my idee had been to git boarded up in a private house. And I had my eye
(my mind’s eye) upon who was willin’ and glad to board us. The Editor of
the Auger’ses wife’s sister’s husband’s cousin boarded folks for a
livin’—she was a Dickey and married to a Lampheare. The Editor of the
Auger’ses wife told me early in the spring, that if _she_ went, she
should go through the Sentinal to her sisters’, and she happened to
mention Miss Lampheare and the fact that she boarded up folks for a
livin’. So when we decided to go, I told her when she wrote to her
sister to ask her, to ask Miss Lampheare if she was willin’ to board
Josiah and me, and how much she would ask for the boards. She wrote
back; her terms was moderate and inside of our means, and my mind was at
rest. I almost knew that Josiah would want to throw himself onto his
relatives through the Sentinal, but the underpinnin’ was no firmer and
rockier under our horse barn than the determination of her that was
Samantha Smith, not to encamp upon a 2nd cousin. We had quite a lot of
relations a livin’ out to Filadelfy—though we never seen ’em,—sort o’
distant, such as 2nd cousins, and so 4th, till they dwindled out of
bein’ any relations at all; descendants of the Daggets and
Kidds,—Grandmother Allen was a Kidd—no relation of old Captain Kidd. No!
if any of his blood had been in my Josiah’s veins, I would have bled him
myself if I had took a darnin’ needle to it. No! the Kidd’ses are likely
folks as I have heerd—and Josiah was rampant to go to cousin Sam Kidds
(a Captain in the late war), through the Sentinal. But again I says to
him calmly but firmly:
“No! Josiah Allen, no! anything but bringin’ grief and trouble onto
perfect strangers jest because they happened to be born second cousin to
you, unbeknown to ’em;” and I repeated with icy firmness—for I see he
was a hankerin’ awfully,—“Josiah Allen I will not encamp upon Captain
Kidd through the Sentinal.”
No! Miss Lampheare was my theme, and my gole, and all boyed up with hope
we arrove at her dwellin’ place. Miss Lampheare met us at the door
herself. She was a tall spindlin’ lookin’ woman, one that had seen
trouble—for she had always kep’ boarders, and had had four husbands, and
buried ’em in a row, her present one bein’ now in a decline. When I told
her who I was, she met me with warmth and said that any friend of she
that was Alminy Dickey was dear to her. But friendship, let it be ever
so ardent can not obtain cream from well water, or cause iron bedsteads
to stretch out like Injy Rubber. She had expected us sooner, if we come
at all, and her house was overflowin’—every bed, lounge, corner and
cupboard, being occupied, and the buro and stand draws made up nightly
for childern.
What _was_ we to do? Night would soon let down her cloudy mantilly upon
Josiah and me, and what was to become of us. Miss Lampheare seemed to
pity us, and she directed us to a friend of hers; that friend was full;
he directed us to another friend; that friend was overflowin’. And so it
went on till we was almost completely tired out. At last Josiah come out
of a house, where he had been seekin’ rest and findin’ it not; says he:
“They said mebby we could git a room at the ‘Grand Imposition Hotel.’”
So we started off there, Josiah a scoldin’ every step of the way, and a
sayin’:
“I told you jest how it would be, we ort to have gone to Captain
Kidd’s.”
I didn’t say nothin’ back on the outside for I see by his face that it
was no time for parley. But my mind was firm on the inside, to board in
grocery stores, and room under my umberell, before I threw myself onto a
perfect stranger through the Sentinal.
But a recital of our agony of mind and body will be of little interest
to the gay, and only sadden the tender hearted; and suffice it to say in
a hour’s time, we was a follerin’ the hired man to a room in the “Grand
Imposition Hotel.”
Our room was good enough, and big enough for Josiah and me to turn round
in it one at a time. It had a bed considerable narrer, but good and
healthy—hard beds are considered healthy, by the best of doctors—a
chair, a lookin’ glass, and a wash-stand. Josiah made a sight of fun of
that, because it didn’t have but three legs.
But says I firmly, “That is one more than _you_ have got Josiah Allen.”
