Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife, Marietta Holley [best e reader for academics .txt] 📗

Our son, Thomas Jefferson, and his wife, Maggie, have been wadin’ through a sea of trouble. He down with inflamatory rumatiz so a move or jar of any kind, a fly walkin’ over the bedclothes, would most drive him crazy; and she with nervious prostration, brought on I spoze by nussin’ her pardner and her youngest boy, Thomas Josiah (called Tommy), through the measles, that had left him that spindlin’ and weak-lunged that the doctor said the only thing that could tone up his system and heal his lungs and save his life would be a long sea voyage. He had got to be got away from the cold fall blasts of Jonesville to once. Oh! how I felt when I heard that ultimatum and realized his danger, for Tommy wuz one of my favorites. Grandparents ort not to have favorites, but I spoze they will as long as the world turns on its old axletrys.

He looks as Thomas J. did when he wuz his age and I married his pa and took the child to my heart, and got his image printed there so it won’t never rub off through time or eternity. Tommy is like his pa and he hain’t like him; he has his pa’s old ways of truthfulness and honesty, and deep––why good land! there hain’t no tellin’ how deep that child is. He has got big gray-blue eyes, with long dark lashes that kinder veil his eyes when he’s thinkin’; his hair 10 is kinder dark, too, about the color his pa’s wuz, and waves and crinkles some, and in the crinkles it seems as if there wuz some gold wove into the brown. He has got a sweet mouth, and one that knows how to stay shet too; he hain’t much of a talker, only to himself; he’ll set and play and talk to himself for hours and hours, and though he’s affectionate, he’s a independent child; if he wants to know anything the worst kind he will set and wonder about it (he calls it wonner). He will say to himself, “I wonner what that means.” And sometimes he will talk to Carabi about it––that is a child of his imagination, a invisible playmate he has always had playin’ with him, talkin’ to him, and I spoze imaginin’ that Carabi replies. I have asked him sometimes, “Who is Carabi, I hearn you talkin’ to out in the yard? Where duz he come from! How duz he look?”

He always acts shy about tellin’, but if pressed hard he will say, “He looks like Carabi, and he comes from right here,” kinder sweepin’ his arms round. But he talks with him by the hour, and I declare it has made me feel fairly pokerish to hear him. But knowin’ what strange avenoos open on every side into the mysterious atmosphere about us, the strange ether world that bounds us on every pint of the compass, and not knowin’ exactly what natives walk them avenoos, I hain’t dasted to poke too much fun at him, and ’tennyrate I spozed if Tommy went a long sea-voyage Carabi would have to go too. But who wuz goin’ with Tommy? Thomas J. had got independent rich, and Maggie has come into a large property; they had means enough, but who wuz to go with him? I felt the mantilly of responsibility fallin’ on me before it fell, and I groaned in sperit––could I, could I agin tempt the weariness and danger of a long trip abroad, and alone at that? For I tackled Josiah on the subject before Thomas J. importuned me, only with his eyes, sad and beseechin’ and eloquent. And Josiah planted himself firm as a rock on his refusal.

Never, never would he stir one step on a long sea-voyage, 11 no indeed! he had had enough of water to last him through his life, he never should set foot on any water deeper than the creek, and that wuzn’t over his pumps. “But I cannot see the child die before my eyes, Josiah, and feel that I might have saved him, and yet am I to part with the pardner of my youth and middle age? Am I to leave you, Josiah?”

“I know not!” sez he wildly, “only I know that I don’t set my foot on any ship, or any furren shore agin. When I sung ‘hum agin from a furren shore’ I meant hum agin for good and all, and here I stay.”

“Oh dear me!” I sithed, “why is it that the apron strings of Duty are so often made of black crape, but yet I must cling to ’em?”

“Well,” sez Josiah, “what clingin’ I do will be to hum; I don’t go dressed up agin for months, and hang round tarvens and deepos, and I couldn’t leave the farm anyway.”

But his mean wuz wild and haggard; that man worships me. But dear little Tommy wuz pinin’ away; he must go, and to nobody but his devoted grandma would they trust him, and I knew that Philury and Ury could move right in and take care of everything, and at last I sez: “I will try to go, Thomas J., I will try to go ’way off alone with Tommy and leave your pa–––.” But here my voice choked up and I hurried out to give vent to some tears and groans that I wouldn’t harrow Thomas J. with. But strange, strange are the workin’s of Providence! wonderful are the ways them apron strings of Duty will be padded and embroidered, strange to the world’s people, but not to them that consider the wonderful material they are made of, and how they float out from that vast atmosphere jest spoke on, that lays all round us full of riches and glory and power, and beautiful surprises for them that cling to ’em whether or no. Right at this time, as if our sharp distress had tapped the universe and it run comfort, two relations of Maggie’s, on their way home from Paris to San Francisco, stopped to see their relations in Jonesville on their own sides.

