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

out, "why should we pompey her? It is all her fault. What did she let him live for when he wuz a babe? She is to the bottom of it, if it hadn't been for her lettin' him live we shouldn't be in this state, up at midnight, hungry as bears, cold as frogs, and our house a wreck!"

But how true it is the noisest grief is soonest squenched. At last he gin in and Jabez attacked it agin, and tinkered and puttered at it all day, I watchin' Josiah clost for fear he would surround Jabez and fall on him and demolish him in his anger. But all the difference his work made it seemed as if the noise wuz a little louder and the flood more tumultious and rushin' if it could be tumultiouser and rushiner. And by my advice Jabez fled out of the suller door and streaked it for home cross lots, for I feared that my beloved pardner might be led by his righteous wrath, even into salt and buttery.

Jest as Jabez streaked it home, I watchin' him from the buttery window and also keepin' my pardner at bey in the milk room, I see a buggy drive into the yard, and wuz I not glad to see the manly form and calm quiet face of Royal Nelson. After he drove his handsome span of grays into the horse barn he come in and I see his linement looked considerable brighter and happier, brightenin' still more as he met Rosy's sweet smiles and cordial words.

She wuz sick of Jabez, sick as lobely could make her. And her old love and leanin' on Royal Nelson had come back in full force. Her fancy for Jabez had been light and transitory as his sir-name. And as I see their happy means as they met, I felt that even the wreck and ruin about us wuz mebby not too dear a price to pay for their future happiness. The first thing Royal and Ury did, Josiah helpin' 'em, wuz to take out the furnace and pipes, the hull caboodle on 'em, and then went over to Jonesville and bought a new furnace and got a good responsible man to put it in that very day. They telephoned to that hardware man to Zoar to come and take away the remains of that invention, and how he settled with Jabez I never knew, for Karen hushed it up, but I know there is a coldness between 'em and they don't speak.

Well, the places all bein' made in the walls, and this man bein' a good workman, who had learnt his trade, that night about eight P.M. the hull job wuz done, and stillness and genial warmth made the place seem almost like Heaven compared to what it had been. The next day a man come and plastered overhead, Ury and Philury helped clean the floors and put down the carpets, and in three day's time everything wuz happy and calm and quiet, and Josiah wuz beginnin' to recover from the effects of too voylent wrath upon his nerve.

Our noses had regained their natural color, and on the third day Rosy with a last warm kiss and sweet smile on me and visey versey went home, Royal carryin' her in his new covered buggy, drawed by them two handsome gray horses. They wuz engaged, and their plans all made, they wuz to be married in the summer and go to the St. Louis Exposition on their weddin' tower.

And I thought, as I see 'em drive off, happy as a king and queen in the bright moonlight, how true it is our brightest joys often come through darkest tribulations. Rosy's and Royal's happiness wuz enough in itself to pay me abundantly for my tribulations. And then my settin' room new plastered and Josiah would never consented to tear it off, and it wuz lumpy and streaked and broken, and here it wuz new plastered over smooth as glass.

Oh! thinkses I how thankful I ort to be and how I ort to forgit the troubles of the night in the joys of the mornin'.

And crownin' blessin' of all Josiah had seemin'ly forgot all about the Exposition of Josiah Allen. He hadn't mentioned it for days and the children and I wuz full of hope, it wuz broke up. But, alas! in this world how little you can tell what is broke and what hain't.

And the news Josiah brung home, what comfort there wuz in the thought—I like Karen and felt to rejoice with her. It seemed that Luman Heath, not havin' heard of our afflictions, had let Jabez go on with his work the very next day after he finished here. And the Perpetually Gushing Hot Water Tank wuz the death blow to Jabez Wind's inventive ambition, and alas! proved almost the death blow to Luman Heath's beloved ones, the hull family circle on 'em.

He attached it to the kitchen stove, which wuz a perfect steamer to burn and heat up. And fixed it so that instead of the hot water goin' acrost the room to the kitchen sink as he meant to have it, it jest squirted right up into the air bilin' hot, so they had a perfect fiery geyser there in their kitchen. Jabez run for his life, it had hit him in the face.

They wuz Methodist folks with lots of children well brung up and they never thought of havin' such doin's in their house, but the bilin' crater pourin' down hot water come so sudden and onexpected onto 'em that three of the little children wuz scalded most to-death as they sot on the floor readin' Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." And Luman, bald-headed, too, the fiery flood descended onto him while he wuz tryin' to bear his wife, who fell into hystericks, into the settin' room, he wuz hit on top by the bilin' torrent and blistered right on his bare head as big as your hand.

He laid his wife down half faintin', told the screamin' children to look out for her and keep out of the kitchen, hollered for the hired man to go after a doctor, and fell back into a kind of spazzum. He bein' a good man who wouldn't swear, or rare round kep in his feelin's more. The children got over it before he did, bad as they wuz scalded, they screamed and yelled and let off considerable steam that way. But he wuz bed sick for weeks holdin' onto his wrath and bein' too good to jaw and kick Jabez, the doctor said made it worse than if he had kicked some.

