Samantha at Saratoga Part 23

For n.o.body but a fool would want to run all these recollections and memories together, all the different essociations and emotions, that must cl.u.s.ter round each of them rings. The idee of runnin'

'em all together with the livin' one! It wuz ectin' like a fool and it seemed fairly providential that their names run in jest that way.

Why, if I had had 2 husbands, or even 4, I should want to keep 'em apart - settin' up in high chairs on different sides of my heart. Why, if I'd had 4, I'd have 'em to the different pints of the compa.s.s, east, west, north, south, as far apart from each other as my heart would admit of. Ketch me a lumpin' in all the precious memories of my Josiah with them of any other man, bond or free, Jew or Genteel; no, and I'd refrain from tellin' to the new one about the other ones.

No, when a pardner dies and you set out to take another one, bury the one that has gone right under his own high chair in your heart, don't keep him up there a rattlin' his bones before the eyes of the 2d, and angerin' him, and agonizen' your own heart. Bury him before you bring a new one into the same room.

And never! never! even in moments of the greatest anger, dig him up agin or even weep over his grave, before the new pardner. No; under the moonlight, and the stars, before G.o.d only, and your own soul, you may lay there in spirit on that grave, weep over it, keep the turf green. But not before any one else. And I wouldn't advise you to go there alone any too often. I would advise you to spend your spare time ornementin' the high chair where the new one sets, wreathin' it round with whatever blossoms and trailin' vines of tenderness and romance you have left over from the first great romance of life.

It would be better for you in the end.

I said some few of these little thoughts to the female mentioned; and I s'pose I impressed her dretfully, I s'pose I did. But I couldn't stay to see the full effects on't, for another female setter came up at that minute to talk with her, and my companion came up at that very minute to ask me to go a walkin' with him up to the cemetery.

That is a very favorite place for Josiah Allen. He often used to tell the children when they wuz little, that if they wuz real good he would take 'em out on a walk to the grave-yard.

And when I first married to him, if I hadn't broke it up, that would have been the only place of resort that he would have took me to Summers. But I broke it up after a while. Good land!

there is times to go any where and times to stay away. I didn't want to go a trailin' up there every day or two; jest married too!

But to-day I felt willin' to go. I had been a lookin' so long at the crowd a fillin' the streets full, and every one on 'em in motion, that I thought it would be sort a restful to go out to a place where they wuz still. And so after a short walk we came to the village that haint stirred by any commotion or alarm. Where the houses are roofed with green gra.s.s and daisies, and the white stun doors don't open to let in trouble or joy, and where the inhabitants don't ride out in the afternoon.

Wall, if I should tell the truth which I am fur from not wantin'

to do, I should say that at first sight, it wuz rather of a bleak, lonesome lookin' spot, kinder wild and desolate lookin'.

But as we went further along in it, we came to some little nooks and sheltered paths and spots, that seemed more collected together and pleasant. There wuz some big high stuns and monuments, and some little ones but not one so low that it hadn't cast a high, dark shadow over somebody's life.

There wuz one in the shape of a big see sh.e.l.l. I s'pose some mariner lay under that, who loved the sea. Or mebby it wuz put up by some one who had the odd fancy that put a sh.e.l.l to your ear you will hear a whisperin' in it of a land fur away, fur away.

Not fur from this wuz a stun put up over a young engineer who had been killed instantly by his engine. There wuz a picture of the locomotive sc.r.a.ped out on the stun, and in the cab of the engine wuz his photograph, and these lines wuz underneath:

My engine now lies still and cold, No water does her boiler hold; The wood supplies its flames no more, My days of usefulness are o'er.

We wended our way in and out of the silent streets for quite a spell, and then we went and sot down on the broad piazza of the sort of chapel and green-house that stood not fur from the entrance. And while we sot there we see another inhabitent come there to the village to stay.

It wuz a long procession, fur it wuz a good man who had come.

And many of his friends come with him jest as fur as they could: wife, children, and friends, they come with him jest as fur as they could, and then he had to leave 'em and go on alone. How weak love is, and how strong. It wuz too weak to hold him back, or go with him, though they would fain have done so. But it wuz strong enough to shadow the hull world with its blackness, blot out the sun and the stars, and scale the very mounts of heaven with its wild complaints and pleadin's. A strange thing love is, haint it?

