Some of the party felt that they couldn't leave the islands without
seein' the great Kilauea and some didn't care to go. I felt that I
must see it and so did Arvilly, and Josiah looked on me as fondly and
proudly as if I myself wuz a volcano and said, "If Samantha goes I
shall." Robert Strong wanted to go and so did Dorothy; Miss Meechim
didn't feel like going and offered to take care of Tommy with the help
of Aronette. Elder Wessel wouldn't go, for Lucia wuzn't very well and
he felt that she had better stay and rest at the tarven, and I spozed
that Aronette and Lucia would have a pretty good time, for they always
seemed to when they wuz together. Evangeline Noble was visiting some
friends of hers on the island. There wuz a smart young English
clergyman goin' with us and a Scotchman, both good lookin' and good
actin'. The Scotchman wuz Sir Duncan Ramsey and didn't act any more
sot up than if he wuz a plain mister. He paid considerable attention
to Dorothy, too, but Miss Meechim said that she didn't worry about
Dorothy at all since I would chaperone her, and Robert wuz going to
protect her from any possible lover. Sez Miss Meechim:
"Robert knows that I would almost rather have that volcano burst forth
its burning lava and wash her away on its bosom than to have her
engulfed in that terrible state of matrimony from which I and mine
have suffered so horribly."
"Well," sez I, "I can't speak for you and yourn, but for me and ourn,"
sez I, "no state under the heavens would be agreeable for me to live
in if my beloved pardner wuzn't in it too."
"Oh, well," sez she, "exceptions prove the rule; your husband is
congenial and good to you."
"Oh, well," sez I, "as to the daily acts and queer moves of pardners
the least said the soonest mended, but Love is the great ruler; where
he rules any state is blest, be it torrid or frigid."
That evenin' Arvilly and Elder Wessel had a argument about votin' and
other things. I knew I ort to be in my room packin' my satchel bag,
for we expected to be gone a week or ten days, but I did kinder want
to hear how their talk come out. He said he didn't vote; he said he
thought it wuz a clergyman's duty to set and judge of the right and
wrong of actions, not take part in 'em.
And Arvilly says, "I always spozed the Almighty did that; I didn't
know as human men wuz obleeged to. I know he cursed them that dealt in
strong drink, and blest them that gin even a cup of cold water to the
little ones, which I spoze meant help to the poorest and lowest. And I
guess that whatever your idees are about it, when you come to the
judgment day you won't set up there on the throne judgin', but you'll
be down with the rest on us givin' an account of how you've used your
talents, your influence, and if you've wropped your mantilly of
protection around thieves and murderers that you know the whiskey
trade is made of; you'll find that it will drop off there, and you
will be judged accordin' to your works. But mebby you'll be made to
see before you git there that you're in the wrong on't upholdin' this
evil."
Arvilly's axent wuz as sharp as any simeter, and it seemed to go right
through Elder Wessel's robe of complacency and self-esteem and rend
it. He looked dretful bad, and I spoke up, meanin' to pour a little
ile on his woonds, and sayin' what I thought, too. Sez I:
"Folks hain't so guilty often as they are thoughtless; ministers and
church people who don't use their influence aginst this evil don't
realize what they're doin'--they don't think."
"They're guilty if they don't think," sez Arvilly, "if they are blest
with common sense. If I wuz walkin' by a deep pond in broad daylight,
and see a dozen little children sinking that I might save by a little
effort, I wonder how many would believe me when I said that I see 'em
drowndin' but didn't try to save 'em because I didn't think. If I had
ears and eyes and common sense, and could save 'em and didn't, I wuz
guilty of murder, and so the Lord would look at it and everybody else
that knew anything." And she looked at me some as if I didn't know
anything, jest because I intimated that ministers and church members
didn't want to do such wickedness, but didn't think--Arvilly is hash.
But I had to admit that she had some common sense on her side. Sez she
agin:
"The Church of Christ could do anything it wanted to if it jined its
forces, took holt as if it meant to do sunthin', but as it is
indifference folds its hands, self interest murders humanity, greed
upholds intemperance, and all about us in Church and State are drink
makers and drink takers, and heaven knows which of 'em will git to
hell first!" Arvilly is dretful hash; when she gits rousted up her
indignation is like lightnin', and she don't care where it strikes or
who. It struck Elder Wessel hard.
