Samantha at the World's Fair by Marietta Holley (classic literature list txt) 📗
- Author: Marietta Holley
Book online «Samantha at the World's Fair by Marietta Holley (classic literature list txt) 📗». Author Marietta Holley
I well remember what it wuz she wuz sayin'—
"O Lord, let us be tried as by fire and not be movéd"—I remember she said movéd instead of[Pg 7] moved, which wuz impressive to me, never havin' hearn it pronounced that way before.
And jest as she said this over went the sugar onto the stove, and Aunt Tryphenia and Uncle Ezra jest jumped right up and went and lifted the kettle offen the stove.
I remember well how kinder bewildered and curious mother looked when she opened her eyes and see that the prayer wuz broke right short off. Aunt Tryphenia looked meachin', and Uncle Ezra put his hat right on and went out to the barn.
It wuz dretful embarrissin' to him and Aunt Tryphenia. But then I don't know as they could have helped it.
I remember hearin' Father and Mother arguin' about it. Father thought she done right, but Mother wuz kinder of the opinion that she ort to have run the prayer right on and let the sugar spile if necessary.
But I remember Father's arguin' that he didn't believe her prayer would have been very lucid or fervent, with all that batch of sugar a-sizzlin' and a-burnin' right by the side of her.
I remember that he said that a prayer wouldn't be apt to ascend much higher than where one's hopes and thoughts wuz, and he didn't believe it would go[Pg 8] up much higher than that kettle. (The stove wuz the common height, not over four feet.)
But Mother held to her own opinion, and so did a good many of the relations, mostly females. It wuz talked over quite a good deal amongst the Smiths. The wimmen all blamed Tryphenia more or less. The men mostly approved of savin' the sugar.
But good land! how I am eppisodin', and to resoom and go on.
As I say, it wuz jest after this that Uncle Ezra's folks moved up to Maine, Christopher Columbus bein' still onborn for years and years.
But bein' born in due time, or ruther as I may say out of due time, for Uncle Ezra and Aunt Tryphenia had been married over twenty years before they had a child, and then they branched out and had two, and then stopped—
But bein' born at last and growin' up to be a good-lookin' young man and well-to-do in the world, he come out to Jonesville on business and also to foller up the ties of relationship that wuz stretched out acrost hill and dale clear from Maine to Jonesville.
Strange ties, hain't they? that are so little that they are invisible to the naked eye, or spectacles, or[Pg 9] the keenest microscope, and yet are so strong and lastin' that the strongest sledge-hammer can't break 'em or even make a dent into 'em.
And old Time himself, that crumbles stun work and mountains, can't seem to make any impression on 'em. Curious, hain't it?
But to leave moralizin' and to resoom, it was on Friday, P.M., that he arrove at our home.
I see a good-lookin' young chap a-comin' up the path from the front gate with my Josiah, and I hastily but firmly turned my apron the other side out—I had been windin' some blue yarn that day for some socks for my Josiah, and had colored it a little—it wuz a white apron—and then I waited middlin' serene till he come in with him.
And lo! and behold! Josiah introduced him as Christopher Columbus Allen, my own cousin on my own side, and also on hisen.
He wuz a very good-lookin' chap, some older than Thomas Jefferson, and I do declare if he didn't look some like him, which wouldn't be nothin' aginst the law, or aginst reason, bein' that they wuz related to each other.
I wuz glad enough to see him, and I inquired after the relations with considerable interest, and some affection (not such an awful sight, never[Pg 10] havin' seen 'em much, but a little, jest about enough).
And then I learnt with some sadness that his father and mother had passed away not long before that, and that his sister Isabelle wuz not over well.
And there wuz another coincerdence that struck aginst me almost hard enough to knock me down.
Isabelle! jest think on't, when my mind wuz on a perfect strain about Isabelle Casteel.
Columbus and Isabelle!—the idee!
Why, my reason almost tottered on its throne under my recent best head-dress, when I hearn him speak the name. Christopher Columbus a tellin' me about Isabelle—
I declare I wuz that wrought up that I expected every minute to hear him tell me somethin' about Ferdinand; but I do believe that I should have broke down under that.
But it wuz all explained out to me afterwards by another relation that come onto us onexpected shortly afterwards.
It seemed that Uncle Ezra and Aunt Tryphenia, after they went to Maine, moved into a sort of a new place, where it wuz dretful lonesome.
They lost every book they had, owin' to a axident on their journey, and the only book their nighest neighbor had wuz the life of Queen Isabelle.
[Pg 11]
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And so Aunt Tryphenia for years wuz, as you may say, jest saturated with that book. And she named her two children, born durin' that time of saturation, Christopher Columbus and Isabelle. And I presoom if she had had another, she would have named it King Ferdinand. Though I hain't sure of this—you can't be postive certain of any such thing as this. Besides it might have been born a girl onbeknown to her.
But I know that she never washed them children with anything but Casteel soap, and she talked sights and sights about Spain and things.
So I hearn from Uncle Jered Smith, who visited them while he wuz up on a tower through Maine, a-sellin' balsam of pine for the lungs.
