426CHAPTER XXXIV
Well, we went back to Vienna, and from there set sail for Berlin, homeward bound. Josiah was in dretful good sperits, and said that no monument or obelisk we had seen on our tower could ever roust up his admiration like the Jonesville M. E. steeple when he should first ketch sight on’t loomin’ up beautiful and glorious from the enrapturin’ Jonesville seenery.
And I felt a good deal as he did, but knowed that his feelin’s made him go too fur, for Jonesville seenery hain’t enrapturin’, and the M. E. steeple hain’t glorious in aspect. But truly Love is the greatest sculptor and gilder in the world, and handles his brush in the most marvellous way. Under his magic touch the humblest cottage walls glows brighter than any palace. We had turned our footsteps toward home sweet home, and a light from above gilt them sacred precincts, and my own heart sung as glad a tune as Josiah’s, though I tried to sing it as much as I could in the key of common sense.
Well, we found that Berlin wuz a big, beautiful clean city. It is the capital of Prussia and the German empire, which we all know is divided up into little kingdoms, some as the Sylvester Bobbett farm is divided up, but kinder lookin’ up to Sylvester as the head on’t. The old part of the city hain’t so remarkable attractive, but the new part is beautiful in its buildings and streets. And somehow the passersby look cleaner and better off than in most cities. We didn’t see a blind beggar man led by a dog or a ragged female beggin’ for alms whilst we wuz there, which is more than our cities at home can boast of.
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But in spite of all this, I spoze there is a good deal of cuttin’ up and behavin’ there.
And I don’t spoze that the name of the river that runs through it has anything to do with that, though Josiah thought it did. He said: “You couldn’t expect many morals or much stiddy behavior round a river Spree.”
But I don’t spoze the name made a mite of difference. The water seemed to run along as smooth and placid as Dove Creek, that bathes the streets of Loontown at home. Indeed, the waters of the Spree runs along real slow and quiet. And I spoze the inhabitants there are about on a equality with the dwellers in other cities in the old and new world. Human nater is a good deal the same wherever you find it. And I’ve always said that if I wanted to write a heart-searchin’, heart-meltin’ tragedy, I had just as soon turn away from the big cities and go into some lonesome hamlet of New England, into some big faded farmhouse standin’ by a dark weed-bordered sluggish creek, shaded by tall pollard willers. And there, behind the scraggly lilocks and cinnamon roses, and closed blinds of solid wood, with a little heart-shaped hole in the centre that casts strange shadders on the clean painted floor within, there I would find my tragedy material.
Mebby in some tall, scrawny woman’s form, clad in brown calico, with scanty gray hair drawed tightly back from a pale face and imprisoned in a little hard knob at the back.
When that hair wuz brown, and the mornin’ sun wuz ketched in its glistenin’, wavin’ tendrils, and the sunken cheeks wuz round and pink as one of the cinnamon roses, and the faded ambrotype of the young soldier in her red wooden chest upstairs wuz materialized in a handsome young man, who walked with her under the old willows when the slow-moving brook run swift with fancy’s flight and her heart beat happily, and life wuz new and radiant with love and joy–––
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Before the changes come that swept them apart and left only a hollow, empty chamber in each heart, echoin’ with footsteps that are walkin’ heavily fur apart.
Then, if I could write the full history of that life, its joys and its sorrows, its aspirations, its baffled hopes, its compensations that didn’t compensate, the bareness of the life, the dagger-sharp trials with what is called small things, the wild heart struggles veiled by the New England coldness of expression, some as her sharp crags and stuns are covered with the long reign of ice and snow. The heartsick loneliness of oncongenial surroundin’s, the gradual fading away of hope and fears into the dead monotonous calm of hopelessness and despair.
There is a tragedy ready for the pen that would stand out as much more striking and sharp-edged as the stun on a ontravelled highway is rougher than one worn down to smoothness by the feet of the multitude, a tragedy that would move the world could I tell it as it really is.
But good land! What a hand to eppisode I be when I git to goin’. I must stop this very minute, or I’ll have the tragedy Alfred Tennyson speaks on “Dyin’ a Listener,” on my hands.
Unter der Linden is as beautiful and imposing an avenue as I see on my tower, with tall, handsome houses risin’ up on each side on’t. And there are beautiful parks and pleasure ground and places of recreation of all kinds.
The Academy of Music is famous for its fine concerts, the city seems the very home of melody, and beautiful statutes are seen on every side. The equestrian statute of Frederic the Great is a grand one, and Josiah got all rousted up lookin’ at it, and talked considerable to me about what a imposin’ figger he himself would make if he could be sculped settin’ on the mair. He said it would be a lovely sight a loomin’ up in front of the M. E. meetin’-house in Jonesville. But I got his mind off from it quick as I could.
One day when we wuz out drivin’ through the handsome429streets we went to see the palace of Bismark. It wuz a large, stately mansion, opposite a pretty little park. But though this seemed the very abode of luxury, I wuz told that Bismark loved the country fur better, and as Josiah and I delighted in the fields of Jonesville, so he loved sweet Nature, and follered her all he could into her hants in the country. Josiah sot store by Bismark, and honors his memory, and he seemed real tickled when I sez to him:
“Bismark always reminded me of you, Josiah, from what I’ve read of him.”