"I should be afraid!" sez he, and his voice fairly trembled with
indignation, "I should be afraid to talk of the Church of Christ as
you do!"
"Let it behave itself then!" sez Arvilly, "be converted and come out
on the Lord's side to the help of the weak aginst the mighty!"
"The saloon," sez Elder Wessel dogmatically, "is the Poor Man's Club."
He wuz all rousted up by her hash talk and come out plainer than he
had come. "The rich man has his club, and the saloon is the Poor Man's
Club. He has a right to go there for a little recreation."
"Re-creation!" sez Arvilly. "If you think drinkin' pizen whiskey is
re-creatin' a man, you're different from me."
"And me, too," sez I. "If you call it re-creatin' to go to the Poor
Man's Club sober and sane," sez Arvilly, "and stagger home at midnight
crazy drunk, I say he hain't no right to re-create himself that way;
he re-creates himself from a good man and worthy member of society
into a fiend, a burden and terror to his family and community. Now
Elder White's idee of re-creatin' men is different; he believes in
takin' bad men and re-creatin' 'em into good ones, and I wish that
every minister on earth would go and do likewise."
"I know nothin' about Elder White," sez Elder Wessel hautily.
"He's our minister in Loontown," sez Arvilly. "He has his church open
every night in the week for re-creatin' in the right way."
"I don't approve of that," sez Elder Wessel. "The church of the Most
High is too sacred to use for such purposes."
"A minister said that once to Elder White," sez Arvilly, "and he
answered 'em with that warm meller smile of hisen, 'Where are my boys
and girls more welcome and safe than at home, and this is their
Father's house,'" sez he.
"Using that holy place for recreation is very wrong," sez Elder
Wessel.
Sez Arvilly, "I told you that he used it to re-create anew to goodness
and strength. He has music, good books, innocent games of all kinds,
bright light, warmth, cheerful society, good lectures, and an
atmosphere of good helpful influences surroundin' 'em, and he has
sandwiches and coffee served in what wuz the pastor's study, and which
he uses now, Heaven knows, to study the big problem how a minister of
the Most High can do the most good to his people."
"Coffee," sez Elder Wessel, "is all right in its place, but the common
workman hankers after something stronger; he wants his beer or toddy,
the glass that makes him forget his trouble for a time, and lifts him
into another world."
"Well, I spoze the opium eater and cocaine fiend hanker after the fool
paradise these drugs take 'em into, but that's no sign that they ort
to destroy themselves with 'em."
"Coffee, too, is deleterious," sez Elder Wessel. "Some say that it is
worse than whiskey."
I spoke up then; I am a good coffee maker, everybody admits, and I
couldn't bear to hear Ernest White talked aginst, and I sez: "I never
hearn of a workman drinkin' so much coffee that he wuz a danger to his
family and the community, or so carried away with it that he spent his
hull wages on it. Such talk is foolish and only meant to blind the
eyes of justice and common sense. Elder White's Mutual Help Club, as
he calls it, for he makes these folks think they help him, and mebby
they do, is doin' sights of good, sights of it. Young folks who wuz
well started towards the drunkard's path have been turned right round
by it, and they save their wages and look like different men since
they have left the Poor Man's Club, as you call it, and patronize
hisen."
"And Elder White has showed," sez Arvilly, "by his example just what
the Church of Christ could do if it wanted to, to save men from the
evil of this present time and git 'em headed towards the Celestial
City."
"Oh!" sez Elder Wessel, "I would no more use the church dedicated to
the Most High in the way you speak of than I would use the communion
cup to pass water in."
"If a man wuz dyin' of thirst, and that cup could be used to save him,
don't you spoze the Lord would want it used for that, Elder Wessel?"
sez Arvilly.
"Oh, no! oh, no!" sez he: "give not that which is holy unto dogs; cast
not your pearls before swine."
"That is jest what I have been preachin' to you," sez Arvilly. "Give
not that which is holy, the best nater, and goodness of boys and men
to the dogs, the brutes that lay in wait for 'em in whiskey laws. The
God in man is murdered every 'lection day by professors of religion
and ministers."
"Why--whyee," sez Elder Wessel, sinkin' back in his chair.
"Yes," sez the dantless Arvilly, "I mean jest what I say; them that
refuse to vote and help in the matter are jest as guilty as license
voters; they are consentin' to the crucifixion of Christ in man. And
the poor drunkards are not the only ones they help nail to the cross.
