Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (ebook reader android txt) đź“–
- Author: Marietta Holley
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“You cannot,” sez he dogmatically. “You cannot. I have brought up my Lucia in the only right way for a young girl to be brought up. She has been completely separated from young people of the opposite sex; she knows nothing of fashionable flirting and folly. And when I see such abnormal creatures as the New Girl, as they call her, I am horrified, shocked beyond words at the spectacle of their brazen independence and what they call their freedom, their comradeship with the opposite sex, their fearlessness and boldness and frankness with gentlemen, talking with them really as if they were of the same sex as themselves. As I see this I thank God my Lucia is different.”
Well, she wuz a pretty little thing, with eyes as innocent and timid as a young fawn’s that had never been outside its green covert in the great wilderness. But I knew that under her baby looks and baby ways wuz a woman’s heart; a woman’s emotions and impulses would roust up when the time come and the sun of love shone down on her. Why, Nater had layed down laws before Elder Wessel did; he 148 couldn’t keep her from thinkin’ about her future mate; she would let her mind dwell on some one if it wuz only the man in the moon. And I knew the world wuz full of bad men as well as good men. How would it be with her if thrown with a wolf in sheep’s clothing? If guarded and sheltered, all right, but if onguarded and onwarned and thrown into temptation and danger, I felt that trouble wuz ahead for Lucia Wessel. But I knew it wuz no use for me to hist up a danger flag in front of her, for her father wouldn’t let me. But I felt dubersome about her, dretful dubersome. She and Aronette had formed a real girl attachment for each other, and some way I didn’t like the idee on’t, but don’t know as I could have told why.
Well, we didn’t lay out to stay long in Manila, but we did stay long enough so Dorothy and Miss Meechim and Robert Strong went round and see the different islands. They went to Illollo and wuz gone for three days, Aronette stayin’ with me at the tarven, and Dorothy told me when she got back how beautiful the journey wuz. The water wuz like glass, the sunrise and sunset marvellous, thickly wooded shores on either side filled with oncounted wealth. Great forests of sandal-wood, enough to build houses of, and how we treasure little snips on’t in fan sticks. Mahogany trees enough to build barns and cow stables on, and how we gloat over a old clock case or lamp stand made on’t. She said that Illollo wuz like most old Spanish towns, dretful old lookin’ and kinder run down. The natives dressed like others she had seen, but spoke a different language. They went to the American general’s headquarters some two milds off. A hundred varieties of palm trees grow along the road and every sort of tropical tree. The natives wuz all dark complected, but some good lookin’, most all bareheaded or else with a gay turban and knives stuck in the sashes of their gay tunics.
One day whilst the party wuz gone Tommy and I wuz takin’ a little walk; Josiah couldn’t go, he had got hold of a 149 New York paper of three weeks before, and was readin’ it through from title page to Lost and Found column. We wandered into a little cross street lined on each side with little shops with the shopkeepers squattin’ in the door, and outside the native wives and children. Everything under the sun almost wuz to be found in these shops, and we had wandered along for quite a good ways lookin’ at the curious things, and still more curious people, when we met Aronette and Lucia, accompanied by the two young men I had seen with ’em on the boat; they wuz on the stoop of one of the old business buildin’s, gigglin’ and laughin’ like a bevy of swallers round the eaves of a Jonesville barn.
But, as I said before, I didn’t like the looks of the young men, and on Aronette’s return I told her so, feelin’ I wuz in a measure responsible for her safety whilst her mistress wuz away. Aronette wuz combin’ Tommy’s hair and curlin’ it over her finger as I talked to her, which made me feel some mean to attact her whilst in my service, but Duty’s apron string fluttered down before me and I stiddied myself on it as I spoke real good warnin’ words to her.
Sez I, “My dear, I didn’t like the looks of the young men I saw you walkin’ with to-night.” Sez I, “I saw them two young men coming out of a saloon not a half hour before, and” sez I, “they look to me dissipated and mean. They drink; I know by their looks they do.”
And she sez, “Oh, dear madam, I only went out to take the air a little while. You know I care for nobody in this country. My heart is in old Normandie,” sez she, the tears welling up to the blue well of her eyes. “My heart is with my Pierre, but,” sez she, kinder tossin’ her head, not a high toss, only a little vain pretty motion of a pretty, thoughtless girl, some like a bluebird in the spring of the year, “if a young man insists on paying you a little attention what can a poor little girl do? The days are long when one is young and her own Pierre so far away, and, dear madam, Lucia was with me.”
150“Another innocent, ignorant young creature,” sez I; “two little butterflies fluttering about instead of one, not thinkin’ or carin’ for the fouler’s net,” sez I, smilin’ on her pleasant, for I couldn’t help it. For I knew the heart of youth, and the monotony of life, and the need of young hearts for each other. But I didn’t like the young men’s looks and told her so agin, and she laughed, and said she didn’t like their looks either. Sez she, “Their breath always smells of the whiskey. Faugh!” sez she, “it makes me sick,” and she shrugged her shoulders in the true French way.
