Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (ebook reader android txt) 📖

There wuz the usual variety of people on the ship.––Page 84.

There was the usual variety of people on the ship. The rich family travelin’ with children and servants and unlimited baggage; the party of school girls with the slim talkative teacher in spectacles, tellin’ ’em all the pints of interest, and stuffin’ ’em with knowledge gradual but constant; the stiddy goin’ business men and the fashionable ones; the married flirt and the newly married bride and husband, sheepish lookin’ but happy; old wimmen and young ones; young men and old ones; the sick passenger confined to his bed, but devourin’ more food than any two well ones––seven meals a day have I seen carried into that room by the steward, while a voice weak but onwaverin’ would call for more. There wuz a opera singer, a evangelist, an English nobleman, and a party of colored singers who made the night beautiful sometimes with their weird pathetic melodies.

There wuz two missionaries on board, one the Rev. Dr. Wessel, real dignified actin’ and lookin’––he wuz goin’ out as a missionary to China, and a young lady going out as a missionary to Africa, Evangeline Noble––she wuz a member of some kind of a sisterhood, so she wuz called Sister Evangeline. I sot a sight of store by her the first time I laid eyes on her. Anybody could see that she wuz one of the Lord’s anointed, and like our cousin John Richard, who went out as a missionary to Africa several years ago, she only wanted the Lord’s will pinted out to her to foller it to the death if necessary. Livin’ so nigh to the Kingdom as she did she couldn’t help its breezes fannin’ her tired forehead occasionally, and the angels’ songs and the sound of the still waters from reachin’ her soul. She had left a luxurious home, all her loved ones, a host of friends, and wuz goin’ out to face certain hardships, and probable sickness and death amongst a strange half savage people, and yet she had about the happiest face I ever saw. His peace wuz writ down on her brow. Her Lord journeyed with her and told her from day to day what he wanted her to do. After we got well acquainted she told me that ever since her conversion there were times when she became unconscious to things on earth, but her soul seemed to be ketched up to some other realm, where He, who wuz her constant helper and guide, told her what to do. I told Josiah about it, and he sez:

“I’d ruther see that than hear on’t. How can she be ketched up, weighin’ pretty nigh two hundred?”

Sez I, “Your views are material, Josiah. I said her soul wuz ketched up.”

“Oh, well, my soul and body has ginerally gone together where I’ve went.”

“I don’t doubt that,” sez I, “not at all. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned.”

“Well,” sez he, “I’ve hearn a sight about such things as that, but I’d ruther see ’em myself.”

Well, it wuzn’t but a day or two after that that he had a chance to see if he had eyes. Sister Evangeline wuz settin’ with Josiah and me on the deck, and all of a sudden while she wuz talkin’ to us about her future life and work in Africa, her face took on a look as yourn would if your attention had been suddenly arrested by a voice calling you. She looked off over the water as if it wuzn’t there, and I felt that someone wuz talkin’ to her we couldn’t see––her face had jest that look, and at last I hearn her murmur in a low voice:

“Yes, Master, I will go.”

And most immegiately her soul seemed to come back from somewhere, and she sez to me:

“I am told that there is a poor woman amongst the steerage passengers that needs me.” And she riz right up and started, like Paul, not disobedient to the Heavenly vision, not for a minute. She told me afterward that she found a woman with a newly-born child almost dying for want of help. She was alone and friendless, and if Sister Evangeline hadn’t reached her just as she did they would both have died. She wuz a trained nurse, and saved both their lives, and she wuz as good as she could be to ’em till we reached port, where the woman’s husband wuz to meet her.

Josiah acted stunted when I told him, but sez weakly, “I believe she hearn the woman holler.”

And I sez, “She wuz fainted away, how could she holler?”

And he sez, “It must be a heavy faint that will keep a woman from talkin’.”

The other missionary, Elder Wessel, I didn’t set quite so much store by. His only child Lucia wuz on board going out to China with a rich tea merchant’s family as a governess for their little daughter, and some one told me that one reason that Elder Wessel hearn such a loud call to go as a missionary to China was because Lucia wuz goin’ there.

Now, there wuz a young chap over in Loontown who had tried doctorin’ for a year or two and didn’t make much by it, and he thought he see a sign up in the heavens, G. P., and he gin out that he had had a call “go preach,” and went to preachin’, and he didn’t make so well by that as he did by his doctorin’, and then he gin out that he had made a mistake in readin’ the letters; instead of goin’ to preach they meant “give pills,” so he went back to his doctorin’ agin, and is doin’ first rate. That wuzn’t a call.

But to resoom. Elder Wessel jest worshipped this daughter, and thought she wuz the sweetest, dearest girl in the world. And she wuz a pretty girl with soft, bright innocent eyes. She wuz educated in a convent, and had the sweet, gentle manners and onworldly look that so many convent-bred girls have. She and Aronette struck up a warm friendship, though her pa wouldn’t have allowed it I spoze if he hadn’t seen how much store we all sot by Aronette.

