Josiah Allen's Wife as a P. A. and P. I.: Samantha at the Centennial. / Designed As a Bright and Shining Light, to Pierce the Fogs of Error and Injustice That Surround Society and Josiah, and to Bring More Clearly to View the Path That Leads Straight on to Virtue and Happiness.

by Marietta Holley

VARIOUS MATTERS.

The next day was Sunday, and if it hadn’t been we couldn’t have gone anywhere. We was sick critters, me and Josiah both; a sort of a Collery Morbeus. Some called it the Sentinal gripe. It was very fashionable to have it, though that didn’t make a mite of difference with Josiah or me; we don’t foller up the fashion so close as some do. Fashion or no fashion, it wasn’t nothin’ we wanted. Josiah felt better towards night, and went out for a little walk, and when he come back, says he:

“The ‘Creation Searchers’ got into a real scrape last night; was took up for vagrants and shet up in the Station House, the hull ten on ’em.”

“How you talk!” says I.

“Yes, I met Sam Snyder jest now and he told me all about it. You see their spectacles blinded ’em so, not bein’ used to ’em, that they got to wanderin’ off, and got lost and couldn’t find the way back, till it got most midnight, and the policemen took ’em up, thinkin’ they was either crazy or fools. It seems they’d all stand in a row, and tell him they was ‘Creation Searchers,’ thinkin’ it would scare him; and he’d holler back to ’em, that he’d ‘Creation Search’ ’em, if they didn’t move on. And then they’d tell him they was ‘World Investigators;’ and he’d tell ’em he’d ‘investigate’ ’em with a club if they didn’t start along. Then they’d try to scare him again. They would all stand still and tell him they was ‘takin’ moments of the Sentinal, and collectin’ information;’ and he’d sass ’em right back, that he’d help ’em to ‘information;’ and then he’d kick ’em. I s’pose they had a awful time, but he got help and shet ’em up.”

IN TROUBLE.

THE “CREATION SEARCHERS” AT THE SENTINAL

Says I firmly,—“Them spectacles will be the ruination of ’em, Josiah.”

“I know it,” says he, “but they have got a reputation to keep up, and will wear ’em.”

The next mornin’, feelin’ sort o’ weak and mauger, we thought we would ride to the Sentinal; and jest as we stepped out into the street, a man from the Grand Imposition Hotel hailed a big covered wagon, and it stopped and he got in. It was jest as full as it could be, seeminly; but the driver said there was “sights of room,” so we got in.

I thought I had seen close times, and tight times, in days that was past and gone, but I found that I knew nothin’ about the words. Why, a tower two miles in length, like that, would have been my last tower. It wasn’t so much that I hadn’t a mite of room, and stood on nothin’, and was squeezed to that extent that a corset was as unnecessary as blinders on a blind man; but I expected the ruff would come onto me every minute, such a tramplin’ round on it. And there I was with my arms pinned to my sides as close as if I was broke in to and they was bandaged to me for splinters. Oh! the tegusness of that time! And my pardner, another mummy by my side, a sweatin’ more prespiration than I would have thought possible, and couldn’t git his hands to his face, to save him; and we a groanin’, and more men a clamberin’ up on the outside, and hangin’ on with one hand, and more wimmen dragged up to suffer on the inside. Oh, never! never! did 10 cents buy such a terrible amount of bodily and mental agony as that 10 cents did.

MACHINERY HALL

But it passed away (the wagon) as all other sufferin’ will, if you give it time. The little turnin’ stile creaked round with us, and we started straight for Machinery Hall, for Josiah said he fairly hankered after seein’ the big “Careless Enjun,” and the great “Corrupt Gun.” The minute we entered into that buildin’ we had sunthin’ to think about.

We went through the three avenues. Josiah thought they was forty miles in length, each one of ’em. I, myself, don’t believe they was, though they was very, very lengthy, and piled completely full of usefulness, beauty and distraction. Every trade in the known world a goin right on there before our face and eyes, and we a walkin’ along a seein’ of ’em:—jewelers a jewelin’; rubber shoemakers a rubbin’; weavers, of all sorts and kinds, a weavin’; and bobbins a bobbin’; rock-crushers a crushin’; fanners a fannin’; lacers a lacin’; silk-worms a silkin’; butterfly-makers a butterflyin’; paper-makers a paperin’; printers, of all kinds, a printin’; and gas-makers a gassin’; elevators a elevatin’; steamers a steamin’; and pumpers a pumpin’; sewin’ machines a sewin’; braiders a braidin’; and curlers a curlin’; rollers a rollin’; and gymnastickers a gymnastickin’; wrenchers a wrenchin’; chucks a chuckin’; drills a drillin’ and gaugers a gaugin’; railroad signals, and frogs; switches a switchin’; bridges; railroads; steamships; threshin’ machines, all in full blast; and cataracks a catarackin’; and if there was anything else in the known world that wasn’t a goin’ on there, I would love to have somebody mention it.

