Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition Part 12

But he lost his s.h.a.grin on the way, it wuz buried under the acres of posies and beautiful shrubs and trees through which we wuz pa.s.sin'. Every rare posy you ever hearn on wuz there and them you never dremp on, and trees, some beautiful and familiar, and them with strange and beautiful foliage. Little lakes, where gold and silver fish played and dotted over with the rarest and loveliest water plants and blossoms, shrubs runnin' over with bloom, why, there wuz acres of jest rosies. And in the middle of a six-acre rose garden stood a handsome statute of one of my own sect, Flora by name, jest lookin' down as if she owned the hull on't, and wuz proud and happy to be there, as well she might-she'll never git into such a delightful spot agin, I don't believe.

And there wuz pleasant walks windin' round every which way and once in awhile a big tree shadin' a cozy nook where you could sit down and enjoy the beauty and perfume. It wuz good to be there, and it seemed as if the hull world had the same mind about comin' and wuz all there walkin' about or else settin' down enjoyin' themselves.

Horticultural Buildin' is big enough and full enough to keep folks busy a month. Right in the centre, in a place as long as from our house clear over to she that wuz Submit Tewksbury's and I d'no but furder, wuz a display of fruit, all kinds of fruit of every shape and size that grow in every climate from frigid to torrid, and every country from Greenland to Asia, it wuz a sight. Then there wuz a display of every kind of horticultural machinery and implements, gla.s.s housen, aquariums, ferneries, all sorts of ornaments for gardens.

All kinds of small fruits and how to grow 'em, everything relating to the culture of vines, vineyards, wine cellars. All sorts of ornamental plants and flowers, models of fruit in wax and plaster, baskets and bunches of flowers, conservatories, all flowering plants from every country and the way to grow them. All sorts of seeds, gra.s.s, fruit trees of all kinds, and the best way to prune and plant them.

Josiah told me he thought we could git round and see what wuz in this buildin' in four weeks, but I felt dubersome about it and told him we would have to go a pretty good jog if we did. Blandina thought she could git round in three weeks if she had some good man's arm to lean on the most of the time.

But 'tennyrate, after stayin' there and lookin' round a long time, I told Josiah I wuz tired enough to go home, so we went.

I wuz most melted too, for St. Louis weather is tuckering to them that can't stand heat. It made Josiah real worrisome time and agin. And one thing he said about it put a idee into my head that I never had thought on, I thought it wuz real smart.

Somebody wuz lamentin' the fact in our hearin' that so many thieves and villains of all sorts had congregated at St. Louis this summer, and Josiah sez:

"It's a first rate thing for sinners to come here to git acclimated, as it were, before they die."

I hadn't thought on't, but felt there wuz sunthin' in it, for truly the burnin' climate of the place I don't want to speak on by name, must be easier to bear after visitin' St. Louis than to plunge into it from cooler and more northern States. And still I don't know why we should want to make it easier for 'em, I spoze it wuz our pityin' naters that made us think ont.

The weather wuz simply burnin' hot, no other word describes it, oveny, furnacy hot! and Josiah said, and well said, it set folks to thinkin' and inclined 'em to take warnin' and mend their ways. Sez he, "Two days of St. Louis weather wuz worth more to sinners than the sermons of a month of winter Sundays."

Truly in heat it wuz a great object lesson. I wore my brown lawn dress day after day, havin' no chance to wear my rich alpacky, as I wanted to, to kinder show off before Miss Huff, and Blandina presented the wilted appearance of a long slim cabbage leaf plunged in bilin' water.

I believe Josiah's groanin's and takin's on and mutterin's helped him to bear it better than if he had held in. Not that I told him so, no, I told him it wuz onmanly to carry on so. But truly the heat wuz fearful, our clothin' stuck to us and prespiration and sweat run down our faces.

The next day it wuz so hot I felt kinder mauger and stayed to home. Blandina and Miss Huff went half a day, and in the afternoon Blandina went to a big department store in the city to git some thinner underwear, and I got awful skairt about her. Miss Huff gin her the most minute directions about where it wuz and what car to take, it wuzn't a great ways off, and she ort to got back at four o'clock anyway.

But time run along, four struck, then five and then six, and I wuz gittin' dretful worried about her when she come in tired enough.

