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

crowd of business men—down, down, down into the dretful street she had sot out to find.

With crazy, slantin' old housen on either side—forms of misery filling the narrow, filthy street, wearing the semblance of manhood and womanhood. And worst of all, embruted, and haggard, and aged childhood.

Filth of all sorts cumbering the broken old walks, and hoverin' over all a dretful sicknin' odor, full of disease and death.

Wall, when they got there, The Little Maid (she had a tender heart), she wuz pale as death, and the big tears wuz a-rollin' down her cheeks, at the horrible sights and sounds she see all about her.

Wall, Jean hurried her up the rickety old staircase into her sister's room, where Jean and Kate fell into each other's arms, and forgot the world while they mingled their tears and their laughter, and half crazy words of love and bewildered joy.

The Little Maid sot silently loo[Pg 40]kin' out into the dirty, dretful court-yard, swarmin' with ragged children in every form of dirt and discomfort, squalor and vice.

She had never seen anything of the kind before in her guarded, love-watched life.

She didn't know that there wuz such things in the world.

Her lips wuz quiverin'—her big, earnest eyes full of tears, as she started to go down the broken old stairs.

And her heart full of desires to help 'em, so we spoze.

But her tears blinded her.

Half way down she stumbled and fell.

The nurse jumped down to help her. She wuz hefty—two hundred wuz her weight; the stairs, jest hangin' together by links of planked rotteness, fell under 'em—down, down they went, down into the depths below.

The nurse was stunted—not hurt, only stunted.

But The Little Maid, they thought she wuz dead, as they lifted her out. Ivory white wuz the perfect little face, with the long golden hair hangin' back from it, ivory white the little hand and arm hangin' limp at her side.

She wuz carried into Katy's room, a doctor wuz soon called. Her arm wuz bro[Pg 41]ken, but he said, after she roused from her faintin' fit, and her arm wuz set—he said she would git well, but she mustn't be moved for several days.

Jean, wild with fright and remorse, thought she would conceal her sin, and git her back to the hotel before she telegrafted to her father.

Jest as you thought when you eat cloves the other night, and jest as I thought when I laid the Bible over the hole in the table-cover, when I see the minister a-comin'.

Wall, the little arm got along all right, or would, if that had been all, but the poisonous air wuz what killed the little creeter.

For five days she lay, not sufferin' so much in body, but stifled, choked with the putrid air, and each day the red in her cheeks deepened, and the little pulse beat faster and faster.

And on the fifth day she got delerious, and she talked wild.

She talked about cool, beautiful parks bein' made down in the stiflin', crowded, horrible courts and byways of the cities—

With great trees under which the children could play, and look up into the blue sky, and breathe the sweet air—she talked about fresh dewey grass on which they might lay[Pg 42] their little hollow cheeks, and which would cool the fever in them.

She talked about a fountain of pure water down where now wuz filth too horrible to mention.

She talked very wild—for she talked about them terrible slantin' old housen bein' torn down to make room for this Paradise of the future.

Had she been older, words might have fallen from her feverish lips of how the woes, and evils, and crimes of the lower classes always react upon the upper.

She might have pictured in her dreams the drama that is ever bein' enacted on the pages of history—of the sorely oppressed masses turnin' on the oppressors, and drivin' them, with themselves, out to ruin.

Pages smeared with blood might have passed before her, and she might have dreamed—for she wuz very delerious—she might have dreamed of the time when our statesmen and lawgivers would pause awhile from their hard task of punishin' crime, and bend their energies upon avertin' it—

Helpin' the poor to better lives, helpin' them to justice. Takin' the small hands of the children, and leadin' them away from the overcrowded prisons and penitentaries toward better lives—

When Charity (a good creeter, too, Charity is) but when she [Pg 43]would step aside and let Justice and True Wisdom go ahead for a spell—

When co-operative business would equalize wealth to a greater degree—when the government would control the great enterprises, needed by all, but addin' riches to but few—when comfort would nourish self-respect, and starved vice retreat before the dawnin' light of happiness.

Had she been older she might have babbled of all this as she lay there, a victim of wrong inflicted on the low—a martyr to the folly of the rich, and their injustice toward the poor.

But as it wuz, she talked only with her little fever-parched lips of the lovely, cool garden.

Oh, they wuz wild dreams, flittin', flittin', in little vague, tangled idees through the childish brain!

But the talk wuz always about the green, beautiful garden, and the crowds of little children walkin' there.

And on the seventh day (that wuz after Elnathan got there, and me and Josiah, bein' telegrafted to)—

On the seventh day she begun to talk about a Form she saw a-walkin' in the garden—a Presence beautiful and divine, we thought from her words. He smiled as he saw the happiness of[Pg 44] the children. He smiled upon her, he wuz reachin' out his arms to her.

And about evenin' she looked up into her father's face and knew him—and she said somethin' about lovin' him so—and somethin' about the beautiful garden, and the happy children there, and then she looked away from us all with a smile, and I spozed, and I always shall spoze, that the Divine One a-walkin' in the cool of the evenin' in the garden, the benign Presence she saw there, happy in the children's happiness, drew nearer to her, and took her in his arms—for it says—

"He shall carry the lambs in His bosom."

