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

Читать онлайн книгу Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife - Marietta Holley страница 9

Название: Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife

Автор: Marietta Holley

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Языкознание

Серия:

isbn: 4057664625236

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ them that don’t want it clean are throwin’ slime and dirt into it all the time, heapin’ up the loathsome filth. Somebody has got to take holt and work as well as pray, if these plague spots and misery breeders are ever purified.”

      “Well, Elder White is doin’ all he can,” sez Phila. “He went right to the polls ’lection day and worked all day; for the Whiskey Power wuz all riz up and watchin’ and workin’ for its life, as you may say, bound to draw back into its clutches some of the men that Elder White, with the Lord’s help, had saved. They exerted all their influence, liquor run free all day and all the night before, tryin’ to brutalize and craze the men into votin’ as the Liquor Power dictated. But Elder White knew what they wuz about, and he and all the earnest helpers he could muster used all their power and influence, and the election wuz a triumph for the Right. East Loontown went no-license, and not a saloon curses its streets to-day. North Loontown, where the minister felt that he wuz too good to touch the political pole, went license, and five more filthy pools wuz opened there for his flock to fall into, to breed vile influences that will overpower all the good influence he can possibly bring to bear on the souls committed to his care.”

      “But,” sez I, “he is writin’ his book, ‘Commentaries on Ancient Sins,’ so he won’t sense it so much. He’s jest carried away with his work.”

      Sez Phila, “He had better be actin’ out a commentary on modern sins. What business has he to be rakin’ over the old ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah for bones of antediluvian 42 sinners, and leave his livin’ flock to be burnt and choked by the fire and flames of the present volcano of crime, the Liquor System, that belches forth all the time.”

      “Well, he wuz made so,” sez I.

      “Well, he had better git down out of the pulpit,” sez Phila, “and let some one git up there who can see a sinner right under his nose, and try to drag him out of danger and ruin, and not have to look over a dozen centuries to find him.”

      “Well, I am thankful for Ernest White, and I have felt that he and Waitstill Webb wuz jest made for each other. He thinks his eyes of her I know. When she went and nursed the factory hands when the typhoid fever broke out he said ‘she wuz like a angel of Mercy.’”

      “They said he looked like a angel of Wrath ’lection day,” sez Phila. “You know how fair his face is, and how his clear gray eyes seem to look right through you, and through shams and shames of every kind. Well, that day they said his face fairly shone and he did the work of ten men.”

      “That is because his heart is pure,” sez I, “like that Mr. Gallyhed I heard Thomas J. read about; you know it sez:

      “‘His strength is as the strength of ten

      Because his heart is pure.’

      “And oh!” sez I agin, “how I would love to see him and Waitstill Webb married, and happy.”

      “So would I,” sez Phila. “Oh, it is such a beautiful state, matrimony is.”

      “And he needs a wife,” sez I. “You know he wouldn’t stay with his uncle but said he must live with his people who needed him, so he boards there at the Widder Pooler’s.”

      “Yes,” sez Phila, “and though she worships him, she had rather any day play the part of Mary than of Martha––she had rather be sittin’ at his feet and learnin’ of him––than 43 cookin’ good nourishin’ food and makin’ a clean, sweet home for him. But he don’t complain.”

      “What a companion Waitstill would be for him?” I sez agin.

      “Yes,” sez Phila, “but I don’t believe she will ever marry any one, she looks so sad.”

      “It seems jest if they wuz made for each other,” sez I, “and I know he worships the ground she walks on. But I don’t know as she will ever marry any one after what she has went through,” and I sithed.

      “She would marry,” sez Phila warmly, “if she knew what a lovely, lovely state it wuz.”

      How strange it is that some folks are as soft as putty on some subjects and real cute on others. Phila knew enough on any other subject only jest marriage. But I spozed that her brain would harden up on this subject when she got more familiar with it––they generally do. And the light of that moon I spoke on liquefies common sense and a state, putty soft, ensues; but cold weather hardens putty, and I knew that she would git over it. But even as I methought, Phila sez, “I must go to my seat, pa will be lookin’ for me.” I see Miss Meechim smotherin’ a smile on her lace-edged handkerchief, and Dorothy’s eyes kinder laughin’ at the idee of a bride callin’ her husband “pa.”

      But the groom returned at jest that minute, and I introduced ’em both to Miss Meechim and Dorothy, and we had quite a good little visit. But anon, the groom mentioned incidentally that they wuz a goin’ to live in Salt Lake City.

      “Why!” sez I in horrow, “you hain’t a goin’ to jine the Mormons are you?”

      And as I said that I see Miss Meechim kinder git Dorothy behind her, as if to protect her from what might be. But I knew there wuzn’t no danger from the groom’s flirtin’ with any other female or tryin’ to git ’em sealed to him, for quite a spell I knew that he felt himself as much alone with Baby as if them two wuz on a oasis in the middle of the 44 desert of Sarah. I knew that it would be some months before he waked up to the fact of there bein’ another woman in the world. And oh, how Phila scoffed at the idee of pa jinin’ the Mormons. They had bought part of a store of a Gentile and wuz goin’ to be pardners with him and kinder grow up with the country. I felt that hey wuz a likely couple and would do well, but rememberin’ Dorothy’s and Miss Meechim’s smiles I reached up and stiddied myself on that apron-string of Duty, and took Phila out one side and advised her not to call her bridegroom pa. Sez I, “You hain’t but jest married and it don’t look well.”

      And she said that “Her ma always called her father pa.”

      “Well,” sez I, “if you’ll take the advice of a old Jonesvillian and well-wisher, you’ll wait till you’re a few years older before you call him pa.”

      And she sez, lookin’ admirin’ly at him, “I spoze I might call him papa.”

      Well, you can’t put sense into a certain bump in anybody’s head if it wuzn’t made there in the first place––there are holler places in heads that you can’t fill up, do your best. But oh! how her devoted love to him put me in mind of myself, and how his small-sized devotion to her––how it reminded me of him who wuz far away––and oh, why did I not hear from him! my heart sunk nearly into my shues as I foreboded about it. It seemed as if everything brung him up before me, the provisions we had on the dining car wuz good and plenty of ’em, and how they made me think of him, who wuz a good provider. The long, long days and nights of travel, the jar and motion of the cars made me think of him who often wuz restless and oneasy. And even the sand of the desert between Cheyenne and Denver, even that sand brought me fond remembrances of one who wuz sandy complected when in his prime. And oh! when did I not think of him? Christmas had gone by, but how could we celebrate it without a home to set up a Christmas tree, or set out a table with good Jonesville vittles. How I 45 thought on him who made a holiday in my heart by his presence, and always helped me put the leaves in the extension table.

      Tommy wanted to hang up his little stockin’, and did, hangin’ it out like a little red signal of distress over the side of his top shelf, and we filled it with everything good we could СКАЧАТЬ