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The man kep’ bowin’ real polite and offered some coffee to him and a pipe, and Josiah sez:
“I don’t want none of your coffee, nor none of your pipes, I want honesty, and I can tell you one thing that you’ve lost my trade, and you’ll lose the hull of the Jonesville trade when I go home and tell the brethren how slippery you be in a bargain.”
The man kep’ on bowin’ and smilin’ and I told Josiah, “I presoom he thinks you’re praisin’ him; he acts as if he did.” And Josiah stopped talkin’ in a minute. But howsumever he wouldn’t take the handkerchief.
Miss Meechim and I––and I spoze that Robert Strong wuz to the bottom of it––but ’tennyrate, we wuz invited to a harem to see a princess, wife of a pasha. Robert thought that we should like to see the inside of an Indian prince’s palace, and so we did.
Miss Meechim of course woudn’t consent to let Dorothy go anywhere nigh such a place, and I guess she disinfected her clothes before she see Dorothy when she got back; ’tennyrate, I see her winder up and her dress hangin’ over a chair. Arvilly didn’t want to go, and as she wuzn’t invited, it made it real convenient for her to not want to. And of course I couldn’t take my pardner. Why, that good, moral man would be flowed from by them wimmen as if he had the plague. Dorothy and Robert wuz a-goin’ to Heliopolis and offered to take Tommy with ’em. And Miss Meechim and I accordin’ly sot off alone.
The palace stood in beautiful grounds and is a noble-lookin’ building. We wuz met at the entrance to the garden by four handsome native girls with beautiful silk dresses on, handsome turbans, satin slippers and jewelry enough for a dozen wimmen.
They took our hands, each on us walkin’ between two on ’em, for all the world as if we wuz prisoners, till we got to the gates of the palace, and here two black males, dressed259as rich as a president or minister, met us, and four more gayly dressed female slaves.
These girls took Miss Meechim’s cape and my mantilly and laid ’em away. Then we went through a long hall and up a magnificent marble staircase, with a girl on each side on us agin jest as if we wuz bein’ took to jail. We then went into a large beautiful room where the Princess’ Lady of Honor wuz tryin’, I spoze, to be jest as honorable as she could be. But to my surprise she handed us the first thing some coffee and pipes to smoke. But such a pipe never entered Jonesville. Why, the pipe stem was six feet long, amber and gold, diamonds and rubies. Good land! it wuz most enough to get a perfessor and a member of the W.C.T.U. to smokin’. But I wuzn’t to be enticed; I sort o’ waved it off graceful and drinked a little coffee, which wuz good, and if you’ll believe it the little holders that held our cups wuz all covered with diamonds. Then six more slaves, jest as pretty, with jest as fine clothes and with as many jewels, came to tell us the Princess would see us. And we went with them through room after room, each one seemin’ly more elegant than the others, till we reached the door of a great grand apartment, and here the Princess wuz surrounded by more slaves, dressed handsomer than any we’d seen yet.
She come forward to meet us and led the way to a beautiful divan, where we sot down. Here they offered us some more of the beautiful jewelled pipes agin, and agin I stood firm and so did Miss Meechim, but the Princess smoked a little. But the tobacco wuz perfumed so delightfully that there wuz no tobacco smell to it.
Then coffee wuz passed agin in a jewelled cup and agin I sipped a little on’t, thinkin’ like as not it would keep me awake it wuz so strong, but knowin’ that I had got to be polite anyway in such a time as this.
She talked quite good English and we had a pleasant visit with her, and anon she took each on us by the hand––for260all the world they acted as if we wuz infants and couldn’t walk alone––and led us through the magnificent rooms with lofty mirrors, furniture covered with costly Persian cloth embroidered with gold and silver, great rugs of the most exquisite color and texture, mounds of flowers, baskets and vases everywhere running over with them, makin’ the air sweet with their perfume.
In one room there wuz no winders, the walls bein’ made of glitterin’ mirrors sot in gilded frames, light comin’ down through stained glass in the gilded ceiling.
On the Princess’ toilet table wuz a large gold tray holdin’ a basin of perfumed water, and white silk towels embroidered in gold and silver.
I remembered my crash and huck-a-buck towels and thought to myself I didn’t know what she would do if she ever come to see me, unless I took one of Josiah’s silk handkerchiefs for her to wipe her hands on. But concluded I would do that if she ever paid my visit. And I thought the minute I got home I would paint the bowl of the pipe we had used for tizik, a pale blue or pink, and dry some extra fine mullen leaves and catnip blows, they smell real sweet to me, and I knew they would be good for her bronkial tubes anyway. And I laid out to make up in a warm welcome what we lacked in luxury.
Well, the last room we went into we wuz served in tiny cups with a delicate drink. Lemonade, I guess it wuz, or orange and fruit juice of some kind. It wuz served to us in jewelled cups and we had gold embroidered napkins. Here the Princess thanked us for our visit and retired, followed by the slaves who had gone with us through the palace.
