"Leather vises and toe-screws.""Leather vises and toe-screws."
Sez I, "The idee of the World's Fair, with all it has got on its mind, a noticin' or carin' whether you had on shoes or went barefoot! But if you are afraid of talk," sez I, "I guess that it would make full as much talk to see you a-goin' round a-groanin' and a-cryin' out loud. And that is what them shoes would bring you to," sez I.
"Now," sez I, "you jest do them shoes right up and carry 'em back to the store, and if you have got to have a new pair, git some that will be more becomin' to a human creeter, let alone a class-leader, and a perfessor, and a grandfather."
So at last I prevailed—he a-forebodin' to the very last that it would make talk to see him in such shoes. But he got a pair that wuzn't more'n one size too small for him, and I presumed to think they would stretch some. And, anyway, I laid out to put his good, roomy old gaiters in my own trunk, so he could have a paneky to fall back on, and to soothe.
As for myself, I took my old slips, that had been my faithful companions for over two years, and a pair of good big roomy bootees.
I never bought nothin' new for any of my feet, not even a shoe-string. And the only new thing that I bought, anyway, wuz a new muslin night-cap with a lace ruffle.
I bought that, and I spoze vanity and pride wuz to the bottom of it. I feel my own shortcomin's, I feel 'em deep, and try to repent, every now and then, I do.
But I did think in my own mind that in case of fire, and I knew that Chicago wuz a great case for burnin' itself up—I thought in case of fire in the night I wouldn't want to be ketched with a plain sheep's-head night-cap on, which, though comfortable, and my choice for stiddy wear, hain't beautiful.
And I thought if there wuz a fire, and I wuz to be depictered in the newspapers as a-bein' rescued, I did feel a little pride in havin' a becomin' night-cap on, and not bein' engraved with a sheep's head on.
Thinks'es I, the pictures in the newspapers are enough to bring on the cold chills onto anybody, even if took bareheaded, and what—what would be the horror of 'em took in a sheep's head!
There it wuz, there is my own weakness sot right down in black and white. But, anyway, it only cost thirty-five cents, and there wuzn't nothin' painful about it, like Josiah's shoes, nor protracted, like Tirzah Ann's stockin's.
Wall, Ury and Philury moved in the day before, and Josiah and I left in the very best of sperits and on the ten o'clock train, Maggie and Thomas Jefferson and Krit a-meetin' us to the depot.
Maggie looked as pretty as a pink, if she didn't make no preperations. She had on her plain waist, black silk,and a little black velvet turban, and she had pinned a bunch of fresh rosies to her waist, and the rosies wuzn't any pinker than her pretty cheeks and lips, and the dew that had fell into them roses' hearts that night wuzn't any brighter than her sweet gray eyes.
She makes a beautiful woman, Maggie Allen duz; and she ort to, to correspond with her husband, for my boy, Thomas Jefferson, is a young man of a thousand, and it is admitted that he is by all the Jonesvillians—nearly every villian of 'em admits it.
Tirzah Ann and the babe wuz to the depot to see us off, and she said that she should come on jest as soon as she got through with her preperations.
But I felt dubersome about her comin' very soon, for she took out her knittin' work (we had to wait quite a good while for the cars), and I see that she hadn't got the first one only to the instep.
It is slow knittin'—shells are dretful slow anyway—and she wuz too proud sperited to have 'em plain clam-shell pattern, which are bigger and coarser; she had to have 'em oyster-shell pattern, in ridges.
Wall, as I say, I felt dubersome, but I spoke up cheerful on the outside—
"If you git your stockin's done, Tirzah Ann, you must be sure and come."
And she said she would.
The way she said it wuz: "One, two, three, four, yes, mother; five, six, seven, I will."
She had to count every shell from top to toe of 'em, which made it hard and wearin' both for her and them she wuz conversin' with.
Why, they do say—it come to me straight, too—that Whitfield got that wore out with them oyster-shell stockin's that he won't look at a oyster sence—he used to be devoted to 'em, raw or cooked; but they say that you can't git him to look at one sence the stockin' episode, specially scolloped ones.
No, he sez "that he has had enough oysters for a lifetime."
Poor fellow! I pity him. I know what them actions of hern is; hain't I suffered from the one she took 'em from?
But to resoom, and continue on.
Miss Gowdey come to the depot to see me off, and so did Miss Bobbet and the Widder Pooler.
Miss Gowdey wuz a-comin' to the World's Fair as soon as she made her rag-carpet for her summer kitchen; she said "she wouldn't go off and leave her work ondone, and she hadn't got more'n half of the rags cut, and she hadn't colored butnut yet, nor copperas; she would not leave her house a-sufferin' and her rags oncut."
I thought she looked sort o' reprovin' at me, for she knew that I had a carpet begun.
