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

The world is full of miracles; Sauls breathin' out vengeance are dropped down senseless by the power of Heaven.

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Pilgrim Arvilly's displayin' abroad the "Wild, Wicked, and Warlike Deeds of Man" are struck down helpless and mute by the power of Love.

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In less than three days she had promised to marry Cephus in the Fall.

He had a good little property—his wife had been dead two years. His hired girl—a shiftless creeter—had flown the day Arvilly got there, and nothin' stood in the way of marriage and happiness.

Arvilly's heart yearned over the little girl that had never walked a step, and she loved her Pa, and the Pa loved her.

When she sot off from there a week later—for she wuz bound to see the Fair, and quiltin' had to be done, and clothin' made up before marriage, no matter how much Cephus plead for haste—he had got well enough to carry her ten milds to the cars, and she had come the rest of the way by rail; and she said, bein' kinder sick of canvassin' for that old book, she had tackled this new one, and wuz havin' real good luck with it.

Wall, I wuz tickled enough for Arvilly, and I made up my mind then and there to give her a good linen table-cloth and a pair of new woollen sheets for a weddin' present, and I subscribed for the "Precious Performances" on the spot. I didn't spoze that I should care much about readin' "The Peaceful, Prosperous, and Precious Performances of Man"—

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But I bought it to help her along. I knew that she would have to buy her "true so" (that is French, and means weddin' clothes), and I thought every little helped; but she said that it wuz "A be-a-u-tiful book, so full of man's noble deeds."

"Wall," sez I, "you know that I always told you that you run men too much."

"But," sez she, "I never drempt that men wuz such lovely creeters."

"Oh, wall," sez I, "as for that, men have their spells of loveliness, jest like female mortals, and their spells of actin', like the old Harry."

"Oh, no," sez she; "they are a beautiful race of bein's, almost perfect."

"Wall," sez I, "I hope your opinion will hold out." But I don't spoze it will. Six months of married life—dry days, and wet ones, meals on time, and meals late, insufficient kindlin' wood, washin' days, and cleanin' house will modify her transports; but I wouldn't put no dampers onto her.

I merely sez, "Oh, yes, Arvilly, men are likely creeters more'n half the time, and considerable agreeable."

"Agreeable!" sez she; "they're almost divine." Arvilly always wuz most too ramptious in everything she undertook; she never loved to wander down the sweet, calm plains of Megumness, as I do.

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And then I spoze Cephus made everything of her, and it wuz a real rarity to her to be made on and flattered up by a good-lookin' man.

But well he might make of her—he will be doin' dretful well to git Arvilly; she's a good worker and calculator, and her principles are like brass and iron for soundness; and she's real good-lookin', too, now—looks 'leven years younger, or ten and a half, anyway.

But jest as Arvilly and I wuz a-withdrawin' ourselves from each other, I sez,

"Arvilly, have you been to the Fair Sundays?"

"No," sez she; "I didn't lay out to, for I could go week days. 'The Precious Performances' yields money to spare to take me there week days, and you know that I only wanted it open for them that couldn't git there any day but Sundays. And also," sez she honestly,

"I talked a good deal, bein' so mad at the Nation for makin' such dretful hard work partakin' of a gnat, and then swallerin' down Barnum's hull circus, side-shows and all.

"Why didn't the Nation shet up the saloons?" sez she, in bitter axents. "Folks can have their doubts about Sunday openin' bein' wicked, but the Lord sez expressly that 'no drunkard can inherit Heaven.' The nation wuz so anxious to set patterns before the young—why wuzn't i[Pg 341]t afraid to turn human bein's into fiends before 'em, liable to shoot down these dear young folks, or lead 'em into paths worse than death?

"And it wuz so anxious to show off well before foreign nations. Wuz it any prettier sight to reel round before 'em, drunk as a fool, a-committin' suicide, and rapinin', and murder, and actin'? I wuz so mad," sez Arvilly, "that I felt ugly, and spoze I talked so."

"Wall," sez I, "they've acted dretful queer about Sunday openin', take it from first to last.

"But," sez I, reasonably, "takin' such a dretful big thing onto their hands to manage would be apt to make folks act queer.

