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

“Yes,” sez Arvilly, “is it goin’ to make the home less full of discomfort to have him reel home at midnight and dash the hungry cryin’ baby aginst the wall and put out its feeble life, and mebby kill the complainin’ wife too?”

“Oh, those are extreme cases and uncommon,” sez Elder Wessel.

“Not oncommon at all,” sez Arvilly. “If you read the daily papers you will see such things as this, the direct work of the saloon, are continually occurring, too common in fact to attract much attention.”

He couldn’t deny this, for he knew that we read the papers jest the same as he did, and the fact that he couldn’t deny it seemed to kinder tire him, and he sez, getting up:

“I guess I will go and smoke a cigar.” And he went. And I went up to my room, too, to pack my satchel bag, for we expected to start the very next mornin’ and to be gone about a week or ten days.

Well, the steamer took us to Hilo, and the panorama that swep’ by us on that steamer can’t never be reproduced by any camera or kodak; the sapphire blue water, the hills standing like mountains of beaten gold and velvety green verdure, and beyond the soft blue and purple mountain ranges, agin deep clefts and cliffs of richest colored rocks with feathery white waterfalls floating down on ’em like a veil, anon pleasant landscapes, sugar cane plantations, picturesque houses, windmills, orchards, dancing brooks and broad green fields. No dissolvin’ view wuz ever so entrancin’, but like all others it had to dissolve.

We reached Hilo the second day and we all went to a comfortable tarven, and the next mornin’ bright and early we sot off on the stage for the volcano over, I state, and state it fearlessly, the most beautiful road that wuz ever built towards any volcano or anything else. Why, I’ve thought that the road between Jonesville and Loontown wuz beautiful and easy travellin’. Old Hagadone is path-master and vain of the road, and calls the men out twice a year to pay poll taxes and such by workin’ it. Sugar maples, elder bushes, and shuemakes, and wild grapes and ivy run along the side of the stun wall, makin’ it, I always had thought, on-approachable in beauty. But, good land! if old Hagadone 123 had seen that road he would have turned green as grass with envy.

Imagine a wide road, smooth as glass, cut right out of a glowing tropical forest with a almost onimagined splendor, that I spoze was meant to be onseen by mortal eyes, risin’ up on each side on’t. Why, I’ve been as proud as a peacock of my little hibiscus growin’ in grandma Allen’s old teapot, and when that blowed out one little blow I called the neighbors in to witness the gorgeous sight. Imagine a hibiscus tree, as big as one of our biggest maples, fairly burnin’ all over with the gorgeous blossoms, and bananas with their great glossy leaves, and lantannas. Wuzn’t I proud of my lantanna growin’ in Ma Smith’s blue sugar bowl? I thought it wuz a lovely sight when it had three blows on it at one time. But imagine milds and milds of ’em risin’ up thirty feet on each side of the road, and little spindlin’ palms, that we envy if growin’ two feet high, growin’ here to a hundred feet or more, and begonias and geraniums growin’ up into tall trees and of every color, tuberoses and magnolias loadin’ the air with fragance, the glossy green of the ohia tree with the iaia vine climbing and racing over it all, mingled in with tamarind and oranges and bamboo, and oleanders with their delicious pink and white blossoms. Sez I: “Do you remember my little oleander growin’ in a sap bucket, Josiah? Did you ever think of seein’ ’em growin’ fifty feet high? What a priceless treasure one would be in Jonesville.”

And he whispered back real voyalent: “Don’t think, Samantha, of gittin’ me to lug one of them fifty-foot trees all the way hum. I’ve broke my back for years luggin’ round your old oleander in a tub, but never will I tackle one of them trees,” and he looked up defiantly into the glossy boughs overhead.

“I hain’t asked you to, Josiah, but,” sez I dreamily: “I would love to git some slips of them fuchia and begonia trees, and that jasmine,” sez I, pintin’ up to the emerald waves of foliage enriched by them I have named, and as many other 124 glowin’ with perfume and beauty as there are stars in the heavens, or so it seemed to me. Sez I: “What a show I could make in Jonesville with ’em.” Sez I: “What would Miss Bobbett and Sister Henzy say if they could see ’em?” And I pinted up at a gigantick trumpet creeper and convolvuli, festooned along the boughs of a giant geranium and hanging down its banner of bloom.

“They’d say, let well enough alone. I tell you I can’t break up my trip diggin’ dirt and tendin’ to a lot of houseplants from Dan to Beersheba.”

“We’re not goin’ to Dan,” sez I, “and if we wuz a man might meet Dan doin’ worse than pleasin’ his pardner. Look at that jasmine,” sez I. “Is that much like that little slip of Sister Bobbett’s growin’ in a tea-cup? And see! oh, do see, Josiah, them night bloomin’ ceriuses! Oh, take it on a moonlight night, the walls of fragrant green on either side, and them lovely blows, hundreds and thousands of ’em shinin’ out like stars of whiteness, full of the odor of Paradise. Oh, what a sight, Josiah Allen, for us to see!”