Josiah was very tickled, and he sez with a proud happy look, “Yes, I spoze I am a good deal like him, he wuz as brave as a lion, had good sound horse sense and–––”
But I sez calmly, “I dare presoom to say, Josiah, that that is so. But I wuz alludin’ to his appetite, I have hearn that he had a splendid and immense appetite.”
Josiah acted huffy, and I drawed his attention off onto the corners of base relief and the white statters ornamentin’ the ruff.
To our great sorrow, we found that Emperor William wuzn’t to home. I spoze it will be a great disappointment to him when he hears on’t that Josiah and I had really been there right to his home and he shouldn’t be there. I well know how bad I should feel if Potentates come to Jonesville and I happened to be off on a tower. And then I honored Emperor William for his kind heart and kind actions and his good sense, and felt bad enough to think I wuzn’t goin’ to see him.
But owin’ to Robert Strong’s gittin’ a letter from somebody to somebody, we went through the palace just as I would want William to go through our house in Jonesville and the carriage-house and barn, if we happened to be away a visitin’ when he come our way.
And oh, what a sight that palace wuz on the inside when we come to go through it, and the outside too looked430well, very strong and massive and handsum and big, enormous big.
Why, it contains six hundred rooms. And Miss Cornelius Bobbett thought she had reached the very hite of grandeur when she moved into their new house that had six big rooms beside the bedrooms. And it did go fur ahead of the average Jonesville housen. But when I stood in William’s white saloon and our party wuz givin’ utterance to different ejaculations of surprise and admiration I only sez instinctively:
“Oh, if Sister Cornelius Bobbett only could see this room! what would she say? How her pride would be lowered down.”
For it did seem to me the most beautiful room I ever beheld. It was more than a hundred feet long, and about half that in width, and the crystal glitter overhead reflected in the shinin’ floor below wuz ahead of anything I had ever seen, as brilliant as a hull forest of ice-sickles mingled in with statutes and columns and angels and everything else beautiful.
Here in this room Sessions of Parliament are opened. And I thought the laws ort to be grand and noble indeed to make ’em worthy of the place they was made in.
But, immense as this room wuz, the picture gallery is most as big agin and full of beauty and inspiration from wall to wall and from floor to ceilin’. The palace chapel is kinder round in shape, and has all sorts of soft and rich-colored marbles in the floor and wall. The altar wuz made of Egyptian marble, a kind of buff color, and the pulpit wuz made of Carrera marble. I spoze powerful sermons have been preached from that pulpit.
In Berlin the most beautiful pictures are to be seen on every side on palace walls and in picture galleries, Dorothy and Robert just doted on ’em and so did I. But Josiah always complained of his corns whilst walkin’ through ’em. A picture gallery just started them corns to achin’ the worst kind from his tell.
Samantha points out the beauties of the White Saloon.––Page 430.
Samantha points out the beauties of the White Saloon.––Page 430.
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The Bourse is sunthin’ like our stock exchange, but big enough to accommodate thousands of money-seekers. I spoze they have lively times here anon or oftener––the river Spree runs right in front on’t (though I don’t think that makes a mite of difference).
More than fifty bridges cross this river and it divides out into canals and little streams, all of which comes together agin and flows away into the sea.
The Alson bridge is one of the most beautiful bridges I ever sot my eyes on, and not fur off is the Alson Platz, a very charming public garden. Shady paths, trees, flowers, sculpture, all make this garden very attractive.
Not fur off is the Konigs Platz, one of the most imposing parts of the city. In the centre of this square stands the grand monument to Victory, it is high and lofty as a monument to Victory ort to be, solid and massive at the base (for in order to be successful you have got to have a good underpinnin’ of principle and gumption) and crowned with a noble-lookin’ figger, standin’ amidst a flock of eagles.
The Royal Theatre is a handsome building and looks some in front like our own Capitol in Washington, D. C. It stands between two meetin’-houses, as if it laid out to set back and enjoy its neighborhood and be real respectable.
In front of it stands a fine monument to the German poet, Schiller. I sot store by him. Thomas J. used to read his books to his Pa and me a good deal when he wuz tendin’ the Cademy to Jonesville, his dramas and his poems, so Josiah and I felt quite well acquainted with him, and when we see his name here amidst foreign seens it give us quite agreeable emotions, some as if we wuz a travellin’ in Africa and should see a obelisk riz up with Deacon Henzy’s name on it. Also I wuz interested in looking at the beautiful equestrian statute of Frederic William the illustrious elector, who did so much to make his country great.
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It stands on a bridge, as if dominating sea and land, as he did a good deal whilst he wuz alive. He looks calm and powerful, and has a look on his face as if he could do most anything he sot out to do. And the four slaves grouped round the base of the statute seem to look up to him as if they trusted him implicitly.
His clothes wuzn’t exactly what I would want Josiah sculped in if he wuz to be rared up in marble, and it seems as if so many skirts and such a long cloak floatin’ out must be in a man’s way if he wuz in a hurry. But where is there anything perfect here below? It wuz remarkably handsome, take it as a hull.
Dorothy and Robert said they wanted to see the statute of Gerty.
And Josiah whispered to me and sez, “Gerty who? I didn’t know as they knew any Gertrude that wuz buried here.”
And I whispered back, “They mean Goethe, Josiah. You know Thomas J. has read us quite a lot of his writings.” Sez I, “Don’t you remember about little Mignon, who wuz so home-sick for her own land, and would keep askin’:
‘Knowest thou the land where citron apples bloom,And oranges like gold amidst the leafy gloom?’
