← catalogue

Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife

by Marietta Holley · English · Gutenberg #30190 · 884,007 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife

Author: Marietta Holley

Illustrator: H. M. Pettit


        
Release date: October 6, 2009 [eBook #30190]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30190

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


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AROUND THE WORLD WITH JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE ***

Transcriber's Note:

Archaic and variable spelling, as well as inconsistency in hyphenation,
has been preserved as printed in the original book.




[Illustration: "Oh, Josiah," sez I, "what a sight!"--_Frontispiece_. Page
125.]




AROUND THE WORLD

WITH

JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE

BY

MARIETTA HOLLEY

Author of "Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition," "My Opinion and Betsey
Bobbets'," "Samantha at Saratoga," "Samantha at the World's Fair," Etc.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY

H. M. PETTIT

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK




Copyright, 1899, 1900 and 1905, by Marietta Holley.

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England.

(Issued September, 1905.)

Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife.

J. J. Little & Ives Co.

New York




AROUND THE WORLD WITH JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE

CHAPTER I


Our son, Thomas Jefferson, and his wife, Maggie, have been wadin'
through a sea of trouble. He down with inflamatory rumatiz so a move
or jar of any kind, a fly walkin' over the bedclothes, would most
drive him crazy; and she with nervious prostration, brought on I spoze
by nussin' her pardner and her youngest boy, Thomas Josiah (called
Tommy), through the measles, that had left him that spindlin' and
weak-lunged that the doctor said the only thing that could tone up his
system and heal his lungs and save his life would be a long sea
voyage. He had got to be got away from the cold fall blasts of
Jonesville to once. Oh! how I felt when I heard that ultimatum and
realized his danger, for Tommy wuz one of my favorites. Grandparents
ort not to have favorites, but I spoze they will as long as the world
turns on its old axletrys.

He looks as Thomas J. did when he wuz his age and I married his pa and
took the child to my heart, and got his image printed there so it
won't never rub off through time or eternity. Tommy is like his pa and
he hain't like him; he has his pa's old ways of truthfulness and
honesty, and deep--why good land! there hain't no tellin' how deep
that child is. He has got big gray-blue eyes, with long dark lashes
that kinder veil his eyes when he's thinkin'; his hair is kinder
dark, too, about the color his pa's wuz, and waves and crinkles some,
and in the crinkles it seems as if there wuz some gold wove into the
brown. He has got a sweet mouth, and one that knows how to stay shet
too; he hain't much of a talker, only to himself; he'll set and play
and talk to himself for hours and hours, and though he's affectionate,
he's a independent child; if he wants to know anything the worst kind
he will set and wonder about it (he calls it wonner). He will say to
himself, "I wonner what that means." And sometimes he will talk to
Carabi about it--that is a child of his imagination, a invisible
playmate he has always had playin' with him, talkin' to him, and I
spoze imaginin' that Carabi replies. I have asked him sometimes, "Who
is Carabi, I hearn you talkin' to out in the yard? Where duz he come
from! How duz he look?"

He always acts shy about tellin', but if pressed hard he will say, "He
looks like Carabi, and he comes from right here," kinder sweepin' his
arms round. But he talks with him by the hour, and I declare it has
made me feel fairly pokerish to hear him. But knowin' what strange
avenoos open on every side into the mysterious atmosphere about us,
the strange ether world that bounds us on every pint of the compass,
and not knowin' exactly what natives walk them avenoos, I hain't
dasted to poke too much fun at him, and 'tennyrate I spozed if Tommy
went a long sea-voyage Carabi would have to go too. But who wuz goin'
with Tommy? Thomas J. had got independent rich, and Maggie has come
into a large property; they had means enough, but who wuz to go with
him? I felt the mantilly of responsibility fallin' on me before it
fell, and I groaned in sperit--could I, could I agin tempt the
weariness and danger of a long trip abroad, and alone at that? For I
tackled Josiah on the subject before Thomas J. importuned me, only
with his eyes, sad and beseechin' and eloquent. And Josiah planted
himself firm as a rock on his refusal.

Never, never would he stir one step on a long sea-voyage, no indeed!
he had had enough of water to last him through his life, he never
should set foot on any water deeper than the creek, and that wuzn't
over his pumps. "But I cannot see the child die before my eyes,
Josiah, and feel that I might have saved him, and yet am I to part
with the pardner of my youth and middle age? Am I to leave you,
Josiah?"

"I know not!" sez he wildly, "only I know that I don't set my foot on
any ship, or any furren shore agin. When I sung 'hum agin from a
furren shore' I meant hum agin for good and all, and here I stay."

"Oh dear me!" I sithed, "why is it that the apron strings of Duty are
so often made of black crape, but yet I must cling to 'em?"

"Well," sez Josiah, "what clingin' I do will be to hum; I don't go
dressed up agin for months, and hang round tarvens and deepos, and I
couldn't leave the farm anyway."

But his mean wuz wild and haggard; that man worships me. But dear
little Tommy wuz pinin' away; he must go, and to nobody but his
devoted grandma would they trust him, and I knew that Philury and Ury
could move right in and take care of everything, and at last I sez:
"I will try to go, Thomas J., I will try to go 'way off alone with
Tommy and leave your pa----." But here my voice choked up and I
hurried out to give vent to some tears and groans that I wouldn't
harrow Thomas J. with. But strange, strange are the workin's of
Providence! wonderful are the ways them apron strings of Duty will be
padded and embroidered, strange to the world's people, but not to
them that consider the wonderful material they are made of, and how
they float out from that vast atmosphere jest spoke on, that lays
all round us full of riches and glory and power, and beautiful
surprises for them that cling to 'em whether or no. Right at this
time, as if our sharp distress had tapped the universe and it run
comfort, two relations of Maggie's, on their way home from Paris to
San Francisco, stopped to see their relations in Jonesville on their
own sides.

Dorothy Snow, Maggie's cousin, wuz a sweet young girl, the only child
of Adonirum Snow, who left Jonesville poor as a rat, went to Californy
and died independent rich. She wuz jest out of school, had been to
Paris for a few months to take special studies in music and languages;
a relation on her ma's side, a kind of gardeen, travelin' with her.
Albina Meechim wuz a maiden lady from choice, so she said and I d'no
as I doubted it when I got acquainted with her, for she did seem to
have a chronic dislike to man, and havin' passed danger herself her
whole mind wuz sot on preventin' Dorothy from marryin'.

They come to Maggie's with a pretty, good natured French maid, not
knowin' of the sickness there, and Maggie wouldn't let 'em go, as they
wuz only goin' to stay a few days. They wuz hurryin' home to San
Francisco on account of some bizness that demanded Dorothy's presence
there. But they wuz only goin' to stop there a few days, and then
goin' to start off on another long sea-voyage clear to China, stoppin'
at Hawaii on the way. Warm climate! good for measles! My heart sunk as
I hearn 'em tell on't. Here wuz my opportunity to have company for the
long sea-voyage. But could I--could I take it? Thomas Jefferson gently
approached the subject ag'in. Sez he, "Mother, mebby Tommy's life
depends on it, and here is good company from your door." I murmured
sunthin' about the expenses of such a trip.

Sez he, "That last case I had will more than pay all expenses for you
and Tommy, and father if he will go, and," sez he, "if I can save my
boy--" and his voice trembled and he stopped.

"But," I sez, "your father is able to pay for any trip we want to
take." And he says, "He won't pay a cent for this." And there it wuz,
the way made clear, good company provided from the doorstep. Dorothy
slipped her soft little white hand in mine and sez, "Do go, Aunt
Samantha. May I call you Auntie?" sez she, as she lifted her sweet
voylet eyes to mine. She's as pretty as a pink--white complected, with
wavy, golden hair and sweet, rosy lips and cheeks.

And I sez, "Yes, you dear little creater, you may call me aunt in
welcome, and we be related in a way," sez I.

Sez Miss Meechim, "We shall consider it a great boon if you go with
us. And dear little Tommy, it will add greatly to the pleasure of our
trip. We only expected to have three in our company."

"Who is the third?" sez I.

"My nephew, Robert Strong. He has been abroad with us, but had to go
directly home to San Francisco to attend to his business before he
could go on this long trip; he will join us there. We expect to go to
Hawaii and the Philippines, and Japan and China, and perhaps Egypt."

"And that will be just what you will enjoy, mother," sez Thomas J.

Sez I, in a strange axent, "I never laid plans for going to China,
but," sez I, "I do feel that I would love to see the Empress, Si Ann.
There is sunthin' that the widder Heinfong ort to know."

Thomas J. asked me what it wuz, but I gently declined to answer,
merely sayin' that it was a matter of duty, and so I told Miss Meechim
when she asked about it. She is so big feelin' that it raised me up
considerable to think that I had business with a Empress. But I
answered her evasive, and agin I giv vent to a low groan, and sez to
myself, "Can I let the Pacific Ocean roll between me and Josiah? Will
Duty's apron string hold up under the strain, or will it break with
me? Will it stretch out clear to China? And oh! will my heart strings
that are wrapped completely round that man, will they stretch out the
enormous length they will have to and still keep hull?" I knew not. I
wuz a prey to overwhelmin' emotions, even as I did up my best
night-gowns and sheepshead night-caps and sewed clean lace in the neck
and sleeves of my parmetty and gray alpaca and got down my hair
trunk, for I knew that I must hang onto that apron string no matter
where it carried me to. Waitstill Webb come and made up some things I
must have, and as preparations went on my pardner's face grew haggard
and wan from day to day, and he acted as if he knew not what he wuz
doin'. Why, the day I got down my trunk I see him start for the barn
with the accordeon in a pan. He sot out to get milk for the calf. He
was nearly wild.

He hadn't been so good to me in over four years. Truly, a threatened
absence of female pardners is some like a big mustard poultice applied
to the manly breast drawin' out the concealed stores of tenderness and
devotion that we know are there all the time, but sometimes kep' hid
for years and years.

He urged me to eat more than wuz good for me--rich stuff that I never
did eat--and bought me candy, which I sarahuptishly fed to the pup.
And he follered me round with footstools, and het the soap stun hotter
than wuz good for my feet, and urged me to keep out of drafts.

And one day he sez to me with a anxious face:

"If you do go, Samanthy, I wouldn't write about your trip--I am afraid
it will be too much for you--I am afraid it will tire your head too
much. I know it would mine."

And then I say to him in a tender axent, for his devotion truly
touched me:

"There is a difference in heads, Josiah."

But he looked so worried that I most promised him I wouldn't try to
write about the trip--oh! how that man loves me, and I him visey
versey. And so the days passed, little Tommy pale and pimpin', Thomas
J. lookin' more cheerful as he thought his ma wuzn't goin' to fail
him, Maggie tryin' to keep up and tend to havin' Tommy's clothes
fixed; she hated to have him go, and wanted him to go. She and Thomas
J. wuz clingin' to that string, black as a coal, and hash feelin' to
our fingers. Miss Meechim and Dorothy wuz as happy as could be. Miss
Meechim wuz tall and slim and very genteel, and sandy complected, and
she confided her rulin' passion to me the first time I see her for any
length of time.

"I want Dorothy to be a bachelor maid," sez she. "I am determined that
she shall not marry anyone. And you don't know," sez she fervently,
"what a help my nephew, Robert Strong, has been to me in protectin'
Dorothy from lovers. I am so thankful he is going with us on this long
trip. He is good as gold and very rich; but he has wrong ideas about
his wealth. He says that he only holds it in trust, and he has built
round his big manufactory, just outside of San Francisco, what he
calls a City of Justice, where his workmen are as well cared for and
happy as he is. That is very wrong, I have told him repeatedly. It is
breaking down the Scriptures, which teaches the poor their duty to the
rich, and gently admonishes the rich to look down upon and guide the
poor. How can the Scriptures be fulfilled if the rich lift up the poor
and make them wealthy? I trust that Robert will see his mistake in
time, before he makes all his workmen wealthy. But, oh, he is such a
help to me in protecting Dorothy from lovers."

"How duz he protect her?" sez I.

"Oh, he has such tact. He knows just how opposed I am to matrimony in
the abstract and concrete, and he has managed gently but firmly to
lead Dorothy away from the dangers about her. Now, he don't care for
dancing at all; but there was a young man at home who wuz just winning
her heart completely with his dexterity with his heels, as you may
say. He was the most graceful dancer and Dorothy dotes on dancing. I
told my trouble to Robert, and what should that boy do but make a
perfect martyr of himself, and after a few lessons danced so much
better that Dorothy wuz turned from her fancy. And one of her suitors
had such a melodious voice, he wuz fairly singin' his way into her
heart, and I confided my fears to Robert, and he immediately
responded, dear boy. He just practised self-denial again, and
commenced singing with her himself, and his sweet, clear tenor voice
entirely drowned out the deep basso I had feared. Of course, Robert
did it to please me and from principle. I taught him early self-denial
and the pleasures of martyrdom. Of course, I never expected he would
carry my teachings to such an extent as he has in his business life. I
did not mean it to extend to worldly matters; I meant it to be more
what the Bible calls 'the workings of the spirit.' But he will
doubtless feel different as he gets older. And, oh, he is such a help
to me with Dorothy. Now, on this trip he knows my fears, and how
sedulously I have guarded Dorothy from the tender passion, and it wuz
just like him to put his own desires in the background and go with us
to help protect her."

"How did you git such dretful fears of marriage?" sez I. "Men are
tryin' lots of times, and it takes considerable religion to git along
with one without jawin' more or less. But, after all, I d'no what I
should do without my pardner--I think the world on him, and have loved
to think I could put out my hand any time and be stayed and comforted
by his presence. I should feel dretful lost and wobblin' without him,"
sez I, with a deep sithe, "though I well know his sect's shortcomin's.
But I never felt towards 'em as you do, even in my most maddest times,
when Josiah had been the tryinest and most provokinest."

"Well," sez she, "my father spent all my mother's money on horse-racin',
save a few thousand which he had invested for her, and she felt wuz
safe, but he took that to run away with a bally girl, and squandered it
all on her and died on the town. My eldest sister's husband beat her
with a poker, and throwed her out of a three-story front in San
Francisco, and she landin' on a syringea tree wuz saved to git a
divorce from him and also from her second and third husbands for
cruelty, after which she gave up matrimony and opened a boarding-house,
bitter in spirit, but a good calculator. I lived with her when a young
girl, and imbibed her dislike for matrimony, which wuz helped further
by sad experiences of my own, which is needless to particularize. (I
hearn afterwards that she had three disappointments runnin', bein'
humbly and poor in purse.)

"And now," sez she, "I am as well grounded against matrimony as any
woman can be, and my whole energies are aimed on teaching Dorothy the
same belief I hold."

"Well," sez I, "your folks have suffered dretful from men and I don't
wonder you feel as you do. But what I am a goin' to do to be separated
from my husband durin' this voyage is more than I can tell." And I
groaned a deep holler groan.

"Why, I haven't told you half," sez she. "All of my sisters but one
had trouble with their husbands. Robert's step-ma wuz the only one who
had a good husband, but he died before they'd been married a year, and
she follered him in six months, leaving twins, who died also, and I
took Robert, to whom I had got attached, to the boarding-house, and
took care on him until he wuz sent away to school and college. His pa
left plenty of money," sez she, "and a big fortune when he came of
age, which he has spent in the foolish way I have told you of, or a
great part of it."

Well, at this juncture we wuz interrupted, and didn't resoom the
conversation until some days afterwards, though I wuz dretful
interested in the big manufactory of Robert Strong's, that big
co-working scheme. (I had hearn Thomas J. commend it warmly.)

At last the day come for me to start. I waked up feelin' a strange
weight on my heart. I had dremp Philury had sot the soap stun on my
chest. But no soap stun wuz ever so hard and heavy as my grief. Josiah
and I wuz to be parted! Could it be so? Could I live through it? He
wuz out in the wood-house kitchen pretendin' to file a saw. File a saw
before breakfast! He took that gratin' job to hide his groans; he wuz
weepin'; his red eyes betrayed him. Philury got a good breakfast which
we couldn't eat. My trunk wuz packed and in the democrat. The
neighborin' wimmen brung me warm good-byes and bokays offen their
house plants, and sister Sypher sent me some woosted flowers, which I
left to home, and some caraway seed to nibble on my tower which I
took.

She that wuz Arvilly Lanfeare brought me a bottle of bam made out of
the bark of the bam of Gilead tree, to use in case I should get
bruised or smashed on the train, and also two pig's bladders blowed
up, which she wanted me to wear constant on the water to help me
float. She had painted on one of 'em the Jonesville meetin'-house,
thinkin', I spoze, the steeple might bring lofty thoughts to me in
hurrycains or cyclones. And on the other one she had painted in big
letters the title of the book she is agent for--"The Twin Crimes of
America: Intemperance and Greed!" I thought it wuz real cunning in
Arvilly to combine so beautifully kindness and business. There is so
much in advertising. They looked real well, but I didn't see how I wuz
goin' to wear 'em over my bask waist. Arvilly said she wanted to go
with me the worst kind. Says she:

"I hain't felt so much like goin' anywhere sense I deserted." (Arvilly
did enlist in the Cuban army, and deserted, and they couldn't touch
her for it--of which more anon.)

And I sez to her: "I wish you could go, Arvilly; I believe it would do
you good after what you have went through."

Well, the last minute come and Ury took us to the train. Josiah went
with me, but he couldn't have driv no more than a mournin' weed
could.

I parted with the children, and--oh! it wuz a hard wrench on my heart
to part with Thomas J.; took pale little Tommy in my arms, like
pullin' out his pa's heart-strings--and his ma's, too--and at last the
deepo wuz reached.

As we went in we see old Miss Burpy from 'way back of Loontown. She
wuz never on the cars before, or see 'em, but she wuz sent for by her
oldest boy who lives in the city.

She was settin' in a big rocken'-chair rocken voyolently, and as I
went past her she says:

"Have we got to New York yet?"

"Why," sez I, "we haint started."

She sez, "I thought I wuz in the convenience now a-travellin'."

"Oh, no," I sez, "the conveyance haint come yet, you will heer it
screechin' along pretty soon."

Anon we hearn the train thunderin' towards us. I parted with Tirzah
Ann and Whitfield, havin' shook hands with Ury before; and all others
being parted from, I had to, yes, I had to, bid my beloved pardner
adoo. And with a almost breakin' heart clum into the car, Miss Meechim
and Dorothy and Aronette having preceeded me before hand. Yes, I left
my own Josiah behind me, with his bandanna pressed to his eyes.

Could I leave him? At the last minute I leaned out of the car winder
and sez with a choken voice:

"Josiah, if we never meet again on Jonesville sile, remember there is
a place where partin's and steam engines are no more."

His face wuz covered with his bandanna, from whence issued deep
groans, and I felt I must be calm to boy him up, and I sez:

"Be sure, Josiah, to keep your feet dry, take your cough medicine
reglar, go to meetin' stiddy, keep the pumps from freezin', and may
God bless you," sez I.

