Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife. Marietta Holley

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СКАЧАТЬ a warnut, and Miss Meechim put in some of the toys she had bought for children of her acquaintance. I got a good little picture book for him in Chicago, and a set of Authors, and Aronette gin him two little linen handkerchiefs, hemstitched by herself, and his name, “Tommy,” worked in the corners. He wuz real tickled with ’em all. I told Miss Meechim that I had hoped to spend Christmas in Salt Lake City. Knowin’ that it wuz a warm climate, I thought I could have a Christmas tree out doors; I thought I could take one of them big pine trees I had read on, and invite Brigham Young’s wives, the hull on ’em, to my party, bein’ out doors I thought there would be room for ’em all, poor creeters!

      But Miss Meechim is very cautious, and she said that she wuz afraid that such a party given by folks in my high position might have a tendency to encourage polygamy.

      And I said, “I would rather give a dollar bill than do that, and mebbe I had better give it up, for we shan’t git there in time, anyway.”

      And so I did, and spent the Christmas holidays on the cars, and tried to keep my heart and mind in a Christmas mood, but don’t spoze I did, so many fond recollections and sad forebodin’s hanted me as the cars swep’ us on, on through the valley of the Platte river on to Denver. Miss Meechim, who is a power on dates, said that Denver wuz five thousand two hundred feet above the sea.

      And Tommy wonnered, wonnered who measured it, and if they did it with a yard stick as his ma measured cloth, 46 and then he wonnered if his ma missed her little boy, and then he laid up aginst me and kinder cried a little, evanescent grief soon soothed.

      We stayed in Denver two days, sallyin’ out to different points of interest about it, and here I see irrigation carried on, water carried into the channels around the crops and trees some as I’ve dug little holes round my house-plants to hold water; only of course Denver wuz carryin’ it on, on a bigger scale. It is a handsome city with the water of the Platte river brung in and running along in little streams by the curbstones. We rode out to Idaho Springs on a narrer railroad but easy goin’, through Clear Creek Canon. I liked the looks of the Springs first-rate (they made me think of Josiah).

      All the way we see Chinamen workin’ hard and patient, as is their wont, and their long frocks they had on made me think of him I mourned for, and their hair hangin’ in long braids down their back. So would his hair look if he had any, and let it grow.

      We had to go a little out of our straight way to visit Salt Lake City but felt that it paid.

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CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

      Salt Lake lays in a rich valley at the foot of a range of snow-capped mountains that tower up ’round it, seemin’ to the saints, I spoze, as if they wuz heavenly ramparts to protect ’em from evil; and lookin’ to them that despise the saints’ ways and customs, as if the very earth itself was liftin’ up its high hands in horrow at their deeds. But to me, hanted as I wuz by a memory, the mountains looked some like old men with white hair; as his would be when he got older if he wuzn’t bald. I knew that I ort not to think on it, but it would come onbid. It is a beautiful city with electric lights, electric railways, broad streets lined with lofty trees, and little rivulets of pure cold snow-water runnin’ along the side of ’em. The houses are clean and comfortable looking, with well-kep’ lawns and gardens about ’em and flowering shrubs. The temple is a magnificent building; it towers up to heaven, as if it wuz jest as sure of bein’ right as our Methodist Episcopal steeple at Jonesville. Though we know that the M. E. steeple, though smaller in size, is pintin’ the right way and will be found out so on that day that tries souls and steeples and everything else.

      The old Bee Hive (where the swarm of Mormons first hived and made gall or honey––or mebby both)––is also an interestin’ sight to meditate on. It is shaped a good deal like one of them round straw bee hives you see in old Sabbath School books. The bride and groom went to their own home to live, on whom we called, or Tommy and I did, and left ’em well situated and happy; and I told him, sez I: “If you ’tend strict to the eighth commandment, you’ll git along first rate.”

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      And he said that he felt he could rise to any height of goodness with Baby’s help. And she scoffed at the idee of pa ever payin’ any attention to any other woman but her, when he worshipped her so.

      Well, so other men have felt and got led off, but I won’t forebode. But I left ’em happy in their own cozy home, which I wuz glad to think I could describe to Phileman and Ann if I ever see that blessed haven, Jonesville, agin.

      We went out to visit the Mineral Springs. It only took us about ten minutes on the train, and it only took us about half an hour to go to Garfield Beach. It is the only sand beach on Salt Lake, and some say it is the finest beach in the world, and they say that the sunsets viewed from this spot are so heavenly bright in their glowin’ colors that no pen or tongue can describe ’em. The blue-green waves wuz dancin’ as we stood on the shore, and we wuz told that if we fell in, the water would hold us up, but didn’t try it, bein’ in sunthin’ of a hurry.

      At Miss Meechim’s strong request we went on a pleasant trip to York City through the valley of the River of Jordan. How good that name sounded to me! How much like scripter! But, alas! it made me think of one who had so often sung with me on the way home from evenin’ meetin’, as the full moon gilded the top of the democrat, and the surroundin’ landscape:

      “By Jordan’s stormy banks we stand

       And cast a wistful eye

      On Canaan’s fair and happy land,

       Where my possessions lie.”

      Oh, human love and longing, how strong thou art! I knowed that him meant the things of the sperit, but my human heart translated it, and I sithed and felt that the Jordan my soul wuz passin’ through wuz indeed a hard pathway, and I couldn’t help castin’ a wishful eye on Jonesville’s 49 fair and happy land, where my earthly possession, my Josiah, lay.

      But to resoom. We had hearn that Polygamy wuz still practised there, and we had hearn that it wuzn’t. But every doubt on that subject wuz laid to rest by an invitation we all had to go and visit a Mormon family livin’ not fur off, and Miss Meechim and I went, she not wantin’ Dorothy to hear a word on the subject. She said with reason, that after all her anxiety and labors to keep her from marryin’ one man, what would be her feelin’s to have her visit a man who had boldly wedded ’leven wives and might want a even dozen!

      I could see it to once, so didn’t urge the matter, but left Tommy with her and Aronette. As nigh as I could make out, the Mormons had felt that Miss Meechim and I wuz high in authority in Gentile climes, one on us had that air of nobility and command that is always associated with high authority, and they felt that one on us could do their cause much good if they could impress us favorable with the custom, so they put their best twenty-four feet forward and did their level best to show off their doctrine in flyin’ colors. But they didn’t do any good to “one on us,” nor to Miss Meechim, either; she’s sound in doctrine, though kinder weak and disagreeable in spots.

      Well, we found that this family lived in splendid style, and the husband and all his pardners acted happy whether they wuz or not. And I d’no how or why it wuz, but when we all sot down in their large cool parlor, Miss Meechim and I in our luxurious easy chairs, and our host in one opposite with his wife occupyin’ ’leven chairs at his sides, a feelin’ of pity swep’ over me––pity for that man.

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