Wall, the next day after our visit to the Manafactures and Liberal Arts
Buildin', I told Josiah to-day I wouldn't put it off a minute longer, I
wuz goin' to see the Convent of La Rabida; and sez I, "I feel mortified
and ashamed to think I hain't been before." Sez I, "What would
Christopher Columbus say to think I had slighted him all this time if he
knew on't!"
And Josiah said "he guessed I wouldn't git into any trouble with
Columbus about it, after he'd been dead four hundred years."
"Wall," sez I, "I don't spoze I would, but I d'no but folkses feelin's
can be hurt if their bodies have moved away from earth. I d'no anything
about it, nor you don't, Josiah Allen."
"Wall," he said, "he wouldn't be afraid to venter it."
He wanted to go to the Live-Stock Exhibit that day--wanted to like a
dog.
But I persuaded him off the notion, and I don't know but I jest as soon
tell how I done it.
I see Columbus's feelin's wouldn't do, and so forth, nor sentiment, nor
spirituality, don't appeal to Josiah Allen nothin' as vittles do.
So I told him, what wuz indeed the truth, that a restaurant was nigh
there where delicious food could be obtained at very low prices.
He yielded instantly, and sez he, "It hain't hardly fair, when
Christopher is the cause of all these doin's, that he should be slighted
so by us."
And I sez, "No, indeed!" so we went directly there by the nearest way,
which wuz partly by land and partly by water; and as our boat sailed on
through the waves under the brilliant sunshine and the grandeur of
eighteen ninety-three, did it not make me think of Him, weary,
despairin', misunderstood, with his soul all hemmed in by envious and
malicious foes, so that there wuz but one open path for him to soar in,
and that wuz upward, as his boat crept and felt its way along through
the night, and storm, and oncertainty of 1492.
Wall, anon or about that time, we drew near the place where I wanted to
be.
The Convent of La Rabida is a little to the east of Agricultural Hall, a
sort of a inlet lake that feeds a long portion of the grand canal.
A promontory is formed by the meetin' of the two waters, and all round
this point of land, risin' to a height of twenty-two feet, is a rough
stun wall.
This wall is a reproduction of the dangerous coast of Spain, and back on
this rise of ground can be seen the Convent of La Rabida, a fac-simile,
or, as you might say, a similer fact, a exact reproduction of the
convent where Columbus planned out his voyage to the new world.
Yes, within these walls wuz born the great and darin' scheme of
Columbus--a great birth indeed; only next to us in eternal consequences
to the birth in the manger.
It stands jest as it ort to, a-facin' the risin' sun.
A low, eight-sided cupalo surmounts the choir space inside the chapel,
and above the nave rises the balcony.
On three sides of a broad, open court are the lonesome cloisters in
which the Monks knelt in their ceaseless prayers.
The chapel floor is a little higher than the court and cloisters, and is
paved with bricks.
It wuz at this very convent door that Columbus arrived heart-sore and
weary after seven years' fruitless labor in the cause he held so clost
to his heart.
Seven long years that he had spent beggin' and importunin' for help to
carry out his Heaven-sent visions.
A livin' light shinin' in his sad eyes, and he couldn't git anybody else
to see it.
The constant washin' of new seas on new shores, and he couldn't git
anybody to hear 'em.
A constant glow, prophetic and ardent, longin' to carry the religion of
Christ into a new land that he knew wuz a-waitin' him, but everybody
else deaf and dumb to his heart-sick longin's.
Oh, I thought to myself as I stood there, if that poor creeter could
only had a few of the gorgeous banners that wuz waved out to the air,
enough to clothe an army; if he could have only had enough of 'em to
made him a hull shirt; if he could have had enough of the banquets
spread to his memory, enough to feed all the armies of the earth; if he
could have a slice of bread and a good cup of tea out of 'em, how glad I
would be, and how glad he would have been!
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Hungry and in rags, almost naked, foot-sore, heart-sore, he arrived at
the convent gate, to ask food and shelter for himself and child.
[Illustration: Almost naked, foot-sore, heart-sore, he arrived at
the convent gate.]
It wuz here that he found an asylum for a few years, carryin' on his
plans, makin' out new arguments, stronger, mebby, than he had argued
with for seven stiddy years, and I should a thought them old arguments
must have been wore out.