And we went down the staircase with a girl on each side on us jest as we went up, so if Miss Meechim and I had had any mind to break away and act, we couldn’t, and went to our carriage waited on jest as when we come. Miss Meechim said as we started back:
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“Did you ever see the like? Was you prepared to see such magnificence, Josiah Allen’s wife?”
And I told her I wuz partly prepared, for I had read the Arabian Night’s Entertainment.
“Well,” sez she, “it goes fur beyend my wildest dreams of luxury.”
When we got back to the tarven we found that Robert Strong had been delayed by a visitor and wuz jest startin’ for Heliopolis, and Miss Meechim and I bein’ all ready we turned round and went with ’em.
Heliopolis hain’t so grand lookin’ as its name. It is a little Arab town six miles from Cairo. The low houses are made of mud and nasty inside, I believe; they don’t look much like Jonesville houses. The oldest and greatest college once stood here. Here, too, wuz the hant of that immortal bird, the Phenix, who raised himself to life every five hundred years. (Josiah don’t believe a word on’t, and I don’t know as I do.) But we do spoze that wuz the very place where Joseph married the daughter of Mr. Potiphar, doin’ dretful well, it wuz spozed by her folks, but he wuz plenty good enough for her, I think, and so Josiah duz.
And right in this neighborhood Alexander the Great marched round and camped on his way to Memphis. So you can see it wuz interestin’ in a good many ways.
But the Virgin’s Tree wuz what we wanted to see. It is a fig sycamore; its trunk is twenty feet in diameter and its branches spread out and cover a great space. But its size wuzn’t what we went to see. Under this tree Joseph and Mary rested whilst they wuz fleeing to Egypt from them that sought the young Child’s life. Our Lord himself had been under this very tree that wuz bendin’ over me. My emotions wuz such that I didn’t want any on ’em to see my face; I went apart from ’em and sot down on a little seat not fur off from the fence that protects this tree from relic hunters. And I had a large number of emotions as I sot there lookin’ up into the green branches.
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I wondered how Mary felt as she sot there. She knowed she wuz carryin’ a sacred burden on her bosom. The Star that had guided the wise men to the cradle of her Baby had shone full into his face and she’d seen the Divinity there. Angels had heralded His birth; the frightened king looked upon Him as one who would take his kingdom from him, and an angel had bidden them to take the Child and flee to Egypt.
And how happy Joseph and Mary wuz as they sot down under this tree. All their journey over the weary rocky roads, over the mountains, through the streams and the valleys, and over the sandy desert they dassent rest, but wuz lookin’ behind ’em all the time as they pressed forward, expectin’ to hear the gallopin’ steeds of the king, and to hear the cruel cries of his blood-thirsty soldiers. Why, just think on’t: every other baby boy in the country put to death jest to be sure of makin’ way with the child that she held to her bosom. How would any mother have felt; how would any mother’s heart beat and soul faint within ’em as they plodded away on a donkey, knowin’ that the swiftest horses of the king wuz mebby follerin’ clost behind? But it wuz all past now; under the shade of this noble old tree Mary sot down, happiness in her tired eyes, ontold relief in the weary heart on which the Child leaned.
I believe they laid down there under the starry heavens and went to sleep; mebby the Star shone down on ’em as they slep’, seein’ they wuz safe now and Herod couldn’t touch ’em even if he wuz clost to ’em.
Egypt, blessed be thy turf and thy skies forever more, since thou hast sheltered the Lord!
And while back in Jerusalem the blood-thirsty soldiers wuz rushin’ to and fro seekin’ for the young Child that they might destroy him, and in his palace King Herod lay in troubled sleep under the close-drawn curtains of the royal couch, slaves watchin’ outside the room, slaves watchin’ his fearful thorn-strewn pillow, the little Child that he feared263and sought to destroy, slept with the clear midnight sky bendin’ over his sweet slumber, its matchless blue curtain looped up with stars, hung with the great silver night lamp of the crescent moon. His bed-chamber the broad plains and mountains and valleys of the world Which should yet own his peaceful sway. His guard the shining angels that had flown down to herald His coming on the fields of Bethlehem. Sleep well, little Child, with thy kingdom outstretched about thee, the hull grief-smitten world, upon which thou wast to lay thy hands and heal its woes and wounds. The divine clothin’ itself in the sad garments of humanity that it might lift it up into heavenly heights.
Well, we stayed there quite a spell. Robert, I could see, felt a good deal as I did and so did Dorothy; I read in her sweet eyes the tender light that meant many things. But Miss Meechim had doubts about the tree. She looked all round it, and felt of the low, droopin’ branches and looked clost at the bark. She is a great case for the bark of things, Miss Meechim is, you know some be. They will set their microscopes on a little mite of bark and argy for hours about it, but don’t think of the life that is goin’ on underneath. The divine vitality of truth that animates the hidden soul of things. They think more of the creeds, the outward husks of things than the inside life and truth. Miss Meechim said with her eye still on the bark that no tree could live two centuries and still look so vigorous.
