“The law!” sez Arvilly sternly. “The judge brought in a verdict of one dollar damages; it said that children wuzn’t wage-earners and therefore they wuzn’t worth any more.”
I throwed my arms ’round Tommy onbeknown to me, and sez I, “Millions and millions of money wouldn’t pay your 255 grandma for you.” And Tommy wonnered and wonnered that a little boy’s life wuzn’t worth more than a dollar.
“Why,” sez I, “the law gives twenty dollars for a two-year-old heifer.”
“Yes,” sez Arvilly, “the law don’t reckon Willie Henzy’s life worth so much as a yearlin’ calf or a dog. But they can do jest as they please; these great monopolies have spun their golden web round politicians and office-seekers and office-holders and rule the whole country. They can set their own valuation on life and limb, and every dollar they can save in bruised flesh and death and agony, is one more dollar to divide amongst the stockholders.”
“Well,” sez I, “we mustn’t forgit to be megum, Arvilly; we mustn’t forgit in our indignation all the good they do carryin’ folks from hether to yon for almost nothin’.”
“Well, they no need to act more heartless than Nero or King Herod. I don’t believe that old Nero himself would done this; I believe he would gin two dollars for Willie Henzy.”
And I sez, “I never neighbored with Mr. Nero. But if I could git holt of that judge,” sez I, “he would remember it to his dyin’ day.”
“He wouldn’t care for what you said,” sez Arvilly; “he got his pay. There hain’t any of these big monopolies got any more soul than a stun-boat.”
It is only nine hours from Suez to Cairo. How often have I spoke of the great desert of Sarah in hours of Jonesville mirth and sadness, little thinkin’ that I should ever cross it in this mortal spear, but we did pass through a corner on’t and had a good view of the Suez Canal, about which so much has been said and done. For milds we went through the Valley of the Nile, that great wet nurse of Egypt. The banks on either side on’t stand dressed in livin’ green. There wuz a good many American and English people at the tarven in Cairo, but no one we knew. In the garden at the side of the tarven wuz a ostrich pen where a number of great ostriches 256 wuz kep’, and also several pelicans walked round in another part of the garden.
Tommy and I stood by the winder, very much interested in watchin’ the ostriches, and though I hain’t covetous or proud, yet I did wish I had one or two of them satiny, curly feathers to trim my best bunnet in Jonesville, they went so fur ahead of any sisters in the meetin’ house.