One Sunday, Elder Minkley preached an eloquent sermon describing the glories of the New Jerusalem, and Josiah said goin’ home that from Serenus’ tell, the elder had gin a crackin’ good description of Coney Island.
I groaned aloud. And he sez, “You may groan and sithe all you’re a minter; I shall see that magnificent place before I die.”
“Well,” sez I coldly, “I don’t want to talk 6 about it Sunday. If you’ve got to talk about shows and Pleasure Huntin’, do it week days, and don’t pollute this sacred day with it.”
“Pollute nothing!” sez he, and we didn’t speak for over two milds. But another weariness wuz ahead on me, and another strain on my overworked ear pans. Jest about this time, Whitfield Minkley, our Tirzah Ann’s husband, got jest as much carried away and enthused over some other Islands, though he had more to show for his het up state of mind. One thousand and seventy wuz the number of islands he fell voylently in love with and tried to make us the same. He had been to Canada on bizness and went through them islands, and wuz overcome by their extreme beauty. I’d heard that Whitfield’s islands wuz as beautiful as anything this side of the Heavenly gardens. Still, with Serenus on one side praisin’ up Coney, and Whitfield on the other praisin’ up his islands, I got so dead tired of ’em that I wished there wuzn’t a single island on the hull face of the earth. Yes, extreme weariness had got me so low down as that.
One evenin’, Serenus had been there and talked three hours stiddy, describin’ the charms and attractions of his island. The rush and roar 7 of the mechanical amusements, so wonderful they made scientific men wonder. The educated animals that showed how fur animals could be made to reason and understand. The constant hustle and bustle of the immense crowds, ever comin’, ever goin’, ever movin’, never stoppin’. He stood up some of the time describin’ the wonders and splendors there, and tramped up and down our kitchen floor, swingin’ his arms and actin’, till, when he left at late bed-time, Josiah wuz pale with longin’, and when I got up to lock the door and let out the cat, my head seemed to go round and round, and I had to hang onto the door nob to stiddy myself.
And the very next forenoon Whitfield and Tirzah Ann and little Delight come to spend the day. Her name is Anna Tirzah, but I called her Heart’s Delight, she wuz so sweet and pretty, and we’ve shortened it into Delight. I wuz glad to see ’em and done well by ’em in cookin’. I had a excelent dinner started—roast fowl and vegetables and orange puddin’, etc.—but Whitfield, jest as soon as he sot down, begun to descant on the beauty of his islands. I groaned and sithed out in the buttery. “Islands agin! I had one island last night till bed-time, and now I’ve got one thousand and seventy ahead on me.”
“Serenus Gowdey tramped up and down our kitchen floor swingin’ his arms and describin’ the wonders of Coney Island.” (See page 7)