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

head carried sunshine wherever it went. And her big blue eyes, full of mischief sometimes, wuz also full of the solemn sweetness of them "Who do always behold the face of the Father."

I took to her from the very first, and so did Josiah and Blandina. The hull family loved and petted her from Miss Huff and her old father down to Billy, who alternately petted and teased her.

To Aunt Tryphena she wuz an object of perfect adoration. And Aunt Tryphena wuz a character uneek and standin' alone. When she wuz made the mould wuz throwed away and never used afterwards. She follered Dorothy round like her shadow and helped make the beds and keep the rooms tidy, a sort of chamber-maid, or ruther chamber-woman, for she wuz sixty if she wuz a day.

Besides Aunt Tryphena Miss Huff had two more girls to cook and clean. She had good help and sot a good table, and Aunt Feeny as they called her wuz a source of constant amusement and interest; but of her more anon.

We got to Miss Huff's in the afternoon and rested the rest of that day and had a good night's sleep.

In the mornin' Josiah, who went out at my request before breakfast to buy a little peppermint essence, come in burnin' with indignation, his morals are like iron (most of the time).

He said a man had been advisin' him to take the Immoral Railway as the best way of seein' the Fair grounds as a hull before we branched out to see things more minutely one by one.

"Immoral Railway!" he snorted out agin.

"I hope you didn't fall in with any such idee, Josiah Allen." And I sithed as I thought how many took that kind of railway and wuz whirled into ruin on't.

"Fall in with it! I guess the man that spoke to me about it thought I didn't fall in with it. I gin that feller a piece of my mind."

"I hope you didn't give him too big a piece," sez I anxiously; "you know you hain't got a bit to spare, specially at this time."

Oh, how I watched over that man day by day! I wanted the peppermint more for him than for me. I laid out if he seemed likely to break down to give him a peppermint sling.

Not that I am one of them who when fur away from home dash out into forbidden paths and dissipation, but I didn't consider peppermint sling wrong anyway, there hain't much stimulant to it.

Well, we started out for the Fair in pretty good season in the mornin', Billy Huff offered to go and put us on the right car, so he walked ahead with Blandina, Josiah and I follerin' clost in their rears. Blandina looked up at him and follered his remarks as clost and stiddy as a sunflower follers the sun. She had told me that mornin' whilst I wuz gittin' ready to start that he wuz the loveliest young man she had ever met, and a woman would be happy indeed who won him for her consort. And I said, as I pinned my collar on more firmly with my cameo pin, that I presoomed that he would make a good man and pardner when he growed up.

And she said, "Difference in age don't count anything when there is true love." Sez she, "Look at Aaron Burr and Lord Baconsfield," and she brung up a number more for me to look at mentally, whilst I wuz drapin' my mantilly round my frame in graceful folds.

But I told her I didn't seem to want to spend my time on them old ghosts that mornin', havin' such a big job on my hands to tackle that day as first chaperone to Josiah, and I got her mind off for the time bein', by the time I had fastened on my mantilly so the tabs hung as I wanted 'em to hang.

CHAPTER V.

Josiah wuz for goin' into the show by the entrance nighest to Miss Huff's, but I said, "No, that may do for other times, but when I first enter this Fair ground as a Observer" (for in our visit to the Inside Inn we wuz only weary wayfarers, too tired to observe, and the Sabbath we felt wuz no time to jot down impressions). No, this day I felt wuz in reality our dayboo, and I sez impressively, "I will not go sneakin' in by any side door or winder, I'm goin' to enter by the main gateway."

Josiah kinder hummed:

"Broad is the road that leads to death
And thousands walk together there."

But when he found we could go in there at the same price he didn't parley further, and Billy took us to the car that would leave us where I wanted to be.

The main entrance is in itself a noble sight worth goin' milds and milds to see, a long handsome buildin' curvin' round gracefully some in shape like a mammoth U only bendin' round more at the ends, and endin' with handsome buildin's, and tall pillars decorate the hull length and flags wave out nobly all along on top.

Mebby it wuz meant for a U and meant Union, a name good enough for entrance into anything or anywhere. And if it wuz I approved on't, and would encouraged 'em by tellin' 'em so if they'd asked me beforehand. Union! a name commandin' world-wide respect, writ in blue and gray on millions of hearts, sealed with precious blood.

The centre of the long buildin' peaks up and arches over you in such a lofty and magnificent way that you feel there some as Miss Sheba must have felt when she went to visit Mr. and Miss Solomon or the Misses Solomon, I spoze I ort to say, he had a variety of wives, though it is nothin' I ever approved on, and would told him so if I'd had the chance.

But good land! Mr. Solomon never had any sights to show Miss Sheba approachin' this Fair, I wouldn't been afraid to take my oath on't.

We riz the flight of steps which hundreds and hundreds could rise similtaneously and abreast, paid our three fares and went in. And when you first stand inside of that gate the beauty jest strikes you in your face some like a great flash of lightnin', only meller and happifyin' instead of blindin'.

