Samantha at the World's Fair by Marietta Holley (little readers .TXT) 📖

If there wuz nothin' else to the World's Fair but jest that wheel, it would pay well to go clear from Jonesville to Chicago to see it. It stands up aginst the sky like a huge spider-web. It is two hundred and fifty feet in diameter—jest one wheel; think of that! As wide as twenty full-sized city houses—the idee! And there are thirty-six cars hitched to it, and sixty persons can ride in each car. So you can figger it out jest how much that huge spider-web catches when it gits in motion. Wall, my feelin's when I wuz a-bein' histed up through the air wuz about half and half[Pg 621]—half sublimity and orr as I looked out on the hull glory of the world spread at my feet, and Lake Michigan, and everything—

That part wuz clear riz up and noble, and then the other half wuz a skittish feelin' and a-wonderin' whether the tacklin' would give way, and we should descend with a smash.

But the fifty-nine other people in the car with me didn't seem to be afraid, and I thought of the thirty-five other cars, all full, and a-swingin' up in the air with me; and the thought revived me some, and I managed to maintain my dignity and composure.

Josiah acted real highlarious, and he wanted to swing round time and agin; he said "he would give a cent to keep a-goin' all day long."

But I frowned on the idee, and I hurried him off by the model of the Eiffel Tower into Persia.

There it wuz agin, my pardner and I a-travellin' in Persia—the very same Persia that our old Olney's gography had told us about years and years ago—a-visitin' it our own selves.

I see the bazaars and booths all filled with the costliest laces, and rugs, and embroideries, and the Persians themselves a-sellin' 'em.

[Pg 622]

But Josiah hurried me along at a fearful rate, for I had got my eye onto some lace that I wanted.

I did not want to be extravagant, but I did want some of that lace; I thought how it would set off that night-cap.

But he said "that Jonesville lace wuz good enough if I had got to have any; but," sez he, "I don't wear lace on my night-cap."

"No," sez I; "how lace would look on a red woollen night-cap!"

"Wall," sez he, "why don't you wear red woollen ones?"

Sez I, "Josiah, you're not a woman."

"No," sez he; "you wouldn't catch a man goin' to Persia for trimmin' for a night-cap."

His axents jarred onto me, and mechanically I follered him into the Moorish Palace.

One reason why I follered him so meekly and willin'ly, I didn't know but he would broach the subject of seein' them Persian wimmen dance.

And I felt that I would ruther give a hull churnin' of fall's butter than to have his moral old mind contaminated with the sight.

For they do say, them who have seen the sight, that "them Persian dancin' girls carry dancin' clear to the very verge of ondecency, and drop way off over the verge."

[Pg 623]

I see lots of wimmen comin' out with their fan held before their blushin' faces.

They say that wimmen fairly enjoy a-goin' in there to be horrified.

They go day after day, they say, so to come out all horrified up, and their faces bathed in blushes.

The men didn't come out at all, so they said.

Wall, Josiah Allen didn't git in—no, indeed. I remembered the Jonesville meetin'-house, our pasture, and the grandchildren, and kept 'em before him all the time, so I tided him over that crisis.

Now, I never had paid any attention to the Moors, and Josiah hadn't; we never had had any to neighbor with, and I felt that I wuzn't acquainted with 'em at all, unless of course I had a sort of bowin' acquaintance, as it wuz, with that one old Moor in my Olney's gography in my school-days.

And what I'd seen of him didn't seem to make me hanker after any further acquaintance with him.

But when I see that Palace of theirn I felt overwhelmed with shame and regret to think I'd always slighted 'em so, and never had made any overtoors towards becomin' intimate with 'em.

The outside on't wuz splendid enough to almost take your breath, with its strange and gorgeous magnificence. It wuz sech a contrast in its construction to the Exposition Buildin's that lift their domes in such glory on the East.

[Pg 624]

But if the outside struck a blow onto our admiration and astonishment, what—what shall I say of the inside?