That wuz two years ago. Elnathan Allen is a changed man, a changed man.

I hain't mentioned the word surplus population to him. No, I hadn't the heart to.

Poor creeter, I wuz good to him as I could be all through it, and so wuz Josiah.

His hair got white as a old man's in less than two months.

But with the same energy he brought to bear in makin' money he brought to bear on makin' The Little Maid's dream come true.

He said it wuz a vision.

And, poor creeter, a-doin' it all under a mournin' weed; and i[Pg 45]f ever a weed wuz deep, and if ever a man mourned deep, it is that man.

Yes, Elnathan has done well; I have writ to him to that effect.

He tore down them crazy, slantin', rotten old housen, and made a park of that filthy hole, a lovely little park, with fresh green grass, a fountain of pure water, where the birds come to slake their little thirsts.

He sot out big trees (money will move a four-foot ellum). There is green, rustlin' boughs for the birds to build their nests in. Cool green leaves to wave over the heads of the children.

They lay their pale faces on the grass, they throw their happy little hearts onto the kind, patient heart of their first mother, Nature, and she soothes the fever in their little breasts, and gives 'em new and saner idees.

They hold their little hands under the crystal water droppin' forever from the outspread wings of a dove. They find insensibly the grime washed away by these pure drops, their hands are less inclined to clasp round murderous weepons and turn them towards the lofty abodes of the rich.

They do not hate the rich so badly, for it is a rich man who has done all this for them.

The high walls of the prison tha[Pg 46]t used to loom up so hugely and threatingly in front of the bare old tenement housen—the harsh glare of them walls seem further away, hidden from them by the gracious green of the blossoming trees.

The sunshine lays between them and its rou[Pg 47]gh walls—they follow the glint of the sunbeams up into the Heavens.

CHAPTER III.

My beloved pardner is very easy lifted up or cast down by his emotions, and his excitement wuz intense durin' the hull of the long time that the warfare lasted as to where the World's Fair wuz to be held, where Columbus wuz goin' to be celebrated.

I thought at the time, Josiah wuz so fearful riz up in his mind, that it wuz doubtful if he ever would be settled down agin, and act in a way becomin' to a grandfather and a Deacon in the M.E. meetin'-house.

And it wuz a excitin' time, very, and the fightin' and quarrelin' between the rival cities wuz perilous in the extreme.

It would have skairt Christopher, I'll bet, if he could have seen it, and he would have said that he would most ruther not be celebrated than to seen it go on.

Why, New York and Chicago most come to hands and blows about it, and St. Louis wuz jest a-follerin' them other cities up tight, a-worryin' 'em, and a-naggin', and[Pg 48] a sort o' barkin' at their heels, as it wuz, bound she would have it.

They couldn't all on 'em have it. Christopher couldn't be in three places at one time and simultanous, no matter how much calculation he had about him. No, that wuz impossible. He had to be in one place. And they fit, and they fit, and they fit, till I got tired of the very name of the World's Fair, and Josiah got almost ravin' destracted.

It seemed to me, and so I told Josiah, that New York wuz a more proper place for it, bein' as it wuz clost to the ocean, so many foreigners would float over here, them and their things that they wanted to show to the Fair.

It would almost seem as if they would be tired enough when they got here, to not want to disemmark themselves and their truck, and then imegiatly embark agin on a periongor or wagon, or car, or sunthin, and go a-trailin' off thousands of milds further. And then go through it all agin disembarkin' and unloadin' their truck, and themselves.

Howsumever, I spozed if they sot out for the Fair from Africa, or Hindoostan, or Asia, I spozed they would keep on till they got there, if they had to go the hull length of the Misisippi River, and travelled in more'n forty different conveniences, etc., etc. But it didn't seem so handy nor nigh.

[Pg 49]

But Chicago is dretful worrysome and active, jest like all children who have growed fast, and kinder outgrowed their clothes and family goverment.

She is dretful forward for one of her years, and she knows it. She knows she is smart, and she is bound to have her own way if there is any possible way of gittin' it.

And she had jest put her foot right down, that have that Fair she would. And like as not if she hadn't got it she would have throwed herself and kicked. I shouldn't wonder a mite if she had.

But she jest clawed right in, and tore round and acted, and jawed, and coaxed, and kinder cried, and carried the day, jest as spilte children will, more'n half the time.

Not but what New York wuz a-cuttin' up and a-actin' jest as bad, accordin' to its age.

But Chicago wuz younger and spryer, and could kick stronger and cut up higher.

New York wuz older and lamer, as you may say, its jints wuz stiffer, and it had lost some of its faculties, which made it dretful bad for her.

It wuz forgetful; it had spells of kinder losin' its memory, and had had for years.

Now, when the Great General died, why New York cut up fe[Pg 50]arful a-fightin' for the honor of havin' him laid to rest in its borders.

Why, New York fairly riz up and kicked higher than you could have spozed it wuz possible for her to kick at her age, and hollered louder than you could have spozed it wuz possible with her lungs.

When Washington, the Capital of this Great Republic, expressed a desire to have the Saviour of his Country sleep by the side of the Founder of it—why, New York acted fairly crazy, and I