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

from there wuz sublime and you couldn’t realize the beauty of the cathedral until you saw it from that place where you seemed to stand in a forest of beautifully carved white marble. But I sez to ’em, “I can believe every word you say without provin’ it.”

I never could have stood it to clumb so high, but they said you could see way off the Appenines, the Alps, Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, a wonderful view. The cathedral is full of monuments to kings and queens and saints and high church dignitaries. Its carving, statuary, fret work is beyend description. It is said to be the most beautiful in the world and I shouldn’t wonder, ’tennyrate it goes fur, fur beyend the M. E. meetin’-house in Jonesville or Zoar or Loontown.

Milan has beautiful picture galleries, and Miss Meechim and Arvilly and I wuz restin’ in one one day, for we wuz tired out sightseein’, when a young man and woman swep’ by, both on ’em with glasses stuck in their eyes, richly dressed and she covered with jewels, and their wuz a maid carryin’ wraps and a cushion, and a man carryin’ two camp-chairs, and a tall, slim tutor follerin’ with a little boy.

I d’no as the Queen of Sheba and Mr. Sheba could have travelled with any more pomp if they had took it into their heads to come to Jonesville the Fourth of July. They didn’t seem to be payin’ any attention to the pictures, though they wuz perfectly beautiful. There wuz a group of titled people that had been pinted out to us, and their eyes wuz glued on them, and they seemed to be kinder followin’ ’em round. They gin Miss Meechim a cool, patronizin’ nod as they went by, and she gurgled and overflowed with joy over it.

She said they wuz the Mudd-Weakdews, of Sacramento, Rev. Mr Weakdew’s only child, and they wuz on their way home from Paris; he had married Augusta Mudd, a millionairess. “They are so exclusive, so genteel!” sez Miss Meechim, “they will not associate with anybody but the very first. He wuz a college mate of Robert’s and so different from him,” sez she.

317

“Yes,” sez I, in a real dry tone, “I spoze he is, he looks different anyway.”

“He is engaged in the same occupation Robert is,” sez Miss Meechim, “and he would no more do as Robert does than he would fly. He keeps his workmen down in their place. Now Robert sells them land at a cheap rate and encourages a building association amongst the workmen, so most all of them own their own houses and gardens, and they cultivate fruits and flowers, making their homes look more like a genteel, wealthy person’s than a laborer’s; it makes them independent as you please, heads right up, lookin’ you right in the face, as if they wuz your equals. Mudd-Weakdew don’t let them own an inch of land; they live in tenements that he owns and they pay high rents. The houses are laborers’ rooms, not genteel and comfortable as their employer’s. He says that he makes as much out of the rent of these houses as he does from his factory, for I must say that Robert’s workmen do more work and better. But the Mudd-Weakdews live like a prince on a broad, tree-shaded avenue with a long row of tenement houses on the alley back of it, separated from the poor, and what I consider a genteel, proper way.

“Of course his workmen complain that they do all the work and he lives in a palace and they in a hovel, that he is burdened with luxuries and is hoarding up millions, whilst they labor through their half-starved lives and have the workhouse to look forward to. So unreasonable! How can the poor expect the genteel pleasures of the wealthy, and when their houses are low and old and the walls mouldy and streets narrow and filthy and no gardens, and ten or fifteen in one room, they ought not to expect the comfort and pure air of four people in one great house set in a park. But such people can’t reason.”

“Who is the fourth?” sez I coldly, for I despised her idees.

“They have a little girl older than Augustus and very 318 different from him. Little Augustus is naturally very aristocratic and they encourage him to look down on the tenement children and be sharp to them, for they know that he will have to take the reins in his hands and control rebellious workmen just as his pa does now, and conquer them just as you would a ugly horse or dog.”

“How is the little girl different?” sez I in cold, icy axents.

“Oh, she is a perfect beauty, older than Augustus and at boarding-school now. She is the idol of their hearts––even the workmen love her, she is so gentle and sweet. Her parents adore her and expect that she will unite them to the nobility, for she is as beautiful as an angel.

“Little Augustus was terribly frightened just before we sailed, his grand-pa told me; one of them impudent workmen who had been sick and out of work for a spell rushed up to little Augustus, who was feeding cakes to his pony and Italian greyhound, and demanded him to give him some. The man’s fierce looks was such that Augustus dropped the cakes and ran away to his tutor. The man had the impudence to pick up the pieces and rush away with them, muttering that his own boy was dying for want of food, while this boy was throwing it away. What business was it to him, I would like to know. The man was turned off, I believe. Mudd-Weakdew will stand no impudence; he builds up a wall of separation between himself and them that can’t be broke down, just as he has a right to.”

Sez I, “Mebby it can’t be broke down, but the wrongs and sufferin’s of one class is apt to react on the other.”

“But it cannot here,” sez she, “for Mudd-Weakdew is not like Robert, mingling with his workmen, breaking down the wall of separation, that always has and I believe always should exist between the genteel wealthy and the poor.”