Wall, Isabelle had a sort of a runnin' down, so Krit said. He begged us to call him that—said that all his mates at school called him so. He had been educated quite high. Had been to deestrick school sights, and then to a 'Cademy and College. He had kinder worked his way up, so I found out, and so had Isabelle.
She had graduated from a Young Woman's College, taught school to earn her money, and then[Pg 13] went to school as long as that would last, and then would set out and teach agin, and then go agin and then taught, and then went.
She wuz younger than Christopher, but he owned up to me that it wuz her example that had rousted him up to exert himself.
She wuz awful ambitious, Isabelle wuz. She wuz smart as she could be, and had a feelin' that she wanted to be sunthin' in the World.
But then the old folks wuz took down sick and helpless, and one of the children had to stay to home. And Isabelle staid, and sent Krit out into the World.
She sold her jewels of Ambition and Happiness, and gin him the avails of them.
She staid to home with the old folks—kinder peevish and fretful, Krit said they wuz, too—and let him go a-sailin' out on the broad ocean of life; she had trimmed her own sails in such hope, but had to curb 'em in now and lower the topmast.
You have to reef your sails considerable when you are a-sailin' round in a small bedroom between two beds of sickness (asthma and inflammatory rheumatiz). You have to haul 'em in, and take down the flyin' pennen of Hope and Asperation, and mount up the lamp of Duty and Meekness for a[Pg 14] figger-head, instead of the glowin' face of Proud Endeavor.
But them lamps give a dretful meller, soft light, when they are well mounted up, and firm sot.
The light on 'em hain't to be compared to any other light on sea or on shore. It wrops 'em round so serene and glowin' that walks in it. It rests on their mild forwards in a sort of a halo that shines off on the hard things of this life and makes 'em endurable, takes the edge kinder off of the hardest, keenest sufferin's, and goes before 'em throwin' a light over the deep waters that must be passed, and sort o' melts in and loses itself in the ineffible radiance that streams out from acrost the other side.
It is a curious light and a beautiful one. Isabelle jest journeyed in its full radiance.
Wall, Isabelle would do what she sot out to do, you could see that by her face. Krit had brought her photograph with him—he thought his eyes of her—and I liked her looks first rate.[Pg 15]
It wuz a beautiful face, with more than beauty in it too. It wuz inteligent and serene, with the serenity of the sweet soul within. And it had a look deep down in the eyes, a sort of a shadow that is got by passin' through the Valley of Sorrow.
I hearn afterwards what that look meant.
Isabelle had been engaged to a smart, well-meanin' chap, Tom Freeman by name, not over and above rich, and one that had his own duties to attend to. Two helpless aged ones, and two little nieces to took care on, and nobody but himself to earn the money to do it with.
The little nieces' Pa had gone to California after his wife's death—and hadn't been hearn from sence. The little children had been left with their grandparents and Uncle Tom to stay till their Pa got back. And as he didn't git back, of course they kept on a-stayin', and had to be took care on. They wuz bright little creeters, and the very apples of their eyes. But they cost money, and they cost love, and Tom had to give it, for they lost what little property they had about this time—and the feeble Grandma couldn't do much, and the Grandpa died not long after the eppisode I am about to relate.
So it all devolved onto Tom. And Tom riz up[Pg 16] to his duties nobly, though it wuz with a sad heart, as wuz spozed, for Isabelle, when she see what had come onto him to do, wouldn't hold him to his engagement—she insisted on his bein' free.
I spoze she thought she wouldn't burden him with two more helpless ones, and then mebby she thought the two spans wouldn't mate very well. And most probable they would have been a pretty cross match. (I mean, that is, a sort of a melancholy, down-sperited yoke, and if anybody laughs at it, I would wish 'em to laugh in a sort of a mournful way.)
Wall, Tom Freeman, after Isabelle sot him free, bein' partly mad and partly heart-broken, as is the way of men who are deep in love, and want their way, but anyway wantin' to keep out of the sight of the one who, if he couldn't have her for his own, he wanted to forgit—he packed up bag and baggage and went West.
Isabelle wouldn't correspond with him, so she told him in that last hour—still and calm on the outside, and her heart a-bleedin' on the inside, I dare presoom to say; no, she wanted him to feel free.
What creeters, what creeters wimmen be for makin' martyrs of themselves, and burnt sacrifices[Pg 17]—sometimes I most think they enjoy it, and then agin I don't know!
But Isabelle acted from a sense of duty, for she jest worshipped the ground Tom Freeman walked on, so everybody knew, and so she bid adieu to Tom and Happiness, and lived on.
Wall, one of 'em must stay at home with the old folks, either she or Christopher Columbus. And when a man and a woman love each other as Isabelle and Krit did, when wuz it ever the case but what if there wuz any sacrificin' to do the woman wuz the one to do it.
It is her nater, and I don't know but a real true woman takes as much comfort in bein' sort o' onhappy for the sake of some one she loves, as she would in swingin' right out and a-enjoyin' herself first rate.
A woman who really loves anything has the makin' of a first-class martyr in her. And though she may
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