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

places in society down into drunkards' loathsome lives, drunkards' dishonored graves.

How could these pityin' sperits help weepin' over it? And the long, agonized procession follerin' on—pale, wretched mothers, once happy wives, now hungry, broken-hearted wrecks, with pinched, starved children clingin' to their ragged skirts. The idee of askin' this pure heavenly Host to praise God for what brought all this to pass!

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Why, I believe that Satan himself, though he loved to see the work go on, would be ashamed to sing the Doxology there. I don't believe you'd ketch him at it, for he is so smart he would see in a minute how it would look to praise God for such a place as that when he had said plain:

"Cursed is he that putteth the cup to his neighbor's lips."

And Satan knowed jest as well as Josiah and I and the world did, that saloons wuz made a purpose for this.

"And no drunkard hath eternal life." And that minister wuz ordained to help people attain that life, not to help 'em lose it.

I don't see what he wuz thinkin' on. Of course, the top of the long slippery descent to ruin is quite cheerful lookin', lit up with false lights, hollow mirth, false hopes and dreams lurin' the victims on and down. But he knowed how slippery it wuz, how impossible it wuz for ordinary men to stand up when they got to slidin' down. He knew that nothin' but God's grace wuz strong enough to reach down and haul 'em up agin to level ground.

A few men are so strong-footed they can grip on and stay 'round the top for some time, and I presoom this minister, bein' a good-natered man would been glad to had 'em all hung on there, but he must have knowed they wouldn't and couldn't. He'd seen 'em leggo thousands and thousands every year, he knowed what made 'em fall. And he might jest as well made a prayer and sung a hymn over a murderer's knife, because he wanted it to cut bread but knowed it would and did murder, as to done this.

For no matter what he wanted he knowed intemperance is evil and only evil. And pattin' a pizen viper and callin' it "angel" and singin' the Doxology over it hain't goin' to change its nater, its nater is to sting, and its bite is death.

And the God they dasted to invoke said of the drink the place wuz made to sell, "It biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder," and the end thereof is death.

I don't know what that good man could be thinkin' on to dast. But then as long as our Government opholds it, I spoze he thought he might.

But I wish I'd been there to told him how it wuz goin' to look to me and Josiah and the world, and what slurs wuz goin' to be cast onto the sacred cause of religion by it.

I couldn't tell him what harm it wuz goin' to do; no, eternity is none too soon to count that up. Awful waves of influence sweepin' along—sweepin' along clear from to-day to the Day of Judgment; I can't bear to think on't; I'm kinder sorry for him, and am glad enough it hain't my Josiah that has got that ahead on him. I wish he'd ondo now what he's done as fur as he can, he'd feel better, I believe, I know that I and the meetin' house would and Josiah.

But, 'tennyrate, no matter how Satan wuz laughin' and sneerin' and angels bendin' down from the gold bars of Heaven lookin' through their pityin' tears hopin' it must be a mistake, not believin' it possible that them prayers and hims could come from a man-killin' saloon. And coverin' their eyes with their droopin' wings when they found it wuz so—they sung it through and the minister, for he wuz a stiddy man, went home in good season. And Perkins also started home walkin' afoot, it wuz so little ways.

And as I said, some wimmen sot on him and hoss-whipped him. Some of these wimmen's husbands had been ruined and killed by the Poor Man's Club. And there wuz some mothers whose little boys of seven and eight had been coaxed with brandy-soaked candy into another saloon Perkins owned. For this saloonkeeper had boasted, Perkins backin' him, that money spent enticin' the young and innocent to drink, whilst they wuz easily influenced, wuz money well spent.

For of course, as good calculators, they had to in the interest of their profession provide new recruits to take the place in the staggerin' ranks of the hundred thousand they annually killed off. And this saloonkeeper, helped on by Perkins, had the name of the most active boy and girl ruiner among the thousands in the city, though they all did a flourishin' bizness.

Two or three of Perkins' saloons made a specialty of sellin' drink to girls, and their mothers who lay their heads on their pillows at night and found 'em like thorns and fire under their heads, thinkin' of the pretty warm-hearted girls who had to be away from mother's care to earn their livin', out to service and in manufactories and elsewhere. And some rich mothers, whose girls wuz away to school——

These mothers thinkin' what a weak thing a girl's will wuz when drink had drownded out the small self-control they had, and youthful passion and temptation urgin' 'em on, and the company Perkins nachully drawed 'round him.

These mothers whose boys and girls wuz like pieces of their own hearts, and these wives in the grief made recklessness of despair, made a hash vow that they would break up Perkinses saloons or die in the attempt, so they sot on him that night and gin him good drubbin'.

But they couldn't do much, for the police, of course, horrified by their onparalelled and onprovoked crime, hustled the wimmen off to jail, and escorted Perkins home with honor. But to resoom backwards.

I will git up (in fancy) from the steps of Solomon's Temple and go on in.