We got real well acquainted with Elder Wessel and Lucia; and her proud pa wuz never tired of singin’ her praises or ruther chantin’ ’em––he wuz too dignified to sing. Arvilly loved to talk with him, though their idees wuz about as congenial as ile and water. He wuz real mild and conservative, always drinked moderate and always had wine on his table, and approved of the canteen and saloon, which he extolled as the Poor Man’s Club. He thought that the 88 government wuz jest right, the big trusts and license laws jest as they should be.

Arvilly dearly loved to send sharp arrows of sarkasm and argument through his coat armor of dignified complacency and self-esteem, for truly his idees wuz to her like a red rag to a bull.

Miss Meechim kinder looked down on Arvilly, and I guess Arvilly looked down on her. You know it happens so sometimes––two folks will feel real above each other, though it stands to reason that one of ’em must be mistook. Miss Meechim thought she wuz more genteel than Arvilly, and was worth more, and I guess she had had better advantages. And Arvilly thought she knew more than Miss Meechim, and I guess mebby she did. Miss Meechim thought she wuz jest right herself, she thought her native land wuz jest right and all its laws and customs, and naterally she looked down dretfully on all foreigners. She and Arvilly had lots of little spats about matters and things, though Miss Meechim wuz so genteel that she kep’ her dignity most of the time, though Arvilly gin it severe raps anon or oftener.

But one tie seemed to unite ’em a little––they wuz real congenial on the subject of man. They both seemed to cherish an inherent aversion to that sect of which my pardner is an ornament, and had a strong settled dislike to matrimony; broken once by Arvilly, as a sailor may break his habit of sea-faring life by livin’ on shore a spell, but still keepin’ up his love for the sea.

But of their talks together and Arvilly’s arguments with Elder Wessel more anon and bime by. Arvilly stood up aginst the sea-sickness as she would aginst a obstinate subscriber, and finally brought the sickness to terms as she would the buyer, on the third day, and appeared pale but triumphant, with a subscription book in her hand and the words of her prospectus dribblin’ from her lips. She had ordered a trunkful to sell on sight, but Arvilly will never git over what she has went through, never.

As the days went on the big ship seemed more and more to us like a world, or ruther a new sort of a planet we wuz inhabitin’––it kinder seemed to be the centre of the universe. I overheard a woman say one day how monotonous the life wuz. But I thought to myself, mebby her mind wuz kinder monotonous––some be, you know, made so in the first on’t; I found plenty enough to interest me, and so Josiah did.

There wuz a big library where you could keep company with the great minds of the past and present. A music room where most always some of the best music wuz to be hearn, for of course there wuz lots of musicians on board, there always is. And for them that wanted it, there wuz a smokin’ room, though Josiah or I didn’t have any use for it, never havin’ smoked anything but a little mullen and catnip once or twice for tizik. And there wuz a billiard room for them that patronized Bill, though I never did nor Josiah, but wuz willin’ that folks should act out their own naters. I spoze they played cards there, too. But Josiah and I didn’t know one card from another; I couldn’t tell Jack from the King to save my life.

We stayed in the music room quite a good deal and once or twice Josiah expressed the wish that he had brought along his accordeon.

And he sez: “It don’t seem right to take all this pleasure and not give back anything in return.”

But I sez, “I guess they’ll git along without hearin’ that accordeon.”

“I might sing sunthin’, I spose,” sez he. “I could put on my dressin’ gown and belt it down with the tossels and appear as a singer, and sing a silo.”

That wuz the evenin’ after Dorothy, in a thin, white dress, a little low in the neck and short sleeves, had stood up and sung a lovely piece, or that is I ’spoze it wuz lovely, it wuz in some foreign tongue, but it sounded first rate, as sweet as the song of a robin or medder lark––you know how we all like to hear them, though we can’t quite understand 90 robin and lark language. It wuz kinder good in Josiah to want to give pleasure in return for what he had had, but I argyed him into thinkin’ that he and I would give more pleasure as a congregation than as speakers or singers. For after I had vetoed the singin’ that good man proposed that he should speak a piece. Sez he, “I could tell most the hull of the American Taxation.”

And I sez, “I wouldn’t harrer up the minds of the rich men on board with thoughts of taxes,” sez I, “when lots of ’em are goin’ away to get rid on ’em.”

“Well,” sez he, “I could tell the hull of Robert Kidd.”

And I sez, “Well, I wouldn’t harrer up their feelin’s talkin’ about hullsale stealin’; they have enough of that to hum in the big cities.”

So gradual I got him off from the idee.

There wuz one little boy about Tommy’s age and a sister a little older