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

some of my day's work I had to lay down, as well as your own, and the meetin' will be all the gladder and more joyous.'

"And as for puttin' on black, the dear remembered voice seems to be a-sayin' to me, 'Don't put on the symbol of sorrow for one who has found the very secret of happiness, who has left the dark shadders and has gone into the great brightness. Don't carry the idee to the world that you have lost me, for I am nearer to you than I ever could have been on earth, for the clay has only fell off from my soul, leavin' the barrier but thin indeed between us now.

[Pg 272]

"'Don't act as if you wuz mournin' for me, dear heart. Let the world see your thought, see the truth we both know, by its reflection in your face.'

"These are my idees, Lateza Alzina," sez I; "but howsumever, in this, as in every other matter that don't have any moral wickedness in it, let everybody be fully persuaded in their own mind, if they have got a mind, and do as they want to, if they know what they want to do."

Oren had looked real tickled all the while I had been speakin'. And he stood there on his bright plaid legs, and smoothed out the ends of his gorgeous necktie with his yeller gloved hand, a happy and triumphant mean onto him.

And the girls and their ma stood round him like a flock of gay-plumaged birds, or a bokay of brilliant blossoms, and seemed real happified and contented.

Wall, they wuz a-boardin' way out to the other end of the city, almost 'leven milds from there, so they had to leave middlin' early.

And they all come back in the evenin', they said. "They boarded a good ways out—they enjoyed the ride so much a-goin' and comin'."

Sometimes I'm afraid the pendulum will break down, it swings so fur, and then agin I don't know.

[Pg 273]

But anyway, they bid me a glad adoo, and the proud and gay Oren led his brood off.

And to resoom.

The English Vestibule is decorated with panels painted by the wimmen of that country. There wuz one by Mrs. Swimerton, of London, that appealed strong to my heart; it was a seen from the temporary hospital at Scutori.

Florence Nightingale stood in the foreground—good, pityin' female angel that she wuz—and all round her lay sick and dyin' soldiers, and she a-doin' all she could to help 'em.

This picture, showin' woman as a Healer and Consoler, is in the centre, as it ort to be. On one side of it is a panel called Motherhood, an Italian mother a-holdin' a baby in her arms, and on the other side is Old Age and Youth, an old female bein' tenderly took care on by the beautiful young girl who kneels before her.

On the other side of the vestibule is the paintin's of Mrs. Merritt, of London. The centre piece shows a number of likely lookin' young females a-studyin' art, and the panels on either side shows young girls and older ones all a-studyin' and workin', and doin' the best they could with what they had to do with.

[Pg 274]

Dretful upliftin' to my sect it wuz to look on them pictures, all on 'em.

Wall, if I'd spent a month I couldn't begin to tell all the contents of them rooms—the paintin's and statuary, laces, embroidery, tapestry, and etc., and etc., and everything under the sun, moon, and stars, and so forth, and so on.

All the works of wimmen from the present age of the world back to that wonderful book writ by the Abbess Herrard in the twelfth century, which contains about all the knowledge of that date.

And tapestries wrought by hands that have been dust for hundreds and hundreds of years. But the work them hands wrought still remains, giving the best descriptions of them times we have now, of the manners and customs of that fur back time.

They show off the part wimmin have took in philanthropy in all ages. They show that all through time that wimmen have been a help-meet. And you can see the tender, strong faces of them that have helped the world.

One of the most interestin' things in the hull buildin' wuz the exhibit of the Beneficent Societies formed by wimmen all over the world—what they have done in war, pestilence, and famine, what they have done in wrestlin' with that deadly serpent, whose folds encompa[Pg 275]ss the earth—the foulest serpent of Intemperance. What my sect have done banded together to promote liberty, to establish religion, and all good works.

The decoration of the big room set apart for the association and organizations are strikin'.

Fifty-four organizations of Christian wimmen and workers for righteousness in different ways have their headquarters here.

The Wimmen's Christian Temperance Union makes a big display; from post to post is extended long links of pledge cards signed by boys and girls of forty-four countries—France, Africa, Japan, China, etc., etc., etc.

What links them wuz that bound them children to a future of temperance and usefulness! Strong cords a-spreadin' out to the very ends of the earth, and a-bringin' them all together and tyin' 'em up to the ramparts of Heaven.

Denmark has a display of seven little wimmen a-wearin' the white ribbon.