And then again I busted into tears. The hard-hearted engine snorted
and puffed, and we wuz off.




CHAPTER II


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.




CHAPTER III


Well, we reached Chicago with no further coincidence and put up to a
big hotel kep' by Mr. and Miss Parmer. It seems that besides all the
money I had been provided with, Thomas J. had gin a lot of money to
Miss Meechim to use for me if she see me try to stent myself any, and
he had gin particular orders that we should go to the same hotels they
did and fare jest as well, so they wanted to go to the tarven kep' by
Mr. Parmerses folks, and we did.

I felt real kinder mortified to think that I didn't pay no attention
to Mr. and Miss Parmer; I didn't see 'em at all whilst I wuz there.
But I spoze she wuz busy helpin' her hired girls, it must take a sight
of work to cook for such a raft of folks, and it took the most of his
time to provide.

Well, we all took a long ride round Chicago; Miss Meechim wanted to
see the most she could in the shortest time. So we driv through
Lincoln Park, so beautiful as to be even worthy of its name, and one
or two other beautiful parks and boolevards and Lake Shore drives. And
we went at my request to see the Woman's Temperance Building; I had
got considerable tired by that time, and, oh, how a woman's tired
heart longs for the only true rest, the heart rest of love. As we went
up the beautiful, open-work alleviator, I felt, oh, that this thing
was swinging me off to Jonesville, acrost the waste of sea and land.
But immegiately the thought come "Duty's apron-strings," and I wuz
calm agin.

But all the time I wuz there talkin' to them noble wimmen, dear to me
because they're tacklin' the most needed work under the heavens,
wagin' the most holy war, and tacklin' it without any help as you may
say from Uncle Sam, good-natered, shiftless old creeter, well meanin',
I believe, but jest led in blinders up and down the earth by the
Whiskey Power that controls State and Church to-day, and they may
dispute it if they want to, but it is true as the book of Job, and
fuller of biles and all other impurities and tribulations than Job
ever wuz, and heaven only knows how it is goin' to end.

But to resoom backwards. Lofty and inspirin' wuz the talks I had with
the noble ones whose names are on the list of temperance here and the
Lamb's Book of Life. How our hearts burnt within us, and how the
"blest tie that binds" seemed to link us clost together; when, alas!
in my soarinest moments, as I looked off with my mind's eye onto a
dark world beginnin' to be belted and lightened by the White Ribbon,
my heart fell almost below my belt ribbin' as I thought of one who had
talked light about my W. T. C. U. doin's, but wuz at heart a believer
and a abstainer and a member of the Jonesville Sons of Temperance.

A little later we stood and looked on one of the great grain
elevators, histin' up in its strong grip hull fields of wheat and corn
at a time. Ah! among all the wonderin' and awe-struck admiration of
them about me, how my mind soared off on the dear bald head afar, he
who had so often sowed the spring and reaped the autumn ears on the
hills and dales of Jonesville, sweet land! dear one! when should I see
thee again?

And as we walked through one of the enormous stock yards, oh! how the
bellerin' of them cattle confined there put me in mind of the choice
of my youth and joy of my middle age. Wuz he too bellerin' at that
moment, shet up as he wuz by environin' circumstances from her he
worshipped.

And so it went on, sad things put me in mind of him and joyful things,
all, all speakin' of him, and how, how wuz I to brook the separation?
But I will cease to harrow the reader's tender bosom. Dry your tears,
reader, I will proceed onwards.

The next day we sot off for California, via Salt Lake and Denver.

Jest as we left the tarven at Chicago our mail wuz put in our hands,
forwarded by the Jonesville postmaster accordin' to promise; but not a
word from my pardner, roustin' up my apprehensions afresh. Had his
fond heart broken under the too great strain? Had he passed away
callin' on my name?

My tears dribbled down onto my dress waist, though I tried to stanch
'em with my snowy linen handkerchief. Tommy's tears, too, began to
fall, seein' which I grabbed holt of Duty's black apron-strings and
wuz agin calm on the outside, and handed Tommy a chocolate drop (which
healed his woond), although on the inside my heart kep' on a seethin'
reservoir of agony and forbodin's.

The next day, as I sot in my comfortable easy chair on the car,
knittin' a little, tryin' to take my mind offen trouble and Josiah,
Tommy wuz settin' by my side, and Miss Meechim and Dorothy nigh by.
Aronette, like a little angel of Help, fixin' the cushions under our
feet, brushin' the dust offen her mistresses dresses, or pickin' up my
stitches when in my agitation or the jigglin' of the cars I dropped
'em, and a perfect Arabian Night's entertainer to Tommy, who
worshipped her, when I hearn a exclamation from Tommy, and the car
door shet, and I looked round and see a young man and woman advancin'
down the isle. They wuz a bridal couple, that anybody could see. The
blessed fact could be seen in their hull personality--dress, demeanor,
shinin' new satchels and everything, but I didn't recognize 'em till
Tommy sez:

"Oh, grandma, there is Phila Henzy and the man she married!"

Could it be? Yes it wuz Phila Ann Henzy, Philemon Henzy's oldest girl,
named for her pa and ma, I knew she wuz married in Loontown the week
before. I'd hearn on't, but had never seen the groom, but knew he wuz
a young chap she had met to the Buffalo Exposition, and who had
courted her more or less ever sence. They seemed real glad to see me,
though their manners and smiles and hull demeanors seemed kinder new,
somehow, like their clothes. They had hearn from friends in Jonesville
that I wuz on my way to California, and they'd been lookin' for me.
Sez the groom, with a fond look on her:

"I am so glad we found you, for Baby would have been so disappointed
if we hadn't met you."

Baby! Phila Ann wuz six feet high if she wuz a inch, but good lookin'
in a big sized way. And he wuz barely five feet, and scrawny at that;
but a good amiable lookin' young man. But I didn't approve of his
callin' her Baby when she could have carried him easy on one arm and
not felt it. The Henzys are all big sized, and Ann, her ma, could
always clean her upper buttery shelves without gittin' up in a chair,
reach right up from the floor.

But he probable had noble qualities if he wuz spindlin' lookin', or
she couldn't adore him as she did. Phila Ann jest worshipped him I
could see, and he her, visey versey. Sez she, with a tender look down
onto him:

"Yes, I've been tellin' pa how I did hope we should meet you."

Pa! There wuz sunthin' else I didn't approve of; callin' him pa, when
the fact that they wuz on their bridal tower wuz stomped on 'em both
jest as plain as I ever stomped a pat of butter with clover leaves.
But I didn't spoze I could do anything to help or hender, for I
realized they wuz both in a state of delirium or trance. But I
meditated further as I looked on, it wouldn't probable last no great
length of time. The honeymoon would be clouded over anon or before
that. The clouds would clear away agin, no doubt, and the sun of Love
shine out permanent if their affection for each other wuz cast-iron
and sincere. But the light of this magic moon I knew would never
shine on 'em agin. The light of that moon makes things look dretful
queer and casts strange shadders onto things and folks laugh at it but
no other light is so heavenly bright while it lasts. I think so and so
duz Josiah.

But to resoom forwards. The groom went somewhere to send a telegram
and Phila sot down by me for a spell; their seat wuz further off but
she wanted to talk with me. She wuz real happy and confided in me, and
remarked "What a lovely state matrimony is."

And I sez, "Yes indeed! it is, but you hain't got fur enough along in
marriage gography to bound the state on all sides as you will in the
future."

But she smiled blissful and her eyes looked fur off in rapped delight
(the light of that moon shin' full on her) as she said:

"What bliss it is for me to know that I have got sunthin' to lean
on."

And I thought that it would be sad day for him if she leaned her hull
heft, but didn't say so, not knowin' how it would be took.

I inquired all about the neighbors in Jonesville and Zoar and
Loontown, and sez I, "I spoze Elder White is still doin' all he can
for that meetin' house of hisen in Loontown, and I inquired particular
about him, for Ernest White is a young man I set store by. He come
from his home in Boston to visit his uncle, the banker, in East
Loontown. He wuz right from the German university and college and
preachin' school, and he wuz so rich he might have sot down and
twiddled his thumbs for the rest of his days. But he had a passion for
work--a passion of pity for poor tempted humanity. He wanted to reach
down and try to lift up the strugglin' 'submerged tenth.' He wuz a
student and disciple of Ruskin, and felt that he must carry a message
of helpfulness and beauty into starved lives. And, best of all, he wuz
a follower of Jesus, who went about doin' good. When his rich family
found that he would be a clergyman they wanted to git him a big city
church, and he might have had twenty, for he wuz smart as a whip,
handsome, rich, and jest run after in society. But no; he said there
wuz plenty to take those rich fat places; he would work amongst the
poor, them who needed him."

East Loontown is a factory village, and the little chapel was standin'
empty for want of funds, but twenty saloons wuz booming, full of the
operatives, who spent all of their spare time and most of their money
there. So Ernest White stayed right there and preached, at first to
empty seats and a few old wimmen, but as they got to know him, the
best young men and young wimmen went, and he filled their hearts with
aspiration and hope and beauty and determination to help the world.
Not being contented with what he wuz doing he spent half his time with
the factory hands, who wuz driven to work by Want, and harried by the
mighty foe, Intemperance. A saloon on every corner and block, our twin
American idols, Intemperance and Greed, taking every cent of money
from the poor worshippers, to pour into the greedy pockets of the
saloon-keepers, brewers, whiskey men and the Government, and all who
fatten on the corpse of manhood.

Well, he jest threw himself into the work of helping those poor souls,
and helping them as he did in sickness and health they got to liking
him, so that they wuz willing to go and hear him preach, which was one
hard blow to the Demon. The next thing he got all the ministers he
could to unite in a Church Union to fight the Liquor Power, and
undertaking it in the right way, at the ballot-box, they got it pretty
well subdued, and as sane minds begun to reign in healthier bodies,
better times come.

Elder White not only preached every Sunday, but kep' his church open
every evening of the week, and his boys and girls met there for
healthful and innocent amusements. He got a good library, all sorts of
good games, music; and had short, interesting lectures and
entertainments and his Church of Love rivalled the Idol Temples and
drew away its idol worshippers one by one, and besides the ministers,
many prominent business men helped him; my son, Thomas J., is forward
in helpin' it along. And they say that besides all the good they're
doing, they have good times too, and enjoy themselves first-rate
evenings. They don't stay out late--that's another thing Elder White
is trying to inculcate into their minds--right living in the way of
health as well as morals. Every little while he and somebody else who
is fitted for it gives short talks on subjects that will help the boys
and girls along in Temperance and all good things. The young folks
jest worship him, so they say, and I wuz glad to hear right from him.
Phila is a worker in his meetin' house, and a active member, and so is
her pa and ma, and she said that there wuz no tellin' how much good he
had done.

"When he come there," sez she, "there wuz twenty saloons goin' full
blast in a village of two thousand inhabitants and the mill operatives
wuz spendin' most all they earnt there, leavin' their families to
suffer and half starve; but when Elder White opened his Church of Love
week day evenin's as well as Sunday, you have no idee what a change
there is. There isn't a saloon in the place. He has made his church so
pleasant for the young folks that he has drawn away crowds that used
to fill the saloons."

"Yes," sez I, "Thomas J. is dretful interested in it; he has gin three
lectures there."

"Yes, most all the best citizens have joined the Help Union to
fight against the Whiskey Power, though," sez Phila, "there is one
or two ministers who are afraid of contaminating their religion by
politics. They had ruther stand up in their pulpits and preach to
a few wimmen about the old Jews and the patience of Job than take
holt and do a man's work in a man's way--the only practical way,
grapple with the monster Evil at its lair, where it breeds and
fattens--the ballot-box."

"Yes," sez I, "a good many ministers think that they can't descend
into the filthy pool of politics. But it hain't reasonable, for how
are you a goin' to clean out a filthy place if them that want it clean
stand on the bank and hold their noses with one hand, and jester with
the other, and quote scripter? And them that don't want it clean are
throwin' slime and dirt into it all the time, heapin' up the loathsome
filth. Somebody has got to take holt and work as well as pray, if
these plague spots and misery breeders are ever purified."

"Well, Elder White is doin' all he can," sez Phila. "He went right to
the polls 'lection day and worked all day; for the Whiskey Power wuz
all riz up and watchin' and workin' for its life, as you may say,
bound to draw back into its clutches some of the men that Elder White,
with the Lord's help, had saved. They exerted all their influence,
liquor run free all day and all the night before, tryin' to brutalize
and craze the men into votin' as the Liquor Power dictated. But Elder
White knew what they wuz about, and he and all the earnest helpers he
could muster used all their power and influence, and the election wuz
a triumph for the Right. East Loontown went no-license, and not a
saloon curses its streets to-day. North Loontown, where the minister
felt that he wuz too good to touch the political pole, went license,
and five more filthy pools wuz opened there for his flock to fall
into, to breed vile influences that will overpower all the good
influence he can possibly bring to bear on the souls committed to his
care."

"But," sez I, "he is writin' his book, 'Commentaries on Ancient Sins,'
so he won't sense it so much. He's jest carried away with his work."

Sez Phila, "He had better be actin' out a commentary on modern sins.
What business has he to be rakin' over the old ashes of Sodom and
Gomorrah for bones of antediluvian sinners, and leave his livin'
flock to be burnt and choked by the fire and flames of the present
volcano of crime, the Liquor System, that belches forth all the
time."

"Well, he wuz made so," sez I.

"Well, he had better git down out of the pulpit," sez Phila, "and let
some one git up there who can see a sinner right under his nose, and
try to drag him out of danger and ruin, and not have to look over a
dozen centuries to find him."

"Well, I am thankful for Ernest White, and I have felt that he and
Waitstill Webb wuz jest made for each other. He thinks his eyes of her
I know. When she went and nursed the factory hands when the typhoid
fever broke out he said 'she wuz like a angel of Mercy.'"

"They said he looked like a angel of Wrath 'lection day," sez Phila.
"You know how fair his face is, and how his clear gray eyes seem to
look right through you, and through shams and shames of every kind.
Well, that day they said his face fairly shone and he did the work of
ten men."

"That is because his heart is pure," sez I, "like that Mr. Gallyhed I
heard Thomas J. read about; you know it sez:

    "'His strength is as the strength of ten
    Because his heart is pure.'

"And oh!" sez I agin, "how I would love to see him and Waitstill Webb
married, and happy."

"So would I," sez Phila. "Oh, it is such a beautiful state, matrimony
is."

"And he needs a wife," sez I. "You know he wouldn't stay with his
uncle but said he must live with his people who needed him, so he
boards there at the Widder Pooler's."

"Yes," sez Phila, "and though she worships him, she had rather any day
play the part of Mary than of Martha--she had rather be sittin' at his
feet and learnin' of him--than cookin' good nourishin' food and
makin' a clean, sweet home for him. But he don't complain."

"What a companion Waitstill would be for him?" I sez agin.

"Yes," sez Phila, "but I don't believe she will ever marry any one,
she looks so sad."

"It seems jest if they wuz made for each other," sez I, "and I know he
worships the ground she walks on. But I don't know as she will ever
marry any one after what she has went through," and I sithed.

"She would marry," sez Phila warmly, "if she knew what a lovely,
lovely state it wuz."

How strange it is that some folks are as soft as putty on some
subjects and real cute on others. Phila knew enough on any other
subject only jest marriage. But I spozed that her brain would harden
up on this subject when she got more familiar with it--they generally
do. And the light of that moon I spoke on liquefies common sense and a
state, putty soft, ensues; but cold weather hardens putty, and I knew
that she would git over it. But even as I methought, Phila sez, "I
must go to my seat, pa will be lookin' for me." I see Miss Meechim
smotherin' a smile on her lace-edged handkerchief, and Dorothy's eyes
kinder laughin' at the idee of a bride callin' her husband "pa."

But the groom returned at jest that minute, and I introduced 'em both
to Miss Meechim and Dorothy, and we had quite a good little visit. But
anon, the groom mentioned incidentally that they wuz a goin' to live
in Salt Lake City.

"Why!" sez I in horrow, "you hain't a goin' to jine the Mormons are
you?"

And as I said that I see Miss Meechim kinder git Dorothy behind her,
as if to protect her from what might be. But I knew there wuzn't no
danger from the groom's flirtin' with any other female or tryin' to
git 'em sealed to him, for quite a spell I knew that he felt himself
as much alone with Baby as if them two wuz on a oasis in the middle of
the desert of Sarah. I knew that it would be some months before he
waked up to the fact of there bein' another woman in the world. And
oh, how Phila scoffed at the idee of pa jinin' the Mormons. They had
bought part of a store of a Gentile and wuz goin' to be pardners with
him and kinder grow up with the country. I felt that hey wuz a likely
couple and would do well, but rememberin' Dorothy's and Miss Meechim's
smiles I reached up and stiddied myself on that apron-string of Duty,
and took Phila out one side and advised her not to call her bridegroom
pa. Sez I, "You hain't but jest married and it don't look well."

And she said that "Her ma always called her father pa."

"Well," sez I, "if you'll take the advice of a old Jonesvillian and
well-wisher, you'll wait till you're a few years older before you call
him pa."

And she sez, lookin' admirin'ly at him, "I spoze I might call him
papa."

Well, you can't put sense into a certain bump in anybody's head if it
wuzn't made there in the first place--there are holler places in heads
that you can't fill up, do your best. But oh! how her devoted love to
him put me in mind of myself, and how his small-sized devotion to
her--how it reminded me of him who wuz far away--and oh, why did I not
hear from him! my heart sunk nearly into my shues as I foreboded about
it. It seemed as if everything brung him up before me, the provisions
we had on the dining car wuz good and plenty of 'em, and how they made
me think of him, who wuz a good provider. The long, long days and
nights of travel, the jar and motion of the cars made me think of him
who often wuz restless and oneasy. And even the sand of the desert
between Cheyenne and Denver, even that sand brought me fond
remembrances of one who wuz sandy complected when in his prime. And
oh! when did I not think of him? Christmas had gone by, but how could
we celebrate it without a home to set up a Christmas tree, or set out
a table with good Jonesville vittles. How I thought on him who made a
holiday in my heart by his presence, and always helped me put the
leaves in the extension table.

Tommy wanted to hang up his little stockin', and did, hangin' it out
like a little red signal of distress over the side of his top shelf,
and we filled it with everything good we could git hold on.

Dorothy put in a little silver watch she had bought on her travels,
not bigger than a warnut, and Miss Meechim put in some of the toys she
had bought for children of her acquaintance. I got a good little
picture book for him in Chicago, and a set of Authors, and Aronette
gin him two little linen handkerchiefs, hemstitched by herself, and
his name, "Tommy," worked in the corners. He wuz real tickled with 'em
all. I told Miss Meechim that I had hoped to spend Christmas in Salt
Lake City. Knowin' that it wuz a warm climate, I thought I could have
a Christmas tree out doors; I thought I could take one of them big
pine trees I had read on, and invite Brigham Young's wives, the hull
on 'em, to my party, bein' out doors I thought there would be room for
'em all, poor creeters!