The noise was truly distractin’; but if anybody could stand the wear and tear of their brains and ears, it was one of the most instructive and interestin’ places the world ever afforded to man or woman. Why, if there hadn’t been another thing in the hull buildin’, that great “Careless Enjun” alone, was enough to run anybody’s idees up into majestic heights and run ’em round and round into lofty circles and spears of thought, they hadn’t never thought of runnin’ into before. And there was everything else under the sun to see, and we see it; and everything under the sun to hear, and we heerd it. Though I can’t be expected to describe upon it, for I had to keep such a eye onto myself to keep myself collected together. Why, the noise of my sewin’ machine will make my head ache so sometimes, that I can’t stand it; and then think of takin’ the noise of seventy or eighty thunder-claps, and a span of big earthquakes, and forty or fifty sewin’ societies (run by wimmen), and all the threshin’ machines you can think of, and fifty or sixty big droves of lions and hyena’s a roarin’, and the same number of strong, healthy infants, under the influence of colic, and several hundred political meetin’s and deestrick schools jest let out, and several Niagara Falls; take the noise of all these put together and they don’t give you any jest idee of the noise and distraction.

Why, there was such a awful buzz and clatter of machinery; big wheels a turnin’ little wheels, and little wheels a turnin’ big ones, and all a buzzin’; such a glitterin’ of glass and gildin’ and colors of all kinds, and a swarmin’ of folks and chatterin’ of voices, and rustlin’ of dresses, and thumpin’ of canes, stampin’ of shoes and runnin’ of childern, and flutterin’ of ribbins, and wavin’ of hands, and bowin’ of heads; that though beauty and instruction was on every side of me and I knew it, yet I couldn’t take a realizin’ sense of it. I had to keep askin’ myself every few moments:—“Josiah Allen’s wife, is it you? tell me frankly, whether it is or not; or is it some of the relation on your mother’s side? or be you Josiah? or who be you?”

Jest as I was a thinkin’ this, who should I meet face to face but Cousin Bean, and says she: “Have you seen the mummy from Egypt, three thousand years old?”

“Mummy who?” says I.

Says she,—“It is a Egyptian woman, a princess; she is dead,” says she.

Says I,—“I thought so, from her age.”

“She is embalmed,” says Cousin Bean.

“What kind of balm?” says I, coolly.

She said she nor nobody else knew exactly what kind of balm it was; she said it had got lost thousands of years ago; covered up with the dust of centuries.

I asked her if she knew whether she was any relation of Sphynx; comin’ from the same neighborhood, I didn’t know but she might be.

She said she believed she was.

“Well,” says I, “I’ll go and see her then, for old Sphynx is a woman I have always respected;” says I in a noble tone, “there is a woman who has minded her own business, and kep’ her own secrets for thousands of years. Some say that a woman can’t keep anything to herself for any length of time, and if she has got a secret, has got to git some other woman to help her keep it. But there she has stood and seen the old things become new, and the new, old; the sun of knowledge go down, and the night of barbarism sweep its black shadders over her, and the sun rise up on her again, each one takin’ thousands of years, and she a mindin’ her own business, and keepin’ her affairs to herself through it all; foolin’ the hull world, and not smilin’ at it; nations runnin’ crazy with new idees, and risin’ up and crashin’ down on each other every few hundred years, and she lookin’ on with the calmness and patience of eternity wrote down on her forward. It does me good to see one of my own sect stand so firm.”

So we sot off to see it; Josiah sayin’ he would meet us at noon, down by the Japan House.

My first thought on seein’ it was, “I don’t believe you was hung for your beauty, or would be, if you had lived another three thousand years,” but then my very next thought was, “folks may look sort o’ contemptuous at you, and, in the pride and glory of their butterfly existence, pass you by in a hauty way; but if your still lips could open once, they would shake the hull world with your knowledge of the mysterious past and the still more mysterious future, whose secrets you understand.” And then (unbeknown to me) I reveried a little: thinks’es I, what scenes did them eyes look upon the last time they was opened in this world? What was the last words she heerd,—the last face that bent over her? And what strange and beautiful landscape is it that is spread out before her now? What faces does she see? What voices does she hear? I had quite a number of emotions while I stood there a reverin’—probable as many as twenty or thirty.

But about this time Cousin Bean says she: “Did you see Queen Victoria’s pictures, that she has lent?”

I turned right round and faced her, and says I, in agitated tones,—“You don’t tell me, Miss Bean, that the Widder Albert has got some pictures of her own, here, that she has lent to the Sentinal?”

“Yes,” says she, “she has got three or four, in the English Department of the Art Gallery.”

I turned right round and started for the Artemus Gallery, for I see I had missed ’em the day before, and after I had got into the English Department, a good woman pinted ’em all out to me, at my request.

The first one I looked at, thinks’es I,—how curious that the Widder Albert should send a paintin’ here, picturin’ all out what I had thought about ever sense I had thought at all. Thinks’es I, I most know she has heerd how I always felt about it, and sent it over a purpose to accommodate me. It was the “Death of Wolfe.” Oh! how often I had heerd Josiah sing (or what he called singin’) about it; how

“Brave Wolfe drew up his men

In a line so pretty,

On the field of Abraham,

Before the city.”

That was when we was first married, and he wantin’ to treat me first-rate would set and sing to me evenins, (or what he called singin’) till he was hoarse as a owl, about “Lovely Sophronia Sleeps in Death,” and “Lady Washington’s Lament,” and “Brave Wolfe.” And I, bein’ jest married, and naturally feelin’ kind o’ sentimental and curious, would set and cry onto my handkerchief till it was wet as sop.

