The two side cascades represent the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Josiah
sez in a kinder patronizing way, "They're likely Cascades, but I can't
see in what way they represent oceans."
And I sez, "It hain't _for_ you to know everything, Josiah, you hain't
expected to. Such knowledge would be more than you with your small frame
could stand up under."
"Oh, keep throwin' my size in my face. It's a pity I hain't a giraffe,
then mebby I'd suit you." And he added snappishly, "I'll bet you can't
tell yourself how they look like oceans."
And I sez, "I wuz never any hand to tell all I knew, I always thought it
wuz best to keep one story back."
But to tell the truth I couldn't see how they represented oceans, only
they wuz both water, but so is a teacupful of water, or a spunful.
Another way they differed from the ocean, the water hain't there all the
time, only once in awhile. Josiah, bent on findin' fault, sez:
"Pretty oceans they be! Dry land most all the time."
But I sez, "I've always wished the Atlantic would dry up long enough for
me to go over afoot or with the old mair, like the Israelites over the
Red Sea, I'd start to-morry." I'm afraid of deep water. Why half the
time I'm afraid of our creek and dassent go acrost the foot bridge.
But the water wuz there when we see 'em, and the Cascades wuz beautiful
as a dream and more beautiful than lots of mine, specially when I'm
tired out.
As to representin' the two oceans, I spoze it means them beautiful
golden tinted statutes, the Spirit of the Atlantic and the Spirit of the
Pacific that stands at the head of the Cascades.
Well, we hung round there a long time, and finally at my request we went
into Festival Hall and sot down a spell and rested. And I thought as I
sot there I'd like to ask Sister Gowdey how big she thought this
buildin' wuz. She would never dream it covered two hull acres, but it
duz, three or four thousand people can set in it, and its organ is the
biggest in the world, more than ten thousand pipes in it and each pipe
as full of music as an egg is of meat.
The two pipes havin' the lowest notes a small horse can walk through or
two good-sized men standin' side by side. So you can imagine the streams
of melody that can float through them immense channels. It has one
hundred and forty stops, every one on 'em that will stop if told to
quick as a wink.
It took a train of ten cars to bring it from Los Angelus where it wuz
made. You can imagine how its music fairly shakes the ground and carries
you off your feet, seemin'ly like the very music of the spears.
Good land! what's Tirzah Ann's organ compared to it? And I thought that
wuz as good as any they make, the agent said it wuz; we paid over sixty
dollars for it.
And who do you think dedicated this most beautiful structure that wuz
ever built, to the music of the biggest organ in the world'? Why, it wuz
woman, my own female sect. I tell you it made me proud to think on't. It
wuz told me by one that wuz there that it wuz filled with wimmen on that
occasion, and as many men as could git in after the wimmen wuz seated.
Jest think on't, oh, my sect! who have been used to sneakin' up back
stairs to look down on men seated in state at banquet tables, or peak
from the gallery at the Capitol to see 'em nobly engaged in makin' laws
to govern her, tellin' her how to spend the money she earned herself,
and how long to send her to jail, and where and when to hang her, and
etcetery; while she could only jest peak at 'em. Oh, my soul! wuzn't it
a agreeable state of affairs the doin's here at Festival Hall? As I said
to Josiah as we sot there, "Don't it show my sect is lookin' up?"
And he said he never found wimmen backward in lookin' up, he said he
never see a place that would dant 'em and stop their tongues from
waggin'. He made light of the great incident and would been glad to had
men dedicate it; indeed he jest the same as told me he felt the
Exposition had stood in its own light in not havin' a certain leadin'
man in Jonesville, who wuz way up in political and moral life, havin'
held the offices of path-master and deacon. "But," sez he, with some
bitterness of sperit and speakin' skornfully:
"What if wimmen did dedicate it? They can git up dressed in their silks
and shiffoniers, and talk, talk, but they can't vote no matter how well
off they be. They've got to pony up and pay taxes and toe the mark in
law jest as men tell 'em to."
