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

that it put me in mind of our own Jonesville woods in September, when you look off into the maple forests, and your eyes would fairly be dazzled with the blaze of the colors, if they wuzn't so soft and rich, and blended into each other so perfect.

Yes, Miss Cassette done real well, and so did Mrs. MacMonnies, too.

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And all round this room hung pictures that filled me with delight, and the proudest kind of pride, to think my own sect had done 'em all—had branched out into such noble and beautiful branchin's, for the statutes wuz jest as impressive as the pictures. There wuz one statute in the centre of the main corridor that I liked especially.

It wuz Maud Muller. As I looked on Maud, I thought I could say with the Judge, when he first had a idee of payin' attention to her—

"A sweeter face I ne'er have seen." And I thought, too, I could read in Maud's face a sort of a sad look, as if the shadder Pride, and Fate, held above her, wuz sort o' shadin' her now. Miss Blanche Nevins done first rate, and I'd loved to told her so.

And then there wuz a statute of Elaine that rousted up about every emotion I had by me.

There she wuz, "Elaine the fair," the lovable, the lily maid of Astolot.

I always thought a sight of her, and I've shed many a tear over her ontimely lot. I knew she thought more of Mr. Lancelot than she'd ort to, specially he bein' in love with a married woman at the same time.

[Pg 263]

Her face looked noble, and yet sweet, riz up jest as it must have been when she argued with her pa about the man she loved.

"Never yet was noble man, but made ignoble talk;
He makes no friends who never made a foe."

And down under the majesty of her mean wuz the tenderness and pathos of her own little song; for, as Alfred Tennyson said, and said well, "Sweetly could she make, and sing."

"Sweet is true love, though given in vain, in vain;
And sweet is Death, who puts an end to pain.
I know not which is sweeter—no, not I."

There wuzn't hardly a dry eye in my head as I stood a-lookin' at Elaine.

And jest at this wropped moment I heard some voices nigh me that I recognized a-sayin' in glad and joyous axents, "How do you do, Josiah Allen's Wife?"

I turned and met seven glad extended hands, and thirteen eyes lookin' at mine, in joyous welcome, besides one glass eye (and you couldn't tell the difference, it wuz so nateral—Oren bought the best one money could git when his nigh eye wuz put out by a steer gorin' it). Yes, it wuz Oren Rumble and Lateza, his wife, and the hull of the fa[Pg 264]mily—the five girls, Barthena, Calfurna, Dalphina, Albiny, and Lateza.

But what a change had swep' over the family sence I had last looked on 'em!

I could hardly believe my two eyes when I looked at their costooms, for the hull family had dressed in black for upwards of 'leven years, and Jonesvillians had got jest as ust to seein' 'em as they wuz a-seein' a flock of crows in the spring.

And I do declare it wuz jest as surprisin' to me to see the way they wuz rigged out as it would be to see a lot of crows a-settlin' down on our cornfield with red and yeller tail feathers.

To home they didn't go nowhere, only to meetin'—the mother bein' very genteel, comin' down as she did from a very old and genteel family. Dretful blue blood I spoze her folks had—blue as indigo, I spoze. And she didn't think it wuz proper to go into society in mournin' clothes—she thought it would make talk for mourners to git out and enjoy themselves any in crape.

Oren wuz naterally of a lively disposition, and loved to visit round, and it made it bad for him. But he felt quite proud of marryin' such a aristocratic woman, and so he had to take the bitter with the sweet.

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Besides their bein' so old, she had come from a mournin' family—her folks always mourned for everybody and everything they could. (You know some families are so, and I spoze they git some comfort out of it. And black duz look real respectable, but considerable gloomy.)

Their house wuz always shet up, and Oren walked round (rebellin' inside) under a mournin' weed.

And the six wimmen was all swathed in crape, and the hull house smelt of crape and logwood.

As I sez more formally, Lateza was brung up to it. She wuz ready to mourn on the slightest pretext, and mourn jest as long and stiddy as possible.

Wall, black wuz becomin' to her. Bein' tall and spindlin', black sot her off, and crape draperies sort o' rounded off her figger and made her look some impressive.

And she loved to stay at home—she wuz made that way.

But I always felt that if she wanted to make a raven of herself for life, she no need to dye the feathers of the hull family in logwood, and tie 'em all up clost to the nest.

Oren had chafed aginst it bitterly, but he bore the sable yoke until the youngest girl, Lateza (and mebby she i[Pg 266]nherited some of the aristocratic sotness of her mother with the name)—

Anyway, when she come home from school she come dressed in gay colors. She had on a yeller woosted dress with sky-blue trimmin's, a pink hat, a lilock veil, and a bunch of flowers in her bosom—too many colors to look well, but she did it to break her yoke.

This kinder stunted the mother, so she wuz easier to handle, bein' kinder dazed.

So they took her off to a Christian Science meetin', and got her converted the first thing.

This broke her chain, for they don't believe in mournin' as one without hope, and they believe in wanderin' round and seein' the beautiful world all you can, and takin' some comfort while you are in it.