Then there was the Widder Albert, herself, dressed up slicker than I ever was, or ever shall be; but I was glad to see it. There haint a envious hair in my head; if there was, I would pull it out by the roots, if I had to take the pinchers to it. It wouldn’t have hurt my feelins if she had been dressed in pure gold, from head to foot. Store clothes can’t be made too good for that woman.

THE MARQUIS OF LORNE

But what was about as interestin’ to me, as any of ’em, was the weddin’ of the Widder Albert’s oldest boy, Albert Wales. It was a noble, large picture. There they stood before the minister, as natteral as life; and lots of the most elegant dressed folks of both sects, and officers dressed in uniform, a standin’ all round ’em; and the Widder’s benign face a lookin’ down on ’em like a benediction.

I see there was a man a standin’ by this picture, keepin’ his eye on it all the time, and a woman in front of me said to another one:

“He stands there a watchin’ the Queen’s pictures all the time, don’t he?”

“Yes,” says the other one, “so afraid they will git injured in some way.”

Before I could say a word to ’em, they sailed off out of the room. But it all come to me in a minute, who he was. It was the Widder Albert’s son-in-law, Loeezy’s husband. I remembered readin’ that he was expected to the Sentinal; and here he was, a watchin’ his mother-in-law’s pictures. Thinks’es I, how awful clever that is in him; some men despise their mother-in-laws. And I declare, my admirin’ feelins towards him, for treatin’ his wife’s ma so well, and the feelins I felt for that woman, so rousted me up, that I walked right up to him and held out my right hand, and says I, in tones tremblin’ with emotion:

“How do you do, Mr. Lorne? Little did I think I should have this honor and deep pleasure; little did I think I should see one of the Widder Albert’s own family here to-day.”

He kinder glared at me, in a strange and almost shocked way, and says I, in polite axents:

“You don’t know me, of course,” and then I made a handsome curchy as I says, “but I am Josiah Allen’s wife. Do tell me, how is your mother-in-law; how is the Widder Albert?” And then I wiped my heated forward, and says I,—“I am a very warm friend of hern. It takes more than the same blood to make folks related. Congenial spirits and kindred souls, are the truest relationship, and she is dretful near to me. Is the warm weather kinder wearin’ on her? It uses me right up.” I have sweat more prespiration to-day, than any day sense I was on my tower. I have told my husband, Josiah, that if it kep’ on, I didn’t know but he would have to carry me home in a pail, (or pails.)

He spoke out and says he,—“Madam, you are mistaken, I—”

He looked awful sort o’ surprised, and even angry. It probable surprised him to see such polite manners in a Yankey. I was a actin’ well and friendly, and I knew it, and I kep’ right on a appearin’. Says I:

“Josiah and I have worried about her, a sight. We read last spring, in the World, that she was enjoyin’ real poor health, and we was afraid that this weather would go hard with her; for there haint another woman on the face of the earth, that I honor and admire, more than I do the Widder Albert. She is jest about right, I think; handsome enough, and not too handsome, so’s to be vain, and envied by other wimmen; smart enough, and not too smart, so’s to be conceited and top-heavy; and sound principles, sound as anything can be sound. Her heart is in the right place, exactly, bounded on one side by sympathy and tenderness, and on the other by reason and common sense. Why shouldn’t her husband have been a happy man, settin’ in the centre of such a heart? Why shouldn’t she have brought her childern up well? She is a woman that has had her Rights, and has honored them and herself. And let any opposer and scoffer of Woman’s Rights, take a telescope and look at the Widder Albert, and then look at her 4 fathers; let ’em see whether England has prospered best under her rain, or under their rain; let ’em see who has been the most God-fearin’ and well-behaved; let ’em turn that telescope onto her public actions, and then onto theirn; and then let ’em look close and searchin’ onto the private life of them 4 old fathers, and then onto hern, and see which looks the purest and prettiest.

“And after they have done, let ’em lay that telescope down, and say that wimmen don’t know enough, and haint sound-minded enough to vote; jest let ’em say it if they dare! And wimmen, too; why! her example ort to stand up in life, before some vain, frivolous wimmen I could mention—wimmen that don’t believe in havin’ a right—jest as plain as if it was worked on a canvas sampler, with a cross stitch, and hung up in their kitchens. A young woman, crowned with all the glory and honor the world could give, devotin’ her life first to God, and then to the good of her people; carryin’ her Right jest as stiddy and level as a Right ever was carried; faithful to all her duties, public and private; her brightest crown, the crown of true motherhood; no more truly the mother of princes, than mother of England. Why, the farm she had left to her by her uncle George, is so big that the sun don’t never go down on it; larger in dimensions than we can hardly think on with our naked minds; and all over that enormous farm of hern, the flowers turn no more constant to that sun, and that sun is no more consolin’ and inspirin’ to them flowers, than is the thought of this kind, gracious lady to them that work her farm on shares. Why! her memory, the memory of a woman—who had a Right—will go down to future ages as one to be revered, and almost worshiped.”