Why, as I entered that magnificent arched vestibule, with my faithful pardner by my side, and my good cotton umbrell grasped in my right hand, the view wuz pretty nigh overwhelmin' in its profusion of orniment and gorgeous decoration.

That first look seemed to take me back to Spain right out of Chicago, and other troubles. I wuz a-roamin' there with Mr. Washington Irving, and Mr. Bancroft, and other congenial and descriptive minds, and surrounded with the gorgeous picters of that old time.

I wuz back, I should presoom to say, as much, if not more, than four hundred years, when all to once I was recalled by my companion.

"Dum it, I didn't know they charged folks for goin' to meetin'!"

"Hush!" sez I; "this is not a meetin'-house, this is a palace; be calm!"

And comin' down through the centuries as sudden as if jerked by a electric lasso of lightnin', I see that old familiar sight of a man a-settin' a-sellin' tickets.

And Josiah with a deep sithe paid our fares, and we meandered onwards.

[Pg 625]

Right beyend the ticket man, to the right on him, wuz a colonnade runnin' round a circular room covered with a ruff in the shape of a tent. The ceilin' and walls are covered with landscape views of Southern Spain, and a mandolin orchestra carried out the idee of a Andulusian Garden.

And then comes a labyrinth of columns and mirrors, and through 'em and round 'em and up overhead wuz splendor on splendor of orniment, gorgeousness on gorgeousness.

These columns are made to put one in mind of the Alhambria, where we so often strayed with our friend Washington Irving.

Josiah paid our fares.

And oh, what curious feelin's it did make me have to cast my eyes onwards amongst these splendid arches and pillows, and see anon or oftener a tall Moor, with his long robe and his white turban, or whatever they call it, a-fallin' round his face!

And then another and another of the white-robed figgers, a-glidin' round in amongst the arches, or a-settin' there in a vista of gorgeousness, like ghosts of the past come to visit the Columbus Fair.

Way beyend the labyrinths, and to the left on't, is the Palm Garden, with loun[Pg 626]ging places for three or four hundred visitors, and a Moorish orchestra hid by a cluster of branchin' palms, and Arab attendants in native costumes.

And then there wuz grottoes and fountains lit by electric lights, and groups of statuary illustratin' famous historical seens.

And right here, while the past wuz a-pressin' so clost to us, that we wuz almost took back there in the body—our minds wuz there, way, way back—

When sudden, swift, wuz we brung back from the past—brung back to conscientousness, as it were, by two forms and two voices.

Here of all places in the world, in the heart of a Moorish palace, did my eyes fall upon the faces of Bizer Dagget, and Selinda, his wife.

And I sez, as my eyes fell from the contemplation of art-decked freeze and fretted archways onto the old familar freckled face, and green alpaca dress, and Bizer's meek sandy whiskers, and pepper-and-salt suit—

Sez I, "Whyee, Selinda and Bizer, is it you? How do you do? When did you git here? You didn't lay out to come when we started."

"No," sez Selinda; "you know jest how it wuz, you know we had his folks to take care on, and Father Dagget wuz so helpless that we had to lift him round. And we shouldn't been[Pg 627] able to git here at all, only Father had a severe fall out o' bed one night in the dead of night. He wuz all alone, and skairt—so we spoze—and that fall took him off on the second day.

"And as quick as we could git ready we sot off here.

"Whyee! Selinda and Bizer, is it you?"

"It didn't seem really right, but you know Father hain't known anything for upwards of two years, and you know jest how bad we did want to come here.

"But I don't know as it wuz exactly right to come off so soon after he fell. I spoze it will make talk, I spoze his folks will talk, and the Jonesvillians."

"But," I sez, for I wanted to comfort her—she's a good creeter—

Sez I, "Columbus had to wait before he sot out to discover us, till Grenada fell, and that made talk." Sez I, "Probable Columbuses folks talke[Pg 628]d as much as Bizer's folks will. But," sez

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