Samantha at the World's Fair by Marietta Holley (classic literature list txt) 📗

have 'em there than to have 'em help swell a congregation of country loafers i[Pg 126]n a city saloon—learnin' in one day more lessons in the height and depth of depravity than years of country livin' would teach 'em.

"These places, and worse ones, legalized places of devils' pastime, will lure and beckon the raw youth of the country. They will flaunt their gaudy attractions on every side, and appeal to every sense but the sense of decency.

"And I would feel fur safer about the hull ten of 'em, if I knew they wuz safe in the art galleries, full of beauty and sublimity, drawin' their minds and hearts insensibly and in spite of themselves upward and onward, or lookin' at the glory and wonders of practical and mechanical beauty—the beauty of use and invention.

"After walkin' through a buildin' forty-five acres big, and some more of 'em about as roomy, I should be pretty sure that they wouldn't git out of it in time to go any great lengths in sin that day; and they would be apt to be too fagged out and dead tired to foller on after Satan any great distance."

"Well," says Miss Snyder, "I d'no but I should feel safer about my Jim and John to have 'em there in the Fair buildin's than runnin' loose in the streets of Chicago. They won't go to meetin' every Sunday, and I can't make 'em; and if they do go, they will go in the mornin' late, and git out as soon as the Amen is said.[Pg 127]

"My boys are as good as the average—full as good; but I know when they hain't got anything to do, and git with other boys, they will cut up and act."

"Well," says Miss Cornelius Cork, "I know that my Cornelius will never disgrace himself or me by any low acts."

She wuz tellin' a big story, for Cornelius Jr. had been carried home more'n once too drunk to walk, besides other mean acts that wuz worse; so we didn't say anything, but we all looked queer; and Arville kinder sniffed, and turned up her nose, and nudged Miss Snyder. But Miss Cork kep right on—she is real high-headed and conceited, Miss Cork is.

And, sez she, "Much as I want to see the Fair, and much as I want Cornelius and Cornelius Jr. to go to it, and the rest of the country, I would ruther not have it take place at all than to have it open Sundays."

"And I feel jest so," sez Miss Henzy.

Then young Lihu Widrig spoke up. He is old Elihu Widrig's only son, and he has been off to college, and is home on a vacation.

He is dretful deep learnt, has studied Greek and lots of other languages that are dead, and some that are most dead.

He spoke up, and sez he:[Pg 128]

"What is this Sabbath, anyway?"

We didn't any of us like that, and we showed we didn't by our means. We didn't want any of his new-fangled idees, and we looked high-headed at him and riz up.

But he kep right on, bein' determined to have his say.

"You can foller the Sabbath we keep right back, straight as a string, to planet worship. Before old Babylon ever riz up at all, to say nothin' of fallin', the dwellers in the Euphrates Valley kep a Sabbath. They spozed there wuz seven planets, and one day wuz give to each of them. And Saturday, the old Jewish Sabbath, wuz given to Saturn, cruel as ever he could be if the ur in his name wuz changed to e. In those days it wuz not forbidden to work in that day, but supposed to be unlucky.

"Some as Ma regards Friday."

It wuz known that Miss Widrig wouldn't begin a mite of work Fridays, not even hemin' a towel or settin' up a sock or mitten.

And, sez he, "When we come down through history to the Hebrews, we find it a part of the Mosaic law, the Ten Commandments.

"In[Pg 129] the second book of the Bible we find the reason given for keeping the Sabbath is, the Lord rested on that day. In the fifth book we find the reason given is the keeping of a memorial for the deliverance out of Egypt.

"Now this commandment only forbids working on that day; no matter what else you do, you are obeying the fourth commandment. According to that command, you could go to the World's Fair, or wherever you had a mind to, if you did not work.

"The Puritan Sabbath wuz a very different one from that observed by Moses and the Prophets, which wuz mainly a day of rest."

"Wall, I know," sez Miss Yerden, "that the only right way to keep the Sabbath is jest as we do, go to meetin' and Sunday-school, and do jest as we do."

Sez Lihu, "Maybe the people to whom the law wuz delivered didn't understand its meaning so well as we do to-day, after the lapse of so many centuries, so well as you do, Miss Yerden."

We all looked coldly at Lihu; we didn't approve of his talk. But Miss Yerden looked tickled, she is so blind in her own conceit, and Lihu spoke so polite to her, she thought he considered her word as goin' beyend the Bible.

