Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (ebook reader android txt) đ
- Author: Marietta Holley
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And one afternoon when the sky wuz blue, the sun shone and the birds sung merrily, we went to that dretful place, the Paris morgue. There wuz a crowd before the doors, for the Seine had yielded a rich harvest that morninâ; there wuz five silent forms, colder than the marble they lay on, one a young woman with long hair falling about her white shoulders. Amongst the crowd that pressed forward to look at that unfortunate wuz a bent, haggard form that I thought I recognized. But if it wuz a father watching and waiting in dretful hope and still more dretful fear for the best beloved, 304 I couldnât tell, for the crowd pressed forward and he disappeared almost before I saw him. And I too wuz agitated, for when I catched sight of the clustering hair, the pretty rounded arms and form, an awful fear clutched my heart that I trembled like a popple leaf and I see Dorothy turn white as a sheet and Arvilly and Miss Meechim looked like them that sees a tragedy and so did Robert Strong and Josiah.
But a closter look made us know that it wuz no one that we ever see. It wuz not the dear one who wuz in our hearts day and night, it wuz not our sweet Aronette and it wuz not Lucia. Poor father! doomed to hunt in vain for her as long as his tremblinâ limbs could carry him to and fro under foreign skies and the sun and stars of his own land. Poor seekinâ eyes, turninâ away at the very last from visions of green pastures and still waters to look once more down the sin-cursed streets of earth for his heartâs treasure! Dying eyes, dim with a black shadow, blacker than the shadow of the Valley, cast from Agony and Sin, sold to the crazed multitude for its undoing by sane men for the silver of Judas. Love stronger than life, mightier than death, never to be rewarded here. But we read of a time of rewards for deeds done in the body. At whose dying beds will these black forms stand, whose shadows torment humanity, to claim their own and go out with them to their place they have prepared here for their soulâs dwelling? Hard question, but one that will have to be answered.
Robert Strong and Dorothy wanted to visit the Pantheon; specially the tomb of Victor Hugo. It is a great buildinâ with a dome that put me some in mind of our own Capitol at Washington, D. C. It is adorned with paintings and statutes by the most eminent artists and sculptors, and the mighty shades of the past seem to walk through the solemn aisles with us, specially before the statute of Victor Hugo. I felt considerable well acquainted with him, havinâ hearn Thomas J. read his books so much. And as I stood 305 there I had a great number of emotions thinkinâ what Victor had went through from his native land from first to last: abuse, persecutions, sent off and brung back, etc., and I thought of how his faithful âToiler of the Seaâ went through superhuman labors to end in disappintment at last. And Jean Valjean, the martyr, seemed to walk along in front of me patiently guardinâ and tendinâ little Cossette, who wuz to pierce his noble, steadfast heart with the sharpest thorn in the hull crown of thornsââingratitude, onrequited affection, and neglect.
And we stood before the Column Vendome and meditated on that great, queer creeter, Napoleon. Who but he would think of meltinâ the cannons he had took in battle from his enemies and makinâ a triumphal monument of âem a hundred and forty feet high, with his own figger on top.
Well, Miss Meechim wanted to see the Goblin tapestry, so we visited the Goblin manufactory. These tapestries are perfectly beautiful, fourteen thousand shades of wool are used in their construction. What would Sister Sylvester Bobbett say? She thought the colors in her new rag carpet went ahead of anything, and she didnât have moreân fourteen at the outside, besides black and but-nut color. But fourteen thousand colorsââthe idee!
Yes, we rid through the marvellously beautiful streets under triumphal arches and more warlike ones and visited all the most beautiful sights in the city and the adjacent country, and who do you spoze I met as I walked along in the Bois de Boulogne? It wuz the Princess Ulaly. The rest of our party wuz some little distance off and I wuz santerinâ along charmed with the beauty about me when who should I meet face to face but Ulaly. Yes, it wuz Ulaly Infanty.
I wuz highly tickled, for I considered her a likely young woman and sot store by her when I met her to home at the Worldâs Fair. She knowed me in a minute and seemed as glad to see me as I wuz her, and I sez to her most the first thing after the compliments wuz passed, âWho would have thought, Ulaly, when we parted in Chicago, U. S., that the next time we should meet would be in Paris?â
âYes, indeed!â sez she, âwho would have thought it.â And I went on to say, for I see she looked real deprested:
âUlaly, things hainât come out as I wanted âem to; I felt real bad about it after your folks sold their jewelry to help discover us. I dare presume to say they have been sorry 307 time and agin that they ever found us, and I wouldnât blame âem, for as Josiah sez to me:
ââWhere would we be to-day if it hadnât been for Columbus? Like enough we shouldnât been discovered at all.â Sez he, âMost probable we should be Injins.â But donât lay it to Josiah or me, Ulaly, we hainât to blame, we didnât do a thing to bring on the trouble. Of course we remembered the Maine some, we had to, and your folks couldnât blame us for it. Josiah and me felt real provoked and mortified to think that after folks had gin their jewelry to discover us they should blow us up in that way. But I sez to Josiah, âBecause three hundred are sent onprepared into eternity it hainât no reason three thousand should be.â We are great cases for peace, Josiah and I be, and would have managed most any way, even been run on some and imposed upon a little ruther than to have rushed into the onspeakable horrors of war.