But if you’ll believe it, after all my outlay of politeness, and good manners, that feller acted mad. What under the sun ailed him I don’t know to this day, unless it was he couldn’t git over it—my praising up his mother-in-law so. Some men are at such sword’s pints with their mother-in-laws that they can’t bear a word in their favor. But I wasn’t goin’ to encourage no such feelins in him, and I was determined to be polite myself, to the last, so I says in conclusion: “Good-bye, Mr. Lorne, give my best respects to your mother-in-law.”

He give me a look witherin’ enough to wither me, if I had been easy withered, which I wasn’t. And that was the last words I said to him. Jest that minute Josiah come in, and I told him that I hadn’t no idee the Marquis of Lorne was such a feller.

Says Josiah, “I don’t believe it was Mark, it was some tyke or other; mebby it was the Widder’s hired man.”

I wouldn’t contend with him, but I knew what I did know. I went to lookin’ at some of the other pictures. There was faces that was glad and happy, and some that had desolation wrote out on ’em. There was one picture, “War Times” that made me feel very sad feelins; an old man leanin’ on a rough stun fence, lookin’ over the lonely winter fields, and thinkin’ of his boys away on the field of death—the boys that made the old farm jubilant with their happy voices and gay young faces. You can see it all in the old man’s face—the memory, the dread, and the heartache. And then there was another one “La Rota,” by name that worked on my feelins dretfully. A mother standin’ before a foundlin’ hospital, jest about puttin’ her baby into the little turnin’ box in the winder that would turn him forever from his mother’s arms into the arms of charity, which are colder. After that one kiss on the baby face, she would never see him, never know of his fate; he would be as lost to her as if she had lost him in the crowd of heavenly childern; though in that case she would know where he was: safe forever from sin and misery, and here—how could she tell what would be the baby’s fate. Oh, how bad La Rota was a feelin’; how I did pity her.

And then there was “The Prodigal,” a comin’ back in rags, and misery, and remorse, to the home he left in his pride and strength; and to see that old father a waitin’ to welcome him, and the feeble old mother bein’ helped out by her sons and daughters—a forgivin’ of him. Oh, what a idee that did give of the long sufferin’ and patience of love.

Finally, my eyes fell onto a picture that affected me more than any I had seen as yet. The name on’t was: “The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, Blessed be the name of the Lord.” They had gathered round the table for the first time since death had been there, and the minister was askin’ a blessin’. A woman sat at the head of the table with her hands clasped close, as if to crush back her agony; her face white and thin from watchin’ and sorrow—jest as a certain person’s would be if it was Josiah,—her eyes bent down, jest as if she could not look at that vacant chair. On one side of her with his face bent down in grief, was a young feller about the age of Thomas Jefferson; on the other side, a girl about the age of Tirzah Ann, was kneelin’ right down by the table a sobbin’ as if her heart would break. And as I looked at it the thought would come up, though I ordered it back, “What! what if it was Josiah?” And this thought rousted up such feelins that I couldn’t control ’em, and I turned round instinctively and locked arms with him, and we went into another room.

Presently, or about that time we found ourselves in the French Department. I laid out to pay a good deal of attention to France, whether they showed off in the Main Buildin’ or Art Gallery, or anywhere; because, wherever I stood before their doins,—above all the beauty and grandeur of their display, I see with my mind’s eye, that gallant form that left glory and happiness behind him to come with army and treasure to help a strugglin’ land to freedom. I see that noble face—not middle-aged and brass-mounted as he looks on his monument, but young and eager eyed—a standin’ on the vessel’s keel, (or keeler) a goin’ at Liberty’s call, into a New World, and the perils and hardships of a camp; and wavin’ back a good bye to the gay pleasures of his youth, to rank, and all he loved best—his sweetheart and his native land.

I feel most skairt to say it, and don’t know as I ort to, but somehow I feel a little different about Layfayette from what I do about our own glorious Washington. For G. W. was a fightin’ for his own land, and there was most likely a little mite of selfishness mixed up with his noble emotions, (probable not more than one part in two or three hundred) but in this noble young feller these wasn’t a mite. He give all, and dared all, from pure love of Liberty, and sympathy for the oppressed. And so France’s hull doins would have looked good to me anyway for his sake. But if they had stood up on their own merits alone they would have stood firm and solid as a hemlock post newly sot. They done well, clear from the ceilin’ down. There was one picture, there was a great crowd before, and amongst the rest I see the “Creation Searchers” a standin’ in a row, a gazin up at it with a dissatisfied though nearly wooden expression of countenance. The picture was “Rizpah Defendin’ the bodies of Saul’s childern from the Eagles;” it affected me terribly—I thought of Thomas Jefferson. The wild desolation of the spot, the great beams a risin’ out of the rocks with the seven dead bodies a hangin’ up in the air—left there to die of hunger and agony,—with the slow death of agonizin’ horrer wrote out on their dead faces and their stiffened forms. And beneath them standin’ with her yeller dress and blue drapery a floatin’ back from her, is Rizpah, fightin’ back a huge vulture that with terrible open mouth and claws is contendin’ with her for the bodies of her sons. They were slain to avert the famine, and there is in her face the strength of the martyr, and the energy of despair. How that woman, so strong, so heroic by nature must have loved her two boys! It was a horrible, scareful picture but fearfully impressive. When I look at anything very beautiful, or very grand and impressive, my emotions lift me clear up above speech. I s’pose the higher we go up the less talkin’ there is done. Why if anybody could feel sociable and talkative when they first look at that picture, I believe they could swear, they wouldn’t be none too good for it. But jest at that minute when I was feelin’ so awful horrified, and lifted up, and curious, and sublime and everything, I heerd a voice sayin’ in a pert lively tone, but very scorfin’,

“That haint true to nater at all.”

