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

“It hain’t imagination that the poor woman wuz dyin’ and Sister Evangeline saved her.” And he said that wuz a coincidence, and I said that it wuz a pity there wuzn’t more such coincidences. And he didn’t answer me at all. He wuz settin’ up on his creed with his legs hangin’ off, and he sot straight, no danger of his gittin’ off and goin’ down amongst the poor steerage passengers and helpin’ ’em. He thought he wuz a eminent Christian, but in my opinion he might have been converted over agin without doin’ him any harm.

Well, the big world we wuz inhabitin’ moved on over 129 the calm waters. Josiah read a good deal, settin’ in the library with Tommy on his knee. And I read some myself, but took considerable comfort studyin’ the different passengers, some as if they wuz books with different bindin’s, some gilt and gay, some dull and solid and some sombry, but each with different readin’ inside.

And stiddy and swift, onheedin’ any of our feelin’s or fears, the great ship ploughed on, takin’ us towards that wuz comin’ to meet us onbeknown to us. Miss Meechim kep’ up pretty well, keepin’ a good lookout on Dorothy, but restin’ her mind on Robert Strong’s protection, and Robert and Dorothy seemed to enjoy themselves better and better all the time, singing together, and walking up and down the deck for hours on pleasant days and matchless nights lit with the brilliant light of moon and star, and Southern Cross, and I didn’t know what other light might be shinin’ on ’em onbeknown to Miss Meechim, but mistrusted by me.

Elder Wessel, when we wuz with Lucia, didn’t seem to want anything else on earth. She wuz a pretty girl, but I could see that she wuz very romantic; she had read sights of novels, and wuz lookin’ out for some prince in disguise to ride up on a white charger to carry her off and share his throne. But I could see that if the right influences wuz throwd around her she had the makin’ of a noble woman in her, and I hoped she would grow up a good, helpful woman. She had a great influence over Aronette, whose nater wuz more yieldin’ and gentle, and I didn’t altogether approve of their intimacy, but considered that it would be broke off pretty quick, as they would part for good and all when we got to China. You may wonder why I worried about Aronette; well, the reason wuz, I loved her, jest as everybody else did who knew her well. She wuz a darling girl, always sweet tempered, always trying to help somebody; Dorothy loved her just as much as though she wuz her sister and would have treated her exactly like one if it hadn’t been for Miss Meechim. She loved Aronette herself, 130 and showed her love by her goodness, buying her everything she needed and didn’t need, but she wuz so hauty naturally that she insisted on Aronette’s keepin’ her place, as she said. And she was so sweet dispositioned and humble sperited she didn’t want to do any different. Well, I spoze Miss Meechim wuz right; if Aronette wuz Dorothy’s maid it wuzn’t to be expected that she would take her visitin’ with her, and it wuz Aronette’s delight to wait on Dorothy as devotedly as if no ties of love bound their young hearts together. Robert Strong liked and respected her, I spoze mebby on Dorothy’s account, and Tommy adored her; why, even Josiah felt towards her, he said, some as if she wuz Tirzah Ann growed young agin.

Arvilly’s heart she won completely by makin’ her a bag to carry the “Twin Crimes” in. It wuz made of handsome black silk, worked all round in pink silk in a handsome pattern, and she had worked on one side in big letters, “The Twin Crimes of America, Intemperance and Greed.”

Arvilly almost cried with joy when she gin it to her, and sez to me, “That Aronette is the best girl in the hull world and the sweetest. Look at that embroidery,” sez she, holdin’ up the handsome bag before my eyes, “you can see that as fur as you can see me; that bag alone is enough to sell the book, and I wuz jest wearin’ out the agent’s copy. There hain’t anything in the world I wouldn’t do for that girl.” Yes, we all loved her dearly, and a dozen times a day we would say to each other what should we ever do without Aronette.

Josiah wuz seasick some, but not nigh so bad as he thought, and Tommy kept well and happy all the time, and wonnered and wonnered at everything and seemed to take comfort in it, and he would set in his little chair on deck and talk to Carabi for hours, and I d’no whether Carabi wuz enjoyin’ the trip or not; I didn’t seem to have any way of knowin’. One day Tommy and I wuz lookin’ off on the 131 broad blue waters and we see approachin’ what looked like a boat with its tiny sail set. It looked so like a boat set out from fairyland that instinctively I thought of Carabi, but a passenger standin’ by said that it wuz a Nautilus, and afterwards we see lots of ’em. And the Southern Cross bent over us nights as if to uphold our souls with the thought that our heavenly gardeen would take care on us. And some nights the sea wuz lit up with phosphorescent light into a seen of glory that I can’t describe and hain’t goin’ to let Josiah try to; I hain’t a goin’ to have that man made light of, and Shakespeare couldn’t do justice to it. Low down over our heads the heavens leaned, the glassy waters aspired upward in sparks of flame. The south wind whispered soft, strange secrets to us, sweeping up from the misty horizon. Our souls listened––but shaw! I said I wuzn’t goin’ to try to describe the glory and I hain’t.

And the ship sailed on. One evenin’ there wuz another steamer sighted, most everybody wuz on deck. Sister Evangeline wuz down takin’ care of that poor woman and child and the fever patients; Tommy wuz asleep; Josiah wuz readin’ the old newspaper he had wropped his clothes in, and which he had treasured fondly. He wuz readin’ the advertisements, Help Wanted and such. I asked him what good them advertisements would do him ten thousand milds from hum, but he said no knowin’ what might happen and anything in the paper wuz good readin’.