It wuz in one of the rooms of the convent that he met the Monks in
debate, and also argued back and forth with Garcia Fernandez and Alonzo
Penzen, gettin' the better of Alonzo every time, but makin' it up to him
afterwards by lettin' him command one of the vessels of his fleet. It
wuz from here the superior of the convent, won over by Columbuses
eloquence, went for audience with the Queen, and from it Columbus wuz
summoned to appear at court.
In this very convent he made his preparations for his voyage, and on the
mornin' he sailed from Palos he worshipped God in this little chapel.
What visions riz up before his eyes as he knelt on the brick floor of
that little chapel, jest ready to leave the certainty and sail out into
the oncertainty, leavin' the oncertainty and goin' out into the
certainty!
A curious prayer that must have been, and a riz up one.
In that prayer, in the confidence and aspiration of that one man, lay
the hull new world. The hope, the freedom, the liberty, the
enlightenment of a globe, jest riz up on the breath of that one prayer.
A momentious prayer as wuz ever riz up on earth.
But the stun walls didn't give no heed to it, and I dare say that Alonzo
and the rest wuz sick a-waitin' for him, and wanted to cut it short.
Yes, Columbus must have had emotions in this convent as hefty and as
soarin' as they make, and truly they must have been immense to gone
ahead of mine, as I stood there and thought on him, what he had done and
what he had suffered.
Why, I had more'n a hundred and twenty-five or thirty a minute right
along, and I don't know but more.
When I see them relics of that noble creeter, paper that he had had his
own hand on, that his own eyes had looked at, his own brain had
dictated, every one of 'em full of the ardentcy and earnestness of his
religion--why, they increased the number and frequency of my emotions to
a almost alarmin' extent.
[Illustration: Manuscripts]
Here are twenty-nine manuscripts all in his own hand.
They are truly worth more than their weight in gold--they are worth
their weight in diamonds.
Amongst the most priceless manuscripts and documents is the original of
the contract made with the Soverigns of Spain before his first voyage,
under which Columbus made his first voyage to America.
The most remarkable contract that wuz ever drawn, in which the Soverigns
of Spain guaranteed to Columbus and his heirs forever one eighth of all
that might be produced of any character whatever in any land he might
discover, and appinted him and his descendants perpetual rulers over
such lands, with the title of Viceroy.
I looked at the contract, and then thought of how Columbus died in
poverty and disgrace, and now, four hundred years after his death, the
world a-spendin' twenty million to honor his memory.
A sense of the folly and the strangeness of all things come over me like
a flood, and I bent my head in shame to think I belonged to a race of
bein's so ongrateful, and so lyin', and everything else.
I thought of that humble grave where a broken heart hid itself four
hundred years ago, and then I looked out towards that matchless White
City of gorgeous palaces riz up to his honor four hundred years too
late; and a sense of the futility of all things, the pity of it, the
vanity of all things here below, swept over me, and instinctively I lay
holt of my pardner's arm, and thought for a minute I must leave the
buildin'; but I thought better on't, and he thought I laid holt of his
arm as a mark of affection. And I didn't ondeceive him in it.
Then there is Columbuses commission as Admiral of the Ocean Seas.
His correspondence with Ferdinand and Isabella before and after his
discovery, and a host of other invaluable papers loaned by the Spanish
Goverment and the living descendants of Columbus in Spain. And there is
pieces of the house his father-in-law built for him--a cane made from
one of the jistes, and the shutters of one of the windows. Columbuses
own hand may have opened them shutters! O my heart! think on't.
And then there wuz the original copy of the first books relatin' to
America, over one hundred of 'em, obtained from the Vatican at Rome, and
museums, and libraries, in London, and Paris, and Madrid, and
Washington, D.C. They are writ by Lords, and Cardinals, and Bishops, way
back as fur as fourteen hundred and ninety-three.
Then there wuz quaint maps and charts of the newly discovered country,
lookin' some as our first maps would of Mars, if the United States had
made up its mind to annex that planet, and Uncle Sam had jest begun to
lay it out into countries.
Then there are the portraits of Columbus. Good creeter! it seemed a pity
to see so many of 'em--his enemies might keep right on abusin' him, and
say that he wuz double-faced, or sixty or eighty faced, when I know, and
they all ort to know, that he wuz straightforward and stiddy as the sun.
