Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition, Marietta Holley [classic english novels txt] 📗

I could set you out mostly in pusley if you'd ruther, the garden is full of it."

"I shall never be sot out in pusley, Josiah Allen, I always hated it.
The hull thing is as crazy as anything you ever undertook."

"Crazy or not it will be did; summer squash would look well and be equinomical, I could probable train 'em so you'd seem to be holdin' the squashes in your arms."

"Give up the hull skeem, Josiah Allen; don't try to combine love and economy so clost."

But he vowed he wouldn't give it up, and I spoze I may see trouble weanin' him from the idee.

That night whilst I wuz restin' a little in my room after supper, Josiah havin' stayed down in the parlor a spell talkin' to granpa Huff and Billy, Blandina come into my room. She wuz all fagged out, but under the fag you could see that expression of perennial good nature and love to man.

She said she'd been readin' all day to grandpa Huff and as near as I could make out he'd kep' her right down to them blood-curdlin' chapters where they fried the martyrs in ile and briled 'em on grid-irons. She looked dretful tired and I told her I wouldn't gin in and read such stuff all day.

But she said Mr. Huff wuz anxious to hear it and she wuz perfectly willin' and more than willin' to please him, for sez she smilin' in a queer sort of a way and sort o' bridlin' a little, "I'm anxious to do anything for him I can because I love him devotedly."

I wuz fairly stunted. "Love him?" sez I, "why how long ago wuz it that you loved his grandchild passionately? Why," sez I, "Blandina, you seem to rob the cradle and the grave for objects of affection."

"Yes, I did love Billy with perfect devotion till I found that my affection wuz driven back like a dove from the rest it fain would made in his youthful heart, and now it has settled down upon his grandpa's bosom. Mr. Huff needs a companion, Aunt Samantha. He needs a tender female companion to journey by his side over the rough pathway of life. And, oh, I do feel that this world is a cold rough place and my heart, like that wanderin' dove I spoke on, sithes to find rest."

"Well," sez I reasonably, "mebby a dove would be safe to rest on grandpa Huff, but I don't believe he could stand the weight of a hen. Why, he's ninety if he's a day, Blandina."

She didn't reply but sot lookin' mournful but clever, and agin she sez,
"This is a cold world."

"Not here it hain't, not in St. Louis," sez I, wipin' my heated forward, but she went on:

"My heart has gone out to him without any will of my own. I feel that he has the makin' of a noble man in him."

And I sez, "I guess he's made about all he can be on this spear." But seein' her mournful looks I added, "You're a clever critter, Blandina, that's what's the matter with you, you're so good hearted you mistake good nater and pity for love more'n half the time. I don't believe," sez I feelin'ly, "I ever see a cleverer creeter than you are." And I meant it, every word I said.

But she repeated agin, "I love him, Aunt Samantha, with a pure, deep devotion."

"Well," sez I, "if I wuz in your place I would take a little catnip tea and go to bed. I'll steep some for you over my alcohol lamp." I knowed it wuz her good nater and her nerves that wuz wrought up instead of her heart, though catnip is good for the heart for all I know. She'd got all nerved up readin' them dretful things and felt queer, I wuz sorry for Blandina to think she wuz so very sensitive to masculine influence. She refused the catnip tea but took the other half of my advice and went to bed, and I sez to myself, I declare I don't know what the good nater of that creeter will lead her into and I most wished she wuz back in Jonesville where that trait of hern wouldn't have so much room for showin' off and so many objects to practice on, but I felt safe about grandpa Huff, for I knowed that even if he'd been strong enough to stand up to be married, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren wouldn't let him.

Well, the next morning Molly come, havin' arrived on a sleeper. I welcomed her warmly. She's a sweet girl, with big eyes soft and brown as the shallers in our trout brook and a shadder in 'em now some like the dark places where the deep water is. Hair about the same color, done up in a shinin' coil on the top of her head, but where it would git loose a little kinder curlin' and crinklin' about her white forward and round white neck. A sweet sad expression on her lips, cheeks white as snow now but meant to be pink and a pretty plump figger. She wuz very beautiful and called so by good judges.

And I wuzn't surprised that Billy Huff fell immegiately and voylently in love with her to his own discomfiture and the great enrichment of them that sold perfumery and hair-oil. But I knowed it wouldn't hurt him any, it wuz only a new face to hang up for the present in the gallery of a boy's Fancy. Aunt Tryphena fairly worshipped her. She immegiately rose to the top place in her gallery of perfect beings. Nothing wuz too good for her, no service she could render her wuz too hard, she almost soared up to that pinnacle on which her Prince Arthur dwelt. Dotie became her willin' adorer and Miss Huff couldn't do enough for her.

