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

by hundreds of thousands of the best people of the land have been sent to you, but these petitions, weighted down with the tears and prayers of these people, have been made a jest and a mock of by you. And strangest, most awful of sights––incredible almost to men and angels––this govermunt, that sot out as a reformer to Christianize Cuba and the Philippines, have planted there this heaviest artillery of Satan, the saloon, to bind the poor islanders in worse bondage and misery than they ever dremp on. Hain’t you ashamed of yourself! You fool and villain!” (Oh! dear me! Oh, dear suz! To think on’t; Arvilly wuz talkin’ to the govermunt, and callin’ it a fool and villain! The idee! Why, it wuz enough to skair anybody most to death!) I spoze it made a great adoo. I spoze that the men who represented the govermunt wuz too horrified to make a reply. Arvilly always did go too fur when she got to goin’. But it can’t be denied that she had great reason for her feelin’s, for the strongest argument wuz still to come. I spoze she got almost carried away by her own talk and feelin’s, for all of a sudden they said she lifted her long bony hand and arm––Arvilly always wuz kinder spare in flesh––she lifted up her arm and her bony forefinger seemed to be follerin’ the lines of some words writ up there on the wall, sez she slowly, in a awful voice:

“My country! thou are weighed in the balance and found wanting!”

It wuz indeed thrillin’, but after a minute’s silence she went on: “Look at me!” sez she, pintin’ that same forefinger first at herself and then at the tall veiled figger of the young girl beside her––“Look at us; we, the people, represent to you another of your favorite reforms, the Canteen, that product of civilization and Christianity you transplanted from our holy shores to the benighted tropics. How many petitions have you had wet with the tears of wives 98 and mothers, weighted down with their prayers to close this gateway to hell. But no, for a price, as Judas sold his Lord, you have trafficked in human souls and will do so. And you are the power––you control; we are the people––we suffer. We leave all we love, we go out and fight your battles when you tell us to, we face mutilation and death for you––isn’t that enough? No; besides the foe in front you set us aginst, you introduce a foe into our midst that is a million times as fatal and remorseless. The foe in front only aims at our bodies; this foe, before it kills our bodies, kills honor, manhood, all that is noble and worthy to be loved––a devilish foe indeed, but by your command it is let loose upon us; we are the people, we must endure it. Look at me!”––agin she pinted that bony forefinger at herself––“I had a husband I loved as well as the gracious lady in the White House loves her husband. He wuz a good man. He thought he owed a duty to his country. He went to fight her battles at her call. He might have escaped Spanish bullets, but not this foe this Christian govermunt set aginst him. In a low Canteen, a vile drinking den, rented by you for the overthrow of men’s souls and bodies, in a drunken brawl a bullet aimed by a crazed brain for another poor ruined boy reached my husband’s faithful heart, faithful to the country that slew him, not for patriotism or honor, but for a few pennies of money––not even the thirty pieces of silver Judas earnt for betraying his Lord. This bullet wuz sent from the hand of a young man, a college graduate, one of the noblest, brightest and best of men until this foe our govermunt set for him vanquished him. He got into a quarrel with another drunken youth, another victim of the Canteen, and meant to shoot him, but the unsteady hand sent it into the heart of my husband, who went into that vile place thinkin’ he could appease the quarrel. This young man was shot for your crime and here is his widow,” and turning to Waitstill, she said, “Lift up your vail; let them look upon us, the people.”

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The young girl drew back her vail and a face of almost perfect beauty wuz disclosed, but white as death. The big dark eyes wuz full of sorrow and despair, sadder than tears. She simply said:

“I loved him––he was murdered––I have come to denounce his murderers.”

Her voice wuz low, but the words fell like drops of blood, so vivid, so full were they of the soul of her being.

“Yes,” sez Arvilly, “and you are his murderer. Not the Spaniards, not the foe of this govermunt that the poor young fellow tried with a boy’s warm-hearted patriotism to save. You murdered him.” She turned to let her companion speak agin, but the power to speak had gone from her; her slender figure swayed and Arvilly caught her in her strong arms. She had fainted almost away; she could say no more. But what more could she say to this govermunt.

“He was murdered––I loved him––I have come to denounce his murderers.”

Arvilly helped Waitstill down on a bench where she leaned back still and white most as if she wuz dead. But before Arvilly went out with Waitstill leanin’ on her arm, she turned and faced them dumb-foundered men once more:

“Who is accountable for the death of her lover?” pintin’ to the frail, droopin’ figger. “Who is accountable for the death of my husband? Who is accountable for the death and everlastin’ ruin of my son, my husband, my father and my lover? sez the millions of weepin’ wimmen in America that the Canteen and saloon have killed and ruined. These questions unanswered by you are echoin’ through the hull country demandin’ an answer. They sweep up aginst the hull framework of human laws made professedly to protect the people, aginst every voter in the land, aginst the rulers in Washington, D. C., aginst the Church of Christ––failing to git an answer from them they sweep up to God’s throne. There they will git a reply. Woe! woe! to you rulers who 100 deviseth iniquity to overthrow the people committed to your care.”

