it out of their high places by force, it will appear to 'em agin as an accuser.

But oh, what feelin's I felt as I looked on that very hill, the very ground where He passed through their midst unharmed! I had a great number of emotions, and I guess Josiah did, although his wuz softened down some and dissipated by hunger, and Tommy, dear little lamb! he too wuz hungry, so we all went to a little tarven where we got some food, not over good, but better than nothin'.

The roads all about Nazareth and Jerusalem are very stony and rocky, so we can see how hard it wuz, in a physical sense, for our Lord to perform the journeys He did, for they wuz almost always on foot.

Well, that evenin' at the tarven in Jerusalem, Miss Meechim and Dorothy and I wuz in the settin' room, and Dorothy set down to the little piano and played and sung some real sweet pieces, and several of the English people who had come on the steamer with us gathered round her to hear the music, and amongst them wuz two young gentlemen we had got acquainted with--real bright, handsome young chaps they wuz--and they looked dretful admirin' at Dorothy, and I didn't wonder at it, for she looked as pretty as a new-blown rose, and her voice had the sweetness and freshness of a June mornin' in it, when the air is full and runnin' over with the song of bird and bee, and the soft murmur of the southern breeze amongst the dewy flowers. She wuz singin' old Scottish and English ballads, and more than one eye wuz wet as she sang about "Auld Joe Nicholson's Bonnie Nannie," and "I'm Wearin' Away, Jean," and the dear old "Annie Laurie."

Miss Meechim looked worried and anxious, and sez she: "Oh, how I do wish Robert Strong wuz here. Oh, dear! what a trial it is to keep young folks apart."

And I sez: "What makes you try to? It is jest as nateral for 'em to like each other's company as it is for bluebirds and robins to fly round together in the spring of the year, and no more hurt in it, as I can see."

Sez she impressively: "Haven't I told you, Josiah Allen's wife, my wearing anxiety, my haunting fear that in spite of all my efforts and labors Dorothy will marry some one in spite of me? You know how invincibly opposed I am to matrimony. And you can see for yourself just how much admiration she gits everywhere, and one of those young men," sez she, frowning darkly on a handsome young Englishman, "I am sure is in earnest. See the expression of his face--it is simply worship. He would throw himself on his knees in front of her this minute if there were not so many round. Oh, why don't Robert come and protect her?"

Her face looked fairly haggard with anxiety, but even as I looked the anxious lines wuz smoothed from her worried face like magic, and I see Robert Strong come in and approach the group at the piano.

Miss Meechim leaned back in her chair in a restful, luxurious attitude, and sez she: "Oh, what a relief! What a burden has rolled off from me! Robert knows just how I feel; he will protect her from matrimony. Now I can converse with ease and comfort," and she turned the subject round on missionary teas and socials and the best way to get 'em up.

The next mornin' Arvilly didn't appear to breakfast. I waited some time for her, for I wanted her to go sightseeing with me, and Arvilly wuz as punctual as the sun himself about gittin' up in the mornin', and about as early.

I thought to myself: "Is Arvilly a-goin' to come up missin', as our dear Aronette did?" I wuz agitated. I sent to her room, but no answer. My agitation increased. I then went to her room myself, but my knock at her door elicited no reply. I then spoke in anxious, appealin' axents:

"Arvilly, are you there? And are you sick a-bed? Or are you dead? Answer me, Arvilly, if either of my conjectures are true!"

My axent was such that she answered to once, "I hain't dead, Josiah Allen's wife, and I hain't sick, only heart-sick."

Sez I, "Let me in then; I can't have you there alone, Arvilly."

"I hain't alone!" sez she. "Grief is here, and everlastin' shame for my country."

It come to me in a minute, this wuz the anniversary of her husband's death, the day our govermunt's pardner, the licensed saloon, had murdered him down in Cuba.

I sez, "May God help you, Arvilly!" And I turned onto my heel and left. But I sent up a tray of good vittles which wuz refused, and I d'no as she eat a mou'ful that day.

At night I went agin to the door, and agin I hearn the sound of weepin' inside.

Sez I, "Arvilly, let me in; I've got a letter for you from Waitstill Webb."

Sweet little creeter! She remembered her agony, and dropped this flower onto the grave of Arvilly's happiness. Oh, how she, too, wuz suffering that day, wherever she wuz, and I wondered as much as Tommy ever did about the few cents the govermunt received for the deadly drink that caused these murders and the everlastin' sorrow that flowed out of 'em.

Well, Arvilly told me to put the letter under the door, which I did. But nothin' more could I git out of her; and though I sent up another tray of food to her, that too come down untouched; and as I told Josiah, I didn't know as I could do anything more for her, as bad as I felt, only to think of her and pray for her.