And he sez, “Don’t git any idee, Samantha, of you and me comin’ way back here by moonlight, for we can’t do it. The road is thirty milds long, and if we tried it we shouldn’t git here till they had done blowin’.”

“I hain’t no idee of tryin’ it, Josiah, I wuz only revellin’ in the idee of what the glory of the sight must be.”

“Well,” sez he, “I am revellin’ in the idee of havin’ a good meat dinner if we ever git to Hilo.” And he added with a sarcastick smile, “Don’t that make you think of poker? High, low––all it wants is Jack and the Game.”

I gin him a stern look and sez, “Some knowledge is demeanin’ to a perfessor.” And he acted puggicky and didn’t say another word for a mild or so. But I sot calm and looked away into the entrancin’ seen. And all the time we wuz rollin’ on towards the volcano.

Robert and Dorothy seemed to be enjoying the seen as much as I did, and Arvilly wuz tryin’ to canvass the Scotchman. 125 The Englishman had already bought the “Twin Crimes,” and so she wuz as happy as she ever would be, I spozed.

Well, after that long enchantin’ ride through Paradise, at last we reached the place we wuz bound for and put up to the Volcano House, from which a good view of the volcano is seen at night, but nothin’ to what it is to stand on its shores. Well, I will pass over all intervenin’ incidents, some as the lava duz when it gits started, and draw the curtain on us agin as we stood in front of that awful, majestic, dretful, sublime, unapproachable, devilish, glorious––a thousand times glorious––and not to be forgot till death, sight. Tongue can’t utter words to describe it; the pen hain’t made, the egg hain’t laid to hatch out the soarin’ eagle whose feathers could be wrought into a pen fittin’ to describe that seen. Why, I have thought when the mash got to burnin’ down to the lake it wuz a grand sight; Jonesvillians have driv milds to see it. I have seen upwards of ten acres of the mash burnin’ over at one time, and felt awestruck, and so did Sister Bobbett, for we went down together once with our pardners on a buckboard. But, sez I to myself almost instinctively:

“What if Sister Bobbett wuz here? What would she say?”

Imagine a great lake of fire instead of water, waves of burning lava dashing up onto its shores, bustin’ way up in the air at times, towerin’ pillers of flame, swishin’ and swashin’, fire and flames, and brimstun for all I know. What––what wuz goin’ on way down in the depths below if this wuz the seen outside? So wildly I questioned my heart and Josiah. “Oh, Josiah!” sez I, “what––what a sight! Did I ever expect to witness such a seen? No, oh no,” I sez. “What do you spoze is goin’ on inside of that great roarin’, blazin’ monster?” Sez he, “I know what’s goin’ on inside of me; I know I am jest starvin’, faintin’ away fur want of food.”

“Well,” sez I soothin’ly, “when we get back to the Volcano House I will ask for some bread and milk for you.”

“Bread and milk!” sez he bitterly. “I want pork and beans, and ham, and biled greens, and chicken pie and Injun puddin’!”

“Well, well,” sez I, “be calm. Do jest see them great waves and fields of lava, milds and milds of ’em, once jest melted fire, rollin’ on and rollin’ on––what a sight!” sez I. On one side wuz a sort of a high terrace, over which the fiery flames had fell and hardened into solid waves lookin’ some as our Niagara would look if her flowin’ waters should suddenly harden as they flowed. I pinted it out to Arvilly, who wuz by my side. Sez I, “Do look at that! It seems as if Nater had jest hung up that stupendous sheet there and writ on it the word Glory! Unapproachable glory and magesty!”

Sez Arvilly dreamily, “If I could jest dig out in that smooth lava the words, ‘The Twin Crimes of America––Intemperance and Greed,’ and train the volcano to run blazin’ fire into the mould, what a advertisement that would be for my book, or for the ‘Wild, Wicked and Warlike Deeds of Man.’ It would help the sale of both on ’em tremendously.”

And I sez, “Don’t try to train no volcanos, Arvilly; you would find them worse to handle than any man you ever tackled.”

“Well,” sez she dreamily, “I believe it could be done.”

Robert Strong and Dorothy stood clost together, he a-protectin’ her, as I spozed. ’Tennyrate he seemed dretful careful where she stepped and how and when, and she looked up real confidin’ and sweet into his face, and then, awestruck and wonder smit, down into the burnin’ lake below. The Englishman and Scotchman had gone on a little nigher to it, with the guide. Hale-mau-mau (House of Endless Fire), well did the natives name it. Well, it wuz long before we tore ourselves from the sublime seen, and I dremp 127 of it all night. I see Josiah bore from me on the lava flood, and then agin I wuz swep’ from him and dashed up on a billow of flame, and visey versey, versey visey. I had a dretful night, and got up twice and looked out of the winder on the grand spectacle. But towards mornin’ I had a beautiful vision: my pardner and me wuz bore back to Jonesville, and sot in our own door yard under a spreadin’ geranium tree, and Sister Bobbett stood admirin’ly before me with a tea-cup in her hand, beggin’ for a slip from the immense branches. It wuz a sweet dream, and I waked up refreshed.