But I spoke up, and sez, "Truly rags will be always here with us, and most likely butnut and copperas; but the World's Fair comes but once in a lifetime, and I believe in embracin' it now, and makin' the most of it." Sez I, "We can embrace rags at any time."
"Wall," she said, "she couldn't take no comfort with the memory of things ondone a-weighin' down on her." She said "some folks wuz different," and she looked clost at me as she said it. "Some folks could go off on towers and be happy with the thought of rags oncut and warp oncolored, or spooled, or anything. But she wuzn't one of 'em; she could not, and would not, take comfort with things ondone on her mind."
And I sez, "If folks don't take any comfort with the memories of things ondone on 'em, I guess that there wouldn't be much comfort took, for, do the best we can in this world, we have to leave some things ondone. We can't do everything."
"Wall," she said, "she should, never should, go off on towers till everything wuz done."
Andagin I sez, "It is hard to git everything done, and if folks waited for them circumstances, I guess there wouldn't be many towers gone off on."
But she didn't give in, nor I nuther. But jest then Miss Bobbet spoke up, and said, "She laid out to go to the World's Fair—she wouldn't miss it for anything; it wuz the oppurtunity of a lifetime for education and pleasure; but she wuz a-goin' to finish that borrow-and-lend bedquilt of hern before she started a step. And then the woodwork had got to be painted all over the house, andhewas so busy with his spring's work that she had got to do it herself."
And I sez, "Couldn't you let those things be till you come back?"
And she said, "She couldn't, for she mistrusted she would be all beat out, and wouldn't feel like it when she got back; paintin' wuz hard work, and so wuz piecin' up."
And I sez, "Then you had ruther go there all tired out, had you?" sez I. "Seems to me I had ruther go to the World's Fair fresh and strong, and ready to learn and enjoy, even if I let my borrow-and-lend bedquilt go till another year. For," sez I, "bedquilts will be protracted fur beyend the time of seein' the World's Fair—and I believe in livin' up to my priveleges."
And she said, "That she wouldn't want to put it off, for it had been a-layin' round for several years, and she felt that she wouldn't go away so fur from home, and leave it onfinished."
And I see that it wouldn't do any good to argy with her. Her mind wuz made up.
Miss Pooler said, "That she wuz a-goin' to the Fair, and a-goin' in good season, too. She wouldn't miss it for anything in the livin' world. But she had got to make a visit all round to his relations and hern before she went. And," sez she, a-lookin' sort o' reproachful at me,
"I should have thought you would have felt like goin' round and payin' 'em all a visit, on both of your sides, before you went," sez she. "They would have felt better; and I feel like doin' everything I can to please the relations."
And I told Miss Pooler—"That I never expected to see the day that I hadn't plenty of relations on my side and on hisen, but I never expected to see another Christopher Columbus World's Fair, and I had ruther spend my time now with Christopher than with them on either side, spozin' they would keep."
But Miss Pooler said, "She had always felt like doin' all in her power to show respect to the relations on both sides, and make 'em happy. And she felt that, in case of anything happenin', she would feel better to know she had made 'em all a last visit before it happened."
"What I am afraid will happen, Miss Pooler," sez I, "is that you won't git to the World's Fair at all, for they are numerous on both sides, and widespread," sez I. "It will take sights and sights of time for you to go clear round."
But I see that she wuz determined to have her way, and I didn't labor no more with her.
And I might as well tell it right here, as any time—she never got to the World's Fair at all. For while she wuz a-payin' a last visit previous to her departure, she wuz took down bed-sick for three weeks. And the Fair bein' at that time on its last leglets, as you may say, it had took her so long to go the rounds—the Fair broke up before she got up agin.
Miss Pooler felt awful about it, so they say; it wuz such a dretful disapintment to her that they had to watch her for some time, she wuz that melancholy about it, and depressted, that they didn't know what she would be led to do to herself.
And besides her own affliction about the Fair, and the trouble she gin her own folks a-watchin' her for months afterwards, she got 'em mad at her on both sides. Seven different wimmen she kep to home, jest as they wuz a-startin' for the Fair, and belated 'em.
Eleven of the relations on her side and on hisen hain't spoke to her sence. And the family where she wuz took sick on their hands talked hard of suin' her for damage. For they wuz real smart folks, and had been makin' their calculations for over three years to go to the Fair, and had lotted on it day and night, and through her sickness they wuz kep to home, and didn't go to it at all.
But to resoom.
Jest as I turned round from Miss Pooler, I see Miss Solomon Stebbins and Arvilly Lanfear come in the depot.
Arvilly come to bid me good-bye, and Miss Stebbins wuz with her, and so she come in too.