"Yes," sez he, "we will remember Sister Arvilly at the throne of grace at evenin' worship." And after we went to our room he did make a able prayer, askin' the Lord to look down onto the poor heart of our afflicted sister, and send peace and comfort to her. It wuz a good prayer, but even in that solemn time come the thought: "If you and other church-members had voted as you prayed, Arvilly no need to be shet up there alone with her life agony."

But it wuz no time to twit a pardner when we wuz both on our knees with our eyes shet, but when it come my turn I did say:

"O righteous God, do help good men everywhere to vote as they pray."

Josiah said "Amen" quite loud, and mebby he duz mean to vote different. He voted license to help Jonesville, most of the bizness men of the town sayin' that it would help bizness dretfully to have license. Well, it has helped the undertaker, the jail and the poorhouse.

Well, the next day Arvilly come down lookin' white and peaked, but didn't say anything about her eclipse; no, the darkness wuz too awful and solemn to talk about. But she showed me Waitstill's letter. In it she said she had been for several days caring for a very sick woman for half the night, and at midnight she would go back to the hospital, and every night for a week she had seen a bent figure creeping along as if looking for something, payin' no attention to anything only what he had in the searchin' eyes of his mind.

It wuz Elder Wessel lookin' for Lucia, so Waitstill said. It wuz Love waitin' and lookin' out, hoping and fearing. Poor father--poor girl! Both struck down by a blow from the Poor Man's Club. She writ considerable about Jonesville news to Arvilly, knowin', I spoze, how welcome it would be, and said she got it from Ernest White.

Wuz things comin' out as I wanted 'em to come? My heart sung a joyful anthem right then and there. Oh, wouldn't I be glad to see Ernest and Waitstill White settled down and happy and makin' everybody round 'em happy in the dear persinks of Jonesville and neighbor with 'em!

Ernest White wrote to Waitstill how successful his Help Union was and how his dear young people wuz growin' better and dearer to him every day.

And we talked about it how he wuz carryin' everyday reason and common sense into Sunday religion. Sez Arvilly, "He teaches young voters that while prayers are needful and necessary, votes are jest as needful, for bad or careless votin' destroys all the good that Christian effort duz, all that prayer asks for and gits from a pityin' God. Every saloon is shet up in Loontown and folks flock to hear him from as fur off as Zoar and the town of Lyme. He don't have standin'-room in his meetin'-house, let alone settin'-room, and they have got to put on an addition."

And I sez agin what I had often said before, "What a object lesson Elder White's work in Jonesville is, and how plainly it teaches what I have always known, that nothin' can stand aginst the united power of the church of Christ, and if Christian folks banded together and voted as they prayed, the Saloon, the Canteen, the Greedy Trusts, the licensed house of shame, monument of woman's disgrace, would all have to fall."

"But they won't do it," sez Arvilly in a mad cross axent. "They'll keep right on preachin' sermons against wrong and votin' to sustain it, if they vote at all. Gamblin' for bed-quilts and afghans to git money to send woollen clothin' to prespirin' heathens in torrid countries, while our half-clad and hungry poor shiver in the cold shadder of their steeples oncared for and onthought on."

I sez, "Don't be so hash, Arvilly; you know and I know that the church has done and is doin' oncounted good. And they're beginnin' to band themselves together to help on true religion and goodness and peace."

"Well," sez Arvilly, "I should think it wuz time they did!"

I see a deep shadder settlin' down on her eye-brow, and I knowed she wuz a thinkin' of what she had went through.

Well, the next day we sot out for Paris, via Marseilles. We had a pleasant trip up the beautiful blue Mediterranean, a blue sky overhead, a blue sea underneath. Once we did have quite a storm, makin' the ship rock like a baby's cradle when its ma is rockin' it voylent to git it to sleep.

I wuzn't sea-sick at all nor Tommy, but my poor companion suffered, and so did many of the passengers. There wuz a young chap who wuz the picture of elegance when he come aboard, and dretful big feelin' I should judge from his looks and acts. But, oh, how low sea-sickness will bring the hautiest head! I see him one day leanin' up agin the side of the ship lookin' yeller and ghastly. His sleek clothes all neglected lookin', his hat sot on sideways, and jest as I wuz passin' he wuz sayin' to the aristocratic lookin' chap he wuz travellin' with:

"For Heaven's sake, Aubrey, throw me overboard!"

His mean wuz wild, and though I didn't like his words I made excuses for him, knowin' that mankind wuz as prone to rampage round in sickness and act as sparks are to fly up chimbly. But, take it as a whole, we had a pleasant voyage.

We only made a short stay in Marseilles, but long enough to drive round some and see the most noted sights of the city, which is the principal seaport of France.

