Says I, “So do; and choose the time when he is cleverer than common, jest as I would deal with my Josiah.”
Then I told her, that I would be glad to stay right by her all the afternoon, I felt such a friendship for her but, says I, “you know Julia that even respect and admiration, when they come in conflict with love, have to stand back; and my companion I know is almost famishin’ with hunger, and I have got the key to the satchel bag containin’ our lunch;” and says I, “you know what ravages hunger makes in a man.” She said she knew it well and that I was perfectly excusable. And I bid her good-bye and started on towards the place where I promised to meet my Josiah. I found him a watchin’ the satchel bag, with a gloomy and fractious face, but after he eat, he looked well and happy again. His plan for the afternoon was to see all the live stock on the ground, all the iron work, the mineral annex, the warlike preparations of the different nations, their ships and farmin’ tools, the dairy, brewery, the model of Paris, the newspaper offices, the lighthouses, cheese factory, wagon shops, wind mills and the different tarverns, and he sot right out.
A SHORT ROLL.
MY SUCCESS AS P. A. AND P. I.
The statement of his plan—added to my meanderins and outlay of eloquence—had wearied me nearly out, but I knew well where to go and git rested. I knew what could take me right up—though my heft was great—and waft me off into a land where weariness was never admitted through its gate, where pain and tiredness and care never climbed over its fence. I didn’t know whether to go and be lifted up to this beautiful realm by the music in the glen, or the piano and organ concert in the Main Buildin’; but finally I chose the latter. And seatin’ my body on a seat I peacefully left this weary world, and for about a half or three quarters of an hour I was a triumphant and blessed citizen of that other world which is so near to ours that we can be transported to it in half a moment, and so fur off that no one can ever find the path a leadin’ to it, or tell how it is bounded, or how big it is, or who made it, or why it was made, or anything. But that it is a land of entrancin’ beauty and delight, that we all know; and I don’t know but I should have lingered in it all day, if a rollin’ chair containin’ a woman hadn’t rolled right onto me as I sot on the end of the seat; and bein’ rousted up and brought down to the world again, thinks’es I, I will take a short roll round the buildin’ myself. So I beconed to a young feller whose chair a lady had jest got out of, and took her place; but the move wasn’t a happyfyin’ one to me; I got to thinkin’; thinks’es I who knows where he’ll roll me off to—no knowin’ but what all of a sudden he’ll take a start and run with me clear out of sight. I put in a appearance of calm, and I thought I’d try to stand it a little longer, for I knew he’d think strange my gittin’ out so soon. But I couldn’t seem to sense a thing I see; I kep’ a thinkin’ of Josiah and the peril he was in mebby; I turned round and looked at the chap, and I mistrusted he looked sort o’ wild out of his eye; and I told him in agitated axents that if he was willin’, I’d pay him for the hull hour I bargained for, and git out on the spot. He seemed willin’, and I descended down out of the chair—and was glad of the chance.
Then I went and sot down on a bench by the noble fountain of Moses and Temperance, and I was episodin’ to myself what a hard time Mr. Moses did have in the wilderness, and how he made water flow out of a rock. And I wondered dreamily if he was here now if he wouldn’t have to give a harder knock ag’inst rocky hearts and the rocks of selfishness and custom, before he made water flow instead of likker; when first I knew, Josiah come and sot right down by me, and says he: “You know I told you this mornin’ Samantha, about the ‘Creation Searchers’ all wanderin’ off last night a searchin’ round and gittin’ lost again, and how Shakespeare Bobbet estimated that they had travelled in the neighborhood of one hundred and forty miles, and that he thought his father and old Dagget would be bed rid for life; and how that Shakespeare had shipped ’em home this mornin’ by car load—he goin’ along to lift ’em round, and keep ’em together—all but Solomon Cypher, Cornelius Cork, and the Editor of the Auger.”
“Yes,” says I, “you told me of it, but what of it?”
“Well,” says he, “the three ‘Creation Searchers’ that was left are in jail.”
“In jail, Josiah Allen?”