Poor creeter! it wuz too bad that there should be so many of 'em.
[Illustration (handwritten in the illustration): These are my authentic
portraits! Ch. Columbus, Esq. mp]
[Illustration: Poor creeter! it wuz too bad that there should be so
many of 'em.]
Then there are models and photographs of statutes and monuments of him,
and the very stun and clay that them tall monuments is made of, mebby
they are the very stuns that hurt his bare feet, and the clay the very
same his tears had fell on, as he'd throw himself down heart-weary on
his lonesome pilgrimages. I dare presoom to say that he would lay his
head down under some wayside tree and cry--I hain't a doubt on't.
When I thought it over, how much had been said about Columbus even
durin' the last year in Jonesville and Chicago, to say nothin' about the
rest of the world, it wuz a treat indeed to see the first printed
allusion that wuz ever made to Columbus, about three months after
Columbus arrived in Portugal, March fifteenth, fourteen hundred and
ninety-three. It was writ by Mr. Carvugal, Spanish Cardinal.
In it Mr. Carvugal says--
"And Christ placed under their rule (Ferdinand and Isabella) the
Fortunate Islands."
I sez to Josiah, "I guess if Mr. Carvugal was sot down here to-day, and
see what he would see here, he would be apt to think indeed they wuz
Fortunate Islands."
But as I said that I heard a voice a-sayin'--
"Who is Mr. Carvugal, Samantha?"
I recognized the voice, and I sez, "Why, Irena Flanders, is it you? I
have been to see you; I hearn you wuz sick."
"Yes," sez she, "I wuz beat out, and I thought I couldn't stand it; but
I feel better to-day, so we have been to the Forestry Buildin', and
thought we would come in here."
But I see that she didn't feel as I did about the immortal relics, but
she kinder pretended to, as folks will; and Elam and Josiah went to
talkin' about hayin', and wondered how the crops wuz a-gittin' along in
Jonesville. But I kep on a-lookin' round and listenin' to Irena's
remarks about her symptoms with one half of my mind, or about half, and
examinin' the relics with the other half.
There wuz a little Latin book with queer wood-cuts, "Concernin' Islands
lately discovered," published in Switzerland in 1494; under the title it
begun--"Christopher Colum--"
It made me mad to hear that good, noble creeter's name cut off and
demeaned, and I told Irena so.
And she sez, "That's what little Benjy calls our old white duck; his
name is Columbus, but he calls it Colum."
She is a great duck-raiser; but I didn't thank her for alludin' to
barn-yard fowls in such a time as this.
Wall, there wuz the first life of Columbus ever writ, by his son
Farnendo.
And a book relatin' to the namin' of America. I thought it would been a
good plan if there had been a few more about that, and had named it
Columbia--jest what it ort to be, and not let another man take the honor
that should have been Christopher's.
But I meditated on what a queer place this old world wuz, and how
nateral for one man to toil and work, and another step in and take the
pay for it; so it didn't surprise me a mite, but it madded me some.
Then there wuz the histories of the different cities where he wuz born,
and the different places where his bones repose.
Poor creeter! they fit then because they didn't want his bones, and they
starved him so that he wuzn't much besides bones, and they didn't want
his bones anyway, and they put chains onto them poor old bones, and led
'em off to prison.
And now hull cities and countries would hold it their chief honor to lie
about it, and claim the credit of givin' 'em burial. O dear suz! O dear
me!
Wall, there wuz one of the anchors, and the canvas used by Columbus on
board his flag-ship.
The very canvas that the wind swelled out and wafted the great
Discoverer. O my heart, think on't!
And then there wuz the ruins of the little town of Isabella, the first
established in the new world, brung lately from San Domingo by a
man-of-war.
And then there wuz the first church bell that ever rung in America,
presented to the town of Isabella by King Ferdinand.
Oh, if I could have swung out with that old bell, and my senses could
have took in the sights and seens the sound had echoed over! What a
sight--what a sight it would have been!
Ringin' out barbarism and ringin' in the newer religion; ringin' out, as
time went on, old simple ways, and idees--mebby bringin' in barbarous
ways; swingin' back and forth, to and fro; ringin' in now, I hope and
pray, the era of love and justice, goodwill to man and woman.