‘Knowest thou the land where citron apples bloom,And oranges like gold amidst the leafy gloom?’
‘Knowest thou the land where citron apples bloom,
And oranges like gold amidst the leafy gloom?’
“You remember it, Josiah. I’ve seen you shed tears when he wuz readin’ about her.”
And Josiah whispered back in a loud shrill whisper that I know they hearn: “If they wanted to see Go-ethe, why didn’t they say Go-ethe?” (He always would pronounce his name to rhyme with sheath.)
I felt mortified, nothin’ seems worse when you’re tryin’ to quell a pardner down than to have him whisper back so loud. Why, I have had Josiah right to my own table when I’ve had company and he wuz makin’ onlucky remarks, I’ve known him to ask me right out what I wuz steppin’ on his433toe for, and I wuz worse off than as if I hadn’t tried to curb him in. But then he has a host of good qualities, and pardners are dretful handy lots of times. But life is a kind of a warfare to the best and happiest on us.
Well we all went to see the statute to Goethe; it stands in a pleasant spot in the Thiergarten surrounded by shrubs and trees. The face of the great poet is full of the sadness and glory of them that see visions and dream dreams. Grouped about him are the sculptured forms of Tragedy, Lyrical Poetry, and Research. It wuz a impressive monument and rousted up more emotions in me than any that I see in Berlin.
Well, we didn’t stay long in Prussia, for the cords that wuz drawin’ us home tightened from day to day, the children and Philury drawin’ them cords closter ever and anon with long and loving letters, and we hastened on to Hamburg. It wuz a lovely day when we sot out on our journey and we wuz all feelin’ well, specially Josiah and I, for every revolution of the wheels brought us nigher to our beloved Jonesville and every toot of the engine seemed to shout afresh the joyful tidin’s to us that we had sot our faces towards the bright hearth stun of home.
We had no eventful experiences on the journey to relate, unless it wuz a interview we had with a young man, a Freshman I believe he wuz from some college, travellin’ with his tutor, and he seemed real fresh, he seemed to have plenty of money but a scarcity of brains, or mebby he had enough brains, but they seemed to be in a sort of a soft state, and I guess they’ll harden up some when he gits older if he has good luck with them.
I wuz most a good mind to advise him to set in the sun bareheaded all he could, thinkin’ mebby it might harden ’em some, but didn’t know how it would be took.
He thought he knew a sight, but the shadder he really cast on worldly affairs wuz exceedingly small, he could step over it the hull time, but he felt that it reached the horizon.434Robert talked quite a good deal with him, to pass away the time I spoze, but there wuz a queer smile in his eyes and kinder patient and long sufferin’ as if to say:
“You’ll know more in the future than you do now and I’ll bear with you.”
The young man thought he wuz patronizin’ Robert, I knew from his liniment. He wuz a infidel, and seemed to think it made him very smart. You know some folks do think it is real genteel to doubt and a mark of a deep thinker.
I hearn him go on for quite a spell, for Robert wouldn’t argy with him, thinkin’ I spoze it might strain his arm to hit at vacancy. But at last I seemed to have to speak up to Miss Meechim and say:
“How strange it is that some folks think the less they believe the bigger it makes ’em, but good land! it don’t take much intellect to believe in nothin’, it don’t strain the mind any if it is ever so weak.”
I guess he hearn me, for he kinder changed his talk and went to patronizin’ the seenery. Well, it wuz beautiful a good deal of the way, though at the last of our journey it broke out rainy all of a sudden right whilst Josiah wuz all engaged in admirin’ a particular view, and it grew cold and disagreeable. And he bein’ tired out, worried a sight about the rain and the suddenness on’t and how it stopped his sight-seein’ and brung on his rumatiz, and he complained of his corns and his tight boots, and said that I had ort to seen that he wuz dressed thicker, and fretted and acted. And I sez:
“You’ve got to take things as they come, Josiah. I couldn’t send anybody out this mornin’ to bring in a pail of weather to see if it wuz goin’ to rain. You’ve got to take it as it comes, and when it comes, and make the best on’t.”
But he still acted restless and oneasy, and most cried, he felt so bad. And I went on and dilated on the merits of calmness and serenity and how beautiful traits they wuz and how much to be desired.
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And he snapped me up enough to take my head off, and said that he “couldn’t always be calm and wuzn’t goin’ to try to be.”
“No,” sez I reasonable, “you’ve got to be megum in that, or in eatin’ bread and milk; of course, you could kill yourself on that, though it seems innocent and harmless; you can carry everything too fur.”
And seein’ that his liniment still bore the marks of restless oneasiness and onhappiness, I eppisoded a little on his side of the question, for what will not a woman do to ease a pardner’s mind and comfort him?
“Yes, Josiah, Cousin Joel Smith’s life used to be so serene and so deadly calm on all occasions that she used to mad Uncle Joel, who wuz of a lively and active temperament, like the most of the Smiths.
“I asked Joel once on a visit there, when she had been so collected together and monotonous in aspect, and talked with such oneven and sweetness of tone that I got dead tired on’t myself, and felt that I had been lookin’ on a sunbaked prairie for months, and would have been glad enough to had her got up a change of liniment some way, and a change of axent higher or lower, I sez to Cousin Joel.
