Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife Part 45

I could see that Mr. Astofeller wuz greatly impressed by what I said.

I see he took out his watch a number of times, wantin' to see, I mistrusted, the exact minute that I said different things. He wuz jest like the rest of them millionaires, a first-rate lookin' and actin'

creeter when you git down to the real man, but run away with by Ambition and Greed, a span that will take the bits in their mouth and dash off and carry any one further than they mean to be carried. He didn't say so right out but he kinder gin me to understand that I'd convinced him more'n a little. And I am lookin' every day to see him make a d.i.c.ker with Uncle Sam (a good-hearted creeter too as ever lived Uncle Sam is, only led away sometimes by bad councillors), yes, I expect he will make a d.i.c.ker with Uncle Sam for the good of the public and hasten on the day of love and justice. I am lookin' for it and prayin' for it; in fact the hull world is prayin' for it every day whether they know it or not when they pray "Thy kingdom come."

But to resoom: Robert Strong and Josiah come back almost simeltaneously, and I don't know what Mr. Astofeller's bizness wuz with Robert, sunthin'

about California affairs, I guess, mebby politics or sunthin'. But 'tennyrate, if it wuz anything out of the way I know he would never get Robert to jine in with him.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

From Naples we went to Athens, Dorothy wantin' to see Greece while she was so nigh to it, and Robert Strong wantin' just what she did every time. And Miss Meechim sayin' that it would be a pity to go home and not be able to say that we had been to what wuz once the most learned and genteel place in the hull world.

"Yes," sez Josiah, "I'd love to tell Elder Minkley and the brethern I'd been there."

And Miss Meechim went on to say that she wanted to see the Acropolis and the Hall of the Nymphs and the Muses.

And Josiah told me that "they wuz n.o.body he had ever neighbored with and didn't know as he wanted to."

I guess Miss Meechim didn't hear him for she went on and said, "Athens wuz named from Athena, the G.o.ddess Minerva."

And Josiah whispered to me "to know if it wuz Minerva Slimpsey, Simon's oldest sister."

And I sez, "No, this Minerva, from what I've hearn of her, knew more than the hull Slimpsey family," sez I. "She wuz noted for her wisdom and knowledge, and I spoze," sez I, "that she wuz the daughter of Jupiter."

Josiah said Jupiter wuz n.o.body he ever see, though he wuz familiar with his name. And I'd hearn on him too when Josiah smashed his finger or slipped up on the ice or anything, not that I wanted to in that tone. Arvilly thought mebby she could canva.s.s the royal family or some on 'em, and Tommy wuz willin' to go to any new place, and I spoze Carabi wuz too. And I said I wanted to stand on Mars' Hill, where Paul preached to the people about idolatry and their wors.h.i.+p of the Unknown G.o.d. As we sailed along the sh.o.r.es Dorothy spoke of Sapho. Poor creeter! I wuz always sorry for her. You know she wuz disappointed, and bein' love-sick and discouraged she writ some poetry and drownded herself some time ago.

And Robert Strong talked a good deal to Dorothy about Plato and Homer and Xenophon and Euripides, Sophocles, Phidias, and Socrates--and lots more of them old worthies; folks, Josiah remarked to me, that had never lived anywhere round Jonesville way, he knew by the names. And Dorothy quoted some poetry beginning:

"The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece."

And Robert quoted some poetry. I know two lines of it run:

"Maid of Athens, ere we part, Give, O, give me back my heart."

But his eyes wuzn't on Athens at all. They wuz on Dorothy, and her face flushed up as rosy a pink as ever Miss Sapho's did when she wuz keepin' company.

After we left the boat we rode over a level plain with green trees by the wayside till we reached Athens and put up at a good tarven.

Athens, "The eye of Greece," mother of arts and eloquence, wuz built in the first place round the Acropolis, a hill about three hundred feet high, and is a place that has seen twice as many ups and downs as Jonesville. But then it's older, three or four thousand years older, I spoze, and has had a dretful time on't since Mr. Theseus's day, take it with its archons or rulers, kings and generals, and Turks, Goths and Franks, etc.