Wall, I wuz almost lost in my thoughts in hangin' over that old bell. It
had took me back into the dim old green forest isles and onbroken
wilderness, when I heard a bystander a-sayin' to another one--"There is
Columbuses relations; there is the Duke of Veragua."
And on lookin' up, I indeed see Columbuses own relation on his own side,
with his wife and daughter.
The relation on Columbuses side wuz a middlin' good-lookin' and a
good-natered lookin' man, no taller than Josiah, with blue eyes, gray
hair, and short whiskers.
[Illustration: Columbuses own relation on his own side, with his
wife and daughter.]
His wife wuz a good-lookin', plump woman, some younger apparently than
he wuz, and the daughter wuz pretty and fresh-lookin' as a pink rose.
I liked their looks first rate.
And jest the minute my eyes fell on 'em, so quick my intellect moves, I
knew what was incumbent on me to do.
It wuz my place, it would be expected of me--I must welcome them to
America; I must, in the name of my own dignity, and the power of the
Nation, gin 'em the freedom of Jonesville. I must not slight them for
their own sakes, and their noble ancestors.
One human weakness might be discovered in me by a clost observer in that
rapt hour: I didn't really know how to address the wife of the Duke.
And I whispered to Irena Flanders, and, sez I, "If a man is a duke, what
would his wife be called?" Sez I, "She'd feel hurt if I slighted her."
And sez she, "If one is a duke, the other would naterally be called a
drake."
I knew better than that--she hain't any too smart by nater, and her mind
runs to fowls, what there is of it.
But my Josiah heard the inquiry, and sez he--
"I should call her a duck;" and he continued, with his eyes riveted on
the beautiful face of the Duke's daughter--
"That pretty girl is a duck, and no mistake."
But I sez, "Hush; that would be too familiar and also too rural."
I hain't ashamed of the country--no, indeed, I am proud on't; still I
knew that it wuz, specially in June, noted for its tender greenness.
And sez I, "I'll trust to the hour to inspire me; I'll sail out as his
great ancestor did, and trust to Providence to help me out."
So I advanced onto 'em, and I thought, as I went, if you call a man by
the hull of his name he hadn't ort to complain; so I sez with a deep
curchey--I knew a plain curchey wouldn't do justice to the occasion.
So I gracefully took hold of my alpaca skirt with both hands and held it
out slightly, and curchied from ten to fourteen inches, I should judge.
I wanted it deep enough to show the profound esteem and honor in which I
held him, and not deep enough so's to give him the false idee that I wuz
a professional dancer, or opera singer, or anything of that sort.
I judged that my curchey wuz jest about right.
[Illustration: "I salute you in the name of Jonesville and
America."]
Imegatly after my curchey I sez, "Don Christobel Colon De Toledo De La
Cerda Y Gante," and then I paused for breath, while the world waited--
"I welcome you to this country--I salute you in the name of Jonesville
and America."
And then agin I made that noble, beautiful curchey.
He bowed so low that if a basin of water had been sot on his back it
would have run down over his head.
Sez I, "The man in whose veins flows a drop of the precious blood of the
Hero who discovered us is near and dear to the heart of the new world."
Sez I, "I feel that we can't do too much to honor you, and I hereby
offer you the freedom of Jonesville."
And sez I, "I would have brung it in a paper collar box if I'd thought
on't, but I hope you will overlook the omission, and take it verbal."
Agin he bowed that dretful perlite, courteous bow, and agin I put in
that noble curchey.
It wuz a hour long to be remembered by any one who wuz fortunate enough
to witness it; and sez he--
"I am sensible of the distinguished honor you do me, Madam; accept my
profound thanks."
I then turned to his wife, and sez I, "Miss Christobel Colon Toledo
Ohio--"
I got kinder mixed up here by my emotions, and the efforts my curcheys
had cost me; I hadn't ort to mentioned the word Ohio.
But I waded out agin--"De La Cerda Y Gante--
"As a pardner of Columbus, and also as a female woman, I bid you also
welcome to America in the name of woman, and I tender to you also the
freedom of Jonesville, and Loontown, and Zoar.
