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

As first chaperone I looked at him tenderly and sez, "Don't jar your mind too much, Josiah, don't dwell on tuckerin' things."

"But," sez he, pintin' to the green form of the lion growin' right out of the ground, "do you see what a impressive and noble figger the old mair is goin' to cut when Ury and I sculp her out of the pig-nose apple tree? We can do it by odd jobs, and the apples hain't good for nothin' anyway."

But I sez, "You can't prune apple trees into figgers, Josiah, it takes different trees, and that is too big anyway."

"That's a woman's way of talkin'; I want her in heroic size, she's worthy on't. I expect," he went on, "the road will be jest lined with Jonesvillians, and we'l see 'em hangin' over the orchard fence lookin' on and admirin' the beautiful statter, I think I can see her now, head up, tail out, mane a flutterin'—you'll see, Samantha."

"Oh, dear!" sez I, "I expect I will see more than I want to."

But goin' on a little furder we see what put such vain and onpractical idees out of his head. We wandered into a spot where there wuz old-fashioned flowers, such as grow in the green meadows and hedges of old England, and there wuz some old wimmen wrinkled and gray, poorly clad, lookin' at them daisies and cow-slips and laughin' and cryin' over 'em.

They wuz fur from the old home and the summer time of youth and love, a half century of years and dreary wastes of sea and land lay between 'em, but these cow-slip blows and daisies took them back to their youth and the sunny fields they wandered in with the young lover whose eyes wuz as blue as the English violets, while their own cheeks wuz as rosy as the thorn flowers.

When the hull world lay hid in a rosy mist, and they wuz the centre of it, and life wuz new, and hope and happiness gilded the future, and the Fairy land of America wuz beckonin' to 'em out of the rosy mist.

Fifty years of dusty, smoky tenement life, hard work, child-birth, rearing children, toil, disappointment, pain—where wuz they? They had all gone. They wuz eighteen agin; they wuz pickin' the rosy blooms in the dear home land, and love wuz whisperin' to 'em that they wuz sweeter than the flowers.

I took out my snowy handkerchief and almost cried myself, the tears just run down my face, and Josiah blowed his nose on his bandanna, and I believe furtively wiped his eyes. But men never love to betray such sentimental emotion, and most immegiately he asked me in a gruff tone for a fried cake, and I handed him one absently and as one who dreams, and we went on and met the girls at the rondevoo appointed.

I'd had my supper and wuz restin' in my room, Molly and Blandina had gone for a walk accompanied by Billy Huff, and Josiah had gone down to set with grandpa Huff a spell, when Aunt Tryphena come in and said a lady wuz there to see me; I asked her who it wuz, and she said:

"I don't know, but guess it is some 'big bug trash,' 'tennyrate she come in a antymobile that stands to the door without hitchin'."

I knowed in a minute it wuz Jane Olive Perkins and told her to bring her up to my room. And she entered with more than her usual gushin' warmth of manner, and told me the first thing that I grew better and younger lookin' every year.

But I kinder waved the idee off and told her, I didn't feel so young as
I did twenty or thirty years ago.

I acted well. (But then I spoze I do look remarkable young for one of my years, and I admired her good horse sense in seein' it so plain.) But she looked real mauger, and I sez:

"You look kinder beat out, Jane Olive, hain't you well?"

Yes, she said she wuz well, but had so many cares that they wore on her.

"Why," sez I, "you don't try to do your housework alone, do you?"

No, she said she had ten servants.

So I knowed she didn't have to do the heaviest of her work, but her face looked dretful tired and disappinted and I knowed it wuz caused by her efforts to git into fashionable society, for I'd hearn more about it since I come here, Miss Huff knowed a woman that lived neighbor to her, she said that in spite of all Sam Perkinses money and Jane Olive's efforts she couldn't git so fur into the circle of the first as she wanted to, though she had done everything a woman could do.

Went off summers where the first went and winters too. When it wuz fashionable to go to springs and seasides she went and ocean trips and south and north, and when it wuz the fashion to go into the quiet country she come to Jonesville.

And now she wuz tryin' a new skeem to git into the first, she got up a name for bein' very charitable. That took her in, or that is part way in, for her money went jest as fur and wuz jest as welcome to heathens and such as if it wuzn't made out of pork. It went jest as fur as the money that wuz handed down from four fathers or even five or six fathers who wuz small farmers and trappers in Manhattan years and years ago. Her money went jest as fur as though it had descended onto her from the sale of the mink skins and cabbages of the grandpas of the 400.

Well, as I say, this did more than all her other efforts put together, and took her inside furder, for givin' as much as she did they had to invite her to set down on the same charitable boards where these genteel females wuz settin'. And when a passel of wimmen are settin' down on one board they have to be more sociable and agreeable like, than if they wuz settin' round on different piles of lumber.