"Why," sez he, warmin' with his subject, "we men can set on you in
juries and you can't help yourselves, and hang you and so forth. And you
W.C.T.U. wimmen would have to let your tax money go to pay for drinkin'
shacks if we men of Jonesville, and the world, took it into our heads to
make you. Why," sez he, lookin' more and more big feelin' as he went on,
as why shouldn't he, as he recounted men's glorious advantages,
"Nate Flanders, who is most a fool, can vote and make you knuckle down
and do as he tells you to. And don't you remember that time the 'lection
run so clost they got up old bed-ridden Nate Haskins, whose brain had
been softenin' for years, and his wife had to dress him and git him
ready for the pole, he callin' on his wife, Nancy, to put on every
identical garment and tell where it went, and when they got him to the
pole he wouldn't vote because Nance wuzn't there to tell him which
ticket to vote. She'd jest kep' that voter alive for years, and been
head and hands for him, but she couldn't vote and he could."
Everybody has seen hosses run off the track when they wuz goin' too
fast; Josiah wuz so engaged in runnin' wimmen's pride down, he didn't
realize where he wuz gallopin' to. "And there wuz Jane Ellis who lost
her husband and two boys through drinkin', she had to let her tax money
be used to help nominate a license man, who opened a liquor saloon right
under her nose, and the last boy she had took to drinkin' and killed
himself last week drunk as a fool."
"I'd be ashamed to boast of that, Josiah Allen, I'd be ashamed on't."
"Well," sez he, lookin' kinder meachin', "I didn't say I approved of
that, I only said it to prove how weak and triflin' a thing woman really
is in the eyes of the law." And the rubber-like self-esteem of a male,
havin' sprung back in full force, he went on:
"Why, Miss Corkins, up to Zoar, that pays bigger taxes than any man in
town, earnt it all herself too in the millionary bizness, why, that
snub-nosed nigger that drives for her can vote, and she can't. And then
I'd talk about dedicatin' the biggest buildin' in the world, singin'
hims on the biggest organ and lettin' a few men into the back door--I
wouldn't feel so big about it if I wuz you.
"Why, we men jest throw such little compliments in the way of females to
keep you contented, jest as I throw crumbs from the table to Bruno to
home and pat him on the back. He knows he can't come to the table. We
men jest hang onto the ballot; wimmen hain't goin' to git holt of that
in a hurry and boss us round, no indeed!"
Oh, how obstrepolous and important he did talk and act! And Blandina
lookin' up so admirin' at him and agreein' to every word he said, jest
for all the world like an anty, seemed to rile me worse than anything
else. But as long as I couldn't dispute a word he said, knowin' it wuz
as true as gospel, I kep' demute, and hoped he would take it for a
dignified silence that wouldn't dain to argy.
Well, we had our lunch in a box and a bottle of cold tea, and we eat it,
and rested quite a spell, Josiah's good nater returnin' with every
mouthful he took, till by the time we got ready to start out agin, he
wuz as clever a critter as I want to see.
I wanted to tackle the Palace of Arts next, as it wuz quite nigh by
considerin'. The Fair grounds are so immense that you have to travel
quite a distance to git anywhere. But Josiah said he wanted to see
sunthin' that wuz of practical use, ondervaluin' beauty, the great
Power, as some do. He wanted to see sunthin' solid, such as mines and
metals. And of course Blandina jined in with him, and though that is
what I wanted of her, as second chaperone, it provoked me time and agin;
queer, hain't it?
So as that too wuz quite nigh by, we went to the Palace of Mines and
Metals. It wuz a beautiful buildin', the walls covered with ornamental
carvin' and ornaments, and two tall pillars standin' up each side of the
entrance as if they wuz two Genis jealously guardin' the Under World
from intrusion. But we got by 'em. And what didn't we see there?
Everything that wuz ever dug out of the earth, and the way it wuz
discovered, mined and made useful to man.
Gems, precious stuns, granite, marble and all the processes for cutting
and polishing. Minerals of all kinds, natural mineral paints and
fertilizers, cement, luminants and waters. Asbestos, mica, coal, coal
oil and all the machinery for refining and storing it. Displays for
natural gas, petroleum; everything relating to lighting mines; safety
lamps; oils; electricity; acetyline. Most interestin' display in
geology; all kinds of rocks; crystal; clay; ores; nickel and all the
metals for making iron and steel and makin' 'em right there before you.
Explosives used in the Under World. Everything relating to the workin'
of salt mines; oil wells; metals, photographs; maps, illustrating how
these riches of the earth wuz deposited, and all the machinery for
collecting and making them useful to man.