"And you," sez I, "Honorable Maria Del Pillow Colon Y Aguilera--
"You sweet little creeter you, I'd love to have you come and stay with
me a week right along, you pretty thing." Sez I, "How proud your Grandpa
would be of you if he wuz here!"
My feelin's had carried me away, and I felt that I had lost the formal,
polite tone of etiquette that I had intended to carry on through the
interview.
But she wuz so awful pretty, I couldn't help it; but I felt that it wuz
best to terminate it, so I bowed low, a-holdin' out my alpaca skirt
kinder noble in one hand and my green veil in the other, some like a
banner, and backed off.
They too bowed deep, and sorter backed off too. Oh, what a hour for
America!
Josiah put out his arm anxiously, for I wuz indeed a-movin' backwards
into a glass case of relics, and the great seen terminated.
Miss Flanders and Elam had gone--they shrunk from publicity. I guess
they wuz afraid it wuz too great a job, the ceremony attendin' our
givin' these noble foreigners the freedom of our native town.
But they no need to. A willin' mind makes a light job.
It had been gin to 'em, and gin well, too.
Wall, Josiah and I didn't stay very much longer. I'd have been glad to
seen the Princess sent out from Spain to our doin's, and I know she will
feel it, not seein' of me.
She wuzn't there, but I thought of her as I wended my way out, as I
looked over the grandeur of the seen that her female ancestor had
rendered possible.
Thinkses I, she must have different feelin's from what her folks did in
fourteen hundred.
Then how loath they wuz to even listen to Columbuses pathetic appeals
and prayers! But they did at last touch the heart of a woman. That woman
believed him, while the rest of Spain sneered at him. Had she lived,
Columbus wouldn't have been sent to prison in chains. No, indeed! But
she passed away, and Spain misused him. But now they send their
royalties to meet with all the kings and queens of the earth to bow down
to his memory.
As we wended out, the caravels lay there in the calm water--the Santa
Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, all becalmed in front of the convent.
No more rough seas in front of 'em; they furl their sails in the
sunlight of success.
All is glory, all is rejoicing, all is praise.
Four hundred years after the brave soul that planned and accomplished it
all died heart-broken and in chains, despised and rejected by men,
persecuted by his enemies, betrayed by his friends.
True, brave heart, I wonder if the God he trusted in, and tried to
honor, lets him come back on some fair mornin' or cloudless moonlight
evenin', and look down and see what the nations are sayin' and doin' for
him in eighteen hundred and ninety-three!
I don't know, nor Josiah don't.
But as I stood a-thinkin' of this, the sun come out from under a cloud
and lit up the caravels with its golden light, and lay on the water like
a long, shinin' path leadin' into glory.
And a light breeze stirred the white sails of the Santa Maria, some as
though it wuz a-goin' to set sail agin.
And the shadders almost seemed alive that lay on the narrer deck.
After we left La Rabida, Josiah wanted to go and see the exhibit called
Man and his Works.
Sez he, "I'll show you now, Samantha, what _our_ works are. I'll show
you the most beautiful and august exposition on the grounds."
Sez he, "You boasted high about wimmen's doin's, and they wuz fair," sez
he, "what I call fair to middlin'. But in this you'll see grandeur and
True Greatness."
Josiah didn't know a thing about the show, only what he gathered from
its name; and feelin' as he did about himself and his sect, he naterally
expected wonders.
So, leanin' on the arm of Justice, I accompanied him into the buildin',
which wuzn't fur from La Rabida.
But almost the first room we went into, Josiah almost swooned at the
sight, and I clung to his arm instinctively. There we wuz amongst more
than three thousand skeletons and skulls.
Why, the goose pimples that rose on me didn't subside till most night.
And in the very next room wuz a collection of mummies, the humbliest
ones that I ever sot my eyes on in my hull life--two or three hundred on
'em, from Peru, Utah, New Mexico, Egypt, British Columbia, etc., etc.
When Josiah's eyes fell onto 'em, my poor pardner sez, "Samantha, less
be a-goin'."
Sez I, "Are you satisfied, Josiah Allen, with the Works of Man?"
And he advised me strong--"Not to make a luny and a idiot of myself."
And sez he, "Dum it all, why do they call it the works of man? There is
as many wimmen amongst them dum skeletons as men, I'll bet a cent."
