Be it ever so humbly,There’s no place like hum.
Be it ever so humbly,There’s no place like hum.
Be it ever so humbly,
There’s no place like hum.
He looked round the vast, chilly, bare apartment, the lofty walls, the marble floors, with here and there a rug layin’ like a leaf on a sidewalk, and I kinder echoed it. Sez he feelin’ly and sort of plaintively, “I’d ruther have less ornaments and more comfort.”
I sez, “It is very grand and spacious.”
And he sez, “I’d give the hull of the space and throw in the grandeur for a good big fire and a plate of your nut cakes.”
But I sez soothin’ly, “It is sunthin’, Josiah, to live in a palace;” and I drawed his attention to the mosaic work on333the floor, and the massive furniture covered with inlaid work.
And he sez, “I’d ruther have less work laid into the furniture and some decent food laid into my stomach.”
Oh, what a appetite that man has got! It had kep’ active all the way from Jonesville around the world and wuz still up and a-doin’. Well, he can’t help it. He acted real obstrupulous and onhappy. He has such spells every little while. I mistrusted and he just as good as owned up to me that it wuz partly owin’ to his bein’ dressed up all the time; it wuz a dretful cross to him. He wears frocks to hum, round doin’ the barn chores, and loose shues, but now of course he had no reprieve from night till mornin’ from tight collars and cuffs and his best shues.
But then, he had restless spells to hum and onhappy ones, and acted; and I told him he did and he disputed me right up and down. He didn’t feel very well, anyway; he had told me that mornin’ early how he pined for Jonesville, how he longed to be there, and how he didn’t care for a thing outside of them beloved presinks. And I told him it wuzn’t reasonable. Sez I, “Enjoy Jonesville while you are there and now enjoy Europe whilst you are here.”
Sez he, with a real sentimental look, “Oh, Jonesville, how happy I’ll be if I ever see thee agin! How content, how blessed!”
Sez I, “You wuzn’t always happy there, Josiah; you oft-times got restless and oneasy there.”
“Never!” sez he, “never did I see a onhappy or a tired day there in my life.”
But he did. He got down-casted there jest as he did here. I knowed how often I had soothed and comforted his sperits by extra good meals. But he wouldn’t own up to it, and seein’ he looked so gloomy and deprested I went to work and episoded some right there, whilst I wuz comin’ my hair and dressin’, in hopes that it would bring a more happy and contented look onto his liniment, for what will not a devoted pardner do to console her consort?
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Sez I, “Josiah, life is a good deal like the Widder Rice’s yarn I’ve heard Ma Smith tell on. She wuzn’t a smooth spinner and there would be thick bunches in her yarn and thin streaks; she called ’em gouts and twits. She’d say, ‘Yes, I know my yarn is full of gouts and twits, but when it’s doubled most likely a gout will come aginst a twit and make it even.’”
And I eppisoded to myself and to Josiah, “That is a good deal like life. The good of this world seems onequally divided some times, but the rich has troubles and the poor have compensations. The poor man has to git up early and toil all day, but if he hates to leave his bed so early mornings, his sleep is sweet while he rests, and his labor makes his food taste good and nourishes his strength, while the rich man who can lay till noon, turns on his restless pillow and can’t sleep night or day. And while he has plenty to buy rich viands he has no appetite to eat or health to digest his food.
“The morning song of the lark sounds sweet to the laborer as it rises over the dew-spangled fields, as he goes forth to his daily toil, while the paid songs the rich man hears palls on his pleasure-tired senses. At home you have rest of body, and in travel you have education and variety; yes, the gouts and twits in life even up pretty well and the yarn runs pretty smooth offen the reel of Time to the traveller and the stay-at-home, the rich and the poor.”
Josiah wuz brushin’ his back hair with two brushes (one would have been plenty enough), and he kep’ on with his employment and sez without lookin’ up:
“I wonder where the Widder Rice’s grandson, Ezra, is? He wuz out to the West the last I hearn on him.”
There it wuz! My eloquence had rolled offen him like water from a tin eavespout; hadn’t touched him at all nor uplifted him, though I felt real riz up. You know you can talk yourself up onto quite a hite if you try; but Josiah wuzn’t moved a mite from the place he’d stood on.
Well, that wuz one of the gouts in my yarn of life, but a twit wuz near by––it had its compensation. He worships335me! And I went on and eppisoded to myself to bring myself up to the mark as I wadded up my back hair. Sez I to myself: “If Josiah had the eye to see the onseen eagles soarin’ up in the sky above his head, mebby he would also see my faults too plain. If he could hear in winter midnights the murmur of dancin’ waters and the melogious voice of the south wind blowin’ over roses and voyalets, he might also hear the voice of Distrust. If he had the wisdom of Solomon he might also have his discursive fancies, his various and evanescent attachments. But as it is, his love is stiddy and as firm as a rock. So the gouts and the twits evened each other up after all, and the yarn run pretty smooth.”
336CHAPTER XXVIII
The next mornin’ Tommy wuz delighted with the idee of goin’ in a boat after some hair-pins for me and a comb for him––he had broke hisen. It wuzn’t fur we went, and I spoze we might have walked by goin’ a little furder; but variety is the spice of life, and it seemed to kinder refresh us.
Floating in a gondola on the Grand Canal of Venice is a beautiful experience when the soft light of the moon and stars is restin’ on the stately old marble palaces, the tall pillars of St. Theodore and the Winged Lion, obelisk and spire. With other gondolas all about you, you seem to be on a sea of glory, with anon music from afar coming sweetly to your ears from some gondola or palace, and far up some narrow water street opens with long shafts of light flashing from the gondolier’s lantern or open window. It is all a seen of enchantment.
Though if you should foller up some of them narrow water streets by daylight, you would see and smell things that would roust you up from your dream. You would see old boats unloadin’ vegetables, taking on garbage, water-boats pumpin’ water into some house, wine shops, cook shops; you would see dilapidated houses with poorly clad people standin’ in the doorways; ragged, unkempt children looking down on you from broken windows, and about all the sights you see in all the poorer streets of any city, though here you see it from a boat instead of from a hack or trolley car. Green mould would be seen clinging to the walls, and you would see things in the water that ortn’t to be throwed there.
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Moonlight and memory rares up its glittering walls, but reality and the searchin’ life of the present tears ’em down. Where are the three thousand warships, the three thousand merchant ships, that carried the wealth and greatness of Venice back in the fifteenth century; fifty-two thousand sailors, a thousand nobles and citizens and working people according? Gone, gone! Floated way off out of that Grand Canal and disappeared in the mists and shadows of the past, and you have to go back there to see ’em.
