Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition Part 9

"Don't you believe that, Josiah Allen; it hain't no such thing, I hearn all about it, the elephant didn't go clear in. He didn't go more than half in, they could see his back all the time and they got him out all right."

"Well, that's furder in the mud than the old mair ever went enough sight, and I never could have faced my country agin, if the streets had been so muddy at my Exposition."

"Don't be pickin' flaws all the time, Josiah. There is enough of beauty and grandeur here to satisfy any common man."

"But I hain't a common man, Samantha, and never wuz called so."

"Well, oncommon then, there is enough beauty here to satisfy an oncommon man."

That seemed to molify him, and he gin in that it wuz a pretty good show. But in many things inferior to what hisen would have been if he'd carried it out. But I discouraged all such morbid idees and led his mind off onto sunthin' else.

That evenin' whilst Josiah went out to mail a letter Blandina come into my room and sez the first thing, "Aunt Samantha, I love him pa.s.sionately but my love is scorned by him."

And she busted into tears. I didn't ask no questions, but from Billy's icy demeanor at supper table and Blandina's sentimental grief-stricken linement I mistrusted she'd made overtoors to him that had been rejected.

But I tried to turn her mind 'round by showin' her a letter I'd jest got from Maggie, my son, Thomas Jefferson's wife, tellin' me that her sister Molly, who had been visitin' a college friend in the South, had come home much sooner than she had been expected and seemed run down and most sick.

But she wuz bound to go to the Fair and they thought it wouldn't hurt her to go, as there didn't seem to be anything serious the matter with her only she seemed melancholy and out of sperits, it seemed to be her mind that wuz ailin' more than her body. And would I if there wuz room in my boardin' place take her in and mother her a little. Maggie couldn't come herself, she wuzn't feelin' strong enough, and Thomas J. won't leave her, specially if anything ails her, no indeed! he jest wors.h.i.+ps her, and visey versey she him.

I can't deny my first thought on readin' the letter wuz, another straw to be laid on the back of the camel, meanin' myself in metafor. But my second thought wuz I should be glad to have her come, for she is a lovely girl and I set store by her. She's been away to school and college for years, but I had often seen her durin' her vacations at Thomas Jefferson's.

Maggie had showed her letters to me that she had writ whilst she wuz away South on this visit to her friend. One young man's name run through 'em like the theme to a great melody, and then all to once stopped, and though Maggie and I hadn't pa.s.sed a word on the subject I mistrusted more than Maggie mistrusted I did about the cause of Molly bein' so deprested.

Young folks will be young folks! young blood can't run slow and stiddy, and how young hearts can ache, ache. The tide that youth sails out on is a restless one, it has its pa.s.sionate tides, lit by glowing suns.h.i.+ne, and anon by the glare of the tempest. It flows ever and anon smooth, and then agin rough rocks of disappointment checks its swift glad flow, and what it calls despair, but which dwindles down into nothin' more than regret time and agin. It has its low tides, full of the sobbin' of waters that are flowin' back to the depths, and everything seems lost and gone. But anon the tide flows back again and so it goes on, storm and dull calm, suns.h.i.+ne and tempest, and they don't know which is the hardest to endure. That's why youth is so beautiful, so glorious, so tragic.

How I wished I could take Molly (for I loved her) and lift her clear over the breakers into the calm of the deeper, smoother waters that the home going boat finds when it is nearing the nightfall. The calm waters lit by a light, soft and stiddy but sort o' sad like, not like the dancin' sunlight of the mornin', oh no! when the tired mariner looks back over the voyage and gits ready to cast anchor in the Home Haven.

But I knowed I wuz onreasonable to even wish it, for grim old Experience must stand at the h.e.l.lum every time in everybody's life, and folks hadn't ort to expect dyin' grace to live by; Molly had got to weather the storm of life whether or no and I couldn't help it. But to stop eppisodin' and resoom.

I made a practice of writin' down mornings before I started for the Fair the places I wanted to see that day if the rest of the party consented, and I writ down that mornin' Liberal Arts, Fisheries, Educational Buildin', Electricity, Machinery, Transportation, Horticultural and Agricultural Buildin's and etcetery.

Josiah wanted to know what etcetery meant, and I told him any other place we wanted to see which he said wuz reasonable, and he thought probable he should have to go to some shows on the Pike, he said he had met Uncle Sime Bentley the day before and they talked it over and decided that it seemed to be their duty as solid stiddy men to go to some of the worst shows, specially them that had pretty girls in 'em, so they could be convinced of their iniquity and warn the young Jonesvillians. He said they would take their advice as quick agin if they could warn 'em from experience.

"But Josiah," sez I, "I wouldn't take such a distasteful, hateful job onto me, it hain't your duty to make such a martyr of yourself, specially as you hain't well."