“Do you spoze Serintha Jane would git excited and look any different and talk any faster or louder if the house should get afire?”
And he said no, the house did git afire once, when he wuz away. And she discovered it in the morning whilst she wuz makin’ some scollops in her hair (she always had her hair scolloped just as even as ever a baby’s petticoat wuz), keepin’ that too calm and fixed through bangs and braids. She had scolloped it on one side and wur just beginnin’ it on the other when she see the fire, and she went gently to the door, opened it in a quiet ladylike way, and asked a neighbor goin’ by in her low even axent, if he would kindly stop a minute. And the neighbor stopped and she said sweetly:
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“Could I trouble you to do a little errand for me if you are going down town, or would it incommode you?”
He said he would do it.
Well, she said she didn’t want him incommoded, “but,” sez she, “if it is not too much trouble will you please tell my husband that I would like to have him come home as soon as he can make it convenient to do so, for the house is afire.” And then she smiled sweetly and made a low bow, and went back into the house lookin’ real serene, and went to scollopin’ the other side of her fore-top.
The neighbor started off wildly on the run hollerin’ “fire!” and “help!” for he see the flames bustin’ out of one of the chamber winders. He got the fire engine and the neighbors collected, and got most of the furniture out below, and they couldn’t hardly git her to make a move, for she hadn’t got the last scallop made, but finally somebody grabbed her, and kinder hauled her out, she a tryin’ to smile, they say, and look calm, as she was borne out.
I told Joel, before I thought, that “she ort to been singed, and that it would have done her good, mebby it would rousted her up a little.”
And I guess he felt so too, though he didn’t say so. Josiah looked real interested, and I sez, fur I didn’t dast to have the encouragement go too fur that way:
“Calmness and serenity are beautiful, Josiah, and almost always desirable, though when a house gits afire you ort to let up on ’em a little.”
Josiah’s liniment looked quite a little clearer, but some shadders still remained, and I went on tenderly and pictured out to him the first meal I would cook for him when we got home. And then his liniment grew peaceful and happy, and he sez gratefully:
“You’re so calmin’ to the nerves, Samantha, when you set out to be, you’re a perfect iodine.”
I d’no really what he did mean, I guess it wuz anodyne, I keep a bottle to home for nerves. But ’tennyrate in a few437minutes he wuz talkin’ quite glib about home and the children and I felt richly repaid for all my trouble. And with such little agreeable talk and eppisodin’ did I try to diversify the weariness of travel.
Josiah is a great case for Hamburg steaks, and he confided to me the hope that we would git some here that would go even beyond any that I had ever cooked and that would ensure him a future of this delicious food. But we didn’t see a sign on ’em in the city. He wuz bitterly disappinted.
Hamburg is a free state, small, but I spoze feelin’ quite big and independent. It is ruled by a Senate of eighteen members, and a house of Burgesses of one hundred and ninety-two members, and they make their own laws and keep ’em, I spoze, the most on ’em, and get along quite well and prosperous.
There is a beautiful little lake in the heart of the city on which small gaily painted boats dart to and fro carrying passengers like omnibuses in city streets. Beautiful bridges cross the Alster, a tributary of the Danube, and tall handsome houses line the streets.
They are great cases for flowers there in Hamburg. You meet flower shops and flower sellers on every side. But they are not the beautiful flower girls we read of in stories. They are mostly old wimmen, too old for hard work. They wear short skirts, comin’ just below their knees, black bodices, long black stockings with gay colored garters, wooden shoes, broad-brimmed hats, saucer shaped, trimmed with stiff black cambric bows.
We wuz only there for one day, but long enough to drive through the principal streets and see some of the principal sights and git rested some, and then we sailed away for Home Sweet Home, via London, England.
We didn’t stay very long in London, but long enough so we could look about us some. Robert Strong had considerable bizness to attend to there, which, of course, devoured his time, and Dorothy had a number of young girl438friends who lived there, and she wanted to go and see them, and she entertained ’em at our tarven: sweet, fresh-complected young girls; they wuz almost as pretty as Dorothy herself, but not quite.
Arvilly had a cousin on her own side that she wanted to visit, and, of course, she wanted to canvass more or less, so that left Josiah and I free a good deal of the time to go and come as we liked. Of course dear Little Tommy wanted to see everything and go everywhere. Miss Meechim and Dorothy took Tommy with them several times, and so did Robert Strong, and, of course, some days when we wuz all at liberty we would all go out together sightseeing. Josiah said most the first thing that he wanted to see the Tower of London, and Tommy wanted to see the Crystal Palace, takin’ a fancy to the name I spoze, and I told ’em we would go to these places the first chance we had.
But deep in my heart wuz one purpose. I had laid on a certain plan day and night, kep’ it in my mind and lotted on it. But of this more anon. This wuz my major plan. Amongst my minor ones wuz my desire to see Westminster Abbey agin. I had been there once on a former tower, but I wanted to stand agin by the tombs of them I so deeply honored; and the rest of the party feelin’ as I did, we all set out there most the first thing.
I also sot store by Westminster Abbey on account of its being the place where Victoria, honored queen and woman, wuz crowned, as well as all of England’s monarchs. It is a magnificent building, no other mausoleum in the world can compare with it; it is almost worthy of being the resting-place of the great souls that sleep there. Dorothy’s sweet face and Robert’s noble liniment took on reverent looks as we stood by the tomb of saint and sage, hero and poet.