But to resoom backwards. The hired girl wuz the coolest of any of 'em, she went into the kitchen with a waterproof and umbrella, and tried to turn the nozzle of the Perpetual Gushing Hot Water Tank out-doors, and havin' to use both hands, and bein' smart and quick witted, she put the coal scuttle on bottom side up, and though blinded by it and some scalded, she made out to turn the fury of it out through the kitchen winder where it steamed and squirted and poured out bilin' water onto the flower beds and acrost 'em into the road, scaldin' passers by, and bein' a perfect horrow and mystery to 'em. It wuz big and powerful, there hain't no doubt of that.

Well, owin' to the hired girl's courage, by the time the doctor got there the tank wuz emptied, and the torrent had subsided into a drizzle. Luman Heath didn't prosecute Jabez, bein' such a good man, and how I honor him for it, how I honor him for not actin' and swearin'. The doctor may say what he wants to, he wuz noble to bear it as he did. I have seen kickin' and actin' in times of trial, and how I honor a man who can refrain, and he got well as quick, I believe, as though he had acted.

But as I wuz sayin' the greatest relief that come to the community from our trials wuz as follers. Take it with his doin's at our house and Luman Heath's, Jabez Wind had evidently had enough of inventions. He hired out for a year the very next day after the eppisode, to work for twenty dollars a month on a farm, house rent, wood, and cow furnished. Kellup Wind is goin' to live with a daughter, and Karen is blissful at thought of keepin' house for Jabez. Good creeter! I hope she will have a little rest now. I said I meant to go and see her jest as soon as she wuz settled.

Well, for two days my feelin's of joy and thankfulness wuz onclouded. But alas, poor mortals! that plant the flowers of their happiness on earthly sile, they must see 'em wither before their face and eyes anon or oftener like Jonah's gourd.

The third day, whilst I wuz settin' happy and calm in my frame in my warm peaceful settin' room often liftin' my eyes contentedly to the satin smooth ceilin'.

What wuz my emotions of grief and horrow to see Josiah rise up, haul out his tin trunk where he'd carefuly stored away the plans of the St. Josiah Exposition, and go to studyin' 'em agin with renewed vigor, sayin':

"I hope to gracious I can have my mind clear now to go on and plan my
Exposition; this dum work has set me back turribly."

I let my work fall into my lap and gin vent to some sithes, so deep they wuz almost groans, whilst the bitter waters of disappintment trickled over my hopes and drownded 'em out. Had I got to go through another siege of argument and persuasion and extra vittles? Could my too hard worked oratory hold out, and also my provisions?

I see the children next day and told 'em how it wuz, that their Pa seemed more sot on his plan than ever, and talked more excited and earnest about it than I had ever seen him. For it did seem as if his deep ambitions dammed up for a time by furnaces and Jabezeses, had broke loose into a wider, deeper current than ever. He talked incessantly about it day and night, laid on his plans, and reached out onto new ones.

The children sez to me agin: "Mother, it must be stopped at all hazards!"

And agin I wep', and sez to 'em: "How can it be stopped?"

Tirzah Ann looked completely squelched and could do nothin' only weakly ask: "If I spozed I could git him to play on a accordeon, she kinder thought that some time she'd hearn of some man, somewhere havin' his mind soothed by one."

"Accordeon!" sez I. "You couldn't git his mind offen that plan if you gin him one of the golden harps we read about."

Tirzah Ann subsided, only sayin': "We would all be the town's talk, and it would probable kill her with mortification."

Thomas J. sot still with his brow knit in deep thought and sez "I will try one thing more."

I never knew exactly how Thomas J. worked it, or what he paid 'em, but I know that a day or two after, the prices them livin' statutes asked Josiah for bein' whitewashed, wuz sunthin' perfectly exorbitant, and so with the Powers and the Peaceful Inventors. He never could stood it with his closeness.

Thomas J. didn't appear outwardly, but wuz the power behind the thrones, so I spoze. When Josiah wuz taxed with these fearful expenses (they writ it in letters to him) his plan tottled ready to fall. And of course I stood ready and follered it up with eloquent arguments, tenderness and the very best of vittles. Neither on 'em could carried the day alone, but all together conquered. He gin in. The plan tottered over and fell onto him, and my pardner, to continue the metafor, lay under the ruins as squshed and mute as if he wuz never goin' to git up agin.

But when his wild emotions of ambition and vanity and display wuz all broke up a settled melancholy hovered down onto him and draped him like a black mantilly. He seemed all onstrung, and all my efforts to string him up agin seemed vain.

I strove to hide my apprehensions under a holler veil of calmness and even hilarity; I give him catnip with a smile on my lip but deep forebodin' in my mind, and the same with thoroughwert. But catnip didn't nip his ambition and thoroughwort wuzn't thorough enough to restore his cheerfulness.

I encouraged him to go to the lake fishin' with Deacon Henzy, though I'd suffered more than I had ever