Arvilly said, "That she should be in Chicago to that World's Fair, if her life wuz spared." She said, "That she wouldn't miss bein' in the place where wimmen wuz made sunthin' of, and had sunthin' to say for themselves, not for ontold wealth."
She said, "That she jest hankered after seein' one woman made out of pure silver—and then that other woman sixty-five feet tall; she said it would do her soul good to see men look up to her, and they have got to look up to her if they see her at all, for she said that it stood to reason that there wuzn't goin' to be men there sixty-five feet high.
"And then that temple there in Chicago, dreamed out and built by a woman—the nicest office buildin' in the world! jest think of that—in the World. And a woman to the bottom of it, and to the top too. Why," sez Arville, "I wouldn't miss the chance of seein' wimmen swing right out, and act as if their souls wuz their own, not for the mines of Golconda." Sez she, "More than a dozen wimmen have told me this week they wanted to go; but they wuzn't able. But I sez to 'em, I'm able to go, and I'm a-goin'—I am goin' afoot."
"Why, Arvilly," sez I, "you hain't a-goin' to Chicago a-walkin' afoot!"
"Why, Arvilly!""Why, Arvilly!"
"Yes, I be a-goin' to Chicago a-walkin' afoot, and I am goin' to start next Monday mornin'."
"Why'ee!" sez I, "you mustn't do it; you must let me lend you some money."
"No, mom; much obliged jest the same, but I am a-goin' to canvass my way there. I am goin' to sell the 'Wild, Wicked, and Warlike Deeds of Man.' I calculate to make money enough to get me there and ride some of the way, and take care of me while I am there; I may tackle some other book or article to sell. But I am goin' to branch out on that, and I am goin' to have a good time, too."
"No, mom; much obliged jest the same.""No, mom; much obliged jest the same."
Miss Stebbins said, "She wanted to go, and calculated to, but she wanted to finish that croshay lap-robe before snow fell."
"Wall," sez I, "snow hain't a-goin' to fall very soon now, early in the Spring so."
"Wall," she said, "that it wuz such tryin' work for the eyes, she wouldn't leave it for nothin' till she got back, for she mistrusted that she should feel kind o' mauger and wore out. And then," she said, "she had got to make a dozen fine shirts for Solomon, so's to leave him comfortable while she wuz gone, and the children three suits apiece all round."
Sez I, "How long do you lay out to be gone?"
"About two weeks," she said.
And I told her, "That it didn't seem as if he would need so many shirts for so short a time."
But she said, "She should feel more relieved to have 'em done."
So I wouldn't say no more to break it up. For it is fur from me to want to diminish any female's relief.
And the cars tooted jest then, so I didn't have no more time to multiply words with her anyway.
We were travellin' in a car they call a parlor, though it didn't look no more like our parlor than ours does like a steeple on a wind-mill. But it wuz dretful nice and comogeous.
We five occupied seats all together, and right next to us, acrost the aisle, wuz two men a-arguin' on the Injun question. I didn't know 'em, but I see that Thomas J. and Krit wuz some acquainted with 'em; they wuz business men.
When I first begun to hear 'em talk (they talked loud—we couldn't help hearin' 'em), they seemed to be kinder laughin', and one of 'em said:
"Yes, they denied the right of suffrage to wimmen and give it to the Injuns, and the next week the Injuns started off on the war-path. Whether they did it through independence or through triumph nobody knows, but it is known that they went."
And I thought to myself, "Mebby they wuz mad to think that the Goverment denied to intelligent Christian wimmen the rights gin to savages." Thinks'es I, "It is enough to make a Injun mad, or anything else."
"They denied the right of suffrage to wimmen and give it to the Injuns.""They denied the right of suffrage to wimmen and give it to the Injuns."
But I didn't speak my mind out loud, and they begun to talk earnest and excited about 'em, and I could see as they went on that they felt jest alike towards the Injuns, and wanted 'em wiped off'en the face of the earth; but they disagreed some as to the ways they wanted 'em wiped. One of 'em wanted 'em shot right down to once, and exterminated jest as you kill potato-bugs.
The other wanted 'em drove further off and shet up tighter till they died out of themselves; but they wuz both agreed in bein' horrified and disgusted at the Injuns darin' to fight the whites.
And first I knew Krit jest waded right into the talk. He waded polite, but he waded deep right off the first thing.
And, sez he, "Before they all die I hope they will sharpen up their tommyhawks and march on to Washington, and have a war-dance before the Capitol, and take a few scalps there amongst the law-makers and the Injun bureau."
He got kinder lost and excited by his feelin's, Krit did, or he wouldn't have said anything about scalpin' a bureau. Good land! he might talk about smashin' its draws up, but nobody ever hearn of scalpin' a bureau or a table.