But I sez, “Mount Sinai looks pretty firm and stiddy, and the Red Sea I spoze looks jest about as red and hearty as it did when the Israelites crossed it.”
She wuz examinin’ the bark through her eye glasses, but she said mountains and seas could stand more than a tree And I said I guessed the hand that made a tree could keep it alive.
And I knew that it didn’t make any difference anyway. This wuz the road they come and they had to rest anyway, and it stood to reason they would rest under a tree, and I felt264that this wuz the tree, though it might have been another one nigh by. And while Miss Meechim’s mind was all taken up lookin’ at the bark of that tree, my mind wuz full of this great fact and truth, that the Child wuz saved from his enemies. And while the kingdom of the wicked king has been covered and lost from sight under the sands of time for centuries, the kingdom of the Holy Child stands firmer to-day than ever before, and is broadening and widening all the time, teaching the true brotherhood of man, and fatherhood of God. This is the great truth, all the branching creeds and arguments and isms, they are only the bark.
Nigh by the tree stands a tall piller sixty-four feet high, covered with strange writin’. As I looked at it I thought I would gin a dollar bill to have read that writin’, no knowin’ what strange secrets of the past would have been revealed to me. But I couldn’t read it, it is dretful writin’. Josiah sometimes makes fun of my handwritin’ and calls it ducks’ tracks, but I thought that if he’d seen this he’d thought that mine wuz like print compared to it. They say that this is the oldest obelisk in Egypt, and that is sayin’ a good deal, for Egypt is full of former greatness old as the hills.
Here in the East civilization begun, and gradual, gradual it stalked along towards the West, and is slowly, slowly marchin’ on round the world back to where it started from, and when the round world is belted with knowledge and Christianity, then mebby will come the thousand years of peace, the millennium the Scriptures have foretold, when the lamb shall lay down with the lion and a young child shall lead them. I spoze the young child means the baby Peace that shall bime-by lead the nations along into the World Beautiful. And there shall be no more war.
265CHAPTER XXIII
Cairo is different from any other city under the sun, and after you’ve been there when you shet you eyes and see it agin in memory, the brilliant colorin’ sheds its picturesque glow over the brilliant seen. The deep bright blue of the sky, the splendor of the sunlight, the dazzlin’ white of the buildings, the soft mellow brown of the desert and the green of the tropical foliage always comes back to brighten the panorama.
And the crowds of people from all parts of the world, each dressed in his and her natural costume, every style of dress and every color under the sun. And the milds of bazars, little booths about ten feet square but all runnin’ over with the richest embroideries, silken fabrics, gold, silver, amber and everything else gorgeous. Then there is the new part of Cairo, the broad, long streets lined with magnificent buildin’s. The great Citadel of Cairo and the Alabaster Mosque up on a rocky height, six hundred feet above the city. The Citadel wuz built by Saladin in 1100, most a thousand years ago. Where is Mr. Saladin and his folks? and his dynasty? All forgot centuries ago, but the work he thought out is here still. The Mosque is the only building’ in the world built of alabaster; it wuz begun by Mehemet Ali, the great-grandfather of the Khedive. The alabaster looks like satin, amber and white color, mebby some of my readers have got a little alabaster box or figger that they set store by, it is so costly and fine. Then think of a hull buildin’ three hundred feet square built of it. The ruff is uplifted by alabaster columns; the alabaster galleries are a hundred feet above the floor. The gilded dome can be seen266twenty or thirty milds away. The view from the terrace in front is so beautiful that you don’t want to leave it. The city lies before you and a long view of the Nile, rich gardens, green fields, towering palms, the pyramids standin’ like ghosts out of the past, Memphis, oldest city of the world. Turn your head and there is the land of Goshen; how many times amidst the overwhelmin’ cares of a Jonesville kitchen have we mentioned “Land of Goshen,” but solemn now to look at and contemplate as the home of the patriarchs. Only two milds off down the Nile is the spot where Napoleon fought with the Mamelukes and won the Battle of the Pyramids. And jest under you as you look down, you see the ruff of the Egyptian Museum where the body of Ramesis lays, once rulin’ with a high hand he and his folks, as many as a dozen of ’em, over all the land our stranger eyes looked down on. But now they’re nothin’ but a side show, as you may say in a museum.
Josiah wuz dretful took with the sights of shops on either side of the narrow streets of old Cairo and all sorts of trades bein’ carried on there right out doors: goldsmiths and silversmiths makin’ their jewelry right there before you, and Josiah sez: “I lay out to have a shop rigged out doors to hum and make brooms and feather dusters; and why don’t you, Samantha; how uneek it would be for you to have your sewin’-machine or your quiltin’-frames in the corner of the fence between us and old Bobbett’s, and have a bedquilt or a crazy blanket draped behind you on the fence. You could have a kind of a turban if you wanted to; I would lend you one of my bandannas. I’m goin’ to wear ’em in my bazar when I rig one up, and my dressin’-gown, and I shall have Ury wear one and sandals. I can make some crackin’ good sandals for us all out of shingles, and lace ’em on with colored ribbins. How dressy they will make me look. I shall lace my sandals on with yeller and red baby ribbin, them colors are so becomin’ and make my complexion look fairer. We shall jest coin money out of my bazar, and I shall write267to Ury to put in a piece of broom corn, and mebby we shall make jewelry; we could make some good mournin’ jewelry out of coal and lam-black.”