So while the zeal of the convert wuz on her, and she didn't feel like disputin', the girls made her some red dresses, and some yeller ones, and had some white streamers put onto a white bunnet she had. And they bought themselves the most gorgeous and gay clothin' Jonesville and Loontown afforded. Oren is well off, and he wouldn't stent 'em in such a cause as this—no, indeed!

And Oren bought some bright, gay-lookin' suits, and some brilliant neckties—pale blue silk, with red polka dots on 'em, and some otter-colored ones.

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He had on the day we met him a bright plaid suit and a red necktie spangled with yeller, hangin' out kinder loose in front.

And Oren bought a three-seated carriage, and they jest scoured the hull country—went to all the parties they could hear on, and the fairs, and camp-meetin's, and such. They wuz on the go the hull time; and Lateza Alzina got to likin' it as much as Oren did.

I don't spoze they wuz to home hardly enough to eat their meals whilst they wuz in Jonesville; they had a good hired girl, so they wuz free to wander all they wuz a mind to.

This summer Lateza Alzina told me that they had been up to the upper end of Canada and British America on a tower, and come home round by Lake Champlain, and Lake George, and Saratoga; they'd stayed there three weeks, and then they went home and hurried and got ready for the Fair. They come the first day it wuz opened in the mornin', and laid out to go home the last day of the Fair along in the night, so Oren said.

They all looked real happy, but some fagged out from seein' so much.

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I'm dretful afraid that the pendulum, havin' swung too fur on one side, is a-goin' too fur on the other; it is nater.

But mebby they'll settle down and be more megum when the pendulum gits kinder settled down some, and its vibration ceases to be so vibratin'.

Anyway, I'm glad to see 'em a-steppin' out of their weeds, and I told 'em so.

Sez I, "You wuz in mournin' a awful while, wuzn't you?"

Oren fairly gritted his teeth, and before Lateza Alzina could speak, he busted out—

"By Vum! I've mourned all I'm a-goin' to! I've staid penned up in the house all I'm a-goin' to!

"I've quit it, by Vum! First my stepfather passed away. I never liked him—he always imposed on me; but we all went into deep mournin', staid out of society—jest shet ourselves up in a black jail for years.

"Then my mother-in-law left me—then three years more of solid black and solid stayin' to home.

"Then, at the end of the third year, we kinder quit off and begun to creep out a little and kinder lighten ourselves up a little; but then my wife's brother that she never see died way out to California and left a big property, but not a cent to us.

"But the rest of the family wanted to mourn, so my wife had to foller on and mourn too.

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"And there it wuz agin, another time of gloom—another time of stayin' to home.

"Time after time, jest as we got out a little, we had to plunge back into gloom agin.

"But now we're out of it, and by Heavens and earth we're a-goin' to stay out! There hain't a-goin' to be any more mournin' done in this family—not if I know myself, there hain't."

But I sez, "Oren, don't talk so; folks have to mourn; this is a World of trials, and grief is nateral to it."

"Wall, I'll mourn in pepper and salt, and I'll mourn out-doors. I hain't a-goin' to wind myself up in crape, and shet myself up in a black hole no more, mourn or not mourn.

"And I'm a-goin' to laugh when I want to." And he jest laid his head back and bust out into a horse-laugh at nothin'.

But they didn't seem to mind it; I guess they wuz ust to it, and the girls kinder put in and laughed too. Lateza Alzina didn't laugh out loud, but she kinder snickered some.

It made me feel queer.

I see—I see the truth; the bow had been drawed too tight back, and now it wuz a-goin' to shoot too fur—way over the mark.

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But still I felt that Oren had some truth on his side.

And I sez, "I always felt that you shet yourselves up too much and mourned too deep."

"Wall," sez Lateza Alzina, "my folks always brung me up to think that it would be apt to make talk if folks went out any while they wuz in black."

"Wall," sez I, "I always felt that folks had better set down and calculate which would be the most agreeable to 'em, to shet themselves up and lose their health, and die, or to let folks talk.

"And then act on them thoughts, and do as they want to with fear and tremblin'.

"And," sez I, "folks would talk whilst you wuz dyin', anyway; you can't keep folks from talkin'." Sez I, "Like as not they'd say it wuz a guilty conscience that made you droop round and stay to home so."

"Wall," sez Lateza Alzina, "I wuz brought up to think that it showed so much respect to them that wuz gone to stay to home in black."

"Wall," sez I, "if the ones that wuz gone loved you, they would want you to git all the consolation you could whilst you wuz parted. Jest as a mother lets her child have some picture-books to comfort it while she leaves it a spell.

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"And if you loved them," sez I, "their memory would go out-doors with you, and go back into the house with you. You would see the beloved face lookin' down at you from every mountain you would climb, and the shadder of their form would seem to appear in the mist of every valley. Every sunset would gleam with the smilin' light of their eyes, and every sunrise would begen to you, tellin' you that one more night had gone, and you wuz so much nearer to the Eternal Reunion.

"Folks don't have to stay indoors to remember, Lateza. I have remembered folks out-doors, it seems to me, more than I ever did in the house.

"And the voice you loved would seem to be a-tellin' you, 'Keep well, beloved, so you can do