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

the Lord to look down onto the poor heart of our afflicted sister, and send peace and comfort to her. It wuz a good prayer, but even in that solemn time come the thought: “If you and other church-members had voted as you prayed, Arvilly no need to be shet up there alone with her life agony.”

But it wuz no time to twit a pardner when we wuz both on our knees with our eyes shet, but when it come my turn I did say:

“O righteous God, do help good men everywhere to vote as they pray.”

Josiah said “Amen” quite loud, and mebby he duz mean to vote different. He voted license to help Jonesville, most of the bizness men of the town sayin’ that it would help bizness dretfully to have license. Well, it has helped the undertaker, the jail and the poorhouse.

Well, the next day Arvilly come down lookin’ white and peaked, but didn’t say anything about her eclipse; no, the darkness wuz too awful and solemn to talk about. But she showed me Waitstill’s letter. In it she said she had been for several days caring for a very sick woman for half the night, and at midnight she would go back to the hospital, and every night for a week she had seen a bent figure creeping along as if looking for something, payin’ no attention to anything only what he had in the searchin’ eyes of his mind.

It wuz Elder Wessel lookin’ for Lucia, so Waitstill said. It wuz Love waitin’ and lookin’ out, hoping and fearing. Poor father––poor girl! Both struck down by a blow from the Poor Man’s Club. She writ considerable about Jonesville news to Arvilly, knowin’, I spoze, how welcome it would be, and said she got it from Ernest White.

298

Wuz things comin’ out as I wanted ’em to come? My heart sung a joyful anthem right then and there. Oh, wouldn’t I be glad to see Ernest and Waitstill White settled down and happy and makin’ everybody round ’em happy in the dear persinks of Jonesville and neighbor with ’em!

Ernest White wrote to Waitstill how successful his Help Union was and how his dear young people wuz growin’ better and dearer to him every day.

And we talked about it how he wuz carryin’ everyday reason and common sense into Sunday religion. Sez Arvilly, “He teaches young voters that while prayers are needful and necessary, votes are jest as needful, for bad or careless votin’ destroys all the good that Christian effort duz, all that prayer asks for and gits from a pityin’ God. Every saloon is shet up in Loontown and folks flock to hear him from as fur off as Zoar and the town of Lyme. He don’t have standin’-room in his meetin’-house, let alone settin’-room, and they have got to put on an addition.”

And I sez agin what I had often said before, “What a object lesson Elder White’s work in Jonesville is, and how plainly it teaches what I have always known, that nothin’ can stand aginst the united power of the church of Christ, and if Christian folks banded together and voted as they prayed, the Saloon, the Canteen, the Greedy Trusts, the licensed house of shame, monument of woman’s disgrace, would all have to fall.”

“But they won’t do it,” sez Arvilly in a mad cross axent. “They’ll keep right on preachin’ sermons against wrong and votin’ to sustain it, if they vote at all. Gamblin’ for bed-quilts and afghans to git money to send woollen clothin’ to prespirin’ heathens in torrid countries, while our half-clad and hungry poor shiver in the cold shadder of their steeples oncared for and onthought on.”

I sez, “Don’t be so hash, Arvilly; you know and I know that the church has done and is doin’ oncounted good. And 299 they’re beginnin’ to band themselves together to help on true religion and goodness and peace.”

“Well,” sez Arvilly, “I should think it wuz time they did!”

I see a deep shadder settlin’ down on her eye-brow, and I knowed she wuz a thinkin’ of what she had went through.

Well, the next day we sot out for Paris, via Marseilles. We had a pleasant trip up the beautiful blue Mediterranean, a blue sky overhead, a blue sea underneath. Once we did have quite a storm, makin’ the ship rock like a baby’s cradle when its ma is rockin’ it voylent to git it to sleep.

I wuzn’t sea-sick at all nor Tommy, but my poor companion suffered, and so did many of the passengers. There wuz a young chap who wuz the picture of elegance when he come aboard, and dretful big feelin’ I should judge from his looks and acts. But, oh, how low sea-sickness will bring the hautiest head! I see him one day leanin’ up agin the side of the ship lookin’ yeller and ghastly. His sleek clothes all neglected lookin’, his hat sot on sideways, and jest as I wuz passin’ he wuz sayin’ to the aristocratic lookin’ chap he wuz travellin’ with:

“For Heaven’s sake, Aubrey, throw me overboard!”

His mean wuz wild, and though I didn’t like his words I made excuses for him, knowin’ that mankind wuz as prone to rampage round in sickness and act as sparks are to fly up chimbly. But, take it as a whole, we had a pleasant voyage.

We only made a short stay in Marseilles, but long enough to drive round some and see the most noted sights of the city, which is the principal seaport of France.

On the northern part is the old town with narrer windin’ streets and middlin’ nasty and disagreeable, but interestin’ because the old Roman ramparts are there and a wonderful town hall. A magnificent avenue separates the old part from the new, a broad, beautiful street extendin’ in a straight line 300 the hull length of the city. Beyend is the Prado, a delightful sea-side promenade.

The new city is built round the port and rises in the form of an amphitheatre; the hills all round are covered with beautiful gardens, vineyards, olive groves and elegant country houses. Just acrost from the harbor is the old chateau where Mirabeau wuz imprisoned, poor humbly creeter! but smart. He didn’t do as he’d ort to by his wife, and Mary Emily realized it and wouldn’t make up with him, though he argued his case powerful in their lawsuit. But he wuz a smart soldier and writ quite eloquent things. He stood for the rights of the people as long as he could, till they got too obstropulous, as they sometimes will when they git to goin’. But I presoom he did desire his country’s good. His poor body wuz buried with pomp and public mourning, and then a few years after taken up and laid with criminals. But good land! he’d got beyend it all. He had gone to his place wherever it wuz, and it didn’t make any difference to him where the outgrown garment of his body wuz.