The Rialto, which we had dremp about, looked beautiful from the water, with its one single arch of ninety-one feet lifting up six arches on each side. But come to walk acrost its broad space you find it is divided into narrow streets, where you can buy anything from a crown to a string of beads, from macaroni to a china teapot.
The great square of St. Mark wuz a pleasant place on an evening. Little tables set out in the street, with gayly-dressed people laughing and talking and taking light refreshments and listening to the music of the band, and a gay crowd walking to and fro, and picturesque venders showing their goods.
But to Tommy nothing wuz so pretty as the doves of St. Mark, who come down to be fed at two o’clock, descending through the blue sky like a shower of snow.
The Campanile or bell-tower towers up more than three hundred feet above the pavement; way up on the tower two bronze statutes stand with hammers and strikes off the hours. Why is it that the doves pay no attention to any other hour they may strike but when the hour of two sounds out, a window on the north side of the square opens and some grain is thrown out to ’em (the Government throws it to ’em, dretful good natered to think on’t)? But how did them doves know two from three? I d’no nor Josiah don’t. I had provided Tommy with some food for ’em and they flowed down and lighted on him and Dorothy, who also fed ’em; it wuz a pretty sight. And Robert Strong thought so too, I could read it in338his eyes as he looked at Dorothy with the pretty doves on her shoulder and white hands.
I got some sooveneers for the children at Venice, some little ivory gondolas and photographs, etc., and Miss Meechim and Dorothy got sights of things, Venetian jewelry, handsome as could be, and Arvilly got a little present for Waitstill and a jet handkerchief pin for herself. She mourns yet on the inside and outside, yes, indeed! and I d’no but she always will.
And as you can git a relic of most everything at some of the shops I told Josiah I would love to git hold of one of them old rings that the Doges married the Adriatic with. And if you’ll believe it that man didn’t like it; sez he real puggicky:
“I hope you hain’t any idee of marryin’ the Jonesville creek, Samantha, because it won’t look well in a M. E. sister and pardner.”
Jealous of the creek! That’s the last thing I ever thought that man would be jealous on. The idee! I only wanted it out of curiosity.
We visited the Arsenal, another spot where the greatness of Venice in the past hanted our memory, when she had twenty thousand workmen there and now not two thousand. But we see queer lookin’ things there––suits of armor, crossbows, helmets. Josiah took quite a fancy to one wore by Attila, king of the Huns, and wanted to put it on. Good land! his head went right up into it just as it would into a big coal-scuttle. What a mind Mr. Attila must have had if his brains wuz accordin’ to his head.
And we see infernal machines, thumb screws, spiked collars, and other dretful implements of torture like black shadders throwed from the past. A piece of the boat that the Doge went to his weddin’ in when he married the water wuz interestin’; weddin’s always did interest females and males too, no matter whether the bride wuz formed out of dust or nothin’ but clear water, and we also see a model of the boat Columbus sailed in to discover us.
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Robert Strong who wuz always interested in the best things, said that the first newspaper ever published appeared in Venice three hundred years ago, and the first bank was started there.
You can walk all over Venice if you want to take the time to go furder round and cross the bridges and walk through narrer, crooked little streets, some on ’em not more’n five or six feet wide, but the easiest and quickest way is to take a boat, as well as the most agreeable.
Venice is built on seventy-two islands besides the Grand Canal which takes the place of our avenues and streets. There is a charm about Venice that there is not about any other city I ever see. You dream about it before you see it and then you dream on and keep dreamin’ as long as you stay there, a sort of a wakin’ dream, though you keep your senses.
Memories of the past seem to hant you more, mebby it is because them old memories can slip along easier over them glassy streets, easier than they can over our hard rocky pavements. ’Tennyrate they meet you on every side and stay right with you as long as you are there and hant you. As you float down them liquid roads you seen face to face sweet, wise Portia, “fair and fairer than that word;” and gallant Bassanio who made such a wise choice, and Shylock, the old Jew. And if you happen to git put out with your pardner, mebby he’ll find fault with you, and say demeanin’ words about wimmen or sunthin’ like that, whilst sweet Portia’s eyes are on you, if you feel like reprovin’ him sharp, then you’ll remember: “The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven, it blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
And so you forgive him. And then beautiful, sad Beatrice de Cenci will meet you by moonlight in front of some of them old marble palaces and her pa, about as mean a man as they make, and his sister, Lucretia de Borgia, that wicked, wicked creeter. Why, it beats all what mean folks Beatrice’s relation wuz on her pa’s side.
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And you thought of any number of queer old Doges, rainin’ and pizenin’ and actin’, some on ’em, and marryin’ the Adriatic; a poor match in my opinion and one that you couldn’t expect to turn out well, the bride bein’ slippery and inconstant and the bridegroom mean as pusley, cruel and cunning, besides bein’ jest devoted to the Council of Ten. Queer works them Ten––made and cut a great swath that won’t be forgot and they needn’t expect it. The page of history is sticky and bloody with their doin’s. But they move along in front of you, the Doges, the Ten and the Three. And any number of conquerors and any number of Popes and Kings down to Victor Emanuel.
And I d’no as I thought of anybody or anything there in Venice so much as I did of John Ruskin, who give even the stuns of Venice a language that will go on speakin’ long after the stuns have mouldered back into dust. And then the dust will keep his memory green, and folks will ponder the “Ethics of the Dust” long after that dust has passed into other changing forms and disappeared.
Great mind, great lovin’ heart, who had but one thought, to make the world more full of beauty, knowledge, sincerity and goodness. His pure, bright intellect, his life white as the lilies, his living thoughts and noble idees they rap at the human heart, as well as mind, with their powerful sesame, and you have to open your heart’s door and take them in. Prophet of earth and heaven, the air, the clouds, the birds and trees, the rocks and waters, translatin’ the marvellous words so our duller eyes and ears can see and hear.
As I walked along over them stones of Venice, and in the Galleries of Modern Painters and ancient ones, my heart kep’ sayin’ onbeknown to myself and them round me, “John Ruskin, noble soul, great teacher, childlike, wise interpreter of the beauty and ministry of common things, hail and farewell!” For he had gone––it wuz true that he who had loved the flowers so and said to a friend who had sent him some: “I am trying to find out if there are flowers that do not341fade.” He had found out now, wreathes of heavenly immortelles are laid on his tired forward, not tired now, and he has his chance to talk to Moses and Plato, as he said he wanted to, and he is satisfied. Love and Sympathy that he longed for comforts and consoles him, and Beauty and Goodness wait on him.
