Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife Part 39

But he did. He got down-casted there jest as he did here. I knowed how often I had soothed and comforted his sperits by extra good meals. But he wouldn't own up to it, and seein' he looked so gloomy and deprested I went to work and episoded some right there, whilst I wuz comin' my hair and dressin', in hopes that it would bring a more happy and contented look onto his liniment, for what will not a devoted pardner do to console her consort?

Sez I, "Josiah, life is a good deal like the Widder Rice's yarn I've heard Ma Smith tell on. She wuzn't a smooth spinner and there would be thick bunches in her yarn and thin streaks; she called 'em gouts and twits. She'd say, 'Yes, I know my yarn is full of gouts and twits, but when it's doubled most likely a gout will come aginst a twit and make it even.'"

And I eppisoded to myself and to Josiah, "That is a good deal like life. The good of this world seems onequally divided some times, but the rich has troubles and the poor have compensations. The poor man has to git up early and toil all day, but if he hates to leave his bed so early mornings, his sleep is sweet while he rests, and his labor makes his food taste good and nourishes his strength, while the rich man who can lay till noon, turns on his restless pillow and can't sleep night or day. And while he has plenty to buy rich viands he has no appet.i.te to eat or health to digest his food.

"The morning song of the lark sounds sweet to the laborer as it rises over the dew-spangled fields, as he goes forth to his daily toil, while the paid songs the rich man hears palls on his pleasure-tired senses. At home you have rest of body, and in travel you have education and variety; yes, the gouts and twits in life even up pretty well and the yarn runs pretty smooth offen the reel of Time to the traveller and the stay-at-home, the rich and the poor."

Josiah wuz brushin' his back hair with two brushes (one would have been plenty enough), and he kep' on with his employment and sez without lookin' up:

"I wonder where the Widder Rice's grandson, Ezra, is? He wuz out to the West the last I hearn on him."

There it wuz! My eloquence had rolled offen him like water from a tin eavespout; hadn't touched him at all nor uplifted him, though I felt real riz up. You know you can talk yourself up onto quite a hite if you try; but Josiah wuzn't moved a mite from the place he'd stood on.

Well, that wuz one of the gouts in my yarn of life, but a twit wuz near by--it had its compensation. He worships me! And I went on and eppisoded to myself to bring myself up to the mark as I wadded up my back hair. Sez I to myself: "If Josiah had the eye to see the onseen eagles soarin' up in the sky above his head, mebby he would also see my faults too plain. If he could hear in winter midnights the murmur of dancin' waters and the melogious voice of the south wind blowin'

over roses and voyalets, he might also hear the voice of Distrust. If he had the wisdom of Solomon he might also have his discursive fancies, his various and evanescent attachments. But as it is, his love is stiddy and as firm as a rock. So the gouts and the twits evened each other up after all, and the yarn run pretty smooth."

CHAPTER XXVIII

The next mornin' Tommy wuz delighted with the idee of goin' in a boat after some hair-pins for me and a comb for him--he had broke hisen. It wuzn't fur we went, and I spoze we might have walked by goin' a little furder; but variety is the spice of life, and it seemed to kinder refresh us.

Floating in a gondola on the Grand Ca.n.a.l of Venice is a beautiful experience when the soft light of the moon and stars is restin' on the stately old marble palaces, the tall pillars of St. Theodore and the Winged Lion, obelisk and spire. With other gondolas all about you, you seem to be on a sea of glory, with anon music from afar coming sweetly to your ears from some gondola or palace, and far up some narrow water street opens with long shafts of light flashing from the gondolier's lantern or open window. It is all a seen of enchantment.

Though if you should foller up some of them narrow water streets by daylight, you would see and smell things that would roust you up from your dream. You would see old boats unloadin' vegetables, taking on garbage, water-boats pumpin' water into some house, wine shops, cook shops; you would see dilapidated houses with poorly clad people standin' in the doorways; ragged, unkempt children looking down on you from broken windows, and about all the sights you see in all the poorer streets of any city, though here you see it from a boat instead of from a hack or trolley car. Green mould would be seen clinging to the walls, and you would see things in the water that ortn't to be throwed there.

Moonlight and memory rares up its glittering walls, but reality and the searchin' life of the present tears 'em down. Where are the three thousand warships, the three thousand merchant ships, that carried the wealth and greatness of Venice back in the fifteenth century; fifty-two thousand sailors, a thousand n.o.bles and citizens and working people according? Gone, gone! Floated way off out of that Grand Ca.n.a.l and disappeared in the mists and shadows of the past, and you have to go back there to see 'em.

The Rialto, which we had dremp about, looked beautiful from the water, with its one single arch of ninety-one feet lifting up six arches on each side. But come to walk acrost its broad s.p.a.ce you find it is divided into narrow streets, where you can buy anything from a crown to a string of beads, from macaroni to a china teapot.

The great square of St. Mark wuz a pleasant place on an evening.