Well, I didn’t argy with him, thinkin’ most probable that he’d forgit it, but Arvilly, who wuz with us, sez: “I guess it would be mournin’ jewelry in good earnest if you made it; I guess it would make anybody mourn to see it, let alone wearin’ it.”
“Wait till you see it,” sez he.
And she sez, “I am perfectly willin’ to wait.”
“But I shan’t set on the floor as they do here,” sez he, “I am sorry for some of them poor old men that can’t afford chairs, and I would be perfectly willin’ to make ’em some stools if they’d furnish the lumber.”
Sez I, “It’s their way, Josiah, they like it.”
“I don’t believe it,” sez he; “nobody loves to scrooch down flat with their legs under ’em numb as sticks.” But right whilst we were talkin’ we met a funeral procession. The head one had hard work to git through the crowd crying out:
“There is no deity but God! Mohammed is his apostle!” Then come some boys singin’ a funeral him; and then the bier, borne by friends of the corpse and covered by a handsome shawl. Then come the hired mourners––wimmen––for I spoze they think they’re used to mournin’ and can earn their money better. ’Tennyrate, these screeched and wailed and tore their hair and beat their breast-bone as if they meant to earn their money. Then come the relatives and friends. Of course, they no need to have wep’ a tear, havin’ hired it done. But they did seem to feel real bad, they couldn’t have wept and wailed any more if they had been hired to. Josiah sez:
“Samantha, when I’m took, if you hire anybody to mourn get some better lookin’ females than these. I had almost ruther die onlamented than to have such lookin’ creeters weepin’ over my remains; now some fair lookin’ females such268as sister Celestine Bobbett and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury–––”
But I interrupted him by telling him truly that no hired tears would fall on his beloved face if I outlived him, and no boughten groans would be hearn. Sez I, “The tears of true love and grief would bedew your forward.”
“Well,” sez he, “it would be my wishes.”
As we wended our way along we met several water-carriers with leather bottles, jest such a one as Hagar took with her and Ishmael out in the desert, and it wuz on this same desert whose sands wuz siftin’ in about us every chance it had that she lay the child down to die and angels come and fed him. And, also, it bein’ along towards night we met several shepherds; one wuz carryin’ a tired lamb in his arms. They wuz patriarkal in appearance and dressed jest like the Bible pictures. I felt as though I had met Abraham or Isaac onbeknown to them.
Another sight that impressed my pardner fearfully wuz the howlin’ dervishes––we’d hearn about ’em a sight, and so we thought we would go and hear ’em howl. By payin’ a little backsheesh (which is money) we got permission to attend one of their religious meetin’s. There wuz a chief or Sheik, which Josiah always called a “shack”––and I d’no but he wuz well named––and about twenty or thirty howlers in long white robes. They made a low bow to the Shack and then knelt round him in a circle; then they bowed agin a number of times clear to the floor and begun to sing or pray. I d’no what you would call it, but the axents wuz dretful and the music that accompanied it harrowin’ in the extreme. Then they got up and bowed agin to the Shack and begun to shake their heads and their arms and their feet rapid and voylent, all keepin’ time to the music, or what I spoze they called music, their hair hangin’ loose, their yellin’ fearful, and then they begun to whirl like a top spinnin’ round, faster and faster, whirlin’ and howlin’ and shriekin’ till they couldn’t howl or whirl any longer. Then the meetin’269broke up as you may say, they formed a half circle agin round the Shack, bowed to the ground before him and fell down perfectly wore out on the floor. I should have thought they’d died. Why, I couldn’t have stood it and lived nor Josiah couldn’t; it wuz all we could stand to see it go on.
One day Miss Meechim and I visited an American Mission School for Arab and Egyptian children, and it wuz from one of these very schools that one of the Rajahs or native princes took his wife. She wuz a little donkey driver, and the teacher of the Mission, liking her and pitying her, got permission of her mother (a poor donkey driver of Cairo living in a mud hut) to take the child into her school. When she wuz about fourteen years old the Rajah, who had accepted the Christian religion, visited this school, and the little girl wuz teaching a class of barefooted Egyptian girls, sittin’ on the floor about her.
Who can tell the mysteries of love? Like lightning it strikes where it will and must. Why should this Prince, educated in England, a friend of Queen Victoria, who had seen beautiful women all his days onmoved, why should he fall in love with this little girl, late a donkey driver in the streets of Cairo?