And I sez agin, lookin’ solemn, “No young man whose breath smells of whiskey is safe for any young girl to associate with. It is a pizen atmosphere that blasts every sweet and pure thing that comes nigh it.” And I sithed.
And she said in her own sweet way that she knew I was telling the truth, for I talked just as her own sweet mother did. And she bent down with one of her pretty foreign ways and kissed my hand. Dear little thing, I didn’t spoze my talk had done her much good, but then I considered it couldn’t do her any hurt ’tennyrate. And so I left the event to the overruling Power, just as we poor weak mortals have to.
Well, a day or two after that Josiah and I wuz takin’ a walk, meetin’ occasionally Turks all dressed Turkey fashion, and Japans, and Yankees and men and wimmen and children, when who should we meet face to face but Cousin John Richard, that blessed man. As I said, we had writ and writ and tried to find him, but didn’t know but we should have to hunt round considerable, but wuz bound to not leave the islands till we’d seen him. But lo and behold! here he wuz, lookin’ just as good and heavenly minded as ever. He wuz santerin’ along apparently lost in deep thought or nearly lost.
But when he see us he grasped our hands with a welcome that made us know that no matter to what a extent a man’s soul may live in the heavens, his heart is tied with deathless ties to the relations on his own side and to their pardners if they be congenial.
We stopped stun still and talked quite a spell about different things, our health, the relations and so forth.
Anon I sez, “Cousin John Richard, you look wan and pale, but it is a blessed work you are doin’.”
He had opened a midnight mission, helpin’ the weak and tempted and overcome of both sects, preachin’ the love of Christ and follerin’ his teachin’ up by good works.
He told us all about it as we santered on and said he wuz not weary or discouraged. And I could see that though his linement looked pale and worn a deathless light shone in his deep kind eyes and I knew he wuz endurin’ as seein’ Him who wuz invisible.
As we walked on he said, sadly pintin’ to a barren lookin’ 152 spot sown thick with graves, “In this deadly climate the Drink Demon has little to do to assist his brother, Death. Our poor northern boys fall like rotten leaves before a hurricane.”
Sez I, lookin’ up to the blue sky, “Why don’t the heavens fall when such things affront the light of day!”
“The patience of God,” sez Cousin John Richard, “is one of the things we cannot measure.”
“Nor his pity nuther,” sez I in heart-broken axents, for as I looked at them thickly sown graves and thought of the mothers and wives and sweethearts fur, fur away mournin’ for them that wuz not, my tears fell and I wiped ’em off with my snowy linen handkerchief.
Well, Cousin John Richard had an appointment in another part of the city and we parted away from each other, he promisin’ to come and see us at our tarven before we left the city.
Well, we didn’t make a long stay in Manila. But Arvilly beset me to go with her to see General Grant, who was here on a tour of inspection, on this subject so near to her heart, and which she had made her lifework. She said that it wuz my duty to go.
But I sez, “Arvilly, you talk so hash; I can’t bear to have the son of the man who saved his country talked to as I am afraid you will if you git to goin’.”
Sez she, “I won’t open my head. You know the subject from A to izzard. I’ll jest stand by and listen, but somebody ort to talk to him. Hundreds and hundreds of American saloons in this one city! Forced onto these islands by our country. Sunthin’ has got to be done about it. If you don’t go and talk to him about it I shall certainly go alone, and if I do go,” sez she, “he will hear talk that he never hearn before.”
“I’ll go, Arvilly,” sez I hurriedly, “I’ll go and do the best I can, but if you put in and talk so hash it will jest throw me off the track.”
153“A promise is a promise,” sez she; “I never did break my word yet.”
Well, havin’ made the necessary preliminary moves, we met General Grant by appointment in his own quarters. Before we got inside the lines we had to advance and give the countersign, which wuz Whiskey. Arvilly planted herself right there like a balky mule and said she would die in her tracks before she said it. But I, knowin’ that it wouldn’t make nor break the traffick, sez, “Whiskey,” and I added, “May the Lord destroy it!” Arvilly sez, “Amen!” and we walked in past the astounded sentry with out heads up. (General Grant hadn’t nothin’ to do with that countersign; it wuz some officer’s doin’s.) Well, General Grant seemed quite pleased to see us. He’s a real good-lookin’ man, and if he hadn’t any properties of his own he would be beloved for his pa’s sake, but he has properties of his own. He is a good man and a smart one. Well, the first compliments bein’ passed, I lanched out into my bizness.
Sez I, “Brigadier General Grant, I have come to you on the most important mission any ambassador ever travelled on.”
Sez he, “What sovereign, madam, do you represent, and from what country do you come?” Sez I, “Brigadier General Grant, my mission is from the Lord of Hosts, and the country I come to plead for is your own native land––the United States––the land your own illustrious pa saved with the Lord’s help.”
He wuz deeply affected I see and invited us to set down, consequently we sot. And I sez, plungin’ to once into my bizness as my way is in Jonesville or the Antipathies: “Brigadier General, everybody knows that you are a brave man and a good man.” He thanked me and looked pleased, as well
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