But Miss Meechim is very cautious, and she said that she wuz afraid
that such a party given by folks in my high position might have a
tendency to encourage polygamy.

And I said, "I would rather give a dollar bill than do that, and mebbe
I had better give it up, for we shan't git there in time, anyway."

And so I did, and spent the Christmas holidays on the cars, and tried
to keep my heart and mind in a Christmas mood, but don't spoze I did,
so many fond recollections and sad forebodin's hanted me as the cars
swep' us on, on through the valley of the Platte river on to Denver.
Miss Meechim, who is a power on dates, said that Denver wuz five
thousand two hundred feet above the sea.

And Tommy wonnered, wonnered who measured it, and if they did it with
a yard stick as his ma measured cloth, and then he wonnered if his ma
missed her little boy, and then he laid up aginst me and kinder cried
a little, evanescent grief soon soothed.

We stayed in Denver two days, sallyin' out to different points of
interest about it, and here I see irrigation carried on, water carried
into the channels around the crops and trees some as I've dug little
holes round my house-plants to hold water; only of course Denver wuz
carryin' it on, on a bigger scale. It is a handsome city with the
water of the Platte river brung in and running along in little streams
by the curbstones. We rode out to Idaho Springs on a narrer railroad
but easy goin', through Clear Creek Canon. I liked the looks of the
Springs first-rate (they made me think of Josiah).

All the way we see Chinamen workin' hard and patient, as is their
wont, and their long frocks they had on made me think of him I mourned
for, and their hair hangin' in long braids down their back. So would
_his_ hair look if he had any, and let it grow.

We had to go a little out of our straight way to visit Salt Lake City
but felt that it paid.




CHAPTER IV


Salt Lake lays in a rich valley at the foot of a range of snow-capped
mountains that tower up 'round it, seemin' to the saints, I spoze, as
if they wuz heavenly ramparts to protect 'em from evil; and lookin' to
them that despise the saints' ways and customs, as if the very earth
itself was liftin' up its high hands in horrow at their deeds. But to
me, hanted as I wuz by a memory, the mountains looked some like old
men with white hair; as his would be when he got older if he wuzn't
bald. I knew that I ort not to think on it, but it would come onbid.
It is a beautiful city with electric lights, electric railways, broad
streets lined with lofty trees, and little rivulets of pure cold
snow-water runnin' along the side of 'em. The houses are clean and
comfortable looking, with well-kep' lawns and gardens about 'em and
flowering shrubs. The temple is a magnificent building; it towers up
to heaven, as if it wuz jest as sure of bein' right as our Methodist
Episcopal steeple at Jonesville. Though we know that the M. E.
steeple, though smaller in size, is pintin' the right way and will be
found out so on that day that tries souls and steeples and everything
else.

The old Bee Hive (where the swarm of Mormons first hived and made gall
or honey--or mebby both)--is also an interestin' sight to meditate on.
It is shaped a good deal like one of them round straw bee hives you
see in old Sabbath School books. The bride and groom went to their own
home to live, on whom we called, or Tommy and I did, and left 'em well
situated and happy; and I told him, sez I: "If you 'tend strict to the
eighth commandment, you'll git along first rate."

And he said that he felt he could rise to any height of goodness with
Baby's help. And she scoffed at the idee of pa ever payin' any
attention to any other woman but her, when he worshipped her so.

Well, so other men have felt and got led off, but I won't forebode.
But I left 'em happy in their own cozy home, which I wuz glad to think
I could describe to Phileman and Ann if I ever see that blessed haven,
Jonesville, agin.

We went out to visit the Mineral Springs. It only took us about ten
minutes on the train, and it only took us about half an hour to go to
Garfield Beach. It is the only sand beach on Salt Lake, and some say
it is the finest beach in the world, and they say that the sunsets
viewed from this spot are so heavenly bright in their glowin' colors
that no pen or tongue can describe 'em. The blue-green waves wuz
dancin' as we stood on the shore, and we wuz told that if we fell in,
the water would hold us up, but didn't try it, bein' in sunthin' of a
hurry.

At Miss Meechim's strong request we went on a pleasant trip to York
City through the valley of the River of Jordan. How good that name
sounded to me! How much like scripter! But, alas! it made me think of
one who had so often sung with me on the way home from evenin'
meetin', as the full moon gilded the top of the democrat, and the
surroundin' landscape:

    "By Jordan's stormy banks we stand
      And cast a wistful eye
    On Canaan's fair and happy land,
      Where my possessions lie."

Oh, human love and longing, how strong thou art! I knowed that him
meant the things of the sperit, but my human heart translated it, and
I sithed and felt that the Jordan my soul wuz passin' through wuz
indeed a hard pathway, and I couldn't help castin' a wishful eye on
Jonesville's fair and happy land, where my earthly possession, my
Josiah, lay.

But to resoom. We had hearn that Polygamy wuz still practised there,
and we had hearn that it wuzn't. But every doubt on that subject wuz
laid to rest by an invitation we all had to go and visit a Mormon
family livin' not fur off, and Miss Meechim and I went, she not
wantin' Dorothy to hear a word on the subject. She said with reason,
that after all her anxiety and labors to keep her from marryin' one
man, what would be her feelin's to have her visit a man who had boldly
wedded 'leven wives and might want a even dozen!

I could see it to once, so didn't urge the matter, but left Tommy with
her and Aronette. As nigh as I could make out, the Mormons had felt
that Miss Meechim and I wuz high in authority in Gentile climes, one
on us had that air of nobility and command that is always associated
with high authority, and they felt that one on us could do their cause
much good if they could impress us favorable with the custom, so they
put their best twenty-four feet forward and did their level best to
show off their doctrine in flyin' colors. But they didn't do any good
to "one on us," nor to Miss Meechim, either; she's sound in doctrine,
though kinder weak and disagreeable in spots.

Well, we found that this family lived in splendid style, and the
husband and all his pardners acted happy whether they wuz or not. And
I d'no how or why it wuz, but when we all sot down in their large cool
parlor, Miss Meechim and I in our luxurious easy chairs, and our host
in one opposite with his wife occupyin' 'leven chairs at his sides, a
feelin' of pity swep' over me--pity for that man.

Yes, as I looked at that one lonely man, small boneded at that, and
then looked at them 'leven portly wimmen that called that man "our
husband," I pitied him like a dog. I had never thought of pityin'
Mormon men before, but had poured out all my pity and sympathy onto
the female Mormons. But havin' a mind like a oxes for strength, I
begun to see matters in a new light, and I begun to spozen to myself,
even whilst I sot there with my tongue keepin' up a light dialogue on
the weather, the country, etc., with the man and his wife ('leven on
'em). I spozed what if they should all git mad at him at one time how
wuz he goin' to bear their 'leven rages flashin' from twenty-two eyes,
snortin' from 'leven upturned noses, fallin' from 'leven angry voices,
and the angry jesters from twenty-two scornful hands. Spozein' they
all got to weepin' on his shoulder at one time how could one shoulder
blade stand it under the united weight of 'leven full-sized females,
most two ton of 'em, amidst more'n forty-four nervous sobs, for they
would naterally gin more'n two apiece. In sickness now, if they wanted
to soothe his achin' brow, and of course they would all want to, and
have the right to. But how could twenty-two hands rest on that one
small fore-top? Sixty-six rubs at the least figger, for if they
stroked his forehead at all they would want to stroke it three times
apiece, poor creeter! would not delerium ensue instead of sooth? And
spozein' they all took it into their heads to hang on his arm with
both arms fondly whilst out walkin' by moonlight, how could twenty-two
arms be accommodated by two small scrawny elbows?

It couldn't be done. And as I mused on't I spoke right out onbeknown
to me, and sez I:

"The Lord never meant it to be so; it hain't reasonable; it's aginst
common sense."

And the hull twelve sez, "What didn't the Lord mean? What wuz aginst
common sense?"

And bein' ketched at it, I sez, "The Mormon doctrine;" sez I, "to say
nothin' on moral and spiritual grounds, and state rights, it's against
reason and good sense."

I felt mortified to think I had spoke out loud, but had to stand my
ground after I had said it.

But they all said that the Mormon doctrine wuz the true belief, that
it wuz writ in heaven, then it wuz engraved on plates, and dug up by
Joe Smith, a Latter Day Saint.

Sez I, "If anybody trys to prove sunthin' they want to, they can most
always dig up sunthin' to prove it. You say a man dug this plate up;
what if some woman should go to diggin' and find a plate provin' that
one woman ort to have 'leven husbands?"

"Oh, no!" sez the man in deep scorn, "no such plate could be found!"

The wimmen all looked as if they would kinder like to see such dishes,
but they all sez faintly, "We don't spoze that it could be found."

"But," I sez, "you don't know how many plates there are in the ground,
nor who'll dig 'em up."

"Oh, that idee is preposterous!" sez the man, as visions of dividin'
one woman's heart into eleven parts and reignin' over that little
mossel riz up before him. "Men never would agree to that; there would
be mutiny, internal bloodshed and sizm."

"Well," sez I, "mebby there is more or less internal heart bleedin'
goin' on in the wimmen's hearts that have to divide a man's love and
care a dozen times." Sez I, "A hull man's hull affections are onstiddy
and wobblin' and oncertain enough without dividin' it up so many
times."

Them wimmen wuz touched. I see a answerin' gleam of understandin' come
into about twenty-one eyes as I spoke; one on 'em stood firm and
looked hauty and cast iron, but I mistrusted it wuz a glass eye, but
don't know, it might have been principle.

And even on the man's small-sized countenance my words had seemed to
make a impression. But yet he didn't want to give up in a minute; he
spoke of how the Mormons had flourished since they come to Utah, how
they had turned the desert into a garden, and he felt that the Lord
must look on 'em favorable or they wouldn't be so prosperous.

"Yes," sez I, not wantin' to lie, "your country is beautiful, it is in
a flourishing state, and shows the good results of systematic labor,
industry and ambition; you have made the desert bloom like the rosy,
many of your ways and customs might be follered with profit by older
communities, and more orthodox accordin' to my idees. But I don't know
as your flourishin' in worldly affairs is any sign of God's favor,"
and I mentioned the scripter concernin' who it wuz that flourished
like the green bayberry tree. So bein' driv out of that argument, he
sez, forgittin' his own eleven proofs aginst his story bein' true:

"Polygamy is done away with anyway; the United States have abolished
it in Utah."

And I sez: "Well, I should be glad to think that wuz so, for one
husband and one wife is as much as the Lord in his mercy ort to ask
one human creeter to tend to and put up with. Not but what marriage is
a beautiful institution and full of happiness if Love props it up and
gilds it with its blessed ray. But one is enough," sez I firmly, "and
enough is as good as a feast."

Miss Meechim sot silently by durin' this eloquent discussion--what she
felt, she that abhorred the institution of marriage anyway--what she
felt to look on and see folks so much married as these wuz, will
forever remain a secret, but her looks wuz queer, very, and her nose
fairly sought the heavens, it wuz held so high. A few of the wives
brought in some refreshments to refresh us, and a few more waited on
us and the small husband of their eleven hearts, and almost
immegiately we tore ourselves away, takin' in ourn as we left, the
hand of the husband and the eleven right hands of the wife.

That evenin' I wuz told I wuz wanted in the parlor, and as I entered
quite a good lookin' Mormon man got up and advanced and broke out to
once askin' my help. He said he'd read in the paper that I wuz there
to that tarven, and knowin' I stood so high with the public he had
ventered to ask my help. He had political yearnin's and wanted to set
in the Senate, but as I stood firm as iron again that idee his
linement grew almost frenzied, and sez he:

"Do help me, do use your influence with your President. He's afraid
of race suicide; tell him I'm the father of forty-seven children--will
not that touch his heart?"

"Not a mite!" sez I, "his heart is as true as steel to his one wife
and six children. It is a good manly heart that can't be led off by
any such brazen statements."

His linement looked lurid and half demented as he sez, "Mebby some
high church dignitaries would help me. Or no," sez he, "go to the head
of it all, go to the Liquor Power--that's the place to go to, that
rules Church and State, that makes the laws. Oh, do go to the Liquor
Power, and git it to let me set. I'll pay their usual price for makin'
personal laws in a man's favor."

The cold glare in my gray eye froze the words on his lip. "You ask me
to go to the Liquor Power for help! Do you know who you're speakin'
to?"

"Yes," sez he feebly, "I'm speakin' to Josiah Allen's wife, and I want
to set."

His axent wuz heartbroken and I fancied that there wuz a little tone
of repentance in it. Could I influence him for the right? Could I
frighten him into the right path? I felt I must try, and I sez in a
low, deep voice:

"I'll help you to set if you'll set where I want you to."

"Oh, tell me! tell me," sez he, "where you want me to set."

"Not in the high halls where justice is administered, not up there
with the pictures of your numerous wives on your heart to make laws
condemnin' a man who has only one extra wife to prison for twenty
years, which same law would condemn you to prison for 'most a century.
That wouldn't be reasonable. Presidents and senators are sot up there
in Washington D. C. as examplers for the young to foller and stimulate
'em to go and do likewise. Such a example as yourn would stimulate 'em
too much in matrimonial directions and land 'em in prison."

He muttered sunthin' about lots of public men havin' other wives in
secret.

"In secret?" sez I. "Well, mebby so, but it has to be in secret, hid
away, wropped in disgrace, and if the law discovers it they are
punished. That's a very different thing from makin' such a life
respectable, coverin' 'em under the mantilly of the law, embroidered
too with public honors."

He turned away despairin'ly and murmured mekanically the old
heart-broken wail, "I want to set."

And I sez reasonably, "There is no objection to your settin' down, and
if I had my way you would set right by them who have done only half or
a quarter what you have and in the place the laws have made for them
and you."

He turned quick as a wink, "Then you won't help me?"

"Yes," sez I, "I'll help all I can to put you right in with the others
that have done jest what you have--openly set our laws at defiance.
But if I know myself I won't help a tiger cat to hold a canary bird or
a wolf to guard a sheep pen. I won't help a felon up on the seat of
justice to make laws for innocent men."

"Innocent men!" And agin he sez, "Ha! ha!"

And agin I didn't care what he said. And I got up and sez, "You may as
well leave the presence." And as he turned I sez in conclusion,
thinkin' mebby I'd been too hash, "I dare say you have intellect and
may be a good man so fur as I know only in this one iniquity and open
defiance of our laws, and I advise you to turn right round in your
tracks and git ready to set down on high, for you'll find it a much
worse thing to prance round through all eternity without settin' than
it is to not set here."

He jest marched out of the door and didn't say good bye or good day or
anything. But I didn't care. I knowed the minute his card wuz handed
to me jest how many wives he had and how he wuz doin' all he could to
uphold what he called his religion, but I did hope I'd done him some
good but felt dubersome about it. But knowin' I'd clung to Duty's
apron strings I felt like leavin' the event. And when Miss Meechim
come in I wuz settin' calm and serene in a big chair windin' some
clouded blue and white yarn, Aronette holdin' the skein. I'd brung
along a lot of woollen yarn to knit Josiah some socks on the way, to
make me feel more homelike.

And the next day we proceeded on to California.




CHAPTER V


Miss Meechim and Dorothy looked brighter and happier as every
revolution of the wheels brought us nearer their old home, and they
talked about Robert Strong and other old friends I never see.

    "Be it ever so humbly,
    There is no place like hum."

My heart sung them words and carried two parts, one sulferino and one
bear tone. The high part caused by my lofty emotions and sweet
recollections of home, that hallowed spot; the minor chords caused by
feelin's I have so often recapitulated. Tommy, as the day wore on,
went to sleep, and I covered him tenderly on the seat with my little
shoulder shawl, and sot there alone; alone, as the cars bore us
onward, sometimes through broad green fields of alfalfa, anon over a
bridge half a mile long, from whence you could look down and see the
flowing stream beneath like a little skein of silver yarn glistening
in the sun fur below, agin forests and valleys and farms and
homesteads, and anon in an opening through a valley, high bluffs,
beautifully colored, could be seen towering up over blue waters, up,
up as if they wuz bent on touching the fleecy clouds overhead. And
then a green sheltered valley, and then a high range of mountains seen
fur off as if overlookin' things to see that all wuz well, anon a big
city, then a village, then the green country agin, and so the pictures
passed before me as I sot there.

I had put on a pair of new cuffs and a collar, made for me and
hemstitched by Waitstill Webb, and gin to me by her, though I wanted
to pay her. Sweet little creeter! how good she wuz to me and to
everybody, and I thought of her sad history, and hoped that brighter
days wuz ahead on her. I d'no as I've told the reader much about her
history, and mebby I might as well whilst we are rushin' on so fast,
and Tommy is asleep.

Alan Thorne, the young man she wuz engaged to, wuz brung up by a uncle
who had a family of his own to love and tend to, but he did his duty
by Alan, gin him a good education and a comfortable, if not
affectionate, home in his family. But it wuz a big family all bound up
in each other, and Alan had seemed like one who looks on through a
winder at the banquet of Life and Love, kinder hungry and lonesome
till he met Waitstill Webb. Then their two hearts and souls rushed
together like two streams of water down an inclined plane. They
literally seemed to be two bodies with one heart, one soul, one
desire, one aspiration. He had always been industrious, honest and
hard workin'. Now he had sunthin' to work for; and for the three years
after he met Waitstill he worked like a giant. He wuz earning a home
for his wife, his idol; how happy he wuz in his efforts, his work, and
how happy she wuz to see it, and to work herself in her quiet way for
the future.

He had bought a home about a mile out of the city, where he was
employed, and had got it all payed for. It wuz a beautiful little
cottage with a few acres of land round it, and he had got his garden
all laid out and a orchard of fruit trees of all kinds, and trees and
flowering shrubs and vines around the pretty cottage. There wuz a
little pasture where he wuz to keep his cow and a horse, that she
could take him with to his work mornings and drive round where she
wanted to, and there wuz a meadow lot with a little rivulet running
through it, and they had already planned a rustic bridge over the
dancing stream, and a trout pond, and she had set out on its borders
some water lilies, pink and white, and Showy Ladies and other wild
flowers, and she jest doted on her posy garden and strawberry beds,
and they'd bought two or three hives of bees in pretty boxes and took
them out there; they had rented the place to a old couple till they
wanted it themselves. And every holiday and Sunday they walked out to
their own place, and the sun did not shine any brighter on their
little home than the sun of hope and happiness did in their hearts as
they pictured their life there in that cozy nest.

And Alan Thorne, after he loved Waitstill, not only tried to win
outward success for her sake; he tried to weed out all the weaknesses
of his nater, to make himself more worthy of her. He said to himself
when he would go to see her, he would "robe his soul in holiest
purpose as for God himself." His pa had at one time in his life drank
considerable, but he wuz not a drunkard, and he wuz a good bizness man
when the fever carried him off, and his young wife out of the world
the same year. Well, Alan wuz jest as industrious as he could be, and
with his happy future to look forward to and Waitstill's love and
beloved presence to prop up his manhood, everything promised a fair
and happy life for them both; till, like a thunder-cloud out of a
clear sky come that deafening report from Spanish brutality that blew
up the _Maine_ and this nation's peace and tranquility. Dretful deed!
Awful calamity! that sent three hundred of our brave seamen onprepared
to meet their God--without a second's warning. Awful deed that cried
to heaven for pity! But did it bring back these brave fellows sleeping
in Havana harbor to their mothers, wives and sweethearts, to have
thousands more added to the list of the slain?