I wouldn’t stand none of his foolin’.
The room bein’ pretty nigh to the ruff,—_very_ nigh on the
backside,—Josiah complained a sight about hittin’ his head ag’inst the
rafters. I told him to keep out then where he belonged, and not go to
prowlin’ round at the foot of the bed.
“Where _shall_ I go to Samantha,” says he in pitiful axents. “I let you
have the chair, and what will become of me, if I don’t set somewhere, on
the bed, or sunthin’.”
“Well,” says I mildly, “less try to make the best of things. It haint
reasonable to expect to be to home and on a tower at the same time,
simultaneous.”
When we eat supper we had a considerable journey to the dinin’ room,
which looked a good deal on the plan of Miss Astor’ses, with lots of
colored folks a goin’ round, a waitin’ on the hungry crowd. I didn’t see
the woman of the house—mebby she was laid up with a headache, or had
gone out for an afternoon’s visit—but the colored waiters seemed to be
real careful of her property; they’d catch a tea-spoon right out of
their pocket and put it in your tea; she couldn’t have kep’ a closer
grip on her tea-spoons herself.
I can truly say without stretchin’ the truth the width of a horse hair,
that the chamber-maid was as cross as a bear, for every identical thing
I asked her for was a extra—she couldn’t do it without extra pay, but
she did git me some ice water once, without askin’ me a cent extra for
it. After we got to bed Josiah would lay and talk. He would speak out
all of a sudden:
“Grand Imposition Hotel!”
And I’d say, “What of it, what if it is?”
And then he’d say: “They have got a crackin’ good name, Samantha. I love
to see names that mean sunthin’.” And then he’d ask me if I remembered
the song about Barbara Allen, and if it would hurt my feelin’s if he
should lay and sing a verse of it to me, the bed put him in mind of it
so.
I asked him what verse—but there was that in my tone that made him say
no more about singin’—he said it was the verse where Barbara wanted her
mother to have her coffin made “long and narrer.” And then he’d begin
again about the pillers, and say how he wished he had brought a couple
of feathers from home, to lay on, so he could have got some rest. He had
pulled out a little wad of cotton-battin’ before we went to bed to
convince me of their ingredents.
But I says to him: “Josiah Allen, a easy conscience can rest even on
cotton-battin’ pillers,” and I added in awful meanin’ tones, “_I_ am
sleepy, Josiah Allen, and want to go to sleep. It is time,” says I with
dignity, “that we was both reposin’ in the arms of Morphine.”
Nothin’ quells him down quicker than to have me talk in a classical high
learnt way, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep. But though, as I
told Josiah, my conscience was at rest and I felt sleepy, the musquitoes
was _dretful_, and I don’t know as a guilty conscience could roust
anybody up much more, or gall anybody more fearfully. They was truly
tegus. And then the partition bein’ but thin, I could hear folks a
walkin’ all night—and take it with their trampin’ and the musquitoes
payin’ so much attention to me, I never got no good sleep ’till most
mornin’; but _then_ I got a good nap, and felt considerable chirk when I
got up. We eat our breakfast in pretty good season and laid out to git a
early start.
I didn’t have but one drawback worth mentionin’ and that was, I had lost
one eye out of my specks somewhere on our way from Melankton Spicer’ses,
and I told Josiah I felt mortified, after I had lotted so on seein’ the
Sentinal, to think I had got to see him with one eye out; says he: “I
guess you’ll see enough with _one_ eye before night.”