But he went on dretful smart, and, sez he, "Gentlemen, I have lived right out there amongst the Injuns and the rascally agents, and I know what I am talkin' about when I say that, instead of wonderin' about the Injuns risin' up aginst the whites, as they do sometimes, the wonder is that they don't try to kill every white man they see.
"When I think of thebrutality, the cheatin', the cruelty, the devilishness of the agents, it is a wonder to me that they let one stick remain on another at the agencies—that they don't burn 'em up, root and branch, and destroy all the lazy, cheatin', lyin' white scamps they can get sight of."
The two men acted fairly browbeat and smut to hear Krit go on, and they sez—
"You must be mistaken in your views; the Goverment, I am sure, tries to protect the Injuns and take care of 'em."
"What is the Goverment doin'," sez Krit, "but goin' into partnership with lyin' and stealin,' when it knows just what their agents are doin', and still protects them in their shameful acts, and sends out troops to build up their strength? Maybe you have a home you love?" sez Krit, turnin' to the best lookin' of the men.
"Yes, indeed," sez he; "my country home down on the Hudson is the same one we have had in the family for over two hundred years. My babies are to-day runnin' over the same turf that I rolled on in my boyhood, and their great-great-grandmothers played on in their childhood.
"My babies' voices raise the same echoes from the high rock back of the orchard, the same blue river runs along attheir feet, the sun sets right over the same high palisade. Why, that very golden light acrost the water between the two high rocks—that golden line of light seems to me now, almost as it did then in my childhood, the only path to Heaven.
"Heaven and Earth would be all changed to me if I had to give up my old home. Why, every tree, and shrub, and rock seems like a part of my own beloved family, such sacred associations cluster around them of my childhood and manhood. And the memories of the dear ones gone seem to be woven into the very warp and woof of the stately old elm-trees that shade its velvet lawns, and the voice of the river seems full of old words and music, vanished tones and laughter.
"No one can know, or dream, how inexpressibly dear the old home is to my heart. If I had to give it up," sez he, "it would be like tearin' out my very heart-strings, and partin' with what seems like a part of my own life."
The man looked very earnest and sincere when he said this, and even agitated. He meant what he said, no doubt on't.
And then Krit sez, "How would you like it if you were ordered to leave it at a day's notice—leave it forever—leave it so some one else, some one you hated, some one who had always injuredyou, could enjoy it—
"Leave it so that you knew you could never live there again, never see a sun rise or a sun set over the dear old fields, and mountains, and river, you loved so well—
"Never have the chance to stand by the graves of your fathers, and your children, that were a-sleepin' under the beautiful old trees that your grandfathers had set out—
"Never see the dear old grounds they walked through, the old rooms full of the memories of their love, their joys, and their sorrows, and your loves, and hopes, and joys, and sadness?
"What should you do if some one strong enough, but without a shadow of justice or reason, should order you out of it at once—force you to go?"
"I should try to kill him," sez the man promptly, before he had time to think what to say.
"Well," sez Krit, "that is what the Injuns try to do, and the world is horrified at it. Their homes are jest as dear to them as ours are to us; their love for their own living and dead is jest as strong. Their grief and sense of wrong and outrage is even stronger than the white man's would be, for they don't have the distractions of civilized life to take uptheir attention. They brood over their wrongs through long days and nights, unsolaced by daily papers and latest telegraphic news, and their famished, freezin' bodies addin' their terrible pangs to their soul's distress.
"Is it any wonder that after broodin' over their wrongs through long days and nights, half starved, half naked, their dear old homes gone—shut up here in the rocky, hateful waste, that they must call home, and probably their wives and daughters stolen from them by these agents that are fat and warm, and gettin' rich on the food and clothing that should be theirs, and receivin' nothing but insults and threats if they ask for justice, and finally a bullet, if their demands for justice are too loud—
"What wonder is it that they lift their empty hands for vengeance—that they leave their bare, icy huts, and warm their frozen veins with ghost-dances, haply practisin' them before they go to be ghosts in reality? What wonder that they sharpen up their ancestral tomahawk, and lift it against their oppressors? What wonder that the smothered fires do break out into sudden fiery tempests of destruction that appall the world?
"You say you would do the same, after your generations of culture and Christian teaching, andso would I, and every other man. We would if we could destroy the destroyers who ravage and plunder our homes, deprive us of the earnings of a lifetime, turn us out of our inheritance, and make of our wives and daughters worse than slaves.
"We meet every year to honor the memory of the old heroes who rebelled and fought for liberty—shed rivers of blood to escape from far less intolerable oppression and wrongs than the Injuns have endured for years.
"And then we expect them, with no culture and no Christianity, to practise Christian virtues, and endure buffetings that no Christian would endure.
"The whole Injun question is a satire on true Goverment, a lie in the name of liberty and equality, a shame on our civilization."
"What would you do about it?" said the kinder good-lookin' man.
