Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife Part 40

"Drusilly Sypher knows a sight about it; our army gone to redress wrongs and protect innocence! they better look to home and redress wrongs here; half the citizens of this country in legal bondage, and the hull country cowering under a crime and danger protected and legalized; if I didn't want to make myself a mark for demon laughter I'd quit such talk till I repented my sins in sackcloth and ashes."

"Well, well, Arvilly, set down, set down," sez I, for she wuz rampagin' round the room back and forth, "set down, and here," sez I, handin' her a bottle, "smell of the camfire, Arvilly, you look bad,"

and she did look frightful bad, pale and fiery, and burnin' mad at sunthin' or somebody.

But she waived it off with scorn: "Camfire can't heal the smart, or sweeten the air of the country; no, it needs fire from on high to burn it out. And it will come," sez she, "it will come."

Why, she acted real wild and by the side of herself, and I pitied her like a dog, and wuz at my wit's end what to say to her, and I wuz glad enough to see Elder Minkley, good old saint, comin' up the steps and I went to open the door with alacrity and my left hand, my right hand wuz in the dough, I wuz makin' fried cakes, and I shook hands with him the same, and I sez:

"How glad I am to see you this morning, Brother Minkley," little thinkin' what wuz to come.

He took off his hat and overcoat and hung 'em up in the hall and looked in the gla.s.s in the hall rack with his mild, benevolent eyes, and brushed his thin, gray hair up on the bald spot over his benign forward, and follered me into the settin' room, and I sez, "Here is she that wuz sister Arvilly Lanfear."

And the good old soul advanced with a warm, meller smile on his face, and sez:

"How do you do, Sister Arvilly."

But Arvilly's eyes snapped worse than ever; she never noticed his outstretched hand, and she sez, "Don't you sister me."

"Why! why!" sez he, "what is the matter?" His welcomin' hand dropped weakly by his side, and bein' dretful confused and by the side of himself, he sez:

"I hain't seen you before sence you--you----"

"Deserted from the army," sez she, finis.h.i.+n' the sentence for him.

"Yes, I deserted, I am proud to say; I never had a right before under this nation's laws and I took that right; I deserted and they couldn't help themselves; mebby them men see how it would feel to grin and bear for once, just as wimmen have to all the time."

Brother Minkley had by this time begun to find and recover himself, and he sez with real good nature, "I meant to say, dear sister, that I hadn't seen you before since you lost your husband."

"Since you murdered him," sez she.

"I--I murder a man?" He looked pale and trembled like a popple leaf.

"Yes, you and all other good men who stood by like Pilate, consentin'

to his death," Arvilly went on.

Elder Minkley looked too dazed and agitated to speak, and Arvilly continued: "Do you pretend to say, Elder Minkley, that there is an evil law on the face of the earth that the Church of Christ couldn't overthrow if it chose to do so?"

He sez, "The power of the Church is great, Sister Arvilly, but no-license laws don't stop drinking; liquor is sold somehow; folks that want it will get it."

"What a argument!" sez Arvilly, liftin' her eyes to heaven. "But you hain't answered my question," sez she, short as pie crust, mince pie crust, "Is there an evil law existing to-day that the Church of Christ could not overthrow if it tried to?"

"Well, no," he admitted, "I believe that the Church of Christ is invincible."

"Do you vote, Elder Minkley?"

"Well, no, as it were, Sister Arvilly, I have felt for years that politics was too vile for me to mix myself with."

Sez Arvilly, "Do you believe in following the Lord Jesus Christ?"

Sez Elder Minkley, his good natured face lighting up, "My Divine Master; yes, I will follow him to the stake, to the death, if need be."

"Did he turn away from sinners and the evils of the sinful world and say they wuz too vile for him to mix with?"

"I--I--Sister Arvilly--I why--I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do know what I mean!" sez the intrepid but agonized Arvilly.

"By your criminal indifference and neglect, you encourage the evil power that rules and ruins."

Elder Minkley's face began to look red--red as blood--and sez he, "You present the subject in a way I never thought on before, Sister Arvilly. I will think of it; I will pray over it."

"Will you vote as you pray?" sez Arvilly anxiously.

"I will!" sez Elder Minkley, solemnly, "I will!"

Arvilly come forward and took holt of his hand. Her stern mean softened; there wuz tears in her keen eyes; she looked different. Sez she, "Next Sunday I shall set under your preachin', Elder; I hain't felt like settin' under it before." And, sure enough, she did go to meetin' the next Sunday and from that day they have been the best of friends.

But to resoom forwards: I had a letter from Philury, she said she wuz all well.