"Remember the _Maine_!" How these words echoed from pulpit and Senate
and palace and hovel; how they wuz sung in verse, printed in poems,
printed in flaming lines of electric light everywhere! From city to
country, you saw and heard these words, "Remember the _Maine_!"

I wondered then and I wonder now if the spirit of revenge that swep'
through our nation at that time wuz the spirit of the Master.

I d'no nor Josiah don't, whether it wuz right and best to influence
the souls of the young till they burnt at white heat with the spirit
that our Lord said his disciples must avoid, for said he: "Vengeance
is mine, saith the Lord."

Well, it is a deep question, deeper than I've got a line to measure;
and Josiah's line and mine both tied together don't begin to touch the
bottom on't, for we've tried it time and agin. We've argyed aginst
each other about it, and jined on and hitched our arguments together,
and they didn't touch bottom then, nor begin to. As Mrs. Browning said
(a woman I set store by, and always did, I've hearn Thomas J. read
about her so much): "A country's a thing men should die for at need."

Yes, to die for, if its safety is imperilled, that I believe and
Josiah duz, but I have eppisoded about it a sight, I've had to. I
methought how this nation wuz stirred to its deepest depths; how it
seethed and boiled with indignation and wrath because three hundred of
its sons wuz killed by ignorant and vicious means; how it breathed out
vengeance on the cause that slew them; how it called To Arms! To Arms!
Remember the _Maine_! But how cool and demute it stood, or ruther sot,
and see every year sixty thousand of its best sons slain by the
saloon, ten-fold more cruel deaths, too, since the soul and mind wuz
slain before their bodies went. No cry for vengeance as the long
procession of the dead wheeled by the doors of the law-makers of the
land; no cry: "To arms! to arms! Remember the Saloon." And more
mysterious still, I eppisoded to myself, it would have looked to see
the Government rig out and sell to the Spaniards a million more bombs
and underground mines to blow up the rest of our ships and kill
thousands more of our young men. Wouldn't it have looked dog queer to
the other nations of the world to have seen it done?

But there they sot, our law-makers, and if they lifted their eyes at
all to witness the long procession of the dead drift by, sixty
thousand corpses yearly slain by the Saloon, if they lifted their eyes
at all to look at the ghastly procession, they dropped 'em agin quick
as they could so's not to delay their work of signin' licenses, makin'
new laws, fixin' over old ones, and writin' permits to the murderers
to go on with their butchery. Queer sight! queer in the sight of other
nations, in the sight of men and angels, and of me and Josiah.

Well, to stop eppisodin' and resoom backwards for a spell. Alan Thorne
hearn that cry: "To arms! To arms!" And his very soul listened. His
grandfathers on both sides wuz fighting men; at school and college
he'd been trained in a soldier regiment, and had been steeped full of
warlike idees, and they all waked up at his cry for vengeance. He had
just got to go; it wuz to be. Heaven and Waitstill couldn't help it;
he had to go; he went.

Well, Waitstill read his letters as well as she could through her
blindin' tears; letters at first full of love--the very passion of
love and tenderness for his sweetheart, and deathless patriotism and
love for his country.

But bime-by the letters changed a little in their tones--they wuzn't
so full of love for his country. "The country," so he writ, "wuz
shamefully neglecting its sons, neglecting their comfort." He writ
they wuz herded together in quarters not fit for a dog, with
insufficient food; putrid, dretful food, that no dog would or could
eat. No care taken of their health--and as for the health of their
souls, no matter where they wuz, if half starved or half clad, the
Canteen was always present with 'em; if they could git nothin' else
for their comfort, they could always git the cup that the Bible sez:
"Cursed is he that puts it to his neighbor's lips." Doubly cursed
now--poisoned with adulteration, makin' it a still more deadly pizen.

Well, sickened with loathsome food he could not eat, half starved, the
deadly typhoid hovering over the wretched soldier, is it any wonder
that as the tempter held the glass to his lips (the tempter being the
Government he wuz fightin' for) the tempted yielded and drank?

The letters Waitstill got grew shorter and cooler, as the tempter led
Alan deeper and deeper into his castle of Ruin where the demon sets
and gloats over its victims. When the Canteen had done its work on the
crazed brain and imbruted body, other sins and evils our Government
had furnished and licensed, stood ready to draw him still further
along the down-grade whose end is death.

Finally the letters stopped, and then Waitstill, whose heart wuz
broke, jined the noble army of nurses and went forward to the front,
always hunting for the one beloved, and, as she feared, lost to her.
And she found him. The very day that Alan Thorne, in a drunken brawl,
killed Arvilly's husband with a bullet meant for another drunken
youth, these wimmen met. A rough lookin' soldier knelt down by the
dead man, a weepin' woman fell faintin' on his still, dead heart; this
soldier ('twas Arville) wuz sick in bed for a week, Waitstill tendin'
him, or her I might as well say, for Arville owned to her in her
weakness that she wuz a woman; yes, Waitstill tended her faithfully,
white and demute with agony, but kep' up with the hope that the
Government that had ruined her lover would be lenient towards the
crime it had caused. For she reasoned it out in a woman's way. She
told Arvilly "that Alan would never have drank had not the Government
put the cup to his lips, and of course the Government could not
consistently condemn what it had caused to be." She reasoned it out
from what she had learnt of justice and right in the Bible.

But Arvilly told her--for as quick as she got enough strength she wuz
the same old Arvilly agin, only ten times more bent on fightin' aginst
the Drink Demon that murdered her husband. Sez Arvilly: "You don't
take into consideration the Tariff and Saloon arguments of apologizin'
Church and State, the tax money raised from dead men, and ruined
lives and broken hearts to support poor-houses and jails and police to
take care of their victims." No; Waitstill reasoned from jest plain
Bible, but of course she found out her mistake. Arvilly said: "You'll
find the nation that opens its sessions with prayer, and engraves on
its money, 'In God We Trust,' don't believe in such things. You'll
find their prayers are to the liquor dealers; their God is the huge
idol of Expediency."

Alan Thorne wuz hung for the murder, guilty, so the earthly court
said. But who wuz sot down guilty in God's great book of Justice that
day? Arvilly believes that over Alan Thorne's name wuz printed:

"Alan Thorne, foolish boy, tempted and ondone by the country he was
trying to save." And then this sentence in fiery flame:

"The United States of America, guilty of murder in the first degree."

Dretful murder, to take the life of the one that loved it and wuz
tryin' to save it.

Well, Arvilly's last thing to love wuz taken from her cruelly, and
when she got strong enough she sot off for Jonesville in her soldier
clothes, for she thought she would wear 'em till she got away, but she
wuz brung back as a deserter and Waitstill stood by her durin' her
trial, and after Alan's death she too wuz smit down, like a posy in a
cyclone. Arvilly, in her own clothes now, tended her like a mother,
and as soon as she wuz able to travel took her back to Jonesville,
where they make their home together, two widders, indeed, though the
weddin' ring don't show on one of their hands.

Waitstill goes about doin' good, waitin' kinder still, some like her
name, till the Lord sends her relief by the angel that shall stand one
day in all our homes. She don't talk much.

But Arvilly's grief is different. She told me one day when I wuz
tellin' her to chirk up and be more cheerful and comfortable:

"I don't want to be comfortable; I don't want to feel any different."

"Whyee, Arvilly!" sez I, "don't you want to see any happiness agin?"

"No, I don't," sez she, "I don't want to take a minute's comfort and
ease while things are in the state they be." Sez she, "Would you want
to set down happy, and rock, and eat peanuts, if you knew that your
husband and children wuz drowndin' out in the canal?"

"No," sez I, "no, indeed! I should rush out there bareheaded, and if I
couldn't save 'em, would feel like dyin' with 'em."

"Well," sez she, short as pie crust, "that's jest how I feel."

I believe and so Josiah duz that Arvilly would walk right up to a
loaded cannon and argy with it if she thought it would help destroy
the Saloon, and after she had convinced the cannon she would be
perfectly willin' to be blowed up by it if the Saloon wuz blowed up
too.

Well, I sot thinkin' of all this till Tommy waked up and we all went
out into the dining car and had a good meal. We wuz a little over two
days goin' from Salt Lake City to San Francisco, and durin' that time
I calculated that I eat enough dirt, that bitter alkali sand, to last
lawful all my life. I believe one peck of dirt is all the law allows
one person to consume durin' their life. It seems as if I eat more
than enough to meet legal requirements for me and Josiah, and I seemed
to have a thick coatin' of it on my hull person. And poor little
Tommy! I tried to keep his face clean and that wuz all I could do.

But as we drew nearer to California the weather became so balmy and
delightful that it condoned for much that wuz onpleasant, and I sez to
myself, the lovely views I have seen between Chicago and California I
shall never forgit as long as memory sets up in her high chair.

What a panorama it wuz--beautiful, grand, delightful, majestic,
sublime--no words of mine can do it justice. No. I can never describe
the views that opened on our admirin' and almost awe-struck vision as
the cars advanced through natural openin's in the mountains and anon
artificial ones.

Why, I had thought that the hill in front of old Grout Nickelson's wuz
steep, and the road a skittish one that wound around it above the
creek. But imagine goin' along a road where you could look down
thousands of feet into running water, and right up on the other side
of you mountains thousands of feet high. And you between, poor specks
of clay with only a breath of steam to keep you agoin' and prevent
your dashin' down into that enormous abyss.

But Grandeur sot on them mountain tops, Glory wuz enthroned on them
sublime heights and depths, too beautiful for words to describe, too
grand for human speech to reproduce agin, the soul felt it and must
leave it to other souls to see and feel.

On, on through mountain, valley, gorge and summit, waves of
green foliage, rocks all the beautiful colors of the rainbow,
majestic shapes, seemin'ly fashioned for a home for the gods; white
peaks--sun-glorified, thousands of feet high with blue sky above;
ravines thousands of feet deep with a glint of blue water in the
depths, seemin' to mirror to us the truth that God's love and
care wuz over and under us. And so on and on; valleys, mountains,
clear lakes, forests and broad green fields, tree sheltered
farms, and anon the broad prairie. It wuz all a panorama I never
tired of lookin' at, and lasted all the way to California.

As our stay wuz to be so short in San Francisco, Miss Meechim and
Dorothy thought it would be best to go to a hotel instead of openin'
Dorothy's grand house; so we all went to the tarven Miss Meechim
picked out, the beautifullest tarven that ever I sot eyes on, it
seemed to me, and the biggest one. Havin' felt the swayin', jiggerin'
motion of the cars so long, it wuz indeed a blessin' to set my foot on
solid ground once more, and Tommy and I wuz soon ensconced in a cozy
room, nigh Miss Meechim's sweet rooms. For she still insisted on
callin' their rooms sweet, and I wouldn't argy with her, for I spoze
they did seem sweet to her.

Tommy wuz tired out and I had to take him in my arms and rock him,
after we'd had our supper, a good meal which Miss Meechim had brung up
into their settin'-room, though I insisted on payin' my part on't
(she's a good creater, though weak in some ways). Well I rocked Tommy
and sung to him:

    "Sweet fields beyend the swellin' flood."

And them sweet fields in my mind wuz our own orchard and paster, and
the swellin' flood I thought on wuzn't death's billers, but the waters
that rolled between California and Jonesville.

Not one word had I hearn from my pardner sence leavin' New York.

"Oh, dear Josiah! When shall I see thee agin?" So sung my heart, or
ruther chanted, a deep solemn chant. "Where art thou, Josiah, and when
shall we meet agin? And why, why do I not hear from thee?"

The next mornin' after we arrived at San Francisco, Robert Strong
appeared at the hotel bright and early, and I don't know when I've
ever seen anybody I liked so well. Miss Meechim invited me into her
settin'-room to see him.

Havin' hearn so much about his deep, earnest nater and deathless
desire to do all the good he could whilst on his earthly pilgrimage, I
expected to see a grave, quiet man with lines of care and conflict
engraved deep on his sober, solemn visage.

But I wuz never more surprised to see a bright, laughin', happy face
that smiled back into mine as Albina Meechim proudly introduced her
nephew to me.

Why, thinkses I to myself, where can such strength of character, such
noble purpose, such original and successful business habits be hidden
in that handsome, smilin' face and them graceful, winnin' ways, as he
laughed and talked with his aunt and Dorothy.

But anon at some chance word of blame and criticism from Miss Meechim,
makin' light of his City of Justice and its inhabitants, a light
blazed up in his eyes and lit up his face, some as a fire in our open
fireplace lights up the spare-room, and I see stand out for a minute
on the background of his fair handsome face a picture of heroism,
love, endeavor that fairly stunted me for a time. And I never felt
afterwards anything but perfect confidence in him; no matter how light
and trifling wuz his talk with Dorothy, or how gay and boyishly happy
wuz his clear laughter.

He had worked well and faithful, givin' his hull mind and heart to his
endeavor to do all the good he could, and now he wuz bound to play
well, and git all the good and rest he could out of his play spell.
And I hadn't been with 'em more'n several hours before I thought that
I had seen further into his heart and hopes and intentions than Miss
Meechim had in all her born days.

Robert Strong, before he went away, invited us all to go and see his
City of Justice, and we agreed with considerable satisfaction to do
so, or at least I did and I spoze the rest did. Miss Meechim would be
happy in any place where her nephew wuz, that you could see plain, as
much as she disapproved of his methods. Dorothy, I couldn't see so
plain what she did think, she bein' one that didn't always let her
lips say everything her heart felt, but she used Robert real polite,
and we all had a real agreeable visit.

Robert got a big carriage and took us all out driving that afternoon,
Miss Meechim and I settin' on the back seat, and Robert and Dorothy
facing us, and Tommy perched on Robert's knee; Tommy jest took to
him, and visey-versey. Robert thought he wuz just about the brightest
little boy he had ever seen, and Tommy sot there, a little pale but
happy, and wonnered about things, and Robert answered all his
"wonners" so fur as he could.

We drove through beautiful streets lined with elegant houses, and the
dooryards wuz a sight. Think of my little scraggly geraniums and
oleanders and cactuses I've carried round in my hands all winter and
been proud on. And then think of geranium and oleander trees just as
common as our maples and loaded with flowers. And palm and bananna
trees, little things we brood over in our houses in the winter, and
roses that will look spindlin' with me, do the best I can, in
December, all growin' out-doors fillin' the air with fragrance.

Robert Strong said we must go to the Cliff House, and Tommy wanted to
see the seals.

Poor things! I felt bad to see 'em and to think there wuz a war of
extermination tryin' to be waged aginst 'em, because they interfered
with the rights of a few. One of the most interesting animals on the
Western continent! It seems too bad they're tryin' to wipe 'em out of
existence because the fishermen say they eat a sammon now and then.
Why shouldn't they who more than half belong to the water-world once
in a great while have a little taste of the good things of that world
as well as to have 'em all devoured by the inhabitants of dry land?
And they say that the seals eat sharks too--I should think that that
paid for all the good fish they eat. But to resoom. Tommy didn't think
of the rights or the wrongs of the seals, he had no disquietin'
thoughts to mar his anticipations, but he wonnered if he could put his
hands through 'em like he could his ma's seal muff. He thought that
they wuz muffs, silk lined--the idee! And he "wonnered" a sight when
he see the great peaceable lookin' creeters down in the water and on
the rocks, havin' a good time, so fur as we could see, in their own
world, and mindin' their own bizness; not tryin' to git ashore and
kill off the fishermen, because they ketched so many sammons. And
Tommy had to feed the seals and do everything he could do, Robert
Strong helpin' him in everything he undertook, and he "wonnered" if
they would ever be changed into muffs, and he "wonnered" if they would
like to be with "ribbon bows on."

At my request we went through Lone Mountain Cemetery, a low mountain
rising from the sandy beach full of graves shaded by beautiful trees
and myriads of flowers bending over the silent sleepers, the
resistless sea washing its base on one side--just as the sea of Death
is washing up aginst one side of Life--no matter how gay and happy it
is.

We rode home through a magnificent park of two thousand acres. Money
had turned the sandy beach into a wealth of green lawns, beautiful
trees and myriads of flowers. I had always sposed that them Eastern
Genis in the "Arabian Nights" had palaces and things about as grand
and luxurious as they make, but them old Genis could have got lots of
pinters in luxury and grand surroundin's if they'd seen the homes of
these nabobs in the environins of San Francisco. No tongue can tell
the luxury and elegance of them abodes, and so I hain't a goin' to git
out of patience with my tongue if it falters and gins out in the
task.




CHAPTER VI


The next mornin' while Miss Meechim and Dorothy wuz to the lawyers,
tendin' to that bizness of hern and gittin' ready for their long
tower, Robert Strong took me through one of them palaces. It stood
only a little distance from the city and wuz occupied by one old
gentleman, the rest of the family havin' died off and married, leavin'
him alone in his glory. Well said, for glory surrounded the hull
spot.

There wuz three hundred acres, all gardens and lawns and a drivin'
park and a park full of magestick old live oaks, and acres and acres
of the most beautiful flowers and all the choicest fruit you could
think of.

The great stately mansion was a sight to go through--halls, libraries,
gilded saloons, picture galleries, reception halls lined with mirrors,
billiard rooms, bowling alleys, whatever that may be, dining rooms,
with mirrors extending from the floor to the lofty ceilin's.

I wondered if the lonely old occupant ever see reflected in them tall
mirrors the faces of them who had gone from him as he sot there at
that table, like some Solomon on his throne. But all he had to do wuz
to press his old foot on a electric bell under the table, and forty
servants would enter. But I'dno as he'd want 'em all--I shouldn't--it
would take away my appetite, I believe. Twenty carriages of all kinds
and thirty blooded horses wuz in his stables, them stables bein'
enough sight nicer than any dwellin' house in Jonesville.

But what did that feeble old man want of twenty carriages? To save his
life he couldn't be in more than one to a time; and I am that afraid
of horses, I felt that I wouldn't swap the old mair for the hull on
'em.

At my strong request we made a tower one day to see Stanford
University, that immense schoolhouse that is doin' so much good in the
world; why, good land! it is larger than you have any idee on; why,
take all the schoolhouses in Jonesville and Loontown and Zoar and put
'em all together, and then add to them all the meetin' houses in all
them places and then it wouldn't be half nor a quarter so big as this
noble schoolhouse.

And the grounds about it are beautiful, beautiful! We wuz shown
through the buildin', seein' all the helps to learning of all kinds
and the best there is in the world. And how proud I felt to think what
one of my own sect had done in that great werk. How the cross of agony
laid on her shoulders had turned to light that will help guide over
life's tempestenus ten millions yet onborn. And I sez: "How happy
young Leeland must be to know his death has done such grand work, and
to see it go on."

