Samantha at Saratoga by Marietta Holley (e book reader pc .TXT) š
- Author: Marietta Holley
Book online Ā«Samantha at Saratoga by Marietta Holley (e book reader pc .TXT) šĀ». Author Marietta Holley
Marietta Holley (1836-1926) has been called Americaās first female humorist. She was an extremely popular author and a well-known suffragette. Holley, who never married, published her first books as Josiah Allenās Wife, only adding her own name after her success was established. She lived in an 18 room home she built in Jefferson County, New York and drove a Pierce-Arrow. Her legacy of more than 20 books has mostly been forgotten today but they are still very good reading.
I have no information about the illustrator.
TO THE GREAT ARMY OF SUMMER TRAMPSTHIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
BY THEIR COMRADE AND FELLOW WANDERER
THE AUTHOR
* * * * * * * * * * *
Contents PREFACE CHAPTER I. SAMANTHA AT SARATOGA CHAPTER II. ARDELIA TUTT AND HER MOTHER CHAPTER III. THE CHERITY OF THE JONESVILLIANS CHAPTER IV. ARDELIA AND ABRAM GEE CHAPTER V. WE ARRIVE AT SARATOGA CHAPTER VI. SARATOGA BY DAYLIGHT CHAPTER VII. SEEING THE DIFFERENT SPRINGS CHAPTER VIII. JOSIAH AND SAMANTHA TAKE A LONG WALK CHAPTER IX. JOSIAHāS FLIRTATIONS CHAPTER X. MISS G. WASHINGTON FLAMM CHAPTER XI. VISIT TO THE INDIAN ENCAMPMENT CHAPTER XII. A DRIVE TO SARATOGA LAKE CHAPTER XIII. VISITS TO NOTABLE PLACES CHAPTER XIV. LAKE GEORGE AND MOUNT McGREGOR HAPTER XV. ADVENTURES AT VARIOUS SPRINGS CHAPTER XVI. AT A LAWN PARTY CHAPTER XVII. A TRIP TO SCHUYLERVILLE CHAPTER XVIII. THE SOCIAL SCIENCE MEETING CHAPTER XIX. ST. CHRISTINAāS HOME CHAPTER XX. AN ACCIDENT WITH RESULTSWHICH IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO READ.
When Josiah read my dedication he said āit wuz a shame to dedicate a book that it had took most a hull bottle of ink to write, to a lot of creeters that he wouldnāt have in the back door yard.ā
But I explained it to him, that I didnāt mean tramps with broken hats, variegated pantaloons, ventilated shirt-sleeves, and barefooted. But I meant tramps with diamond ear-rings, and cuff-buttons, and Saratoga trunks, and big accounts at their bankers.
And he said, āOh, shaw!ā
But I went on nobly, onmindful of that shaw, as female pardners have to be, if they accomplish all the talkinā they want to.
And sez I, āIt duz seem sort oā pitiful, donāt it, to think how sort oā homeless the Americans are a gettinā? How the posys that blow under the winders of Home are left to waste their sweet breaths amongst the weeds, while them that used to love āem are a climbinā mountain tops after strange nosegays.ā
The smoke that curled up from the chimbleys, a wreathinā its way up to the heavensāall dead and gone. The bright light that shone out of the winder through the dark a tellinā everybody that there wuz a Home, and some one a waitinā for somebodyāall dark and lonesome.
Yes, the waiter and the waited for are all a rushinā round somewhere, on the cars, mebby, or a yot, a chasinā Pleasure, that like as not settled right down on the eves of the old house they left, and stayed there.
I wonder if they will find her there when they go back again. Mebby they will, and then agin, mebby they wonāt. For Happiness haint one to set round and lame herself a waitinā for folks to make up their minds.
Sometimes she looks folks full in the face, sort oā solemn like and heart-searchinā, and gives āem a fair chance what they will chuse. And then if they chuse wrong, sheeāll turn her back to āem, for always. Iāve hearn of jest such cases.
But it duz seem sort oā solemn to thinkāhow the sweet restful felinās that clings like ivy round the old familier door stepsāwhere old 4 fathers feet stopped, and stayed there, and baby feet touched and then went awayāI declare forāt, it almost brings tears, to think how that sweet clinginā vine of affection, and domestic repose, and contentāhow soon that vine gets tore up nowadays.
It is a sort of a runninā vine anyway, and folks use it as sech, they run with it. Jest as it puts its tendrils out to cling round some fence post, or lilock bush, they pull it up, and start off with it. And then its roots get dry, and it is some time before it will begin to put out little shoots and clinginā leaves agin round some petickular mountain top, or bureau or human beinā. And then it is yanked up agin, poor little runninā vine, and run withāand so onāand so onāand so on.
Why sometimes it makes me fairly heart-sick to think onāt. And I fairly envy our old 4 fathers, who used to set down for several hundred years in one spot. They used to get real rested, it must be they did.
