But I spoke right up, and sez, “He is a good-hearted creeter, Uncle Sam is, but needs a adviser time and agin, and not bein’ willin’ to let wimmen have a word to say, I d’no what will become on him; bime-by mebby he’ll see that he had better hearn to me.”
Jest then we hearn a bystander standin’ nigh by us talkin’ about the last news from Russia, and I sez to Miss Curzon, “It is too bad about the war, hain’t it?” And she sez, “Yes indeed!” She felt dretful about it, I could see, and I sez, “So do I. You and I can’t stop it, Miss Curzon; a few ambitious or quarrelsome or greedy politicians will make a war and then wimmen have to stand it. There hain’t nothin’ right in it, seein’ they are half of the world, and men couldn’t have got into the world at all if it hadn’t been for wimmen, and then when wimmen has got ’em here, and took care on ’em till they can run alone, then they go to bossin’ her round the first thing and makin’ her no end of trouble, makin’ wars and things.” And she said she felt jest so, too. “But,” sez I, “excuse me for introducin’ personal and political matters on festive boards” (we wuz standin’ on a kind of a platform built up on the green and velvety grass). Sez I, “I am real glad to see you lookin’ so well, and your companion, too.” She did look handsome as a picter, and handsomer enough sight than some, chromos and such. And seein’ that she had so many to talk to, I withdrawed myself, but as I kinder backed myself off I backed right into Arvilly, who wuz takin’ out the “Twin Crimes” out of her work-bag, and I sez, “Arvilly, you shall not canvass Miss Curzon to-night.”
And she sez, “I’d like to see you stop me, Josiah Allen’s wife, if I set out to do anything.” She looked real beligerent. But I got her into a corner and appealed to her shiverly and pity, and finally I got her to put her book up in her work-bag. 244 Arvilly is good-hearted if you know how to manage her. I knew Miss Curzon would be tired enough to drop down before we all got away, without being canvassed, if she has got two hundred hired help in the house.
Well, we roamed along through the beautiful walks, sweet with perfume and balmy with flowers, brilliant with innumerable lights, and thronged with a gaily dressed crowd and the air throbbing with entrancing strains of music.
Robert Strong looked noble and handsome that night; I wuz proud to think he belonged to our party. He didn’t need uniforms and ribbons and stars and orders to proclaim his nobility, no more than his City of Justice needed steeples. It shone out of his liniment so everybody could see it. It seemed that he and Mr. Curzon wuz old friends; they talked together like brothers.
Dorothy wuz as sweet as a posy in her pretty pink frock, trimmed with white rosies, and her big, white picture hat––the prettiest girl there, I thought; and I believe Robert thought so, too––he acted as if he did. And Miss Meechim wuz in her element. The halls of the noble and gay wuz where her feet loved to linger. And she seemed to look up to me more than ever after she see my long interview with Lady Curzon, as she called her.
Josiah and I returned to our tarven, but the rest of the party wanted to stay some later. We wanted dretfully to go to Benares, and on to Agra so’s to see that wonderful monument to Wedded Love––the Taj Mahal––I spoze the most beautiful building in the hull world; and certainly it is rared up to as noble a sentiment; and its being a kind of rareity, too, made me want to see it the worst kind.
But we had loitered so on our travels that we had to hurry up a little in order to arrive at the Paris Exposition the Fourth of July––United States day. I felt that I couldn’t bear to git there any later and keep France a-waitin’ for us, a-worryin’ for fear we wouldn’t git there at all, so we went post-haste from Calcutta to Bombay and from there to 245 Cairo and on to Marseilles; though we laid out to stop long enough in Cairo to take a tower in Jerusalem. Holy Land, wuz I, indeed, to see thee?
We wuz considerable tired when we got to Bombay. The railroads in Injy are not like the Empire Express; though, as we drew near Bombay, the scenery wuz grand; some like our own Sierra Nevada’s.
Only a few milds back from the railroad, tigers, panthers and all sorts of fierce animals wuz to home to callers, but we didn’t try to visit ’em. At some places the trees along the road wuz full of monkeys, chatterin’ and talkin’ in their own language which they understood, so I spoze; and there wuz the most beautiful birds I ever saw. The climate wuz delightful, some like June days in dear Jonesville.