"Why," sez Meechim, "how could he see it? He's dead."

Sez I: "Don't you spoze the Lord would let him see what a great light
his death has lit up in the werld. In my opinion he wuz right there
to-day lookin' at it."

"That is impossible," sez she. "If he wuz there we should have seen
him."

Sez I: "You don't see the x-rays that are all about you this very
minute; but they are there. You can't see the great force Marconi uses
to talk with, but it walks the earth, goes right through mountains,
which you and I can't do, Miss Meechim. It is stronger than the solid
earth or rock. That shows the power of the invisible, that what we
call the real is the transitory and weak, the invisible is the lasting
and eternal. What we have seen to-day is sorrow chrystalized into
grand shapes. A noble young heart's ideal and asperations wrought out
by loveng memory in brick and mortar. The invisible guiding the eye,
holding the hand of the visible building for time and eternity."

Miss Meechim's nose turned up and she sniffed some. She wuz a
foreigner, how could she know what I said? But Dorothy and Robert
seemed to understand my language, though they couldn't speak it yet.
And good land! I hain't learnt its A B C's yet, and don't spoze I
shall till I git promoted to a higher school.

Well, it wuz on a lovely afternoon that we all went out to the City of
Justice, and there I see agin what great wealth might do in lightening
the burdens of a sad world. Robert Strong might have spent his money
jest as that old man did whose place I have described, and live in
still better style, for Robert Strong wuz worth millions. But he felt
different; he felt as if he wanted his capital to lighten the burden
on the aching back of bowed down and tired out Labor, and let it stand
up freer and straighter for a spell. He felt that he could enjoy his
wealth more if it wuz shared accordin' to the Bible, that sez if you
have two coats give to him that hasn't any, and from the needy turn
not thou away.

That big building, or ruther that cluster and village of buildings,
didn't need any steeples to tell its mission to the world. Lots of our
biggest meetin' houses need 'em bad to tell folks what they stand for.
If it wuzn't for them steeples poor folks who wander into 'em out of
their stifling alleys and dark courts wouldn't mistrust what they wuz
for. They would see the elegantly dressed throng enter and pass over
carpeted aisles into their luxuriously cushioned pews, and kneel down
on soft hassocks and pray: "Thy kingdom come," and "Give us this day
our daily bread," and "give us what we give others." These poor folks
can't go nigh 'em, for the usher won't let 'em, but they meet 'em
through the week, or hear of 'em, and know that they do all in their
power to keep his kingdom of Love and Justice away from the world.
They herd in their dark, filthy, death-cursed tenements, not fit for
beasts, owned by the deacon of that church, and all the week run the
gauntlet of those drink hells, open to catch all their hard-earned
pennies, owned by the warden and vestrymen and upheld by the clergymen
and them high in authority, and extolled as the Poor Man's Club.
Wimmen who see their husbands enticed to spend all their money there
and leave them and their children starving and naked; mothers who see
their young boys in whom they tried to save a spark of their childish
innocence ground over in these mills of the devil into brutal ruffians
who strike down the care-worn form of the one that bore them in agony,
and bent over their cradle with a mother's love and hope. As they see
all this, and know that this is the true meaning of the prayers put up
in them elegant churches, don't they need steeples to tell that
they're built to show Christ's love and justice to the world? Yes,
indeed; they need steeples and high ones, too.

But this city of Robert Strong's didn't need steeples, as I say. It
wuz Christianity built in bricks and mortar, practical religion lived
right before 'em from day to day, comfortable houses for workmen,
which they could hope to earn and call their own. Pleasant homes where
happy love could dwell in content, because no danger stood round, hid
in saloons to ruin husband, son and father; comfortable houses where
health and happiness could dwell. Good wages, stiddy work, and a share
in all the profits made there; good hard work whilst they did work,
ensurin' success and prosperity; but short hours, ensurin' sunthin'
beyond wages.

A big house, called a Pleasure House, stood in the centre of the
broad, handsome streets, a sort of a centrepiece from which streams of
happiness and health flowed through the hull city, some as them little
rills of pure snow water flowed through the streets of Salt Lake and
Denver. Where all sorts of innocent recreation could be found to suit
all minds and ages. A big library full of books. A museum full of the
riches of science and art. A big music hall where lovers of music
could find pleasure at any time, and where weekly concerts was given,
most of the performers being of the musically inclined amongst the
young people in the City of Justice. A pretty little theatre where
they could act out little plays and dramas of a helpful, inspirin'
sort. A big gymnasium full of the best appliances and latest helps to
physical culture. A large bathing tank where the white marble steps
led down to cool, sweet waters flowing through the crystal pool, free
to all who wanted to use it. A free telephone linking the hull place
together. I roamed along through the beautiful streets and looked on
the happy, cheerful-faced workmen, who thronged them now, for their
short day's work wuz ended and they wuz goin' home. My heart swelled
almost to bustin' and I sez almost unbeknown to myself, to Robert
Strong who wuz walkin' by my side: "We read about the New Jerusalem
comin' down to earth, and if I didn't know, Robert Strong, that you
had founded this city yourself, I should think that this wuz it."

He laughed his boyish laugh, but I see the deep meanin' in his clear,
gray eyes and knew what he felt, though his words wuz light.

"Oh no," sez he, "we read that those gates are pearl; these are just
common wood, turned out by my workmen."

Sez I, "The pearl of love and good will to man, the precious stun of
practical religion and justice shines on these gates and every
buildin' here, and I bless the Lord that I have ever lived to see what
I have to-day." And I took out my snowy linen handkerchief and shed
some tears on it, I was so affected.

Robert Strong wuz touched to his heart, I see he wuz, but kep' up, his
nater bein' such. Miss Meechim and Dorothy wuz walkin' a little ahead,
Tommy between 'em. And anon we come to the house Robert lived in; not
a bit better than the others on that street, but a nice comfortable
structure of gray stun and brick, good enough for anybody, with wide
sunshiny windows, fresh air, sunshine, plenty of books, musical
instruments and furniture good enough, but nothing for show.

Here his motherly-looking housekeeper spread a nice lunch for us. His
overseer dined with us, a good-looking chap, devoted to Robert Strong,
as I could see, and ready to carry out his idees to the full. Miss
Meechim couldn't find anything, it seemed to me, to pick flaws in, but
she did say to me out to one side, "Just think how Robert lives in a
house no better than his workmen, and he might live in a palace."

Sez I, warmly, "Robert Strong's body may stay in this comfortable
brick house, good enough for anybody, but the real Robert Strong
dwells in a royal palace, his soul inhabits the temple of the Lord,
paved with the gold and pearl of justice and love, and its ruff
reaches clear up into heaven from where he gits the air his soul
breathes in."

"Do you think so? I never thought of it in that light; I have thought
his ideas was erroneous and so my clergyman thinks. Rev. Dr. Weakdew
said to me there were a great many texts that he had preached from all
his life, that if these ideas of Robert's was carried out universally,
would be destroyed and rendered meaningless. Texts it had always been
such a comfort to him to preach from, he said, admonishing the poor of
their duty to the rich, and comforting the poor and hungry and naked
with assurances that though hungry here they may partake of the bread
of life above, if they are humble and patient and endure to the end,
and though shivering and naked here, they may be clothed in garments
of light above."

And I sez, "Bein' that we are all in this world at present, I believe
the Lord would ruther we should cover the naked limbs and feed the
starvin' bodies here, and now, and leave the futur to Him."

But Miss Meechim shook her head sadly. "It sounds well," sez she, "but
there is something wrong in any belief that overthrows Scripture and
makes the poor wealthy."

"Well," sez I, "if it wuz our naked backs that the snow fell on, and
the hail pelted, and our stomachs that wuz achin' and faint for food,
we should sing a different tune."

"I trust that I should sing a Gospel tune in any event," sez she.

"Well," sez I, "we needn't quarrel about that, for we couldn't feel
much like singin' in them cases. But if we did sing I think a good
hymn would be:

    Blest be the tie that binds
    Our hearts in Christian love.

"And if the rich and poor, Capital and Labor would all jine in and
sing this from the heart the very winders of heaven would open to hear
the entrancin' strains," sez I. But I don't spoze I changed her mind
any.

Dorothy bein' naterally so smart, wuz impressed by all we had seen, I
could see she wuz, and when he wuzn't lookin' at her I could see her
eyes rest on Robert Strong's face with a new expression of interest
and approval. But she wuz full of light, happiness and joy--as she ort
to be in her bright youth--and she and Robert and Miss Meechim spoke
of the trip ahead on us with happy anticipations.

But I--oh, that deep, holler room in my heart into which no stranger
looked; that room hung with dark, sombry black; remembrances of him
the great ocean wuz a-goin' to sever me from--he on land and I on
sea--ten thousand miles of land and water goin' to separate us; how
could I bear it, how wuz I goin' to stand it? I kep' up, made remarks
and answered 'em mekanically, but oh, the feelin's I felt on the
inside. How little can we tell in happy lookin' crowds how many of the
gay throng hear the rattle of their own private skeletons above the
gayest music!

Well, we got home to the Palace hotel in good season, I a-talkin'
calmly and cheerfully, but sayin' in the inside, "'Mid pleasures and
palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humbly there is no place
like home." My home wuz my pardner, the place where he wuz would look
better than any palace.

I went up to my room and after gettin' Tommy to bed, who wuz cross and
sleepy, I finished the letter to my help, for we wuz goin' to start in
the mornin'.

"Oh, Philury!" the letter run, "my feelin's, you cannot parse 'em,
even if you wuz better grounded in grammar than I think you be. Not
one word from my beloved pardner do I hear--is Josiah dead?" sez I.
"But if he is don't tell me; I could not survive, and Tommy has got to
be went with. But oh! if sickness and grief for me has bowed that
head, bald, but most precious to me, deal with him as you would deal
with a angel unawares. Bile his porridge, don't slight it or let it be
lumpy, don't give him dish-watery tea, brile his toast and make his
beef tea as you would read chapters of scripter--carefully and not
with eye service. Hang my picter on the wall at the foot of the bed,
and if it affects him too much, hang my old green braize veil over it,
you'll find it in the hall cupboard."

But why should I sadden and depress the hearts of a good natered
public? I writ seven sheets of foolscap, and added to what I had
already writ, it made it too big to send by mail, so I put it in a
collar box and sent it by express, charges paid, for I knew the dear
man it wuz addressed to, if he wuz still able to sense anything, would
like it better that way. And then my letter sent off I begun to pack
my hair trunk anew.

Well, the day dawned gloriously. I spoze I must have slep' some, for
when I opened my eyes I felt refreshed. Tommy wuz awake in his little
bed and "wonnerin'" at sunthin' I spoze, for he always wuz, and
breakfast wuz partook of by the hull party, for Robert Strong had come
with a big carriage to take us to the ship and took breakfast with us,
and soon, too soon for me, we stood on the wharf, surrounded by a
tumultous crowd, goin' every which way; passengers goin', visitors
comin', and officials from the ship goin' about tending to everything;
trunks and baggage being slammed down and then anon being run onto the
ship, Miss Meechim's, Dorothy's and Robert Strong's baggage piled up
on one side on us and I carefully keepin' watch and ward over a
small-sized hair trunk, dear to me as my apples in my eyes, because
every inch on it seemed to me like a sooveneer of that dear home I
might never see agin.

As I stood holdin' Tommy by the hand and keepin' eagle watch over that
trunk, how much did that big ship look like a big monster that wuz
agoin' to tear my heart all to pieces, tearin' my body from the ground
that kep' my pardner on its bosom. Tears that I could not restrain
dribbled down my Roman nose and onto my gray alpacky waist; Dorothy
see 'em and slipped her kind little hand into mine and soothed my
agony by gently whisperin':

"Maybe you'll get a letter from him on the ship, Aunt Samantha."

Well, the last minute come, the hair trunk had been tore from my side,
and I, too, had to leave terry firmy, whisperin' to myself words that
I'd hearn, slightly changed: "Farewell, my Josiah! and if forever,
still forever fare thee well." My tears blinded me so I could only
jest see Tommy, who I still held hold of. I reached the upper deck
with falterin' steps. But lo, as I stood there wipin' my weepin' eyes,
as the him sez, I hearn sunthin' that rung sweetly and clearly on my
ears over all the conflicting sounds and confusion, and that brung me
with wildly beatin' heart to the side of the ship.

"Samantha! stop the ship! wait for me! I am comin'!"

Could it be? Yes it wuz my own beloved pardner, madly racin' down the
wharf, swingin' his familiar old carpet satchel in his hand, also
huggin' in his arms a big bundle done up in newspaper, which busted as
he reached the water's edge, dribblin' out neckties, bandanna
handkerchiefs, suspenders, cookies, and the dressin' gown with
tossels.

He scrambled after 'em as well as he could in his fearful hurry, and
his arms bein' full, he threw the dressin' gown round his shoulders
and madly raced over the gang plank, still emitting that agonizing
cry: "Samantha, wait for me! stop the ship!" which he kep' up after I
had advanced onward and he held both my hands in hisen.

Oh, the bliss of that moment! No angel hand, no reporter even for the
New York papers could exaggerate the blessedness of that time, much as
they knew about exaggeration. Tears of pure joy ran down both our
faces, and all the sorrows of the past seperation seemed to dissolve
in a golden mist that settled down on everything round us and before
us. The land looked good, the water looked good, the sky showered down
joy as well as sunshine; we wuz together once more. We had no need of
speech to voice our joy; but anon Josiah did say in tremblin' axents
as he pressed both my hands warmly in hisen: "Samantha, I've come!"
And I, too, sez in a voice tremblin' with emotion:

"Dear Josiah, I see you have." And then I sez tenderly as I helped him
off with the dressin' gown: "I thought you said you couldn't leave the
farm, Josiah."

"Well, I wuz leavin' it; I wuz dyin'; I thought I might as well leave
it one way as t'other. I couldn't live without you, and finally I
ketched up what clothes I could in my hurry and sot out, thinkin'
mebby I could ketch you in Chicago. You see I have got my dressin'
gown and plenty of neckties."

"Well," sez I in my boundless joy and content, "there are things more
necessary on a long sea voyage than neckties, but I've got some socks
most knit, and I can buy some underclothes, and we will git along
first rate." "Yes, Arvilly said so." Sez he, "Arvilly told me you'd
manage."

"Arvilly?" sez I, in surprised axents.

"Yes, Arvilly concluded to come too. She said that if you hadn't
started so quick she should have come with you. But when she found out
I was comin' she jest set right off with me. She's brung along that
book she's agent for, 'The Twin Crimes of America: Intemperance and
Greed.' She thinks she can most pay her way sellin' it. She jest
stopped on the wharf to try to sell a copy to a minister. But here she
is." And, sure enough, she that wuz Arvilly Lanfear advanced, puttin'
some money in her pocket, she had sold her book. Well, I wuz
surprised, but glad, for I pitied Arvilly dretfully for what she had
went through, and liked her. Two passengers had gin up goin' at the
last minute or they couldn't have got tickets.

I advanced towards her and sez: "Arvilly Lanfear! or she that wuz, is
it you?"

"Yes, I've come, and if ever a human creeter come through sufferin' I
have. Why, I've been agent for 'The Wild Deeds of Men' for years and
years, but I never knew anything about 'em till I come on this tower.
I thought that I should never git that man here alive. He has wep' and
wailed the hull durin' time for fear we shouldn't ketch you."

"Oh, no, Arvilly!" sez the joyous-lookin' Josiah.

"I can prove it!" sez she, catchin' out his red and yeller bandanna
handkerchief from his hat, where he always carries it: "Look at that,
wet as sop!" sez she, as she held it up. It wuz proof, Josiah said no
more.

"I knew we should ketch you, for I knew you would stop on the way. I
thought I would meet you at the deepo to surprise you. But I had to
bank my house; I wuzn't goin' to leave it to no underlin' and have my
stuff freeze. But when I hern that Josiah wuz comin' I jest dropped my
spade--I had jest got done--ketched up my book and threw my things
into my grip, my trunk wuz all packed, and here I am, safe and sound,
though the cars broke down once and we wuz belated. We have just
traipsed along a day or two behind you all the way from Chicago, I not
knowin' whether I could keep him alive or not."

Sez I fondly, "What devoted love!"

"What a natural fool!" sez Arvilly. "Did it make it any better for him
to cry and take on? That day we broke down and had to stop at a tarven
I wuz jest mad enough, and writ myself another chapter on 'The Wild
Deeds of Men,' and am in hopes that the publisher will print it. It
will help the book enormously I know. How you've stood it with that
man all these years, I don't see; rampin' round, tearin' and groanin'
and actin'. He didn't act no more like a perfessor than--than Captain
Kidd would if he had been travelin' with a neighborin' female,
pursuin' his wife, and that female doin' the best she could for him. I
kep' tellin' him that he would overtake you, but I might as well have
talked to the wind--a equinoctial gale," sez she. Josiah wuz so happy
her words slipped offen him without his sensin' 'em and I wuz too
happy to dispute or lay anything up, when she went on and sez:

"I spoze that folks thought from our jawin' so much that we wuz man
and wife; and he a yellin' out acrost the sleeper and kinder cryin',
and I a hollerin' back to him to 'shet up and go to sleep!' It is the
last time I will ever try to carry a man to his wife; but I spozed
when I started with him, he bein' a perfessor, he would act
different!"

"Well," sez I, in a kind of a soothin' tone, "I'm real glad you've
come, Arvilly; it will make the ship seem more like Jonesville, and I
know what you have went through."

"Well," sez she, "no other livin' woman duz unless it is you." She
kep' on thinkin' of Josiah, but I waved off that idee; I meant her
tribulations in the army. And I sez, "You may as well spend your money
travelin' as in any other way."

"Yes, I love to travel when I can travel with human creeters, and I
might as well spend my money for myself as to leave it for my cousins
to fight over, and I can pay my way mostly sellin' my book; and I've
left my stuff so it won't spile."

"Where is Waitstill Webb?" sez I.

"Oh, Waitstill has gone back to be a nurse--she's gone to the
Philippines."

Sez I gladly, "Then we shall see her, Arvilly."

"Yes," sez she, "and that wuz one reason that I wanted to go, though
she's acted like a fool, startin' off agin to help the govermunt. I've
done my last work for it, and I told her so; I sez, if see the
govermunt sinkin' in a mud hole I wouldn't lift a finger to help it
out. I always wanted to see China and Japan, but never spozed I
should."

"It is a strange Providence, indeed, Arvilly, that has started us both
from Jonesville to China. But," sez I, "let me make you acquainted
with the rest of our party," and I introduced 'em. Josiah wuz
embracin' Tommy and bein' embraced, and he had seen 'em all but Robert
Strong.