Then I put on my things and we sot sail. It was a lovely mornin’ though
considerable warm, and I felt well, and almost gay in spirits as we
wended our way on our long and tegus journey from our room to the
outside of the house; (we was goin’ to walk afoot to the Sentinal, the
distance bein’ but short and triflin’) but at last we reached the
piazza, and emerged into the street; I see that every man, woman and
child was there in that identical street, and I thought to myself, there
haint no Sentinal to-day, and everybody has come out into this street
for a walk. I knew it stood to reason that if there _had_ been a
Sentinal there would have been one or two men or wimmin attendin’ to it,
and I knew that every man woman and child on the hull face of the globe
was right there before me, and behind me, and by the side of me, and
fillin’ the street full, walkin’ afoot, and up in big covered wagons,
all over ’em, on the inside, and hangin’ on to the outside, as thick as
bees a swarmin’. Some of the horses was hitched ahead of each other, I
s’pose so they could slip through the crowd easier. I couldn’t see the
village hardly any owin’ to the crowd a crushin’ of me; but from what
little I _did_ see, it was perfectly beautiful. I see they had fixed up
for us, they had whitewashed all their door-steps, and winderblinds,
white as snow, and trimmed the latter all off with black ribbin strings.
Everything looked lovely and gay, and I thought as I walked along,
Jonesville couldn’t compare with it for size and grandeur. I was a
walkin’ along, crowded in body, but happy in mind, when all of a sudden
a thought come to me that goared me worse than any elbo or umberell that
had pierced my ribs sense we sot out from the tarvern. Thinks’es I all
of a sudden; mebby they have put off the Sentinal ’till I come: mebby I
have disappointed the Nation, and belated ’em, and put ’em to trouble.
This was a sad thought and wore on my mind considerable, and made me
almost forget for the time bein’ my bodily sufferin’s as they pushed me
this way and that, and goared me in the side with parasols and
umberells, and carried off the tabs of my mantilly as far as they would
go in every direction, and shoved, and stamped, and crowded. I declare I
was tore to pieces in mind and body, when I arrove at last at the
entrance to the grounds. The crowd was fearful here, and the yells of
different kinds was distractive; one conceited little creeter catched
right holt of the tabs of my mantilly, and yelled right up in my face:
“Wont you have a guide? Buy a guide mom to the Sentinal.” And seven or
eight others was a yellin’ the same thing to me, the impudent creeters;
I jest turned round and faced the one that had got holt of my cape, and
says I:
“Leggo of my tabs!”
He wouldn’t leggo; he stood and yelled out right up in my face, “Buy a
guide, you haint got no guide!”
Says I with dignity, “Yes I have; duty is my guide and also Josiah; and
now,” says I firmly, “if you don’t leggo of my tabs, I’ll _make_ you
leggo.” My mean skairt him; he leggo, and I follered on after my Josiah;
but where _was_ Josiah? I couldn’t see him; in tusslin with that
impudent creeter over my cape, my companion had got carried by the crowd
out of my sight. Oh! the agony of that half a moment; I turned and says
to a policeman in almost agonizin’ tones:
“Where is my Josiah?”
He looked very polite at me, and says he:
“I don’t know.”
Says I, “Find him for me instantly! Have you the heart to stand still
and see husbands and wives parted away from each other? Have you any
principle about you? Have you got entirely out of pity?”
Says he with the same polite look, “I don’t know.”
“Have you a wife?” says I in thrillin’ axents: “Have you any childern?”
Says he, “I don’t know.”
I had heerd that there wasn’t no information to be extracted from ’em as
a class, and I give up; and I don’t know what my next move would have
been, if I hadn’t catched sight of that beloved face and that old
familiar hat in front of me; I hastened forred and kep’ considerable
calm in mind, while my body was bein’ crowded and pushed round, for I
thought if my conjectures was true they would have reason enough to goar
me.
[Illustration: IN THE CROWD.]
But presently, or about that time we found ourselves carried by the
crowd, and stranded (as it were) before some little places that looked
some like the place the ticket agent looked from at Betsey Bobbet and
me, when we bought our tickets for New York village; and I begun to feel
easier in my mind, for they seemed to be purchasin’ tickets for the
Sentinal. There was one place for wimmen, and one for men, not but a
little ways apart; and my Josiah and me kinder divided up and waited our
turn, and when he got a chance I see him step up in a peaceable way and
ask how much a ticket cost.
“Fifty cents for a adult,” says the man.
Says Josiah, “I haint a adult.”
Says the man, “You be.”