And there wuz a place where we could see a miner's cabin, and miners at
work, blasting, draining, driving tunnels, drilling, traveling
underground. A gold mill; a New Mexican turquoise mine; a lead, zinc and
copper mine, all working there before us; and a coal mine discovered
there on the Exposition grounds, an underground railway connected these
two mines. And all sorts of mineral waters, queer things they be flowin'
side by side out of the same ground as different as water and wine. And
there wuz a foundry and mint for makin' money.
Imagine a buildin' coverin' nine acres full of such interestin' sights,
and thirteen acres out-doors. For you must remember that it wuz not only
the riches of America's Under World, but the wealth of England, France,
Germany, Sweden, Italy, Japan and in fact every foreign nation. Josiah
reveled in it, and so did Blandina vicariously. And I enjoyed it too,
for I always wuz wonderin' what wuz goin' on under my feet, and now I
had a glimpse on't.
Well, we stayed there a long time and went from there into Manufactures
Buildin', when who should we meet but Uncle Giles Petigrew, a M.E.
deacon who used to live in Zoar but who had moved to St. Louis some
years before. We used to know him well. He wuz a old man when he left
Zoar, and had lost four wives a runnin' before he left there, and of
course I didn't know how many he'd lost since he come West, I see he
wore a mournin' weed, and mistrusted he'd lost another, and so it turned
out. It beats all what bad luck he has had. He wuzn't to blame for any
one on 'em, 'tennyrate them that passed away at Zoar, and I spozed it
wuz jest the same here. Never pizened any of 'em, or divorced 'em or
anything, it wuz jest his bad luck.
He seemed real glad to see us and wuz dretful chipper for a man most a
hundred; he got hold of my hand and shook it as if he never would leggo,
and went right on confidin' in me about his lost companion, what a
treasure she wuz, and what a loss.
And I sez, "Your wives wuz real nice wimmen, most all on 'em wuz, or
them that I knowed."
"Oh, yes," sez he, "and these blows that has fell on me has most
onmanned me."
And I sez in pityin' axents, "You won't try to git another wife, will
you, Uncle Giles?"
"Yes, I shall, as long as the Lord keeps a takin', I shall--is that
woman with Josiah a widder?"
I answered evasive, and kinder stepped in between him and Blandina, I
didn't want her to hear what he wuz sayin', I dassent. It wouldn't been
best for her to married a man most a hundred. And I knowed her soft
nater made her a willin' martyr to widower's wiles. Age made no
difference to Blandina. And I dassent venter to let him git nearer to
her. So I bid him a hasty good-by and linked my arm into hern and led
her away. She lookin' back and sayin', "How agreeable and willin' a
lookin' man that wuz," and I hurried her on fast to Manufactures
Buildin'--stoppin' by the way to see the beautiful Sunken Garden.
The display in Manufactures is so large that they fill two immense
palaces, Manufacturers and Varied Industries, and you'd git lost you
couldn't help it, amongst the bewilderin' and endless native and foreign
displays, only the aisles are divided off into streets and squares, all
the same width, so you can git 'round first-rate. And if you had ten or
fifteen years you could spend here you might possibly see most of the
displays of your own native land and all the foreign countries. These
two palaces cover twenty-eight acres, as big as Luman Gowdey's farm that
he gits a good livin' on, and the hull twenty-eight acres are full of
interestin' sights. You can walk nine miles in it right ahead--as fur as
from Jonesville way up to Zoar, and back agin.
And jest think of every single thing that wuz ever manufactured from a
hatpin to a rose-wood bedstead, and from a needle to a piano, and there
it wuz in plain sight if you could git to it, for truly you got
bewildered amongst the endless displays. Furniture, upholstery, all
sorts of cloth, silk, wool and cotton that wuz ever woven, all kinds of
silver and gold, and pearl and jet and shell and ivory articles that wuz
ever used, clocks, watches, jewels, embroideries, laces, carpets,
curtains, wall paper, stationery, hardware, glass and crystal, furs,
bronze, ironware, leather goods, stained glass, artists' supplies,
tailor shop, rubber store, toy store.
But good land! what is the use of tryin' to name 'em over? I couldn't do
it if I had a blank book as big as a dictionary and writ it full. But
you can jest think of everything manufactured you ever see, or ever
didn't see and there it wuz, and more and more and more, and I might
fill pages with "mores," but what use would it be.
