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

prove. Now she thinks you could kep' her from bein' turned out of the Jonesville post-office and you could keep the price of meat down. No use arguin' with her, she sez you had it in your power to squelch some of the Trusts, and didn't do nothin' but talk.

"And that Post-Office scandal, she said she spozed you wuz goin' to make public samples of them stealers, but it all squizzled out, nothin' done about it, only jest talk. And you remember she said in her piece, 'she wuz turned out of the post-office for borryin' five cents from the Government, and bein' backward with another five, ten cents in all, and them post-office clerks in Washington stealin' hundreds of thousands and nothin' done.'" Here Theodore tried to say sunthin', and knowin' he wuz such a fluent talker I wuz bound to git my explanation in before he begun, for I wouldn't interrupted him for the world after he got to goin'.

Sez I, "I wanted you to know jest what reason she had for bein' so mad and writin' it, for I knowed you wouldn't feel so mortified about it. The way on't wuz, she wuz in the Office, and hadn't baked that week owin' to the cat tippin' over her yeast, she's so petickular she won't use boughten, and a hull load of company driv up onexpected at leven forty-five. The baker come and not havin' a cent of change by her, and he refusin' to trust her jest out of meanness, she knowin' she wuz to have some money paid her in the mornin', jest borrowed five cents from Uncle Sam. I don't say it wuz right, she'd better made biscuit, but I say she wuz punished pretty hash for that and two other small things, for bein' half distracted by her cares, she forgot to cancel three letters, the first mistake she'd made in the three years she'd been in office. One wuz a drop letter, so Uncle Sam wuz only out five cents. Well, you know Theodore, that when trials come, they come as Shakespeare said, 'Not as single spiders but hull battles on 'em,' or words to that effect.

"Right on top of that Baker come the Inspector. He discovered the deficit of ten cents, and also that other incident, where I got mixed up in the Jonesville P.O. Scandal. Keturah had to have help in the office once in awhile, and two men wanted to work for her, Nate Yerden and Sam Pendergrast. She didn't like Nate, and she did like Sam, and I don't spoze it made much difference in her feelin's, but Sam kep' sheep and did gin her yarn for a pair of stockin's, and jest out of pure kindness I colored it for her in my indigo dye tub.

"I never thought of committin' any sin, let alone one with such a big name, Misprision of Treason and Maladministration of Justice, I believe he called it. Why, for a spell I thought I should have to be shot up, Josiah wuz skairt to death, and told him he never hearn of such crimes, and sez he, 'I'll bet you can't find 'em in the Velosipeder.'

"He meant the Encyclepeder, but poor man he wuz most crazy. I emptied out my blue dye and don't know as I shall ever set up another. And Keturah raveled out her stockin's and gin back the yarn, I got off with the awfulest talkin' to I ever had, and warnin's never, never to trifle in such a heedless and wicked way with Public Matters and the sacred rights of the people. But Keturah, poor thing! wuz jest turned right out of office root and branch. She knowed what high influence duz in politics, and she got Thomas Jefferson to argy with the Inspector and tell him jest how it wuz. But he said the dignity of a great Nation wuz at stake and out she must go.

"Keturah wep' and cried, and reminded him the yarn wuz gin back and how small the sum wuz. And he said, 'A straw showed which way the wind blowed, and the Nation must trust its public servants implicitly, or where would be the safety of the people.'

"Then Keturah sassed him and said if a straw showed the direction of the wind in Jonesville, how wuz it with the dead loads and stacks of straw in Washington, sez she, they're so heavy with rottenness and corruption they can't blow. You'll remember that powerful figger of speech in the article. I told her it would make you mad as a hen and I spoze it did. And I felt it my duty to molify you and tell you that a honester creeter never lived than Keturah, and it wuz only these extronnery circumstances that made her borry the ten cents. And workin' out by the day and eatin' codfish as she duz, makes her more morbid, kinder salts her blood I believe, and she lays it to you onjustly, for meat bein' so high that she can't buy any.

"Ive told her time and agin it wuzn't your fault. But she sez you might hold in the Trusts some if you wuz a minter.

"She sez you had 'em in your power once and could made a sample on 'em but didn't, and so, sez she, I've got to live on codfish, and the flour trust is bringin' up flour so Id'no but I'll have to eat saw-dust bread. You remember them powerful metafors in the Auger. I wanted to explain all this and I also had some errents of my own."

He made another effort to speak, but knowin' his remarkable eloquence, and that I wouldn't try to git a word in after he begun, I should enjoy his talk so, I kep' on:

"I want to be open and above board, Theodore, jest as you are nachelly.
And that other piece you remember that come out about the same time in
the Jonesville Gimlet I'll tell you plain that I approved on it, though
I didn't write it. You remember it begun with this quotation:

"'They enslave their children's children
Who make compromise with sin.'