Little tables set out in the street, with gayly-dressed people laughing and talking and taking light refreshments and listening to the music of the band, and a gay crowd walking to and fro, and picturesque venders showing their goods.

But to Tommy nothing wuz so pretty as the doves of St. Mark, who come down to be fed at two o'clock, descending through the blue sky like a shower of snow.

The Campanile or bell-tower towers up more than three hundred feet above the pavement; way up on the tower two bronze statutes stand with hammers and strikes off the hours. Why is it that the doves pay no attention to any other hour they may strike but when the hour of two sounds out, a window on the north side of the square opens and some grain is thrown out to 'em (the Government throws it to 'em, dretful good natered to think on't)? But how did them doves know two from three? I d'no nor Josiah don't. I had provided Tommy with some food for 'em and they flowed down and lighted on him and Dorothy, who also fed 'em; it wuz a pretty sight. And Robert Strong thought so too, I could read it in his eyes as he looked at Dorothy with the pretty doves on her shoulder and white hands.

I got some sooveneers for the children at Venice, some little ivory gondolas and photographs, etc., and Miss Meechim and Dorothy got sights of things, Venetian jewelry, handsome as could be, and Arvilly got a little present for Waitstill and a jet handkerchief pin for herself. She mourns yet on the inside and outside, yes, indeed! and I d'no but she always will.

And as you can git a relic of most everything at some of the shops I told Josiah I would love to git hold of one of them old rings that the Doges married the Adriatic with. And if you'll believe it that man didn't like it; sez he real puggicky:

"I hope you hain't any idee of marryin' the Jonesville creek, Samantha, because it won't look well in a M. E. sister and pardner."

Jealous of the creek! That's the last thing I ever thought that man would be jealous on. The idee! I only wanted it out of curiosity.

We visited the a.r.s.enal, another spot where the greatness of Venice in the past hanted our memory, when she had twenty thousand workmen there and now not two thousand. But we see queer lookin' things there--suits of armor, crossbows, helmets. Josiah took quite a fancy to one wore by Attila, king of the Huns, and wanted to put it on. Good land! his head went right up into it just as it would into a big coal-scuttle. What a mind Mr. Attila must have had if his brains wuz accordin' to his head.

And we see infernal machines, thumb screws, spiked collars, and other dretful implements of torture like black shadders throwed from the past. A piece of the boat that the Doge went to his weddin' in when he married the water wuz interestin'; weddin's always did interest females and males too, no matter whether the bride wuz formed out of dust or nothin' but clear water, and we also see a model of the boat Columbus sailed in to discover us.

Robert Strong who wuz always interested in the best things, said that the first newspaper ever published appeared in Venice three hundred years ago, and the first bank was started there.

You can walk all over Venice if you want to take the time to go furder round and cross the bridges and walk through narrer, crooked little streets, some on 'em not more'n five or six feet wide, but the easiest and quickest way is to take a boat, as well as the most agreeable.

Venice is built on seventy-two islands besides the Grand Ca.n.a.l which takes the place of our avenues and streets. There is a charm about Venice that there is not about any other city I ever see. You dream about it before you see it and then you dream on and keep dreamin' as long as you stay there, a sort of a wakin' dream, though you keep your senses.

Memories of the past seem to hant you more, mebby it is because them old memories can slip along easier over them gla.s.sy streets, easier than they can over our hard rocky pavements. 'Tennyrate they meet you on every side and stay right with you as long as you are there and hant you. As you float down them liquid roads you seen face to face sweet, wise Portia, "fair and fairer than that word;" and gallant Ba.s.sanio who made such a wise choice, and Shylock, the old Jew. And if you happen to git put out with your pardner, mebby he'll find fault with you, and say demeanin' words about wimmen or sunthin' like that, whilst sweet Portia's eyes are on you, if you feel like reprovin' him sharp, then you'll remember: "The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven, it blesseth him that gives and him that takes."

And so you forgive him. And then beautiful, sad Beatrice de Cenci will meet you by moonlight in front of some of them old marble palaces and her pa, about as mean a man as they make, and his sister, Lucretia de Borgia, that wicked, wicked creeter. Why, it beats all what mean folks Beatrice's relation wuz on her pa's side.

And you thought of any number of queer old Doges, rainin' and pizenin'

and actin', some on 'em, and marryin' the Adriatic; a poor match in my opinion and one that you couldn't expect to turn out well, the bride bein' slippery and inconstant and the bridegroom mean as pusley, cruel and cunning, besides bein' jest devoted to the Council of Ten. Queer works them Ten--made and cut a great swath that won't be forgot and they needn't expect it. The page of history is sticky and b.l.o.o.d.y with their doin's. But they move along in front of you, the Doges, the Ten and the Three. And any number of conquerors and any number of Popes and Kings down to Victor Emanuel.

And I d'no as I thought of anybody or anything there in Venice so much as I did of John Ruskin, who give even the stuns of Venice a language that will go on speakin' long after the stuns have mouldered back into dust. And then the dust will keep his memory green, and folks will ponder the "Ethics of the Dust" long after that dust has pa.s.sed into other changing forms and disappeared.