But it become the fountainhead of learning and civilization, culture and education of the mind and the body. In that age of health and beauty, study and exercise, the wimmen didn't wear any cossets, consequently they could breathe deep breaths and enjoy good health, and had healthy little babies that they brought up first-rate as fur as the enjoyment of good health goes, and Arvilly said she knew they didn't drink to excess from the looks of their statutes.

Athens also claims to be one of the birthplaces of Homer, that good old blind poet. Robert Strong talked quite a good deal about his poems, the Iliad and the Odyssy or the return of Ulysses Odysses to his native land.

Josiah paid great attention to it, and afterwards he confided to me that he thought of writin' a Jodyssy or the return of Josiah to Jonesville. He said when he recounted all his wanderin's and tribulations on the road and at tarvens with starvation and tight clothes and all the other various hampers he'd been hampered with he said that it would beat that old Odyssy to nothin' and n.o.body would ever look at it agin. "Why," sez he, "jest think how old that is, most a thousand years B. C. It is time another wuz writ, and I'm the one to write it."

But I shall try to talk him out of it. He said he shouldn't begin it till our return to Jonesville, so Ury could help him in measurin' the lines with a stick. And when I am once mistress of my own cook-stove and b.u.t.tery I have one of the most powerful weepons in the world to control my pardner with.

I hain't no great case to carry round relics, but I told Josiah that I would give a dollar bill quick if I could git holt of that old lantern that Diogenes used to carry round here in the streets in broad daylight to find Truth with. How I'd love to seen Mr. Diogenes and asked him if he ever found her.

Josiah said he would ruther own his wash-tub that he used to travel round in. And which he wuz settin' in when Alexander the Great asked him what costly gift he could bestow on him. And all that contented, independent creeter asked for wuz to have the king not git between him and the sun.

He snubbed Plato, too; didn't want anything, only his tub and his lantern and hunt round for a honest man, though I don't see how he got round in it. But Josiah sez the tub wuz on castors, and he had a idee of havin' our old washtub fixed up and go to Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., in it with our old tin lantern, jest to be uneek and hunt round there for an honest man.

Sez I middlin' dry, "You may have to go further, Josiah." But I shan't encourage him in it. And our wash-tub wouldn't hold him up anyway; the hoops had sprung loose before I left home.

At the southwest of Athens is the Mount Hymettus. I'd hearn a sight about its honey. Josiah thought he would love to buy a swarm of bees there, but I asked him how could he carry 'em to Jonesville. He said that if he could learn 'em to fly ahead on us he could do it. But he can't.

The road west wuz Eulusas, the Sacred Way. And to the north wuz the Academy of Plato, and that of Aristotle wuz not fur away. One day I see there on an old altar, "Sacred to either a G.o.d or G.o.ddess." They believed in the rights of wimmen, them old Pagans did, which shows there is good in everything.

And how smart Socrates wuz; I always sot store by him, he wuz a good talker and likely in a good many ways, though I spoze he and his wife didn't live agreeable, and there might have been blame on both sides and probable wuz. How calm he wuz when on trial for his life, and when he had drunk the hemlock, sayin' to his accusers:

"I go to death and you to life; but which of the twain is better is known only to Divinity."

And Mr. Plato; don't it seem as if that old Pagan's words wuz prophetic of Christ when he spoke of an inspired teacher:

"This just person must be poor, void of all qualifications save virtue. A wicked world will not bear his instructions and reproofs.

And therefore within three or four years after he begun to preach he should be persecuted, imprisoned, scourged, and at last put to death."

Hundreds of years after, Paul preaching the religion of Christ Jesus, met the Epicurians and Stoics representing Pleasure and Pride. Strong foes that religion has to contend with now. Then he addressed the mult.i.tude from the Areopagus, Mars' Hill.

What feelin's I felt; how real and nigh to my heart his incomparable sermon that he preached in that place seemed to be as I stood there. I thought of how the cultured, beauty-loving nature of Paul must have been affected by his surroundings as he stood there in the midst of statutes and altars to Apollo, Venus, Bacchus. The colossial golden figure of Minerva, holdin' in her outstretched right hand a statute of victory, four cubits high. So big and glorious-lookin' Minerva wuz that her glitterin' helmet and s.h.i.+eld could be seen fur out to sea.