Arvilly then went out, leadin’ Waitstill, and when she come back to Jonesville she come with her, a patient mourner, good to everybody and goin’ out to day’s works for seventy-five cents a day, for she had no other way to live, for she wuzn’t strong enough then to go on with her nursing and she hadn’t a relation on earth, and the man our govermunt murdered in that Canteen represented all there wuz on this broad earth for her to love. They worshipped each other, and Waitstill is waitin’ till the time comes for her to die and meet the man she loved and lost, havin’ to live in the meantime, because she couldn’t stop breathin’ till her time come. So, as I say, she went out doin’ plain sewin’, beloved by all both great and small, but a mourner if there ever wuz one, lookin’ at his picture day in and day out, which she wears in her bosom in a locket––a handsome, manly face, took before our govermunt made a crazy lunatick and a murderer of him.

Jest as different from Arvilly as day is from night, but the cold hands of grief holds their hearts together and I spoze that she will always make it her home with Arvilly as long as she lives, she wants her to––that is, if the plan I have in my head and heart don’t amount to anything, but I hope for the land sake that it will, for as I’ve said many a time and gin hints to her, there never wuz two folks more made for each other than she and Elder White.

But she’s gone now to the Philippines as a nurse in a hospital, which shows how different she and Arvilly feels; Arvilly sez that she wouldn’t do anything to help the govermunt agin in any way, shape or manner, not if they should chain her and drag her to the front; she would die before she would help the great, remorseless power that killed her husband for a little money. She’s made in jest that way, Arvilly is, jest as faithful to the remembrance of her wrongs as a dog is to a bone, settin’ and gnawin’ at it all the time. 101 And when they come to collect her taxes last year she says:

“No taxes will you ever git out of me to help rare up Saloons and Canteens to kill some other woman’s husband.”

“But,” sez the tax man, a real good man he wuz and mild mannered, “you should be willing to help maintain the laws of your country that protects you.”

And then I spose that man’s hair (it wuz pretty thin, anyway) riz right up on his head to hear her go on tellin’ about the govermunt killin’ her husband. But seein’ she wuz skarin’ him she kinder quelled herself down and sez:

“What has this country ever done for me. I have had no more voice in makin’ the laws than your dog there. Your dog is as well agin off, for it don’t have to obey the laws, that it has no part in makin’. If it digs up a good bone it don’t have to give it to some dog politician to raise money to buy dog buttons to kill other dogs and mebby its own pups. Not one cent of taxes duz this hell-ridden govermunt git out of me agin––if I can help it.”

The man ketched up his tax list and flewed from the house, but returned with minions of the law who seized on and sold her shote she wuz fattin’ for winter’s use; sold it to the saloon keeper over to Zoar for about half what it wuz worth, only jest enough to pay her tax. But then the saloon keeper controlled a lot of bum votes and the collector wanted to keep in with him.

Yes, as I wuz sayin’, Waitstill Webb is as different from Arvilly as a soft moonlight night lit by stars is from a snappin’ frosty noonday in January. Droopin’ like a droopin’ dove, feelin’ that the govermunt wuz the worst enemy she and her poor dead boy ever had, as it turned out, but still ready to say:

“Oh Lord, forgive my enemy, the Government of the United States, for it knows what it does.”

Which she felt wuz ten-fold worse than as if it did wickedly without knowin’ it, and she knew that they knowed all about it and couldn’t deny it, for besides all the good men 102 and wimmen that had preached to ’em about it, they had had such sights of petitions sent in explainin’ it all out and beggin’ ’em to stop it, onheeded by them and scorfed at. But she stood ready to go agin and serve the govermunt as a nurse, trying to heal the woonds caused by bullet and knife, and the ten-fold worse woonds caused by our govermunt’s pet wild beast it rents out there to worry and kill its brave defenders. I looked forward with warm anticipations to seein’ her, for I sot store by her. She had fixed over my gray alpacky as good as new, and made me a couple of ginghams, and I thought more of havin’ her with me than I did of her work, and once when I wuz down with a crick in the back, and couldn’t stir, she come right there and stayed by me and did for me till the creek dwindled down and disappeared. Her presence is some like the Bam of Gilead, and her sweet face and gentle ways make her like an angel in the sick room. Arvilly is more like a mustard plaster than Bam. But everybody knows that mustard is splendid for drawin’ attention to it; if it draws as it ort to, mustard must and will attract and hold attention. And I spoze there hain’t no tellin’ what good Arvilly has done and mebby will do by her pungent and sharp tongue to draw attention to wrongs and inspire efforts to ameliorate ’em. And the same Lord made the Bam of Gilead and mustard, and they go well together. When mustard has done its more painful work then the Bam comes in and duz its work of healin’ and consolin’. ’Tennyrate anybody can see that they are both on ’em as earnest and sincere in wantin’ to do right as any human creeters can be, and are dretful well thought on all over Jonesville and as fur out as Loontown and Zoar.

Some wimmen would have held a grudge aginst the man that murdered her husband and not