But to resoom backward a little. Molly didn't want to go to the Fair ground that morning, wantin' to rest and recooperate, so Josiah, Blandina and I sot forth a little later than common. There wuz a stoppage of the cars some ways from the gate and we got out and walked thinkin' we'd git there quicker, Josiah started to step off first when Blandina rushed past him, waved him back, and descended herself right into the midst of horses heads and huffs and yells and profanity from two drivers who wuz stoppin' the way and wuz revilin' each other, and after we got safe onto the sidewalk and wuz walkin' along I sez to her:

"You ort to be more careful, Blandina, or you'll find yourself killed some day and trompled on, I wuz skairt for you."

"Oh, I didn't think about myself, I wuz only thinkin' of savin' dear uncle Josiah, it wuzn't so much matter about me. A woman's life you know is not worth anything compared to a man's."

"Oh, shaw!" I sez, I wuz driv to it, and I sez it agin, "Oh, shaw!"

"Why, Aunt Samantha, you know it has been decided that that is so. It has been settled by law that a female's life is worth only half as much as a man's. Don't you remember last spring in Brooklyn it wuz settled once for all that a female child's life wuzn't worth only half as much as a male child?"

Sez I, "I remember a man's saying so, I don't remember it wuz proved; I myself thought it wuz about as hefty a thing as a judge ever undertook to try to set a value on two human lives with all their glorious and terrible possibilities, and," sez I, eppisodin' a little but walkin' along all the time, "how did that man know but the soul of a Florence Nightingale would wake up in that girl and bless the world for all time? And how did he know but the boy would prove a Benedict Arnold or a Guiteau? An evil influence to curse the world forever. It wuz a hefty job, and if Josiah had been judge I wouldn't let him undertook it, or if he had I'd had him set an equal value on what God and nater and human affection had made equal."

"Well, well," sez Josiah, "le'ss git along unless you want to stay here and preach all day on the sidewalk."

"But," sez I, "I'm not preachin', Josiah, I'm eppisodin'."

"Well, there is a time for eppisodin' and a time for common sense, and le'ss git along."

He acted real grumpy, I guess he'd thought more on me, if I had pretended I thought his life wuz worth double mine. But I wouldn't say I thought so not even for love's sake. And mebby he squirmed because I said I would have him do thus and so. Men are so queer! you can't always tell jest where the shue pinches, but you know by their actin' and behavin' that it pinches somewhere.

But Blandina sez, evidently reconnoitering the past seen in her memory, "No livin' bein' will ever make me think a man's life is not worth more than a woman's." Well, she felt so and I couldn't make her over at this late day, she'd been made too long, so Common Sense, with whom I always try to be on the most intimate terms, told me I hadn't better multiply any more words with her. Josiah's liniment wuz some clouded till his mind wuz took up by seein' some horses with hats on which truly wuz needed in that torrid heat, and he forgot his temporary shagrin in visions of the future.

Sez he, "The first work I do when I git home will be to git a hat for the old mair; I won't have to buy one, Tirzah Ann's last summer hat will be jest the thing. You know that one trimmed with red roses and shiffon and long lace streamers. Your hats ain't dressy enough; why the old mair hain't quite twenty-one, hain't old enough to vote even if her sect had the privelige. She's young and ort to dress young. That hat will be jest the thing. And what a sensation we will make enterin' Jonesville on a Sunday mornin', the mair, myself and you, we shall attract world-wide attention." But that minute we got to the gate and entered in. I never shall ride after the mair with a hat on, and pink roses and long lace streamers, never. But didn't argey about it.

Well, Josiah couldn't be held off any longer, he would go to the Pike that mornin'; I told him it wuzn't writ in my pad.

And he sez, "Dum that pad! Am I goin' to be held in by that pad, and led round by it all summer? I'm goin' to the Pike to-day and you can do as you're a minter." And Blandina jined in of course and said that if dear Uncle Josiah's mind wuz sot on it it wuz best to go, and she sez kinder low to me, "it wuzn't right to cross a man unless it wuz absolutely necessary."

I wuz goin' to twit her and tell her that as first chaperone I wuz the one to settle these matters, but I see Josiah wuz gittin' too agitated, one look at his gloomy face made me think of the past, and I gin in as gracefully as I could, and we wended our way thither with no more parley, and Josiah, as soon as our heads wuz turned that way, begun to brighten up and look better, and so about one-half of my mind and sperit wuz satisfied. And sometimes I think you can't be satisfied any more than that on this spear wherever you go, and whatever you see, specially if you have a man to deal with that is more or less fraxious and worrisome. To ease his mind and temper you'll git led into strange and devious paths time and agin.

But to resoom forward. The Four Cowboys on a Tear guardin' the entrance to the Pike confronted us and in their wild and boysterous hilarity seemed to my agitated and forebodin' sperit to shadow forth what we would find inside their domain. They wuz a strange and skairful set, their clothes wuz rough and disheveled and so wuz their linements. They all on 'em brandished aloft a pistol, seemin' to be on the lookout for someone to shoot. Their horses wuz on the dead gallop and you knowed by the expression on their faces jest what blood curdlin' yells wuz issuin' from their throats.

Why, if you'll believe it they wuz goin' at such a gallopin'