Jacob now, settinā right by that well of hisān for pretty nigh two hundred years. How much store he must have set by it during the last hundred years of āem! How attached he must have been to it!
Good land! Where is there a well that one of our rich old American patriarks will set down by for two years, leavinā off the orts. There haint none, there haint no such a well. Our patriarks haint fond of well water, anyway.
And old Miss Abraham now, and Miss Isaacāwhat stay to home wimmen they wuz, and equinomical!
What a good contented creeter Sarah Abraham wuz. How settled down, and stiddy, stayinā right to home for hundreds of years. Not gettinā rampent for a wider spear, not a coaxinā old Mr. Abraham nights to take her to summer resorts, and winter hants of fashion.
No, old Mr. Abraham went to bed, and went to sleep for all of her.
And when they did once in a hundred years, or so, make up their minds to move on a mile or so, how easy they traveled. Mr. Abraham didnāt have to lug off ten or twelve wagon loads of furniture to the Safe Deposit Company, and spend weeks and weeks a settlinā his bisness, in Western lands, and Northern mines, Southern railroads, and Eastern wildcat stocks, to get ready to go. And Miss Abraham didnāt have to have a dozen dress-makers in the house for a month or two, and messenger boys, and dry goods clerks, and have to stand and be fitted for basks and polenays, and back drapery, and front drapery, and tea gowns, and dinner gowns, and drivinā gowns, and morninā gowns, and eveninā gowns, and etectery, etcetery, etcetery.
No, all the preperations she had to make wuz to wrop her mantilly a little closter round her, and all Mr. Abraham had to do wuz to gird up his lions. That is what it sez. And I donāt believe it would take much time to gird up a few lions, it donāt seem to me as if it would.
And when these few simple preperations had been made, they jest histed up their tent and laid it acrost a camel, and moved on a mild or two, walkinā afoot.
Why jest imagine if Miss Abraham had to travel with eight or ten big Saratoga trunks, how could they have been got up onto that camel? It couldnāt lave been done. The camel would have died, and old Mr. Abraham would also have expired a tryinā to lift āem up. No, it was all for the best.
And jest think onāt, for all of these simple, stay to home ways, they called themselves Pilgrims and Sojourners. Good land! What would they have thought nowadays to see folks make nothinā of settinā off for China, or Japan or Jerusalem before breakfast.
And what did they know of the hardships of civilization? Now to sposen the case, sposen Miss Abraham had to live in New York winters, and go to two or three big receptions every day, and to dinner parties, and theatre parties, and operas and such like, eveninās, and receive and return about three thousand calls, and be on more ān a dozen charitable boards (hard boards they be too, some on āem) and lots of other projects and enterprizesābe on the go the hull winter, with a dress so tight she couldnāt breathe instead of her good loose robes, and instead of her good comfortable sandals have her feet upon high-heeled shoes pinchinā her corns almost unto distraction. And then to Washington to go all through it agin, and more too, and Florida, and Cuba; and then to the sea-shore and have it all over agin with sea bathinā added.
And then to the mountains, and all over agin with climbinā round added. Then to Europe, with seas sickness, picture galleries, etc., added. And so on home agin in the fall to begin it all over agin.
Why Miss Abraham would be so tuckered out before she went half through with one season, that she would be a dead 4 mother.
And Mr. Abrahamāwhy one half hour down at the stock exchange would have been too much for that good old creeter. The yells and cries, and distracted movements of the crowd of Luker Gatherers there, would have skairt him to death. He never would have lived to follow Miss Abraham round from pillow to post through summer and winter seasonsāhe wouldnāt have lived to waltz, or toboggen, or suffer other civilized agonies. No, he would have been a dead patriark. And better off so, I almost think.
Not but what I realize that civilization has its advantages. Not but what I know that if Mr. Abraham wanted Miss Abraham to part his hair straight, or clean off his phylackrity when she happened to be out a pickinā up manny, he couldnāt stand on one side of his tent and telephone to bring her back, but had to yell at her.
And I realize fully that if one of his herd got strayed off into another county, they hadnāt no telegraf to head it off, but the old man had to poke off through rain or sun, and hunt it up himself. And he couldnāt set down cross-legged in front of his tent in the morninā, and read what happened on the other side of the world, the eveninā before.
And I know that if he wanted to set down some news, they had to kill a sheep, and spend several years a dressinā off the hide into parchmentāand kill a goose, or chase it up till they wuz beat out, for a goose-quill.
And then after about 20 years or so, they could put it down that Miss Isaac had got a boyāthe boy, probably beinā a married man himself and a father when the news of his birth wuz set down.
I realize this, and also the great fundimental fact that underlies all philosophies, that you canāt set down and stand up at the same timeāand that no man, however pure and lofty his motives may be, canāt lean up against a barn door, and walk off simultanious. And if he donāt walk
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