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
And then I thought, so quick and active is my mind when it gets to startinā off on a tower, I thought of what I had hearn a few days before, of how the secret had been learnt by somebody who lived right there in the village, of floatinā letters up at sea from one ship to another, sigualinā out in letters of flame -
āHelp! Iām a sinkinā!ā or āDanger ahead! Look out!ā
And I thought what it must be to stand on a dusky night on a lone deck and see up on the broad, dark; lonesome sky above, a sudden message, a flash of vivid lightninā, takinā to itself the form of language. And I wondered to myself if in the future we should use the great pages of the night-sky to write messages from one city to another, or from sea to land, of danger and warninā; and then I thought to myself, if souls clog-bound to earth are able to accomplish so much, who knows but the freed soul goinā outward and onward from height to height of wisdom may yet be able to signal down from the Safe Land messages of help and warninā to the souls it loved below.
The souls a sailinā and a driftinā through the dark night of despair - a dashinā along through fog and mist and darkness aginst rocks. What it would be to one kneelinā in the lonesome night watches by a grave, if the dark sky could grow luminous and he could read, - āDo not despair! I am alive! I love you!ā
Or, in the hour of the blackest temptation and dread, when the earth is hollow and the sky a black vault, and the only way of happiness on Godās earth seems down the dangerous, beautiful way, God-forbidden, what would it be to have the empty vault lit up with āDanger ahead! We will help you! be patient a little longer!ā
Oh how fur my thoughts wuz a travellinā, and at what a good jog, but not one trace did my companion see on my forward of these thoughts that wuz a passinā through my foretop: and at that very minute, we came up nigh enough to see that right back of the glitterinā language overhead, went a long line of big, glowinā stars of glory way up over our heads, and leadinā down a gentle declivity and Josiah sez, āLetās foller on, and see what it will lead us to, Samantha.ā
āWall,ā sez I, ālight is pretty generally, safe to foller, Josiah Allen.ā And so we meandered along, keepinā our 2 heads as nigh as we could under that long glitterinā chain of golden drops that wuz high overhead. And on, and on, we follered it dilligently; till for the landās sake! if it didnāt lead us to another one of them openwork buildinās, fixed off beautiful, and we could see inside 2 big wells like, with acres of floor seemināly on each side of āem, and crowds of folks a walkinā about and settinā at little tables and most all of āem a drinkinā.
The water they drinked we could see wuz a bubblinā up and a runninā over all the time, in big round crystal globes. And up, up on a slender pole way up over one of the wells hung another one of them crystal bowls, a bubblinā over with the water and sparklinā.
And agāin Josiah asked me if I thought Beuler land could compare with it?
And I told him agāin kinder sharp, That I wuznāt a thinkinā about Beuler, I didnāt know any sech a place or name. I wish he would call things right.
Wall, he wuz so dead tired by this time, that we sot sail homewards; that is, my feet wuz tired, and my bones, but my mind seemed more rousted up than common.
SARATOGA BY DAYLIGHT.
Wall, the next morninā Josiah and me sallied out middlinā early to explore still further the beauties and grandness of Saratoga. I had on a black straw bonnet, a green vail, and a umbrell. I also have my black alpacky, that good moral dress.
My dress beinā such a high mission one choked me. It wuz so high in the neck it held my chin up in a most uncomfortable position, but sort a grand and lofty lookinā. My sleeves wuz so long that moreān half the time my hand wuz covered up by āem and I wuz too honerable to wear āem for mits; no, in the name of principle I wore āem for sleeves, good long sleeves, a pattern to other grandmas that I might meet.
I felt that when they see me and see what I wuz a doinā and endurinā fur the cause of female dressinā they would pause in their wild career, and cover up their necks and pull their sleeves down.
Wall, it haint to be expected that I could walk along carryinā such hefty emotions as I wuz a carryinā, and havinā my neck held high and stiddy both by principle and alpacky, and see to every step I wuz a takinā. And, first I knew, right while I was enjoyinā the loftiest of these emotions, I ketched my foot in sunthinā, and most fell down. Instinctively (such is the power of love) I put out my hand and clutched at the arm of my pardner. But he too wuz nearly fallinā at the same time. It wuz a narrow chance that we wuz a runninā from having our prostrate forms a layinā there outstretched on the highway.
Instinctively I sez, āGood land!ā and Josiah sezāwall, it is fur from me to tell what he said, but it ended up with these words, āDumb them dumb sidewalks anyway;ā and sez he, āI should think it would pay to have a little less gilt paint and spangles and orniments overhead and a few more solid bricks unless they want more funerals here, dumb āem!ā
Sez I,āBe calm! who be you a talkinā about? who do you want to bring down your fearful curses on, Josiah Allen?ā
āWhy, onto the dumb bricks,ā sez he.
He wuz agitated and I said no more. But four times in that first walk, did I descend almost precipitously into declivities amongst the bricks, risinā simultaneously on similar elevations.