Sez Krit, "If I called the Injuns wards, adopted children of the Goverment, I would try not to use them in a way that would disgrace any drunken old stepmother.
"I would have dignity enough, if I did not stand for decency, to not half starve and freeze them, and lie to them, and cheat them till the very word 'Goverment' means to them all they can picture of meanness and brutality. I would either grant them independence, or a few of the comforts I had stolen from them.
"If I drove them out of their rich lands and well-stocked hunting-grounds they had so long considered their own—if I drove them out in my cupidity and love of conquest, I would in return grant them enough of the fruits of their old homes to keep up life in their unhappy bodies.
"If I made them suffer the pains of exile, I would not let them endure also the gnawings of starvation.
"And I would not send out to 'em the Bible and whiskey packed in one wagon, appeals to Christian living and the sure means to overthrow it.
"I would not send 'em Bibles and whiskey packed in one wagon.""I would not send 'em Bibles and whiskey packed in one wagon."
"I would not send 'em religious tracts, implorin' 'em to come to Christ's kingdom, packed in the same hamper with kegs of brandy, which the Bible and the tracts teach that those that use it are cursed, and that no drunkard can inherit the kingdom."
But, sez Krit, "The Bible theyshouldhave. And after they had mastered its simplest teachings, they should don their war-paint and feathers, and go out with it in their hands as missionaries to the white race, to try to teach them its plainest and simplest doctrines, of justice, and mercy, and love."
But at this very minute the cars tooted, and the two men seized their satchels, and after a sort of a short bow to Krit and the rest of us, they rushed offen the train.
I believe they wuz conscience-smut, but I don't know.
I believe they wuz conscience-smut, but I don't know.I believe they wuz conscience-smut, but I don't know.
When we arrove at the big depot at Chicago, the sun wuz jest a-drawin' up his curtains of gorgeous red, and yeller, and crimson, and wuz a-retirin' behind 'em to git a little needed rest.
The glorious counterpane wuz kinder heaped up in billowy richness on his western couch, but what I took to be the undersheet—a clear long fold of shinin' gold color—lay straight and smooth on the bottom of the gorgeous bed.
And the sun's face wuz just a-lookin' out above it, as if to say good-bye to Chicago, and trouble, and the World's Fair, and Josiah and me, as we sot our feet onterry firmy. (That is Latin that I have hearn Thomas J. use. Nobody need to be afraid of it; it is harmless. My boy wouldn't use a dangerous word.)
But to resoom and go on. As I ketched the last glimpse of the old familier face of the sun, that I had seen so many times a-lookin' friendly at me through the maple trees at Jonesville, and that truly had seemed to be a neighbor, a-neighborin' with me, time and agin—when I see him so peaceful and good-natured a-goin' to his nightly rest, I thought to myself—
Oh! how I wish I could foller his example, for it duz seem to me that nowhere else, unless it wuz at the tower of Babel, wuz there ever so much noise, and of such various and conflictin' kinds.
Instinctively I ketched holt of my pardner's arm, and sez I, "Stay by me, Josiah Allen; if madness and ruin result from this Pandemonium, be with me to the last."
He couldn't hear a word I said, the noise wuz that deafnin' and tremendious. But he read the silent, tender language of the brown cotton glove on his arm, and he cast a look of deep affection on me, and sez he in soulfull axents—
"Hurry up, can't you? Wimmen are always so slow!"
I responded in the same earnest, heartfelt way. And anon, or perhaps a little before, Thomas J. and Krit hurried us and our satchel bags into a big roomy carriage, and we soon found ourselves a-wendin' our way through the streets of the great Western city, the metropolis of the Settin' Sun.
Street after street, mild after mild of high, towerin' buildin's did we pass. Some on 'em I know wuz high enough for the tower of Babel—and old Babel himself would have admitted it, I bet, if he had been there.
And as the immense size and magnitude of the city come over me like a wave, I thought to myself some in Skripter and some in common readin'.
When I thought that fifty years ago the grassy prairie lay stretched out in green repose where now wuz the hard pavements worn with the world's commerce; when I thought that little prairie-dogs, and mush-rats, and squirells wuz a-runnin' along ondisturbed where now stood high blocks full of a busy city's enterprise; when I thought that little pretty, timid birds wuz a-flyin' about where now wuz steeples and high chimblys—why, when I thought of all this in common readin', then the Skripter come in, and I sez to myself in deep, solemn axents—
"Who hath brought this thing to pass?"
And then anon I went to thinkin' in common readin' agin, and thinks'es I—
A little feeble woman died a few days ago—not so very old either—who wuz the first child born in Chicago—and I thought—
What a big, big day's work wuz done under her eye-sight! What a immense house-warmin' she would had to had in order to warm up all the housen built under her eye!