Great mind, great lovin' heart, who had but one thought, to make the world more full of beauty, knowledge, sincerity and goodness. His pure, bright intellect, his life white as the lilies, his living thoughts and n.o.ble idees they rap at the human heart, as well as mind, with their powerful sesame, and you have to open your heart's door and take them in. Prophet of earth and heaven, the air, the clouds, the birds and trees, the rocks and waters, translatin' the marvellous words so our duller eyes and ears can see and hear.

As I walked along over them stones of Venice, and in the Galleries of Modern Painters and ancient ones, my heart kep' sayin' onbeknown to myself and them round me, "John Ruskin, n.o.ble soul, great teacher, childlike, wise interpreter of the beauty and ministry of common things, hail and farewell!" For he had gone--it wuz true that he who had loved the flowers so and said to a friend who had sent him some: "I am trying to find out if there are flowers that do not fade." He had found out now, wreathes of heavenly immortelles are laid on his tired forward, not tired now, and he has his chance to talk to Moses and Plato, as he said he wanted to, and he is satisfied. Love and Sympathy that he longed for comforts and consoles him, and Beauty and Goodness wait on him.

Robert Strong felt just as I did about Ruskin, their idees about helpin' the poor, and the brotherhood of man, and fatherhood of G.o.d, wuz as congenial and blent together like sun and dew on a May morning.

Robert Strong said no other writer had done him the good Ruskin had.

And I guess Dorothy thought so too; she almost always thought jest as Robert did.

In wanderin' round this uneek city Josiah said the most he thought on wuz of tellin' Deacon Henzy and Uncle Sime Bentley about what he see there. And shadowy idees seemed to fill his mind about tryin' to turn the Jonesville creek through the streets and goin' from our house to Thomas Jefferson's in a gondola.

Arvilly said she would gin anything to canvas some of them old Doges for the "Twin Crimes". But I told her I guessed they didn't need to learn anything about crime, and she gin up they didn't.

The first thing Miss Meechim wanted to see wuz the church of St. Mark, so we all set off one day to see it. San Marco, as they call it, is one of the most interestin' churches to visitors on the Continent. It wuz begun way back in the tenth century, and it has been in process of building ever since, and I don't know how long they lay out to keep at it. They have spent thirty millions on it, so I hearn, and the news come pretty straight to me, and I d'no but they'll spend as much agin before they git through. But when you see all its magnificent sculpture, columns, statutes, mosaic work, ornaments of every kind, its grand arches, its five domes and spires and all the exquisite work on it I d'no as I'd took the job for any less, and so I told Josiah.

But he kep' up his old idee he had voiced in many a similar spot, that it wuz done by day's works and the workmen didn't hurry, and that it would have been cheaper to had it done by the job. But how could they, dribblin' along as they did ten hunderd years?

The four horses over the main entrance are very noted. They are said to have been carved way, way back by Augustus to celebrate a triumph over Antony and to have pa.s.sed through the hands of Nero, Constantine and Napoleon. Napoleon, a greedy creeter always, took 'em to Paris, but had to bring 'em back.

For horses that are so old and have been driv round and showed off by so many conquerors, they look pretty sound and hearty. But Josiah didn't like their looks nigh so well as he duz the mair's, and sez he, "That off one looks balky."

But I sez, "Distance lends enchantment; the mair can't begin with 'em."

The altar piece is said to have cost three million. It is of gold and silver, and full of precious stuns. It was made in Constantinople a thousand years ago, and has got inscriptions on it that I presoom read well if anybody could read 'em. But I couldn't nor Josiah. But Robert Strong read some on 'em to Dorothy, for I heard him. They are writ in Latin and Greek.

When we got back to the tarven that night we found a hull pile of letters from Jonesville, and amongst the rest I got a letter from Elder Minkley, good old man of G.o.d, and Arvilly got one too; he sets store by Arvilly now, he and his wife duz, and they pity her dretfully for what she has went through, and make allowances for her hashness, but never shall I forgit the way she talked to him right in my own settin' room when she first come home from Cuba after her husband had been murdered by the licensed Canteen.

She come to our house one day, and Elder Minkley, good old soul, come in just after she did for a all-day's visit, poor creeter! I guess he wuz sorry enough he come, some of the time; I guess he wished he wuz back in his study perusin' the book of martyrs or anything else deprestin', and would have thought 'em fur livelier than what he got into.

The way on't wuz, Arvilly had met Miss Deacon Sypher at the gate and she bein' dretful onfaculized with no more tact than a settin' hen, had tackled Arvilly for a contribution to buy a flag to send to our boys in Cuba, and talked enthusiastic about the war's holy mission.

And I spoze Sister Sypher wuz skairt almost into fits to hear Arvilly go on, 'tennyrate she left her sudden and to once, and started home 'cross lots almost on the run, and Arvilly come into the house talkin'

and mutterin'.