Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (life changing books TXT) š
- Author: Marietta Holley
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But I methought to myself sheās got to be careful, Liberty has, or that torch will light up moreān she wants it to. Liberty is sometimes spelt license in France and in our own country, but they donā mean the same thing, no, indeed! We hung round there in that vicinity seeinā the different sights, and Josiah took it in his head that we should take our supper outdoors; he said he thought it would be real romantic, and I shouldnāt wonder if it wuz. āTennyrate, that is one of the sights of Paris to see the gayly dressed throngs happy as kings and queens, seemināly eatinā outdoors. Lights shininā over āem, gay talk and laughter and music sparklinā about āem.
Well, Josiah enjoyed the eppisode exceedingly, but it made it ruther late when we started back to the tarven through the brightly lighted streets and anon into a more deserted and quiet one, and on one of these last named we see a man, white-headed and bent in figger, walkinā along before us, who seemed to be actinā dretful queer. He would walk along for quite a spell, payinā no attention to anybody seemināly, when all at once he would dart up clost to some young girl, and look sharp at her, and then slink back agin into his old gait.
Thinkses I is he crazy or is he some old fool thatās love 311 sick. But his actions didnāt seem to belong to either of the classes named. And finally right under a lamp post he stopped to foller with his eager eyes a graceful, slim young figger that turned down a cross street and we come face to face with him.
It wuz Elder Wesselāāit wuz the figger I had seen at the morgueāābut, oh, the change that had come over the poor creeter! Hair, white as snow; form, bowed down; wan, haggard face; eyes sunken; lookinā at us with melancholy sombry gaze that didnāt seem to see anything. Josiah stepped up and held out his hand, and sez: āElder, Iām glad to see you, how do you do? You donāt look very rugged.ā
He didnāt notice Josiahās hand no more than if it wuz moonshine. He looked at us with cold, onsmilinā, onseeinā, mean, some like them same moonbeams fallinā down on dark, troubled waters, and I hearn him mutter:
āI thought I had found her! Where is Lucia?ā sez he.
The tears run down my face onbeknown to me, for oh the hunted, haunted look he wore! He wuz a portly, handsome man when we see him last, with red cheeks, iron-gray hair and whiskers and tall, erect figger. Now he had the look of a man who had kepā stiddy company with Death, Disgrace, Agony and Fearāākepā company with āem so long that he wuz a stranger to anybody and everybody else.
He hurried away, sayinā agin in them same heart-breakinā axents: āWhere is Lucia?ā
Arvilly turned round and looked after him as he shambled off.
āPoor creeter!ā sez she. Her keen eyes wuz full of tears, and I knowed she would never stir him up agin with the sharp harrer of her irony and sarcasm if she had ever so good a chance. Josiah took out his bandanna and blowed his nose hard. Heās tender-hearted. We knowed sunthinā how he felt; wuznāt we all, Dorothy, Miss Meechim, Arvilly, Robert Strong, Josiah and I always, always looking out for a dear little form that had been wrenched out of our arms and 312 hearts, not by death, no, by fur worse than death, by the two licensed Terrors whose black dretful shadders fall on every home in our land, dogs the steps of our best beloved ready to tear āem away from Love and from Safety and Happiness.
From Paris we went to Berne. I hearn Josiah tellinā Tommy: āIt is called Burn, I spoze, because it got burnt down a number of times.ā
But it haināt so. It wuz named from Baren (bears), of which more anon. Robert Strong had been there, and he wanted Dorothy to see the scenery, which he said was sublime. Among the highest points of the Bernise Alps and the Jungfrau and the Matterhorn, which latter peak is from twelve to fourteen thousand feet high. Good land! What if I had to climb it! But I hadnāt, and took comfort in the thought. Deep, beautiful valleys are also in the Oberland, as the southern part of the Canton is called, the Plain of Interlaken being one of the most beautiful.
There are several railways that centre in Berne, and it stands at the crossroads to France and Germany. And though it is a Swiss city, it seemed much more like a German one, so Robert Strong said. The people, the signs, the streets, the hotels and all, he said, was far more like a German city than a Swiss one.
It is quite a handsome city of about fifty thousand inhabitants, with straight, wide streets and handsome houses, and one thing I liked first-rate, a little creek called the Gassel, has been made to run into the city, so little rivulets of water flow through some of the streets, and it supplies the fountains so they spray up in a noble way.
Josiah sez: āIf Ury and I can turn the creek, Samantha, so it will run through the dooryard, you shall have a fountain right under your winder. Ury and I can rig up a statter for it out of stuns and mortar that will look first-rate. And I spoze,ā sez he, āthe Jonesvillians would love to see my linimen sculped on it, and it might be a comfort to you, if I should be took first.ā
313āNo, Josiah,ā sez I, ānot if you and Ury made it; it would only add to my agony.ā
We had quite a good hotel. But I see the hired girl had made a mistake in makinā up the bed. Mebby she wuz absent minded or lovesick; ātennyrate she had put the feather bed top of us instead of under us.