It wuz a fearful ordeel and I felt it so, but upheld by principle and Josiah, I moved onwards, through what seemed to be 5 great throngs and masses of people, 3 on the ground and 2 hinted up above us on tall pillows.
Them immense places overhead long as the streets, wuz kinder scalloped out and trimmed off handsum with railinās, etc. And on itāoh! what a vast congregation of heads of all sorts and sizes and colors. And oh! what a immense display of parasols; why no parasol store in the land could begin with what I see there.
I can truly say that I thought I knew somethinā about parasols;, havinā owned 3 different ones in the course of my life, and havinā one covered over. I thought I knew somethinā of their nater and habits, which is a good deal, so I had always sāposed, like a umbrellās. But good land! I gin up that I knew them not, nor never had.
Why anybody could learn more on āem through one jerney down that street, than from a hull lifetime in Jonesville. Truly travel is very upliftinā and openinā and spreadinā out to the mind, both in parasols and human nater.
Wall, them 2 masses over our heads wuz 2, then the one in which we wuz a strugglinā and the one opposite to it made 4. For anybody with any pretence to learninā knows that twice 2 is 4. And then in the middle of the broad street was a bigger mass of chariots and horsemen, and carts and carriages, and great buggies and little ones, and big loads of barrels, and big loads of ladies, and then a load of wood, and then a load of hay, and then a pair of young folks pretty as a picture. And then came some high big coaches as big as our spare bedroom, and as high as the roof on our horse barn, with six horses hitched to eām, all runninā over on top with men; and wimmen, and children, and parasols, and giggles, and ha haās. And a man wuz up behind a soundinā out on a trumpet, a dretful sort of a high, sweet note, not dwindlinā down to the end as some music duz, but kinder crinklinā round and endinā up in the air every time.
Josiah wuz dretful took with it and he told me in confidence that he laid out when he got home to buy a trumpet and blow out jest them strains every time he went into Jonesville or out of it. He said it would sound so sort a warlike and impressive.
I expostulated aginst the idee. But sez he, āYouāll enjoy it when you get used to it.ā
āNever!ā sez I.
āYes you will,ā sez he, āand while I live I lay out that you shall have advantages, and shall enjoy things new and uneek.ā
āYes,ā sez I feelināly, āI expect to, Josiah Allen, as long as I live with you.ā And I sithed. But I had little time to enjoy even sithinā, for oh! the crowd that wuz a pressinā onto us and surroundinā us on every side, some on āem curius and strange lookinā, some on āem beautiful and grand. Pretty young girls lookinā sweet enough to kiss, and right behind āem a Chinese man with a long dress, and wooden shoes, and his hair in a long braid behind, and his eyes sot in sideways. And then would come on a hull lot of wimmen in dresses evāry color of the rainbow, and some men. Then a few childern, lookinā sweet as roses, with their mothers a pushinā the little carts ahead on āem. And if youāll believe it, I donāt sāpose you will, but it is true, that lots of black maās had childern jest as white as snow, and pretty as rosebuds, took after their fathers I sāpose. But I donāt believe in a mixinā of the races. And when I see āem a kissinā the pretty babys, I begun to muse a very little on the feelinās of the indignent South, at havinā a colered girl set in the same car with āem, or on a bench in the same school room.
I mewsed on how they held the white forms clost to their black breasts at birth, and in the hour of deathāthe black lips pressed to the white cheeks and lips, in both cases. And all the way between life and death they mingle clost as they can, some in some cases like the hill of knowledge. Then the contact is too clost, when they sot out to climb up by āem. Truly there are deep conundrums and strange ones, all along through life; though the white man may be, and is, cleer up out of his way, on the sunshiny brow of the hill, and the black man at the foot, way down amongst the shadows and darkness of the low grounds. They donāt come very nigh each other. But the arms that have felt the clasp and the lips that have felt the kisses of that very same black climber all through life, moves āem and shouts āem to āgo down,ā to āgo back,ā
āThe contact is getting too clost, danger is ahead.ā Curious, haint it? Jest as if any danger is so dangerous as ignorance and brutality. Curious, haint it? But I am a eppisodinā, and to resoom.
Wall, right after the babies weād meet a Catholic priest with a calm and fur away look on his face, a lookinā at the crowd as if he wuz in it, but not of it. And then a burgler, mebby, anyway a mean lookinā creeter, ragged and humble. And then 2 or 3 men foreign lookinā, jabberinā in a tongue I know nothinā of, nor Josiah either. And then some more childern, and wimmen, and dogs, and parasols, and men, and babies, and Injuns, and Frenchmen, and old young wimmen, and young old ones, and handsome ones, and hombly ones, and parasols, and some sweet young girls agāin, and some black men, and some white men, and some more wimmen, and parasols, and silk, and velvet, and lace, and puckers, and raffles, and
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