“No,” says Solomon Cypher in a complainin’, fault-findin’ way, “there’s nothin’ natteral about it at all. Why!” says he strikin’ himself a eloquent blow in the pit of his stomach—“why didn’t they hang the scarecrows nearer to the cornfield?”

“And I never,” says Cornelius Cork, a holdin’ his glasses on with both hands—for his nose bein’ but small, they would fall off—“I never see a crow that looked like that; it haint shaped right for a crow.”

“The perspective of the picture haint the right size,” says Shakespeare Bobbet.

“The tone is too low down,” says Solomon Cypher; “the cheerful obscure is too big and takes up too much room.”

“Cheerful obscure,” says I in witherin’ tones, as I looked round at ’em.

“Don’t you think we know what we are a talkin’ about Josiah Allen’s wife?” says Solomon Cypher.

“I wont say that you don’t,” says I “for it wouldn’t be good manners.” I wouldn’t stay another minute where they was, and I hurried Josiah out tellin’ him Miss Bean would be a waitin’ for us at the Japan house. I told Josiah on our way that them “Creation Searchers” fairly sickened me, a runnin’ things down, and pretendin’ not to admire ’em, and lookin’ wooden, and findin’ fault.

THE SPIRITUALIST

“Well,” says Josiah, “they say they have got a reputation for wisdom to keep up, and they will do it.”

“They are keepin’ up the reputation of natteral fools,” says I warmly.

“Well,” says Josiah with that same triumphant look to his mean he always wore when we talked on this subject, “if there haint anything in it Samantha, why does so many do it?”

He had got the better of me for once, and he knew it. I knew well there was hundreds of folks that got up on big reputation in jest that way, so I wouldn’t multiply another word with him, for I couldn’t.

THE WIMMEN’S PAVILION

Josiah said he wanted to look at a mowin’ machine, and as I hadn’t been to the Woman’s Pavilion only to take a cursory view of it, I thought now was my time, and so I went through it with a proud and happy heart. Yes, I can truly say without lyin’ that my emotions as I went through that buildin’ was larger in size and heftier in weight than any emotions I had enjoyed sense I had been to the Sentinal. Feelin’ such feelins for my sect as I felt, holdin’ their honor and prosperity, and success nearer to my heart, than to any earthly object, (exceptin’ Josiah) I suppose if anybody could have looked inside of my mind as I wandered through them rooms, they would have seen a sight they never would have forgot the longest day they ever lived; I s’pose it would have skairt ’em most to death if they wasn’t used to seein’ emotions performin’. Oh! such proud and lofty feelins as I did enjoy a seein’ the work of my sect from all over the length and breadth of the world. The wonderful, useful inventions of the sect, showin’ the power and solid heft of her brains; the beautiful works of art showin’ her creative artist soul, and provin’ plain the healthy and vigorous state of her imagination. The wonderful wood carvin’, and dainty fancy needle work, and embroideries of all kinds you can imagine, showin’ the stiddy, patient, persistent powers of her hands and fingers; and what was fur more interestin’ to me of all, was the silent exhibit at the south entrance, showin’ what sort of a heart she has within her, a record of eight hundred and twenty-two large noble sized charities, organized and carried on by the sect which a certain person once Smith, is proud to say she belongs to.

Oh! I can truly say that I felt perfectly beautiful, a goin’ through them noble halls, a seein’ everything and more too, (as it were) from doll’s shoes, and pictures of poseys, and squirrels, and five little pigs, up to the Vision of St. Christopher, and a big statute of Eve standin’ with her arm over her face, hidin’ the shame in it. There was Injun basket work, perfectly beautiful, and settin’ by the side of it weavin’ her baskets sot as dignified and good appearin’ a woman, (though dark complexioned) as any nation of the world sent to the Sentinal. I bought a little basket of her right there on the spot, for I liked her looks, and she handed me out her card:

Margaret Kesiah, Obkine Injun of Canada.

And there was napkins, the linen of which was wove by my friend, the Widder Albert; and as I looked at ’em, I thought gently to myself: how many wimmen who haint got a Right, and don’t want one, could spin linen equal to this? And then amongst every other way to honor and glorify my sect that could be thought of, there was a female woman all carved out of butter. I had thought in my proud spirited hautiness of soul that I could make as handsome butter balls, and flower ’em off as nobby as any other woman of the age. But as I looked at that beautiful roll of butter all flattened out into such a lovely face, I said to myself in firm axents, though mild: “Samantha, you have boasted your last boast over butter balls.”