We went from there to see the Houses of Parliament, immense buildings full of interest and associations.
We also went to see St. Paul’s Cathedral, which towers up in majesty, dwarfin’ the other buildin’s near it. It is a marvellous439structure in size and beauty, only two bigger buildings in the world, St. Peter’s at Rome, and the Milan Cathedral.
What a head Sir Christopher Wren must have had, and what a monument to his genius this gigantic pile is. No wonder he wanted this epitaph put on his tomb:
“If you want to see his monument, look about you.”
Many other noted men are buried here, Bishop Heber, John Howard, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Wellington, Nelson and Sir John Moore, who wuz “buried darkly at dead of night,” as so many bashful schoolboys know to their sorrow, as they rehearse it in a husky voice to the assembled neighbors the last day of school. Oh, how much they wish as they try to moisten their dry tongue and arrange their too visible and various hands, that the night wuz still darker, so dark that nothin’ wuz ever hearn on’t.
Feelin’ the admiration I did for his livin’ and lovin’ pardner, I wuz glad to see the Albert monument. It wuz evenin’ when we see it, and the garden where it stands wuz illuminated. The great elms glowed under a multitude of red lights. The music-stands glowed with stars of the same color, and the fountains riz up in great sprays of color and radiance. It wuz a beautiful seen, but none too grand for the great good man whose name the tall shaft bears.
Albert Hall, which stands in the same grounds, wuz also brilliantly illuminated; its long glass corridors shone as if wrought out of crystal and ruby.
One day we rode from Blackfriars’ bridge past the Mansion House, where the Lord Mayor holds his receptions. And what interested me fur more, we went past the place where the Foreign Bible Society prints more than three million Bibles a year in two hundred different languages and dialects, carrying the knowledge and love of our Lord unto the ends of the earth.
440CHAPTER XXXV
Buckingham Palace wuz a sight to see, beautiful and grand, and not fur off is St. James’s Park, one of the most attractive in the city though it wuz once only a marshy field. As I looked on its charming and diversified beauty I thought how little there is in heredity compared to gumption and draining.
Josiah, as I said, wanted to see the Tower of London. It is the most celebrated fortress in England. It is awful old, and good land! if I wuz shet up there I shouldn’t never expect to break out. Some of the walls are fifteen feet thick. The White Tower, they say, wuz begun by William the Conqueror, a man that I told the guide politely, “wuz quite widely known, and I had hearn a sight of him though I had never had the pleasure of his acquaintance.” It wuz completed in one thousand ninety-eight.
Josiah and I wandered round there for hours, and should most probable got lost and mebby been gropin’ round there to-day if it hadn’t been for the guide.
I wuz dretful interested in London Bridge. The present structure cost seven million, so they say, and I wouldn’t have built it for a cent less. I thought as I stood there of what had took place on that spot since Sir William Wallace’s day and how his benign head (most every bump on it good ones) wuz put up there a mark for the insultin’ jeers of the populace, and it made me feel bad and sorry for Helen, his last wife, she that wuz Helen Mar. But Sir Thomas More’s head wuz nailed up in the same place, and the Bishop of Rochester’s and lots of others.
It wuzn’t right.
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And then I thought of the gay seens that had took place there, the tournaments and triumphal marches and grand processions and sad ones, and the great multitude who have passed over it, prince and beggar, velvet and rags, a countless throng constantly passing, constantly changing, no more to be counted than the drops of water in the silent stream below, all the time, all the time sweepin’ on to the sea. I had sights of emotions.
And all the while I wuz in London, in the gay streets and quiet ones, in palace or park, the shade of Dickens walked by my side or a little in advance, seemin’ to pint out to me the places where he had walked when he see visions and dreamed dreams. And I almost expected to meet Little Nell leading her grandpa, or David Copperfield, or Peggoty searching for Em’ly, or some of our Mutual Friends.
And so with Thackeray. As I looked up at the gloomy houses on some quiet street I almost expected to see the funeral hatchment of old Sir Pitt Crawley’s wife and Becky Sharp’s little pale face peering out, or sweet Ethel Newcomb and her cousin Clive, and the dear old General and Henry Esmond, and etc., etc. And so with Alfred Tennyson. In some beautiful place of drooping foliage and placid water I almost felt that I should see the mystic barge drawin’ nigh and I too should float off into some Lotus land. And so with all the other beloved poets and authors who seem nigher to us than our next door neighbors in the flesh.
Dorothy havin’ never been there, felt that she must see Shakespeare’s home, which is a journey of only three hours by rail, so we made a visit there one day, passing through some of England’s most beautiful seenery on our way, grand old parks with stately houses rising up in their midst, gray stun churches in charming little villages, thatched-roof cottages, picturesque water-mills; it wuz all a lovely picture of rural England.
It being a little too long a journey for one day, we stayed all night at Shakespeare’s Inn, where the great poet went442daily for his glass of stimulant––so they say. But I am glad I don’t believe everything that I hear.
Arvilly mourned to think that she couldn’t have sold him America’s twin crimes: “Intemperance and Greed”; but I kinder changed the subject. As much store as I set by Arvilly’s cast-iron principles, somehow I couldn’t bear the thought of having Shakespeare canvassed.