I d’no, but so it wuz, and he told the lady in charge of the school that he wanted to make her his wife. She wuz greatly surprised, and not knowin’ he wuz what he said he wuz, asked him polite to go away and select some other bride. But the next day he come back, sent in his card and a autograph letter from Queen Victoria, and agin expressed his desire to marry the bright-eyed little Egyptian.
When the subject wuz broached to her she wep’ and pleaded not to be sold into slavery, spozin’ that wuz what it meant. But the Prince made her understand that he wanted her for his wife, and she consented to be educated in a fitting manner, and at last the weddin’ took place at the home of the teacher.
The Prince took his wife to London, where she wuz presented270at Court, and makes him a good wife, so fur as I know, and they say she’s dretful good to the poor; ’tennyrate the Prince must think a good deal of her, for he presented every year one thousand pounds to help on the school where he found his Princess. This story is true and is stranger than most lies.
I spoze that from that time on all the dark-eyed little Egyptian maids in that school wuz lookin’ out anxiously to see some prince comin’ in and claim ’em and make a royal princess of ’em. But one swallow don’t make a spring; I don’t spoze there has been or will be agin such a romance.
Josiah said that we must not leave Cairo without seein’ Pharo. Josiah said he felt real well acquainted with him, havin’ read about him so much. Sez he, “He wuz a mean creeter as ever trod shoe-leather and I’d love to tell him so.”
They keep him in the Museum of Cairo now, a purpose, I spoze, to scare folks from doin’ what he did, for a humblier lookin’ creeter I never see, and hard lookin’; I don’t wonder a mite at the bad things I’ve hearn tell on him; why, a man that looked like that wuz sure to be mean as pusley. He looked as if he wuz bein’ plagued now with every single plague that fell on him for his cruelty and I d’no but he is. I wonder that the Israelites got along with him so long as they did; Josiah wouldn’t have stood it a week, he’s that quick-tempered and despises the idee of bein’ bossed round, and how Pharo did drive them poor children of Israel round; ground ’em right down to his terms, wouldn’t let ’em say their soul wuz their own, worked ’em most to death, half starved ’em, wouldn’t give ’em any rights, not a single right. But as I sez to Josiah, he got his come-up-ance for his heartless cruelty, he got plagued enough and drownded in the bargain.
He’s a mummy now. Yes, as Josiah sez when he looked on him:
“You’ve got to be mum now, no givin’ orders to your poor overworked hired help in your brick-fields, not lettin’271’em have even a straw that they begged for to lighten their burden. The descendants of them folks you driv round can stand here and poke fun at you all day and you’ve got to keep your mouth shet. Yes,” sez he, “you’ve got to a place now where you can’t be yellin’ out your orders, you’ve got to be mum, for you’re a mummy.”
I didn’t love to have Josiah stand and sass Pharo right to his face, but it seemed so gratifyin’ to him I hated to break it up, and I felt towards him jest as he did, and Arvilly and Miss Meechim felt jest as we did about it; they loathed his looks, hatin’ what he’d done so bad. But I thought from what I hearn Robert Strong sayin’ to Dorothy that he had doubts about his being the real Bible Pharo, there wuz quite a lot of them kings by the same name, you know. But Miss Meechim hearn him and assured him that this was the very Pharo who so cruelly tortured the Israelites and who was drownded by the Lord for his cruelty, she knew it by her feelings. And she said she was so glad that she had seen for herself the great truth that the Pharo spirit of injustice and cruelty wuz crushed forever.
But Robert said that Pharo’s cruelty sprang from unlimited power and from havin’ absolute control over a weaker and helpless class; he said that would arouse the Pharo spirit in any man. That spirit, he said, was creeping into our American nation, the great Trusts and Monopolies formed for the enrichment of the few and the poverty of the many; what are they but the Pharo spirit of personal luxury and greed and dominion over the poor?
I knew he was thinkin’ of his City of Justice, where every man had the opportunity to work and the just reward of his labor, where Charity (a good creeter Charity is too) stayed in the background, not bein’ needed here, and Justice walked in her place. Where Justice and Labor walked hand in hand into ways of pleasantness and paths of peace. He didn’t say nothin’ about his own doin’s, it wuzn’t his way, but I hearn him say to Dorothy:
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“The Voice is speaking now to America as it did to Egypt, Let my people go, out of their helpless bondage and poverty into better, more just and humane ways, but America doesn’t listen. The rich stand on the piled up pyramid of the poor, Capital enslaves Labor and drives it with the iron bit of remorseless power and the sharp spur of Necessity where it will. But there must be a day of reckoning; the Voice will be heard, if not in peace with the sword:
‘For the few shall not forever swayThe many toil in sorrow,We’ll sow the golden grain to-day,The harvest comes to-morrow.’”
‘For the few shall not forever swayThe many toil in sorrow,We’ll sow the golden grain to-day,The harvest comes to-morrow.’”
‘For the few shall not forever sway
The many toil in sorrow,
We’ll sow the golden grain to-day,
The harvest comes to-morrow.’”