But one of the best things we see at the hull Fair wuz there in the
Palace of Varied Industries. For to the thinkin' mind, the countless
display of articles, the marvels and magnificence of this Exposition is
not its main value, but its educational worth, its power to inspire and
teach the people of the world better ways of living and working, how to
make the most and best of life for themselves and others. And among the
educational exhibits one of the most interestin' to my mind is the one I
speak on in the Varied Industries Palace.
The company that displays this has other interestin' exhibits at
different places at the Exposition, but here they have a display that I
wish the head of every big concern that employs labor could see and
study and take to heart. This company employs thousands of men and
wimmen in makin' a machine that wonderfully simplifies labor.
But where the real educational value comes in hain't in the machine
itself, or the makin' on't, though that's interestin', but the way this
company treats its employees.
You sit in a neat little theatre, fitted up with easy seats, and
electric fans and every comfort, and right in front of you, throwed onto
a big screen, are pictures from real life showin' Capital and Labor
dwellin' together like a lion and a lamb, and the child Justice leadin'
'em.
Here you see and hear in the interestin' talk of the lecturer pictures
from the old time, when the company first begun its work up to the
gigantic plant and immense buildings of to-day. You see a woman tryin'
to warm some coffee over a radiator, they say the president of the
company see that, and it first made him think of furnishin' a lunch room
with a kitchen and every convenience for his employees.
You see pictures of the women employees goin' to their work a half hour
later than the men, so the cars won't be so crowded. You see 'em at
their recreation time of fifteen minutes, at ten in the forenoon and
three in the afternoon, goin' through their physical exercises, or some
other recreation to brighten 'em up for the rest of the day.
Then you see 'em at their clubs and classes, or playing tennis or
baseball, or in the big auditorium built for their use, listenin' to
some great orator or fine musician. These employees are not drudges, but
joy is labor and labor is joy.
Then there is a picture showing a street of the homes of these
employees, pretty houses with windows and doorways covered with vines
and bright blossoms, makin' a picture of what some say is the most
beautiful street in the world.
And there are pictures of noted people who have been there to study and
learn their methods, folks from foreign countries, who will carry the
blessed and beautiful example seen here to other lands. In one view is a
Prince and Princess who went there to learn their ways, lookin'
admirin'ly on. In another is a Cardinal givin' his benediction to
thousands of the happy workers.
It is a sermon better than is often preached, what you see there in that
little theatre. It is Love and Labor and Beauty and Joy walkin' hand in
hand. I wuz highly tickled with it, and spent a glad hour here.
But Josiah and I thought we'd seen enough for one day, and would go
home. But Blandina wanted to look over the articles of men's wearin'
apparell a little more; I don't see what comfort they wuz to her but she
said, "They brought back memories." And I spoze they did make her think
of Teeter and mebby his possible successor. But one thing, I believe,
that made her want to stay, we met Billy Huff jest as we wuz comin' out
of the buildin', and Blandina proposed that she should stay a little
longer with him and I gin a willin' consent, more willin' it seemed to
me than Billy wuz, though he couldn't refuse to escort home a guest of
the house.
But Josiah and I went home and both on us used some anarky on our tired
limbs, and he cleaned the mud offen our shoes, for truly it wuz faithful
and stuck by us.
It had rained the night before and that made it dretful muddy, Josiah
acted real grouty about it and sot there mutterin' and complainin' about
the mud till I got kinder wore out and sez:
"For mercy sake! I guess you've seen mud before, Josiah Allen. Think of
our Jonesville streets after a heavy rain."
"Well, they never wuz so muddy that I lost the old mair in 'em, and a
man told me to-day that they lost a elephant here the other day, it went
right down in the mud out of sight, and they never see hide or hair of
him agin."
"Don't you believe that, Josiah Allen; it hain't no such thing, I hearn
all about it, the elephant didn't go clear in. He didn't go more than
half in, they could see his back all the time and they got him out all
right."
"Well, that's furder in the mud than the old mair ever went enough
sight, and I never could have faced my country agin, if the streets had
been so muddy at my Exposition."
"Don't be pickin' flaws all the time, Josiah. There is enough of beauty
and grandeur here to satisfy any common man."
"But I hain't a common man, Samantha, and never wuz called so."
"Well, oncommon then, there is enough beauty here to satisfy an oncommon
man."
That seemed to molify him, and he gin in that it wuz a pretty good show.
But in many things inferior to what hisen would have been if he'd
carried it out. But I discouraged all such morbid idees and led his mind
off onto sunthin' else.