Sez I, "I wuz awful worried about you, Blandina. Did you git lost?"

"No." She said she got onto the right car and the conductor wuz a dretful handsome and fascinatin' man, and she went to git off at the right street, and kinder backed off, she always duz git off that way, and the conductor thinkin' she wanted to git on, he smiled so sweet and held out his hand to help her on so she would git on again. And that happened over and over. She not wantin' to hurt his feelin's and slight him by not takin' holt of his hand and climbin' on agin. Till finally she did show some good sense, she asked the man standin' on the platform if he would help her off, for she had been tryin' to git off for the last five stations. So she had to take a car back, but the conductor wuz humbly and gruff and she got along all right, but it belated her.

Sez I, "What made you do it, Blandina?"

"Oh," sez she, "he looked so winnin' and invitin' I didn't want to hurt his feelin's."

Sez I, "You'll sup sorrer yet, Blandina, by your wantin' to obleege everybody. You ort to look out for yourself some, you're alltogether too good to be comfortable."

CHAPTER IX.

Well, Josiah went that day with Billy Huff, he santered off without any system or plan, and wouldn't take my pad though I offered it to him. But I guess they jest poked round miscelaneous, as you may say, seein' jest what they happened to run into. And in some of their travels they met Barzelia Trimble, a woman lecturer, she's young and good lookin' and smart as a whip, and I guess she made much of Josiah, 'tennyrate she gin him tickets to her lecture.

She said she'd met a man whose brother-in-law's cousin had bought a dog once of a neighbor of mine, and so feelin' so well acquainted with me she sent me the tickets, and did hope we would come. She said she felt that she knew us both so well that it would be a treat to her.

The way she come to see Josiah that day, Billy had met her at school where she lectured.

Josiah wuz very anxious that we should both go. He remembered the dog.

But I sez, "I thought you didn't believe in wimmen's lecturin' and havin' rights, Josiah."

"Well, I don't believe in 'em, but the tickets wuz gin to us, fifty cents right out of her pocket, and she'll expect us. She said it would make her feel more homelike to have us present."

"Well," sez I, "I don't know as I feel so very intimate with her, I never see the dog, but her idees on wimmen's rights is sensible, I've read about 'em."

And that kinder headed Josiah off onto a new tact; we had had a dretful good supper, and I believe Miss Trimble had made a sight on him, I believe she had flattered and pompeyed him and for the time bein' he felt soft in sperit towards the s.e.x.

And 'tennyrate men's moods are like the onfathomable sea, sometimes turbulent, throwin' up stunny arguments and sandy ones, and agin flowin' calm and smooth as ile, and this wuz one of the gently swas.h.i.+n' ones.

"Id'no," sez he, "and I told her so, what wimmen want rights for, or to vote; I never wanted wimmen to vote, I told her they wuz too good, they wuz too near angels to have rights. You know I've always said so, Samantha, and I wuz readin' a piece a day or two ago, writ by one of the first ministers in the country, and he said that wimmen hadn't ort to want any rights; they ort to be riz up on a pedestal and I say so too."

And I sez, "No, Josiah, I can't go into that with all the rest I have to do, and it seems onreasonable in that minister to want wimmen to climb up onto pedestals when they have to do their own housework."

"Well, I say it hain't onreasonable. You ort to be up on one, Samantha."

(How much Miss Trimble must have made on him. He wuz so oncommon clever, and he never wuz megum, poor creeter!) I didn't really want to git into an argument at that time o' day, but I see he wuz on the wrong tact, and I felt I must convince him, so I sez in reasonable axents:

"I jest as lives be on a pedestal as not, I'd kinder love to if I could set, I always did enjoy bein' riz up, if I had nothin' to do only to stay up there some time, but wimmen have to git round so much it wouldn't work. How could I take a tower histed up like the car of Juggernaut or a Pope in a procession. I couldn't get carriers for one thing, and I wouldn't give a cent to be carried round anyway with my dizzy spells, I should more'n as likely as not fall off. But that hain't the main reason I'm agin it, it is too tuckerin' a job for wimmen."

"Tuckerin' to be enthroned on a pedestal with the male sect lookin' up to you and wors.h.i.+ppin' you. You call that tuckerin'?" sez he.