The statute of Neptune on horseback hurling his tridant; the temple to Ceres and all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses they knew on and to the Unknown G.o.d. Here Paul stood surrounded by all these temples so magnificent that jest the gateway to 'em cost what would be ten million dollars in our money.

Here in the face of all this glory he stood up and declared that the true G.o.d, "Lord of heaven and earth dwelt not in temples made with hands." And he went on to preach the truth in Christ Jesus: repentance, remission of sin, the resurrection of the dead. Some mocked and some put him off by saying they would hear him again of this matter. They felt so proud, their glory and magnificence seemed so sure and enduring, their learning, art and accomplishments seemed so fur above this obscure teacher of a new religion.

But there I stood on the crumbling ruins of all this grandeur and art.

And the G.o.d of Paul that they had scorned to "feel after if haply they might find him," wuz dominating the hull world, bringing it to the knowledge of Christ Jesus: "The gold and silver and stone wrought by many hands" had crumbled away while the invisible wuz the real, the truth wuz sure and would abide forever. How real it all seemed to me as I stood there and my soul listened and believed like Dionysos and Damarus!

The market place wuz just below Mars' Hill, and I spoze the people talked it over whilst they wuz buyin' and sellin' there, about a strange man who had come preachin' a new doctrine and who had asked to speak to the people. It sez, "His heart was stirred within him and he taught them about the true G.o.d" in the synagogue and market-place. As we stood there in that hallowed spot, Miss Meechim said:

"Oh, that I had been there at that time and hearn that convincin'

sermon, how glad would I have left all and followed Him, like Dionysos and Damarus."

"Well, I d'no," sez Arvilly, "as folks are any more willin' now to let their old idols of Selfishness and Mammon go and renounce the faults and wors.h.i.+p the truth than they wuz then."

Miss Meechim scorfed at the idee, but I pondered it in my own mind and wondered how many there really wuz from Jonesville to Chicago, from Maine to Florida, ready to believe in Him and work for the Millenium.

But to resoom. The Patessia is a beautiful avenoo, the royal family drive there every day and the n.o.bility and fas.h.i.+onable people. The Greek ladies wear very bright clothing in driving or walking. The road looks sometimes like a bed of moving blossoms.

As in most every place where we travelled, Robert Strong met someone he knew. Here wuz a gentleman he had entertained in California, and he gave a barbecue or picnic for us at Phalareum. A special train took the guests to it. There wuz about thirty guests from Athens. The table wuz laid in a pavilion clost to the sea sh.o.r.e covered with vines, evergreens and flowers. Four lambs wuz roasted hull and coffee wuz made in a boiler, choice fruits and foods were served and wines for them that wanted 'em. It is needless to say that I didn't partake on't, and Josiah, I'm proud to say, under my watchful eyes, refused to look on it when it wuz red, and Arvilly and Robert Strong and Dorothy turned down their gla.s.ses on the servant's approach bearin' the bottles.

Everything wuz put on the table to once and a large piece of bread to each plate. No knives or forks are used at a barbecue. We had sweetmeats, rose leaf glyco, oranges and all kinds of fruit. The way they roast a lamb at a barbecue--two large lambs are placed about four feet apart, the lamb pierced lengthwise by a long pointed stick is hung over the bed of live coals. They turn and baste it with olive oil and salt and it is truly delicious.

One pleasant day we visited the King's country place. The dining room wuz a pavilion in a shady spot under orange trees full of fruit and blossoms surrounded with a dense hedge of evergreens, vines and blossoms. There wuz walks in every direction bordered with lovely flowers. The Queen's private settin' room is a pretty room, the furniture covered with pink and white cretonne, no better than my lounge is covered with to home in the spare room. And in a little corner, hid by a screen of photographs wuz her books and writing desk.

The maids of honor had rooms in a little vine covered cottage near by.