It wuz a letter that brought me some comfort and quite a lot of care; it wuz some like a peppermint lozenge, considerably sweet with a sharp tang to it, makin' me think of the sweetness and repose of home with its accompaniment of anxiety and labor.

The children writ real good letters to their pa and me, full of affection and thoughtfulness. Thomas J. told us considerable about the Help Union and the good that Ernest White and his helpers wuz accomplis.h.i.+ng in Loontown and Jonesville. And Tirzah Ann wanted to know if reveres had gone out and hoops comin' in; she had hearn so and felt anxious. There had been a rumor in Jonesville to that effect, but she couldn't place full dependence on it.

Thomas J.'s and Maggie's letters wuz full of gratefulness for Tommy's restored health and what I'd done for him. No matter what else they said that idee wuz runnin' along under the rest of their thoughts, some like the accompaniment of a melodean to a sam tune in meetin'.

And Tommy himself had letters from his pa and ma full of love and good advice, about half and half.

One of the most interestin' places in Venice is the Doges Palace, and I spoze Josiah never gin up his idee about it until we stood right in front of it. But when he see that marble front, full of n.o.ble columns, elaborate carvin', arches, bal.u.s.trades and base reliefs, he had to gin up such a place as that wuz never rared up to a dog or to any number on 'em, though he said when I convinced him of his mistake: "Snip wuz too good to mingle with 'em, he was likelier than any Doge that ever lived there, no matter whether you spelt 'em dog or doge."

And I sez soothin'ly: "Like as not and 'tennyrate how I would love to hear Snip bark out a welcome to us once more."

"Yes," sez Josiah, "it will be the happiest hour of my life when I behold Snip and the cat and the children and grandchildren and the rest of the Jonesvillians once more."

Here in the marble pavement are two great bronze cisterns elegantly sculptured, and you can look up the Grand Staircase with two statutes at the top on either side, Neptune and Mars; and that wuz the place where the old Doges wuz crowned.

On the staircase on each side are beautiful statutes and columns, elaborate carving and richly colored marbles. The Hall of the Great Council is one hundred and seventy-five feet long and most a hundred in width, broad enough and high enough to entertain broader and n.o.bler views than wuz promulgated there. But it contains costly and beautiful pictures; one by Tintoretto is eighty-four feet wide and most forty feet high, the largest picture on canvas in the world so I've hearn, and others by Paul Veronese and the other great masters.

All round the wall, like a border in a Jonesville parlor, are the portraits of the Doges of Venice in their red robes and round-topped caps. But where Marino Faliero should have hung wuz a black curtain.

Well, he wuz a mean creeter; it is a good thing he can be shut out with a curtain. Josiah said he thought it would be a crackin' good plan to have a black curtain hung before the pictures of some of our public men, but Arvilly said, in a real dry tone, that "If we begun that it would bring up the price of black cloth enormously."

She mourns yet quite a good deal in her best dresses, and looked ahead, and didn't want the price of c.r.a.pe and bombazine riz.

Among the pictures of these old Doges wuz one who led the army in an attack on Constantinople at the age of ninety-seven, when most old men are bedrid with a soap-stun and water gruel. And Francesco Foscari, who worked n.o.bly for thirty-five years and wuz then abused shameful by the Ten and turned out of office.

Them old Doges had their ups and downs; riz up to power, throwed down agin. Mean as the Old Harry, some on 'em, and some workin' well for the public. And some after servin' the public for years wuz banished, some beheaded, some had their eyes put out, one died of vexation, one who wuz deposed died when the bell rung in his successor. A few died in battle, but only a few on 'em pa.s.sed away in their beds after a lingerin' and honorable sickness with their one wife and children weepin' about 'em.

You can see the open place in the wall where the written complaints wuz put aginst somebody or anybody, guilty or innocent, and wuz pretty sure to be acted upon by the dretful Ten settin' there in their black robes and black masks, fit color for their dark and cruel deeds.

We went down to see the dungeons, dark, cramped, filthy holes in the solid wall: only a little light sifted in from the corridor through a narrow slit. It seemed as if them places wuz so awful we couldn't bear to look at 'em. But we went down into still deeper dungeons way below the ca.n.a.l, dretful places where you can't hardly draw a breath. We see dim traces of writings on the walls some wretched prisoner waitin' for death had writ there. How did he feel when he writ it? I didn't want to know, nor have Josiah know.

We didn't make a very long stay in Venice, but journeyed on to Florence--Florence the beautiful. It lays in a quiet, sheltered valley with the Apennine Mountains risin' about it as if to keep off danger.