Wall, we went into another room and found a very interestin'
exhibit--the measurements of heads: long-headed folks and short-headed
ones; and measurements of children's heads who wuz educated, and the
heads of savage children, showin' the influence that moral trainin' has
on the brains of boys and girls.
Wall, it would take weeks to examine all we see there--the remains of
the Aborigines, the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians. We could see by
them relics how they lived--their religions, their domestic life, their
arts, and their industries.
And then we see photographs by the hullsale of mounds and ruins from all
over the world.
Why, we see so many pictures of ruins, that Josiah said that "he felt
almost ruined."
And I sez, "That must come from the inside, Josiah. It hadn't ort to
make you feel so."
And then we see all sorts of things to illustrate the games that these
old ruined folks used to play, and their religions they believed
in--idols, and clay altars, and things; and once, when I wuz a-tryin' to
look calm at the very meanest-lookin' idol that I ever laid eyes on,
Sez Josiah, "The folks that would try to worship such a lookin' thing as
that ort to be ruined."
And I whispered back, "If the secret things that folks worship to-day
could be materialized, they would look enough sight worse than this."
Sez I, "How would the mammon of Greed look carved in stun, or the beast
of Intemperance?"
"Oh!" sez he, "bring in your dum temperance talk everywhere, will you? I
should think we wuz in a bad enough place here to let your ears rest,
anyway."
"Wall," sez I, "then don't run down folks that couldn't answer back for
ten thousand years."
But truly we wuz in a bad place, if humbliness is bad, for them idols
did beat all, and then there wuz a almost endless display of amulets,
charms, totems, and other things that they used to carry on their
religious meetin's with, or what they called religion.
And then we see some strange clay altars containin' cremated human
bein's.
Here Josiah hunched me agin--
"You feel dretful cut up if you hear any one speak aginst these old
creeters, but what do you think of that?" sez he, a-pintin' to the burnt
bodies. Sez he, "Most likely them bodies wuz victims that wuz killed on
their dum altars--dum 'em!"
"Yes," sez I, "but we of the nineteenth century slay two hundred
thousand victims every year on the altar of Mammon, and Intemperance."
"Keep it up, will you--keep a preachin'!" sez he, and his tone wuz
bitter and voyalent in the extreme.
And here he turned his back on me and went to examine some of the
various games of all countries, such as cards, dice, dominoes, checkers,
etc., etc.
[Illustration: Josiah turned his back on me.]
Which shows that in that savage age, as well as in our too civilized
one, amusements wuz a part of their daily life.
Wall, it wuz all dretful interestin' to me, though Skairfulness wuz
present with us, and goose pimples wuz abroad.
And out-doors the exhibit wuz jest as fascinatin'.
Along the shores of the pond are grouped tribes of Indians from North
America. They live in their primitive huts and tents, and there we see
their rude boats and canoes. New York contributes a council house and a
bark lodge once used by the once powerful Iroquois confederation.
And, poor things! where be they now? Passed away. Their canoes have gone
down the stream of Time, and gone down the Falls out of sight.
But to resoom.
Wall, seein' they wuz right there, we went to see the ruins of
Yucatan--they wuz only a few steps away.
Now, I never had paid any attention to Yucatan. I had always seen it on
the map of Mexico, a little strip of land a-runnin' out into the water,
and washed by the waves on both sides. But, good land! I would have paid
more attention to it if I had known that down deep under its forests,
where they had lain for more than a thousand years, wuz the ruins of a
vast city, with its castles and monuments wrought in marble, and
fashioned with highest beauty and art.
Whose hands had wrought them marble columns, and carved facades?
The silence of a thousand years lays between my question and its true
answer.
I can't tell who they wuz, where they come from, or where they went to.
But the pieces of soulless stun remain for us to marvel over, when the
livin' hands that wrought these have vanished forever.
Curious, very.
But mebby some magnetizm still hangs about them hoary old walls that has
the power to draw their founders from their new home, wherever it is
now.
Mebby them old Yucatanners come down in a shadder sloop and lay off over
aginst them ruins, and enjoy themselves first-rate.
