But our attention wuz drawed off by Arvilly, who approached us. She looked skornfully at the costoom of the natives, and I hearn her say to herself: “Not much chance to canvass here.” But even as she spoke her eye fell hopefully on the opposite shore, like a good book agent scanning the earth and heavens for a possible subscriber.
Miss Meechim, who had come on deck with Dorothy and Robert, looked benignantly at the natives and sez: “The poor ye shall always have with you,” and she put her hand in the little bag that she always wore at her side and said: “I wonder if I have got a copy of that blessed tract with me, ‘The Naked Sinner Clothed and in His Right Mind.’”
But Robert sez to her: “They wouldn’t thank you for clothes, Aunt Albina; you will have to wait until we reach New York; some of the naked there would be gladly covered up from the snow and storms.”
“Oh, don’t compare our own blessed land with this heathen clime.”
“But,” sez Robert, “the warm breezes here bring only joy and comfort to that sinner’s naked limbs, and the sin of ignorance may be forgiven. But the shivering sinners, crouching on the cold stone doorsteps, hearing dimly through their benumbed senses prayers and thanksgivings to the Most High for mercies they have no part in, why that is quite a different matter.”
Aronette wuz standing a little ways apart, talking with a young man. He wuz payin’ her compliments, I knew, for there wuz a pink flush on her pretty face, and his eyes had 140 admiration in them. I didn’t like his looks at all; he looked dissipated and kinder mean, and I thought I would warn her aginst him when I got a good chance. Lucia Wessel, too, wuz holding her young charge by the hand, but her attention wuz all drawed off by another young chap that I’d seen with her a number of times, and I didn’t like his looks; he had the same sort of a dissipated look that the other young man had, but I see by the expression of Lucia’s innocent eyes that she didn’t share in my opinion; she looked as if she wuz fairly wropped up in him. I wondered what Elder Wessel would have said if he could have seen that look. But he wuz in blissful ignorance. He thought her bosom wuz composed of a equal mixture of snow and crystal, through which he could read every thought and emotion as soon as they wuz engraved on it. He thought there was no characters written there as yet by any manly hand save his own writ in characters of fatherly and daughterly love. He wuz holdin’ forth to Arvilly, and she with her nose turned up as fur as nater would let it go, wuz listenin’ because he wouldn’t let her git away. I thought by her expression he wuz praisin’ the license laws, for on no other subject wuz he so eloquent, and on no other did Arvilly’s nose turn up to such a hite.
Dorothy and Tommy wondered what those strange trees were that grew on the shore in front, and Robert Strong hastened to their side to help them to such information as he had on the subject. And he had knowledge on almost every subject under the heavens, so it seemed to me.
Well, anon or a little after, we found ourselves on shore and I wuz glad to feel terry firmy under my feet once more. Lots of times on board ship the terry wuz so fur from the firmy that the solid land felt good under the soles of our shoes. Yes, indeed! And though for some time tables and chairs, and even beds and bureaus had a way of advancin’ up towards us and then retreatin’ away from us over and 141 over, yet as I say terry wuz considerable more firmy than the deck had been.
Well, it wuzn’t long before we found ourselves at a comfortable hotel, not too comfortable, but decently so; and in the fulness of time we wuz seated at the table partaking of food which, though it didn’t taste like my good Jonesville vittles, still I could eat and be thankful for. Josiah whispered to me:
“Onions and garlicks and peppers; I never could bear any on ’em, and here I be filled up with ’em; there hain’t a single dish on this table but what’s full of ’em. Oh, Samantha!” sez he pitifully, “if I could only eat one of your good dinnerses or supperses agin’ it seems as if I would be willin’ to die.”