Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife Part 37

CHAPTER XXVII

In the centre of the city of Milan is an artificial lake where the Milanise dearly love to go out in beautiful pleasure yots, and in the winter it serves for a skating rink. Milan is noted for its charitable inst.i.tutions, which owns property to the amount of forty or fifty millions; it is a honor to her. It has flourishing colleges, lyceums, observatories, gymnasiums, famous libraries, inst.i.tutes and schools of all kinds, and the Academy of Fine Arts is celebrated all over the world. It has a beautiful triumphal arch, begun in 1807 and finished in 1838. They take their own time, them old Milanise do, but when their work is done, it is done.

Josiah thought most probable they worked by the day. Sez he, "Men are most always more shiftless when you pay by the day."

It has very fine public gardens, and one day we went to the Campo Santo. It is a beautiful spot; they say it has the finest sculpture and statuary in the world. We spent some time wandering around, resting our eyes on the beautiful marble forms on every side.

They wuz a quiet crowd, too; jest as calm and silent as them they kep'

watch over.

Some of the most celebrated pictures in the world are to be seen in the picture galleries at Milan, the Marriage of Mary and Joseph, by Raphael, is considered the most valuable. We went to see the fresco of the Lord's Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci, on the walls of an old convent. But the wall is crumbled and the picture is faded and worn; besides artists have tried to retouch it with just about as much success as Josiah would have if he undertook to paint the sky indigo blue, or Ury tried to improve a white lily with a coat of whitewash.

But we loved to look on it for what it wuz before Time's hand had laid so heavy on it and artists had tried to protect it.

We wuz in Milan over Sunday and so we went to the Cathedral to service, and agin I realized its marvellous beauty and magnitude. Its ruff is supported by fifty-two columns, and it has eight thousand life-sized statutes inside and outside, plenty enough for comfort even if it wuz over-fond of statutes.

The Lazaretto, once used as a plague hospital, is now used as an apartment-house for the poor; it has one thousand two-roomed apartments in it, a city in itself.

Napoleon, ambitious creeter! wuz crowned king of Italy in Milan. And I guess old Charlemaigne himself wuz, 'tennyrate a good many kings here had the iron crown set on their forwards. I d'no what made 'em have iron crowns, though Josiah said it would be real handy sometimes. He said if a king wuz in a hurry, and you know they are sometimes in a dretful hurry to be crowned before their heads are took off, it would be real handy, for they could take the rim to a stove griddle, and stand up some velvet pints on it and it would fit most any head. He also spoke of a coal-scuttle.

But I said that I guessed they used iron to show that crowns are so heavy and bore down on their heads so.

We visited Lake Como, Dorothy specially wantin' to see the palace of Carlotta. Poor, broken-hearted Carlotta, whose mind and happiness wuz destroyed by the shot that put an end to Maximilian's brave, misguided life.

Poor Maximilian! poor Carlotta! victims of the foolish ambitions of an empress, so they say. I wuz glad to throw the blossom of a pitying thought onto their memory as I pa.s.sed her house, opposite Belajio, thinkin' that it wuz befittin' a American to do so. Tears stood in Dorothy's eyes as we recalled the sad tragedy.

Lake Como deserves all that has been said of it, and more too. The slopes of the mountains are dotted with vineyards, hamlets and beautiful villas. And we see many little cabins where the familys of organ-grinders live. Mebby the wife and children lived here of some swarthy creeter that I've fed offen my own back steps in Jonesville for grindin' out music for the children.

It is only a journey of eight hours from Milan to Venice, and Verona is about half way. And it is almost like travellin' through a mulberry grove. The valley of Lombardy is a silk-producing country and the diet of silkworms is mulberry leaves and the trees also serve as handsome props to the grape vines that hang from tree to tree.

Fur off, like cold, sad thoughts that will come in warm happy hearts, we see the snow-capped mountains, and bime by it grew so cold that we wuz glad and grateful when we had cans of hot water handed to us at the station.

Josiah thought they wuz full of hot coffee and proposed to once that we should take some to meetin' with us in Jonesville to warm our feet.

Sez he, "How delightful it would be, Samantha, to take a good drink of hot coffee in meetin'."

"Yes," sez I, "it would look nice to be drinkin' in meetin'."

"Oh," sez he, "I mean to do it sly; I could scrooch down and pretend to be fixin' my shues." But it proved to be nothin' but hot water in the cans, but real comfortable to our feet. And the mulberry groves put Josiah in mind of another innovation that might be made in Jonesville ways.

Sez he, "These silk raisers git rich as mud and jest see the number of caterpillars we have to hum; they might jest as well be put to work on sunthin' that will pay as to be eatin' up young squashes and cowc.u.mbers for us to plant over." Sez he, "Their work is worse than wasted on us."

Sez I, "These silkworms hain't like our caterpillars, Josiah."

"Well, they may make silk of a different color, but who cares for that when diamond dyes are so cheap, and if we wanted red silk we could try feedin' em on red stuff, beets, and red russets and such. Why,"

sez he, "with Ury's help I could start a caterpillar bizness that would be the makin' of me. And oh, how I would love to robe your figger, Samantha, in silk from my own caterpillars."

"Well, well," sez I, "let's not look ahead too much." Sez I, "Look there up the mountain side and see the different shades of green foliage and see what pretty little houses that are sot there and see that lovely little village down in the valley."