So Jane Olive wuz highly tickled and gin money freely. And now I don't want it understood that Jane Olive done every mite of this work and gin every cent of money for the speech of people or to git on in fashionable life. No, she wuz kinder good hearted and felt sorry for the afflicted. Her motives wuz mebby about half and half, half goodness and half ambition, and that is I spoze a little worse than the average, though motives will git dretfully mixed up, evil is worse than Canada thistles to git mixed with good wheat.

When some good object rises up and our souls burn within us aginst wrong and injustice and bigotry and such, we may think in our wropped moments that our motives are all good. But most always some little onworthy selfish motive will come sneakin' in by some back door of the heart and wiggle its way along till it sets down right by the side of our highest whitest motives and stays there onbeknown to us. It is a pity that it is so, but human nater is human nater and we are all on us queer, queer as dogs. Once in awhile you'll see some rare soul that seems as if all onworthy motives have been driv out by the angels of divine Purity and Endeavor, but they're scurce, scurce as hen's teeth.

Jane Olive wuz highly tickled with her success, and then, as is the way of human creeters, when she'd done well she wanted to do better. She wanted to outdo the other females settin' on the boards with her, she wanted her board to tip higher than theirn, so she took it into her head to build a Home for Fallen Wimmen in that end of the city where she lived. She said that there wuz sights and sights of wimmen that had fallen round there, and sights that wuz fallin', and I spozed there wuz. I spozed that anywhere that Sam Perkins lived there would be apt to be, and she took the idee of buildin' a home for 'em, it wuz a first rate thought, but in my opinion it didn't go fur enough, it didn't cover the hull ground.

Well, Jane Olive had gin of her own money ten thousand dollars and had raised nine thousand more, twenty thousand would build it, and she wuz collectin' round even in St. Louis when she met anybody she thought would give; she knowed how the welfare of humanity, specially female humanity, lay down on my heart, therefore she tackled me.

She talked real eloquent about it, and kinder begun to shed tears. She's a capital hand to git money, she could always cry when she wanted to when she went to school, did it by holdin' her breath or sunthin'.

And when I say that I don't want it understood that I believe she did all her cryin' that way. No, I spoze she could draw on her imagination and feelin's to that extent and git 'em so rousted up that she did actually shed tears, wet tears jest like anybody, some of the time, and some she made, so I spoze.

Well, when she begun to cry I looked keen at her and sez, how much she made me think of herself when we went to school together. And she stopped sheddin' tears to once and acted more natural and went on to tell about her skeem. She said female vice wuz stalkin' round fearful, fallen wimmen appeared on the streets with shockin' frequency, sunthin' must be done for these lost souls or their blood would be on our dress skirts.

She told me how much she'd gin to this object and how much ministers had gin and how they wuz all goin' to preach sermons about these poor lost wimmen and try to wake the public up to the fact of the enormity of their sins and the burnin' need of such an institution.

She talked powerful about it, and I sez: "Jane Olive, I've gin a good deal of thought to this subject, and I think this house of yourn is a good idee, but to my mind it don't cover the hull ground. Now I will give five dollars for the Home for Fallen Wimmen and the other five for the Home for Fallen Men."

Sez she, and she screamed the words right out: "There hain't any such institution in the hull city!"

"Why, there must be!" sez I. "It hain't reasonable that there shouldn't be. Why, if a man and a woman go along over a bridge together, and both fall through, and are maimed and broke to pieces, they are carried to a male and female hospital to be mended up. Or if they fall through a sidewalk or anywhere else they have to both be doctored up and have the same splints on and rubbed with the same anarky, etc."

"That's very different," sez Jane Olive.

"Why different?" sez I. "If they both fall morally their morals ort to be mended up agin both on 'em. The woman ort to be carried to the Home for Fallen Wimmen, the Home for Magdalenes, and the men to the Home for Fallen Men, the Home for Mikels."

"There hain't no such place!" sez Jane Olive agin decidedly.

Sez I, "Did you ever inquire?"

"No," sez she, "I wouldn't make a fool of myself by inquirin' for such a thing as that, Home for Mikels! I don't know what you mean by that anyway."

"Why," sez I, "fallen men angels. You know Mikel wuz a angel once and he fell."

"Well, there is no such place," sez she, tossin' her head a little.

"Well," sez I, "you ort to know, you're from the city and I hain't; but I know that if there hain't such a place it's a wicked thing. Just look at them poor fallen men that are walkin' the streets night after night, poor creeters goin' right down to ruin and nobody trying to lead 'em up agin to the way of safety and virtue—poor fallen, ruined men! I feel to pity 'em."

Sez Jane Olive, "Oh, shaw! they don't feel ruined, they're all right,
I'll resk them."

"How do you know how they feel? Take a tender hearted, innocent man, that some bad, designin' woman has led astray, led