Millions of folks did she see move into her neighborhood.
And what a party would she had to gin to have took all her neighbors in! What a immense amount of nut-cakes would she have had to fry, and cookies!
Why, countin' two nut-cakes to a person—and that is a small estimate for a healthy man to eat, judgin' by my own pardner—she would have had to fry millions of nut-cakes. And millions of cookies, if they wuz made after Mother's receipt handed down to me; that wouldn't have been one too many.
And where could she spread out her dough for her cookies—why, a prairie wouldn't have been too big for her mouldin' board. And the biggest Geyser in the West, old Faithful himself, wouldn't have been too big to fry the cakes in, if you could fry 'em in water, which you can't.
But mebby if she had gin the party, she could have used that old spoutin' Geyser for a teapot or a soda fountain—if she laid out to treat 'em to anything to drink.
But good land! there is no use in talkin', if she had used a volcano to steep her tea over, she couldn't made enough to go round.
Wall, after a numerous number of emotions we at last reached our destination and stoppin'-place. And I gin a deep sithe of relief as the wheel of the carriage grated on the curb-stun, in front of the boardin' house where my Josiah and me laid out to git our two boards.
Thomas J. and Krit wanted to go to one of the big hotels. I spozed, from their talk, it wuz reasonable, and wuz better for their business, that they should be out amongst business men.
But Josiah and I didn't want to go to any such place. We had our place all picked out, and had had for some time, ever sence we had commenced to git ready for the World's Fair.
We had laid out to git our two boards at a good quiet place recommended by our own Methodist Episcopal Pasture, and a distant relation of his own.
It wuz to Miss Ebenezer Plank'ses, who took in a few boarders, bein' middlin' well off, and havin' a very nice house to start with, but wanted to add a little to her income, so she took in a few and done well by 'em, so our pasture said, and so we found out. It wuz a splendid-lookin' house a-standin' a-frontin' a park, where anybody could git a glimpse of green trees and a breath of fresh air, and as much quiet and rest as could be found in Chicago durin' the summer of 1893, so I believed.
Thomas J. and Maggie wuz perfectly suited with the place for us—and Thomas J. parleyed with Miss Plank about our room, etc.—and we wuz all satisfied with the result.
And after Josiah and me got settled down in our room, a good-lookin' one, though small, the children sot off for their hotel, which wuzn't so very fur from ourn, nigh enough so that they could be sent for easy, if we wuz took down sudden, and visey versey.
I found Miss Plank wuz a good-appearin' woman, and a Christian, I believe, with good principles, and a hair mole on her face, though she kep 'em curbed down, and cut off (the hairs).
A good-appearin' woman.A good-appearin' woman.
Her husband had been a man of wealth, as you could see plain by the housethat he left her a-livin' in. But some of her property she had lost through poor investments—and don't it beat all how wimmen do git cheated, and every single man she deals with a-tellin' her to confide in him freely, for he hain't but one idee, and that is to look out for her interests, to the utter neglect of his own, and a-warnin' her aginst every other man on earth but himself.
But, to resoom. She had lost some of her property, and bein' without children, and kind o' lonesome, and a born housekeeper and cook, her idee of takin' in a few respectable and agreeable boarders wuz a good one.
She wuz a good calculator, and the best maker of pancakes I ever see, fur or near. She oversees her own kitchen, and puts on her own hand and cooks, jest when she is a mind too. She hain't afraid of the face of man or woman, though she told me, and I believe it, that "her cook wuz that cross and fiery of temper, that she would skair any common person almost into coniption fits."
"But," sez she, "the first teacup that she throwed at me, because I wanted to make some pancakes, wuz the last."
I don't know what she done to her, but presoom that she held her with her eye. It is a firm and glitterin' one asI ever see.
Anyway, she put a damper onto that cook, and turns it jest when she is a mind to—to the benefit of her boarders; for better vittles wuz never cooked than Miss Plank furnishes her boarders at moderate rates and the comforts of a home, as advertisements say.
Her house wuz kep clean and sweet too, which wuz indeed a boon.
She talked a sight about her husband, which I don't know as she could help—anyway, I guess she didn't try to.
She told me the first oppurtunity what a good Christian he wuz, how devoted to her, and how much property he laid up, and that he wuz "in salt."
I thought for quite a spell she meant brine, and dassent hardly enquire into the particulars, not knowin' what she had done by the departed, widders are so queer.
But after she had mentioned to me more'n a dozen times her love for the departed, and his industrious and prosperous ways, and tellin' me every single time, "he wuz in salt," I found out that she meant that he wuz in the salt trade—bought and sold, I spozed.
I felt better.
But oh, how she did love to talk about that man; truly she used his sirname to connect us to the vast past, and to the mysterious future. We trod that Plank every day and all day, if we would listen to her.