All the rooms are named after Shakespeare’s plays, painted over the doors in black letters. We slept in “All’s Well That Ends Well”––a good name––and we slept peaceful, thinkin’ likely that it would turn out so. Miss Meechim had the “Merry Wives of Windsor.” She wanted to change with Arvilly, who had “Love’s Labor’s Lost,” but Arvilly wouldn’t budge.
Miss Meechim told me in confidence that if Shakespeare could have had the benefit of her advice he would probable have called it “The Unfortunate Wives of Windsor.” “And then,” sez she, “I could have occupied it with more pleasure.” But I didn’t much think that he would have changed his plans or poetry if she had been on the spot.
The next morning early we set out for Shakespeare’s cottage, described so often, saw the room in which the great poet was born, and wuz told that nothing had been changed there since he lay in his cradle, which we could believe as we looked about us on the low walls, the diamond panes of the windows and the quaint old furniture. The cottage is now used for Shakespeare’s relics, some of which looked as if they might be real, and some as if they wuz made day before yesterday. We visited the church where he wuz baptized and saw on one of the pews the metal plate on which is engraved the name of the poet’s father.
And, thinkin’ that a visit to Shakespeare’s home wouldn’t be complete without seeing the place where his heart journeyed whilst his life wuz young and full of hope and joy, we drove out to Shottery, to the little farmhouse where his sweetheart, Ann Hathaway, lived.
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It is a quaint little cottage, and after going through it we drank a glass of water drawn up by a well sweep from the very same old well from which Shakespeare drank so many times. As I stood there I saw in fancy the rosy, dimpled Ann handing the crystal water to the boy, Will, who mebby whispered to her as he took the glass sweet words, all rhyming with youth and joy and love.
And the same blue sky bent above us; birds wheeled and sung over our heads, descendants, mebby, of the birds that sung to them that day. I had sights of emotions––sights of ’em––and so I did in the cottage as I sot on the old, old settle in the corner of the fireplace, whose age nobdy could dispute, as its stiff old joints are strengthened with bands of iron, where young Will Shakespeare and his sweetheart often sat, and where he might have read to her the new poem in honor of her charms:
“To melt the sad, make blithe the gay,And nature charm Ann hath a way.She hath a will,She hath a way––To breathe delight, Ann Hathaway.”
“To melt the sad, make blithe the gay,And nature charm Ann hath a way.She hath a will,She hath a way––To breathe delight, Ann Hathaway.”
“To melt the sad, make blithe the gay,
And nature charm Ann hath a way.
She hath a will,
She hath a way––
To breathe delight, Ann Hathaway.”
He or she didn’t dream of his future greatness, and I dare say that old Pa Hathaway, who mebby slept nigh by, might have complained to her ma, “Wonderin’ what that fool meant by talkin’ in poetry at that time of night.” And, mebby, if he soared too high and loud in verse, old Pa Hathaway might have called out:
“Ann! cover up the fire and go to bed! Billy wants to go home!”
I don’t say this wuz so, but mebby. So holden are our eyes and so difficult it is for the human vision to discern between an eagle and a commoner bird, when the wings are featherin’ out, before they are full plumed for a flight amongst the stars.
Well, we went back to London, tired, but riz up in our minds, and renewed our sightseeing there.
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Miss Meechim and Dorothy bought lots of things that they said they could git cheaper in England, and Arvilly wuz in great sperits; she sold three books, sold herself out and went home with an empty box but a full purse. Robert wuz busy up to the last minute, but managed to spend time to take Tommy to see some famous waxworks he had promised.
About the middle of the forenoon Robert Strong proposed that we should all go and take a last drive in the park, and we set off, all but Arvilly. She thought of some one in another part of the city that she wanted to canvass, and she started off alone in a handsome. Miss Meechim and Dorothy wuz feelin’ well. Tommy, who wuz in fine sperits, wuz perched as usual on Robert Strong’s knee.
The sheltered drives and smooth windin’ roads wuz gay with passers-by, and the seen wuz beautiful, but I wuz sad and deprested about one thing. King Edward is a real good natered man, and a good pervider, and seems to set store by America. And Queen Alexandra is a sweet, good woman.
But still in these last hours I kep’ thinkin’ of Edwardses’ Ma, who was rainin’ here durin’ my last visit. I wuz kep’ from visitin’ her at that time by P. Martyn Smythe and onfortunate domestic circumstances.
And I have always worried for fear she hearn I wuz in London that time and never went nigh her; she not knowin’ what hendered me.
I writ her a letter to make her mind easy, but must know she never got it, for she never writ a word in reply. I posted the letter I spoke on with my own hands. I directed it
Widder Albert,
London, England.
It runs as follers:
“Dear and revered Queen and Widder:
“I tried my best to git to see you whilst in London, but Josiah’s clothes wuzn’t fit; he had frayed ’em out on a tower,445and his shirts wuz yeller as saffern, half washed by underlins. I wouldn’t demean him in your sight by bringin’ him with me and he wuz worrisome and I couldn’t leave him. You’ve been married and you know how it is.
“So I have to return home sad-hearted without settin’ my eyes on the face of a woman I honor and set store by, a good wife, a good mother, a good ruler. The world hangs your example up and is workin’ up to the pattern and will in future generations. No doubt there is a few stitches that might be sot evener in the sampler, but the hull thing is a honor to our humanity and the world at large. I bow to your memory as I would to you in deep honor and esteem. And if we do not meet here below may we meet in them heavenly fields you and your Albert, Josiah and I, young and happy, all earthly distinctions washed off in the swellin’s of Jordan.
