“Catch the rich corporations of our American cities furnishin’ fuel for even the poorest. No; it would let ’em burn up their old chairs or bedsteads first, or freeze.”
“Well,” sez I, “mebby our country will take pattern of the best of all other countries when she gits round to it; she’s been pretty busy lately.”
And Arvilly sez, “She had better hurry up before her poor are all starved or friz; but as it is,” sez she, “her statesmen are votin’ on wimmen’s hat-pins whilst Justice lays flat 315 with her stillyards on top of her and Pity and Mercy have wep’ themselves sick.”
America is good, her charities are almost boundless, but I think some as Arvilly that Charity hain’t so likely lookin’ or actin’ as Justice, and Robert Strong thinks so too. But it is a great problem what to do for the best in this case. Mebby Solomon knew enough to grapple with the question, but Josiah don’t, nor Arvilly, though she thinks she duz. Robert Strong is gittin’ one answer to the hard conundrum of life, and Ernest White is figurin’ it out successful. And lots of other good and earnest souls all over the world are workin’ away at the sum with their own slates and pencils. But oh, the time is long! One needs the patience of the Sphinx to set and see it go on, to labor and to wait. But God knows the answer to the problem; in His own good time He will reveal it, as the reward of constant labor, tireless patience, trust and prayer. But to resoom forwards: One of the picturesque features of the older part of Berne is that the houses are built up on an arcade under which runs a footpath.
But its great feature is the enchantin’ seenery. It stands on a peninsula and the view on mountain and river is most beautiful.
From Berne we went direct to the city of Milan in Italy. And we found that it wuz a beautiful city eight or nine milds round, I should judge, with very handsome houses, the cathedral bein’ the cap sheaf. I’d had a picture on’t on my settin’ room wall for years, framed with pine cones and had spent hours, I spoze, from first to last lookin’ at it, but hadn’t no more idee of its size and beauty than a Hottentot has of ice water and soap stuns.
From every point of view it is perfect, front side, back side, outside and inside; specially beautiful are the gorgeous stained glass winders in the altar.
Robert Strong and Dorothy and all the rest of the party but Josiah and me and Tommy clumb up to the biggest tower, three hundred and thirty or forty feet, and they said 316 the view from there wuz sublime and you couldn’t realize the beauty of the cathedral until you saw it from that place where you seemed to stand in a forest of beautifully carved white marble. But I sez to ’em, “I can believe every word you say without provin’ it.”
I never could have stood it to clumb so high, but they said you could see way off the Appenines, the Alps, Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, a wonderful view. The cathedral is full of monuments to kings and queens and saints and high church dignitaries. Its carving, statuary, fret work is beyend description. It is said to be the most beautiful in the world and I shouldn’t wonder, ’tennyrate it goes fur, fur beyend the M. E. meetin’-house in Jonesville or Zoar or Loontown.
Milan has beautiful picture galleries, and Miss Meechim and Arvilly and I wuz restin’ in one one day, for we wuz tired out sightseein’, when a young man and woman swep’ by, both on ’em with glasses stuck in their eyes, richly dressed and she covered with jewels, and their wuz a maid carryin’ wraps and a cushion, and a man carryin’ two camp-chairs, and a tall, slim tutor follerin’ with a little boy.