But Josiah said he'd always said "He wouldn't put his hand to the plow and look back," and he and Uncle Sime had talked it all over and agreed they would make the sacrifice for the good of Jonesville. But I meant to break it up; I knowed it wuzn't his duty to nasty up his mind, hopin' to do good by it, when I could never git it cleaned up agin as clean as it wuz before.

CHAPTER VII.

Aunt Tryphena come in to make up our room whilst we wuz argyin' about it. She come earlier than common, for she said she wuz goin' herself to the Fair that day and take Dotie, who hadn't been at all. I told her it would be a job to take care of a child in that big crowd.

But she said, "I'd rather take care of Miss Dotie than to eat any time. And as for the crowd it wuz nothin' to crowds she'd been in when she lived in Paris with Miss Louise and Prince Arthur. She had took him when he wuz a little boy to the Boy Bolony and the Champin Eliza when there wuz millions of folks there." She wuz always talking of Prince Arthur, which I fancied wuz a pet name for a child, and still given to the young man she wuz constantly talkin' about through her pride and love for him.

Aunt Tryphena wuz from slave parentage, but she had always lived in white families since a child, so she had little of the peculiar dialect of her race. But she wuz black as the Founder of Evil himself, tall and thin with a mighty head of wool white as snow, which she covered with a yellow turban about her work. She had abnormal powers of falsehood, not for profit or to make trouble, but jest simple lying for lie's sake. The most incredible stories she would string off, and nothing pleased Billy more than to git her to goin', as he called it.

He would call our attention silently and reach behind her when she wuz about her work and turn an imaginary crank in her back, and then in the same pantomime would jump back as if in fear of the fatal power he'd invoked, but would wickedly delight in the endless stream of talk let forth, occasionally asking a few questions, enough to keep her going. She would lean on top of her broom and tell of her former adventures thrilling enough and lengthy enough to fill a dozen lives. But everything had happened to her personally, very few noted people but she had seen and been on intimate terms with, very few far distant countries but what she had visited, "Santered through," as she termed it.

In a fine disregard for geography she would tell of stepping from Chicago over to the Phillippines, and so on to London and then to Europe. She detailed many adventures in Paris and described places that made us think that she had some time lived there. She said she went there with Miss Louise and her son, Prince Arthur, when he wuz little, as his nurse. And she described him as having all the virtues of his s.e.x with none of its frailties. She said she had his picture which she would show us some day. She described his mother as a "proud piece," almost putting her down on a level with "poor white trash," which wuz the deepest depth her plummet of contumely could reach. And she described her as holding her son by her ap.r.o.n string, as she termed it.

She said he had been home this summer on bizness down South and had come to see her, which Billy said wuz true, a very handsome and elegant young gentleman having called twice to see his old nurse during the spring and summer.

She said he come to see her on his arrival at St. Louis on some bizness connected with the Fair, and then he santered off to Saratoga for a few weeks, and then on to ole Virginny and New Zealand, and then back to St. Louis to attend to his bizness agin about the Fair. She said he wuz pale and sad the last time she see him, and she mistrusted his ma had been cuttin' up. She sez:

"You know she lacks." That wuz Aunt Tryphena's greatest condemnation to say folks lacked. She never told what they lacked, but left it to the imagination of the hearer; from her expression you would imagine they lacked all the cardinal virtues and them that wuzn't cardinal. She said his ma wuz sick and kep' the Prince right under her feet, and he'd gone back now to be with her leaving St. Louis only a week or so before we come.

Bein' asked why she left Miss Louise she wuz more reticent, only remarking that after Prince Arthur went to college she wanted a change, so she had strolled over to South America, and from there to Asia and so on to Chicago where she wuz hired as nurse to Miss Dotie, and when her ma died and the child wuz taken by its great-aunt, Miss Huff, she had been willing to help the latter through the Exposition, for she wuz a nice woman and didn't lack.

But we could see that her real reason wuz to be with the child-faithful creeter she wuz, though queer, queer as they make. And to see the little creature's white snow and rose face resting lovingly and confidingly aginst the black cheeks, you knew that Aunt Tryphena had good in her. Little children are good detectives, like the sun that photographs hidden virtues and failings in the human face, so a child's intuition brought from the heaven they have so lately left, takes the best impressions of a person's real character. Children and animals live so near Nature's heart they can detect real diamonds from the false, no paste glitter can deceive 'em. Aunt Pheeny had qualities, or Dotie wouldn't have loved her so well, and I felt it a great compliment that she seemed to like me.

Well, as observed heretofore we had took a hefty job that day, and we proceeded first to the Educational Buildin'. It wuz a n.o.ble lookin' structure with a row of snowy pillows all 'round it; a good many think it is the handsomest buildin' on the Fair ground, and as I said to Josiah, it ort to be considerin' the greatness and importance of the work it displays, for our free schools, our educational advantages, are the pride and glory of our country.

"Yes, Samantha," sez he, "I hearn a man say yesterday education wuz the very bull work of our country, meanin' you know, Samantha, it wuz strong as a bull."