“Well,” sez I, “time will tell.” And she went on.

“You ought to see the elegance of their house, thirty house servants and Robert has only two; and won’t let them 319 be called servants; he calls them helpers. Oh, they are so genteel! they mingle with the very first, and Robert might do just so, but he actually seems happier amongst his workmen trying to make them happier than he does with the titled aristocracy. Mudd-Weakdew would no more mingle with his workmen as Robert does, than he would fly.”

I murmured onbeknown to myself, “The poor received Him gladly;” “Except ye do these things ye cannot be my disciples.” And I sez to Miss Meechim, “How would the Mudd-Weakdews receive the carpenter’s Son if he should stop at their gate some afternoon while they wuz givin’ a garden party to nobility. If Jesus should enter there with his chosen companions, the fishermen and the poor, all dusty from weary walks and barefooted; if he should look through their luxury to the squalid homes beyend with reproach and sorrow in his divine face, how would they greet him?”

Miss Meechim said she didn’t really know, they wuz so very, very exclusive, but she felt that they would act genteel anyway. “And,” sez she, “they worship in a magnificent church built by millionaires and used by them almost exclusively, for of course poor people wouldn’t feel at home there amongst the aristocracy.”

But Arvilly said––I guess she had to say it––“Yes, they kneel and worship the Christ they crucified while they tromple on his teachings; hypocrites and Pharisees, the hull caboodle on ’em, Rev. Weakdew and all!” I d’no but Arvilly wuz too hash, but mebby my groans spoke as loud as her words; I felt considerable as she did and she knowed it.

“Oh! oh!” Miss Meechim fairly squeeled the words out, “Rev. Weakdew is very thoughtful and charitable to the poor always. I have wept to hear him tell of their home above, right in with the rich you know, mingling with them; I have heard him say it, exclusive as he and his family is, and how after starvation here how sweet the bread of life would seem to them.”

“In my opinion,” sez Arvilly, “he better spend his 320 strength tryin’ to feed ’em on earth; when they git to that country the Lord can take care on ’em.”

“Oh, he always has a collection taken up for the poor, Christmas and Easter, and his congregation is very charitable and give largely in alms and make suppers for the poor, Christmas, almost as good as the wealthy enjoy.”

Sez Arvilly, “You can’t put out the ragin’ fires of a volcano with a waterin’ pot; it will keep belchin’ out for all of that little drizzle; that seethin’ kaldron of fire and ashes would have to be cleaned out and the hull lay of the land changed in order to stop it. What good duz it do to scatter a few loaves of bread to the hungry while the Liquor Power and the mills of Monopoly are grindin’ out hundreds and thousands of tramps and paupers every year?”

Sez Miss Meechim, “the poor ye shall always have with you.”

“We don’t read,” sez Arvilly, “of Martha Washington having to feed tramps nor labor riots and strikers in the time of Jefferson. No, it wuz when our republic begun to copy the sampler of old nations’ luxury, aristocracy and enormous wealth for the few and poverty and starvation for the many. Copyin’ the old feudal barons and thieves who used to swoop down on weaker communities and steal all their possessions, only they gained by force what is gained now by corrupt legislation. Anybody would think,” sez Arvilly, “that as many times as that sampler has been soaked in blood, and riddled by bullets, our country wouldn’t want to foller it, but they do down to the smallest stitch on’t and how can they hope to escape their fate? They can’t!” sez Arvilly.

“But,” I sez, “they can’t unless they turn right round in their tracts. But I am a good deal in hopes they will,” sez I; “I am hopin’ that Uncle Sam will foller my advice and the advice of other wellwishers of the human race––I see signs on’t.”

“Well,” sez Arvilly, “you have fursightener specs than I have, if you can see it.”

321

And I sez, “You lay your ear to the ground, Arvilly, and you’ll hear the sound of a great approachin’ army. It is the ranks of the Workers for Humanity with voice and pen, with wealth and influence, the haters of hate, lovers of love, breakers of shams and cruelties in creeds, political and social life and customs. Destroyers of unjust laws, true helpers of the poor. It is them that try to foller Christ’s mission and give liberty to the bound, sight to the blind. That great throng is growin’ larger, every hour, the stiddy, stiddy tromplin’ of their feet sounds nearer and nearer.” And I sez in a rapt way, “Whilst you are listenin’ to ’em, Arvilly, listen, upward and you’ll hear the sound of wings beatin’ the air. The faint music, not of warlike bugles, but the sweet song of Peace. It comes nigher, it is the white winged cohort of angels comin’ down to jine the workers for humanity and lead ’em to victory, and their song is jest the same they sung when Christ the Reformer wuz born, ‘Peace on earth, goodwill to men.’”

Sez Miss Meechim, “I guess you hear the crowd on the avenue going home, and it is really time to go; it would not look genteel to stay longer.”

I looked at her, and through her, and smiled a deep forgivin’ smile for I thought she wuz a foreigner, how could she understand.