Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (life changing books TXT) 📗
- Author: Marietta Holley
Book online «Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (life changing books TXT) 📗». Author Marietta Holley
Well, he jest threw himself into the work of helping those poor souls, and helping them as he did in sickness and health they got to liking him, so that they wuz willing to go and hear him preach, which was one hard blow to the Demon. The next thing he got all the ministers he could to unite in a Church Union to fight the Liquor Power, and undertaking it in the right way, at the ballot-box, they got it pretty well subdued, and as sane minds begun to reign in healthier bodies, better times come.
Elder White not only preached every Sunday, but kep’ his church open every evening of the week, and his boys and girls met there for healthful and innocent amusements. He got a good library, all sorts of good games, music; and had 40 short, interesting lectures and entertainments and his Church of Love rivalled the Idol Temples and drew away its idol worshippers one by one, and besides the ministers, many prominent business men helped him; my son, Thomas J., is forward in helpin’ it along. And they say that besides all the good they’re doing, they have good times too, and enjoy themselves first-rate evenings. They don’t stay out late––that’s another thing Elder White is trying to inculcate into their minds––right living in the way of health as well as morals. Every little while he and somebody else who is fitted for it gives short talks on subjects that will help the boys and girls along in Temperance and all good things. The young folks jest worship him, so they say, and I wuz glad to hear right from him. Phila is a worker in his meetin’ house, and a active member, and so is her pa and ma, and she said that there wuz no tellin’ how much good he had done.
“When he come there,” sez she, “there wuz twenty saloons goin’ full blast in a village of two thousand inhabitants and the mill operatives wuz spendin’ most all they earnt there, leavin’ their families to suffer and half starve; but when Elder White opened his Church of Love week day evenin’s as well as Sunday, you have no idee what a change there is. There isn’t a saloon in the place. He has made his church so pleasant for the young folks that he has drawn away crowds that used to fill the saloons.”
“Yes,” sez I, “Thomas J. is dretful interested in it; he has gin three lectures there.”
“Yes, most all the best citizens have joined the Help Union to fight against the Whiskey Power, though,” sez Phila, “there is one or two ministers who are afraid of contaminating their religion by politics. They had ruther stand up in their pulpits and preach to a few wimmen about the old Jews and the patience of Job than take holt and do a man’s work in a man’s way––the only practical way, grapple 41 with the monster Evil at its lair, where it breeds and fattens––the ballot-box.”
“Yes,” sez I, “a good many ministers think that they can’t descend into the filthy pool of politics. But it hain’t reasonable, for how are you a goin’ to clean out a filthy place if them that want it clean stand on the bank and hold their noses with one hand, and jester with the other, and quote scripter? And them that don’t want it clean are throwin’ slime and dirt into it all the time, heapin’ up the loathsome filth. Somebody has got to take holt and work as well as pray, if these plague spots and misery breeders are ever purified.”
“Well, Elder White is doin’ all he can,” sez Phila. “He went right to the polls ’lection day and worked all day; for the Whiskey Power wuz all riz up and watchin’ and workin’ for its life, as you may say, bound to draw back into its clutches some of the men that Elder White, with the Lord’s help, had saved. They exerted all their influence, liquor run free all day and all the night before, tryin’ to brutalize and craze the men into votin’ as the Liquor Power dictated. But Elder White knew what they wuz about, and he and all the earnest helpers he could muster used all their power and influence, and the election wuz a triumph for the Right. East Loontown went no-license, and not a saloon curses its streets to-day. North Loontown, where the minister felt that he wuz too good to touch the political pole, went license, and five more filthy pools wuz opened there for his flock to fall into, to breed vile influences that will overpower all the good influence he can possibly bring to bear on the souls committed to his care.”
“But,” sez I, “he is writin’ his book, ‘Commentaries on Ancient Sins,’ so he won’t sense it so much. He’s jest carried away with his work.”
Sez Phila, “He had better be actin’ out a commentary on modern sins. What business has he to be rakin’ over the old ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah for bones of antediluvian 42 sinners, and leave his livin’ flock to be burnt and choked by the fire and flames of the present volcano of crime, the Liquor System, that belches forth all the time.”
“Well, he wuz made so,” sez I.
“Well, he had better git down out of the pulpit,” sez Phila, “and let some one git up there who can see a sinner right under his nose, and try to drag him out of danger and ruin, and not have to look over a dozen centuries to find him.”
“Well, I am thankful for Ernest White, and I have felt that he and Waitstill Webb wuz jest made for each other. He thinks his eyes of her I know. When she went and nursed the factory hands when the typhoid fever broke out he said ‘she wuz like a angel of Mercy.’”
“They said he looked like a angel of Wrath ’lection day,” sez Phila. “You know how fair his face is, and how his clear gray eyes seem to look right through you, and through shams and shames of every kind. Well, that day they said his face fairly shone and he did the work of ten men.”