“And so God bless you clear down to the river banks whose waves are a swashin’ up so clost to our feet, and adoo.
“Josiah Allen’s Wife.”
I never hearn a word from her, and I am afraid she died thinkin’ I had slighted her.
The next morning bright and early we went aboard the ship that wuz to take us home. It wuz a fair day; the fog dispersed and the sun shone out with promise and the waves talked to me of Home, Sweet Home.
It wuz a cold lowerin’ day when the good ship bore us into New York harbor. The gray clouds hung low some as if they wuz a sombry canopy ready to cover up sunthin’, a crime or a grief, or a tomb, or mebby all on ’em, and a few cold drops fell down from the sky ever and anon, some like tears, only chill and icy as death.
These thoughts come into my mind onbid as I looked on the heavy pall of dark clouds that hung low over our heads some like the dark drapery hangin’ over a bier.
But anon and bime bye these dark meditations died446away, for what wuz cloud or cold, or white icy shores? It wuz home that waited for us; Jonesville and my dear ones dwelt on that shore approachin’ us so fast. Bitter, icy winds would make the warm glowin’ hearth fire of home seem brighter. Love would make its own sunshine. Happiness would warm the chill of the cold November day.
Thomas J. and Maggie stood on the pier, both well and strong; Tommy sprung into their arms. They looked onto his round rosy face through tears of gratitude and thankfulness and embraced me with the same. And wuzn’t Thomas J. happy? Yes, indeed he wuz, when he held his boy in his arms and had holt of his ma’s hands, and his pa’s too. And Maggie, too, how warmly she embraced us with tears and smiles chasing each other over her pretty face. Tirzah Ann and Whitfield wuz in the city, but didn’t come to the minute, bein’ belated, as we learnt afterwards, by Tirzah Ann a waverin’ in a big department store between a pink and a blue shiffon front for a new dress.
But they appeared in a few minutes, Tirzah Ann with her arms full of bundles which dribbled onnoticed on the pier as she advanced and throwed her arms round her pa’s and ma’s neck. Love is home, and with our dear children’s arms about us and their warm smiles of delight and welcome and their loving words in our ear, we had got home.
The children wuz stayin’ at a fashionable boardin’ house, kept by Miss Eliphalet Snow, a distant relation of Maggie’s, who had lost her pardner and her property, but kep’ her pride and took boarders for company, so she said. And we wuz all goin’ to start for Jonesville together the next day. But as the baggage of our party wuz kinder mixed up, Josiah and I thought we would go with Miss Meechim’s party to the tarven and stay.
Robert Strong and our son, Thomas J., met like two ships of one line with one flag wavin’ over ’em, and bearing the same sealed orders from their Captain above. How congenial they wuz, they had been friends always, made so onbeknown447to them, they only had to discover each other, and then they wuz intimate to once, and dear.
Dorothy and Miss Meechim and the children greeted each other with smiles and glad, gay words. Yes, all wuz a happy confusion of light words, gay laughter, Saratoga trunks, smiles, joy, satchel bags––we had got home.
As I stood there surrounded by all that I prized most on earth I had a glimpse of a haggard lookin’ form arrayed in tattered finery, a bent figure, a young old face, old with drink and dissipation, that looked some way familiar though I couldn’t place her. She looked at our party with a strange interest and seemed to say some murmured words of prayer or blessing or appeal, and disappeared––soon forgot in our boundless joy and the cares tendin’ to our baggage.
Arvilly wuz glad to set her feet on shore, for she too loved her native land with the love that a good principled, but stern stepmother has for a interestin’ but worrisome child that she’s bringin’ up by hand. She thought she would go with the children to their boarding-place, havin’ knowed Miss Eliphalet Snow in their young days, when Miss Snow wuz high-headed and looked down on her, and wantin’ to dant her, I spoze, with accounts of her foreign travel. And we parted to meet agin in the mornin’ to resoom our voyage to Jonesville––blessed harbor where we could moor our two barks, Josiah’s and mine, and be at rest.
Miss Meechim and Dorothy and Robert laid out to start for California the next day, as business wuz callin’ Robert there loud and he had to respond.
And I may as well tell it now as any time, for it has got to be told. I knowed it wuz told to me in confidence, and it must be kep’ for a spell anyway, Robert and Dorothy wuz engaged, and they wuz goin’ to be married in a short time in her own beautiful home in San Francisco. Now you needn’t try to git me to tell who told me, for I am not as sot as cast iron on that, I shall mention no names, only simply remarkin’ that Dorothy and Robert set store by me and I by448them. Them that told me said that they felt like death to not tell Miss Meechim of the engagement, but knowin’ her onconquerable repugnance to matrimony and to Dorothy’s marriage in particular, and not knowin’ but what the news would kill her stun dead, them that told me said they felt that they had better git her back to her own native shores before bein’ told, which I felt wuz reasonable.
How I did hate to part with sweet Dorothy, I loved her and she me visey versey. And Robert Strong, he sot up in my heart next to Thomas J., and crowdin’ up pretty clost to him too. Miss Meechim also had her properties, and we had gone through wearisome travel, dangers and fatigues, pleasant rest, delightful sight-seeing, poor vittles, joy and grief together, and it wuz hard to break up old ties. But it had to be. Our life here on this planet is made up of meetin’s and partin’s. It is hail and farewell with us from the cradle to the grave.