And the vastness of it as you look on every side on you impresses you so you feel sunthin' as you would if you wuz sot down on the Desert of Sara, and Sara wuz turned into vistas of bewilderin' beauty towards every pint of her compass.

There wuz broad, smooth paths leadin' out on every side all on 'em full of folks from every country in the world, and clad in every costoom you ever see or ever didn't see before. Folks in plain American dress side by side with dark complected folks wropped up seemin'ly in white sheets, jest their black-bearded faces and flashin' eyes gleamin' at you from the drapery. Then there would be mebby a pretty young girl with a rose-bud face under a lace parasol. Two sweet-faced nuns in sombry black with their pure white night caps on under their clost black bunnets and veils, and follerin' them some fierce lookin' creeters in red baggy trousers embroidered jackets and skull caps with long tossels on 'em; Persians mebby, or Arabs.

As Josiah looked at these last I hearn him murmur as if to himself, "Why under the sun didn't Samantha put in my dressin' gown with tossels, and the smokin' cap Thomas J. gin me, I could showed off some then."

But I pretended not to hear him for my eyes wuz fastened on the passin' pageant. Smart lookin' bizness men with handsome well-dressed wives and children, then a Injun with striped blanket, beaded moccasins and head-dress of high feathers. Then a American widder, mebby a plain one, and mebby grass; then some more wimmen. Then some Chinamen with long dresses and pig-tails follered by some gawky, awkwud country folks; some more smart-lookin' Americans. Some English tourists with field-glasses strapped over one shoulder. Some Fillipinos in yellerish costoom. Then a kodak fiend ready to aim at anything or nothin' and hit it; then some Scotchmen in Tarten dress and follerin' clost some Japans, lots and lots of them scattered along. Then some brown children and their mothers, the children dressed mostly in a sash and some beads, and some more pretty white children dressed elaborate, and some niggers, and some soldiers, and some more wimmen, and more folks, and some more, and some more, in a stiddy and endless stream.

Good land! I couldn't sort out and describe them that passed by in an hour even, no more than I could sort out and describe the slate stuns in Jonesville creek, and you well know that wagon loads could be took out of one little spot.

Josiah said to me, "Why jest to look at this crowd, Samantha, pays anybody for comin' here clear from the Antipathies."

Sez I, "Josiah, you mean the Antipodes."

"I mean what I say!" he snapped out, "and les's be movin' on, no use standin' here all day."

He don't love to be corrected. But truly that immense and strangely assorted crowd constantly comin', constantly goin' and changin' all the time wuz a sight well worth comin' from Jonesville to see, even if we didn't see a thing more. But, oh, what didn't we see! what a glorious sight as our eyes left the crowd and looked 'round us. Why the wonder and beauty on't fairly struck you in the face some like a flash of lightnin' only more meller and happifyin'.

There you are in the beautiful Court of St. Louis. And right in the centre sets Saint Louis himself on a prancin' horse, holdin' up a cross, I wuz glad to see that cross held up as if in benediction over all the immense crowd below, it seemed as if it begun the Fair right, jest as it begins the week right to go to meetin' Sunday.

I always sot store by Saint Louis. Leadin' them Crusades of hisen to protect Christians and free the Holy Land from lawless invaders. How much I thought on him for it. Though I could advised him for his good in lots of things if I'd been 'round.

Now his marryin' a girl twelve years old who ort to been in pantalettes and high aprons, I should tried to break it up, I should told him plain and square that I wouldn't have heard for a minute to his marryin' our Tirzah Ann at that age. She shouldn't married him if he'd been King Louis twenty or thirty instead of nine. But I wuzn't there and he went on and had his way, as men will.

But he acted noble in lots of things, made a wise ruler and a generous one, lived and died like a hero. And I was glad to see him riz up in such a sightly place, holdin' up the cross he wuz willin' to give his life for.

He looked first rate, he wore a sort of a helmet and had a cloak on, shaped some like my long circle cape, only it didn't set so good, and I wuz sorry they didn't have my pattern to cut it by. Hisen kinder curled up at the back, they ort to cut it ketterin'. Two noble statutes stood on each side on him, kinder guardin' him as it were, though he didn't need it as long as he clung to the cross. Scattered all along by the side of the broad paths wuz little green oasises, on which the splendor-tired and people-tired eyes could rest and recooperate a little.

In front of you quite a little ways off on each side stood immense snow-white palaces each one on 'em seemin' more beautiful than the last one you looked at, full of sculptured beauty and with long, long rows of pearl white collumns and ornaments of all kinds. Beyond, but still as it were in the foreground, as it ort to, high up on a lofty pedestal stood the statute of Peace.

My pardner, who for reasons named, wuz inclined to pick flaws in this glorious Exposition, sez to me:

"What's the use of sculpin' Peace up on so high a monument and showin' her off as if she wuz safe and sound, and then histin' cannons up right by her throwin' balls that will travel twenty milds and then knock her sky high."

I