Robert Strong felt just as I did about Ruskin, their idees about helpin’ the poor, and the brotherhood of man, and fatherhood of God, wuz as congenial and blent together like sun and dew on a May morning. Robert Strong said no other writer had done him the good Ruskin had.
And I guess Dorothy thought so too; she almost always thought jest as Robert did.
In wanderin’ round this uneek city Josiah said the most he thought on wuz of tellin’ Deacon Henzy and Uncle Sime Bentley about what he see there. And shadowy idees seemed to fill his mind about tryin’ to turn the Jonesville creek through the streets and goin’ from our house to Thomas Jefferson’s in a gondola.
Arvilly said she would gin anything to canvas some of them old Doges for the “Twin Crimes”. But I told her I guessed they didn’t need to learn anything about crime, and she gin up they didn’t.
The first thing Miss Meechim wanted to see wuz the church of St. Mark, so we all set off one day to see it. San Marco, as they call it, is one of the most interestin’ churches to visitors on the Continent. It wuz begun way back in the tenth century, and it has been in process of building ever since, and I don’t know how long they lay out to keep at it. They have spent thirty millions on it, so I hearn, and the news come pretty straight to me, and I d’no but they’ll spend as much agin before they git through. But when you see all its magnificent sculpture, columns, statutes, mosaic work, ornaments of every kind, its grand arches, its five domes and spires and all the exquisite work on it I d’no as I’d took the job for any less, and so I told Josiah.
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But he kep’ up his old idee he had voiced in many a similar spot, that it wuz done by day’s works and the workmen didn’t hurry, and that it would have been cheaper to had it done by the job. But how could they, dribblin’ along as they did ten hunderd years?
The four horses over the main entrance are very noted. They are said to have been carved way, way back by Augustus to celebrate a triumph over Antony and to have passed through the hands of Nero, Constantine and Napoleon. Napoleon, a greedy creeter always, took ’em to Paris, but had to bring ’em back.
For horses that are so old and have been driv round and showed off by so many conquerors, they look pretty sound and hearty. But Josiah didn’t like their looks nigh so well as he duz the mair’s, and sez he, “That off one looks balky.”
But I sez, “Distance lends enchantment; the mair can’t begin with ’em.”
The altar piece is said to have cost three million. It is of gold and silver, and full of precious stuns. It was made in Constantinople a thousand years ago, and has got inscriptions on it that I presoom read well if anybody could read ’em. But I couldn’t nor Josiah. But Robert Strong read some on ’em to Dorothy, for I heard him. They are writ in Latin and Greek.
When we got back to the tarven that night we found a hull pile of letters from Jonesville, and amongst the rest I got a letter from Elder Minkley, good old man of God, and Arvilly got one too; he sets store by Arvilly now, he and his wife duz, and they pity her dretfully for what she has went through, and make allowances for her hashness, but never shall I forgit the way she talked to him right in my own settin’ room when she first come home from Cuba after her husband had been murdered by the licensed Canteen.
She come to our house one day, and Elder Minkley, good old soul, come in just after she did for a all-day’s visit, poor creeter! I guess he wuz sorry enough he come, some343of the time; I guess he wished he wuz back in his study perusin’ the book of martyrs or anything else deprestin’, and would have thought ’em fur livelier than what he got into.
The way on’t wuz, Arvilly had met Miss Deacon Sypher at the gate and she bein’ dretful onfaculized with no more tact than a settin’ hen, had tackled Arvilly for a contribution to buy a flag to send to our boys in Cuba, and talked enthusiastic about the war’s holy mission. And I spoze Sister Sypher wuz skairt almost into fits to hear Arvilly go on, ’tennyrate she left her sudden and to once, and started home ’cross lots almost on the run, and Arvilly come into the house talkin’ and mutterin’.
“Drusilly Sypher knows a sight about it; our army gone to redress wrongs and protect innocence! they better look to home and redress wrongs here; half the citizens of this country in legal bondage, and the hull country cowering under a crime and danger protected and legalized; if I didn’t want to make myself a mark for demon laughter I’d quit such talk till I repented my sins in sackcloth and ashes.”
“Well, well, Arvilly, set down, set down,” sez I, for she wuz rampagin’ round the room back and forth, “set down, and here,” sez I, handin’ her a bottle, “smell of the camfire, Arvilly, you look bad,” and she did look frightful bad, pale and fiery, and burnin’ mad at sunthin’ or somebody.
But she waived it off with scorn: “Camfire can’t heal the smart, or sweeten the air of the country; no, it needs fire from on high to burn it out. And it will come,” sez she, “it will come.”
Why, she acted real wild and by the side of herself, and I pitied her like a dog, and wuz at my wit’s end what to say to her, and I wuz glad enough to see Elder Minkley, good old saint, comin’ up the steps and I went to open the door with alacrity and my left hand, my right hand wuz in the dough, I wuz makin’ fried cakes, and I shook hands with him the same, and I sez:
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“How glad I am to see you this morning, Brother Minkley,” little thinkin’ what wuz to come.
He took off his hat and overcoat and hung ’em up in the hall and looked in the glass in the hall rack with his mild, benevolent eyes, and brushed his thin, gray hair up on the bald spot over his benign forward, and follered me into the settin’ room, and I sez, “Here is she that wuz sister Arvilly Lanfear.”
And the good old soul advanced with a warm, meller smile on his face, and sez:
“How do you do, Sister Arvilly.”
But Arvilly’s eyes snapped worse than ever; she never noticed his outstretched hand, and she sez, “Don’t you sister me.”
“Why! why!” sez he, “what is the matter?” His welcomin’ hand dropped weakly by his side, and bein’ dretful confused and by the side of himself, he sez:
“I hain’t seen you before sence you––you–––”
“Deserted from the army,” sez she, finishin’ the sentence for him. “Yes, I deserted, I am proud to say; I never had a right before under this nation’s laws and I took that right; I deserted and they couldn’t help themselves; mebby them men see how it would feel to grin and bear for once, just as wimmen have to all the time.”
Brother Minkley had by this time begun to find and recover himself, and he sez with real good nature, “I meant to say, dear sister, that I hadn’t seen you before since you lost your husband.”
“Since you murdered him,” sez she.
“I––I murder a man?” He looked pale and trembled like a popple leaf.