That man’s blind adherence to party has caused me many a forebodin’, it is a menace to good government and public safety, and I have told him so. Well, I santered down into the cabin and there I found Elder Wessel all alone. He had jest been readin’ a powerful editorial that coincided with his views exactly, and he leaned back and put a thumb in each arm-hole of his vest and sez:

“What a glorious work the United States is doin’ here in the Philippines.”

And I sez, “Yes, that is so, the United States is doin’ a 132 great and noble work in educating and civilizing the natives, if it wuzn’t for the one great mistake she is making and duz make wherever she plants her banner in a new country amongst a new people.

“Side by side with her schoolhouses and churches that are trying to lift humanity heavenward the American Saloon is found lowering humanity and undoing the work these ministers and teachers have so faithfully tried to do.”

I guess he didn’t hear me, but ’tennyrate he went right on: “Oh, yes, oh, yes, our Christian nation goes to these benighted islands, carrying Christianity and civilization in its hand. Of course they may not ever come up to the hite of our own perfect, matchless civilization, but they will approach it, they will approach it.”

Sez Arvilly: “Our nation won’t come up to them in years and years, if it ever duz!”

He jumped as if he had been shot; he thought we wuz alone, and sez: “Why––why, Sister Arvilly––you must admit these savages are behind us in knowledge.”

“So much the worse for us; the sin of ignorance is goin’ to be winked at, but if we know better we ort to do better.” Elder Wessel wuz stunted, but he murmured instinctively sunthin’ about our carryin’ the Bible and the knowledge of heaven to ’em.

Arvilly snapped out: “What good will that do if we carry private hells to burn ’em up before they die? A pretty help that is! What is the use of teachin’ ’em about heaven if our civilization makes sure the first thing it duz to keep ’em out of it, for no drunkard shall inherit heaven. What’s the use of gittin’ ’em to hankerin’ after sunthin’ they can’t have.”

The Elder wuz almost paralyzed, but he murmured instinctively sunthin’ about our duty to the poor naked heathen hanging like monkeys from the tree tops, like animals even in their recreation. And Arvilly bein’ so rousted up and beyend reasonable reason, sez: “That’s their bizness about not bein’ clothed, and anyway it is jest as the Lord 133 started the human race out in the Garden of Eden, and they do wear enough to cover their nakedness, and that’s more than some of our fashionable wimmen do, and ’tennyrate they don’t suffer so much as our wimmen do with their torturin’ tight shoes and steel instruments of agony bound round their waists, compressin’ their vital organs into a mass of deformity.”

Elder Wessel wuz so browbeat that he kinder got offen his subject, and with a dazed look he murmured sunthin’ about “the wicked religion of Cuba when the Americans took it––the Papal indulgences, the cruel bull fights, the national recreations––you could always tell the low state of a nation’s civilization by the brutish recreations they indulged in.”

Sez Arvilly, in a loud, mad axent, “Talk about brutal amusements, why they ort to send missionaries to America to reform us as fur up in decency as to use animals to fight fur our recreation instead of human bein’s. Bulls hain’t spozed to have immortal souls, and think how America pays two men made in the image of God so much an hour––high wages, too––to beat and pound and maim and kill each other for the amusement of a congregation of Christian men and wimmen, who set and applaud and howl with delight when a more cruel blow than common fells one on ’em to the earth. And then our newspapers fight it all over for the enjoyment of the family fireside, for the wimmen and children and invalids, mebby, that couldn’t take in the rare treat at first sight. Every blow, every cruel bruise that wuz made in the suffering flesh reproduced for Sunday reading. And if one of the fighters is killed and his mangled body taken out of the fighting ring forever, taken home to his wife and children with the comfortin’ peticulars that he wuz killed for the amusement of men and wimmen, most on ’em church members, and all citizens of our Christian republic by special license of the government, why then the newspapers, which are the exponents of our civilization and the teachers of our 134 youth, have a splendid time relating the ghastly story under staring headlines. After all this, talk to me about our country’s dastin to have the face to reform any other country’s amusement. Our prize fights that our nation gives licenses for its people to enjoy are as much worse than bull fights, in view of America’s professions of goodness, as it would be for an angel to fly down ’lection day amongst a drunken crowd and git drunk as a fool, and stagger round and act with her wings dirty and a-floppin’.”

Elder Wessel wuz took completely back, I could see, by Arvilly’s eloquence, and I wuz myself. The sharp-toothed harrow of grief had turned up new furrows in her soul, in which strange plants growed. And before Elder Wessel could speak she went on a-thinkin’ back about sunthin’ he’d said.

“Indulgences to sin! If I granted licenses for all kinds of sin for money, as our nation duz, I wouldn’t talk about Papal indulgences. See how wimmen are used––embruted, insulted, ground beneath the heel of lust and ruin by these same license laws.”

“But, Sister Arvilly,” sez he, “I was reading only this morning a sermon upon how much our civilization had to do in lifting women into the high place they occupy to-day.”

“High place!” sez Arvilly, and I fairly trembled in my shoes to hear her axent. “Wimmen occupy a dretful high place. I can tell you jest the place she occupies. You have been told of it often enough; you ort to know it, but don’t seem to. A woman occupies the same bench with lunatics, idiots and criminals, only hern is enough sight harder under legal licenses and