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

He put on his specs and looked clost, and sez he—

[Pg 575]

"I don't see nothin' out of the common."

[Pg 576]

"No," sez I; "spiritual things are spiritually discerned. The wind bloweth where it listeth," sez I.

"Oh, bring up the Bible," sez he; "there is a time for all things."

He acted real pudgiky.

But I at last got him to understand what a vista wuz, and I told him that Mr. Burnham and the others who had charge of buildin' this marvellous city took no end of pains to design these marvellous picters—more lovely than wuz ever painted on canvas sence the world begun.

And sez I, as I looked round me once more, some as Moses did on Pisga's height, "and viewed the landscape o'er"—

Sez I, "I must thank the head one here—I must thank Director-General Davis in my own name, and in the name of Jonesville, and the world, for gittin' up this incomparable spectacle, the like of which will never be seen agin by livin' eyes."

And if you'll believe it, I hadn't hardly finished speakin' when who should come towards us but General Davis himself. I knew him in a minute, for his picter had been printed in papers as many as two or three times since the Fair begun—it wuz a real good-lookin' face, anyway, in a paper or out of it.

[Pg 577]

And I gathered up the folds of my cotton umbrell more gracefully in my left hand, and kinder shook out the drapery of my alpaca skirt, and wuz jest advancin' to accost him, when Josiah laid holt of my arm and whispered in a sharp axent—

"I won't have it. You hain't a-goin' to stop and visit with that man."

I faced him with dignity and with some madness in my liniment, and sez I, "Why?"

Sez he, "Do you ask why?"

"Yes," sez I, with that same noble, riz-up look on my eyebrow—"why?"

"Wall," sez he, a-lookin' kinder meachin', "I want sunthin' to eat, and you'd probable talk a hour with him by the way you've praised up his doin's here."

By this time General Davis wuz fur away.

And I sithed, when I thought on't, what he'd lost by not receivin' my eloquent and heartfelt thanks, and what I'd lost in not givin' 'em.

I d'no as Josiah was jealous—mebby he wuzn't. But General Davis is considerable handsome, and Josiah can't bear to have me praise up any man, livin' or dead. Sometimes I have almost mistrusted that he didn't like to have me praise up St. Paul too much, or David, or Job—or he don't seem to care so much about Job. But, as I say,[Pg 578] mebby it wuzn't jealousy—his appetite is good; mebby it was hunger.

Wall, this mornin', on our way to the grounds, I sez to Josiah—

"There is one thing that I want you to do the first thing to-day, and that is for you to see that good creeter, Senator Palmer."

Sez I, "I jest happened to read this mornin' how he's takin' up a subscription to help the Duke of Veragua, and we must see him and help the cause along." Sez I, "I can't bear to think of Columbuses folks a-sufferin' for things."

Sez Josiah, "Let Columbuses folks nip in and work jest as I do, and they'll git along."

"They hain't been brung up to it," sez I; "I don't spoze he ever ploughed a acre of land in his life, or sheared a sheep. And I don't spoze she knows what it is to pick a goose, or do a two weeks' washin'."

I'm sorry for 'em as I can be. And to think that that villain of a Manager should have run away with that money while they wuz over here a-helpin' their forefathers birthday!

[Pg 579]

Sez I, "It makes me feel like death."

"It makes me feel," sez Josiah gloomily, "that no knowin' but the Old Harry will git into Ury while we are away."

But I sez, "Don't worry, Josiah—Ury and Philura are pure gold."

"Wall, dum it all, pure gold can be melted if the fire is hot enough."

But I went back to the old subject—"We must give sunthin' to the cause; it will be expected of us, and it is right that we should."

"But," sez Josiah, with a gloomy and fierce look, "if I can git out of Chicago with a hull shirt on my back it's all I expect to do. I hain't no money to spend on Dukes, and you'll say so when we come to pay our bills."

Sez I, "You needn't send any money, Josiah Allen; but," sez I, "we might send 'em a tub of butter and a kag of cowcumber pickles jest as well as not, and a ham, to help 'em along through the winter, and I'd gladly send him and her yarn enough for a good pair of socks and stockin's. She might knit 'em," sez I, "or I would. I'll send him a pair of fringe mittens anyway," sez I; "it hain't noways likely that she knows how to make them. They take intellect and practice to knit."

[Pg 580]

And sez I, "I want you to be sure and see Senator Palmer without fail, and tell him to be sure and let us know when he sends things, so's we can put in and add our two mites."

Sez he, "The money has gone."

"Wall," sez I, "I am a disap'inted creeter. I wanted to do my part towards gittin' them good, noble folks enough to live on till Spring."

Sez Josiah (and mebby it wuz to git my attention off from the subject, which he felt wuz perilous to his pocket—he is clost)—sez he, "There is one man here, Samantha, that I'd give a cent to see."

Sez I, "Who is it that you are willin' to make such a extraordinary outlay for?"

"The Rager," sez he.

"The Rager," sez I dreamily; "who's that?"

"Why, the Rager from India. I spoze," sez he, "that he is one of the raginest men that you ever see. He took his name from that, most likely, and to intimidate his subjects. Now, King or Emperor don't strike the same breathless terror; but Rager—why, jest the name is enough to make 'em behave."