There was some bright happy pictures, and some that wasn’t. One was of a sick child and its mother out in the desert alone with the empty water jug standin’ by ’em. The mother holdin’ the feeble little hands, and weepin’ over him. Her heart was a desert, and she was in a desert, which made it hard for her, and hard for me too, and I was jest puttin’ my hand into my pocket after my white cotton handkerchief, when somebody kinder hunched me in the side, and lookin’ round, there was that very female lecturer I see at New York village. Says she: “Come out where it is more quiet, Josiah Allen’s wife; I want to have a little talk with you.”

THE FEMALE LECTURER

She looked perfectly full of talk, but says I: “I haint only jest commenced lookin’ round at the splendid doins in this buildin’;” says I, “I don’t want to stir out of this house for 13 or 14 hours.”

Says she, “You can come again, but I must have a talk with you.”

Says I, “Feelin’ as I do, wont you excuse me mom?”

But she wouldn’t excuse me, and seein’ she was fairly sufferin’ to talk, I led the way to a rendezvoo where I promised Josiah to be, not knowin’ how long she would talk when she got at it, for—though I am very close mouthed myself—I know well the failins of my sect in that respect. The very moment we sot down on the pleasant and secluded bench I took her to, she begun:

“What do you think of men meetin’ here to celebrate National Independance and the right of self-government, when they hold half of their own race in political bondage?”

Says I, firmly, “I think it is a mean trick in ’em.”

Says she, bitterly: “Can’t you say sunthin’ more than that?”

“Yes,” says I, “I can, and will; it is mean as pusly, and meaner.”

Says she, “What do you think of their meetin’ here and glorifyin’ the sentiment up to the heavens in words, ‘true government consists in the consent of the governed’ and tramplin’ it practically down to the dust under their feet? What do you think of this great ado over grantin’ the makin’ of our laws to the Irishman jest out of prison, whom they dislike and despise—and denyin’ these rights to intelligent, native-born citizens, whom they love and respect? What do you think of their taxin’ the Christian and earnest souled woman, worth half a million, and leave it to men, not worth the shoes they wear to the pole, the ignorant, and the vicious, to vote how that money shall be used; she, by the work of her hands or brains, earnin’ property to be used in this way, in makin’ and enforcin’ laws she despises and believes to be ruinous, and unjust in the sight of God and man. What do you think of this?” says she.

Says I, with a calm but firm dignity: “I think pusly is no meaner.”

“Oh!” says she, turnin’ her nose in the direction of the Main Buildin’ and shakin’ her brown lisle thread fist at it, “how I despise men! Oh, how sick I be of ’em!” And she went on for a long length of time, a callin’ ’em every name I ever heerd men called by, and lots I never heerd on, from brutal whelps, and roarin’ tyrants, down to lyin’ sneakin’ snipes; and for every new and awful name she’d give ’em, I’d think to myself: why, my Josiah is a man, and Father Smith was a man, and lots of other relatives, and 4 fathers on my father’s side. And so says I:

“Sister, what is the use of your runnin’ men so?” says I, mildly, “it is only a tirin’ yourself; you never will catch ’em, and put the halter of truth onto ’em, while you are a runnin’ ’em so fearfully; it makes ’em skittish and baulky.” Says I, “Men are handy in a number of ways, and for all you seem to despise ’em so, you would be glad to holler to some man if your horse should run away, or your house git a fire, or the ship go to sinkin’, or anything.”

Says she, “Men are the most despiseable creeters that ever trod shoe leather.”

“Well,” says I, calmly, “take wimmen as a race, mom, and they don’t cherish such a deadly aversion to the other sect as you seem to make out they do; quite the reverse and opposite. Why, I have seen wimmen act so, a follerin’ of ’em up, pursuin’ of ’em, clingin’ to ’em, smilin’ almost vacantly at ’em; I have seen ’em act and behave till it was more sickenin’ than thoroughwort to my moral stomach.” Says I, “I cherish no such blind and almost foolish affection for ’em as a sect, (one, I almost worship) but I have a firm, reasonable, meetin’-house esteem for ’em, as a race. A calm, firm regard, unmoved and stiddy as a settin’ hen; I see their faults, plainly, very—as my Josiah will testify and make oath to; and I also see their goodnesses, their strength, their nobilities, and their generosities—which last named are as much more generous than ourn, as their strength is stronger.”

Says I, “Pause a moment, mom, in your almost wild career of runnin’ men down, to think what they have done; look round the world with your mind’s eye, and see their work on land and sea. See the nations they have founded; see the cities stand where there used to be a wilderness: see the deserts they have made to blossom like a rosy; see the victories they have got over time and space,—talkin’ from one end of the world to the other in a minute, and travellin’ almost as quick, through mountains and under the water, and every thing. See how old ocian herself—who used to roar defiance at ’em—was made by ’em to bile herself up into steam to git the victory over herself. And in spite of the thunder that tried to scare ’em out, see how they have drawrd the lightnin’ out of the heavens to be their servant. Look there,” says I, pintin’ my forefinger eloquently towards the main Halls: Machinery, Agricultural—and so 4th—“see the works of that sect you are runnin’ so fearfully; see their time-conquerin’, labor-savin’ inventions, see—”

“I won’t see,” says she, firmly, and bitterly. “I won’t go near any of their old machines; I’ll stand by my sect, I’ll stick to the Woman’s Pavilion. I haint been nigh Machinery Hall, nor the Main Buildin’, nor the Art Gallery, nor I won’t neither.”