Dorothy Snow, Maggie’s cousin, wuz a sweet young girl, the only child of Adonirum Snow, who left Jonesville poor as a rat, went to Californy and died independent rich. She wuz jest out of school, had been to Paris for a few months to take special studies in music and languages; a relation on her ma’s side, a kind of gardeen, travelin’ with her. Albina Meechim wuz a maiden lady from choice, so she said and I d’no as I doubted it when I got acquainted with her, for she did seem to have a chronic dislike to man, and havin’ passed danger herself her whole mind wuz sot on preventin’ Dorothy from marryin’.

They come to Maggie’s with a pretty, good natured French maid, not knowin’ of the sickness there, and Maggie wouldn’t let ’em go, as they wuz only goin’ to stay a few days. They wuz hurryin’ home to San Francisco on account of some bizness that demanded Dorothy’s presence there. But they wuz only goin’ to stop there a few days, and then goin’ to start off on another long sea-voyage clear to China, stoppin’ at Hawaii on the way. Warm climate! good for measles! My heart sunk as I hearn ’em tell on’t. Here wuz my opportunity to have company for the long sea-voyage. But could I––could I take it? Thomas Jefferson gently approached the subject ag’in. Sez he, “Mother, mebby Tommy’s life depends on it, and here is good company from your door.” I murmured sunthin’ about the expenses of such a trip.

Sez he, “That last case I had will more than pay all expenses for you and Tommy, and father if he will go, and,” sez he, “if I can save my boy––” and his voice trembled and he stopped.

“But,” I sez, “your father is able to pay for any trip we want to take.” And he says, “He won’t pay a cent for this.” And there it wuz, the way made clear, good company provided from the doorstep. Dorothy slipped her soft little white hand in mine and sez, “Do go, Aunt Samantha. May I call you Auntie?” sez she, as she lifted her sweet 13 voylet eyes to mine. She’s as pretty as a pink––white complected, with wavy, golden hair and sweet, rosy lips and cheeks.

And I sez, “Yes, you dear little creater, you may call me aunt in welcome, and we be related in a way,” sez I.

Sez Miss Meechim, “We shall consider it a great boon if you go with us. And dear little Tommy, it will add greatly to the pleasure of our trip. We only expected to have three in our company.”

“Who is the third?” sez I.

“My nephew, Robert Strong. He has been abroad with us, but had to go directly home to San Francisco to attend to his business before he could go on this long trip; he will join us there. We expect to go to Hawaii and the Philippines, and Japan and China, and perhaps Egypt.”

“And that will be just what you will enjoy, mother,” sez Thomas J.

Sez I, in a strange axent, “I never laid plans for going to China, but,” sez I, “I do feel that I would love to see the Empress, Si Ann. There is sunthin’ that the widder Heinfong ort to know.”

Thomas J. asked me what it wuz, but I gently declined to answer, merely sayin’ that it was a matter of duty, and so I told Miss Meechim when she asked about it. She is so big feelin’ that it raised me up considerable to think that I had business with a Empress. But I answered her evasive, and agin I giv vent to a low groan, and sez to myself, “Can I let the Pacific Ocean roll between me and Josiah? Will Duty’s apron string hold up under the strain, or will it break with me? Will it stretch out clear to China? And oh! will my heart strings that are wrapped completely round that man, will they stretch out the enormous length they will have to and still keep hull?” I knew not. I wuz a prey to overwhelmin’ emotions, even as I did up my best night-gowns and sheepshead night-caps and sewed clean lace in the neck and sleeves of my parmetty and gray alpaca and 14 got down my hair trunk, for I knew that I must hang onto that apron string no matter where it carried me to. Waitstill Webb come and made up some things I must have, and as preparations went on my pardner’s face grew haggard and wan from day to day, and he acted as if he knew not what he wuz doin’. Why, the day I got down my trunk I see him start for the barn with the accordeon in a pan. He sot out to get milk for the calf. He was nearly wild.

He hadn’t been so good to me in over four years. Truly, a threatened absence of female pardners is some like a big mustard poultice applied to the manly breast drawin’ out the concealed stores of tenderness and devotion that we know are there all the time, but sometimes kep’ hid for years and years.

He urged me to eat more than wuz good for me––rich stuff that I never did eat––and bought me candy, which I sarahuptishly fed to the pup. And he follered me round with footstools, and het the soap stun hotter than wuz good for my feet, and urged me to keep out of drafts.

And one day he sez to me with a anxious face:

“If you do go, Samanthy, I wouldn’t write about your trip––I am afraid it will