Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife Part 34

I sez, "May G.o.d help you, Arvilly!" And I turned onto my heel and left. But I sent up a tray of good vittles which wuz refused, and I d'no as she eat a mou'ful that day.

At night I went agin to the door, and agin I hearn the sound of weepin' inside.

Sez I, "Arvilly, let me in; I've got a letter for you from Waitstill Webb."

Sweet little creeter! She remembered her agony, and dropped this flower onto the grave of Arvilly's happiness. Oh, how she, too, wuz suffering that day, wherever she wuz, and I wondered as much as Tommy ever did about the few cents the govermunt received for the deadly drink that caused these murders and the everlastin' sorrow that flowed out of 'em.

Well, Arvilly told me to put the letter under the door, which I did.

But nothin' more could I git out of her; and though I sent up another tray of food to her, that too come down untouched; and as I told Josiah, I didn't know as I could do anything more for her, as bad as I felt, only to think of her and pray for her.

"Yes," sez he, "we will remember Sister Arvilly at the throne of grace at evenin' wors.h.i.+p." And after we went to our room he did make a able prayer, askin' the Lord to look down onto the poor heart of our afflicted sister, and send peace and comfort to her. It wuz a good prayer, but even in that solemn time come the thought: "If you and other church-members had voted as you prayed, Arvilly no need to be shet up there alone with her life agony."

But it wuz no time to twit a pardner when we wuz both on our knees with our eyes shet, but when it come my turn I did say:

"O righteous G.o.d, do help good men everywhere to vote as they pray."

Josiah said "Amen" quite loud, and mebby he duz mean to vote different. He voted license to help Jonesville, most of the bizness men of the town sayin' that it would help bizness dretfully to have license. Well, it has helped the undertaker, the jail and the poorhouse.

Well, the next day Arvilly come down lookin' white and peaked, but didn't say anything about her eclipse; no, the darkness wuz too awful and solemn to talk about. But she showed me Waitstill's letter. In it she said she had been for several days caring for a very sick woman for half the night, and at midnight she would go back to the hospital, and every night for a week she had seen a bent figure creeping along as if looking for something, payin' no attention to anything only what he had in the searchin' eyes of his mind.

It wuz Elder Wessel lookin' for Lucia, so Waitstill said. It wuz Love waitin' and lookin' out, hoping and fearing. Poor father--poor girl!

Both struck down by a blow from the Poor Man's Club. She writ considerable about Jonesville news to Arvilly, knowin', I spoze, how welcome it would be, and said she got it from Ernest White.

Wuz things comin' out as I wanted 'em to come? My heart sung a joyful anthem right then and there. Oh, wouldn't I be glad to see Ernest and Waitstill White settled down and happy and makin' everybody round 'em happy in the dear persinks of Jonesville and neighbor with 'em!

Ernest White wrote to Waitstill how successful his Help Union was and how his dear young people wuz growin' better and dearer to him every day.

And we talked about it how he wuz carryin' everyday reason and common sense into Sunday religion. Sez Arvilly, "He teaches young voters that while prayers are needful and necessary, votes are jest as needful, for bad or careless votin' destroys all the good that Christian effort duz, all that prayer asks for and gits from a pityin' G.o.d. Every saloon is shet up in Loontown and folks flock to hear him from as fur off as Zoar and the town of Lyme. He don't have standin'-room in his meetin'-house, let alone settin'-room, and they have got to put on an addition."

And I sez agin what I had often said before, "What a object lesson Elder White's work in Jonesville is, and how plainly it teaches what I have always known, that nothin' can stand aginst the united power of the church of Christ, and if Christian folks banded together and voted as they prayed, the Saloon, the Canteen, the Greedy Trusts, the licensed house of shame, monument of woman's disgrace, would all have to fall."

"But they won't do it," sez Arvilly in a mad cross axent. "They'll keep right on preachin' sermons against wrong and votin' to sustain it, if they vote at all. Gamblin' for bed-quilts and afghans to git money to send woollen clothin' to prespirin' heathens in torrid countries, while our half-clad and hungry poor s.h.i.+ver in the cold shadder of their steeples oncared for and onthought on."

I sez, "Don't be so hash, Arvilly; you know and I know that the church has done and is doin' oncounted good. And they're beginnin' to band themselves together to help on true religion and goodness and peace."

"Well," sez Arvilly, "I should think it wuz time they did!"

I see a deep shadder settlin' down on her eye-brow, and I knowed she wuz a thinkin' of what she had went through.

Well, the next day we sot out for Paris, via Ma.r.s.eilles. We had a pleasant trip up the beautiful blue Mediterranean, a blue sky overhead, a blue sea underneath. Once we did have quite a storm, makin' the s.h.i.+p rock like a baby's cradle when its ma is rockin' it voylent to git it to sleep.

I wuzn't sea-sick at all nor Tommy, but my poor companion suffered, and so did many of the pa.s.sengers. There wuz a young chap who wuz the picture of elegance when he come aboard, and dretful big feelin' I should judge from his looks and acts. But, oh, how low sea-sickness will bring the hautiest head! I see him one day leanin' up agin the side of the s.h.i.+p lookin' yeller and ghastly. His sleek clothes all neglected lookin', his hat sot on sideways, and jest as I wuz pa.s.sin'

he wuz sayin' to the aristocratic lookin' chap he wuz travellin'

with:

"For Heaven's sake, Aubrey, throw me overboard!"

His mean wuz wild, and though I didn't like his words I made excuses for him, knowin' that mankind wuz as p.r.o.ne to rampage round in sickness and act as sparks are to fly up chimbly. But, take it as a whole, we had a pleasant voyage.

We only made a short stay in Ma.r.s.eilles, but long enough to drive round some and see the most noted sights of the city, which is the princ.i.p.al seaport of France.