In the Japanese department hangs a large bell all made of pipes, and Josiah sez—

"It's curious that wimmen, who run smokin' so, should have such a lot of pipes to sell." Sez he, "I'm most a-mind to buy one, smokin' is gittin[Pg 276]' so fashionable, and lady-like. Mebby you'd better have one, Samantha."

I looked at him witherin'ly, but he didn't seem to wither any.

But a bystander spoke up and sez, "These are the pipes of opium-smokers, who have given up the vile habit. They wuz collected in Japan and presented to that noble worker, Mary Allen West."

And the bell rung for the first time at her funeral in way-off Japan, where she laid down her sickle on her ripe sheaves, and rested from her labors.

(These last lines are my own eppisodin; he simply related the facts.)

There wuz associations on exhibition from all the different countries of the globe, of Christian workers of all kinds, in organizations, horsepitals, missionary fields, etc. from Loontown clear to Turkey.

The Turkish Compassionate Fund rousted up sights of emotions in me. When you looked at the marvellous Oriental embroideries of the Mahommeden wimmen, you didn't dispute that their work has devoloped a new art.

You see, them female Turkeys wuz drove from their homes by the Tigers, War, and Starvation, and the Baroness Burdette Coutts and Lady Layard bought the materia[Pg 277]ls and organized this work. There are two thousand engaged in it now.

Madame Zarcoff, who is in charge of it now, has a medal gin her by the Sultan, with "Charity" engraved on it in the language of the Turkeys.

I couldn't read it, or Josiah. But she told us what it wuz.

Wall, as I say, there wuz displays of every other kind of Christian work, and a-lookin' over them records, and seein' the benign faces of them wimmen who had led on the fight aginst the banded powers of Hell—why, the tears jest run down my face some like rain water, and Josiah asked me anxiously, "If I wuz took with a cramp."

And I sez, "No, fur from it. I am took with the sperit of rejoicin', and wonder, and thanksgivin', and everything else."

And he sez, "Wall, I wouldn't stand up and cry; if I wuz a-goin' to cry, I would set down to it."

And agin I sez, as I had said before, "Josiah, you're not a woman."

And he sez, "No, indeed; you wouldn't catch a man a-cryin' because he wuz tickled about sunthin'; he would more likely snap his fingers, and whistle."

[Pg 278]

But I heeded not his remarks, and we wended onwards.

And I see, with everything else under the sun, moon, and stars, a collection of all the kinds of flowers in the country, clear from Maine to California; and lots of the flowers preserved in their nateral colors.

And if you think this is a easy job, I can tell you that you are very much mistaken.

Why, jest a-walkin' over to Miss Alexander Bobbet'ses, acrost lots, I have come acrost more than forty different kinds of wild flowers, and then, when I got there, I can't begin to tell how many flowers she had in her dooryard.

More than a hundred, anyway; and then if I come home by she that wuz Submit Tewksbury—why, my 'rithmetic would fairly gin out a-countin' before I got home; and then to think of all the broad acres of land, hills and valleys, mountains and forests between Oregon, and New Jersey, and Maine, and Florida, and California!

Wuz it a easy job that wimmen took on to themselves, then?

No, indeed; no, indeed!

But wimmen are ust to hard jobs, and if she begins 'em she will carry 'em out and finish 'em; as wuz proved b[Pg 279]y the cloak we see there, made of feathers, that took five years to make.

But when I go to talk about the paintin's, and statutes, and the embroideries my sect shows off in that buildin', then agin I draw deep breaths full of praise and admiration, sunthin' like sithes, only happier ones, to think mine eyes had been permitted to gaze on the marvels and wonders my own sect had wrought.

And then I thought of Isabelle, and I thought I would love to have her there to neighbor with; thinkses I, if it hadn't been for her we wouldn't have been discovered at all, as I know on, and then where would have been the Woman's Buildin'? I thought I would love to talk it over with her; how, though she furnished the means for a man to discover us, yet four hundred years had to wear away before men thought that wimmen wuz capable of takin' part in any Internatinal Exposition. I wanted Isabelle there that day—I wanted her like a dog.

But my thoughts wuz brought back from my rapt contemplation by my companion's voice. He sez:

"By Jocks! I hadn't no idee that wimmen had ever done so much work that is useful as well as ornamental." Sez he, "I ha[Pg 280]d read a sight about the Lady Managers, and I had got the idee that them ladies couldn't do much more than to set down and tend poodles, and knit tattin'. I hadn't no idee that they wuz a-goin' to swing out and make such a show as this."