"And it went on to talk about our great dignified Nation bein' a pardner in Saloons, ruinin' men, breakin' wimmen's hearts, starvin' children, committin' theft, murder, adultery, arson, helpin' on fights, death and ruin, jest goin' in snux, as you may say with all this for the money got out of it; it said that though there wuz many great evils to face and overthrow, there wuz none that brutalized the race and agonized the hearts of the people like this, and though all sin left its mark, no other sin changed a man so into the loathsome body and soul wrecks, that drunkenness did, and all for a little money.

"It wuz a powerful piece, and as full of facts as a brick is of sand. It told jest how much money Uncle Sam got out of every drunkard he made. My memory hain't what it wuz, Theodore, and I can't tell exactly jest how much money it would be in Uncle Sam's pocket to make your four bright good boys drunkards, and finish up the job and land 'em in the drunkard's grave, via the saloon and gutter. But if you stood by and see it goin' on before your face as so many thousands of proud and lovin' fathers have to, you would think a million dollars of such blood money wuz too cheap, yes indeed!

"That tells the hull story, Theodore, I could throw statistics at you till you wuz black and blue, about our country spendin' for what is useless and ruinous to soul, body and estate, one billion four hundred millions a year, and about the hundred thousand drunkards that stumble along into the staggerin' slobberin' ranks every year, and drop into the drunkard's grave. I could eppisode eloquent to you about all this but what's the use; you're real smart and you know all about it. You've seen on every side on you the beast drivin' out the angel in man, you've seen the staggerin' army march by you to ruin. You've seen the saloons spring up by the thousands on every side, for the purpose of makin' drunkards, you've seen wives murdered by them that promised to protect 'em, you've seen children driv to starvation and the streets by it; you've seen Poverty drive Prosperity out everywhere the curse fell. And you've seen nothin' good come from it, nothin' at all, only the money that Uncle Sam takes with one hand, and pays out with the other, for law's machinery to punish the criminals he makes, and prisons, jails, reformatories, poor houses, orphan's homes, cheap coffins, etc.

"No use my tellin' you all this for you know it, but you love your boys, and I want you to promise me to do by other boys as you'd want me to do by yourn if I see the Saloon tryin' its best to entice 'em, and see their bright innocent eyes beginnin' to enjoy the deathly glitter on't. You'd want me to slam that door to and keep 'em out. Put my shoulder blade agin it, prop it up with all the strength I could git holt on in law and gospel, so they couldn't git in. And that's what I want you to do, Theodore, I want you to help keep out other children jest as dear to their fathers and mothers as your children are to you. And you know that you and their mother would ruther see 'em lay dead at your feet, than to see 'em enter that door with the doom of the place on 'em.

"It's a heavy door, Theodore, loaded down with greed and lowest passions, you can't shet it alone, nor I can't, but I would feel guilty as a dog if I didn't try my very best. Public Opinion backed by Law is what has got to slam that door to and lock it. But you and I can help, and you can do more than I can, and I want you to promise me to do all you can."

Agin I see he wuz strugglin' for speech, and I hurried to git my last words in, "I believe you want to do right, and I will encourage you by tellin' you that Josiah is goin' to vote for you, though we hain't got nothin' agin Mr. Parker. He's close-mouthed, which is a good quality, though it can be carried too fur.

"A neighbor of ourn had warned her girl to not be too familiar with the hired man, a good Christian he wuz too. And once when her ma wuz gone he asked her where the milk pail wuz, and she wantin' to be on the safe side wouldn't say a word. That wuz bein' too cautious, and a good many think he's been a little too mute about some things, he didn't tell jest where his politics wuz. But then the tongue is a onruly member and has to be curbed in, and I guess he means well. And Mr. Davis, too, of course he's gittin' along in years. But jest think of Methusaler, Mr. Methusaler's folks would call Mr. Davis nothin' but a child."

Here he blurted right out, "I hain't Theodore, though I've been took for him before, I'm President of a Gas Company."

I wuz mortified for most a minute, but come to think it over I knowed such seeds of truth as I'd been a scatterin' couldn't help but do good even if the sile wuzn't so rich as I'd spozed.

CHAPTER XVI.

Well, the next week we had a busy time, Josiah and Molly and I went mostly together, Blandina most always meetin' Professor Aspire Todd somewhere nigh the entrance, I guess it wuz planned, but 'tennyrate I wuz willin', plan or no plan.

And we visited every interestin' spot from Morocco to the Model City and from Physicial Culture Hall to Nevada.

There wuz a meetin' that scientific folks held there, and its main aim seemed to be to make light of the religion of Christ. It madded Josiah dretfully, and he sez, "I feel it my duty as a deacon to go and give in my testimony and break up such wicked doin's."

Sez I, "Josiah you let 'em alone. You couldn't break it up, nothin' but the power of the God they deny could do it. But we'll punish 'em by not goin' near 'em. That will mortify 'em and mebby make 'em see where they stand, denyin' the power that gives em the breath they spend in such folly." So when Sunday come