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

contained strange news of our neighbor, Miss Deacon Sypher. Her devotion to her husband has been told by me more formally, it is worthy the pen of poet and historian. She lived and breathed in the Deacon, 253 marked all her clothes, M. D. S., Miss Deacon Sypher. Her hull atmosphere wuz Deacon, her goal wuz his happiness, her heaven his presence.

Well, a year ago she got hurt on the sidewalk to Jonesville, and the Deacon sued the village and got five hundred dollars for her broken leg. He took the money and went out to the Ohio on a pleasure trip, and to visit some old neighbors. It made talk, for folks said that when she worshipped him so he ort to stayed by her, but he hired she that wuz Betsy Bobbett to stay with her, and he went off on this pleasure trip and had a splendid good time, and with the rest of the money he bought a span of mules. Miss Sypher wuz deadly afraid of ’em. But the Deacon wanted ’em, and so they made her happily agonized, she wuz so afraid of their heels and their brays, and so highly tickled with the Deacon’s joy. Well, it turned out queer as a dog, but just after we started on our trip abroad Tirzah said that the Deacon fell and broke his leg in the same place and the same spot on the sidewalk; the Jonesvillians are slack, it wuzn’t mended proper. And Miss Sypher thought that she would git some money jest as he did. She didn’t think on’t for quite a spell, Tirzah writ. She wuz so bound up in the Deacon and never left his side night or day, nor took off her clothes only to wash ’em for two weeks, jest bent over his couch and drowged round waitin’ on him, for he wuz dretful notional and hard to git along with. But she loved to be jawed at, dearly, for she said it made her think he would git along, and when he would find fault with her and throw things, she smiled gladly, thinkin’ it wuz a good sign.

Well, when he got a little better so she could lay down herself and rest a little, the thought come to her that she would git some money for his broken leg jest as he had for hern. She thought that she would like to buy him a suit of very nice clothes and a gold chain, and build a mule barn for the mules, but the law wouldn’t give Miss Deacon Sypher a cent; the law said that if anything wuz gin it would go to 254 the Deacon’s next of kin, a brother who lived way off in the Michigan.

The Deacon owned her bones, but she didn’t own the Deacon’s!

And I wonnered at it as much as Tommy ever wonnered over anything why her broken limb, and all the emoluments from it, belonged to him, and his broken leg and the proprietary rights in it belonged to a man way out in the Michigan that he hadn’t seen for ten years and didn’t speke to (owin’ to trouble about property), and after Miss Deacon Sypher had worshipped him and waited on him for thirty years like a happy surf.

Well, so it wuz. I said it seemed queer, but Arvilly said that it wuzn’t queer at all. She sez: “One of my letters from home to-day had a worse case in it than that.” Sez she, “You remember Willie Henzy, Deacon Henzy’s grandchild, in Brooklyn. You know how he got run over and killed by a trolley car.”

“Yes,” sez I, “sweet little creeter; Sister Henzy told me about it with the tears runnin’ down her cheeks. They all worshipped that child, he wuz jest as pretty and bright as he could be, and he wuz the only boy amongst all the grandchildren; it is a blow Deacon Henzy will never git over. And his ma went into one faintin’ fit after another when he wuz brought home, and will never be a well woman agin, and his pa’s hair in three months grew gray as a rat; it ’most killed all on ’em.”

“Well,” sez Arvilly, “what verdict do you think that fool brought in?”

“What fool?” sez I.

“The law!” sez Arvilly sternly. “The judge brought in a verdict of one dollar damages; it said that children wuzn’t wage-earners and therefore they wuzn’t worth any more.”

I throwed my arms ’round Tommy onbeknown to me, and sez I, “Millions and millions of money wouldn’t pay your 255 grandma for you.” And Tommy wonnered and wonnered that a little boy’s life wuzn’t worth more than a dollar.

“Why,” sez I, “the law gives twenty dollars for a two-year-old heifer.”

“Yes,” sez Arvilly, “the law don’t reckon Willie Henzy’s life worth so much as a yearlin’ calf or a dog. But they can do jest as they please; these great monopolies have spun their golden web round politicians and office-seekers and office-holders and rule the whole country. They can set their own valuation on life and limb, and every dollar they can save in bruised flesh and death and agony, is one more dollar to divide amongst the stockholders.”

“Well,” sez I, “we mustn’t forgit to be megum, Arvilly; we mustn’t forgit in our indignation all the good they do carryin’ folks from hether to yon for almost nothin’.”

“Well, they no need to act more heartless than Nero or King Herod. I don’t believe that old Nero himself would done this; I believe he would gin two dollars for Willie Henzy.”

And I sez, “I never neighbored with Mr. Nero. But if I could git holt of that judge,” sez I, “he would remember it to his dyin’ day.”

“He wouldn’t care for what you said,” sez Arvilly; “he got his pay. There hain’t any of these big monopolies got any more soul than a stun-boat.”

It is only nine hours from Suez to Cairo. How often have I spoke of the great desert of Sarah in hours of Jonesville mirth and sadness, little thinkin’ that I should ever cross it in this mortal spear, but we did pass through a corner on’t and had a good view of the Suez Canal, about which so much has been said and done. For milds we went through the Valley of the Nile, that great wet nurse of Egypt. The banks on either side on’t stand dressed in livin’ green. There wuz a good many American and English people at the tarven in Cairo, but no one we knew. In the garden at the side of the tarven wuz a ostrich pen where a number of great ostriches 256 wuz kep’, and also several pelicans walked round in another part of the garden.