“I have,” says I, in triumphant, joyful tones, “I have been lost in ’em repeatedly, and expect to be again. I have been destracted and melted down in ’em, and have been made almost perfectly happy, for the time bein’, to see the wonderful fruits of men’s intellects; the labor of strong heads and hearts; to see the works of men’s genius, and enterprise, and darin’; the useful, the beautiful and grand, the heroic and sublime. Why I have been so lifted up that I didn’t know but I should go right up through the ruff, (over 200 pounds in all). I have been elevated and inspired as I don’t expect to be elevated and lifted up again for the next 100 years. And lookin’ round on what I see, and thinkin’ what I thought, it made me so proud and happy, that it was a sweet thought to me that my Josiah was a man.”

“Oh shaw!” says she, “you had better be a lookin’ at the Woman’s Pavilion, than lookin’ on what them snipes have done.”

Says I, “Do you take me for a natteral fool mom? Do you s’pose I am such a fool or such a luny, that every time I have looked at the Woman’s Pavilion, and gloried over the works of her hands and brains, I haint felt jest so—only more so?” Says I, “That buildin’ stands there to-day as a solid and hefty proof that wimmen are sunthin’ more than the delicate, and helpless zephyrs and seraphines, that they have been falsely pointed out to be.” Says I, “It is a great scientific fact, that if men go to canterin’ blindly down that old pathway of wimmen’s weakness and unfitness for labor and endurance and inability to meet financikal troubles and discouragements again, they must come bunt up ag’inst that buildin’ and recognize it as a solid fact, and pause before it respectfully, ponderin’ what it means, or else fall. They can’t step over it, their legs haint long enough.”

And says I, “It is earnest thought and work that has filled it, and that is what wimmen want to do—to do more, and say less. No stream can rise higher than its fountain; a universe full of laws to elevate wimmen can’t help her, unless she helps herself. Sufferagin’ will do a good deal, but it haint a goin’ to fill up a empty soul, or a vacant frivolous mind. There are thoughts that have got to turn right square round and travel another road; there is tattin’ and bobinet lace to be soared over; there is shoulder blades that has got to be put to the wheel. Every flag on the buildin’ seems to float out like good deeds and noble eloquent thoughts, while the gabriel ends stand firm under ’em, like the firm, solid motives and principles that great and good deeds have got to wave out from, in order to amount to anything.”

“But,” says she, “the mean snipes won’t let us vote.”

Says I calmly, “That’s so; they haint willin’ all on ’em, to give us the right of sufferagin’ jest at present, and as I have said, and say now, it is mean as pusly in ’em. But it don’t look so poor in them as it does in the wimmen that oppose it, a fightin’ ag’inst their own best interests. It seems to me that any conscientious, intelligent woman, who took any thought for herself and her sect, would want a Right to—”

Here she hollered right out interruptin’ me; says she: “Less vote! less take a hammer and go at the men, and make them let us vote this minute.”

Says I, “I’d love to convince men of the truth, but it haint no use to take a hammer and try to knock unwelcome truths into anybody’s head, male or female. The idee may be good, and the hammer may be a moral, well meanin’ hammer; but you see the dander rises up in the head that is bein’ hit, and makes a impenetrable wall, through which the idee can’t go; that is a great philosophical fact, that can’t be sailed round, or climbed over. And it is another deep scientific principle, that you can’t git two persons to think any more of each other or think any nearer alike by knockin’ their heads together. Nobody can git any water by breakin’ up a chunk of ice with a axe; not a drop; you have got to thaw it out gradual; jest like men’s and wimmen’s prejudices in the cause of Wimmen’s Rights. Public sentiment is the warm fire that is a goin’ to melt this cold hard ice of injustice that we are contendin’ ag’inst; laws haint good for much if public opinion don’t stand behind ’em pushin’ ’em onward to victory.”

“I wont wait a minute,” says she, “I will vote.”

But I argued with her; says I: “Sister, you are well meanin’, no doubt, but you ort to remember that the battle haint always to the swift.” Says I, “It wont harm none of us to foller Nater’s ways a little more close; and Nater is a female that—if she is ruther slow motioned—generally has her way in the end to an uncommon degree. You don’t catch her gittin’ mad, wild, impatient, tearin’ open a kernel of corn, or grain of wheat, or anything, and growin’ a stalk out of it sudden and at once. No! jest like all patient toilers for the Right, she plants the seed, and then lets it take time to swell out, and git full to bustin’ with its own convictions and desires to grow, till it gits so sick of the dark ground where it is hid, and longs so for the light and the free air above it, that it can’t be kep’ back a minute longer, but soars right up of its own free will and accord, towards the high heavens and the blessed sunlight. But if seeds haint good for nothin’, they wont come up; all the sunshine and rain on earth can’t make ’em grow, nor cultivators, nor horse rakes, nor nothin’.