On the northern part is the old town with narrer windin' streets and middlin' nasty and disagreeable, but interestin' because the old Roman ramparts are there and a wonderful town hall. A magnificent avenue separates the old part from the new, a broad, beautiful street extendin' in a straight line the hull length of the city. Beyend is the Prado, a delightful sea-side promenade.

The new city is built round the port and rises in the form of an amphitheatre; the hills all round are covered with beautiful gardens, vineyards, olive groves and elegant country houses. Just acrost from the harbor is the old chateau where Mirabeau wuz imprisoned, poor humbly creeter! but smart. He didn't do as he'd ort to by his wife, and Mary Emily realized it and wouldn't make up with him, though he argued his case powerful in their lawsuit. But he wuz a smart soldier and writ quite eloquent things. He stood for the rights of the people as long as he could, till they got too obstropulous, as they sometimes will when they git to goin'. But I presoom he did desire his country's good. His poor body wuz buried with pomp and public mourning, and then a few years after taken up and laid with criminals. But good land!

he'd got beyend it all. He had gone to his place wherever it wuz, and it didn't make any difference to him where the outgrown garment of his body wuz.

But to resoom: The Cathedral is quite a n.o.ble lookin' edifice, built so I hearn, on the spot where a temple once stood where they wors.h.i.+pped Diana; not Diana Henzy, Deacon Henzy's sister. Josiah thought I meant her when I spoke on't, and said the idee of anybody wors.h.i.+ppin' that cranky old maid, but as I told him it wuz another old maid or bachelor maid, as I spoze she ort to be called, some years older than Diana Henzy. Sez I, "This Diana wuz a great case to live out-doors in groves and mountains." Sez I, "Some say she was the daughter of Zeus, and twin of Apollo."

And Josiah said them two wuz n.o.body he ever neighbored with.

And I sez, "No, you hain't old enough." And that tickled him; he duz love to be thought young.

There is a French Protestant church, where the English residents wors.h.i.+p, and churches and synagogues where other sects meet.

We went to an Arab school, a museum, library and botanical garden, where we see beautiful native and foreign trees and shrubs and flowers. It has a splendid harbor, consisting of at least two hundred acres. The manufactures are princ.i.p.ally gla.s.s, porcelain, morocco and other leathers, soap, sugar, salt, etc., etc. The city has had many ups and downs, plagues, warfares, sieges and commotions, but seems quite peaceful now.

Mebby it put its best foot forrerd and tried to behave its very best because we wuz there. Naterally they would, comin' as we did from Jonesville, the pride and centre of the Universe and America.

But 'tennyrate everything seemed peaceful and composed.

We only stayed there two days of rest and sightseeing and then rest agin, and then sot sail for Paris.

Our first mornin' in Paris dawned clear and beautiful. It was the Fourth of July. 'Tain't often I do it, but I put my cameo pin on before breakfast, thinkin' that I could not a.s.sume too much grandeur for the occasion. The pin wuz clasped over a little bow of red, white and blue, and in that bow and gray alpacky dress I looked exceedingly well and felt so.

Josiah put on a neck-tie bearin' all the national colors, with more flamin' stars on it, I guess, than we've got States, but I didn't censure him, knowin' his motives wuz good.

We all had comfortable rooms in the tarven. Arvilly wuz dressed in black throughout; I hinted to her she ort to wear some badge in honor of the day, and she retired to her room and appeared with a bow made of black lute string ribbin and c.r.a.pe. I felt dretful. I sez, "Arvilly, can't you wear sunthin' more appropriate to the occasion?"

Sez she, "I know what I am about," and her looks wuz such that I da.s.sent peep about it. But mebby she meant it for mournin' for her pardner. I da.s.sent ask. Josiah wuz readin' his Guide Book as earnest as he ever searched the Skripters, and he sez, with his finger markin' the place, "Where shall we go first?"

Of course, we all wanted to visit the most noted sights of Paris. And all on us fell in love with the gay, bright, beautiful, happy city--though Josiah fell in with French ways more than I did, owin' to his constant strivin's after fas.h.i.+on. Why, I didn't know but he would git to drinkin' whilst he wuz there, observin' the French custom of drinkin' their light wines at their meals.

He intimated that he should most probable have cider on the table in bottles when he got home. "You know," sez he, "that there is a hull box of old medicine bottles to the barn."

But I told him that nothin' stronger than root beer, made by my own hands out of pignut and sa.s.sparilla, should ever be sot on my table.

But I may see trouble with him in that way. Whilst we wuz talkin'

about it, I brung up to ill.u.s.trate the principles I wuz promulgatin', the ivory tankard Arvilly pinted out to us in the American exhibit.

It wuz a big ivory tankard holdin' enough liquor to intoxicate quite a few. Two big, nasty, wreathin' snakes (signifyin' the contents on't in my mind) dominated one side and made the handle, and held the laurel wreath surroundin' it (signifyin' office-holders, so I spozed), in its big hungry mouth. On top of the hull thing stood a rarin' angry brute, ill.u.s.tratin' the cap-stun and completed mission of the whiskey bottle.

Arvilly talked more'n half an hour to Miss Meechim about it, and I wuz glad on't.

But when I brung that up, Josiah waved the subject off with a shrug of his shoulders in the true French way, though a little too voyalent.

I had ketched him practicin' that movement of the shoulders before the gla.s.s. He had got so he could do it first rate, I had to own to myself, though I hated to see him practise it so much, mistrustin'

that it wuz liable to bring on his rumatiz.

And I see in a letter he writ home: "Be sure, Ury, and weed the _jardin_, specially the onions," and he ended the letler: "_Oh revwar, mon ammy._"