The innocent life and happiness of wimmen and children these wicked
laws lift up on the cross of agony, and their hearts' blood cries to
heaven for judgment on them that might have helped 'em and would not.
The Church of Christ is responsible for this crime," sez Arvilly, "for
there is not an evil on earth that could stand before the combined
strength of a united church."
Sez Elder Wessel, gittin' back considerable dignity (her hash talk
madded him awfully), sez he, "I simply see things in another light
from what you do."
"He that is not for me is against me," sez Arvilly.
Sez the Elder in a dogmatic axent, real doggy it wuz, "I say again,
the saloon is the Poor Man's Club."
And I sez dreamily, "Talkin' of a club as a club, a club in the hands
of a drunken man, strikin' at and destroyin' all the safety and
happiness of a home, yes," sez I, "it is such a club."
"Yes," sez Arvilly, "if poundin' his wife to jelly, and his children
to deformity and death, is a Poor Man's Club, the saloon is one."
Sez he agin, "Rich men have their clubs to which they may go, and
drink all they choose--carouse, do as they please, and why not poor
men, too?" he added.
And I sez, "Grantin' that rich men do drink and carouse at their
clubs, as I don't know whether they do or not, two wrongs never made
one right, and the liquor couldn't hurt 'em so much, for they can buy
it pure, and the poor man's drink is pizen by adulteration, makin' a
more dangerous drunk, ruinin' their health and makin' 'em spilin' for
fights and bloodshed. The rich man can stay all night at his club, or
if he goes home the decorous butler or vally can tend to him and
protect his family if need be; he won't stagger in at midnight to a
comfortless room, where his wife and little ones are herded in cold
and starvation and are alone and at his mercy, and the rich man's
carouse at his club won't keep his wife and children hungry for a
week."
Bein' driv out of that position Elder Wessel tried a new tact: "The
poor man has just as much right to the social enjoyment they git out
of their saloon as you have, madam, to your afternoon teas and church
socials."
"What hinders the poor man from 'tendin' socials?" sez Arvilly,
spiritedly. "They are always bein' teased to, and anyway I never knew
tea to make anybody crazy drunk."
"The poor man," sez Elder Wessel in his most dictorial way, all of
Arvilly's talk havin' slipped offen him like rain water offen a brass
horn, "the poor man, after he has worked hard all day, and has nothing
to go home to but a room full of cryin' children, discomfort, squalor
and a complaining wife, is justified in my opinion to go to the only
bright, happy place he knows of, the saloon."
But I sez, bein' such a case for justice, "How is it with the wife who
has worked hard all day in the home of discomfort and squalor, her
work being rendered ten times harder and more nerve destroying than
her husband's by the care of the cryin' children, how would it be for
them, who are equally responsible for the marriage and the children,
to take holt together and make the children happier and the home less
full of discomfort?"
"Yes," sez Arvilly, "is it goin' to make the home less full of
discomfort to have him reel home at midnight and dash the hungry
cryin' baby aginst the wall and put out its feeble life, and mebby
kill the complainin' wife too?"
"Oh, those are extreme cases and uncommon," sez Elder Wessel.
"Not oncommon at all," sez Arvilly. "If you read the daily papers you
will see such things as this, the direct work of the saloon, are
continually occurring, too common in fact to attract much attention."
He couldn't deny this, for he knew that we read the papers jest the
same as he did, and the fact that he couldn't deny it seemed to kinder
tire him, and he sez, getting up:
"I guess I will go and smoke a cigar." And he went. And I went up to
my room, too, to pack my satchel bag, for we expected to start the
very next mornin' and to be gone about a week or ten days.
Well, the steamer took us to Hilo, and the panorama that swep' by us
on that steamer can't never be reproduced by any camera or kodak; the
sapphire blue water, the hills standing like mountains of beaten gold
and velvety green verdure, and beyond the soft blue and purple
mountain ranges, agin deep clefts and cliffs of richest colored rocks
with feathery white waterfalls floating down on 'em like a veil, anon
pleasant landscapes, sugar cane plantations, picturesque houses,
windmills, orchards, dancing brooks and broad green fields. No
dissolvin' view wuz ever so entrancin', but like all others it had to
dissolve.