Tommy and I stood by the winder, very much interested in watchin’ the ostriches, and though I hain’t covetous or proud, yet I did wish I had one or two of them satiny, curly feathers to trim my best bunnet in Jonesville, they went so fur ahead of any sisters in the meetin’ house.

Josiah hadn’t see ’em yet; he wuz layin’ on the lounge, but he sez: “I don’t see why you’re so took up with them geese.”

“Geese!” sez I; “look here, Josiah Allen”––and I took a cookie I had got for Tommy––“see here; see me feed these geese ten feet from the ground.” He could see their heads come up to take it out of my hand.

“Good land!” sez he, “you don’t say they stretch their necks clear up here.” And he jined in our astonishment then and proposed that he should be let down from the winder in a sheet and git me a few feathers. But I rejected the idee to once. I sez: “I’d ruther go featherless for life than to have a pardner commit rapine for ’em.”

And he sez: “If some Egyptian come to Jonesville and wanted a rooster’s tail feather, we wouldn’t say nuthin’ aginst it.”

But I sez: “This is different; this would spile the looks of the ostriches.”

And he said there wuz sunthin’ said in the Bible about “spilin’ the Egyptians.” But I wouldn’t let him wrest the Scripters to his own destruction, and told him I wouldn’t, and then sez I, “I never could enjoy religion settin’ under a stolen feather.”

As you pass through these picturesque streets memories of them that have made this city historic crowd upon your mind. You think of Saladin, Christian, Mameluke and Islamite.

You think of the Bible and you think of the “Arabian Nights,” and you almost expect to see the enchanted carpet 257 layin’ round somewhere, and some one goin’ up to the close shet doors sayin’, “Open sesame.”

And as you stroll along you will hear every language under the sun, or so it seems, and meet English, Italian, French, Bedowins, soldiers, footmen, Turks, Arabs, all dressed in their native costumes. Anon close shet up carriages in which you most know there are beautiful wimmen peerin’ out of some little corner onbeknown to their folks; agin you meet a weddin’ procession, then a trolley car, then some Egyptian troops, then some merchants, then mysterious lookin’ Oriental wimmen, with black veils hangin’ loose, then a woman with a donkey loaded with fowls, then some more soldiers in handsome uniform.

Agin every eye is turned to see some high official or native prince dressed in splendid array dashin’ along in a carriage with footmen runnin’ on before to clear the way. And mebby right after comes a man drivin’ a flock of turkeys, they feelin’ jest as important and high-headed to all appearance.

The air is delightful here, dry and warm. No malaria in Egypt, though nigh by are sulphur baths for anybody that wants them, and also a cure for consumptive folks.

In goin’ through the streets of Cairo you will see bazars everywhere; slipper bazars, carpet and rug, vase and candle, and jewelry bazars; little shops where everything can be bought are all on sides of you.

But if you go to buy anything you get so confused as to the different worth of a piaster that your head turns. In some transactions it is as much agin as in others. Josiah got dretful worked up tryin’ to buy a silk handkerchief. Sez he to the dealer:

“What do you mean by it, you dishonest tike, you? If you should come to Jonesville to buy a overcoat or a pair of boots, and we should wiggle round and act as you do, I wouldn’t blame you if you never come there to trade a cent with us agin.”

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The man kep’ bowin’ real polite and offered some coffee to him and a pipe, and Josiah sez:

“I don’t want none of your coffee, nor none of your pipes, I want honesty, and I can tell you one thing that you’ve lost my trade, and you’ll lose the hull of the Jonesville trade when I go home and tell the brethren how slippery you be in a bargain.”

The man kep’ on bowin’ and smilin’ and I told Josiah, “I presoom he thinks you’re praisin’ him; he acts as if he did.” And Josiah stopped talkin’ in a minute. But howsumever he wouldn’t take the handkerchief.

Miss Meechim and I––and I spoze that Robert Strong wuz to the bottom of it––but ’tennyrate, we wuz invited to a harem to see a princess, wife of a pasha. Robert thought that we should like to see the inside of an Indian prince’s palace, and so we did.

Miss Meechim of course woudn’t consent to let Dorothy go anywhere nigh such a place, and I guess she disinfected her clothes before she see Dorothy when she got back; ’tennyrate, I see her winder up and her dress hangin’ over a chair. Arvilly didn’t want to go, and as she wuzn’t invited, it made it real convenient for her to not want to. And of course I couldn’t take my pardner. Why, that good, moral man would be flowed from by them wimmen as if he had the plague. Dorothy and Robert wuz a-goin’ to Heliopolis and offered to take Tommy with ’em. And Miss Meechim and I accordin’ly sot off alone.

The palace stood in beautiful grounds and is a noble-lookin’ building. We wuz met at the entrance to the garden by four handsome native girls with beautiful silk dresses on, handsome turbans, satin slippers and jewelry enough for a dozen wimmen.

They took our hands, each on us walkin’ between two on ’em, for all the world as if we wuz prisoners, till we got to the gates of the palace, and here two black males, dressed 259 as rich as a president or minister, met us, and four more gayly dressed female slaves.

These girls took Miss Meechim’s cape and my mantilly and laid ’em away. Then we went through a long hall and up a magnificent marble staircase, with a girl on each side on us agin jest as