“And so with principles. Lots of folks spend most of their days a plantin’ seeds that wont come up. What is worthless wont amount to nothin’—in accordance with that great mathematical fact, that scientific folks like me apply to lots of things, and find that it comes right every time—that ort from ort leaves nothin’, and nothin’ to carry. But if the idee is true and has got life in it, no matter how dark the mould that covers it, it is morally bound to sprout—positively bound to, and can’t be hindered. Don’t you know, when a big forest has been cut down, berry bushes will spring right up, seem to have stood all ready to spring up for the refreshin’ of men and wimmen jest as quick as the shadders of the tall trees had got offen ’em; curious, but so it is. Who knows how many centuries them seeds have laid there a waitin’ their time to grow, gittin’ sick of the shadders mebby, but jest a waitin’ with considerable patience after all.

“And thinkin’ of these things mom, ort to make us considerable patient too, willin’ to work, and willin’ to wait; knowin’ that gittin’ mad and actin’ haint a goin’ to help us a mite; knowin’ that the seeds of good and right, planted with tears and prayers, are bound to spring up triumphant; knowin’ that the laughin’ and cold sneers of the multitude haint a goin’ to frost bite ’em; knowin’ that the tears of weakness, and weariness, and loneliness, fallin’ from human eyes over the hoe handle in plantin’ time, only moistens the sod, and kinder loosens it up first-rate. And that even the ashes of persecution, and all the blood that falls in righteous cause, only nourishes the snowy flowers and golden grain of the future. Mebby it is our mission to clear away trees and stumps—sort o’ wood choppers, or sawyers—I don’t care a mite what I am called. We may never see the seed spring up; we may not be here when it breaks through the dark mould triumphant; but somebody will see it; happy skies will bend over it; happy hearts will hail it; and if Freedom, Truth, and Justice is remembered, what matters it if Josiah Allen’s wife is forgotten.”

Says she, “I will hammer ’em.”

I declare for’t I had forgot where I was, and who I was, and who she was, and who Josiah was—I was carried away such a distance by my emotions. But her remark soared up like a brass pin or a tack nail, and pierced my wrapped mood. I see I hadn’t convinced her, her eyes looked wild and glarin’.

“Well,” says I, “if you do you will probable have the worst of it, besides injurin’ the hammer.”

Jest at that very minute I see Josiah a comin’, and I watched that beloved and approachin’ form for mebby half or two thirds of a minute, and when I looked round again she was gone, and I was glad on’t; I never liked her looks. And in a few minutes Miss Bean come too, and says she: “Don’t you want to go and see some relicks?”

Says I, “I haint particular either way. Bein’ a respectable married woman with a livin’ pardner of my own, I shant make no move either way, I shant run towards ’em or from ’em. Havin’ lived a vegetable widow for so many years, I s’pose you feel different about relicks.”

Says she, “I mean relicks from Jerusalem and other old places, made out of wood from Mount Olive, and the cross, and the Holy Sepulchre, and so 4th.” And then she kinder whispered to me: “They do say that they have used up more than ten cords of stove-wood right here in the village of Filadelphy, a makin’ relicks for Turks to sell—Turks right from Ireland.” Says she, “You are so awful patriotic you ort to see George Washington’s clothes, and old Independence Hall, and Liberty bell.”

AMONG THE RELICS

Says I in agitated axents: “Cousin Bean has George Washington got any clothes here to the Sentinal?”

“Yes,” says she, “they are in the United States Government Buildin’.”

I gripped holt of her hand, and says I, “Lead me there instantly!” and she led the way to the buildin’.

But though I see everything on my way and more too seeminly, I didn’t seem to sense anything as it should be sensed, till I stood before them relicks; and then, oh! what feelins I did feel as I see that coat and vest that George had buttoned up so many times over true patriotism, truthfulness, and honor. When I see the bed he had slept on, the little round table he had eat on, the wooden bottomed chair he had sot down on, the belluses he had blowed the fire with in cold storms and discouragements; and then to see the bed quilts worked by his own mother, and to think what powerful emotions, what burnin’ plans, what eager hopes, and what dark despairs they had covered up in 76. And then to see—a layin’ on the bed—the cane that Benjamin give to George, and to see George’s glasses and candle stick, and trunks and etcetery. Why, they all rousted up my mind so, that I told Josiah I must see Independance Hall before I slept, or I wouldn’t answer for the consequences. I was fearfully rousted up in my mind, as much so as if my emotions had been all stirred up with that little hatchet that G. W. couldn’t tell a lie with.

Leavin’ Miss Bean, we started off for Independance Hall. What feelins I felt, as I stood in the room where our 4 fathers signed the papers givin’ their childern liberty; where them old fathers signed the deed without flinchin’ a hair, though they well knew that it had got to be sealed red with their blood. To stand on that very floor—kinder checkered off—that they had stood on, to see them very chairs that they had sot in, and then to see their brave, heroic faces a lookin’ down on me—I felt strange, curious. And there was that old bell that had rung out the old slavery and oppression, and rung in the new times of freedom and liberty. My emotions tuckered me out so that when I got to sleep that night, I was dreamin’ that I was upon the top of that bell a swingin’ over the land, soarin’ right back and forth; a swingin’ back into them times that tried men’s and wimmen’s souls, and then forth again into the glorious nineteenth century. I had a awful time of it, and so did Josiah, and I wouldn’t go through it again for a dollar bill, and Josiah says he wouldn’t.