Wall, we sot there for quite a spell and my companion wantin', I spose, to make me happy, took out a daily paper out of his pocket and went to readin' the deaths to me. He always loves to read the deaths and marriages in a paper. He sez that is the literature that interests him. And then I s'pose he thought at such a time, it wuz highly appropriate. So I didn't break it up till he began to read a long obituary piece about a child's death; about its being cut down like a flower by a lightin'

stroke out of a cloudless sky, and about what a mysterious dispensation of Providence it wuz, etc., etc. And then there wuz a hull string of poetry dedicated to the heart-broken mother bewailin' the mystery on't, and wonderin' why Providence should do such strange, onlookedfor things, etc., and etcetery, and so 4th.

And I spoke right up and sez, "That is a slander onto Providence and ort to be took as such by every lover of justice."

Josiah wuz real horrified, he had been almost sheddin' tears he wuz so affected by it; to think the little creeter should be torn away by a strange chance of Providence from a mother who wors.h.i.+pped her, and whose whole life and every thought wuz jest wrapped up in the child, and who never had thought nor cared for anything else only just the well bein' of the child and wardin' trouble off of her, for so the piece stated. And he sez in wild amaze, "What do you mean, Samantha? What makes you talk so?"

"Because," sez I, "I know it is the truth. I know the hull story;" and then I went on and told it to him, and he agreed with me and felt jest as I did.

You see, the mother of the child wuz a perfect high flyer of fas.h.i.+on and she always wore dresses so tight, that she couldn't get her hands up to her head to save her life, after her corset wuz on. Wall, she wuz out a walkin' with the child one day, or rather toddlin' along with it, on her high-heeled sboes. They wuz both dressed up perfectly beautiful, and made a most splendid show. Wall, they went into a store on their way to the park, and there wuz a big crowd there, and the mother and the little girl got into the very middle of the crowd. They say there wuz some new storks for sale that day, and some cattail flags, and so there wuz naturelly a big crowd of wimmen a buyin' 'em, and cranes. And some way, while they stood there a heavy vase that stood up over the child's head fell down and fell onto it, and hurt the child so, that it died from the effects of it.

The mother see the vase when it flrst begun to move, she could have reached up her hands and stiddied it, and kep' it from fallin', if she could have got 'em up, but with that corset on, the hull American continent might have tumbled onto the child's head and she couldn't have moved her arms up to keep it off; couldn't have lifted her arms up over the child's head to save her life. No, she couldn't have kep' one of the States off, nor nothin'. And then talk about her wardin' trouble offen the child, why she COULDN'T ward trouble off, nor nothin' else with that corset on. She screemed, as she see it a comin' down onto the head of her beloved little child, but that wuz all she could do. The child wuz wedged in by the throng of folks and couldn't stir, and they wuz all engrossed in their own business which wuz pressin', and very important, a buyin' plates, and plaks, with bull-rushes, and cranes, and storks on 'em, so naturelly, they didn't mind what wuz a goin' on round 'em. And down it come!

And there it wuz put down in the paper, "A mysterious dispensation of Providence." Providence slandered shamefully and I will say so with my last breath.

What are mothers made for if it haint to take care of the little ones G.o.d gives 'em. What right have they to contoggle themselves up in a way that they can see their children die before 'em, and they not able to put out a hand to save 'em. Why, a savage mother is better than this, a heathen one. And if I had my way, there would be a hull s.h.i.+pload of savages and heathens brought over here to teach and reform our too civilized wimmen. I'd bring 'em over this very summer.

Wall, we sot there on the stoop for quite a spell and then we wended our way down to the highway, and as we arrived there my companion proposed that we should take a carriage and go to the Toboggen slide. Sez I, "Not after where we have been today, Josiah Allen."

And he sez, "Why not?"

And I sez, "It wouldn't look well, after visitin' the folks we have jest now."

"Wall," sez he, "they won't speak on't to anybody, if that is what you are afraid on, or sense it themselves."

And I see in a minute, he had some sense on his side, though his words shocked me some at first, kinder jarred aginst some sensitive spot in my nater, jest as pardners will sometimes, however devoted they may be to each other. Yet I see he wuz in the right on't.

They wouldn't sense anything about it. And as for us, we wuz in the world of the livin' still, and I still owed a livin' duty to my companion, to make him as happy as possible. And so I sez, mildly, "Wall, I don't know as there is anything wrong in slidin'

down hill, Josiah. I s'pose I can go with you."