Josiah looked as if he would sink to be accused—right there in
company—of sunthin’ he never was guilty of in the world; it took him so
aback that he couldn’t say another word to defend himself; he looked as
mortified and sheepish as any black sheep I ever laid eyes on; and I
jest stepped forred and took his part—for it madded me to see my pardner
so brow-beat and imposed upon. Again Josiah says in a meachin’ way, for
as mortified as he felt he seemed determined to stick to the truth, and
not own up to what he wasn’t guilty of. “I haint a adult,” says he.
“No!” says I, “anybody that says that of my pardner, says what they
can’t prove. Josiah Allen is a likely man; his character stands firm; he
never had no such name, and it can’t be proved onto him; he is as sound
moralled a man as you will find in Jonesville or the world!”
“I mean,” says the man, “50 cents for everybody except childern carried
in the arms.”
“Well,” says I out of all manner of patience with him, “why didn’t you
say so in the first on’t, and not go to hintin’ and insinuatin’.”
He tried to turn it off in a laugh, but his face turned red as blood,
and well it might; tryin’ to break down a likely man’s character and
gettin’ found out in the mean caper. Josiah took out a dollar bill and
handed it to him, and he handed back sunthin’ which was tickets as
Josiah s’posed; but when he handed me one soon afterwards or
thereabouts, I see they was two fifty cent bills. Josiah was dumbfounded
and so was I; but I spoke right out and says I, “That mean creeter is
tryin’ to make us trouble, or else he is tryin’ to hush it up, and bribe
us not to tell of his low lived conduct.” Says I firmly, “Less go right
back and give him back his money and command him to give us a lawful
ticket, and tell him we haint to be bought or sold; that our principles
are elevated and we are on a tower.”
[Sidenote: GOOD LAND! GOOD LAND! AND GOOD LAND!]
So we went back again; and oh the sufferin’s of that season; if our
agony was great when we was bore along by the crowd, what was our
sufferin’s when we was stemmin’ our way ag’inst it. Two or three times
my companion would have sunk beneath his burdens, but boyed up by my
principle I held him up (as it were) and at last almost completely
exhausted and wore out, and our faces covered with prespiration we stood
before him again. He looked mad and cross, but tried to turn it off in a
laugh when Josiah told him our business, and handed him back the money.
He said it was all right and told us to give the money to a man near the
turn stile and go in. I see he was in earnest, so I told Josiah we would
go back and try it, and we did, and found it was jest as he said, but
there was a great mystery to it; we handed out fifty cents a piece to a
man, and he dropped it down through a little slit in a counter; and a
gate that looked some like my new fashioned clothes bars, sort o’ turned
round with us and let us in one at a time; and the minute I was inside I
see my gloomy forebodin’s had been in vain—they hadn’t put off the
Sentinal for me! That was my first glad thought; but my very next
thought was, Good land! and Good land! and Good land! Them was my very
first words, and they didn’t express my feelin’s a half or even a
quarter. Why, comin’ right out of that contracted and crushin’ crowd, it
seemed as if the place we found ourselves in was as roomy and spacious
as the desert of Sarah, s’posen she, the desert, was fixed off into a
perfect garden of beauty, free for anybody to wander round and git lost
in.
And the majestic Main Buildin’ that nearly loomed up in front of us!
Why! if old Ocian herself, had turned into glass, and wood-work, and
cast-iron, and shinin’ ruffs, and towers, and flags, and statutes, and
everything, and made a glitterin’ palace of herself, it couldn’t, (as it
were) have looked any more grand and imposin’ and roomy; and if every
sand by the seashore had jumped up and put on a bunnet or hat as the
case may be, there couldn’t have been a bigger crowd (seeminly) than
there was a passin’ into it, and a passin’ by, and a paradin’ round
Josiah and me.
Under these strange and almost apaulin’ circumstances, is it any wonder
that I stood stun still, and said, out of the very depths of my heart,
the only words I could think of, that would any where nigh express my
feelins, and they was “Good land!”