We all retired early, bein’ tired out, and we slept well, little thinkin’ of the ghastly shape that would meet us on the thresholt of the new day. But, oh, my erring but beloved country! why ortn’t we to expect it as long as you keep the mills a-goin’ that turns out such black, ghastly shadders by the thousands and thousands all the time, all the time, to enwrap your children.
Dorothy never knowed it––what wuz the use of cloudin’ her bright young life with the awful shadder? But then, as I told Robert, that black, dretful pall hangs over every home and every heart in our country and is liable to fall anywhere and at any time, no palace ruff is too high and no hovel ruff is too low to be agonized and darkened by its sombry folds.
But he said it would make Dorothy too wretched, and he could not have her told, and I agreed to it, but of course I told my pardner and his heart wuz wrung and his bandanna wet as sop in consequence on’t. And he told Miss Meechim, too, that mornin’, and her complaisant belief in genteel drinkin’ and her conservative belief in the Poor Man’s Club, wuz449shook hard––how hard I didn’t know until afterwards. Oh, how she, too, loved Aronette! The children when they wuz told on’t mourned because we did, and on their own account too, for they sot store by her what little they had seen of her––for nobody could see her without loving her.
As for Arvilly, her ideas on intemperance couldn’t be added to or diminished by anything, but she wep’ and cried for days.
Well, I spoze you all want to know the peticulars. Robert Strong wuz the first one that left the tarven in the mornin’. He had to see a man very early on business. He went out by the ladies’ entrance. And there crouched on the cold stun steps, waitin’ we spozed to ketch another glimpse of Dorothy, and mebby to ask for help, for she wuz almost naked, and her plump little limbs almost skin and bone, dead and cold, frozen and starved, so we spozed, lay Aronette. Pretty, happy little girl, dearly beloved, thrown by Christian America to the wild beasts just as sure as Nero ever did, only while he threw his human victims to be torn and killed for fun, America throws her human victims, her choicest, brightest youth, down to ruin and death, for greed. Which looks the Worst in God’s sight? I d’no nor Josiah don’t.
Well, Robert called a ambulance, had the poor boney, ragged victim took to a hospital, but all efforts wuz vain to resuscitate her. She had gone to give in her evidence against America’s license laws, aginst Army Canteen, Church and State, aginst Licensed Saloon Keeper, aginst highest official and lowest voter, aginst sinner and saint, who by their encouragement or indifference make such crimes possible.
The evidence wuz carried in, the criminals must meet it, it is waitin’ for ’em, waitin’. Of course the New York parties who helped Robert, policemen, doctors, and nurses, thought very little of it, it wuz so common, all over the land, they said, such things was happening all the time from the same cause. And we knew it well, we knew of the wide open pit,450veiled with tempting covering, wove by Selfishness and Greed, scattered over with flimsy flowers of excuse, palliation, expediency that tempts and engulfs our brightest youth, the noblest manhood, old and young, rich and poor––it is very common.
But to us who loved the pretty, merry little maid, rememberin’ her so happy and so good, and saw her ruined and killed before our eyes by the country that should have protected her, we kept it in our hearts, we could not forgit it.
Robert Strong had her buried in a quiet corner of a cemetery and left orders for a stun cross to be put up to mark her grave. He asked me to write the epitaph which he had carved in the marble, and I did:
AronetteYoung, Happy, Beloved––Murdered!Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.
Robert had it put on just as I writ it. He didn’t tell Dorothy anything about her death till they got home. She never see the epitaph; it wuz true as truth itself, but it wuz hash, and might have made her bed-sick, lovin’ Aronette as she did. But after Dorothy Strong wuz livin’ with him, blessed and happy in their pretty, simple home in his City of Justice, then he told her that Aronette wuz dead, died in a hospital and wuz buried in a pleasant graveyard. And Dorothy mourned for her as she would for a beloved sister.
Yes, Dorothy will mourn for her all her days. The young man who wuz to marry her will live under the shadow of this sorrow all his life, for he is one of the constant ones who cannot forgit. The old grandmother in Normandie waited for letters from her darling which never came, and will die waiting for her.
The young man who enticed the pretty little maid into the canteen, licensed by America, and gave her stupefying drink, licensed by our laws, took her, staggering and stupid,451to another dretful house, made as respectable as they can make it by our Christian civilization. He lived long enough, I spoze, to add several more victims to the countless list of such murders that lays on our country’s doorsteps, and then he too died, a bloated, loathsome wreck, makin’ another victim for the recordin’ angel to mark down, if there is room in her enormous books of debt and credit with this traffic for another name. And I spoze there is, for them books tower up mountain high, and new ones have to be opened anon or oftener, and will I spoze till God’s time of reckonin’ comes and the books are opened and the debts paid.
It wuz a lovely day when we see the towers of Jonesville loom up above the billows of environin’ green.
(I mean the M. E. steeple showin’ up beyend Grout Nickleson’s pine woods.)
As the cars drew into the station they tooted their delight agin and agin at our safe return as the train stopped.
As we walked up the platform I see Josiah furtively on-button his stiff linen cuffs as if preparin’ to throw ’em off for life. His face radiant, and hummin’sotey voseyhis favorite ballad: