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

told from similar occasions. Deacon Henzy loves hard cider and keeps a kag on tap durin' the summer, he sez it is for his liver, but liver or no liver it hain't right.

I hain't goin' to make no insinuations about their doin's though sister Henzy has approached me on the subject time and agin, she hain't so clost mouthed as I am. But I will merely say that when they got back their two breaths didn't smell as two deacon's breaths ort to smell. But I didn't say nothin' about it outside and shan't, I use tack. I spoke on't to Josiah at the time, yes indeed I hearn the call of Duty and obeyed.

But as I wuz sayin', though it trompled on all my feelin's and forebodin's I urged 'em to go agin and they went. And I shan't tell how their breaths smelt when they got back—it hain't best, only simply sayin' that Josiah took an empty pint fruit can with him that mornin' when he went over to the Deacon's to start, and I never inquired what he took it for, so fur will a female let even her principles be outraged when the life of her beloved companion is at the stake—I tried to think he wuz goin' to take milk in it.

But the small string of tiny fish wuz all he ketched out of the deep waters, he didn't ketch any cheerfulness or happiness for himself or me, only disappintment and shagrin for I felt if I didn't use all my tack mebby the meetin' house would try to set down on him. Two deacons! the very idee on't!

But I kep' mum and dressed the fish myself and fried 'em in butter, only hopin' I wouldn't lose 'em in the fryin' pan, but Josiah didn't seem to relish 'em no better than he would side pork, and agin I felt baffled, and rememberin' the fruit can, a element of guilt also mingled with the baffle. Biled vittles with a bag puddin' which he loved almost to idolatry I put before him in vain; I petted him; I called him "dear Josiah" repeatedly; I fairly pompeyed him, but no change could I see, I felt turrible.

He still kep' a runnin' down and I didn't know when he would stop runnin' and I shuddered to think where he might run to. At last in spite of Josiah's onwillingness I sent for Doctor Bombus. He come and took his wrist in hisen and Josiah sez kinder mad actin': "What do you want to feel of my polt for? My polt beats all right!"

He looked at his tongue, Josiah stickin' it out as if he wuz makin' a face at him. He inquired about symptoms, all of which Josiah answered snappishly, the examination over, the doctor walked the floor back and forth with one hand under his coat tail and the other in his breast in deep thought and then said:

[Illustration]

"My diagnosis denotes no diametrical and insurmountable difficulties but I would recommend a temporary transition or in other words a change of climate."

"Change of climate!" muttered Josiah, "I guess anybody that lives in this state gits changes enough, from torrid to zero in twenty-four hours lots of times—I'd like to know where you wintered!"

"Nevertheless and notwithstanding," sez Doctor Bombus, blandly ignoring Josiah's muttering impatience, "I can but recapitulate my former prescription, a temporary translation from surrounding environment."

And he gathered up his saddle bags and went out, bagoning me out into the hall as he did so. And then he advised me to take him to the St. Louis Exposition.

But I sez, "I dassent, I'm afraid it would open his woonds afresh, he knowed all the circumstances that had caused his sickness." But he wuz a Homeopath and believed in takin' the same kind of medicine backward and forward as it were, sunthin' as the poem runs:

Tobacco hic when you're well will make you sick,
Tobacco hic will make you well when you're sick.

I told him I thought it wuz a hazardous undertakin', and I hardly dast, but he informed me in words more'n two inches long that he could do nothing more for him, and if I didn't foller his advice it would be at my own peril.

CHAPTER IV.

I felt turrible. What wuz I to do to do right? How wuz I to handle this enormous prescription, St. Louis Exposition, and give it in proper doses to the beloved patient? I knowed the size of the mind I had to deal with, I knowed the size of the medicine I wuz told to deal out to that mind.

Could it stand the strain? Could that small citadel stand a assault of such magnitude without crumplin' and crumblin' right down? Dast I venter? And then agin dast I disobey the imperative advice of Doctor Bombus? So I wuz tossted to and fro like the waves of the sea.

But one thing I wuz determined on, I wouldn't start alone with him in the state he wuz in, for if he should lose his mind in that immense place how could I find it with no one to help me? It would be worse than lookin' for a cambric needle in a hay-mow.

I knew how the shafts of calumny and envy might be aimed at me by his relations, so I would take along one on his side to share my responsibility, so if he did lose his mind and couldn't find it agin, they couldn't find fault with me and say I hadn't done my best. So I proposed that his niece, Blandina Teeter, should go with us, she is well off and a willin' creeter.

[Illustration]

Josiah didn't seem to care either way, but languidly remarked that if he did go he wanted a sky blue neck-tie. That wuz the first sign of interest he had took in anything, and I hailed it as a good omen but got the tie as dark a blue as I dast.

Blandina Teeter, formerly Allen, is a widder with a tall spindlin' figger pale complected, with big light blue eyes that ruther stand out of her head, and a tall peaked forehead with light hair combed down smooth on both sides with scalops made in it by hand. She is good natered to a fault, you know you can kill yourself on milk porridge, and though folks don't philosophize on it you can be too good to be comfortable.

She is a natural lover of mankind, nothin' light in it, jest a deep meetin' house love. She wuz born that way onbeknown to her I spoze, and so I d'no as I ort to blame her for her soft ways. I hadn't seen her for some years and had kinder forgot how soft and squshy she wuz in her nater, and I declare for't when I got her and Josiah both together, had marshaled my forces, as you may say before my mind's review, I didn't know how I wuz goin' to git 'em to St. Louis and back agin hull. It did seem to me that if I got through all right with Josiah, she wuz that soft and meller she would spile on my hands anyway.

But she wuz the only one on his side available in the position of second chaperone to Josiah and so I took my chances.

She had been a widder some years; Teeter had used her shameful, spent her property and throwed her round considerable, but still she kep' up her perennial love and passionate adoration of man. And thinkses I it will work well anyway with her Uncle Josiah, for lovin' all mankind as she did from infancy to age, I knowed that bein' the only male in the party she would keep her eye on him.

Blandina wuz more than willin' when I explained matters to her. She said she felt that men wuz such precious creeters that too much care could not be took of 'em, and that it would give her the greatest pleasure to surround her Uncle Josiah with all the care that a most devoted affection could dictate.

She's an awful clever critter, it hain't good nater that she lacks. But there is sunthin' wantin' in her, I believe it is common sense.

But we sot out, I with considerable misgivin' at heart, but calm and cool on the outside, clad as I wuz in dignity and a gray braize delaine dress and a bunnet of the same color, I also wore my costly cameo pin fastened in my linen collar. Some gray lisle thread gloves and a rich Paisley shawl completed my toot a sembly.

Blandina had on a soft yellerish dress, I guess it wuz lawn it looked most as soft as she did, and a hat that kinder drooped 'round her face trimmed with crushed strawberry roses. She also wore some open-work mitts, and a lace long shawl that had been her ma's.

Josiah had on his pepper and salt costoom, and in my partial eyes he wuz beautiful, but, oh, so sad, so deprested. Would the gloom ever be lifted from his beloved liniment? So my heart questioned itself as we helped ourselves out of the Democrat, Ury tendin' to the trunks.

It wuz a Monday mornin', for I felt that I wanted to tackle this job jest as I would a three weeks' washin', the first day of the week. Ury shook our hands firmly but sadly, promisin' to the last to see to things and not let the cows into the garden, and keep the buttery door shet up nights, for though the cat is not a habitual snooper, yet she will sometimes snoop.

The car wuz crowded, mebby folks had hearn of our goin' and wanted to ride a spell with us. 'Tennyrate Josiah and I had to be separated at the outset of our journey, he settin' with a man acrost the aisle; Blandina got a seat with an aged gentleman while I sot down with a pale complected woman in deep mournin'. Or at least what mournin' she had wuz deep. She wore a thick crape veil and black cotton gloves. But her dress wuz chocklate delaine. The mournin' wuz borryed, she told me most as soon as I sot down.

She wuz on the way to the funeral of her father. He had lived with her, but died while he wuz on a visit to her sister. She wuz feelin' dretful and said she didn't know what she would do without him; she took on real bad, and I sez, "Yes, losin' a pa is an awful loss."

"Yes," sez she, "pa wuz a dretful good man. I don't see what we're goin' to do without him; we shall miss him so makin' line fences. He knew all about where they ort to stand."

I wuz kinder took back. But then come to think it over I see it wuz better to be missed in line fences than not at all. She got out at the next station, and my own pardner took the vacant seat by my side, and on and on we wuz whirled from the peaceful shores of Jonesville to the pleasures and dangers of the great city.

As I said, I wanted to get to St. Louis the first of the week, but Josiah took it into his head that he wanted to visit his nephew, Orange Allen, who lives in the Ohio, and under the circumstances it wuz not for me to cross him in anything that wuz more or less reasonable. So we stopped there and had a good visit. He keeps a dairy farm and owns forty cows besides a wife and three young children; he is doing well. His pa havin' a horticultural and floral turn of mind, named his two boys Lemon and Orange. His girls are Lily, Rose and Violet. Lily is dark complected and so fat that she looks like a pillar with a string tied in the middle, and Rose and Violet are as humbly as they make but respectable. Folks ort to be more cautious in namin' children, but they're all married quite well, and we had a good visit with 'em, stayin' most of the time at Orange's.

And I see with joy that the shadder on my pardner's face lifted quite a little durin' our stay there, but of course this belated us and we didn't git to St. Louis till Saturday late in the afternoon. St. Louis is a big sizeable place. Mr. Laclede cut the tree for the first log-house in the forest where St. Louis now stands in 1764.