We reached Hilo the second day and we all went to a comfortable
tarven, and the next mornin' bright and early we sot off on the stage
for the volcano over, I state, and state it fearlessly, the most
beautiful road that wuz ever built towards any volcano or anything
else. Why, I've thought that the road between Jonesville and Loontown
wuz beautiful and easy travellin'. Old Hagadone is path-master and
vain of the road, and calls the men out twice a year to pay poll taxes
and such by workin' it. Sugar maples, elder bushes, and shuemakes, and
wild grapes and ivy run along the side of the stun wall, makin' it, I
always had thought, on-approachable in beauty. But, good land! if old
Hagadone had seen that road he would have turned green as grass with
envy.
Imagine a wide road, smooth as glass, cut right out of a glowing
tropical forest with a almost onimagined splendor, that I spoze was
meant to be onseen by mortal eyes, risin' up on each side on't. Why,
I've been as proud as a peacock of my little hibiscus growin' in
grandma Allen's old teapot, and when that blowed out one little blow I
called the neighbors in to witness the gorgeous sight. Imagine a
hibiscus tree, as big as one of our biggest maples, fairly burnin' all
over with the gorgeous blossoms, and bananas with their great glossy
leaves, and lantannas. Wuzn't I proud of my lantanna growin' in Ma
Smith's blue sugar bowl? I thought it wuz a lovely sight when it had
three blows on it at one time. But imagine milds and milds of 'em
risin' up thirty feet on each side of the road, and little spindlin'
palms, that we envy if growin' two feet high, growin' here to a
hundred feet or more, and begonias and geraniums growin' up into tall
trees and of every color, tuberoses and magnolias loadin' the air with
fragance, the glossy green of the ohia tree with the iaia vine
climbing and racing over it all, mingled in with tamarind and oranges
and bamboo, and oleanders with their delicious pink and white
blossoms. Sez I: "Do you remember my little oleander growin' in a sap
bucket, Josiah? Did you ever think of seein' 'em growin' fifty feet
high? What a priceless treasure one would be in Jonesville."
And he whispered back real voyalent: "Don't think, Samantha, of
gittin' me to lug one of them fifty-foot trees all the way hum. I've
broke my back for years luggin' round your old oleander in a tub, but
never will I tackle one of them trees," and he looked up defiantly
into the glossy boughs overhead.
"I hain't asked you to, Josiah, but," sez I dreamily: "I would love to
git some slips of them fuchia and begonia trees, and that jasmine,"
sez I, pintin' up to the emerald waves of foliage enriched by them I
have named, and as many other glowin' with perfume and beauty as
there are stars in the heavens, or so it seemed to me. Sez I: "What a
show I could make in Jonesville with 'em." Sez I: "What would Miss
Bobbett and Sister Henzy say if they could see 'em?" And I pinted up
at a gigantick trumpet creeper and convolvuli, festooned along the
boughs of a giant geranium and hanging down its banner of bloom.
"They'd say, let well enough alone. I tell you I can't break up my
trip diggin' dirt and tendin' to a lot of houseplants from Dan to
Beersheba."
"We're not goin' to Dan," sez I, "and if we wuz a man might meet Dan
doin' worse than pleasin' his pardner. Look at that jasmine," sez I.
"Is that much like that little slip of Sister Bobbett's growin' in a
tea-cup? And see! oh, do see, Josiah, them night bloomin' ceriuses!
Oh, take it on a moonlight night, the walls of fragrant green on
either side, and them lovely blows, hundreds and thousands of 'em
shinin' out like stars of whiteness, full of the odor of Paradise. Oh,
what a sight, Josiah Allen, for us to see!"
And he sez, "Don't git any idee, Samantha, of you and me comin' way
back here by moonlight, for we can't do it. The road is thirty milds
long, and if we tried it we shouldn't git here till they had done
blowin'."
"I hain't no idee of tryin' it, Josiah, I wuz only revellin' in the
idee of what the glory of the sight must be."
"Well," sez he, "I am revellin' in the idee of havin' a good meat
dinner if we ever git to Hilo." And he added with a sarcastick smile,
"Don't that make you think of poker? High, low--all it wants is Jack
and the Game."
I gin him a stern look and sez, "Some knowledge is demeanin' to a
perfessor." And he acted puggicky and didn't say another word for a
mild or so. But I sot calm and looked away into the entrancin' seen.