"Wall," sez I, "if the Monarch of Ingy is here I must see him, and git him not to burn any more widders with their dead pardners." Sez I, "It's a clear waste of widders, besides bein' wicked as wicked can be. Widders is handy," sez I, "now to keep boardin'-housen, or to go roun[Pg 581]d as agents. Old maids hain't nothin' by the side of 'em, and they look so sort o' respectable behind their black veils, and then they are needed so for the widdower supply—and that market is always full." Sez I, "I don't want 'em wasted, and I want the wickedness to be stopped.

"And then to insist on marryin' so many wimmen. I'd love to labor with him, and convince him that one's enough."

"It seems to me," sez Josiah, "that I could make him know that one's enough. It seems as if any married man might. Heaven knows, it seems so!" sez he.

I didn't like his axent. There seemed to be some iron in it, but I wouldn't dane to parley.

"And then," sez I, "their makin' their wimmen wear veils all the time. What a foolish habit! What's the use on't? Smotherin' 'em half to death, and wearin' out their veils for nothin'.

"And then I'd make him educate 'em—gin 'em a chance," sez I; "but whether he gives it or not the bell of Freedom is a-echoin' clear from Wyomin' to Ingy, and it sounds clear under them veils. They will be throwed off whether he is willin' or not, and I'd love to tell him so."

Sez Josiah, "I guess it will be as the Rager sez."

[Pg 582]

"No," sez I solemnly; "it will be as the Lord sez, and He is callin' to wimmen all over the earth, and they are answerin' the call."

But we hearn afterwards that Josiah had got it wrong—it wuz Ragah—R-a-g-a-h—instead of Rager—and he wuz one of the most sensiblest fellers that ever stepped on our shores in royal shoes. He paid his own bills, wuz modest, and intelligent, wanted to git information instead of idolatry from the American people. He didn't want no ball, no bowin' and backin' off—no escort. No chance at all here for the Ward McAllisters to show off, and act.

He acted like a good sensible American man, some as our son Thomas Jefferson would act if he should go over to his neighborhood on business.

He wanted to see for himself the life of the Americans, the way the common people lived—he wanted to git information to help his own people.

And he wanted to see Edison the most of all. That in itself would make him congenial to me. I myself think of Edison side by side with Christopher Columbus, and I guess the high chair he sets on up in my mind, with his lap full of his marvellous discoveries, is a little higher than Columbuses high chair.

Oh, how congenial the Ragah of Kahurthalia would be! How I wish we could have visited together! But it wuzn't to[Pg 583] be, for Josiah said that he'd gone the night before, so we wended on.

Wall, we hadn't more than got into the grounds this mornin' when Josiah hearn a bystander a-standin' near tell another one about the Ferris Wheel.

"Why," sez he, "you jest git into one of them cars, and you are carried up so that it seems as if you can see the hull world at your feet."

Josiah turned right round in his tracts, and sez he, "Where can I find that wheel?"

And the man sez, "On the Midway Plaisance."

And Josiah sez, "Where is that?"

And the man pinted out the nearest way, and nothin' to do but what we must set out to find that wheel, and go up in one.

I counselled caution and delay, but to no effect. That wheel had got to be found to once, and both on us took up in it.

I dreaded the job.

Wall, the Plaisance begins not fur back of the Woman's Buildin'. It is a strip of land about six hundred feet wide and a mild in length, connecting Washington Park with Jackson Park, where Columbus has his doin's, and it comes out at the Fair Ground right behind the Woman's Buildin'.

Josiah jest wanted to rush along, clamorin' for the wheel, and not lookin' for nothin' on either side till he found it.

[Pg 584]

But I wuz firm in this as a rock, that if I went at all I would go megum actin' and quiet, and look at everything we come to.

And wuzn't there enough to look at jest in the street? Folks of all nations under the earth. They seemed like the leaves of a forest, or the sands of the sea, if them sands and leaves wuz turned into men, wimmen, and children—high hats, bunnets, umbrells, fans, canes, parasols, turbans, long robes, and short ones, gay ones, bright ones, feathers, sedan chairs, bijous, rollin' chairs, Shacks—or that is how Josiah pronounced it. I told him that they wuz spelt S-h-e-i-k-s.

But he sez that you could tell that they wuz Shacks by the looks on 'em.

Truly it wuz a sight—a sight what we see in that street. Why, it wuz like payin' out some thousand dollars, and with two trunks, and onmeasured fatigue, spend years and years travellin' over the world.

Why, we seemed to be a-journeyin' through foreign countries, a-carryin' the thought with us that we took our breakfast in our own hum, and that we should sleep there that night, but for all that we wuz in Turkey, and Japan, and Dahomey, and Lapland, etc., etc., etc.

[Pg 585]

Wall, the first thing we come to as we begun on the right side—and anybody with my solid principles wouldn't begin on any other side but the sheep's side—we wouldn't begin on the goats—no, indeed!

The first thing we come to wuz the Match Company. Here you could see everything about makin' matches, and when you