But the greatest sight in Cairo and mebby the hull world is the Pyramaids.
I d’no as I had so many emotions in the same length of time durin’ my hull tower as I did lookin’ at them immense structures. It don’t seem as if they wuz made by man; they seem more like mountains placed there by the same hand that made the everlastin’ hills. They say that it took three hundred thousand men twenty years to build the biggest one. And I don’t doubt it. If I had been asked to draw up specifications I wouldn’t have took the job for a day’s work less. Why, they say it took ten years to build the road over which them stuns wuz brought from the Nile, and good land! how did they ever do it? No hands nor no machinery that we know anything about at the present day could move one of them stuns, let alone bringin’ ’em from heaven knows where. They couldn’t have been got into any boat, and how did they do it? I d’no nor Josiah don’t. Mebby the sphynx knows, most probable she duz, but she’s a female that don’t git herself into trouble talkin’ and gossipin’. Lots of wimmen would do well to foller her example.
From the first minute we got to Cairo and long enough before that we had lotted on seein’ the Pyramaids, Josiah had273talked about ’em a sight, and told me time and agin that he did want to see the spink, he had got to see the spink.
Sez I, “You mean the Sphynx, Josiah.”
“Yes,” sez he, “the spink; I’m bound to see that. I want to tell Deacon Henzy and Brother Bobbett about it; they crowed over me quite a little after they went to Loontown to see them views of the spink and the Pyramaid of Chops. You know I wuz bed-sick at the time with a crick in my back. I guess they’ll have to quirl down a little when I tell ’em I’ve walked round the spink and seen old Chops with my own eyes.”
Well, I know lots of folks travel with no higher aim than to tell their exploits, so I didn’t argy with him. And the hull party of us sot off one pleasant day to view them wonders; they’re only six miles from Cairo. The Pyramaid of Cheops is higher than any structure in Europe; the Strassburg Cathedral is the highest––that is four hundred and sixty feet, and Cheops is four hundred and eighty feet high. Each of its sides is seven hundred and sixty feet long above the sand, and I d’no how much bigger it is underneath. The wild winds from the desert piles up that sand everywhere it can; it was blowin’ aginst that pyramaid three or four thousand years before Christ wuz born, and has kep’ at it ever sense; so it must have heaped up piles about it. The pyramaid is made of immense blocks of stun, and I hearn Josiah explainin’ it out to Tommy. Sez he, “It is called Chops because the stun is chopped off kinder square.”
But I interrupted and sez, “Josiah Allen, this wuz named after Cheops, one of the kings of Egypt; some say it wuz his tomb.”
Miss Meechim sez, “They say it took three hundred thousand men twenty years to build it,” and she remarked further, “How many days’ work this king did give to the poor, and how good it wuz in him!” And Robert Strong said:
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“Their work has lasted while the king is forgotten; labor against capital, labor ahead.”
Dorothy looked dreamily up onto the immense pile and said nothin’.
Arvilly said if she had a long whitewash brush she would advertise her book, the “Twin Crimes,” by paintin’ a drunken man in a hovel beatin’ his wife and children, whilst America wuz furnishin’ him with the clubs, and the “Wild and Warlike Deeds of Men” in different wild and warlike attitudes.
And little Tommy wonnered if he could climb up on it and wonnered what anybody could see from the top.
And I looked on it and felt as if I could almost see the march of the centuries defile by its stubborn old sides, and I wondered like Tommy what one could look off and see from the top, gazing out acrost our centuries so full of wonders and inventions, into the glowin’ mysteries of the twentieth century.
Robert Strong said that some thought it wuz built for astronomical purposes, for there is a passage down three hundred and twenty feet from the bed rock from which you can view the sky.
“And some think,” sez Dorothy, “it wuz built to measure distances correctly, it stands true east, north, south, west.”
And Miss Meechim sez, “I believe it wuz built for religious purposes: the interior passages have many stones and symbols that are a mystery to every one unless it is explained in this way.”
Sez Arvilly, “I believe it wuz made to shet up folks in that got drunk and acted. Probable there wuz some even in that fur-off time that made fools of themselves jest as they do now, and old Chops built it to shet ’em up in, and mebby he wuz shet up in it, too; mebby he took to drinkin’. I wish I could have sold him the ‘Twin Crimes’; it would have helped him a sight, but I wuzn’t born soon enough,” sez she, sithin’.
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Tommy stood back a little, lookin’ up and seein’ some people half-way to the top, lookin’ like flies on the side of the meetin’ house, said:
“I wonner, oh, I wonner who made it and what it wuz made for, and oh, how I do wonner how they ever got them big stones to the top.”
And I sez to myself, “the child is wiser than any of us. He don’t try to measure his weak surmises on them great rocks and problems, but jest wonders at it all,” and I thought I would foller his example, and I felt considerable better after I gin up.