“That is because his heart is pure,” sez I, “like that Mr. Gallyhed I heard Thomas J. read about; you know it sez:
“‘His strength is as the strength of ten
Because his heart is pure.’
“And oh!” sez I agin, “how I would love to see him and Waitstill Webb married, and happy.”
“So would I,” sez Phila. “Oh, it is such a beautiful state, matrimony is.”
“And he needs a wife,” sez I. “You know he wouldn’t stay with his uncle but said he must live with his people who needed him, so he boards there at the Widder Pooler’s.”
“Yes,” sez Phila, “and though she worships him, she had rather any day play the part of Mary than of Martha––she had rather be sittin’ at his feet and learnin’ of him––than 43 cookin’ good nourishin’ food and makin’ a clean, sweet home for him. But he don’t complain.”
“What a companion Waitstill would be for him?” I sez agin.
“Yes,” sez Phila, “but I don’t believe she will ever marry any one, she looks so sad.”
“It seems jest if they wuz made for each other,” sez I, “and I know he worships the ground she walks on. But I don’t know as she will ever marry any one after what she has went through,” and I sithed.
“She would marry,” sez Phila warmly, “if she knew what a lovely, lovely state it wuz.”
How strange it is that some folks are as soft as putty on some subjects and real cute on others. Phila knew enough on any other subject only jest marriage. But I spozed that her brain would harden up on this subject when she got more familiar with it––they generally do. And the light of that moon I spoke on liquefies common sense and a state, putty soft, ensues; but cold weather hardens putty, and I knew that she would git over it. But even as I methought, Phila sez, “I must go to my seat, pa will be lookin’ for me.” I see Miss Meechim smotherin’ a smile on her lace-edged handkerchief, and Dorothy’s eyes kinder laughin’ at the idee of a bride callin’ her husband “pa.”
But the groom returned at jest that minute, and I introduced ’em both to Miss Meechim and Dorothy, and we had quite a good little visit. But anon, the groom mentioned incidentally that they wuz a goin’ to live in Salt Lake City.
“Why!” sez I in horrow, “you hain’t a goin’ to jine the Mormons are you?”
And as I said that I see Miss Meechim kinder git Dorothy behind her, as if to protect her from what might be. But I knew there wuzn’t no danger from the groom’s flirtin’ with any other female or tryin’ to git ’em sealed to him, for quite a spell I knew that he felt himself as much alone with Baby as if them two wuz on a oasis in the middle of the 44 desert of Sarah. I knew that it would be some months before he waked up to the fact of there bein’ another woman in the world. And oh, how Phila scoffed at the idee of pa jinin’ the Mormons. They had bought part of a store of a Gentile and wuz goin’ to be pardners with him and kinder grow up with the country. I felt that hey wuz a likely couple and would do well, but rememberin’ Dorothy’s and Miss Meechim’s smiles I reached up and stiddied myself on that apron-string of Duty, and took Phila out one side and advised her not to call her bridegroom pa. Sez I, “You hain’t but jest married and it don’t look well.”
And she said that “Her ma always called her father pa.”
“Well,” sez I, “if you’ll take the advice of a old Jonesvillian and well-wisher, you’ll wait till you’re a few years older before you call him pa.”
And she sez, lookin’ admirin’ly at him, “I spoze I might call him papa.”
Well, you can’t put sense into a certain bump in anybody’s head if it wuzn’t made there in the first place––there are holler places in heads that you can’t fill up, do your best. But oh! how her devoted love to him put me in mind of myself, and how his small-sized devotion to her––how it reminded me of him who wuz far away––and oh, why did I not hear from him! my heart sunk nearly into my shues as I foreboded about it. It seemed as if everything brung him up before me, the provisions we had on the dining car wuz good and plenty of ’em, and how they made me think of him, who wuz a good provider. The long, long days and nights of travel, the jar and motion of the cars made me think of him who often wuz restless and oneasy. And even the sand of the desert between Cheyenne and Denver, even that sand brought me fond remembrances of one who wuz sandy complected when in his prime. And oh! when did I not think of him? Christmas had gone by, but how could we celebrate it without a home to set up a Christmas tree, or set out a table with good Jonesville vittles. How I 45 thought on him who made a holiday in my heart by his presence, and always helped me put the leaves in the extension table.
Tommy wanted to hang up his little stockin’, and did, hangin’ it out like a little red signal of distress over the side of his top shelf, and we filled it with everything good we could git hold on.
Dorothy put in a little silver watch she had bought on her travels, not bigger than a warnut, and Miss Meechim put in some of the toys she had bought for children of her acquaintance. I got a good little picture book for him in Chicago, and a set of Authors, and Aronette gin him two little linen handkerchiefs, hemstitched by herself, and his name, “Tommy,” worked in the corners. He wuz real tickled with ’em all. I told Miss Meechim that I had hoped to spend Christmas in Salt Lake City. Knowin’ that it wuz a warm climate, I thought I could have a Christmas tree out doors; I thought I could take one of them big pine trees I had read on, and invite Brigham Young’s wives, the
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