On the northern part is the old town with narrer windin' streets and middlin' nasty and disagreeable, but interestin' because the old Roman ramparts are there and a wonderful town hall. A magnificent avenue separates the old part from the new, a broad, beautiful street extendin' in a straight line the hull length of the city. Beyend is the Prado, a delightful sea-side promenade.

The new city is built round the port and rises in the form of an amphitheatre; the hills all round are covered with beautiful gardens, vineyards, olive groves and elegant country houses. Just acrost from the harbor is the old chateau where Mirabeau wuz imprisoned, poor humbly creeter! but smart. He didn't do as he'd ort to by his wife, and Mary Emily realized it and wouldn't make up with him, though he argued his case powerful in their lawsuit. But he wuz a smart soldier and writ quite eloquent things. He stood for the rights of the people as long as he could, till they got too obstropulous, as they sometimes will when they git to goin'. But I presoom he did desire his country's good. His poor body wuz buried with pomp and public mourning, and then a few years after taken up and laid with criminals. But good land! he'd got beyend it all. He had gone to his place wherever it wuz, and it didn't make any difference to him where the outgrown garment of his body wuz.

But to resoom: The Cathedral is quite a noble lookin' edifice, built so I hearn, on the spot where a temple once stood where they worshipped Diana; not Diana Henzy, Deacon Henzy's sister. Josiah thought I meant her when I spoke on't, and said the idee of anybody worshippin' that cranky old maid, but as I told him it wuz another old maid or bachelor maid, as I spoze she ort to be called, some years older than Diana Henzy. Sez I, "This Diana wuz a great case to live out-doors in groves and mountains." Sez I, "Some say she was the daughter of Zeus, and twin of Apollo."

And Josiah said them two wuz nobody he ever neighbored with.

And I sez, "No, you hain't old enough." And that tickled him; he duz love to be thought young.

There is a French Protestant church, where the English residents worship, and churches and synagogues where other sects meet.

We went to an Arab school, a museum, library and botanical garden, where we see beautiful native and foreign trees and shrubs and flowers. It has a splendid harbor, consisting of at least two hundred acres. The manufactures are principally glass, porcelain, morocco and other leathers, soap, sugar, salt, etc., etc. The city has had many ups and downs, plagues, warfares, sieges and commotions, but seems quite peaceful now.

Mebby it put its best foot forrerd and tried to behave its very best because we wuz there. Naterally they would, comin' as we did from Jonesville, the pride and centre of the Universe and America.

But 'tennyrate everything seemed peaceful and composed.

We only stayed there two days of rest and sightseeing and then rest agin, and then sot sail for Paris.

Our first mornin' in Paris dawned clear and beautiful. It was the Fourth of July. 'Tain't often I do it, but I put my cameo pin on before breakfast, thinkin' that I could not assume too much grandeur for the occasion. The pin wuz clasped over a little bow of red, white and blue, and in that bow and gray alpacky dress I looked exceedingly well and felt so.

Josiah put on a neck-tie bearin' all the national colors, with more flamin' stars on it, I guess, than we've got States, but I didn't censure him, knowin' his motives wuz good.

We all had comfortable rooms in the tarven. Arvilly wuz dressed in black throughout; I hinted to her she ort to wear some badge in honor of the day, and she retired to her room and appeared with a bow made of black lute string ribbin and crape. I felt dretful. I sez, "Arvilly, can't you wear sunthin' more appropriate to the occasion?"

Sez she, "I know what I am about," and her looks wuz such that I dassent peep about it. But mebby she meant it for mournin' for her pardner. I dassent ask. Josiah wuz readin' his Guide Book as earnest as he ever searched the Skripters, and he sez, with his finger markin' the place, "Where shall we go first?"

Of course, we all wanted to visit the most noted sights of Paris. And all on us fell in love with the gay, bright, beautiful, happy city--though Josiah fell in with French ways more than I did, owin' to his constant strivin's after fashion. Why, I didn't know but he would git to drinkin' whilst he wuz there, observin' the French custom of drinkin' their light wines at their meals.

He intimated that he should most probable have cider on the table in bottles when he got home. "You know," sez he, "that there is a hull box of old medicine bottles to the barn."

But I told him that nothin' stronger than root beer, made by my own hands out of pignut and sassparilla, should ever be sot on my table. But I may see trouble with him in that way. Whilst we wuz talkin' about it, I brung up to illustrate the principles I wuz promulgatin', the ivory tankard Arvilly pinted out to us in the American exhibit.

It wuz a big ivory tankard holdin' enough liquor to intoxicate quite a few. Two big, nasty, wreathin' snakes (signifyin' the contents on't in my mind) dominated one side and made the handle, and held the laurel wreath surroundin' it (signifyin' office-holders, so I spozed), in its big hungry mouth. On top of the hull thing stood a rarin' angry brute, illustratin' the cap-stun and completed mission of the whiskey bottle.

