“Oh, Sister Arvilly!” sez Elder Wessel, and he looked as if he would faint away. And I too wuz shocked to my soul, specially as Josiah whispered kinder low to me:
“Samantha, we might git a small idol whilst we’re here. You know it would come handy in hayin’ time and when the roads are drifted full.”
I looked at him in a way that he will remember through his hull life, and sez he quick, “I shan’t do nothin’ of the kind unless you’re willin’.”
“Willin’!” sez I, in heart-broken axents. “What will happen next to me?” And then indignation dried my tears before they fell and I sez, “I command you, Josiah Allen, to never speak to me on this subject agin; or think on’t!” sez I fiercely.
He muttered sunthin’ about thinkin’ what he wuz a mindter. And I turned to Arvilly and sez, to git her mind off:
“See that native, Arvilly, standin’ up on that board!”
For as our good ship bore us onward we see crowds of natives standin’ up on little tottlin’ boards, dartin’ through the water every which way, risin’ and fallin’ on the waves. I couldn’t done it to save my life. No, Josiah nor me couldn’t stood on boards like that on our creek, to say nothin’ of the Pacific Ocean. But we should never have appeared in public dressed in that way––it wuzn’t decent, and I told Josiah I wouldn’t look at ’em if I wuz in his place; I mistrusted that some on ’em might be wimmen. And then I thought of the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve first took the 108 place, and I didn’t really know what to think. But I drawed Arvilly’s attention to one on ’em that seemed extra dextrious in managin’ his board and sez, “How under the sun duz he do it, Arvilly?”
“I d’no,” sez she, and she added dreamily, “I wonder if he would want a copy of the ‘Twin Crimes,’ or the ‘Wicked and Warlike.’ If I do sell any here to the natives it’ll put some new idees in their heads about idol worship wickeder and warliker than they ever had.” Miss Meechim and Dorothy wuz approachin’ and Robert Strong I see looked off with rapt eyes onto the glorious seen. And as no two can see the same things in any picture, but see the idees of their own mind, blended in and shadin’ the view, I spozed that Robert Strong see rared up on the foreground of that enchantin’ seen his ideal City of Justice, where gigantic trusts, crushin’ the people’s life out, never sot its feet, but love, equality and good common sense sot on their thrones in the middle on’t, and the people they ruled wuz prosperous and happy. And anon he looked down into Dorothy’s sweet face as if no foreign shore or any inner vision ever looked so good to him.
Miss Meechim hated to have Dorothy see them natives, I see she did; actin’ so skittish towards the male sect always, it wuz dretful galdin’ to her to see ’em in that state and specially to have Dorothy see ’em. She looked awful apprehensive towards them swimmers and board riders and then at her niece. But when she catched sight of Robert by her side a look of warm relief swep’ over her anxious face, as if in her mind’s eye she see Dorothy by his help walkin’ through the future a prosperous and contented bacheldor maid.
Tommy wuz kinder talkin’ to himself or to his invisible playmate. He wonnered how he wuz goin’ to git on shore, wonnerin’ if he could stand up on one of them little boards and if his grandpa and grandma would each have one to stand up on, and kinder lookin’ forward to such an experience I could see, and Josiah wuz wonderin’ how soon he 109 could git a good meat dinner. And so as on shore or sea each one wuz seein’ what their soul’s eye had to see, and shakin’ ever and anon their own particular skeletons, and shettin’ ’em up agin’ in their breast closets.