“Yes, you and all other good men who stood by like Pilate, consentin’ to his death,” Arvilly went on.
Elder Minkley looked too dazed and agitated to speak, and Arvilly continued: “Do you pretend to say, Elder Minkley, that there is an evil law on the face of the earth345that the Church of Christ couldn’t overthrow if it chose to do so?”
He sez, “The power of the Church is great, Sister Arvilly, but no-license laws don’t stop drinking; liquor is sold somehow; folks that want it will get it.”
“What a argument!” sez Arvilly, liftin’ her eyes to heaven. “But you hain’t answered my question,” sez she, short as pie crust, mince pie crust, “Is there an evil law existing to-day that the Church of Christ could not overthrow if it tried to?”
“Well, no,” he admitted, “I believe that the Church of Christ is invincible.”
“Do you vote, Elder Minkley?”
“Well, no, as it were, Sister Arvilly, I have felt for years that politics was too vile for me to mix myself with.”
Sez Arvilly, “Do you believe in following the Lord Jesus Christ?”
Sez Elder Minkley, his good natured face lighting up, “My Divine Master; yes, I will follow him to the stake, to the death, if need be.”
“Did he turn away from sinners and the evils of the sinful world and say they wuz too vile for him to mix with?”
“I––I––Sister Arvilly––I why––I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do know what I mean!” sez the intrepid but agonized Arvilly.
“By your criminal indifference and neglect, you encourage the evil power that rules and ruins.”
Elder Minkley’s face began to look red––red as blood––and sez he, “You present the subject in a way I never thought on before, Sister Arvilly. I will think of it; I will pray over it.”
“Will you vote as you pray?” sez Arvilly anxiously.
“I will!” sez Elder Minkley, solemnly, “I will!”
Arvilly come forward and took holt of his hand. Her stern mean softened; there wuz tears in her keen eyes; she346looked different. Sez she, “Next Sunday I shall set under your preachin’, Elder; I hain’t felt like settin’ under it before.” And, sure enough, she did go to meetin’ the next Sunday and from that day they have been the best of friends.
But to resoom forwards: I had a letter from Philury, she said she wuz all well.
It wuz a letter that brought me some comfort and quite a lot of care; it wuz some like a peppermint lozenge, considerably sweet with a sharp tang to it, makin’ me think of the sweetness and repose of home with its accompaniment of anxiety and labor.
The children writ real good letters to their pa and me, full of affection and thoughtfulness. Thomas J. told us considerable about the Help Union and the good that Ernest White and his helpers wuz accomplishing in Loontown and Jonesville. And Tirzah Ann wanted to know if reveres had gone out and hoops comin’ in; she had hearn so and felt anxious. There had been a rumor in Jonesville to that effect, but she couldn’t place full dependence on it.
Thomas J.’s and Maggie’s letters wuz full of gratefulness for Tommy’s restored health and what I’d done for him. No matter what else they said that idee wuz runnin’ along under the rest of their thoughts, some like the accompaniment of a melodean to a sam tune in meetin’. And Tommy himself had letters from his pa and ma full of love and good advice, about half and half.
One of the most interestin’ places in Venice is the Doges Palace, and I spoze Josiah never gin up his idee about it until we stood right in front of it. But when he see that marble front, full of noble columns, elaborate carvin’, arches, balustrades and base reliefs, he had to gin up such a place as that wuz never rared up to a dog or to any number on ’em, though he said when I convinced him of his mistake: “Snip wuz too good to mingle with ’em, he was likelier than any347Doge that ever lived there, no matter whether you spelt ’em dog or doge.”
And I sez soothin’ly: “Like as not and ’tennyrate how I would love to hear Snip bark out a welcome to us once more.”
“Yes,” sez Josiah, “it will be the happiest hour of my life when I behold Snip and the cat and the children and grandchildren and the rest of the Jonesvillians once more.”
Here in the marble pavement are two great bronze cisterns elegantly sculptured, and you can look up the Grand Staircase with two statutes at the top on either side, Neptune and Mars; and that wuz the place where the old Doges wuz crowned.
On the staircase on each side are beautiful statutes and columns, elaborate carving and richly colored marbles. The Hall of the Great Council is one hundred and seventy-five feet long and most a hundred in width, broad enough and high enough to entertain broader and nobler views than wuz promulgated there. But it contains costly and beautiful pictures; one by Tintoretto is eighty-four feet wide and most forty feet high, the largest picture on canvas in the world so I’ve hearn, and others by Paul Veronese and the other great masters.
All round the wall, like a border in a Jonesville parlor, are the portraits of the Doges of Venice in their red robes and round-topped caps. But where Marino Faliero should have hung wuz a black curtain. Well, he wuz a mean creeter; it is a good thing he can be shut out with a curtain. Josiah said he thought it would be a crackin’ good plan to have a black curtain hung before the pictures of some of our public men, but Arvilly said, in a real dry tone, that “If we begun that it would bring up the price of black cloth enormously.”
She mourns yet quite a good deal in her best dresses, and looked ahead, and didn’t want the price of crape and bombazine riz.
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Among the pictures of these old Doges wuz one who led the army in an attack on Constantinople at the age of ninety-seven, when most old men are bedrid with a soap-stun and water gruel. And Francesco Foscari, who worked nobly for thirty-five years and wuz then abused shameful by the Ten and turned out of office.
Them old Doges had their ups and downs; riz up to power, throwed down agin. Mean as the Old Harry, some on ’em, and some workin’ well for the public. And some after servin’ the public for years wuz banished, some beheaded, some had their eyes put out, one died of vexation, one who wuz deposed died when the bell rung in his successor. A few died in battle, but only a few on ’em passed away in their beds after a lingerin’ and honorable sickness with their one wife and children weepin’ about ’em.
You can see the open place in the wall where the written complaints wuz put aginst somebody or anybody, guilty or innocent, and wuz pretty sure to be acted upon by the dretful Ten settin’ there in their black robes and black masks, fit color for their dark and cruel deeds.
We went down to see the dungeons, dark, cramped, filthy holes in the solid wall: only a little light sifted in from the corridor through a narrow slit. It seemed as if them places wuz so awful we couldn’t bear to look at ’em. But we went down into still deeper dungeons way below the canal, dretful places where you can’t hardly draw a breath. We see dim traces of writings on the walls some wretched prisoner waitin’ for death had writ there. How did he feel when he writ it? I didn’t want to know, nor have Josiah know.