"Oh, you hain't got it jest right, Josiah, bulwark don't mean jest that, but you've got the sperit of it," I hastened to say, for he don't love to be corrected.

And here in this buildin' we see everything relating to schools from kindergarten to university, training schools, where children wuz to work, schools for the blind, deaf and dumb in operation; the work of labratories going on before you; departments in drawing, music, agricultural colleges; experiment stations, forestry, engineering schools and inst.i.tutions, libraries, museums, education of the Indian and negro, evening industrial schools, business and commercial schools, people's inst.i.tutes, and every way and manner of mind training. Photograph, charts, maps, and not only all our own educational exhibits, but England, France, Germany, Russia, China, and in short all the foreign countries.

We stayed a good while there and I would have loved to stay longer, but Josiah got worrisome and wanted to go on to Electricity Buildin' which wuz next in our programmy. And here I took more solid comfort than in any place I'd been, beholdin' the marvelous works wrought by the greatest discovery of the ages. That wonderful Force that has power to overcome s.p.a.ce, save or slay. It is intelligent, can talk over the ocean and under it, talk with wires, and if a wire hain't handy it will take a beam of light and talk on that, and it can git along without either one, for here is the biggest wireless telegraph station ever built; visitors can talk on it from city and city, jest throwin' their words out into the air and this onseen agency carries 'em along to the one sent to and n.o.body else-wonderful hain't it? Wonderful to meditate on the great onseen forces all about us, mysterious viewless shapes, nigh to us, helpin' us, journeyin' on errents of mercy to and fro on paths we can't see, leadin' up and down from star to star from heaven to earth mebby.

And curious, hain't it, that the n.o.ble and ardent discoverers who have tried to git friendly with them Great Forces and introduce 'em to the world have been called ignorant and pagan, when if these scoffers knowed it there is no paganism or ignorance to be compared to that of bigotry and intolerance.

And we see there dynamos of all kinds, motors, storage batteries, all sorts of power machines. Electric railway equipments of every kind, telephone stations for talking with wires and without 'em, all kinds of electric lighting, arc lamps, electro-chemical displays. And in one place they show the way Niagara wuz made to yield up her resistless power to work for mankind. Labratories for all sorts of electrical exhibits and research work. Electricity purifying water, making it safe to drink, wuz one of its best exhibits.

There wuz everything there it wuz possible to show in electricity and magnetism, not only in our own country, but the work and discoveries of all the foreign countries in this most interestin' of fields.

There is another wireless telegraph and telephone station in the Model City that we visited another time. You walk into this room and you don't hear anything more than the ordinary noise the big crowd makes pa.s.sin' to and fro. And the air about you don't seem any different from jest plain Jonesville air. Your human eyes and ears can't discover any difference.

But you jest take up a receiver and put it to your ear and lo, and behold the atmosphere all about you is full of voices, near and fur off, strains of music. It's a sight.

And I sez to Josiah, "Who knows but some happy soul some happy day may discover the secret of seeing? Who knows what divine visitors are this minute coming and going over these onseen routes connecting our souls with distant ones, connecting one land to another, one planet to another like as not."

And growin' some eloquent, I kep' on, "We don't hear the sound of their footsteps lighter and more noiseless than the down of a blossom, shod as they are with the softness of silence. We don't hear the rustle of their garments, woven of frabic [sic] lighter than air. We can't see their tender faces no more than we can see the sweet breath of the rose. If they lay their tender hands on our foreheads they rest there so light and tender we fancy it is only a breath of air touchin' our fevered brows bringing a sudden rest and comfort.

"If they speak to us when we're tired out and heartbroken we hear their voices only in our souls that are suddenly and strangely consoled. If their eyes ever look into our eyes filled with the divine pity and sweetness of their all comprehendin' love and sympathy, we only know it by the sudden suns.h.i.+ny light and warmth that fills our being. But sometime, somewhere, some happy soul may see and comprehend what we now faintly apprehend."

Josiah whispered, "Samantha Allen, do you realize what you're doin'? You're attractin' attention and makin' talk, come along! this is no time for eppisodin', if there ever is a right time."

And bein' brung down to earth agin I found to my great surprise I wuz sayin' this out loud entirely unbeknown to myself. And I follered my pardner out of the buildin'.

But to resoom backwards. We thought we would go from the Palace of Electricity to that of Transportation, and I feelin' real tired thought I would take a chair a spell (eloquence is tuckerin' specially when you're walkin' afoot), and I proposed that we should all take chairs for a spell. But Josiah said he didn't want any chair, and Blandina of course follered suit and said she felt jest like Uncle Josiah, she wouldn't set down if she could.

But I sez, "Well, I think I will take one," and Josiah ruther onwillin'ly said he would git one for me, and sez he, "I'll see how much the man will throw off if I push the chair myself."

Sez I, "The man wouldn't trust a perfect stranger with a chair."