That evenin' whilst Josiah went out to mail a letter Blandina come into
my room and sez the first thing, "Aunt Samantha, I love him passionately
but my love is scorned by him."
And she busted into tears. I didn't ask no questions, but from Billy's
icy demeanor at supper table and Blandina's sentimental grief-stricken
linement I mistrusted she'd made overtoors to him that had been
rejected.
But I tried to turn her mind 'round by showin' her a letter I'd jest got
from Maggie, my son, Thomas Jefferson's wife, tellin' me that her sister
Molly, who had been visitin' a college friend in the South, had come
home much sooner than she had been expected and seemed run down and most
sick.
But she wuz bound to go to the Fair and they thought it wouldn't hurt
her to go, as there didn't seem to be anything serious the matter with
her only she seemed melancholy and out of sperits, it seemed to be her
mind that wuz ailin' more than her body. And would I if there wuz room
in my boardin' place take her in and mother her a little. Maggie
couldn't come herself, she wuzn't feelin' strong enough, and Thomas J.
won't leave her, specially if anything ails her, no indeed! he jest
worships her, and visey versey she him.
I can't deny my first thought on readin' the letter wuz, another straw
to be laid on the back of the camel, meanin' myself in metafor. But my
second thought wuz I should be glad to have her come, for she is a
lovely girl and I set store by her. She's been away to school and
college for years, but I had often seen her durin' her vacations at
Thomas Jefferson's.
Maggie had showed her letters to me that she had writ whilst she wuz
away South on this visit to her friend. One young man's name run through
'em like the theme to a great melody, and then all to once stopped, and
though Maggie and I hadn't passed a word on the subject I mistrusted
more than Maggie mistrusted I did about the cause of Molly bein' so
deprested.
Young folks will be young folks! young blood can't run slow and stiddy,
and how young hearts can ache, ache. The tide that youth sails out on is
a restless one, it has its passionate tides, lit by glowing sunshine,
and anon by the glare of the tempest. It flows ever and anon smooth, and
then agin rough rocks of disappointment checks its swift glad flow, and
what it calls despair, but which dwindles down into nothin' more than
regret time and agin. It has its low tides, full of the sobbin' of
waters that are flowin' back to the depths, and everything seems lost
and gone. But anon the tide flows back again and so it goes on, storm
and dull calm, sunshine and tempest, and they don't know which is the
hardest to endure. That's why youth is so beautiful, so glorious, so
tragic.
How I wished I could take Molly (for I loved her) and lift her clear
over the breakers into the calm of the deeper, smoother waters that the
home going boat finds when it is nearing the nightfall. The calm waters
lit by a light, soft and stiddy but sort o' sad like, not like the
dancin' sunlight of the mornin', oh no! when the tired mariner looks
back over the voyage and gits ready to cast anchor in the Home Haven.
But I knowed I wuz onreasonable to even wish it, for grim old Experience
must stand at the hellum every time in everybody's life, and folks
hadn't ort to expect dyin' grace to live by; Molly had got to weather
the storm of life whether or no and I couldn't help it. But to stop
eppisodin' and resoom.
I made a practice of writin' down mornings before I started for the Fair
the places I wanted to see that day if the rest of the party consented,
and I writ down that mornin' Liberal Arts, Fisheries, Educational
Buildin', Electricity, Machinery, Transportation, Horticultural and
Agricultural Buildin's and etcetery.
Josiah wanted to know what etcetery meant, and I told him any other
place we wanted to see which he said wuz reasonable, and he thought
probable he should have to go to some shows on the Pike, he said he had
met Uncle Sime Bentley the day before and they talked it over and
decided that it seemed to be their duty as solid stiddy men to go to
some of the worst shows, specially them that had pretty girls in 'em, so
they could be convinced of their iniquity and warn the young
Jonesvillians. He said they would take their advice as quick agin if
they could warn 'em from experience.
"But Josiah," sez I, "I wouldn't take such a distasteful, hateful job
onto me, it hain't your duty to make such a martyr of yourself,
specially as you hain't well."
But Josiah said he'd always said "He wouldn't put his hand to the plow
and look back," and he and Uncle Sime had talked it all over and agreed
they would make the sacrifice for the good of Jonesville. But I meant to
break it up; I knowed it wuzn't his duty to nasty up his mind, hopin' to
do good by it, when I could never git it cleaned up agin as clean as it
wuz before.