Robert Strong and Dorothy and Arvilly clumb clear to the top, helped by Arab lifters and boosters. Arvilly and Dorothy wuz tuckered when they come down and they both said they wouldn’t have undertook it if they had known what a job it wuz, but they said the view from the top wuz wonderful, wonderful! and I spoze it wuz, but I thought I would ruther hear ’em tell on’t than to go through what they did gettin’ up and down, and Miss Meechim, I guess, felt so too.
The other two pyramaids in this group wuz smaller than Cheops and stood not fur away. The Sphynx stands about a quarter of a mild off, lookin’ off towards the east, facin’ the risin’ sun. I wonder if she expects the sunrise of civilization to dawn ag’in into her sight. ’Tennyrate she seems to be lookin’ out for sunthin’.
There she has sot, meditatin’ all these years. She wuz old, old as the hills when Christ wuz born. What hain’t them old eyes seen if she senses anything?
From Cairo we went to Alexandria, where we made a short stay; we couldn’t stay long anyway, we had loitered so on the journey. Here it wuz June. Jerusalem and Bethlehem and Nazareth we must visit, and still how could we hurry our footsteps in these sacred places that our soul had so longed to see?
Alexandria was considerable interestin’ on several accounts; it wuz the home of Cleopatra, and the home of Hypatia,276the friend and teacher of women. A smart creeter Hypatia Theon wuz, handsome as a picter, modest, good appearin’, and a good talker. ’Tennyrate the rooms where she lectured on philosophy and how to git along in the world wuz crowded with appreciative hearers, and I spoze Mr. Cyrel, who wuz preachin’ there at the time, and didn’t get nigh so many to hear him, wuz mad as a hen at her for drawin’ away the head men and wimmen. ’Tennyrate she wuz killed and burnt up some time ago, a-goin’ on two thousand years. Yes, they burnt up all they could of her; they couldn’t burn up her memory, nor liberty, nor the love of wimmin for talkin’, and her stiddy practice on’t when she gits a chance, not bein’ able to. But to resoom:
The evenin’ we got there Josiah looked out of our winder and see a camel kneelin’ to take on its load, and sez Josiah: “If I could train the old mair to kneel down in front of the Jonesville meetin’ house for me to git onto her back, how uneek it would look.”
Sez I coldly, “Then you lay out to go to meetin’ horseback, do you? And where should I be?”
“Oh, I might rent a camel for you from some circus; you know what big loads camels can take on, they can carry a ton or more, and it could carry you all right.”
I despise such talk, I don’t weigh nigh so much as he makes out.
But Josiah went on, “I d’no but a camel could carry both on us, I wouldn’t add much to the load, I don’t weigh very hefty.”
“No,” sez I, “you’re not very hefty anyway.”
But good land! I knew he couldn’t rent any camel; circuses need ’em more than we do.
The next day we all went out to see Pompey’s Piller which we had seen towerin’ up before we landed, all on ’em ridin’ donkeys but me, but I not being much of a hand to ride on any critter’s back, preferred to go in a chair with long poles on each side, carried by four Arabs. Pompey’s Piller is277most a hundred feet high. Cleopatra’s Needles wuz brought from Heliopolis. One is standing; the other, which lay for a long time nearly embedded in the drifting sand, wuz given as a present by Egypt to America, where it stands now in Central Park, New York. To see the mate to it here made us feel well acquainted with it and kinder neighborly. But we couldn’t read the strange writin’ on it to save our life. Some say that they wuz raised by Cleopatra in honor of the birth of her son, Cæsarion. But I d’no if she laid out to write about it so’s I could read it, she’d ort to write plainer; I couldn’t make out a word on’t nor Josiah couldn’t.
Cleopatra wuz dretful good lookin’, I spoze, and a universal favorite with the opposite sect. But I never approved of her actions, and I wished as I stood there by that piller of hern that I could gin her a real good talkin’ to. I would say to her:
“Cleopatra,” sez I, “you little know what you’re a-doin’. Mebby there wouldn’t be so many Dakota and Chicago divorces in 1905 if it wuzn’t for your cuttin’ up and actin’ in B. C. I’d say stealin’ is stealin’, and some wimmen think it is worse to steal their husbands away from ’em than it would be to steal ten pounds of butter out of their suller. And that, mom, would shet any woman up in jail as you well know. And you know, Cleopatra,” sez I, “jest how you went on and behaved, and your example is a-floatin’ down the River of Time to-day, same as you sailed down the Sydnus in that barge of yourn. And to-day your descendants or influence posterity sail down the River of Time in picture hats and feather boas, makin’ up eyes and castin’ languishin’ glances towards poor unguarded men till they steal their hearts and souls right out of their bodies; steal all the sweetness and brightness out of some poor overworked woman’s life, and if they don’t take the body of their husband nothin’ is said or done. Good land! what would I care for Josiah Allen’s body if his love had been stole. I would tell the woman to take that in welcome sence she had all the rest. But they278sail along down the River of Life, coquettin’ with weak, handsome male Antonys, who had better be to home with their own lawful Octavias. So it goes.” I always hated Cleopatra’s doin’s. And I wondered as I looked dreamily at that writin’ of hern, if she wuz sorry for her actions now in that spear of hern, wherever it wuz, and wanted to ondo it.