CHAPTER VII


In a few minutes the great ship begun to breathe hard, as if tryin' to
git up strength for the move, and kinder shook itself, and gin a few
hoarse yells, and sot off, seemin' to kinder tremble all over with
eagerness to be gone. And so we sot sail, but ship and shore and
boundless water all looked beautiful and gay to me. What a change,
what a change from the feelin's I had felt; then the cold spectral
moonlight of loneliness rested on shore and Golden Gate, now the
bright sun of love and happiness gilded 'em with their glorious rays,
and I felt well. Well might Mr. Drummond say, "Love is the greatest
thing in the world." And as I looked on my precious pardner I
bethought fondly, no matter how little a man may weigh by the
steelyards, or how much a Arvilly may make light on him, if Love is
enthroned in his person he towers up bigger than the hull universe.
And so, filled with joy radiatin' from the presence of the best
beloved, and under the cloudless sunshine of that glorious day, I set
out on my Trip Abroad. Yes, I wuz once more embarked on that great
watery world that lays all round us and the continents, and we can't
help ourselves.

And the days follered one another along in Injin file, trampin'
silently and stiddily on, no matter where we be or what we do. So we
sailed on and on, the ship dashin' along at I don't know how many
knots an hour. Probably the knots would be enough if straightened out
to make a hull hank of yarn, and mebby more. Part of the time the
waves dashin' high. Mebby the Pacific waves are a little less
tumultous and high sweepin' than the Atlantic, a little more pacific
as it were, but they sway out dretful long, and dash up dretful high,
bearin' us along with 'em every time, up and down, down and up, and
part of the time our furniture and our stomachs would foller 'em and
sway, too, and act. The wind would soar along, chasin' after us, but
never quite ketchin' us; sometimes abaft, sometimes in the fo'castle,
whatever that may be.

And under uz wuz the great silent graveyard, the solemn, green aisles,
still and quiet, and no knowin' how soon we should be there, too,
surrounded by the riches of that lost world of them that go down in
ships, but not doin' us any good. Only a board or two and some paint
between us and destruction (but then I don't know as we are seperated
any time very fur from danger, earthquakes, tornados and such). And
good land! I would tell myself and Josiah, for that matter I've known
wimmen to fall right out of their chairs and break themselves all up
more or less, and fall often back steps and suller stairs and such.
But 'tennyrate I felt real riz up as I looked off on the heavin'
billers, and Faith sez to me, "Why should I fear since I sailed with
God." The seas, I am journeying, I told myself with Duty on one side
of me and on the other side Josiah, and the sun of Love over all. I
got along without any seasickness to speak of, but my pardner suffered
ontold agonies--or no, they wuzn't ontold, he told 'em all to me--yes,
indeed!

Tommy "wonnered" what made the big vessel sail on so fast, and what
made so much water, where it all come from, and where it wuz all goin'
to. And at night he would lay on his little shelf and "wonner" what
the wind wuz sayin'; one night he spoke out kinder in rhyme, sez he:
"Grandma, do you know what the wind is sayin?" And I sez:

"No, dear lamb; what is it sayin'?" It has sounded dretful, kinder
wild and skairful to me, and so it had to Josiah, I knew by the sithes
he had gin. Sez Tommy, it sez:

    "Don't be afraid my little child,
    God will take care of you all the while."

And I sez, "Thank you, Tommy, you've done me good." And I noticed that
Josiah seemed more contented and dropped off to sleep real sweet,
though he snored some. Sometimes Tommy would "wonner" what seasickness
wuz like, if it wuz any like measles, but didn't find out, for he
wuzn't sick a day, but wandered about the great ship, happy as a king,
making friends everywhere, though Robert Strong remained his chief
friend and helper. Dorothy wuz more beautiful than ever it seemed to
me, a shadow of paleness over her sweet face peeping out from the
white fur of her cunning little pink hood, makin' her look sweeter
than ever. There wuz two or three handsome young men on board who
appreciated her beauty, and I spoze the gold setting of her charming
youth. But Miss Meechim called on Robert Strong to help protect her,
which he did willingly enough, so fur as I could see, by payin' the
most devoted attention to her himself, supplying every real or fancied
want, reading to and with her, and walking up and down the deck with
her, she leanin' on his arm in slippery times.

"Dear boy!" said Miss Meechim, "how lovely he is to me. He would much
rather spend his time with the men in the smoking and reading room,
but he has always been just so; let me express a wish and he flies to
execute it. He knows that I wouldn't have Dorothy marry for all the
world, and had it not been for his invaluable help I fear that she
would have fallen a prey to some man before this."

"She is a pretty girl," sez I, "pretty as a pink rosy."

"Yes," sez she, "she is a sweet girl and as good as she is beautiful."

[Illustration: There wuz the usual variety of people on the ship.--Page
84.]

There was the usual variety of people on the ship. The rich family
travelin' with children and servants and unlimited baggage; the party
of school girls with the slim talkative teacher in spectacles, tellin'
'em all the pints of interest, and stuffin' 'em with knowledge gradual
but constant; the stiddy goin' business men and the fashionable ones;
the married flirt and the newly married bride and husband, sheepish
lookin' but happy; old wimmen and young ones; young men and old ones;
the sick passenger confined to his bed, but devourin' more food than
any two well ones--seven meals a day have I seen carried into that
room by the steward, while a voice weak but onwaverin' would call for
more. There wuz a opera singer, a evangelist, an English nobleman, and
a party of colored singers who made the night beautiful sometimes with
their weird pathetic melodies.

There wuz two missionaries on board, one the Rev. Dr. Wessel, real
dignified actin' and lookin'--he wuz goin' out as a missionary to
China, and a young lady going out as a missionary to Africa,
Evangeline Noble--she wuz a member of some kind of a sisterhood, so
she wuz called Sister Evangeline. I sot a sight of store by her the
first time I laid eyes on her. Anybody could see that she wuz one of
the Lord's anointed, and like our cousin John Richard, who went out as
a missionary to Africa several years ago, she only wanted the Lord's
will pinted out to her to foller it to the death if necessary. Livin'
so nigh to the Kingdom as she did she couldn't help its breezes
fannin' her tired forehead occasionally, and the angels' songs and the
sound of the still waters from reachin' her soul. She had left a
luxurious home, all her loved ones, a host of friends, and wuz goin'
out to face certain hardships, and probable sickness and death amongst
a strange half savage people, and yet she had about the happiest face
I ever saw. His peace wuz writ down on her brow. Her Lord journeyed
with her and told her from day to day what he wanted her to do. After
we got well acquainted she told me that ever since her conversion
there were times when she became unconscious to things on earth, but
her soul seemed to be ketched up to some other realm, where He, who
wuz her constant helper and guide, told her what to do. I told Josiah
about it, and he sez:

"I'd ruther see that than hear on't. How can she be ketched up,
weighin' pretty nigh two hundred?"

Sez I, "Your views are material, Josiah. I said her soul wuz ketched
up."

"Oh, well, my soul and body has ginerally gone together where I've
went."

"I don't doubt that," sez I, "not at all. Spiritual things are
spiritually discerned."

"Well," sez he, "I've hearn a sight about such things as that, but I'd
ruther see 'em myself."

Well, it wuzn't but a day or two after that that he had a chance to
see if he had eyes. Sister Evangeline wuz settin' with Josiah and me
on the deck, and all of a sudden while she wuz talkin' to us about her
future life and work in Africa, her face took on a look as yourn would
if your attention had been suddenly arrested by a voice calling you.
She looked off over the water as if it wuzn't there, and I felt that
someone wuz talkin' to her we couldn't see--her face had jest that
look, and at last I hearn her murmur in a low voice:

"Yes, Master, I will go."

And most immegiately her soul seemed to come back from somewhere, and
she sez to me:

"I am told that there is a poor woman amongst the steerage passengers
that needs me." And she riz right up and started, like Paul, not
disobedient to the Heavenly vision, not for a minute. She told me
afterward that she found a woman with a newly-born child almost dying
for want of help. She was alone and friendless, and if Sister
Evangeline hadn't reached her just as she did they would both have
died. She wuz a trained nurse, and saved both their lives, and she wuz
as good as she could be to 'em till we reached port, where the woman's
husband wuz to meet her.

Josiah acted stunted when I told him, but sez weakly, "I believe she
hearn the woman holler."

And I sez, "She wuz fainted away, how could she holler?"

And he sez, "It must be a heavy faint that will keep a woman from
talkin'."

The other missionary, Elder Wessel, I didn't set quite so much store
by. His only child Lucia wuz on board going out to China with a rich
tea merchant's family as a governess for their little daughter, and
some one told me that one reason that Elder Wessel hearn such a loud
call to go as a missionary to China was because Lucia wuz goin'
there.

Now, there wuz a young chap over in Loontown who had tried doctorin'
for a year or two and didn't make much by it, and he thought he see a
sign up in the heavens, G. P., and he gin out that he had had a call
"go preach," and went to preachin', and he didn't make so well by that
as he did by his doctorin', and then he gin out that he had made a
mistake in readin' the letters; instead of goin' to preach they meant
"give pills," so he went back to his doctorin' agin, and is doin'
first rate. That wuzn't a call.

But to resoom. Elder Wessel jest worshipped this daughter, and thought
she wuz the sweetest, dearest girl in the world. And she wuz a pretty
girl with soft, bright innocent eyes. She wuz educated in a convent,
and had the sweet, gentle manners and onworldly look that so many
convent-bred girls have. She and Aronette struck up a warm friendship,
though her pa wouldn't have allowed it I spoze if he hadn't seen how
much store we all sot by Aronette.

We got real well acquainted with Elder Wessel and Lucia; and her proud
pa wuz never tired of singin' her praises or ruther chantin' 'em--he
wuz too dignified to sing. Arvilly loved to talk with him, though
their idees wuz about as congenial as ile and water. He wuz real mild
and conservative, always drinked moderate and always had wine on his
table, and approved of the canteen and saloon, which he extolled as
the Poor Man's Club. He thought that the government wuz jest right,
the big trusts and license laws jest as they should be.

Arvilly dearly loved to send sharp arrows of sarkasm and argument
through his coat armor of dignified complacency and self-esteem, for
truly his idees wuz to her like a red rag to a bull.

Miss Meechim kinder looked down on Arvilly, and I guess Arvilly looked
down on her. You know it happens so sometimes--two folks will feel
real above each other, though it stands to reason that one of 'em must
be mistook. Miss Meechim thought she wuz more genteel than Arvilly,
and was worth more, and I guess she had had better advantages. And
Arvilly thought she knew more than Miss Meechim, and I guess mebby she
did. Miss Meechim thought she wuz jest right herself, she thought her
native land wuz jest right and all its laws and customs, and naterally
she looked down dretfully on all foreigners. She and Arvilly had lots
of little spats about matters and things, though Miss Meechim wuz so
genteel that she kep' her dignity most of the time, though Arvilly gin
it severe raps anon or oftener.

But one tie seemed to unite 'em a little--they wuz real congenial on
the subject of man. They both seemed to cherish an inherent aversion
to that sect of which my pardner is an ornament, and had a strong
settled dislike to matrimony; broken once by Arvilly, as a sailor may
break his habit of sea-faring life by livin' on shore a spell, but
still keepin' up his love for the sea.

But of their talks together and Arvilly's arguments with Elder Wessel
more anon and bime by. Arvilly stood up aginst the sea-sickness as she
would aginst a obstinate subscriber, and finally brought the sickness
to terms as she would the buyer, on the third day, and appeared pale
but triumphant, with a subscription book in her hand and the words of
her prospectus dribblin' from her lips. She had ordered a trunkful to
sell on sight, but Arvilly will never git over what she has went
through, never.

As the days went on the big ship seemed more and more to us like a
world, or ruther a new sort of a planet we wuz inhabitin'--it kinder
seemed to be the centre of the universe. I overheard a woman say one
day how monotonous the life wuz. But I thought to myself, mebby her
mind wuz kinder monotonous--some be, you know, made so in the first
on't; I found plenty enough to interest me, and so Josiah did.

There wuz a big library where you could keep company with the great
minds of the past and present. A music room where most always some of
the best music wuz to be hearn, for of course there wuz lots of
musicians on board, there always is. And for them that wanted it,
there wuz a smokin' room, though Josiah or I didn't have any use for
it, never havin' smoked anything but a little mullen and catnip once
or twice for tizik. And there wuz a billiard room for them that
patronized Bill, though I never did nor Josiah, but wuz willin' that
folks should act out their own naters. I spoze they played cards
there, too. But Josiah and I didn't know one card from another; I
couldn't tell Jack from the King to save my life.

We stayed in the music room quite a good deal and once or twice Josiah
expressed the wish that he had brought along his accordeon.

And he sez: "It don't seem right to take all this pleasure and not
give back anything in return."

But I sez, "I guess they'll git along without hearin' that accordeon."

"I might sing sunthin', I spose," sez he. "I could put on my dressin'
gown and belt it down with the tossels and appear as a singer, and
sing a silo."

That wuz the evenin' after Dorothy, in a thin, white dress, a little
low in the neck and short sleeves, had stood up and sung a lovely
piece, or that is I 'spoze it wuz lovely, it wuz in some foreign
tongue, but it sounded first rate, as sweet as the song of a robin or
medder lark--you know how we all like to hear them, though we can't
quite understand robin and lark language. It wuz kinder good in
Josiah to want to give pleasure in return for what he had had, but I
argyed him into thinkin' that he and I would give more pleasure as a
congregation than as speakers or singers. For after I had vetoed the
singin' that good man proposed that he should speak a piece. Sez he,
"I could tell most the hull of the American Taxation."

And I sez, "I wouldn't harrer up the minds of the rich men on board
with thoughts of taxes," sez I, "when lots of 'em are goin' away to
get rid on 'em."

"Well," sez he, "I could tell the hull of Robert Kidd."

And I sez, "Well, I wouldn't harrer up their feelin's talkin' about
hullsale stealin'; they have enough of that to hum in the big
cities."

So gradual I got him off from the idee.

There wuz one little boy about Tommy's age and a sister a little older
I felt real sorry for, they looked so queer, and their ma, a thin,
wirey, nervous lookin' woman brooded over 'em like a settin' hen over
her eggs. They wuz dressed well, but dretful bulged out and swollen
lookin', and I sez to their ma one day:

"Are your children dropsical?"

And she sez, "Oh, no, their health is good. The swellin's you see are
life preservers." She said that she kep' one on their stomachs night
and day.

Well, I knew that they would be handy in a shipwreck, but it made 'em
look queer, queer as a dog.

And now whilst the passengers are all settin' or standin' on their own
forts and tendin' to their own bizness, and the big ship ploughin' its
big liquid furrow on the water I may as well tell what Arvilly went
through. I spoze the reader is anxious to know the petickulers of how
she come to be in the Cuban army and desert from it. The reason of her
bein' in the army at all, her husband enlisted durin' the struggle for
Cuban independence, and Arvilly jest worshippin' the ground he walked
on, and thinkin' the world wuz a blank to her where he wuz not, after
the last care he left her wuz removed, and always havin' done as she
wuz a mind to as fur as she could, she dressed herself up in a suit of
his clothes and enlisted onbeknown to him, so's to be near to him if
he got woonded, and 'tennyrate to breathe the same air he did and
sleep under the same stars. She adored him.

It must be remembered that Arvilly had never loved a single thing till
she fell in love with this man, her folks dyin' off and leavin' her to
come up the best she could, and imposed upon and looked down upon on
every side, and workin' hard for a livin', and after she got old
enough to read and understand, bein' smart as a whip and one of the
firmest lovers of justice and fair play that ever wuz born, she become
such a firm believer in wimmen's rights that she got enemies that way.
Well, you know right when she started for the World's Fair, helpin'
herself along by sellin' the book, "The Wild, Wicked, and Warlike
Deeds of Men" (which she said she felt wuz her duty to promulgate to
wimmen to keep 'em from marryin' and makin' fools of themselves).
Well, right there, some like Paul on his way to Jerusalem breathin'
vengeance against his Lord, a great light struck him down in the road,
so with Arvilly, the great light of Love stopped her in her career,
she dropped her book, married the man she loved and who loved her, and
lived happy as a queen till the Cuban war broke out.

Her husband wuz a good man, not the smartest in the world, but a good,
honest God-fearin' man, who had had a hard time to get along, but
always tried to do jest right, and who hailed Arvilly's bright
intellect and practical good sense and household knowledge as a
welcome relief from incompetence in hired girl form in the kitchen.
His first wife died when his little girl wuz born, and she wuz about
seven when Arvilly married her pa. Well, he bein' jest what he
wuz--conscientious, God-fearin' and havin' hearn his minister preach
powerful sermons on this bein' a war of God aginst the Devil,
enlightenment and Christianity aginst ignorance and barbarism, America
aginst Spain--he got all fired up with the sense of what wuz his duty
to do, and when his mind wuz made up to that no man or woman could
turn him. Arvilly might have just as well spent her tears and
entreaties on her soapstun. No, go he must and go he would. But like
the good man he wuz, he made everything just as comfortable as he
could for her and his little daughter, a pretty creeter that Arvilly
too loved dearly. And then he bid 'em a sad adoo, for he loved 'em
well, and Arvilly had made his home a comfortable and happy one. But
he choked back his tears, tried to smile on 'em with his tremblin'
lips, held 'em both long in his strong arms, onclosed 'em, and they
wuz bereft. Well, Arvilly held the weeping little girl in her arms,
bent over her with white face and dry eyes, for his sake endured the
long days and longer nights alone with the child, for his sake taking
good care of her, wondering at the blow that had fell upon her,
wondering that if in the future she could be so blest agin as to have
a home, for love is the soul of the home, and she felt homeless.

Well, she watched and worked, takin' good care of the little one, but
bolts and bars can't keep out death; Arvilly's arms, though she wuz
strong boneded, couldn't. Diphtheria wuz round, little Annie took it;
in one week Arvilly wuz indeed alone, and when the sod lay between her
and what little likeness of her husband had shone through the child's
pretty face, Arvilly formed a strange resolution, but not so strange
but what wimmen have formed it before, and probably will agin till
God's truth shall shine on a dark world and be listened to, and wars
shall be no more. She made up her mind to foller the man she loved, to
enlist. She wuz always a masculine lookin' creeter, big, raw boneded,
and when she cut off her hair and parted it on one side in a man's way
and put on a suit of her husband's clothes she looked as much, or more
like a man than she had ever looked like a woman. She locked the
doors of her home till the cruel war should be ended, and he whose
love made her home should return. Till then, if indeed it should ever
be, she left her happiness there in the empty, silent rooms and
sallied off. She had disposed of her stock and things like that, folks
not bein' surprised at it, bein' she wuz alone, but all to once she
disappeared, utterly and entirely, nobody hearn of her and folks
thought that mebby she had wandered off in her grief and put an end to
her life. Not one word wuz hearn of her until lo and behold! the
strange news come, Arvilly's husband wuz killed in a drunken brawl in
a licensed Canteen down in Cuba and Arvilly had deserted from the
army, and of course bein' a woman they couldn't touch her for it. That
wuz the first we ever knowed that she wuz in the army.