And sometimes when I would try to get her offen that Plank for a minute, and would bring up the World's Fair to her, and how big the housen wuz, I would find my efforts futile; for all she would say about 'em wuz to tell what Mr. Plank would have done if he had been a-livin', and if he had been onhampered, and out of salt, how much better he would have done than the directors did, and what bigger housen he would have built.
And I would say, "A house that covers over most forty acres is a pretty big house."
But she seemed to think that Mr. Plank would have built housen that covered a few more acres, and towered up higher, and had loftier cupalos.
And finally I got tired of tryin' to quell her down, and I got so that I could let her talk and keep up a-thinkin' on other subjects all the time. Why, I got so I could have writ poetry, if that had been my aim, right under a constant loadin' and onloadin' of that Plank.
Curious, hain't it?
As I said, there wuz only a few boarders, most of 'em quiet folks, who had been there some time. Some on 'em had been there long enough to have children born under the ruff, who had growed up almost as big as their pa's and ma's. There wuz several of 'em half children there, and among 'em wuz one of the same age who wuz old—older than I shall ever be, I hope and pray.
He wuz gloomy and morbid, and looked on life, and us, with kinder mad and distrustful eyes. Above all others, he wuz mean to his twin sister; he looked down on her and browbeat her the worst kind, and felt older than she did, and acted as if she wuz a mere child compared to him, though he wuzn't more'n five minutes older than she wuz, if he wuz that.
Their names wuz Algernon and Guenivere Piddock, but they called 'em Nony and Neny—which wuz, indeed, a comfort to bystanders. Folks ort to be careful what names they put onto their children; yes, indeed.
Neny wuz a very beautiful, good-appearin' young girl, and acted as if she would have had good sense, and considerable of it, if she hadn't been afraid to say her soul wuz her own.
But Nony wuz cold and haughty. He sot right by me on the north side, Josiah Allen sot on my south. And I fairly felt chilly on that side sometimes, almost goose pimples, that young man child felt so cold and bitter towards the world and us, and so sort o' patronizin'.
He sot by me.He sot by me.
He didn't believe in religion, nor nothin'. He didn't believe in Christopher Columbus—right there to the doin's held for him, he didn't believe in him.
"Why," sez I, "he discovered the land we live in."
He said, "He was very doubtful whether that wuz so or not—histories made so many mistakes, he presoomed there never was such a man at all."
"Why," sez I, "he walked the streets of Genoa."
And he sez, "I never see him there."
And, of course, I couldn't dispute that.
And he added, "That anyway there wuz too much a-bein' done for him. He wuz made too much of."
He didn't believe in wimmen, made a specialty of that, from Neny back to Rachael and Ruth. He powed at wimmen's work, at their efforts, their learnin', their advancement.
Neny, good little bashful thing, wuz a member of the WCTU and the Christian Endeavor, and wanted to do jest right by them noble societies and the world. But, oh, how light he would speak of them noble bands of workers in the World's warfare with wrong! To how small a space he wanted to reduce 'em down!
And I sez to him once, "You can't do very much towards belittlin' a noble army of workers as that is—millions strong."
"Millions weak, you mean," sez he. "I dare presoom to say there hain't a woman amongst 'em but what is afraid of a mouse, and would run from a striped snake."
Sez I, "They don't run from the serpent Evil, that is wreathin' round their homes and loved ones, and a-tryin' to destroy 'em—they run towards that serpent, and hain't afraid to grapple with it, and overthrow it—by the help of the Mighty," sez I.
Sez he, "There is too much made of their work." Sez he, "There hain't near so much done as folks think; the most of it is talk, and a-praisin' each other up."
"Wall," sez I, "men won't never be killed for that in their political rivalin's, they won't be condemned for praisin' each other up."
"No," sez he, "men know too much."
And then I spoke of that silver woman—how beautiful and noble an appearance she made, in the spear she ort to be in, a-representin' Justice.
And Nony said, "She wuz too soft." Sez he, "It is with her as it is with all other wimmen—men have to stand in front of her with guns to keep her together, to keep her solid."
That kinder gaulded me, for there wuz some truth in it, for I had seen the men and the rifles.
But I sprunted up, and sez I—
"They are a-guardin' her to keep men from stealin' her, that is what they are for. And," sez I, "it would be a good thing for lots of wimmen, who have got lots of silver, if it hain't in their bodies, if they had a guard a-walkin' round 'em with rifles to keep off maurauders."
Why, there wuzn't nothin' brung up that he believed in, or that he didn't act morbid over.
Why, I believe his Ma—good, decent-lookin' widder with false hair and a swelled neck, but well-to-do—wuz ashamed of him.