We didn’t make a very long stay in Venice, but journeyed on to Florence––Florence the beautiful. It lays in a quiet, sheltered valley with the Apennine Mountains risin’ about it as if to keep off danger. The river Arno runs through it, spanned by handsome bridges. The old wall that used to surround it with its eight gates, has been destroyed some years ago.
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As I say, it is a beautiful city, although it wuz more grand and populous when it wuz the capital of Italy. Dorothy said it was well named the City of Flowers, for there wuz flowers everywhere, the markets full of ’em, flower girls at every turn, balconies and windows overrunning with them, public gardens and private gardens sweet with their brightness and perfume.
350CHAPTER XXIX
The next morning after we arrived at Florence we sallied out sightseeing. We all went out together, but separated after a while, promising to meet at luncheon time at our tarven, but we all went together as fur as the Cathedral. It is a noble buildin’, covered with red, white and black marble, elegantly ornamented with panels and sculpture. And the hull meetin’-house is so beautiful, that it wuz remarked that “it ort to be kep’ in a glass case.”
Inside, the ceiling is one hundred and thirty-five feet high––good land! I told Josiah I wuz glad I did not have to whitewash or paper it overhead, for it ’most killed us Methodist Episcopal sisters to paper our meetin’-house ceilin’ which wuz only twenty feet high, and put a hundred and fifteen feet on top of that and where would we be, we never could done it in the world. The interior is full of statutes and pictures by Michael Angelo and other great sculptors and famous painters.
The Campanile or bell tower near it is most three hundred feet high, and a beautiful view is to be seen from the top way off onto the fur-off mountains, the city and the valley of the Arno, or that is I hearn so; I didn’t climb up myself to see, bein’ more’n willin’ to take Dorothy’s word and Robert Strong’s to that effect.
The bronze doors in the Baptistry are a sight to see. Michael Angelo said they wuz worthy to be the gates of paradise, but I could tell Mr. Angelo, and would if he had said it to me, that he little knew how beautiful them gates are and we ortn’t to compare anything earthly to ’em. Jest think, Mr. Angelo, I’d say, of an immense gate being made351of one pearl, the idee! we can’t hardly git into our heads any idees here below, and never will till the winds of heaven blow aginst our tired senses and brighten ’em up.
But I wuzn’t neighbor to Mr. Angelo; he died several years before I wuz born, four or five hundred years before, so of course I couldn’t advise him for his good. He lost a sight and never knowed it, poor creeter!
The Ufizzi and Pitti galleries contain enough pictures and statutes to make ’em more’n comfortable, I should think; beautiful pictures and beautiful statutes I must say. One of the most interestin’ things to me in the hull collection wuz the original drawings of the old masters with their names signed to ’em in their own handwritin’. It wuz like liftin’ up the mysterious curtain a little ways and peerin’ into the past. Michael Angelo’s sketches in chalk and charcoal; Titian’s drawings, little buds, as you may say from which they bloomed into immortal beauty; Rubens, Albert Durer and a throng of others. And then there wuz the autograph portraits of the great painters, Guido, Rembrandt, De Vinci, Vandyke, Raphael, and also the greatest works of all these painters. It wuz a grand and inspirin’ sight never to be forgot. Robert Strong and Dorothy wanted to see the statute of Dante; they set store by his writings. It is a splendid statute of white marble riz up in the Piazza Sante Croce; I hearn ’em talkin’ about its bein’ on a piazza and spozed it wuz built on some stoop and mistrusted he deserved a better pillow.
But it wuzn’t on the piazza of a house, it wuz out-doors, and the pedestal wuz over twenty feet high, all covered with carvin’s of seens took from his “Divinia Commedia,” and some lions, and the arms of Italy, and things. It wuz a good-lookin’ statute, better lookin’ as fur as beauty goes than Dante himself; he wuz kinder humbly I always thought, but then, I spoze, he didn’t always wear that wreath on his head; mebby he looked better in a beaver hat or a fur cap. ’Tennyrate, Thomas J. always sot store by him. It wuz a noble statute,352more’n fifty feet high, I presoom, with two figures standin’ on each side and one on top. The one on the left seemed to have her hand outstretched telling to all the world just how Dante wuz used whilst he wuz alive, and the one on the right had just throwed herself down and wuz cryin’ about it, and Dante, settin’ on top, wuz leanin’ his hand on his head and meditatin’. What his meditations wuz, I don’t know, nor Josiah don’t. Mebby he wuz thinkin’ of Beatrice.
Thomas J. had read Dante’s books a sight to his pa and me. “The Divine Comedy,” “The Inferno,” “Bernadiso,” “New Life,” etc., etc. Thomas Jefferson thought “The Divine Comedy” a powerful work, showing the story of how a man wuz tempted, and how sorrow lifts up the soul to new hites.
I never approved of his praisin’ up Beatrice quite so much under the circumstances, and I dare presoom to say that he and Gemma (his pardner) had words about it. But then I couldn’t hender it, it havin’ all took place five or six hundred years before I wuz born.
Robert Strong said that his writings wuz full of eloquence, wit and pathos. His native land sets great store by his memory, though they acted in the usual genteel and fashionable way, and banished and persecuted him during his life. One thing he said I always liked. He wuz told he might return to his country under certain pains and penalties, but he refused and said:
“Far from a preacher of justice to pay those who have done him wrong as a favor. Can I not everywhere behold the mirrors of the sun and stars? Speculate on sweetest truths under any sky.”
Robert Strong said his poetry wuz far finer in the original.
And I said, “Yes, he wuz very original, for Thomas Jefferson always said so.”
He is buried in Ravenna, and the Florentines have begged for his ashes to rest in Florence. If when they burnt353up some of his books to show their contempt of him they had done as they wanted to, dug up his body and burnt it, there wouldn’t have been any ashes to quarrel about, for of course scornin’ him so they would have cast his ashes to the winds. But now they worship him when his ear is dead to their praise, the great heart silent that their love would have made beat with ecstasy. Well, such is life. They treated Tasso just about the same who writ “Jerusalem Delivered,” they imprisoned him for a lunatic, and now how much store they set by him.
And I had these same thoughts, only more extreme ones, as we stood in the cell of that noble preacher of righteousness and denouncer of sin, Savonarola. He wuz so adored by the populace, and so great a crowd pressed to see him to kiss his robe and applaud him, that he had to have a guard. And then this same adoring crowd turned against him, imprisoned him for heresy, tortured him, burnt him to the stake. And when he stood on the fagots, which wuz to be his funeral bed of flame, and the bishop said to him:
“I excommunicate you from the church militant,” he answered: “Thou canst not separate me from the Church Triumphant.”
