Josiah Allen's Wife as a P. A. and P. I.: Samantha at the Centennial. / Designed As a Bright and Shining Light, to Pierce the Fogs of Error and Injustice That Surround Society and Josiah, and to Bring More Clearly to View the Path That Leads Straight on to Virtue and Happiness.

by Marietta Holley

Says I, “I believe it Julia; I believe it from nearly the bottom of my heart.”

Says she, “They are a low, dirty, degraded race.”

Says I, “It haint reasonable to expect to git high-toned virtues and principles from ignorance and superstition. Think of minds narrowed down to one thought, by a total lack of culture and objects of interest; think of their constant broodin’ over the centuries of wrongs they think they have endured from the white race; and what wonder is it that this spirit flames out occasionally in deeds that make the world shudder. And then, people will shet their eyes to the causes that led to it, and lift up their hands in horrer, and cry out for extermination.”

Says Julia, “It is Destiny; it is the wave of civilization and progress that is movin’ on from the East to the West. The great resistless wave whose rush and might nothin’ can withstand. Rushin’ grandly onward, sweepin’ down all obstacles in its path.”

Says I, “Julia, that is a sublime idee of yourn, very sublime, and dretful comfortin’ to the waves; but let me ask you in a friendly way, haint it a little tough on the obstacles?”

She said that it was, though she hadn’t never looked at it so much in that light before.

“Yes,” says I, “I know jest how it is; you have looked at the idee with the eye of a wave. But that wont do, Julia; when we look at an idee we must look at it from more than one side; we must look at it with several pair of eyes in order to git the right light onto it;” says I, “I don’t blame you for lookin’ at it with the eye of a wave—a noble, sublime eye, full of power, and might, and glory, calm and stiddy as eternity. And then to be fair, we ort to look at it with the eye of a obstacle, pleadin’, and frightened, and melancholly, with a prophecy of comin’ doom. And when we s’posen the case, it wont do for us to s’posen ourselves waves all the hull time, we must, in order to be just, s’posen ourselves obstacles part of the time. And s’posen you was a obstacle, Julia, and your Ulysses was one, and s’posen I was one, and my Josiah was another one; this wouldn’t hinder us from bein’ faint when we hadn’t nothin’ to eat; and our legs from achin’ when we had been drove clear from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and our hearts from greivin’ when we was forced from our homes to let our enemies live there; and our eyes from rainin’ floods of tears when they see our loved ones fallin’ by our side for defendin’ our homes from what we look upon as a invader. It wouldn’t hinder our hearts from breakin’ when we was drove off and denied the right even to weep over the graves where our hopes was a lyin’ buried up with our beloved obstacles.”

Julia was almost in tears, but she reminded me that they only used the land for low, triflin’ pursuits; such as huntin’ and other worthless amusements; that we put it to better use.

Says I, “Julia, I haint a denyin’ of it, I haint said, and I haint a goin’ to say that it wasn’t necessary to plough up and smooth out their graveyards to make race courses and base ball and crokay grounds for our nobler race; I haint denied it; I was only remindin’ you, that it seemed to be uncommon tough on ’em; that is all. I think on ’em a sight;” says I, “how they used to own the hull of this continent; a friendly, peaceable set Columbus said they was; would have done anything for him, knelt right down and worshipped him, they was so glad to see him. It seems sort o’ pitiful to me, to think they looked with such reverent admirin’ eyes on the comin’ race that was to destroy ’em; knelt down and kissed the white hands that was to strike ’em such fearful blows; thought they come right down from heaven; and how soon they didn’t think so—how soon they thought they come from a different place. I s’pose they was a simple, well meanin’, childlike lot, livin’ so near to Nater, that they got nearer to her heart than we can ever think of gittin’. And the mountains and waters cling to their names yet; it seems as if they don’t forget ’em; the Alleghany’s seem to be a liftin’ up their heads a lookin’ for the Alleghanies and wonderin’ what has become of ’em. The Deleware seems to be a rushin’ along clear to the sea, a huntin’ for the Delewares; and Huron and Erie git fairly mad, and storm and rage a hollerin’ for the Hurons and Eries; and old Ontario, I never see her but what she seems to be a murmurin’ and whisperin’ sunthin’ about the Ontarios; her blue waters have a sort of a mournful sound to me; a nevermore sounds in the wave as it swashes up on the beach, as if it was a cryin’ out to me, askin’ me what we have done with ’em. Her great breast seems to be a heavin’ up and sithin’ for the fate of them whose canoes used to float on her bosom—them light canoes that have floated off further and further, till pretty soon the last one will float off into that ocian whose further shore we haint never seen.”

Says Julia, “I will speak to my husband on the subject at once.”