CHAPTER VIII


Arvilly deserted from the army and gloried in it; she said, bein' a
woman born, she had never had a right, and now she took it. After her
husband wuz buried, and her hull life, too, she thought for a spell,
she deserted, but bein' ketched and court-martialed, she appeared
before the officers in her own skirt and bask waist and dared 'em to
touch her. Waitstill Webb, the young sweetheart of the man that shot
her husband, wuz with her. Good land! Arvilly didn't lay up nothin'
aginst her or him; he wuz drunk as a fool when he fired the shot. He
didn't know what he wuz doin'; he wuz made irresponsible by the law,
till he did the deed, and then made responsible by the same law and
shot. Waitstill wuz named from a Puritan great-great-aunt, whose
beauty and goodness had fell onto her, poor girl! She stood by
Arvilly. They wuz made friends on that dretful night when they had
stood by the men they loved, one killed and the other to be killed by
the govermunt. Poor things! they wuz bein' protected, I spoze our
govermunt would call it; it always talks a good deal about protectin'
wimmen; 'tennyrate the mantilly of the law hung over 'em both and
shaded 'em, one man layin' dead, shot through the heart, the other
condemned to be shot, both on 'em by legal enactments, both men not
knowin' or meanin' any more harm than my Josiah up in Jonesville if he
had been sot fire to by law and then hung by law because he smoked and
blistered. Good land! them that sets a fire knows that there has got
to be smoke and blisters, there must be.

The officers they wuz just dumb-foundered at the sight of a woman with
a bask waist on in that position--a bein' court-martialed for
desertion--and her speech dumb-foundered 'em still more, so I spoze; I
hearn it from one who wuz there.

Sez Arvilly to 'em, and they wuz drew up in battle array as you may
say, dressed up in uniform and quite a few on 'em, the Stars and
Stripes behind 'em, and the mantilly of the law drapin' 'em in heavy
folds. And I don't spoze that through her hull life Arvilly wuz ever
so eloquent as on that occasion. All her powers of mind and heart wuz
electrified by the dretful shock and agony she had underwent, and her
words fell like a hard storm of lightenin' and hail out of a sky when
it is just stored full of electrical power and has got to bust out.

Sez Arvilly: "You men represent the force and power of the govermunt
that falsely sez it is the voice of the people; we two represent the
people. As you are the force and power and will of the law, we are the
endurance, the suffering. You decide on a war. When did a woman ever
have any voice in saying that there should be a war? They bear the
sons in agony that you call out to be butchered; their hearts are torn
out of their bosoms when they let their husbands, sons and lovers go
into the hell of warfare, and you tax all her property to raise money
to help furnish the deadly weapons that kill and cut to pieces the
warm, living, loving forms that they would give their lives for.

"But you men decide on a war, as you have on this. You say it wuz from
motives of philanthropy and justice; you drag us, the people, out of
peaceful, happy homes to leave all we love, to face mutilation, agony
and death; you say your cause wuz just, I say it is a war of
revenge--a war of conquest."

Why it fairly made goose pimples run over me when I hearn on't.
Sassin' the govermunt, she wuz--nothin' more nor less. But she went on
worse than ever.

"You say that it wuz to give freedom to the people of Cuba. Look at
the millions of your own wimmen enslaved in legal fetters! You say it
wuz to protect the wimmen and children of Cuba from the cruelty and
brutality of unscrupulous rulers. Look at the wimmen and children of
your own country cowering and hiding from crazed drunken husbands,
sons and fathers. More misery, murder, suicides, abuse and suffering
of every kind is caused by the saloon every day of the year in the
United States than ever took place in Cuba in twice the same time, and
you not only stand by and see it, but you take pay from the butchers
for slaughtering the innocents! You miserable hypocrites, you!" Sez
Arvilly, "I would talk about pity and mercy, you that know no pity and
no mercy for your own wimmen and children.

"You pose before foreign nations as a reformer, a righter of wrongs,
when you have cherished and are cherishing now the most gigantic crime
and wrong that ever cursed a people; turning a deaf ear to the
burdened and dying about you; wives, mothers, daughters--for whose
safety and well-being you are responsible--have told you that the
saloon killed all the manhood and nobility of their husbands, sons,
and fathers; made the pure, good men, who loved and protected them,
into cold-hearted brutes and demons who would turn and rend
them--still you would not hear. You have seen the dretful procession
of one hundred thousand funerals pass before you every year, slain by
this foe that you pamper and protect.

"Lovers of good laws have told you that the saloon blocked up the way
to every reform and wuz the greatest curse of the day; still you threw
your mighty protection around the system and helped it on. The most
eminent doctors have told you that drunkenness ruined the bodies of
men; Christian clergymen told you that it ruined their souls, and that
the saloon was the greatest enemy the Church of Christ had to contend
with to-day; that when by its efforts and sacrifices it saved one soul
from ruin, the saloon ruined two to fill the place of that one who
wuz saved, and still you opholded it.

"Petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of the best people of the
land have been sent to you, but these petitions, weighted down with
the tears and prayers of these people, have been made a jest and a
mock of by you. And strangest, most awful of sights--incredible almost
to men and angels--this govermunt, that sot out as a reformer to
Christianize Cuba and the Philippines, have planted there this
heaviest artillery of Satan, the saloon, to bind the poor islanders in
worse bondage and misery than they ever dremp on. Hain't you ashamed
of yourself! You fool and villain!" (Oh! dear me! Oh, dear suz! To
think on't; Arvilly wuz talkin' to the govermunt, and callin' it a
fool and villain! The idee! Why, it wuz enough to skair anybody most
to death!) I spoze it made a great adoo. I spoze that the men who
represented the govermunt wuz too horrified to make a reply. Arvilly
always did go too fur when she got to goin'. But it can't be denied
that she had great reason for her feelin's, for the strongest argument
wuz still to come. I spoze she got almost carried away by her own talk
and feelin's, for all of a sudden they said she lifted her long bony
hand and arm--Arvilly always wuz kinder spare in flesh--she lifted up
her arm and her bony forefinger seemed to be follerin' the lines of
some words writ up there on the wall, sez she slowly, in a awful
voice:

"My country! thou are weighed in the balance and found wanting!"

It wuz indeed thrillin', but after a minute's silence she went on:
"Look at me!" sez she, pintin' that same forefinger first at herself
and then at the tall veiled figger of the young girl beside her--"Look
at us; we, the people, represent to you another of your favorite
reforms, the Canteen, that product of civilization and Christianity
you transplanted from our holy shores to the benighted tropics. How
many petitions have you had wet with the tears of wives and mothers,
weighted down with their prayers to close this gateway to hell. But
no, for a price, as Judas sold his Lord, you have trafficked in human
souls and will do so. And you are the power--you control; we are the
people--we suffer. We leave all we love, we go out and fight your
battles when you tell us to, we face mutilation and death for
you--isn't that enough? No; besides the foe in front you set us
aginst, you introduce a foe into our midst that is a million times as
fatal and remorseless. The foe in front only aims at our bodies; this
foe, before it kills our bodies, kills honor, manhood, all that is
noble and worthy to be loved--a devilish foe indeed, but by your
command it is let loose upon us; we are the people, we must endure it.
Look at me!"--agin she pinted that bony forefinger at herself--"I had
a husband I loved as well as the gracious lady in the White House
loves her husband. He wuz a good man. He thought he owed a duty to his
country. He went to fight her battles at her call. He might have
escaped Spanish bullets, but not this foe this Christian govermunt set
aginst him. In a low Canteen, a vile drinking den, rented by you for
the overthrow of men's souls and bodies, in a drunken brawl a bullet
aimed by a crazed brain for another poor ruined boy reached my
husband's faithful heart, faithful to the country that slew him, not
for patriotism or honor, but for a few pennies of money--not even the
thirty pieces of silver Judas earnt for betraying his Lord. This
bullet wuz sent from the hand of a young man, a college graduate, one
of the noblest, brightest and best of men until this foe our govermunt
set for him vanquished him. He got into a quarrel with another drunken
youth, another victim of the Canteen, and meant to shoot him, but the
unsteady hand sent it into the heart of my husband, who went into that
vile place thinkin' he could appease the quarrel. This young man was
shot for _your_ crime and here is his widow," and turning to
Waitstill, she said, "Lift up your vail; let them look upon us, the
people."

The young girl drew back her vail and a face of almost perfect beauty
wuz disclosed, but white as death. The big dark eyes wuz full of
sorrow and despair, sadder than tears. She simply said:

"I loved him--he was murdered--I have come to denounce his murderers."

Her voice wuz low, but the words fell like drops of blood, so vivid,
so full were they of the soul of her being.

"Yes," sez Arvilly, "and you are his murderer. Not the Spaniards, not
the foe of this govermunt that the poor young fellow tried with a
boy's warm-hearted patriotism to save. You murdered him." She turned
to let her companion speak agin, but the power to speak had gone from
her; her slender figure swayed and Arvilly caught her in her strong
arms. She had fainted almost away; she could say no more. But what
more could she say to this govermunt.

"He was murdered--I loved him--I have come to denounce his murderers."

Arvilly helped Waitstill down on a bench where she leaned back still
and white most as if she wuz dead. But before Arvilly went out with
Waitstill leanin' on her arm, she turned and faced them dumb-foundered
men once more:

"Who is accountable for the death of her lover?" pintin' to the frail,
droopin' figger. "Who is accountable for the death of my husband? Who
is accountable for the death and everlastin' ruin of my son, my
husband, my father and my lover? sez the millions of weepin' wimmen in
America that the Canteen and saloon have killed and ruined. These
questions unanswered by you are echoin' through the hull country
demandin' an answer. They sweep up aginst the hull framework of human
laws made professedly to protect the people, aginst every voter in the
land, aginst the rulers in Washington, D. C., aginst the Church of
Christ--failing to git an answer from them they sweep up to God's
throne. There they will git a reply. Woe! woe! to you rulers who
deviseth iniquity to overthrow the people committed to your care."

Arvilly then went out, leadin' Waitstill, and when she come back to
Jonesville she come with her, a patient mourner, good to everybody and
goin' out to day's works for seventy-five cents a day, for she had no
other way to live, for she wuzn't strong enough then to go on with her
nursing and she hadn't a relation on earth, and the man our govermunt
murdered in that Canteen represented all there wuz on this broad earth
for her to love. They worshipped each other, and Waitstill is waitin'
till the time comes for her to die and meet the man she loved and
lost, havin' to live in the meantime, because she couldn't stop
breathin' till her time come. So, as I say, she went out doin' plain
sewin', beloved by all both great and small, but a mourner if there
ever wuz one, lookin' at his picture day in and day out, which she
wears in her bosom in a locket--a handsome, manly face, took before
our govermunt made a crazy lunatick and a murderer of him.

Jest as different from Arvilly as day is from night, but the cold
hands of grief holds their hearts together and I spoze that she will
always make it her home with Arvilly as long as she lives, she wants
her to--that is, if the plan I have in my head and heart don't amount
to anything, but I hope for the land sake that it will, for as I've
said many a time and gin hints to her, there never wuz two folks more
made for each other than she and Elder White.

But she's gone now to the Philippines as a nurse in a hospital, which
shows how different she and Arvilly feels; Arvilly sez that she
wouldn't do anything to help the govermunt agin in any way, shape or
manner, not if they should chain her and drag her to the front; she
would die before she would help the great, remorseless power that
killed her husband for a little money. She's made in jest that way,
Arvilly is, jest as faithful to the remembrance of her wrongs as a dog
is to a bone, settin' and gnawin' at it all the time. And when they
come to collect her taxes last year she says:

"No taxes will you ever git out of me to help rare up Saloons and
Canteens to kill some other woman's husband."

"But," sez the tax man, a real good man he wuz and mild mannered, "you
should be willing to help maintain the laws of your country that
protects you."

And then I spose that man's hair (it wuz pretty thin, anyway) riz
right up on his head to hear her go on tellin' about the govermunt
killin' her husband. But seein' she wuz skarin' him she kinder quelled
herself down and sez:

"What has this country ever done for me. I have had no more voice in
makin' the laws than your dog there. Your dog is as well agin off, for
it don't have to obey the laws, that it has no part in makin'. If it
digs up a good bone it don't have to give it to some dog politician to
raise money to buy dog buttons to kill other dogs and mebby its own
pups. Not one cent of taxes duz this hell-ridden govermunt git out of
me agin--if I can help it."

The man ketched up his tax list and flewed from the house, but
returned with minions of the law who seized on and sold her shote she
wuz fattin' for winter's use; sold it to the saloon keeper over to
Zoar for about half what it wuz worth, only jest enough to pay her
tax. But then the saloon keeper controlled a lot of bum votes and the
collector wanted to keep in with him.

Yes, as I wuz sayin', Waitstill Webb is as different from Arvilly as a
soft moonlight night lit by stars is from a snappin' frosty noonday in
January. Droopin' like a droopin' dove, feelin' that the govermunt wuz
the worst enemy she and her poor dead boy ever had, as it turned out,
but still ready to say:

"Oh Lord, forgive my enemy, the Government of the United States, for
it knows what it does."

Which she felt wuz ten-fold worse than as if it did wickedly without
knowin' it, and she knew that they knowed all about it and couldn't
deny it, for besides all the good men and wimmen that had preached to
'em about it, they had had such sights of petitions sent in explainin'
it all out and beggin' 'em to stop it, onheeded by them and scorfed
at. But she stood ready to go agin and serve the govermunt as a nurse,
trying to heal the woonds caused by bullet and knife, and the ten-fold
worse woonds caused by our govermunt's pet wild beast it rents out
there to worry and kill its brave defenders. I looked forward with
warm anticipations to seein' her, for I sot store by her. She had
fixed over my gray alpacky as good as new, and made me a couple of
ginghams, and I thought more of havin' her with me than I did of her
work, and once when I wuz down with a crick in the back, and couldn't
stir, she come right there and stayed by me and did for me till the
creek dwindled down and disappeared. Her presence is some like the Bam
of Gilead, and her sweet face and gentle ways make her like an angel
in the sick room. Arvilly is more like a mustard plaster than Bam. But
everybody knows that mustard is splendid for drawin' attention to it;
if it draws as it ort to, mustard must and will attract and hold
attention. And I spoze there hain't no tellin' what good Arvilly has
done and mebby will do by her pungent and sharp tongue to draw
attention to wrongs and inspire efforts to ameliorate 'em. And the
same Lord made the Bam of Gilead and mustard, and they go well
together. When mustard has done its more painful work then the Bam
comes in and duz its work of healin' and consolin'. 'Tennyrate anybody
can see that they are both on 'em as earnest and sincere in wantin' to
do right as any human creeters can be, and are dretful well thought on
all over Jonesville and as fur out as Loontown and Zoar.

Some wimmen would have held a grudge aginst the man that murdered her
husband and not bore the sight of the one who loved and mourned him so
constant. But Arvilly had too much good horse sense for that; she
contends that neither of the men who wuz fightin' wuz much to blame.
She sez that if a sane, well man should go out and dig a deep pit to
catch men for so much a head, and cover it all over with green grass
and blossoms and put a band of music behind it to tempt men to walk
out on it, to say nothin' of a slidin' path leadin' down to it, all
soft with velvet and rosy with temptations, if a lot of hot-headed
youth and weak men and generous open-minded men who wuzn't lookin' for
anything wrong, should fall into it and be drownded for so much a
head, she sez the man who dug the pit and got so much apiece for the
men he led in and ruined would be more to blame than the victims, and
she sez the man who owned the ground and encouraged it to go on would
be more to blame than the man who dug the pit. And further back the
men who made the laws to allow such doin's, and men who voted to allow
it, and ministers and the Church of Christ, who stood by like Pilate,
consenting to it and encouraged by their indifference and neglect what
they might have stopped if they wanted to--they wuz most to blame of
all.

Well, this is what Arvilly has went through.

Day by day we sailed onwards, and if the days wuz beautiful, the
nights wuz heavenly, lit by the glowin' moon that seemed almost like
another sun, only softer and mellerer lookin'; and the lustrous stars
of the tropics seemed to flash and glitter jest over our head almost
as if we could reach up and gather 'em in our hands into a sheaf of
light.

The weather seemed to moderate and we had to put on our thinnest
garments in the middle of the day. But my poor Josiah could not make
much change; he had to wear his pepper-and-salt costoom in publick,
which wuz pretty thick, but I fixed sunthin' for him to wear in our
state-room, where we passed considerable time. I took one of my outing
jackets that was cut kinder bask fashion, trimmed with lace and bows
of ribbon and pinned it over in the back, and it fitted him quite well
and wuz cool. He liked it; he thought it become him, it wuz so
dressy, but I wouldn't let him appear in publick in it.

I dressed Tommy in his summer suit, and wore my figgered lawn and wuz
none too cool. We only had one heavy storm, but that wuz fearful;
everything dashed round and wuz broke that could be. I put Tommy in
his little crib and fastened him in, and fastened my most precious
treasure, Josiah, to the berth. I then tied myself up, and we bore it
as well as we could, though every time the ship went down into the
trough of the sea I felt that it wuz dubersome about its ever comin'
out agin, and every time it mounted up on one of them stupendous
billers, higher than the Jonesville meetin' house, I felt doubtful
whether or no it would fall bottom side up or not. Tommy wuz cryin',
and Josiah wuz kinder whimperin', though for my sake he wuz tryin' to
bear up. But I'll hang a curtain up before that seen and not take it
down agin till we wuz all ontied and the sun wuz shinin' down on
smoother waters.

At last after seven days' stiddy sailin' a little spec wuz seen in the
distance one mornin' gradually growin' in size, and other little
specks wuz sighted, also growin' gradual, and at last they turned to
solid land rising up out of the blue water, clad in strange and
beautiful verdure behind the white foamin' billers of surf. And
instinctively as we looked on't I broke out singin' onbeknown to me,
and Josiah jined in in deep base:

    "Sweet fields beyend the swellin' flood
    Stand dressed in livin' green."

We sung it to Balermy. Josiah hain't much of a singer, and my voice
hain't what it once wuz, but I d'no as in any conference meetin' that
him ever sounded sweeter to me, or I sung it with more of the sperit.




CHAPTER IX


How beautiful wuz the shore as we approached it, its scenery different
from Jonesville scenery, but yet worth seein'--yes, indeed! Mountain
and valley, rock and green velvet verdure, tall palm trees shadin'
kinder low houses, but still beautiful and attractive. And what
beautiful colors greeted our weary eyes as we drew nigher. I thought
of that gate of Jerusalem the Golden, all enamelled with emerald,
amethyst, chalcedony, and pearl sot in gold. The golden brown earth
made from melted lava, the feathery foliage of the palms that riz up
beyend the dazzlin' white beach, the crystal blue waters with
myriad-hued fishes playing down in its crystal depths. Oh, how fair
the seen as we approached nearer and see plainer and plainer the
pictured beauty of the shore. Shinin' green valley, emerald-topped
mountain, amethyst sea; which wuz the most beautiful it wuz hard to
say.