A great life and a great death. I thought of this a sight as I looked on his tomb. I sot store by Mr. Savonarola.
In the Church of Sante Croce we see the tomb of Machiavelli, a very wise, deep man and a wise patriot, but a man lied about the worst kind by them that hate liberty; the tomb of the poet, Alfieri, with Italy weepin’ over it; the tombs of Michael Angelo and Galileo; the mother of the Bonapartes, and many, many others. Galileo’s monument wuz a sizeable one, but none too big for the man who discovered the telescope and the motion of the earth. But just as the way of the world is because he found new stars and insisted that the earth did move, his enemies multiplied, he wuz persecuted and imprisoned. I sot great store by him, and so did Robert Strong, and I sez to him, “Robert, you354too are discovering new and radiant stars in your City of Justice and proving that the world does move.” And I gin a queer look onto Miss Meechim and sez:
“I hope you won’t be persecuted for it.”
Miss Meechim looked some like her sirname with the last letter changed to n. But to resoom: The galleries of Florence contains priceless pictures and statuary, so many of ’em that to enjoy them as you should, and want to, would take years. Why, in the hall of Niobe I wanted to stay for days to cry and weep and enjoy myself. I took my linen handkerchief out of my pocket to have it ready, for I laid out to weep some, and did, the mother’s agony wuz so real, holdin’ one child while the rest wuz grouped about her in dyin’ agony. One of the sons looked so natural, and his expression of despair and sufferin’ wuz so intense that Arvilly said:
“I believe he drinked, his face shows a guilty conscience, and his ma looks jest as the mother of drunkards always looks.”
I told her that the death of Niobe’s children wuz caused by envy and jealousy, which duz just such things to-day as fur as they dast all the way from New York to Jonesville, and so on through the surroundin’ world. Sez I, “Apollo and Diana killed ’em all just because Niobe had such beautiful children and so many of ’em and wuz naterally proud and had boasted about ’em some, and Apollo and Diana didn’t want their ma looked down on and run upon because she had only two children, and probable their ma bein’ envious and jealous sot ’em up.”
But Arvilly wouldn’t give up; she said a ma would always try to cover up things and insisted on it to the last that she should always believe they drinked and got into a fight with Latony’s boy and girl.
“No,” sez I agin, “it wuz Envy and Jealousy that took aim and did this dretful deed.”
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Josiah sez: “Why didn’t Ni-obe keep her mouth shet then?”
Well, it wuz vain to enjoy deep emotions in the face of such practicality. I put up my handkerchief and moved off into another room.
Besides pictures, these galleries contain rare gems of art in bronze, crystal, precious stones, coins, arms, helmets, etc., etc. Enough as I say to keep one’s mind rousted up and busy for years and years.
Dorothy said she couldn’t leave Florence without seeing the house where Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived and writ her immortal poems and I felt jest so; I felt that I must see the place sanctified by her pure spirit and genius. So Robert Strong got a carriage and took Dorothy and me there one fine afternoon. A plate let into the front of the house tells where she lived in body. But in sperit she inhabited the hull world, and duz now. Her home is in the hearts of all who love pure and exalted poetry.
Here she lived her happy life as the wife of Robert Browning and mother of her boy. Here she passed on up to the higher school, for which she had prepared her sweet soul below, graduated in the earth school and promoted up to the higher one above.
I had a sight of emotions here and Robert and Dorothy quoted from her all the way back to our tarven, and so I did. I thought more of such poems as “Mother and Poet,” and “The Sleep,” etc. But they quoted a sight from “Geraldine’s Courtship” and “Portuguese Songs,” for so every heart selects its own nutriment. Their young hearts translated it into glowing language I mistrusted, though I didn’t say nothin’.
From Florence we went to Rome. I had read a sight about Rome and how she sot on her seven hills and from her throne of glory ruled the world. But them hills are lowered down a good deal by the hand of Time, just as Rome’s glory is; she don’t rule the world now, fur from it.
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There is in reality ten hills, but the ruins of old Rome––the Rome of Julius Cæsar––has filled in the hollers a good deal and the new city has grown old agin, as cities must, and I, and Josiah, and everybody and everything.
Robert Strong had writ ahead and got us some comfortable rooms in a tarven on the Corso. When Robert Strong first spoke on’t Josiah looked agitated. He thought it wuz a buryin’ ground. But it didn’t have anything to do with a corse.
The Corso is one of the finest streets in Rome, and handsome shops are on each side on’t, and carriages and folks in fine array and them not so fine are seen there. Most all of the big crowd wuz dressed as they do in Jonesville and Paris and London, though occasionally we met Italians in picturesque costooms.
There are three hundred and eighty Catholic meetin’-houses in Rome, quite a few on ’em dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and lots of costly gifts are laid on her altar. But the one I wanted to see and so did the rest of our party wuz the one that stood on the spot where once the circus of Nero stood, weak, mizable creeter. The most agreeable actin’ to him and his cruel pardner wuz the death struggles of martyrs and bloodshed and agony.
What a inspiring idee it is to think that right on that very spot, that bloody pagan pleasure house of hissen is changed into the biggest meetin’-house in the world. Of course we had seen St. Peter’s from a distance ever since we’d got nigh the city, and we sot out the very next mornin’ after we got there, to see it at clost view.
Now I had thought, comparin’ it to the Jonesville meetin’-house, which I guess is about fifty by sixty feet, and will, on a pinch, set four hundred and fifty, and comparin’ that with the cathedral in New York I had thought that that Catholic Cathedral in New York was about as big a meetin’-house as a minister could handle easy; but the area of that is357forty-three thousand, whilst St. Peter’s at Rome is two hundred and twelve thousand.
The difference these figgers make in the two meetin’-houses is bigger than my writin’ can show you, no matter how big a pen I use or how black my ink is.
As I stood in St. Peter’s Church in Rome I had a great number of emotions and large, very large in size. Right here where Mr. Nero (the mean, misable creeter) got hilarious over the dyin’ struggles of the Christian martyrs, right here where St. Peter met his death with the glory of heaven lightin’ up his dyin’ eyes (I am just as sure on’t as if I see it myself) stands this immense meetin’-house.
Three hundred years of labor and sixty millions of dollars have been expended on it and the end is not yet. But I would not done it for a cent less if I had took the job, I couldn’t afford it nor Josiah couldn’t.
