Samantha at the World's Fair Part 78

On both sides of this street are dance halls, mosques, and shops filled with manufactures from Arabia and the Soudan. In the Museum are many curious curiosities from Cairo and Alexandria.

And the street is filled with dogs, and donkeys, and children and fortune-tellers, and dromedaries, and sedan chairs, with their bearers, and camels, and birds, and wimmen with long veils on coverin' most of their faces, jest their eyes a-peerin' out as if they would love to git acquainted with the strange Eastern world, where wimmen walk with faces uncovered, and swung out into effort and achievement.

I guess they wuz real good-lookin'. I know that the men with their turbans and long robes looked quite well, though odd. In the shops wuz the most beautiful jewelry and precious stuns, and queer-lookin' but magnificent silk goods, and cotton, and lamps, and leather goods, and weepons, etc., etc., etc.

Wall, right there, as we wuz a-wanderin' through that street, from the handsomest of the residences streamed forth a bridal procession. The bride wuz dressed in gorgeous array of the beautiful fabrics of the East.

And the bridegroom, with a train of haughty-lookin' Arabs follerin' him, all swept down the streets towards the Mosque, with music a-soundin'

out, and flowers a-bein' throwed at 'em, and boys a-yellin', and dogs a-barkin', etc., etc.

I drew my pardner out of the way, for he stood open-mouthed with admiration a-starin' at the bride, and almost rooted to the spot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A-starin' at the bride.]

But I drawed him back, and sez I, "If you've got to be killed here, Josiah Allen, I don't want you killed by a Arab."

And he sez, "I d'no but I'd jest as lieves be killed by a Arab as a Turkey.

"But," sez he, "you tend to yourself, and I'll tend to myself. I wuz jest a-studyin' human nater, Samantha."

And that wuz all the thanks I got for rescuin' him.

It wuz jest as interestin' to walk through that village as it would be to go to Egypt, and more so--for we felt considerable safer right under Uncle Sam's right arm, as it wuz--for here we wuz way off in Africa, amongst their minarets and shops, and tents, men, wimmen, and children in their strange garbs, dancin', playin' music, cookin' and servin'

their food, jest as though they wuz to hum, and we wuz neighborin' with 'em, jest as nateral as we neighbor to hum with Sister Henzy or she that wuz Submit Tewksbury.

Then there wuz some native Arabs with 'em who wuz a-eatin' scorpions, and a-luggin' round snakes, and a-cuttin' and piercin' themselves with wicked-lookin' weepons, and eatin' gla.s.s; I wuz glad enough to git out of there. I hate daggers, and abominate snakes, and always did.

And then I knew what a case Josiah Allen is to imitate and foller new-fangled idees, and I didn't want my new gla.s.s b.u.t.ter dish and cream pitcher to fall a victim to his experiments.

Wall, next come Algeria and Tunis, and then Tunicks showed jest how they lived and moved in their own Barbery's state.

Their housen are beautiful, truly Oriental--white, with decorations of pale green, blue, and vermilion.

One is a theatre that will hold 600 folks.

Then comes the panorama of the big volcano Kilauana.

They couldn't bring the volcano with 'em, as volcanoes can't be histed round and lifted up on camels, or packed with sawdust, specially when they're twenty-seven milds acrost.

So they brung this great picter of it. I spoze it is a sight to see it.

But Josiah felt that he couldn't afford to go in and see the sight, and he sez, "It is only a hole with some fire and ashes comin' out of the top of it."

I sez ironically, "Some like our leech barrel, hain't it, with a few cinders on top?"

"Why, yes; sunthin' like that," sez he. "It wouldn't pay to throw away money on ashes and fire that we can see any day to hum."

I didn't argue with him, for I never took to volcanoes much--I never loved to git intimate with 'em. But it wuz a sight to behold, so Miss Plank said--she went in to see it. She said, "It took her breath away the sight on't, but she's got it back agin (the breath); she talked real diffuse about it. But to resoom. The Chinese Village wuz jest like goin' through China or bein' dropped down onbeknown to you into a China village.

Two hundred Chinamen are here by a special dispensation of Uncle Sam.

And next to China is the Captive Balloon. I had wondered a sight what that meant.