And all the time we wuz rollin' on towards the volcano.
Robert and Dorothy seemed to be enjoying the seen as much as I did,
and Arvilly wuz tryin' to canvass the Scotchman. The Englishman had
already bought the "Twin Crimes," and so she wuz as happy as she ever
would be, I spozed.
Well, after that long enchantin' ride through Paradise, at last we
reached the place we wuz bound for and put up to the Volcano House,
from which a good view of the volcano is seen at night, but nothin' to
what it is to stand on its shores. Well, I will pass over all
intervenin' incidents, some as the lava duz when it gits started, and
draw the curtain on us agin as we stood in front of that awful,
majestic, dretful, sublime, unapproachable, devilish, glorious--a
thousand times glorious--and not to be forgot till death, sight.
Tongue can't utter words to describe it; the pen hain't made, the egg
hain't laid to hatch out the soarin' eagle whose feathers could be
wrought into a pen fittin' to describe that seen. Why, I have thought
when the mash got to burnin' down to the lake it wuz a grand sight;
Jonesvillians have driv milds to see it. I have seen upwards of ten
acres of the mash burnin' over at one time, and felt awestruck, and so
did Sister Bobbett, for we went down together once with our pardners
on a buckboard. But, sez I to myself almost instinctively:
"What if Sister Bobbett wuz here? What would she say?"
Imagine a great lake of fire instead of water, waves of burning lava
dashing up onto its shores, bustin' way up in the air at times,
towerin' pillers of flame, swishin' and swashin', fire and flames, and
brimstun for all I know. What--what wuz goin' on way down in the
depths below if this wuz the seen outside? So wildly I questioned my
heart and Josiah. "Oh, Josiah!" sez I, "what--what a sight! Did I ever
expect to witness such a seen? No, oh no," I sez. "What do you spoze
is goin' on inside of that great roarin', blazin' monster?" Sez he, "I
know what's goin' on inside of me; I know I am jest starvin', faintin'
away fur want of food."
"Well," sez I soothin'ly, "when we get back to the Volcano House I
will ask for some bread and milk for you."
"Bread and milk!" sez he bitterly. "I want pork and beans, and ham,
and biled greens, and chicken pie and Injun puddin'!"
"Well, well," sez I, "be calm. Do jest see them great waves and fields
of lava, milds and milds of 'em, once jest melted fire, rollin' on and
rollin' on--what a sight!" sez I. On one side wuz a sort of a high
terrace, over which the fiery flames had fell and hardened into solid
waves lookin' some as our Niagara would look if her flowin' waters
should suddenly harden as they flowed. I pinted it out to Arvilly, who
wuz by my side. Sez I, "Do look at that! It seems as if Nater had jest
hung up that stupendous sheet there and writ on it the word Glory!
Unapproachable glory and magesty!"
Sez Arvilly dreamily, "If I could jest dig out in that smooth lava the
words, 'The Twin Crimes of America--Intemperance and Greed,' and train
the volcano to run blazin' fire into the mould, what a advertisement
that would be for my book, or for the 'Wild, Wicked and Warlike Deeds
of Man.' It would help the sale of both on 'em tremendously."
And I sez, "Don't try to train no volcanos, Arvilly; you would find
them worse to handle than any man you ever tackled."
"Well," sez she dreamily, "I believe it could be done."
Robert Strong and Dorothy stood clost together, he a-protectin' her,
as I spozed. 'Tennyrate he seemed dretful careful where she stepped
and how and when, and she looked up real confidin' and sweet into his
face, and then, awestruck and wonder smit, down into the burnin' lake
below. The Englishman and Scotchman had gone on a little nigher to it,
with the guide. Hale-mau-mau (House of Endless Fire), well did the
natives name it. Well, it wuz long before we tore ourselves from the
sublime seen, and I dremp of it all night. I see Josiah bore from me
on the lava flood, and then agin I wuz swep' from him and dashed up on
a billow of flame, and visey versey, versey visey. I had a dretful
night, and got up twice and looked out of the winder on the grand
spectacle. But towards mornin' I had a beautiful vision: my pardner
and me wuz bore back to Jonesville, and sot in our own door yard under
a spreadin' geranium tree, and Sister Bobbett stood admirin'ly before
me with a tea-cup in her hand, beggin' for a slip from the immense
branches. It wuz a sweet dream, and I waked up refreshed.