As Josiah laid down under it he said words I wouldnāt have had Elder Minkley heard for a dollar bill, and it didnāt nigh cover his feet anyway. What to do I didnāt know, for it wuz late and I spozed the woman of the house had gone to bed and I didnāt want to roust her up. And I knew anyway it would mortify her dretfully to have her help make such a mistake. Good land! if Philury should do such a thing I should feel like a fool. So I had Josiah git up, still talkinā language onfit for a deacon and a perfessor, and I put the bed where it belonged, spread the sheets over it smooth, put my warm woollen shawl and our railway rug on it and made a splendid bed.
The food wuz quite good, though sassage and cheese wuz too much in evidence, and beer and pipes and bears. I always kinder spleened aginst bears and wuz afraid on āem and wouldnāt take one for a present, but it beat all how much they seem to think of bears there, naminā the place for āem to start with, and they have bears carved and painted on most everything. Bears spout water out of their mouths in the fountains, they have dead ones in their museums, and they have a big bear den down by the river where great live ones can growl and act all they want to. And bears show off in a wonderful clock tower they have built way back in the āleventh century. I never see Tommy so delighted with anything hardly as he wuz with that, and Josiah too. Every hour a procession of bears come out, led, I believe, by a rooster who claps his wings and crows, and then they walk round a old man with a hour glass who strikes the hour on a bell. But the bears lead the programmy and bow and strut round and act.
314The manufactures of Berne are mostly cloth, silk and cotton, straw hats, etc. It has a great university with seventy-three professors. Good land! if each one on āem knowed a little and would teach it they ort to keep a first-rate school.
And it also uses a Referendum. Arvilly disputed me when I spoke onāt; she thought it wuz sunthinā agin āem, but it haināt. It helps the people. If they donāt like a law after it passes the legislature they have a chance to vote on it. And it keeps āem from beinā fooled by politicians and dishonest statesmen. I approve onāt and Arvilly did when she got more acquainted with the idee. I wish America would get hold of one, and I guess she will when she gits round to it, though Arvilly donāt believe they will. Sez she: āOur statesmen ruther spend their time votinā on the length of womenās hat-pins, and discuss what a peril they are to manhood.ā Sez she: āWhy donāt they vote agin menās suspenders? Everybody knows a man could hang a woman with āem, hang āem right up on the bed post.ā Sez Arvilly: āWhy not vote that men shall fasten their trousers to their vests with hook and eyes, they are so much less dangerous?ā But I donāt spoze they ever will. It is a job to fasten your skirt to your waist with āem. But they are real safe and I wish men would adopt āem. But donāt spoze they will, they hate to be bothered so.
Another thing I liked first-rate there and Arvilly did, the corporation of the city is so rich it furnishes fuel for its citizens free. Arvilly sez:
āCatch the rich corporations of our American cities furnishinā fuel for even the poorest. No; it would let āem burn up their old chairs or bedsteads first, or freeze.ā
āWell,ā sez I, āmebby our country will take pattern of the best of all other countries when she gits round to it; sheās been pretty busy lately.ā
And Arvilly sez, āShe had better hurry up before her poor are all starved or friz; but as it is,ā sez she, āher statesmen are votinā on wimmenās hat-pins whilst Justice lays flat 315 with her stillyards on top of her and Pity and Mercy have wepā themselves sick.ā
America is good, her charities are almost boundless, but I think some as Arvilly that Charity haināt so likely lookinā or actinā as Justice, and Robert Strong thinks so too. But it is a great problem what to do for the best in this case. Mebby Solomon knew enough to grapple with the question, but Josiah donāt, nor Arvilly, though she thinks she duz. Robert Strong is gittinā one answer to the hard conundrum of life, and Ernest White is figurinā it out successful. And lots of other good and earnest souls all over the world are workinā away at the sum with their own slates and pencils. But oh, the time is long! One needs the patience of the Sphinx to set and see it go on, to labor and to wait. But God knows the answer to the problem; in His own good time He will reveal it, as the reward of constant labor, tireless patience, trust and prayer. But to resoom forwards: One of the picturesque features of the older part of Berne is that the houses are built up on an arcade under which runs a footpath.
But its great feature is the enchantinā seenery. It stands on a peninsula and the view on mountain and river is most beautiful.
From Berne we went direct to the city of Milan in Italy. And we found that it wuz a beautiful city eight or nine milds round, I should judge, with very handsome houses, the cathedral beinā the cap sheaf. Iād had a picture onāt on my settinā room wall for years, framed with pine cones and had spent hours, I spoze, from first to last lookinā at it, but hadnāt no more idee of its size and beauty than a Hottentot has of ice water and soap stuns.
From every point of view it is perfect, front side, back side, outside and inside; specially beautiful are the gorgeous stained glass winders in the altar.
Robert Strong and Dorothy and all the rest of the party but Josiah and me and Tommy clumb up to the biggest tower, three hundred and thirty or forty feet, and they said 316 the view
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