Why, when we stood in front on’t I didn’t feel no bigger than the head of a pin, not a hat pin or a shawl pin, but the smallest kind they make, and Josiah dwindled down so in size as compared to the edifice that I ’most thought I should lose him right there with my eyes glued onto his liniment.
You go through a large double door which shuts up behind you as noiselessly and securely as if you wuz walled in to stay. My first feelin’ after I entered wuz the immensity of the place. Some of the statutes you see that didn’t look so big as Josiah, when you come clost up to ’em you found wuz sixteen feet high. And the little cherubs holdin’ the shell of holy water at the entrance you see are six feet high. You look fur down the meetin’-house as you look down the road into a big piece of woods, only here the distant trees turn into statutes and shrines and altars and things. Fur off like distant stars shinin’ down into the forest you see the lamps, one hundred and twelve of ’em, burnin’ day and night around the tomb of St. Peter.
As you stand under the dome and look up it is like looking at the very ruff of the sky. It is supported by four great358pillars and the interior of the immense globe is one hundred and thirty-nine feet in circumference measured on the inside.
All the houses in Jonesville could be piled up on top of each other in this immense space and Zoar and Shackville piled onto them and not half fill it.
As we stood under the great dome the canopy over St. Peter’s tomb seemed to us no bigger than the band stand in Jonesville. But when we got up to it we see that it wuz ’most a hundred feet high, for fur up the mosaic medallions of the four evangelists lookin’ none too big for the place come to examine ’em, the pen of St. Luke is six feet long and his nose is big enough for a spare bedroom. The writing that runs along under the dome each letter is six feet high, higher than Thomas Jefferson on tip toes, or Josiah on stilts. The idee!
I don’t spoze that Peter, that earnest, hot-tempered fisherman ever spozed he would have such a buildin’ erected to his honor, and I wondered as I looked through the immense distances of this meetin’-house how many turned their thoughts from the glory about ’em onto Peter’s inspired words when he wuz here in the flesh. This huge pile seemed as if Time could have no power over it, but his own words rung in my ear:
“The day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night and all these things shall be dissolved. Nevertheless we according to his promise look for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
And as I thought of his death right here on this very spot agin his words sounded in my heart:
“Beloved, think it not strange concerning this fiery trial which is to try you––But rejoice––Partakers of Christ’s suffering––”
And even as I listened to the chantin’ of the priests I methought I heard Peter speaking of the Voice which come down from Heaven which they heard who wuz with Him on the mount. I thought of the sure word of prophecy. “The359light shining in a dark place”––“Until the day dawns and the day star arise in our hearts.”
Yes, the real Peter wuz enshrined in my heart as I trod the grand aisles of that meetin’-house of hisen, and I didn’t think nothin’ at all in comparison of that statute of Peter settin’ on a white stun throne holdin’ his foot out for the masses to kiss.
He sets up there with a queer lookin’ thing on his head. Josiah said it wuz a sass pan, and I sez: “No, Josiah, it is a halo.” And he sez:
“Samantha, if I’m ever sculped and sot up in the Jonesville meetin’-house, I don’t want any halo on my head.”
And I told him I guessed there wuzn’t any danger of his ever wearin’ a halo on this earth.
And Josiah said before the subject wuz broached that never, never should he kiss that toe. And he sez it to me in reproachful axents as if I’d been teasin’ him to. But I hadn’t thought on’t and told him so. But right whilst we stood there we see folks of all classes from peasants to nobles and of all ages from childhood to old age walk up and kneel and kiss that onconscious big toe and go into some chapel countin’ the beads of their rosaries.
Good land! Peter don’t care anything about that mummery unless he has changed for the worse since he left this mortal spear, which hain’t very likely bein’ the man he wuz. And as I thought of the evil things done in the name of the power that rared up that figger, I methought I hearn him say:
“The time has come when judgment must begin at the house of the Lord.”
I had lots of emotions as I walked to and fro and didn’t want to talk to anybody or hear the talkin’ round me.
I hearn Tommy talkin’ sunthin’ to Carabi and I catched these words, “I wonner, oh, I wonner what good it duz ’em to kiss that toe.” And Arvilly and Josiah jined in in sharp criticism. And agin Josiah sez: “I know I am a leadin’ man360in Jonesville and have been called more’n once a pillar in the meetin’-house, but never, never do I want to be made a statter with a sass pan on my head, and the bretheren and sistern kissin’ my toes.”
And agin I sez, “It hain’t a sass pan.” But they kep’ on to that extent that I had to say, “Josiah and Arvilly, the one that figger represents, said: ‘Above all things have charity, for charity covers a multitude of sin.’”
Miss Meechim and Dorothy and Robert Strong clumb clear up into the dome twice as high as Bunker Hill monument or ruther walked up for they hain’t stairs, but a smooth wooden way leads up, up to that hite. Miss Meechim told me when they come down that though there wuz a high railin’ it seemed so frightful to look down that immense height she didn’t hardly dare to look off and enjoy herself, though the view wuz sublime.
But I can’t describe St. Peter’s no more than a ant can describe the Zodiac, I mean an a-n-t, not mother’s sister. Why, the great side chapels are big enough for meetin’-houses and fur grander than we shall ever see in Jonesville or the environin’ townships. And the tomb and monuments and altars, etc., are more gorgeous than I could ever tell on if I should try a year.
There wuz one statute by Canova of Clement XIII that is lovely, the marble figure of the pope and on each side kneelin’ figures of Religion and Death. Down below as if guardin’ the tomb stands two noble lions.
And Pope Innocent, I d’no whether his name agreed with his nater or not, but he sets there holdin’ the lance that pierced the side of our Lord, so they say. But I don’t believe that it wuz the same one nor Robert Strong don’t; I should have had different feelin’s when I looked at it if it had been the one.
Besides this relic they claim to have at St. Peter’s a piece of the cross and the napkin that wuz laid to our Lord’s face when he wuz faintin’ under the burden of the cross, and361that still holds the imprint of his face, so they say. They are shown on sacred days. They say that there is confessionals at St. Peter’s where folks of every language in the world can confess and be absolved by a priest that understands ’em. Well, I shouldn’t wonder, it is big enough, it seems like a world in itself. But I couldn’t help thinkin’ of our great High Priest whose confessional is broad and high as the needs and sorrows of a world and the “silent liftin’ of an eye can bring us there to be,” and who understands not only every language under the sun, but every secret and hidden thought and aspiration of the soul, good or evil, and whose forgiveness and compassion never fails the penitent soul. I couldn’t help thinkin’ on’t, and I felt that St. Peter if he could speak would say, “Josiah Allen’s wife, I don’t blame you for your methinkin’, I think just so myself.”
