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

him on till she has betrayed and ruined him, and he feels that the screen door of society is shet aginst him——"

"Oh, shaw!" sez Jane Olive agin. "The door of society hain't shet aginst the man, it never is."

"Then," sez I, "there is sunthin' wrong with the door and it ort to be tended to."

Sez she, "Things are winked at in a bad man that hain't in a bad woman."

"Not by me," sez I firmly. "The man won't git a wink out of me more or less than I would give to the woman."

"It don't hurt a man," sez Jane Olive. "And," sez she, "no self respectin' man goes to any place that hain't licensed and respectable."

"If such houses are respectable," sez I, "and the law makes 'em so, why hain't the wimmen called so that keep 'em? Why hain't the wimmen looked up to that work there?"

Sez Jane Olive, "You don't talk no good sense at all."

Sez I, "Jane Olive, I am spozin'. Mark you well, I don't say they are respectable; I say they are the depths of infamy. But I am talkin' from the standpoint of legislators and highest officials, and if they call 'em respectable, and throw the mantilly of law and order over 'em it is only justice to let the mantilly spread out, so it will cover the males and females too. Agin I quote the words of the poet to you, 'what is sass for the goose ort to be sass for the gander.'"

Says she, "Such things are looked on so different in a man, they can hold their heads up jest as high as they did before."

"Not if I had my way," sez I. "If the female is dragged off to the Home for Fallen Wimmen let the same team come back and haul the men off to the Home for Fallen Men, tie 'em up with the same rope, preach to 'em from the same text, let 'em out when they've both repented and want to do better. That's my scheme," sez I.

"Oh, shaw!" sez Jane Olive, "it wouldn't work."

"Why not?" sez I. "I'll bet if that course wuz took for the next five years with fallen men you wouldn't have to raise so much money for fallen wimmen; I'll bet it would ameliorate their condition more than anything else would."

"It don't hurt a man," sez Jane Olive agin.

"Why don't it hurt 'em?" sez I. "If it makes a woman so bad the hull world calls her ruined and lost, and prints her name out in the daily papers, as they always do, givin' her full name and address and sayin' some wild young man (but nameless) of respectable family was implicated, and talks of her as if Heaven wuz shet aginst her, and she has got to pray and repent in sack-cloth and ashes all the rest of her days, and never, never git her old place back in the eyes of the community, it hain't reasonable to spoze it don't hurt a man a mite to fall at the same time and in the same way. There is no sense in it, and I'll bet if you hunt round in your city you'll find where fallen men are kep' hid away till they can repent and reform.

"Why," sez I, "men's hearts and souls and morals are made out of exactly the same stuff that wimmens be. And as I said before, let a man and a woman fall out of a high winder together it smashes him jest as bad as it duz her. They have to be carried off to hospitals jest the same, the same doctor tends 'em, the same medicine has to be administered to 'em and they have to come back slowly to health agin. It takes the same length of time to lose the marks of the woonds and bruises, and they have to hobble round on the same kind of crutches. And why under the sun, moon and stars there is any difference in the woonds on their souls and morals I can't see, nor I don't believe you can."

Agin she snorted and acted real high headed, and sez she, "There hain't no such a Home as that you're talkin' about, and never wuz."

"Well," sez I, "then it is high time there wuz." And I went on real eloquent, "Poor fallen men have been neglected too long and their ruin will lay on our doorsteps if we don't do sunthin' to help 'em; I won't give a cent to help fallen wimmen, who have had ten times as much preachin' to 'em and as much done for 'em, till justice has been done to fallen men. Poor mizable creeters! They'll find out they've got one friend that will stand by 'em if they've never had a mite of pity or help or encouragement held out to 'em before in the world. It is high time sunthin' wuz done for 'em; and when you who live right in the midst of fallen men come here and say you've started a home for 'em, where there will be preachin' to 'em, and encouragement gin 'em to repent and reform, when you've come and told me you've started this job I'll give, and give liberal."

She sot kinder demute for a minute, and I went right on, and sez I, "I'd have a immense big house built if I had my way so's to accommodate 'em if I could git a house big enough. And I would set 'em there in immense rows and let 'em meditate on their sins a spell and I'd have good likely preachers of both sects go and preach to 'em about fallen men and fallen wimmen, and how they could git up agin with God's help if they tried hard enough to. And I'd have pictures hung on the wall of Mikel and Magdaline and them old fallen men castin' stuns at fallen wimmen and what the Lord said about it. And then to kinder encourage 'em and show 'em to what they might rise up to, if they repented and reformed, I would have pictures of some likely he angels flyin' round up in a purer air and——"

I wuz almost carried away and by the side of myself with this beautiful and inspirin' picture I'd cunjered up in my heated brain, when she broke in all wrought up with excitement and horrow with a new thought that had dawned on her:

"Why," sez she, "if you did that, if you shet up such men there wouldn't be a man left outside." And she sort o' screamed out, "Where would I git a coachman to drive for me or a butler?"