Here too is the city of the Cliff Dwellers--the most wonderful city I
ever see or ever expect to see. There towers up a mountain made to look
exactly like Battle Mountain, where these ruins are found--the homes and
abidin' place of a race so much older than the Mexican and Peru old ones
that they seem like folks of last week--almost like babies.
The hull of these buildin's which is called Cliff Palace is over two
hundred feet long, and the rooms look pretty much all alike. They wuz
round rooms mostly, with a hole in the floor for a fireplace, and stun
seats a-runnin' clear round the room, and I'd a gin a dollar bill if I
could a seen a-settin' in them seats the ones that used to set there--if
I could seen 'em sot down there in Jackson Park, and its marvels, and I
could have hearn 'em tell what Old World wonders they had seen, and what
they had felt and suffered--the beliefs of that old time; the laws that
governed 'em, or that didn't govern 'em; their friends and their
enemies; the strange animals that lurked round 'em; the wonderful
flowers and vegetation--in short, if I could a sot down and neighbored
with 'em, I would a gin, I believe my soul, as much as a dollar and
thirty-five cents.
The rooms are about six feet high, and they wuz like me in one
thing--they didn't care so much for ornament as they did for solid
foundation. The only ornament I see in any of the rooms wuz some kinder
wavin' streaks of red paint. But, oh! how solid the housen wuz, how firm
the underpinnin'.
There wuz some stun towers and some winders, and oh! how I do wish I
could seen what them Old Cliffers looked out on when they rested their
arms on the stun winder sills and looked down on the deep valley below.
Children a-lookin' out for pleasure mebby; older ones a-lookin' for
Happiness and Ambition like as not, the aged ones a-leanin' their tired
arms on the hard stun, while the settin' sun lit up their white locks,
and a-lookin' for rest.
The cliffs are a good many colors, and each a good-lookin' one.
One thing struck me in all the housen, and made me think that though the
Cliff Dwellers wuz older than Abraham or Moses, yet if I could see some
of them female Cliffers I could neighbor with 'em like sisters.
They did love closets so well, and that made 'em so congenial to me. I
never had half closets enough, and I don't believe any woman did if she
would tell the truth.
There wuz sights of closets all closed up with good slab doors, some
like grave-stuns.
I shouldn't have liked that so well, to had to heave down that heavy
slab every time that I wanted a teacup, but mebby they didn't drink tea.
I spoze they kep their strange-lookin' pottery there, and I presoom the
wimmen prided themselves on havin' more of them jars than a neighbor
female Cliffer did. Then there are farmin' implements, and sandals, and
leggins, and weapons, and baby boards--and didn't I wish that I could
ketch sight of one of them babies!
The bodies of the dead wuz wrapped in four different winders--first in
fine cloth, then a robe of turkey feathers wove with Yucca fibre, then a
mattin', and then a wrap made of reeds.
The mummies found wrapped in these grave-clothes are more perfect than
any found in Egypt, the hot, dry air of Colorado a-doin' its best to
keep folks alive, and then after they are dead, a-keepin' 'em so as long
as it can. There wuz one, a woman with pretty figure, and small hands
and feet, and soft, light-colored hair. What wuz she a-thinkin' on as
she done up that fore-top or braided that back hair?
Did any hand ever lay on that soft, shinin' hair in caresses? I presoom
more than like as not there had. Her mother's, anyway, and mebby a
lover's, sence the fashion of love is older than the pyramids enough
sight--old as Adam, and before that Love wuz. For Love thought out the
World.
By her side wuz a jar with some seeds in it--probable the hand of Love
put it there to sustain her on her long journey.
Wall, the centuries have gone by sence she sot out for the Land of
Sperits, but the seeds are there yet. She didn't need 'em.
These seeds are in good shape, but they won't sprout. That shows plain
how much older these mummies are than the Egyptian ones, for the seeds
found by them will sprout and grow, but these are too old--the life in
the seeds is gone, as well as the life in the dead forms by 'em,
centuries ago, mebby.
Wall, it wuz a sight--a sight to see that city, and then to see
a-windin' up the face of the cliff the windin' trail, and the little
burros a-climbin' up slowly from the valley, and the strange four-horned
sheep of the Navago herds a-grazin' amongst the high rocks.
It wuz one of the most impressive sights of all the wonderful sights of
the Columbus Fair, and so I told Josiah.