Then Lophemia Pegrum spoke up, and sez she—

"Don't you believe in keeping the Sabbath, Lih[Pg 130]u?"

"Yes, indeed, I do," sez he, firm and decided. "I do believe in it with all my heart. It is a blessed break in the hard creakin' roll of the wheel of Labor, a needed rest—needed in every way for tired and worn-out brain and muscle, soul and body; but I believe in telling the truth," sez he.

He always wuz a very truthful boy—born so, we spoze. Almost too truthful at times, his ma used to think. She used to have to whip him time and agin for bringin' out secret things before company, such as borrowed dishes, and runnin's of other females, and such.

So we wuz obliged to listen to his remarks with a certain amount of respect, for we knew that he meant every word that he said, and we knew that he had studied deep into ancient history, no matter how much mistook we felt that he wuz.

But Miss Yerden spoke up, and sez she—

"I don't care whether it is true or not. I have always said, and always will say, that if any belief goes aginst the Bible, I had ruther believe in the Bible than in the truth any time."

And more than half of us wimmen agreed with her[Pg 131].

You see, so many reverent, and holy, and divine thoughts and memories clustered round that book, that we didn't love to have 'em disturbed. It wuz like havin' somebody take a spade and dig up the voyalets and lilies on the grave of the nearest and dearest, to try to prove sunthin' or ruther.

We feel in such circumstances that we had ruther be mistook than to have them sweet posies disturbed and desecrated.

Holy words of counsel, and reproof, and consolation delivered from the Most High to His saints and prophets—words that are whispered over our cradles, and whose truth enters our lives with our mother's milk; that sustains us and helps us to bear the hard toils and burdens of the day of life, and that go with us through the Valley and the Shadow—the only revelation we have of God's will to man, the written testimony of His love and compassion, and the only map in which we trace our titles clear to a heavenly inheritance.

If errors and mistakes have crept in through the weaknesses of me[Pg 132]n, or if the pages have become blotted by the dust of time, we hated to have 'em brung out and looked too clost into—we hated to, like a dog.

So we, most all of us, had a fellow feelin' for Miss Yerden, and looked approvin' at her.

And Lihu, seein' we looked cold at him, and bein' sensitive, and havin' a hard cold, he said "he guessed he would go over to the drug-store and git some hoarhoun candy for his cough."

So he went out. And then Miss Cork spoke up, and sez she—

"How it would look in the eyes of the other nations to have us a breakin' Sundays after keepin' 'em pure and holy for all these years."

"Pure and holy!" sez Arvilly. "Why, jest look right here in the country, and see the way the Sabbath is desecrated. Saturday nights and Sundays is the very time for the devil's high jinks. More whiskey and beer and hard cider is consumed Saturday nights and Sundays than durin' all the rest of the week.

"Why, right in my neighborhood a man who makes cider brandy carrys off hull barrels of it most every Saturday, so's to have it ready for Sunday consumption.

"The saloons are crowded that day, and blac[Pg 133]k eyes, and bruised bodies, and sodden intellects, and achin' hearts are more frequent Sundays than any other day of the week, and you know it.

"And after standin' all this desecration calmly for year after year, and votin' to uphold it, it don't look consistent to flare up and be so dretful afraid of desecratin' the Sabbath by havin' a place of education, greater than the world has ever seen or ever will see agin, open on the Sabbath for the youth of the land."

"But the nation," sez Miss Henzy, in a skareful voice. "This nation must keep up its glorious reputation before the other countries of the world. How will it look to 'em to have our Goverment permit such Sunday desecration? This is a national affair, and we should not be willin' to have our glorious nation do anything to lower itself in the eyes of the assembled and envious world."

Sez Arville, "If our nation can countenance such doin's as I have spoke of, the man-killin' and brute-makin', all day Sundays, and not only permit it, but go into pardnership with it, and take part of the pay—if it can do this Sundays, year after year, without bein' ashamed before the other nations, I guess it will stand it to have the Fair open."

[Pg 134]

"But," says Miss Bobbet, "even if it is better for the youth of the country, and I d'no but it will be, it will have a bad look to the other nations, as Sister Henzy sez—it will look bad."

Says Arville, "That is what Miss Balcomb said about her Ned when she wouldn't let him play games to home; she said she didn't care so much about it herself, but thought the neighbors would blame her; and Ned got to goin' away from home for amusement, and is now a low gambler and loafer. I wonder whether she would ruther have kep her boy safe, or made the neighbors easy in their minds.