But to resoom: The Cathedral is quite a noble lookin’ edifice, built so I hearn, on the spot where a temple once stood where they worshipped Diana; not Diana Henzy, Deacon Henzy’s sister. Josiah thought I meant her when I spoke on’t, and said the idee of anybody worshippin’ that cranky old maid, but as I told him it wuz another old maid or bachelor maid, as I spoze she ort to be called, some years older than Diana Henzy. Sez I, “This Diana wuz a great case to live out-doors in groves and mountains.” Sez I, “Some say she was the daughter of Zeus, and twin of Apollo.”

And Josiah said them two wuz nobody he ever neighbored with.

And I sez, “No, you hain’t old enough.” And that tickled him; he duz love to be thought young.

There is a French Protestant church, where the English residents worship, and churches and synagogues where other sects meet.

301

We went to an Arab school, a museum, library and botanical garden, where we see beautiful native and foreign trees and shrubs and flowers. It has a splendid harbor, consisting of at least two hundred acres. The manufactures are principally glass, porcelain, morocco and other leathers, soap, sugar, salt, etc., etc. The city has had many ups and downs, plagues, warfares, sieges and commotions, but seems quite peaceful now.

Mebby it put its best foot forrerd and tried to behave its very best because we wuz there. Naterally they would, comin’ as we did from Jonesville, the pride and centre of the Universe and America.

But ’tennyrate everything seemed peaceful and composed.

We only stayed there two days of rest and sightseeing and then rest agin, and then sot sail for Paris.

Our first mornin’ in Paris dawned clear and beautiful. It was the Fourth of July. ’Tain’t often I do it, but I put my cameo pin on before breakfast, thinkin’ that I could not assume too much grandeur for the occasion. The pin wuz clasped over a little bow of red, white and blue, and in that bow and gray alpacky dress I looked exceedingly well and felt so.

Josiah put on a neck-tie bearin’ all the national colors, with more flamin’ stars on it, I guess, than we’ve got States, but I didn’t censure him, knowin’ his motives wuz good.

We all had comfortable rooms in the tarven. Arvilly wuz dressed in black throughout; I hinted to her she ort to wear some badge in honor of the day, and she retired to her room and appeared with a bow made of black lute string ribbin and crape. I felt dretful. I sez, “Arvilly, can’t you wear sunthin’ more appropriate to the occasion?”

Sez she, “I know what I am about,” and her looks wuz such that I dassent peep about it. But mebby she meant it for mournin’ for her pardner. I dassent ask. Josiah wuz readin’ his Guide Book as earnest as he ever searched the 302 Skripters, and he sez, with his finger markin’ the place, “Where shall we go first?”

Of course, we all wanted to visit the most noted sights of Paris. And all on us fell in love with the gay, bright, beautiful, happy city––though Josiah fell in with French ways more than I did, owin’ to his constant strivin’s after fashion. Why, I didn’t know but he would git to drinkin’ whilst he wuz there, observin’ the French custom of drinkin’ their light wines at their meals.

He intimated that he should most probable have cider on the table in bottles when he got home. “You know,” sez he, “that there is a hull box of old medicine bottles to the barn.”

But I told him that nothin’ stronger than root beer, made by my own hands out of pignut and sassparilla, should ever be sot on my table. But I may see trouble with him in that way. Whilst we wuz talkin’ about it, I brung up to illustrate the principles I wuz promulgatin’, the ivory tankard Arvilly pinted out to us in the American exhibit.

It wuz a big ivory tankard holdin’ enough liquor to intoxicate quite a few. Two big, nasty, wreathin’ snakes (signifyin’ the contents on’t in my mind) dominated one side and made the handle, and held the laurel wreath surroundin’ it (signifyin’ office-holders, so I spozed), in its big hungry mouth. On top of the hull thing stood a rarin’ angry brute, illustratin’ the cap-stun and completed mission of the whiskey bottle.

Arvilly talked more’n half an hour to Miss Meechim about it, and I wuz glad on’t.

But when I brung that up, Josiah waved the subject off with a shrug of his shoulders in the true French way, though a little too voyalent.

I had ketched him practicin’ that movement of the shoulders before the glass. He had got so he could do it first rate, I had to own to myself, though I hated to see him practise it so much, mistrustin’ that it wuz liable to bring on his rumatiz.

303

And I see in a letter he writ home: “Be sure, Ury, and weed the jardin, specially the onions,” and he ended the letler: “Oh revwar, mon ammy.”

I knowed that it would make Ury crazy as a hen, and Philury, too, wonderin’ what it meant, but couldn’t break it up. But speakin’ of “jardins,” we went to several on ’em, the last one we see the most beautiful seemin’ly of the lot. Jardin de Luxemburg Palais Royal, Tuilleries, Acclimation, Jardin des Plantes. There are hundreds of ’em scattered through the city, beautiful with flowers and shrubbery and statutes and fountains and kept in most beautiful order and bloom at public expense.

And we visited cathedrals, missions, churches, museums, the sewers, libraries, went through the galleries of the Louvre––milds and milds of beauty and art, as impossible to describe as to count the leaves in Josiah’s sugar-bush or the slate stuns in the Jonesville creek, and as numerous as if every one of them leaves and slate