Josiah thought that somebody had catched a young balloon, and wuz bringin' it up by hand, but I knew better than that. I knew that balloons didn't grow indigenious.

And it wuz jest as I'd mistrusted--they had a big balloon here all tied up ready to start off at a minute's notice.

You jest paid your money, and you could go on a trip up in it through the blue fields of air. I told Josiah "that it wouldn't be but a few years before folks would ride round in 'em jest as common as they do in wagons." Sez I, "Mebby we shall have a couple of our own stanchled up in our own barn."

"You mean tied up," sez he, and I do spoze I did mean that.

But now to look up at the great deep overhead, and consider the vastness of s.p.a.ce, and consider the smallness of the ropes a-holdin' the balloon down, I said to myself, "Mebby it wuz jest as well not to tackle the job of ridin' out in it that day."

Jest as I wuz a-meditatin' this Josiah spoke up, and sez, "I won't pay out no two dollars apiece to ride in it."

And I sez, "I kinder want to go up in it, and I kinder don't want to."

And he sez, "That is jest like wimmen--whifflin', onstabled, weak-livered."

Sez I, "I believe you're afraid to go up in it."

"Afraid!" sez he; "I wouldn't be afraid a mite if it broke loose and sailed off free into s.p.a.ce."

"Why don't you try it, then?" I urged. "Wall," he sez, a-lookin' round as if mebby he could find some excuse a-layin' round on the ground, or sailin' round in the air, "if I wuz," sez he--"if I had another vest on.

I hain't dressed up exactly as I'd want to be to go a-balloon ridin'.

"And then," sez he, a-brightenin' up, "I don't want to skair you. You'd most probable be skairt into a fit if it should break loose and start off independent into s.p.a.ce. And it would take away all my enjoyment of such a pleasure excursion to see you a-layin' on the earth in a fit."

Sez I, "It hain't vests or affection that holds you back, Josiah Allen--it's fear."

"Fear!" sez he; "I don't know the meanin' of that word only from what I've read about it in the dictionary. Men don't know what it is to be afraid, and that is why," sez he, "that I've always been so anxious to have wimmen keep in her own spear, where men could watch over her, humble, domestic, grateful.

"Nater plotted it so," sez he; "nater designs the male of creation to branch out, to venter, to labor, to dare, while the female stays to hum and tends to her children and the housework." Sez he, "In all the works of nater the females stay to hum, and the males soar out free.

"It is a sweet and solemn truth," sez he, "and female wimmen ort to lay it to heart. In these latter days," sez he, "too many females are a-risin' up, and vainly a-tryin' to kick aginst this great law. But they can't knock it over," sez he--"the female foot hain't strong enough."

He wuz a-goin' on in this remarkably eloquent way on his congenial theme, but I kinder drawed him in by remindin' him of Miss Sheldon's tent we see in the Transportation Buildin'--the one she used in her lonely journeyin' a-explorin' the Dark Continent. Sez I, "There is a woman that has kinder branched out."

"Yes," sez he, "but men had to carry her." Sez he, "Samantha, the Lord designed it that females should stay to hum and tend to their babies, and wash the dishes. And when you go aginst that idee you are goin'

aginst the everlastin' forces of nater. Nater has always had laws sot and immovable, and always will have 'em, and a pa.s.sel of wimmen managers or lecturers hain't a-goin' to turn 'em round.

"Nater made wimmen and sot 'em apart for domestic duties--some of which I have enumerated," sez he.

"Whilst the males, from creation down, have been left free to skirmish round and git a livin' for themselves and the females secreted in the holy privacy of the hum life."

Jest as he reached this climax we come in front of the Ostrich Farm, where thirty of the long-legged, humbly creeters are kept, and we hearn the keeper a-describin' the habits of the ostriches to some folks that stood round him.

And Josiah, feelin' dretful good-natered and kinder patronizin' towards wimmen, and thinkin' that he wuz a-goin' to be strengthened in his talk by what the man wuz a-sayin', sez to me in a dretful, overbearin', patronizin' way, and some with the air as if he owned a few of the ostriches, and me, too, he kinder stood up straight and crooked his forefinger and bagoned to me.