So I got his mind off. The costooms of the peasant wimmen are very pretty, a black bodice over a white chemise with short full sleeves and bright colored shirts, and hat trimmed with long gay ribbons.

The men wear short, black trousers, open jackets and gay sashes, broad-brimmed white hats with long blue ribbons streamin' down. Josiah sez to me admirin'ly, "How such a costoom would brighten up our cornfield if I and Ury appeared in 'em."

Sez I, "Ury would git his sash and hat ribbons all twisted up in his hoe handle the first thing."

"They might be looped up," sez Josiah, "with rosettes."

We read about travel bein' a great educator, and truly I believe that no tourist ever had any more idees about graftin' foreign customs onto everyday life at home than Josiah Allen did. Now at Lake Como where we see washerwomen at their work. They stood in the water with their skirts rolled up to their knees, but they still had on their white chemisettes and black bodices laced over them and pretty white caps trimmed with gay ribbins.

And Josiah sez, "What a happy day it would be for me and Ury if we could see you and Philury dressed like that for the wash-tub; it would brighten the gloom of Mondays considerable."

Well, they did look pretty and I d'no but they could wash the clothes jest as clean after they got used to it, but I shouldn't encourage Philury to dress up so wash-days.

And it wuz jest so when we see on Lake Como its swarm of pleasure gondolas glidin' hither and yon with the dark-eyed Italian ladies in bright colored costooms and black lace mantillys thrown over their pretty heads and fastened with coral pins, and the gondoliers in gay attire keepin' time to the oars with their melogious voices. Josiah whispered to me:

"What a show it would make in Jonesville, Samantha, to see you and me in a gondola on the mill-dam, I with long, pale blue ribbins tied round my best beaver hat and you with Mother Allen's long, black lace veil that fell onto you, thrown graceful over your head, and both of us singin' 'Balermy' or 'Coronation.' How uneek it would be!"

"Yes," sez I, "it would be uneek, uneeker than will ever come to pa.s.s."

"Well, I d'no," sez he, "Ury and me could make a crackin' good gondola out of the old stun boat, kinder hist it up in front and whittle out a head on it and a neck some like an old gander's. We could take old High Horns for a model, and we could make good oars out of old fish-poles and broom-handles, and you own a veil, and blue streamers don't cost much--nothin' henders us from showin' off in that way but your obstinate sperit."

But I sez, "I shall never appear in that panoramy, never."

"Oh, well," sez he, gayly, "Jonesville has other females beside you, more tractable and more genteel. Most probable Sister Celestine Bobbett and she that wuz Submit Tewksberry would love to float in a gondola by the side of one of Jonesville's leadin' men."

I looked full in his face and sez, "Has foreign travel shook your morals till they begin to tottle? Have I got to see a back-slidden Josiah?"

Sez he, real earnest, "You are the choice of my youth, the joy of my prime of life."

"Well, then," sez I, "shet up!" I wuz out of patience with his giddy idees, and wouldn't brook 'em.

We laid out to go from Milan to Genoa till we changed our plans. I thought it wuzn't no more'n right that we should pay Columbus that honor, for I always wondered, and spoze always shall, what would have become of us if we hadn't been discovered. I spoze we should have got along some way, but it wouldn't have been nigh so handy for us. I presoom mebby Josiah and I would have been warwhoopin' and livin' in tepees and eatin' dogs, though it don't seem to me that any colored skin I might have could have made me relish Snip either in a stew or briled. That dog is most human.

I always felt real grateful to Columbus and knowed he hadn't been used as he ort to be. And then Mother Smith left me a work-bag, most new, made of Genoa velvet, and I awfully wanted to git a little piece more to put with it so's I could make a bunnet out of it. But Dorothy wanted to see Verona and her wish wuz law to the head of our party, and when the head of a procession turns down a road, the rest of the procession must foller on in order to look worth a cent. Miss Meechim said that it wuz on her account that he favored Dorothy so. But it wuzn't no such thing and anybody could see different if their eyes wuzn't blinded with self-conceit and egotism. But take them two together and there is no blinders equal to 'em. They go fur ahead of the old mair's, and hern are made of thick leather.

Well, Robert thought we had better go on to Venice, stopping at Verona on the way and so on to Naples, and then on our way back we could stop at Genoa, and we all give up that it wuz the best way.

I always liked the name of Verona. Miss Ichabod Larmuth named her twins Vernum and Verona. I thought it would be a real delicate attention to her to stop there, specially as we could visit Genoa afterwards.

Well, havin' such a pretty name I felt that Verona would be a real pretty place, and it wuz. A swift flowing river runs through the town and the view from all sides is beautiful. The fur off blue mountains, the environin' hills, the green valleys dotted with village and hamlet, made it a fair seen, and "Jocund day stood tip-toe on the mountain tops."

But to sweet Dorothy and me, and I guess to the most of us, it wuz interestin' because Juliet Montague, she that wuz Juliet Capulet, once lived here. I spoke on't to Josiah, but he sez:

"The widder Montague; I don't remember her. Is she any relation of old Ike Montague of North Loontown?"

But I sez: "She wuzn't a widder for any length of time. She died of love and so did her pardner, Romeo Montague."