"Yes," sez I, "I do. How under the sun can I or any other woman be up on a pedestal and do our own housework, cookin', was.h.i.+n' dishes, sweepin', moppin', cleanin' lamps, blackin' stoves, was.h.i.+n', ironin', makin' beds, quiltin' bed quilts, gittin' three meals a day, day after day, biled dinners and bag puddin's and mince pies and things, to say nothin' of custard and pumpkin pies that will slop over on the level, do the best you can; how could you keep 'em inside the crust histin' yourself up and down? And cleanin' house time--"

"Mebby," sez I honestly, "it would come handy in whitewas.h.i.+n' or fixin' the stovepipe, but where would it be in cleanin' mop-boards, or puttin' down carpets, or was.h.i.+n' winders, or doin' a three weeks was.h.i.+n', or bilin' soap? or pickin' geese? They act like fury shot up on the barn floor. How could you git our old gander up on a pedestal? His temper is that fiery, to say nothin' of settin' or standin' on it and holdin' on to the old thing and pickin' it. And raisin' chickens and was.h.i.+n' old trousers and overalls, and cleanin' sullers and paintin' floors and paperin', and droudgin' round all the time, as a woman has to to keep her house comfortable.

"And pickin' black-caps and strawberries, and churnin' big churnin's of b.u.t.ter, and pickin' wool, to say nothin' of onexpected company comin', and no girl. Let a lot of company come to stay all day the relations on your side and the work not done, and me posin' like a statute, lookin' down on you and your sect, you'd feel like a fool and jaw, you know you would. I presoom you'd throw your boot-jack at me and threaten to part with me, and how mean that would be in you when I did it at your request. 'Tain't anything any woman would go into if she wuz let alone."

"And then think of the thrashers and silo fillers comin' in hungry as bears, what would they say? No dinner cookin' and I on a pedestal, why it would be the town's talk. Or you comin' home from Jonesville on a cold night fraxious as a dog and sayin' you should die off if you didn't have supper in ten minutes. How could I git it on time perched up there?

"I say it can't be done, and it is onreasonable for men to want it, and at the same time want wimmen to do her own housework. For these men, every one on 'em, would act like fury if their house wuzn't clean and their clothes in order, and meals on time. And you must know it would jest about kill a woman to be doin' all this and histin' herself up and down a hundred times a day, and mebby half dead with rumatiz too. Why, it would be worse for me than all the rest of my work, and you hadn't ort to ask it of me."

Josiah looked real huffy and sez, "I hain't the only man that's wantin' it done; men have always been sot on it. There's been more'n a wagon load of poetry writ on it and you know it. Men have always said a sight about it, I hain't alone in it," he snapped out.

"No," sez I honestly, "I've hearn it before. But you see it wouldn't work, don't you? And I believe I could convince every man if I could git to 'em and talk it over with 'em. And I don't see where the beauty on't would come in; of course a woman couldn't change her clothes and put on Greek drapery right in the midst of cleanin' the b.u.t.tery shelves or moppin' off the back steps. And to see a woman standin' up on a pedestal with an old calico dress pinned up round her waist and a slat sunbunnet on and her pardner's rubber boots, and her sleeves rolled up, and her face red as blood with hard work, and her hands all swelled up with hot soap suds and lye, what beauty would there be in it? It always did seem onreasonable besides bein' so tuckerin' no woman could stand it for a day."

He looked mad as a hen and sez he, "They could manage it if their minds wuz strong enough."

Sez I, "It seems to me it would depend more on the strength of their legs, specially if the pedestal wuz a high one. I never could git up onto it at all if I should go into it without gittin' up on a chair and then on a table. No woman no matter how strong she wuz could git more than two meals a day under the circ.u.mstances."

Josiah looked worried and sez, "Well, mebby there has been too much said about it, mebby it would be jest as well to leave pedestals to statters."

And I sez, "It is as well agin. Wimmen couldn't stand it with all they have to do."

And so we ended by bein' real congenial in our two minds and thinkin' considerable alike, which is indeed a comfort to pardners. And we read our chapter in the Bible and had family prayers jest as we do to home. For I would not leave off all the good old habits of my life because my body wuz moved round a little. And we had a good night's rest and sot out in good season the next mornin' for the Exposition.