Evangeline Noble stood off by herself leanin' on the rail of the deck
as if she see through the beauty into the inner heart of things, and
see in her mind's eye all the work her own people, the missionaries,
had done there. The thought that they had taken the natives like
diamonds incrusted in dirt and cleansed them of the blackest of their
habits. She see in the past natives burying their children alive,
putting to death the mentally weak, worshipping horrible idols,
killing and eating their enemies, etc., etc. But now, under the
blessed light of the torch, that long procession of martyrs had held
up, the former things wuz passin' away, and she, too, wuz one of that
blessed host of God's helpers. She looked riz up and radiant as if she
see way beyend the islands of the sea and all she hoped to do for her
Master on earth, and as if he wuz talking to her now, teaching her his
will.

Nigher to us Elder Wessel wuz standing, and he sez, lifting up his
eyes to heaven:

"Oh islands of the sea! where every prospect pleases and only man is
vile."

And Arvilly hearn him and snapped out, "I d'no as they're so very vile
till traders and other civilized folks teach 'em to drink and cheat
and tear round." His eyes lost in a minute that heavenly expression
they had wore and sez he:

"Oh, islands of the sea! where every prospect pleases and eat each
other up and etcetery."

"Well, I d'no," sez she, "but I'd ruther be killed to once by a club
and eat up and be done with than to die by inches as wimmen do under
our civilized American license laws. The savages kill their enemies,
but the American savage kills the one that loves him best, and has to
see her children turned into brutes and ruffians, under what is called
a Christian dispensation. There hain't no hypocrisy and Phariseeism in
a good straight club death, and most likely whilst he wuz eatin' me up
he wouldn't pose before foreign nations as a reformer and civilizer of
the world."

"Oh, Sister Arvilly," sez he, "think of the hideous idols they
worship! You can't approve of that," sez he.

But Arvilly, the ondanted, went on, "Well I never see or hearn of any
savage idol to compare in hegiousness with the Whiskey Power that is
built up and pampered and worshipped by Americans rich and poor, high
and low, Church and State. Let any one make a move to tear that idol
down from its altar, made of dead men's bones, and see what a flutter
there is in the camp, how new laws are made and old laws shoved aside,
and new laws fixed over, and the highest and the lowest will lie and
cringe and drag themselves on their knees in front of it to protect it
and worship it. Don't talk to me about your wood idols; they hain't
nothin' to be compared to it. They stay where they're put, they don't
rare round and kill their worshippers as this Whiskey idol duz. I'd
think enough sight more of some men high in authority if they would
buy a good clean basswood idol and put it up in the Capitol at
Washington, D. C., and kneel down before it three times a day, than to
do what they are doin'; they wouldn't do half the hurt and God knows
it, and He would advise 'em that way if they ever got nigh enough to
Him so's He could speak to 'em at all."

"Oh, Sister Arvilly!" sez Elder Wessel, and he looked as if he would
faint away. And I too wuz shocked to my soul, specially as Josiah
whispered kinder low to me:

"Samantha, we might git a small idol whilst we're here. You know it
would come handy in hayin' time and when the roads are drifted full."

I looked at him in a way that he will remember through his hull life,
and sez he quick, "I shan't do nothin' of the kind unless you're
willin'."

"Willin'!" sez I, in heart-broken axents. "What will happen next to
me?" And then indignation dried my tears before they fell and I sez,
"I command you, Josiah Allen, to never speak to me on this subject
agin; or think on't!" sez I fiercely.

He muttered sunthin' about thinkin' what he wuz a mindter. And I
turned to Arvilly and sez, to git her mind off:

"See that native, Arvilly, standin' up on that board!"

For as our good ship bore us onward we see crowds of natives standin'
up on little tottlin' boards, dartin' through the water every which
way, risin' and fallin' on the waves. I couldn't done it to save my
life. No, Josiah nor me couldn't stood on boards like that on our
creek, to say nothin' of the Pacific Ocean. But we should never have
appeared in public dressed in that way--it wuzn't decent, and I told
Josiah I wouldn't look at 'em if I wuz in his place; I mistrusted that
some on 'em might be wimmen. And then I thought of the Garden of Eden,
when Adam and Eve first took the place, and I didn't really know what
to think. But I drawed Arvilly's attention to one on 'em that seemed
extra dextrious in managin' his board and sez, "How under the sun duz
he do it, Arvilly?"

"I d'no," sez she, and she added dreamily, "I wonder if he would want
a copy of the 'Twin Crimes,' or the 'Wicked and Warlike.' If I do sell
any here to the natives it'll put some new idees in their heads about
idol worship wickeder and warliker than they ever had." Miss Meechim
and Dorothy wuz approachin' and Robert Strong I see looked off with
rapt eyes onto the glorious seen. And as no two can see the same
things in any picture, but see the idees of their own mind, blended in
and shadin' the view, I spozed that Robert Strong see rared up on the
foreground of that enchantin' seen his ideal City of Justice, where
gigantic trusts, crushin' the people's life out, never sot its feet,
but love, equality and good common sense sot on their thrones in the
middle on't, and the people they ruled wuz prosperous and happy. And
anon he looked down into Dorothy's sweet face as if no foreign shore
or any inner vision ever looked so good to him.

Miss Meechim hated to have Dorothy see them natives, I see she did;
actin' so skittish towards the male sect always, it wuz dretful
galdin' to her to see 'em in that state and specially to have Dorothy
see 'em. She looked awful apprehensive towards them swimmers and board
riders and then at her niece. But when she catched sight of Robert by
her side a look of warm relief swep' over her anxious face, as if in
her mind's eye she see Dorothy by his help walkin' through the future
a prosperous and contented bacheldor maid.

Tommy wuz kinder talkin' to himself or to his invisible playmate. He
wonnered how he wuz goin' to git on shore, wonnerin' if he could stand
up on one of them little boards and if his grandpa and grandma would
each have one to stand up on, and kinder lookin' forward to such an
experience I could see, and Josiah wuz wonderin' how soon he could
git a good meat dinner. And so as on shore or sea each one wuz seein'
what their soul's eye had to see, and shakin' ever and anon their own
particular skeletons, and shettin' 'em up agin' in their breast
closets.

Well, as we approached nigher and nigher the wharf we see men dressed
in every way you could think on from petticoats to pantaloons, and men
of every color from black down through brown and yeller to white, and
wimmen the same. Well, it wuzn't long before we wuz ensconced in the
comfortable tarven where we put up. Elder Wessel and his daughter and
Evangeline Noble went to the same tarven, which made me glad, for I
like 'em both as stars differin'. Elder Wessel I regarded more as one
of the little stars in the Milky Way, but Evangeline as one of the big
radiant orbs that flashed over our heads in them tropic nights.

The tarven we went to wuz called the Hawaiian Hotel. We got good
comfortable rooms, Arvilly's bein' nigh to ourn and Dorothy's and Miss
Meechim's acrost the hall and the rest of the company comfortably
located not fur away. Well, the next mornin' Josiah and I with Tommy
walked through some of the broad beautiful streets, lined with houses
built with broad verandas most covered with vines and flowers and
shaded by the most beautiful trees you ever see, tall palms with their
stems round and smooth as my rollin' pin piercin' the blue sky, and
fur, fur up the long graceful leaves, thirty feet long some on 'em.
And eucalyptus and begoniea and algebora with its lovely foliage, and
pepper trees and bananas and pomegranates and tamarind and bread fruit
and rose apples, tastin' and smellin' a good deal like a rosy. And
magnificent oleanders and fuchias and geraniums and every other
beautiful tree and blossom you ever hearn on.

And take it with these rich colored posies and luxuriant green foliage
and the white suits and hats of the men, and the gay colored clothing
of the women we met, lots of them with wreaths of flowers round their
necks hangin' most to their feet, take it all together it wuz a seen
long, long to be remembered. And then we walked up on Punch Bowl
Hill, five hundred feet above the level of the sea, and looked off on
a broad beautiful picture of sea, mountain and valley soft and
beautiful and a-bloom with verdure, and anon bold, rugged and sublime,
and I sez to Josiah:

"This very place where we're standin' now wuz once a volcano and
belched forth flames, and that also," sez I, pintin' to Tantalus that
riz up two thousand feet. "And," sez I, "they say that the view from
that is glorious."

"Well," sez he, "I guess we hadn't better climb up there; it might
bust out agin. And I wouldn't have you sot fire to, Samantha, for a
thousand worlds like this," (he didn't want the work of climbin', that
wuz it). And I didn't argy with him, for I thought it would be quite a
pull for us to git up there and git Tommy up, and I didn't know as the
child ort to climb so fur, so I didn't oppose my pardner when he
propsed to go back to the tarven, and we santered back through the
streets filled with citizens of all countries and dressed accordin',
to the grounds around the tarven. We put Tommy into a hammock and sot
down peaceful nigh by him. The sun shone down gloriously out of a
clear blue sky, but we sot in the shade and so enjoyed it, the bammy
air about us seemed palpitating with langrous beauty and fragrance,
and I sez to my pardner:

"Don't this remind you, Josiah, of what we've heard Thomas J. read
about:

    "'The island valley of Avileon
      Where falls not rain nor hail nor any snow.'"

"Where it seems always afternoon."

"I d'no," sez Josiah, "as I ever hearn of such a land. I never wuz any
hand to lay abed all the forenoon."

"But, Josiah, there is sunthin' so dreamy and soothin', so restful in
the soft slumbrous atmosphere, it seems as if one could jest lay down
in that hammock, look off onto the entrancin' beauty around,
breathin' the soft balmy air, and jest lay there forever."

"I guess," sez he, "that the dinner bell would be apt to roust you out
the second or third day."

But Miss Meechim jined us at jest this minute, and she sez to me, "I
feel just as you do, I feel as though I would fain dwell here
forever."

And Josiah sez: "I believe it would be a good thing for you, Miss
Meechim, to stay here right along; you could probable do considerable
good here preachin' to the natives aginst marriage, they're pretty apt
to marry too much if they're let alone, and you might curb 'em in
some." (Josiah can't bear Miss Meechim, her idees on matrimony are
repugnant to him.) But she didn't argy with him. She sez: "Robert is
planning a trip to the Pali, and wants to know if you won't join us."

And Josiah says, "Who is Pali?"

And she sez, "It is the precipice five hundred feet high, where King
Kamehameha drove off his enemies."

Well, we wuz agreeable and jined the party. Robert had got a wagonette
and he and Dorothy, Miss Meechim and Arvilly and Josiah and I jest
filled the seats, Tommy sot in Josiah's lap or between us.

It is quite a long ride to the Pali, but we didn' realize it, because
the scenery all along is so lovely and so novel. That view from the
top I hain't a-goin' to try to describe, nor I sha'n't let Josiah try;
I don't like to have that man flat out in his undertakin's. Good land!
do you want us to tell how many sands there wuz on the flashing white
beach that stretched out milds and milds? And we might as well as to
describe that enchantin' panorama and take up all the different
threads of glory that lay before us and embroider 'em on language. No,
you must see 'em for yourself, and then you hain't goin' to describe
'em. I d'no but Carabi could. I hearn Tommy talkin' and "wonnerin'" to
him as he stood awestruck beside me, but no mortal can.

Well, I thought I must not slight the volcano Kilauea, which means the
House of Everlasting Fire. And how that volcano and everything in
Hawaii reminded me of the queen who once rained here--and the
interview I once had with her. We happened to be visitors to the same
summer resort. You know she lives in Washington, D. C., now.

I sent word that I wuz there and craved a augence, which wuz gladly
granted. She had hearn of me and I had hearn of her, which made
everything agreeable. So at the appinted hour I wuz ushered by one of
her hired men into her presence. I liked her looks first rate; of
course she hain't what you may call handsome, and her complection is
pretty middlin' dark, but she has a good look and a good way with her.
She came forward and greeted me with great cordiality and gin the hand
I extended a warm grasp, and I hern visey versey, and sez she:

"I am glad to see you, Josiah Allen's wife." And I sez, speakin' the
name Liliukolani well as I could, "I also am glad to hail the Queen of
the Sandwich Islands."

That tickled her, and she sez: "I was not deceived in you; you are one
who can recognize royalty if the cloud of adversity and trouble is
wreathin' it in its black folds."

And I sez, "Clouds often covers the sun and moon, but the light is
there jest the same." I felt to pity her as she went on and related
her troubles to me. Her throne kicked out from under her by them that
wanted to set down on it, the high chairs of her loyal friends took by
her enemies who craved the soft cushions. Even her private property
grabbed away from her. Why, how should any of us feel to have a
neighbor walk in when we wuz havin' a family quarrel and jest clean us
out of everything--kitchen stove, bureau, bed and beddin' and
everything; why, it would rile us to our depths, any on us.

She sez, "I feel that my kingdom wuz stole away from me." And I sez:

"I know jest how you feel. There wuz a woodsy island down in our
creek that Josiah had called hisen for years and years, rained
peaceful and prosperous over so we spozed, it made a dretful handy
place for our young stock to stand in the shade in the summer, and our
ducks and geese jest made their hum there, but what should Bill Yerden
do when he bought the old Shelmadine place but jest scoop up that
island and try to prove that it wuz hisen. It wuz jest stealin',
Josiah and I always felt so. But he wuz down with tizik at the time,
and I wore out nussin' him, and Bill put bob iron fence round it, real
sharp bobs, too, and we had to gin in. Of course it wuzn't a big spot,
but we despised the idee of havin' it took from us just as much as
though it wuz the hull contient of Asia, and we can't git over it,
Josiah nor me can't. And I know jest how you feel, and I sympathize
with you."

And she sez, "Sympathy is sweet, but justice is sweeter."

And I sez, "That is so, but when you can't git justice, sympathy is
better than nothin'."

"Yes," sez she, "I know it, but I am lookin' forward to the day when I
shall git my rights agin. I am jest as much a queen as Queen Alexandra
is to-day, and my kingdom is just as much mine."

Sez I, "That is just the way Josiah and I feel; we can't help lookin'
forward to gittin' our rights, but don't spoze we ever shall, for life
is short, and Josiah don't want any more of our live stock tore up on
them bobs; and, as I've said to Josiah many a time, Bill Yerden feels
guilty, or he wouldn't rare up such sharp defences round it."

Well, we had a good deal more of jest such profitable and interestin'
talk as two such great wimmen would naterally, and we parted away from
each other with a cordial hand shake and mutual good feelin'. But she
called me back and sez she: "I want to give you one word of solemn
warnin' before we part," and I stopped stun still and listened.

"I don't know," sez she, "as you'll ever be a queen."

"Well, mebby not," sez I, "but I am thought a sight on in Jonesville,
and there is no knowin' what may happen."

"Well," sez she, "if you ever are a queen, a ruler of a kingdom, don't
let any other nation protect you. Protectin'," sez she, "has been the
ruin of more than one individual and nation."

And I promised her that I would look out for it if I ever wuz a queen,
but reminded her that there wuz times too when it came handy, and
saved our necks to be protected, and then I finished, gracefully
backin' out of her presence. I like her first rate, and believe she is
a likely woman; I believe she has been lied about, she jest the same
as told me she had; if she wuz a woman that took in washin's for a
livin' there wouldn't have been so much said about her. Why, it is
jest as easy for envious folks to run them high in position and try to
demean 'em as it is to fall off a log.




CHAPTER X


Some of the party felt that they couldn't leave the islands without
seein' the great Kilauea and some didn't care to go. I felt that I
must see it and so did Arvilly, and Josiah looked on me as fondly and
proudly as if I myself wuz a volcano and said, "If Samantha goes I
shall." Robert Strong wanted to go and so did Dorothy; Miss Meechim
didn't feel like going and offered to take care of Tommy with the help
of Aronette. Elder Wessel wouldn't go, for Lucia wuzn't very well and
he felt that she had better stay and rest at the tarven, and I spozed
that Aronette and Lucia would have a pretty good time, for they always
seemed to when they wuz together. Evangeline Noble was visiting some
friends of hers on the island. There wuz a smart young English
clergyman goin' with us and a Scotchman, both good lookin' and good
actin'. The Scotchman wuz Sir Duncan Ramsey and didn't act any more
sot up than if he wuz a plain mister. He paid considerable attention
to Dorothy, too, but Miss Meechim said that she didn't worry about
Dorothy at all since I would chaperone her, and Robert wuz going to
protect her from any possible lover. Sez Miss Meechim:

"Robert knows that I would almost rather have that volcano burst forth
its burning lava and wash her away on its bosom than to have her
engulfed in that terrible state of matrimony from which I and mine
have suffered so horribly."

"Well," sez I, "I can't speak for you and yourn, but for me and ourn,"
sez I, "no state under the heavens would be agreeable for me to live
in if my beloved pardner wuzn't in it too."

"Oh, well," sez she, "exceptions prove the rule; your husband is
congenial and good to you."

"Oh, well," sez I, "as to the daily acts and queer moves of pardners
the least said the soonest mended, but Love is the great ruler; where
he rules any state is blest, be it torrid or frigid."

That evenin' Arvilly and Elder Wessel had a argument about votin' and
other things. I knew I ort to be in my room packin' my satchel bag,
for we expected to be gone a week or ten days, but I did kinder want
to hear how their talk come out. He said he didn't vote; he said he
thought it wuz a clergyman's duty to set and judge of the right and
wrong of actions, not take part in 'em.

And Arvilly says, "I always spozed the Almighty did that; I didn't
know as human men wuz obleeged to. I know he cursed them that dealt in
strong drink, and blest them that gin even a cup of cold water to the
little ones, which I spoze meant help to the poorest and lowest. And I
guess that whatever your idees are about it, when you come to the
judgment day you won't set up there on the throne judgin', but you'll
be down with the rest on us givin' an account of how you've used your
talents, your influence, and if you've wropped your mantilly of
protection around thieves and murderers that you know the whiskey
trade is made of; you'll find that it will drop off there, and you
will be judged accordin' to your works. But mebby you'll be made to
see before you git there that you're in the wrong on't upholdin' this
evil."

Arvilly's axent wuz as sharp as any simeter, and it seemed to go right
through Elder Wessel's robe of complacency and self-esteem and rend
it. He looked dretful bad, and I spoke up, meanin' to pour a little
ile on his woonds, and sayin' what I thought, too. Sez I:

"Folks hain't so guilty often as they are thoughtless; ministers and
church people who don't use their influence aginst this evil don't
realize what they're doin'--they don't think."

"They're guilty if they don't think," sez Arvilly, "if they are blest
with common sense. If I wuz walkin' by a deep pond in broad daylight,
and see a dozen little children sinking that I might save by a little
effort, I wonder how many would believe me when I said that I see 'em
drowndin' but didn't try to save 'em because I didn't think. If I had
ears and eyes and common sense, and could save 'em and didn't, I wuz
guilty of murder, and so the Lord would look at it and everybody else
that knew anything." And she looked at me some as if I didn't know
anything, jest because I intimated that ministers and church members
didn't want to do such wickedness, but didn't think--Arvilly is hash.
But I had to admit that she had some common sense on her side. Sez she
agin:

"The Church of Christ could d

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/30190