"I spoze," sez I, fallin' a little ways into oritory—"I spoze that if Josiah and me had took a rinosterhorse to board durin' the heated term, our actions would often be termed queer by our neighbors. To begin with, it's bein' such new business to us, we shouldn't know what to feed it, to agree with its immense stomach; we should, I dare presoom to say, try experiments with it before we got the hang of its feed, and peek through the barn doors dretful curious at it to see how it wuz a-actin', and how its food wuz agreein' with it.

"We shouldn't dast to ride it to water, or holler at it, as if it wuz a calf; and if it sh[Pg 342]ould happen to break loose, Heaven knows what we should do with it!

"And I spoze every fence would be full of neighbors a-standin' safe on their own solid premises, a-hollerin' out to us what to do, and every one on 'em mad as hens if we didn't foller their directions.

"Some on 'em hollerin' to us to mount up on it and ride it back into the barn, when they knew that it would tear us to pieces if we went nigh it when it wuz mad. And some on 'em orderin' us to git rid of it. And how could we dispose of a ragin' rinosterhorse at a minute's notice? And some on 'em a-yellin' at us to kill it. How could we kill it, when the creeter didn't belong to us?

"And some on 'em, not realizin' that our rinosterhorse boardin' wuz new business to us, and we wuz liable to make mistakes, standin' up on the ruff of their own barns, safe and sound, a-readin' the Bible to us and warnin' us, and we tuggin' away and swettin' with this wild creeter on our hands, and tryin' to do the best we could with it.

"And then, right on top of this, Jonesville might serve a injunction onto us, that we had no right to let such a dangerous creeter into the precincts of Jonesville; and then we, feelin' kinder sorry, mebby, that we had ondertook the job, tried to git rid on't; and the rinosterhorse owner serves another injunction on us, makin' us keep it, sayin' t[Pg 343]hat he'd paid its board in advance, and that he wouldn't take it back.

"And there we would be, all wore out with our job, and not pleasin' nobody, nor nothin', but makin' the hull caboodle mad as hens at us; and we a-not meanin' any hurt, none of the time, a-meanin' well towards Jonesville and rinosterhorses. Wouldn't we be in a situation to be pitied, Arvilly?"

"Yes," sez she, "it is jest so as I tell you; Cephus sez that he won't wait a minute longer than September."

I see how it wuz—she hadn't hearn a word of my remarkable eloquence. Like all the rest, she had vivid idees about Sunday closin'; but come to the p'int, her own affairs wuz of the most consequence. She forgot all about the struggles of the Directors in their efforts to do what wuz right and best, in thoughts of Cephus.

But I considered it human nater, and forgive her. Wall, after Arvilly left me, I returned agin to the sights in the noble Liberal Arts Department, and see everything else that wuz riz up and helpful; and finding out everything about the land and sea, the Heavens, and depths below the earth and seas.

And oh, what queer, queer feelin's that sight gin me; they hain't to be described upon, and I hain't a-goin' to try to; it would be too[Pg 344] much—too much for the public to hear about it, and for me to record 'em; though there wuz plenty of weights, measures, and balances, if I had tried to tackle the job of weighin' 'em.

Now, what I have said of the liberal part, and especially of the trainin' of the young, you can see plain that it wuz as much more interestin' than the manafactures part as the soul is superior to the body, or eternity is longer than time.

So, the world bein' such a sort of a curious place, it didn't surprise me a mite to see that this department, that wuz the most important in the hull Columbian World's Fair, wuz dretful cramped for room, and kinder put away upstairs.

For, as I sez to myself, the old world has such dretful curious kinks in it, it didn't surprise me a mite to have this department sort o' squeezed into the end o' one buildin', and upstairs kinder, while the display for horned cattle covered over sixty acres.

A good many farmers are as careful agin of their blooded stock as they are of the welfare of their wives and children.

They will put work and hardship on the mother of their children that they wouldn't think of darin' to venture with their cows with a[Pg 345] pedigree, for they would say, such overwork will injure the calf.

How is it with their own children, when the delicate mother does all the household drudgery of a farm, and milks seven or eight cows night and mornin'?

Toilin' till late bedtime, gettin' up before half rested, and takin' up agin the hard toil till the little feeble child-life is born into the world.

How is it with the mother and the child?

For answer, I refer you to countless newspaper files, under the headin' of "mysterious dispensations of Providence," and to old solitary churchyards, and to the insane statisticks of the country.

The bereaved husband, a-blamin' Providence, but takin' some comfort in the