This is a complete copy of the magnificent temple built by Solomon, the wisest man in the world. Though like all wise men he had his foolish streaks, seven hundred wives is too many for one man to git along with, I should told him so if I had lived neighbor to him. I'd say:

"Mr. Solomon, if you have the name of knowin' so much show your smartness by gittin' rid of six hundred and niney-nine on 'em; keep jest one, pick her out, take your choice, but discharge the rest. Set 'em up in dressmakin' or millionary or sunthin' to git a livin' by, and settle down peaceable with one." Mebby he'd hearn to me and mebby not, men are so sot in their way.

But to resoom. Here we stood in that splendid temple which was the wonder of the world, and see the tabernacle the old Hebrews carried with 'em through the parted waves of the Red Sea and their journeyin's through the wilderness for forty years, led by the pillow of fire.

What feelin's I had as I looked on it and meditated, what riz up feelin's them old four fathers that carried it must have had, and them that follered on, led as they wuz by heavenly light, fed by heavenly food. How could they acted as they did, rambelous often and often, wanderin' from the right road, but still not gittin' away from the Divine care.

And there wuz a picture forty feet long, as long as our barn, showing the old Hebrews encamped before Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Law that rules the world to-day (more or less). Heaven drawin' so nigh to earth that hour that its light fallin' on Moseses face made it too glorious for mortal eyes to look on.

And I'dno but one of them mountains we see wuz where Moses stood after his forty years journey, castin' wishful eyes onto the Promised Land, not bein' able to enter in because of some past error and ignorance. And I thought, as I stood there, how many happy restin' places we plan and toil for and then can't enter in and possess through some past error and mistake caused by ignorance as dense as Moseses ignorance. What a lot of emotions I had thinkin' this, and how on top of another mount the great prophet and law-giver wuz not, for God took him.

I wuz lost and by the side of myself, but Josiah's voice reached me up in the realm of Reverie and brought me back.

"What ails you, Samantha? Do you lay out to stand here all day?" And I tore myself away.

Well, there wuz movin' pictures describin' the Holy Land and we see 'em move, and dissolvin' views of the same and we see 'em dissolve, and at last Josiah got so worrisome I had to go on with him. We laid out to stop to Japan and France, they bein' right on our way, and I sez, "We might as well stop at Morrocco." For as I told Josiah, while we wuz travelin' through foreign countries we might as well see what we could of the people, their looks and habits.

But he sez to once, "You don't want to buy any Morrocco shues, Samantha, they don't wear nigh so well as calf-skin and cost as much agin." And sez he, "We won't have more than time to go through Japan and France and do justice to 'em." So we went on.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Japan exhibit is on a beautiful hill south of Machinery Palace. There are seven large buildin's besides the small pagodas and all filled with objects of interest. It seems as if the hull kingdom of Japan must have taken hold to make this display what it is. And how they could do it with a big war goin' on in their midst is a wonder, and shows beyend words what wonderful people the Japans are.

There are two kinds of exhibits, one by the allied business interests or Government and the other by individuals. But they all seem to work in harmony, havin' but one idee, to show off Japan and her resources to the best advantage, and the display wuz wonderful, from a royal pavilion, rich in the most exquisite and ornate decorations down to a small bit of carving that mebby represented the life long labor of some onknown workman.

In the Transportation Buildin' is a map one hundred feet long, showing the transportation facilities of the Empire, a perfect network of railways and telegraph and telephone wires, showin' they have other ways of gettin' 'round there besides man-carts and jinrikshas, yes, indeed! it is a wonder what they have done in that direction in fifty years.

The postal exhibit shows they delivered eight hundred and sixteen million pieces of mail last year, and every post-office has a bank, the school children have deposited in them eleven millions. I wish our country would do as well. The exhibit of the steamships show jest as much enterprise, and how world-wide is their commerce. The saloon of one of the steamships is a dream of beauty and luxury.

The Temple of Nikko is ornamented by wonderful carving in catalpa, chrysantheums, etc., and in it in glass cases are the most beautiful specimens of their embroidery, tapestry, pottery. One pair of vases are worth ten thousand dollars. As you leave this Temple you see on each side the finest specimens of Japanese art, painted and embroidered screens, all kinds of metal, laquear and ivory work; exquisite vases and priceless old delft wear, and there is a model Japanese house, you feel that you'd love to live in it. There is one spring room in it that holds the very atmosphere of spring. The tapestry and crape hangings are embroidered with cherry blossoms, its one picture is a sweet spring landscape. Low green stools take the place of stuffy chairs and sofas. And there wuz an autumn room, autumn leaves of rich colors wuz woven in the matting and embroidered in the hangings, the screens and walls white with yellow chrysantheums.

Then there wuz a gorgeous Japan room with walls of exquisitely carved laquear wood, massive gilt furniture, rich embroidered silk hangings, and the ceiling wuz a beautifully carved flowery heaven with angels flying about amidst the flowers. This one room cost forty-five thousand dollars.

And we see lovely embroidered cloths, porcelain, shrines, urns, cabinets, chairs all wrought in the highest art, silks of every description, and sights and sights of it.