âAnd I donât want you to blame William, either; he held onto the dogs of war with both hands a tryinâ to hold âem in.â
âWilliam?â sez she inquirinâly.
âYes, William McKinley, our President. He jest held onto them dogs till they wuz likely to tear him to pieces, then he had to leggo. Them dogs wuz jest inflamed by havinâ yellow literatoor shook in their faces, and yells from greedy politicians and time servers, till they wuz howlinâ mad and would have barked themselves blind if he hadnât leggo. But he didnât want to, William didnât, he wanted peace dreadfully.â And she said real sweet, that she knew he did.
âWell, it turned out jest as it did, Ulaly. But I think just as much of you as I did before you lost your propputy, and I dâno as the propputy Uncle Sam got hold of in the dicker is a goinâ to do him much good, not for quite a spell anyway. There is such a thing as beinâ land poor, taxes are heavy, hired help hainât to be relied on and the more you have the more you have to watch and take care on, though of course it is a pleasure to a certain set of faculties and 308 some particular bumps in your head, to own a path as you may say, most round the world, steppinâ off from California to Hawaii and then on to the Philippines, ready to step off from there, Heaven knows how fur or when or where. It is a pleasure to a certain part of your mind, but other parts of your head and heart hold back and donât cheer in the procession. But howsumever, Ulaly, that is neither here nor there. I hope your folks are so as to git round. I wuz sorry enough to hear that you and your pardner donât live agreeable. But though it is a pity, pardners have had spats from Eden to Chicago and I dâno but they always will. The trouble is they take pardners as boons instead of dispensations, and donât lean hard enough on scripter.
âBut this is not the time or place for sermons on how to be happy, though married. How is Christina and Alfonso? Iâm afraid heâs gittinâ obstropolous, and I dâno but Christina will have to give him a good spankinâ before she gits through. Of course, spankinâ a king seems quite a big job to tackle, and of course heâs pretty old for it. But it donât do to let children have their heads too much. One good spankinâ will strike in truth when reams of sermons and tearful expostulations will fail. You might just mention to Christina what Iâve said, and then she can do as she wants to with fear and tremblinâ.â
But I see my folks passinâ down a distant path, and I sez: âI will now bid you adoo, Ulaly, as time and Arvilly and Josiah are passinâ away.â She bid me a real pleasant good-by, and I withdrawed myself and jined my folks.
One day the hull of our party visited Fontainbleu and went through the apartments of kings and queens and popes and cardinals. The rooms of Napoleon wuz full of the thrilling interest that great leader always rousted up, and always will, I spoze, till historyâs pages are torn up and destroyed. And in the rooms of Marie Antoinette we see the lovely costly things gin to this beautiful queen when the people loved her, and she, as she slept under the beautiful draperies gin by 309 the people, never dreamed, I spoze, that the hands that wrought love and admiration into these fabrics would turn on her and rend her.
But Marie didnât do right. Carelessness, oppression, neglect of the peopleâs rights, a few grasping the wealth of the nation while the people suffer and starve, weave bloody colors into the warp and woof of life from Paris to New York and Washington, D. C., and so on to Jonesville. And we went through the apartments of Louis Philippe, Francis I., Louis XIII., etc., and Madam Maintenonâs apartments and Diana de Poyterâs, and seen her monogram decorating the apartment interwoven with the kingâs. I hated to see it, but couldnât do nothinâ to break it up at this late day. Miss Meechim walked through these apartments with her nose in the air, having sent Dorothy into the garden with Robert Strong and Tommy, and Arvilly wouldnât cross the thresholt, and I didnât blame her, though havinâ my lawful pardner by my side I ventered.
But Arvilly led off into the beautiful gardens, where we found her settinâ with Robert Strong and Dorothy and Tommy by the fountain.
We wanted to explore the forests of Fontainbleu, but only had time for a short drive through it, but found it most picturesque and beautiful what we see of it.
Beinâ such a case for freedom, Arvilly wanted to see the Column of July riz up on the site of the old prison of the Bastile. And I did, too. I felt considerable interested in this prison, havinâ seen the great key that used to lock up the prisoners at Mount Vernonââa present to our own George Washington from that brave Frenchman and lover of liberty, Lafayette.
A brave man held in lovinâ remembrance by our country, and I spoze always will be, as witness his noble statute gin by our school children to France this present year. That his statute and G. Washingtonâs should be gin to France by America, and that Josiah Allenâs wife and Josiah should 310 also be permitted to adorn their shores simeltaneous and to once, what a proud hour for France! Well might she put her best foot forrerd and act happy and hilarious!
But to resoom: The last afternoon of our stay in Paris, Arvilly and I went to see
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