Wall, seein' we wuz right there, we thought we would pay attention to
the Forestry Buildin'.
And if I ever felt ashamed of myself, and mortified, I did there; of
which more anon.
It wuz quite a big buildin', kinder long and low--about two and a half
acres big, I should judge.
Every house has its peculiarities, the same as folks do, and the
peculiar kink in this house wuz it hadn't a nail or a bit of iron in it
anywhere from top to bottom--bolts and pegs made of wood a-holdin' it
together.
Wall, I hadn't no idee that there wuz so many kinds of wood in the hull
world, from Asia and Greenland to Jonesville, as I see there in five
minutes.
Of course I had been round enough in our woods and the swamp to know
that there wuz several different kinds of wood--ellum and butnut, cedar
and dog-wood, and so forth.
But good land! to see the hundreds and thousands of kinds that I see
here made anybody feel curious, curious as a dog, and made 'em feel,
too, how enormous big the world is--and how little he or she is, as the
case may be.
The sides of the buildin' are made of slabs, with the bark took off, and
the roof is thatched with tan-bark and other barks.
The winder-frames are made in the same rustic, wooden way.
The main entrances are made of different kinds of wood, cut and carved
first-rate.
All around this buildin' is a veranda, and supportin' its roof is a long
row of columns, each composed of three tree trunks twenty-five feet in
length--one big one and the other two smaller.
These wuz contributed by the different States and Territories and by
foreign countries, each sendin' specimens of its most noted trees.
And right here wuz when I felt mad at myself, mad as a settin' hen, to
think how forgetful I had been, and how lackin' in what belongs to good
manners and politeness.
Why hadn't I brung some of our native Jonesville trees, hallowed by the
presence of Josiah Allen's wife?
Why hadn't I brung some of the maples from our dooryard, that shakes
out its green and crimson banners over our heads every spring and fall?
Or why hadn't I brung one of the low-spreadin' apple-trees out of Mother
Smith's orchard, where I used to climb in search of robins' nests in
June mornin's?
Or one of the pale green willers that bent over my head as I sot on the
low plank foot-bridge, with my bare feet a-swingin' off into the water
as I fished for minnies with a pin-hook--
The summer sky overhead, and summer in my heart.
Oh, happy summer days gone by--gone by, fur back you lay in the past,
and the June skies now have lost that old light and freshness.
But poor children that we are, we still keep on a-fishin' with our bent
pin-hooks; we still drop our weak lines down into the depths, a-fishin'
for happiness, for rest, for ambition, for Heaven knows what all--and
now, as in the past, our hooks break or our lines float away on the
eddies, and we don't catch what we are after.
Poor children! poor creeters!
But I am eppisodin', and to resoom.
As I said to Josiah, what a oversight that wuz my not thinkin' of it!
Sez I, "How the nations would have prized them trees!" And sez I,
"What would Christopher Columbus say if he knew on't?"
And Josiah sez, "He guessed he would have got along without 'em."
"Wall," sez I, "what will America and the World's Fair think on't, my
makin' such a oversight?"
And he sez, "He guessed they would worry along somehow without 'em."
"Wall," sez I, "I am mortified--as mortified as a dog."
And I wuz.
There wuzn't any need of makin' any mistake about the trees, for there
wuz a little metal plate fastened to each tree, with the name marked on
it--the common name and the high-learnt botanical name.
But Josiah, who always has a hankerin' after fashion and show, he talked
a sight to me about the "Abusex-celsa," and the "Genus-salix," and the
"Fycus-sycamorus," and the "Atractylus-gummifera."
He boasted in particular about the rarity of them trees. He said they
grew in Hindoostan and on the highest peaks of the Uriah Mountains; and
he sez, "How strange that he should ever live to see 'em."
He talked proud and high-learnt about 'em, till I got tired out, and
pinted him to the other names of 'em.
[Illustration: He talked proud and high learnt about 'em.]
Then his feathers drooped, and sez he, "A Norway spruce, a willer, a
sycamore, and a pine. Dum it all, what do they want to put on such names
as them onto trees that grow right in our dooryard?"
"To show off," sez I, coldly, "and to make other folks show off who have
a hankerin' after fashion and display."
He did not frame a reply to me--he had no frame.