Right acrost from me to the table sot a fur different creeter. It wuz a man in the prime of life, and wisdom, and culture, whodidbelieve in things. You could tell that by the first look in his face—handsome—sincere—ardent. With light brown hair, tossed kinder careless back from a broad white forward—deep blue, impetuous-lookin' eyes, but restrained by sense from goin' too fur. A silky mustache the same color of his hair, and both with a considerable number of white threads a-shinin' in 'em, jest enough so's you could tell that old Time hadn't forgot him as he went up and down the earth with his hour-glass under his arm, and his scythe over his shoulder.
He had a tall, noble figger, always dressed jest right, so's you would never think of his clothes, but always remember him simply as bein' a gentleman, helpful, courteous, full of good-nature and good-natured wit and fun. But yet with a sort of a sad look underlyin' the fun, some as deep waters look under the frothy sparkle on top, as if they had secrets they might tell if they wuz a mind to—secrets of dark places down, fur down, where the sun doesn't shine; secrets of joy and happiness, and hope that had gone down, and wuz carried under the depths—under the depths that we hadn't no lines to fathom.
No, if there wuz any secrets of sadness underlyin' the frank openness and pleasantness of them clear blue eyes, we hadn't none of us no way of tellin'.
We hadn't no ways of peerin' down under the clear blue depths, any further than he wuz willin' to let us.
All we knew wuz, that though he looked happy and looked good-natured, back of it all, a-peerin' out sometimes when you didn't look for it, wuz a sunthin' that looked like the shadder cast from a hoverin' lonesomeness, and sorrow, and regret.
But he wuz a good-lookin' feller, there hain't a doubt of that, and good actin' and smart.
He wuz a bacheldor, and we could all see plain that Miss Plank held his price almost above rubies.
If there wuz any good bits among vittles that wuz always good, it wuz Miss Plank's desire that he should have them bits; if there wuz drafts a-comin' from any pint of the compass, it wuz Miss Plank's desire to not have him blowed on. If any soft zephyr's breath wuz wafted to any one of us from a open winder on a hot evenin' or sunny noon, he wuz the one she wanted wafted to, and breathed on.
If her smiles fell warm on any, or all on us, he wuz the one they fell warmest on. But we all liked him the best that ever wuz. Even Nony Piddock seemed to sort of onbend a little, and moisten up with the dew of charity his arid desert of idees a little mite, when he wuz around.
And occasionally, when the bacheldor, whose name wuz Mr. Freeman, when he would, half in fun and half in earnest, answer Nony's weary and bitter remarks, once in a while even that aged youth would seem to be ashamed of himself, and his own idees.
There wuz another widder there—Miss Boomer; or I shouldn't call her a clear widder—I guess she wuz a sort of a semi-detached one—I guess she had parted with him.
Wall, she cast warm smiles on Mr. Freeman—awful warm, almost meltin'.
Miss Plank didn't like Miss Boomer.
Miss Piddock didn't want to cast no looks onto nobody, nor make no impressions. She wuz a mourner for Old Piddock, that anybody could see with one eye, or hear with one ear—that is, if they could understand the secrets of sithes; they wuz deep ones as I ever hearn, and I have hearn deep ones in my time, if anybody ever did, and breathed 'em out myself—the land knows I have!
Miss Plank loved Miss Piddock like a sister; she said that she felt drawed to her from the first, and the drawin's had gone on ever sence—growin' more stronger all the time.
Wall, there wuz two elderly men, very respectable, with two wives, one apiece, lawful and right, and their children, and Miss Schack and her three children, and a Mr. Bolster, and that wuz all there wuz of us, includin' and takin' in my pardner and myself.
Mr. Freeman wuz very rich, so Miss Plank said, and had three or four splendid rooms, the best—"sweet"—in the house, she said.
I spoze she spoke in that way to let us know they wuz furnishedsweet—that is, I spoze so.
His mother had died there, and he couldn't bear to know that anybody else had her rooms; so he kep 'em all, and paid high for 'em, so she said, and wuz as much to be depended on for punctuality, and honesty, as the Bank of England, or the mines of Golcondy.
Yes, Miss Plank said that, with all his sociable, pleasant ways with everybody, he wuz a millionare—made it in sugar, I believe she said—I know it wuz sunthin' good to eat, and sort o' sweet—it might have been molasses—I won't be sure.
But anyway he got so awful rich by it that he could live anywhere he wuz a mind to—in a palace, if he took it into his head to want one.
But instead of branchin' out and makin' a great show, he jest kep right on a-livin' in the rooms he had took so long ago for his family. But they had all gone and left him, his mother dead, and his two nieces gone with their father to California, where they wuz in a convent school. And he kep right on a-livin' in the old rooms.
Miss Plank told me in confidence, and on the hair-cloth sofa in the upper hall, that it would be a big wrench if he ever left there.