"No," sez he, "there haint nothin' wrong about slidin' down hill unless you strike too hard, or tip over, or sunthin'." So he bagoned to a carriage that wuz pa.s.sin', and we got into it, and sot sail for the Toboggen slide.

We pa.s.sed through the village. (Some say it is a city, but if it is, it is a modest, retirin' one as I ever see; perfectly una.s.sumin', and don't put on a air, not one.)

But howsumever, we pa.s.sed through it, through the rows and rows of summer tarvens and boardin' houses, good-lookin' ones too; past some good-lookin' private houses -- a long tarven and a pretty red brick studio and rows of summer stores, little nests that are filled up summers, and empty winters, then by some more of them monster big tarvens where some of the 200,000 summer visitors who flock here summers, find a restin' place; and then by the large respectable good-lookin' stores and shops of the natives, that stand solid, and to be depended on summer and winter; by churches and halls, and etc., and good-lookin' houses and then some splendid-lookin' houses all standin' back on their gra.s.sy lawns behind some trees, and fountains, and flower beds, etc., etc.

Better-lookin' houses, I don't want to see nor broader, handsomer streets. And pretty soon fur away to the east you could see through the trees a glimpse of a glorious landscape, a broad lovely view of hill and valley, bounded by blue mountain tops.

It was a fair seen - a fair seen. To be perfectly surrounded by beauty where you, wuz, and a lookin' off onto more. There I would fain have lingered, but time and wagons roll stidily onward, and will not brook delay, nor pause for women to soar over seenery.

So we rolled onwards through still more beautiful, and quiet pictures. Pictures of quiet woods and bendin' trees, and a country road windin' tranquilly beneath, up and down gentle hills, and anon a longer one, and then at our feet stood the white walls of a convent, with 2 or 3 brothers, a strollin' along in their long black gowns, and crosses, a readin' some books.

I don't know what it wuz, what they wuz a readin' out of their books, or a readin' out of their hearts. Mebby sunthin' kinder sad and serene. Mebby it wuz sunthin' about the gay world of human happiness, and human sorrows, they had turned backs to forever. Mebby it wuz about the other world that they had sot out for through a lonesome way. Mebby it wuz "Never" they wuz a readin' about, and mebby it wuz "Forever." I don't know what it wuz. But we went by 'em, and anon, yes it wuz jest anon, for it wuz the very minute that I lifted my eyes from the Father's calm and rather sad-lookin' face, that I ketched sight on't, that I see a comin' down from the high hills to the left on us, an immense sort of a trough, or so it looked, a comin' right down through the trees, from the top of the mountain to the, bottom.

And then all acrost the fields as fur, as fur as from our house way over to Miss Pixley's wuz a sort of a road, with a row of electric lights along the side on't.

We drove up to a buildin' that stood at the foot of that immense slide, or so they called it, and a female woman who wuz there told us all about it. And we went out her back door, and see way up the slide, or trough. There wuz a railin' on each side on't, and a place in the middle where she said the Toboggen came down.

And sez Josiah, "Who is the Toboggen, anyway? Is he a native of the place or a Injun? Anyway," sez he, "I'd give a dollar bill to see him a comin' down that place."

And the woman said, "A Toboggen wuz a sort of a long sled, that two or three folks could ride on, and they come down that slide with such force that they went way out acrost the fields as far as the row of lights, before it stopped."

Sez I, "Josiah Allen, did you ever see the beat on't?" Sez I, "Haint that as far as from our house to Miss Pixley's?"

"Yes," says he, "and further too. It is as far as Uncle Jim Hozzleton's."

"Wall," says I, "I believe you are in the right on't."

And sez Josiah, "How do they get back agin? Do they come in the cars, or in their own conveniences?"

"There is a sleigh to bring 'em back, but sometime they walk back," sez the woman.

"Walk back!" sez I, in deep amaze. "Do they walk from way out there, and cleer up that mountain agin?"

"Yes," sez she. "Don't you see the place at the side for 'em to draw the Toboggen up, and the little flights of steps for 'em to go up the hill?"

"Wall," sez I, in deep amaze, and auxins as ever to get information on deep subjects, "where duz the fun come in, is it in walkin' way over the plain and up the hills, or is it in comin' down?"