279CHAPTER XXIV
We stayed there for some time, and on our way home a dretful thing happened to me. After we all got started, sunthin’ happened to one of the poles of my chair, and with as much motionin’ and jabberin’ as a presidential election would call for, they at last got it fixed agin. By that time the party had all disappeared, and the bearers of my vehicle started off at their highest speed right acrost ploughed land and springin’ crops and everything, not stoppin’ for anything.
Where wuz they takin’ me? Wuz I to perish in these wilds? Wuz they carryin’ me off for booty? I had on my cameo pin and I trembled. It wuz my pride in Jonesville; wuz I to lose my life for it? Or wuz it my good looks that wuz ondoin’ of me? Did they want to make me their brides? I sez to them in agonizin’ axents, “Take me back instantly to my pardner! He is the choice of my youth! I will never wed another! You hain’t congenial to me anyway! It is vain for you to elope with me for I will never be your brides!”
But they jabbered and motioned and acted and paid no attention only to rush along faster than ever.
I then tried a new tact with ’em. With tremblin’ fingers I onpinned the cameo pin, and with a noble jester that would have become Jeptha as he gin his only daughter for a sacrifice, I handed it out to ’em. And sez I, “If that is what you want, take it, and then bear me back safely to my beloved pardner agin.”
But they never touched it. They only jabbered away280louder and more fierce like and yanked me along faster than ever.
Oh, the agony of that time! Dear Josiah, should I never see thee agin? and the children and the grandchildren? Hills and dells of lovely Jonesville! Would they never dawn on my vision more! Would the old mair never whinner joyfully at my appearance, or Snip bark a welcome?
I thought of all the unfortunate Hebrew wimmen who would have been neighbors to me then if I had been born soon enough. Ruth, Esther, Hagar, they all had suffered, they had all most likely looked off onto the desert, even as I wuz lookin’ for help, and it didn’t come to some on ’em. And by this time to add to my sufferin’s, the mantilly of night was descendin’ over the seen, the tropical night that comes so swift, so fast, oh, what should I do? Every move I made, every despairin’ jester only seemed to make ’em go faster, so it wuz plain to be seen that my help wuz not in man. I thought of that pillar of fire that had lighted that sad procession of Hebrews acrost that very desert. And, like a cool, firm hand, laid on a feverish, restless foretop, come agin the thought of them three wise men that had trod that desert waste. No path, no guide to lead ’em, only the Star, and I sez in my inmost heart:
“That Star hain’t lost its light; it remains jest as bright and clear to-day as it did then to light true believers acrost the darkness in the hour of their need.” And jest as plain as though they wuz spoke to me come these beautiful words: “I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help.”
And I lifted my streamin’ eyes accordin’, for by this time I wuz cryin’ and sheddin’ tears. I could see by the faint light in the west that there wuz considerable of a hill on the east of me, and as my weepin’ eyes wuz lifted in that direction my heart almost stood still as I beheld all of a sudden a glowin’ star of light shine out of the darkness right on the top of that hill and rapidly desend in my direction nearer and nearer.
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Oh, joy! oh, bliss! it wuz my own pardner with a lantern. His devoted love had bore him back. Settin’ on a donkey bearin’ a lantern, he looked to me like an angel. It wuz the star of love, indeed it wuz! the brightest star of earth come to light my dark pathway. And I bust out:
“Oh, Josiah Allen! you are not one of the wise men, but you look better to me than any of ’em could.”
And he sez, “It don’t look very pretty for you, after hangin’ out till this time o’ night, to run the one who has come way back after you with a lantern, and talk about his not knowin’ anything.”
“Run you, Josiah,” sez I, “you look more beautiful to me than words can tell.”
That mollified him and he sez with a modest smile, “I spoze I am very pretty lookin’, but I worried about you a sight.”
It seems that they had went on a pretty good jog, and seein’ my bearers had got belated with me they had took a short cut acrost the fields to overtake ’em. But it was a eppisode not to be forgot, and I told Josiah not to be separated away from me a minute after this. Sez I, “I almost feel like purchasin’ a rope and tyin’ myself to you for the rest of the tower.”
Sez he, “That would make talk, Samantha, but I will keep my eye on you and not let you git carried off agin; for the feelin’s I felt when I missed you I would not go through agin for a dollar bill.”
Well, we soon come up with the rest of the party. It seemed that they had been talkin’ and havin’ such a good time they hadn’t missed me for quite a while. But when they did, Arvilly said Josiah acted some as he did when she and he pursued me acrost the continent; sez she, “He acted like a fool; I knew you couldn’t be fur behind.”
And I sez, “Arvilly, spiritual things are spiritually discerned; love is spiritual and love has to interpret it.”