"Drive yourself," sez I sternly, "and buttle too; if that is so, but I don't believe it."

But she still looked most wild with excitement and horrow, and agin she sez, "It would take away every man in the world! and what would we do for men?" sez she.

"Do!" sez I, all wrought up, "Do without 'em if that is the case, though I don't believe it; but if it is so it's high time we begun fresh, educate and bring up men babys in the right way, and begin agin; start a new world with 'em, jest as you'd start a new kind of gooseberry or anything. But I don't believe a word on't, not a word. I believe there are good men in the world, lots and lots of 'em."

"I know there hain't," sez she.

And I sez, "I know there is."

And we disputed back and forth several times but didn't convince each other. You can see jest how it wuz, it wuz the example of our own companions that wuz influencin' us in our opinions. She havin' lived with a perfect sardeen and he-wretch, thought all men wuz like him, I nerved up by the thought of my noble-minded (though small) companion held my faith firm as a iron anchor that the world wuz full of good men, scattered here and there like good wheat among the tares, and I felt and knowed that the tearers wuz fur scurser than the wheat.

But Jane Olive riz up and kinder let her train flop out over the floor, she'd held it up as she come in.

I bid her a cordial good-by and told her to come and see me in Jonesville, but she acted kinder cold and hauty and I hain't much hopes that she will foller my advice.

Josiah came in pretty soon, and when I told him about it he acted real huffy and agreed with Jane Olive, and resented the idee of a Home for Fallen Men. Blandina, who come while we wuz talkin' about it to borry a few needlefuls of white thread, she shed tears and said she wouldn't mortify men by namin' a home like that for thousands of worlds like this.

And Josiah acted puggicky all the evenin'. But I knowed I wuz in the right on't. Truly the path of duty is a thorny one anon or oftener.

We went into the Fair the next mornin' by what they call the Skinker Entrance, and we hadn't hardly got in when Josiah sez to me, pintin' to a small low house, "What do you spoze they show there, Samantha? It must be pretty poor if they can't afford shingles or a tar ruff."

And sure enough the ruff wuz covered with straw. It wuz a low buildin' built of sunthin' that looked like stun. But come to find out it wuz the cottage of Robert Burns, and I hastened my steps, Josiah and Blandina follerin' on.

For low as that buildin' is, lookin' like a ant hill almost by the side of the high red granite administration buildin', that little cabin holds memories that soar up higher than the peakedest, highest ruffs on the Fair ground. The Home of Robert Burns, the Poet of the People. How his inimitable poetry come troopin' through my mind as I walked through the low rooms, there is only four on 'em, kitchen, settin' room, store room and stables.

I didn't approve of havin' the stables so nigh the livin' rooms, and should have advised Robert's wife to stood her ground and not had it. But I wuzn't there, and she gin in probable, and mebby she wanted it so, it wuz handy, you could open the door and milk into your coffee cup if so inclined. The bed is built in the kitchen wall; I spoze they couldn't afford anything better, and 'tennyrate that humble bed pillowed the form that will walk down the ages crowned with honor and lovin' memories, while many monarchs who at that time rested on carved rose-wood have sunk into oblivion.

The people are not goin' to forgit their poet. He who taught that no matter what the rank, a man wuz a man "for a' that." Who sung and dignified the humble pleasures of the poor. "The Cotter's Saturday Night" will be remembered when many a scientific tome and eloquent poem writ in long words is dust and ashes. And the scathing irony and wit satirizing the ignorant rich, the scorn of meanness and bigotry, the love of liberty and justice the melting tenderness of his love poems, the People he loved and wrote for, will not forget.

The big open fireplace might have been the one immortalized in his poetry. There wuz a high clock like the one that told him the hours, anxious hours, weary hours, happy hours, hours radiant with the poet's inspiration. Despairin' hours full of anxiety and dread for the wife and children he loved. It told the hours of day and night too, for Robert did love what he called a good time, and I presoom Bonnie Jean read the face of that old clock with anxiety and weariness writ in her own face when the small hours struck and her Robbie wuz away with gay companions.

And with what despairin' grief did she read its calm old face while her poet writ this sad truth:

"I'm wearin' awa' to the Land o' the Leal."

And there wuz a cupboard with blue and white dishes and a sugar bowl that he and Bonnie Jean had used. Oh, warm fingers, tired fingers! how long you've been dust, and the little piece of metal still endures. Oh, my soul! the wonder and the pity on't.

There are chairs, tables, spinning wheel, etc., similar to those that were in the Burns cottage. But there is a reel that wuz used by Bonnie Jean herself, I took