Arvilly talked more'n half an hour to Miss Meechim about it, and I wuz glad on't.

But when I brung that up, Josiah waved the subject off with a shrug of his shoulders in the true French way, though a little too voyalent.

I had ketched him practicin' that movement of the shoulders before the glass. He had got so he could do it first rate, I had to own to myself, though I hated to see him practise it so much, mistrustin' that it wuz liable to bring on his rumatiz.

And I see in a letter he writ home: "Be sure, Ury, and weed the jardin, specially the onions," and he ended the letler: "Oh revwar, mon ammy."

I knowed that it would make Ury crazy as a hen, and Philury, too, wonderin' what it meant, but couldn't break it up. But speakin' of "jardins," we went to several on 'em, the last one we see the most beautiful seemin'ly of the lot. Jardin de Luxemburg Palais Royal, Tuilleries, Acclimation, Jardin des Plantes. There are hundreds of 'em scattered through the city, beautiful with flowers and shrubbery and statutes and fountains and kept in most beautiful order and bloom at public expense.

And we visited cathedrals, missions, churches, museums, the sewers, libraries, went through the galleries of the Louvre--milds and milds of beauty and art, as impossible to describe as to count the leaves in Josiah's sugar-bush or the slate stuns in the Jonesville creek, and as numerous as if every one of them leaves and slate stuns wuz turned into a glorious picter or statute or wondrous work of ancient or modern art. I hain't a-goin' to try to describe 'em or let Josiah try, though he wouldn't want to, for he whispered to me there in a sort of a fierce whisper: "Samantha Allen, I never want to set my eyes agin on another virgin, if I live to be as old as Methulesar or a saint." Well, there wuz sights on 'em, but they looked real fat and healthy, the most on 'em; I guess they enjoyed good health.

And one afternoon when the sky wuz blue, the sun shone and the birds sung merrily, we went to that dretful place, the Paris morgue. There wuz a crowd before the doors, for the Seine had yielded a rich harvest that mornin'; there wuz five silent forms, colder than the marble they lay on, one a young woman with long hair falling about her white shoulders. Amongst the crowd that pressed forward to look at that unfortunate wuz a bent, haggard form that I thought I recognized. But if it wuz a father watching and waiting in dretful hope and still more dretful fear for the best beloved, I couldn't tell, for the crowd pressed forward and he disappeared almost before I saw him. And I too wuz agitated, for when I catched sight of the clustering hair, the pretty rounded arms and form, an awful fear clutched my heart that I trembled like a popple leaf and I see Dorothy turn white as a sheet and Arvilly and Miss Meechim looked like them that sees a tragedy and so did Robert Strong and Josiah.

But a closter look made us know that it wuz no one that we ever see. It wuz not the dear one who wuz in our hearts day and night, it wuz not our sweet Aronette and it wuz not Lucia. Poor father! doomed to hunt in vain for her as long as his tremblin' limbs could carry him to and fro under foreign skies and the sun and stars of his own land. Poor seekin' eyes, turnin' away at the very last from visions of green pastures and still waters to look once more down the sin-cursed streets of earth for his heart's treasure! Dying eyes, dim with a black shadow, blacker than the shadow of the Valley, cast from Agony and Sin, sold to the crazed multitude for its undoing by sane men for the silver of Judas. Love stronger than life, mightier than death, never to be rewarded here. But we read of a time of rewards for deeds done in the body. At whose dying beds will these black forms stand, whose shadows torment humanity, to claim their own and go out with them to their place they have prepared here for their soul's dwelling? Hard question, but one that will have to be answered.

Robert Strong and Dorothy wanted to visit the Pantheon; specially the tomb of Victor Hugo. It is a great buildin' with a dome that put me some in mind of our own Capitol at Washington, D. C. It is adorned with paintings and statutes by the most eminent artists and sculptors, and the mighty shades of the past seem to walk through the solemn aisles with us, specially before the statute of Victor Hugo. I felt considerable well acquainted with him, havin' hearn Thomas J. read his books so much. And as I stood there I had a great number of emotions thinkin' what Victor had went through from his native land from first to last: abuse, persecutions, sent off and brung back, etc., and I thought of how his faithful "Toiler of the Sea" went through superhuman labors to end in disappintment at last. And Jean Valjean, the martyr, seemed to walk along in front of me patiently guardin' and tendin' little Cossette, who wuz to pierce his noble, steadfast heart with the sharpest thorn in the hull crown of thorns--ingratitude, onrequited affection, and neglect.

And we stood before the Column Vendome and meditated on that great, queer creeter, Napoleon. Who but he would think of meltin' the cannons he had took in battle from his enemies and makin' a triumphal monument of 'em a hundred and forty feet high, with his own figger on top.

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