But as my senses begun to come back to me, my next thought was, as I
looked round on every side of me, “Truly did my Josiah say, that I could
see enough with one eye;” and jest then a band commenced playin’ the
“Star Spangled Banner.” And hearin’ that soul stirrin’ music, and seein’
that very banner a wavin’ and floatin’ out, as if all the blue sky and
rainbows sense Noah’s rainbow was cut up into its glorious stripes, with
the hull stars of heaven a shinin’ on ’em,—why, as my faculties come
back to me, a seein’ what I see—and hearin’ what I heerd, I thought of
my 4 fathers, them 4 old fathers, whose weak hands had first unfurled
that banner to the angry breeze, and thinks’es I, I would be willin’ to
change places with them 4 old men right here on the spot, to let ’em see
in the bright sunshine of 1876, what they done in the cloudy darkness of
1776.
I felt these feelin’s for I persume most a minute. But nobody—however
strong principle may soar up in ’em—can be willin’ to die off when it
haint a goin’ to be any particular benefit to anybody; they can’t feel
so for any length of time, especially in such a strange and almost
curious time as this was; souls may soar, but heart clings to heart—I
thought of Josiah and without sayin’ a word to him, or askin’ his
consent, I jest reached out my arm and locked arms with him for the
first time in goin’ on thirteen years—not sense we had went to
grandfather Smith’s funeral, and walked in the procession.
He begun to nestle round and wiggle his arm to make me leggo, but I hung
on tight and never minded his worrysome actions, and finally he come out
plain and says he:
“What is the use of lockin’ arms Samantha, it will make talk.”
Says I in a deep warnin’ voice, “Do you keep still, or you will be a
lost Josiah.” Says I, firmly, “I think more of my pardner than I do of
the speech of people, and if this endless host and countless multitude
swallers us down, and we are never heard from again in Jonesville or the
world, we will be swallered down together Josiah Allen,—a sweet thought
to me.”
[Sidenote: PATRONIZIN’ THE RAILROAD]
So we walked round, lockin’ arms, and not sensin’ of it, (as it were) a
lookin’ on the grandeur and imposin’ doins on every side of us.
Presently, or not fur from that time—for truly I could not keep a
correct run of the time of day, feelin’ as I did—I told Josiah that we
would take the cars and ride round the Sentinal; there was a little
railroad a purpose. So we crossed a square—green as green grass could
make it—and all of a sudden I felt Josiah give a shudder, and heerd his
teeth chatter; he was lookin’ at that fearfully wonderful statute of
Washington crossin’ the Deleware. Oh dear! what a situation George was
in.
Then he hunched me again, to look at a fountain made they say to show
off light and water. Three handsome female girls a holdin’ up a bowl or
rather a platter, bigger than any platter I ever see, to catch the water
other female wimmin’ was a pourin’ down into it; and as many as ten
globe lamps, a bein’ held up by beautiful arms. I’ll bet the hull on it
was forty feet high, and I don’t know but more. Josiah would have staid
there some time if I had encouraged him in it; he said with a dreamy
look, that them girls was first-rate lookin’, but he should think their
arms would ache a holdin’ up that platter and them big lamps. But says
I, “Josiah Allen you haint no time to spend a pityin’ cast-iron wimmen
in such a time as this, or admirin’ of em;” so I hurried him onwards to
one of the stations of the railroad, and we paid five cents apiece and
they let us up into the cars, and oh, how lovely everything did look as
we rode onwards, drawed by as stiddy and smart a little enjun as ever I
see hitched to a car. How cool and wet the lake did look on that hot
day, with its great fountain sprayin’ out the water in so many different
sprays, as we passed between it and the green, level grass all flowered
off with gorgeous flower beds.