One day we all went to see the Arch of Titus; it wuz big and massive lookin’ with a lot of writin’ over the top that I couldn’t read nor Josiah couldn’t, but interestin’ like all the remains of imperial Rome that ruled over almost the hull of the known world. It was erected about the year 70 to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem.
There wuz another arch fur more interestin’ to me, and that wuz the arch of Constantine. It is perfectly beautiful, and would be, even if it wuz built by a misable pagan. But it wuz built by Mr. Constantine when he declared himself in favor of Christianity. I sot store by him.
It is a grand and beautiful structure, richly ornamented, and has three passages. I didn’t like all the base reliefs on it; indeed, I considered some on ’em as real base, such as Mr. Tragan’s offerin’s to the gods, etc. But then I realized that I wuzn’t obleeged to look at ’em. And some on ’em wuz very good showin’ off Mr. Tragan educatin’ poor children, etc. And some of Constantine’s doin’s there I liked first-rate.
And I d’no as I see anything in Rome that interested me more than the tomb of Celia Crassus––Celia Matella362that wuz. It is a round, massive structure that stands on the Appian Way and is about two thousand years old. It wuz once all covered with costly marble, but the hand of Time and other thieves, in mortal shape, have stole it a long time ago. But enough is left to show what it wuz. Nobody knows jest who Celia wuz and what she did do, or didn’t do, to git such a monument. But I shall always believe she wuz a real likely woman and smart. ’Tennyrate, I said her pardner must have thought high on her and mourned her loss like a dog or he never would have rared such a magnificent tomb to her memory.
But Arvilly looked at it different. She said she believed her husband drinked and got led off into all sorts of sins and made Celia no end of trouble and riz this monument up to smooth things over.
But I sez, “Mebby things wuz different then;” but didn’t really spoze so, human nater havin’ capered about the same from the start. “’Tennyrate,” sez I, “I shall always believe that Miss Crassus wuz good as gold, and this great massive monument that it seems as if the hand of Time can’t ever throw down I take as a great compliment to my sect as well as Celia Crassus.”
But Arvilly wuz as firm as a rock to the last in her belief that Mr. Crassus drinked and that Miss Crassus wuz broken-hearted by her grief and anxiety and tryin’ to cover up her pardner’s doin’s as the wives of drunkards will, and tryin’ to keep her children from follerin’ their pa’s dretful example, and then after he’d jest killed her with these doin’s he rared up this great monument as a conscience soother.
Josiah thought Celia wuz equinomical and a wonderful good cook, and her grateful pardner riz this up in honor of his blissful life with her.
Miss Meechim thought that at all events she must have been genteel.
Robert and Dorothy looked at its massive walls, and I363hearn him say sunthin’ to her kinder low about “how love wuz stronger than time or death.”
But Tommy just wonnered at it, wonnered who Celia Matella wuz, how she looked, how old she wuz, if she had any little boys and girls. He jest wonnered and nothin’ else, and in the end I did, too.
You have no idee till you see how big the Colosseum is. It is as long as from our house to she that wuz Submit Tewksberry’s, and so on round by Solomon Gowdey’s back agin. You may not believe it, but it is true, and I d’no but it is bigger. It used to accommodate one hundred thousand people in its palmy days, or so I spoze they called it, when some time durin’ one season five thousand beasts would be killed there fightin’ with human bein’s, hull armies of captives bein’ torn to pieces there for the delight of them old pagans. Fathers bein’ made to kill their wives and children right there for their delight.
Oh, how I wished, as I told Arvilly, I could git holt of Mr. Titus and Mr. Nero and some of the rest of them leadin’ men.
The conqueror, Mr. Titus, brought back twelve thousand of the conquered Jews and made ’em work and toil to build up that lofty arch in memory of their own defeat and captivity and his glory. You’d think that wuz enough trouble for ’em, but I’ve hearn, and it come pretty straight to me, that he misused ’em more or less while they wuz workin’ away at it.
’Tennyrate, they say a Jew won’t go under that arch to this day and they’ve been seen to spit at it, and I spoze they throw things at it more or less on the sly.
Sez I, “I’d gin ’em a piece of my mind if I knowed they would make me fight with a elephant the next minute.”
Arvilly thought that if she could sold them the “Twin Crimes” it might have helped ’em to do better, but I d’no as it would. But that great amphitheatre where the blood and364agony of the martyrs cried to heaven, was afterwards dedicated to these Christian martyrs. There are eighty arches of entrance. Only a part of the immense circular wall is now standing, but you can see what it wuz. There are four stories of arches, one hundred and fifty-seven feet high in all, the arena it encloses is two hundred and eighty-seven feet long.
Dorothy and Robert Strong and Miss Meechim went and see it by moonlight, and they say that it wuz a more beautiful sight than words can describe. But I bein’ a little afraid of the rumatiz, thought that I had better go by broad daylight, and Josiah did, too. I mistrusted that Robert and Dorothy beheld it by a sweeter and softer light than even the Italian moonlight, but I kep’ in and didn’t speak my mistrustin’. I dast as soon die as gin vent to any such idee before Albina Meechim.
We went one day to see the Pantheon, built by Mr. Agrippa, 27 B.C. It is a dretful big buildin’; I guess about the biggest ancient buildin’ in the world. It has had its ups and downs, shown out in brilliant beauty, been stole from and blackened by the hand of Time, but it is still beautiful.
It wuz dedicated to Jupiter at first, and afterwards to the Virgin and the Christian martyrs, afterwards it was dedicated to all the saints.
In speakin’ on this subject, Josiah said: “What a lot of saints they do have in these furren countries,” and says he to me,soto vosy, “I’d kinder like, Samantha, to get that name; Saint Josiah would sound well and uneek in Jonesville.”
But I scorfed at the idee, though knowin’ that he wuz jest as worthy to be called saint as a good many who wuz called by that name.
But Josiah is dretful ambitious. When we wuz lookin’ at the different pictures of the popes in their high hats, sez he:
“How becomin’ such a hat would be to me. I believe365I shall be took in one when I get home; I could take Father Allen’s and Father Smith’s old stove-pipe hats and set my best one on top, and then cut out a wooden cross on top; how uneek it would be.”
But I spoze he will forgit it before he gits home––I hope so ’tennyrate.