Anon, (or nearly that time) the enjun stopped before the Woman’s
Pavilion—a noble big buildin’ that filled me with such proud and lofty
emotions as I looked at it, that I don’t know to what height I should
have soared up to a gazin’ on it, and thinkin’ of the sect that built
it, if one of them very sect weighin’ about three hundred and fifty, in
gittin’ out of the car, hadn’t stepped on my foot and crushed it so
fearfully that instinctively my emotions was brought right down to the
ends of my toes. In two minutes more, or two and a-half, we went round
the head of the dell, and though my foot still felt the effects of
tramplin’, I didn’t sense it, as I looked down the beautiful shady
paths, all a seemin’ to lead to some handsome buildin’ and then up at
the Agricultural Buildin’, big enough (seeminly) for old Agriculture and
all his family all over the country to settle down and live in; and then
we went on a little further by a cheese and butter house, and Brewers’
Hall. And then the enjun turned round and we went back most to the
Woman’s Pavilion, and then sailed off down the avenue of State Buildins,
by Machinery Hall (big enough for every machine in the world, and
several of the planetary system’s machines, as it were) clear the hull
length of this buildin’, back to the place we started from.
Here Josiah would have got out, ruther than paid five cents more; but I
says to him, “Never before, Josiah Allen did five cents buy pleasure for
me any where near the size and heft of this pleasure;” and I added
kindly but firmly, “I am goin’ round again Josiah Allen.” He argued
some, but I stood firm, and round we went again’, and then twice more
which made four. I paid for the two last rides out of my own pocket, and
didn’t begreech the money. No sooner would we go by one grand majestic
buildin’ and mebby a few smaller ones, but perfectly beautiful, than
another one would rise up before us seeminly still more majesticer than
the last one.
And we wouldn’t no more than git our mouths well open with great
astonishment and admiration and almost extacy, and our specks well sot
on ’em, before another one would rise up before us, and we with our
mouths not yet shet up from the last one. Oh dear! what a time we did
have in our 2 minds. And seein’ what I see wouldn’t have been half so
much, if I hadn’t had such a immense quantity of emotions; and every one
of ’em the very biggest and noblest size they make. Eloquent, happy
emotions of patriotism and grand pride in my Nation’s honor, and
majesty, and power, and glory.
Oh! what a time I did have a settin’ there crowded in body but soarin’
in soul; the eye of my speck a calmly gazin’ into the faces environin’
of me round, and not seein’ of em, (as it were) but seein’ with my
mind’s eye the Spirit of ’76, a risin’ up through the ghastly clouds of
war, a misty shape that Hope could jest make out; a pale face, and
shadowy hands with a little handful of stars and stripes most slippin’
out of ’em.
And then to see that face growin’ brighter and brighter, and more
loftier and inspired; to see both of them hands reached heavenward in
triumph, holdin’ firm clasped above her head the stars and the stripes a
floatin’ out over the hull land; to see them eyes full of glory and
mystery bent forever onwards and outwards, a lookin’ on sunthin’ I
couldn’t see if I had both eyes to my specks; to see that lofty brow
crowned with the Star of Empire, and that majestic form a floatin’ in
triumph from the Atlantic over the Rocky mountains, clear to the Golden
Gate, while the radiance of that star, a burnin’ on that almost inspired
forward, sheds a light ahead over the deep waters to some still grander
future; and then to see them deep mysterious eyes of glory and prophecy
a follerin’ that light outward and onward, a seein’ what I couldn’t see,
nor Josiah, nor anybody.
I kep’ a feelin’ nobler and nobler every minute, and finally I told
Josiah of my own accord that I wanted to git out of that little
contracted car, and walk afoot again. So we got out and roamed round,
walkin’ afoot down the broad noble paths, by buildins some that looked
you square in the face, some a steppin’ off sideways, (seeminly) some
sot down flat on the ground, sort o’ solid and heavy as if they had sot
down for good, and some standin’ up on tip-toe (as it were) on the top
of big high steps, as if they was a startin’ off somewhere a visitin’;
and some of the curiousest shaped ones I ever see, with their ruffs
pinted up, with flags a flyin’ like big darnin’ needles threaded with
red, white, and blue; some sort o’ leanin’ over as if they was a
meditatin’; some ruffs shaped like a sheep’s head night-cap, with a
cross standin’ up out of the crown; some long ruffs supportin’ hull rows
of little ruffs like offsprings. Some Gabriel ends loftier and
majesticer than you can think on; some dretful kinder peaked up and
polite lookin’.