Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife Part 51

"Could I trouble you to do a little errand for me if you are going down town, or would it incommode you?"

He said he would do it.

Well, she said she didn't want him incommoded, "but," sez she, "if it is not too much trouble will you please tell my husband that I would like to have him come home as soon as he can make it convenient to do so, for the house is afire." And then she smiled sweetly and made a low bow, and went back into the house lookin' real serene, and went to scollopin' the other side of her fore-top.

The neighbor started off wildly on the run hollerin' "fire!" and "help!" for he see the flames bustin' out of one of the chamber winders. He got the fire engine and the neighbors collected, and got most of the furniture out below, and they couldn't hardly git her to make a move, for she hadn't got the last scallop made, but finally somebody grabbed her, and kinder hauled her out, she a tryin' to smile, they say, and look calm, as she was borne out.

I told Joel, before I thought, that "she ort to been singed, and that it would have done her good, mebby it would rousted her up a little."

And I guess he felt so too, though he didn't say so. Josiah looked real interested, and I sez, fur I didn't dast to have the encouragement go too fur that way:

"Calmness and serenity are beautiful, Josiah, and almost always desirable, though when a house gits afire you ort to let up on 'em a little."

Josiah's liniment looked quite a little clearer, but some shadders still remained, and I went on tenderly and pictured out to him the first meal I would cook for him when we got home. And then his liniment grew peaceful and happy, and he sez gratefully:

"You're so calmin' to the nerves, Samantha, when you set out to be, you're a perfect iodine."

I d'no really what he did mean, I guess it wuz anodyne, I keep a bottle to home for nerves. But 'tennyrate in a few minutes he wuz talkin' quite glib about home and the children and I felt richly repaid for all my trouble. And with such little agreeable talk and eppisodin' did I try to diversify the weariness of travel.

Josiah is a great case for Hamburg steaks, and he confided to me the hope that we would git some here that would go even beyond any that I had ever cooked and that would ensure him a future of this delicious food. But we didn't see a sign on 'em in the city. He wuz bitterly disappinted.

Hamburg is a free state, small, but I spoze feelin' quite big and independent. It is ruled by a Senate of eighteen members, and a house of Burgesses of one hundred and ninety-two members, and they make their own laws and keep 'em, I spoze, the most on 'em, and get along quite well and prosperous.

There is a beautiful little lake in the heart of the city on which small gaily painted boats dart to and fro carrying pa.s.sengers like omnibuses in city streets. Beautiful bridges cross the Alster, a tributary of the Danube, and tall handsome houses line the streets.

They are great cases for flowers there in Hamburg. You meet flower shops and flower sellers on every side. But they are not the beautiful flower girls we read of in stories. They are mostly old wimmen, too old for hard work. They wear short skirts, comin' just below their knees, black bodices, long black stockings with gay colored garters, wooden shoes, broad-brimmed hats, saucer shaped, trimmed with stiff black cambric bows.

We wuz only there for one day, but long enough to drive through the princ.i.p.al streets and see some of the princ.i.p.al sights and git rested some, and then we sailed away for Home Sweet Home, via London, England.

We didn't stay very long in London, but long enough so we could look about us some. Robert Strong had considerable bizness to attend to there, which, of course, devoured his time, and Dorothy had a number of young girl friends who lived there, and she wanted to go and see them, and she entertained 'em at our tarven: sweet, fresh-complected young girls; they wuz almost as pretty as Dorothy herself, but not quite.

Arvilly had a cousin on her own side that she wanted to visit, and, of course, she wanted to canva.s.s more or less, so that left Josiah and I free a good deal of the time to go and come as we liked. Of course dear Little Tommy wanted to see everything and go everywhere. Miss Meechim and Dorothy took Tommy with them several times, and so did Robert Strong, and, of course, some days when we wuz all at liberty we would all go out together sightseeing. Josiah said most the first thing that he wanted to see the Tower of London, and Tommy wanted to see the Crystal Palace, takin' a fancy to the name I spoze, and I told 'em we would go to these places the first chance we had.

But deep in my heart wuz one purpose. I had laid on a certain plan day and night, kep' it in my mind and lotted on it. But of this more anon.

This wuz my major plan. Amongst my minor ones wuz my desire to see Westminster Abbey agin. I had been there once on a former tower, but I wanted to stand agin by the tombs of them I so deeply honored; and the rest of the party feelin' as I did, we all set out there most the first thing.

I also sot store by Westminster Abbey on account of its being the place where Victoria, honored queen and woman, wuz crowned, as well as all of England's monarchs. It is a magnificent building, no other mausoleum in the world can compare with it; it is almost worthy of being the resting-place of the great souls that sleep there. Dorothy's sweet face and Robert's n.o.ble liniment took on reverent looks as we stood by the tomb of saint and sage, hero and poet.

We went from there to see the Houses of Parliament, immense buildings full of interest and a.s.sociations.

We also went to see St. Paul's Cathedral, which towers up in majesty, dwarfin' the other buildin's near it. It is a marvellous structure in size and beauty, only two bigger buildings in the world, St. Peter's at Rome, and the Milan Cathedral.

What a head Sir Christopher Wren must have had, and what a monument to his genius this gigantic pile is. No wonder he wanted this epitaph put on his tomb:

"If you want to see his monument, look about you."

Many other noted men are buried here, Bishop Heber, John Howard, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Wellington, Nelson and Sir John Moore, who wuz "buried darkly at dead of night," as so many bashful schoolboys know to their sorrow, as they rehea.r.s.e it in a husky voice to the a.s.sembled neighbors the last day of school. Oh, how much they wish as they try to moisten their dry tongue and arrange their too visible and various hands, that the night wuz still darker, so dark that nothin' wuz ever hearn on't.

Feelin' the admiration I did for his livin' and lovin' pardner, I wuz glad to see the Albert monument. It wuz evenin' when we see it, and the garden where it stands wuz illuminated. The great elms glowed under a mult.i.tude of red lights. The music-stands glowed with stars of the same color, and the fountains riz up in great sprays of color and radiance. It wuz a beautiful seen, but none too grand for the great good man whose name the tall shaft bears.

Albert Hall, which stands in the same grounds, wuz also brilliantly illuminated; its long gla.s.s corridors shone as if wrought out of crystal and ruby.

One day we rode from Blackfriars' bridge past the Mansion House, where the Lord Mayor holds his receptions. And what interested me fur more, we went past the place where the Foreign Bible Society prints more than three million Bibles a year in two hundred different languages and dialects, carrying the knowledge and love of our Lord unto the ends of the earth.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

Buckingham Palace wuz a sight to see, beautiful and grand, and not fur off is St. James's Park, one of the most attractive in the city though it wuz once only a marshy field. As I looked on its charming and diversified beauty I thought how little there is in heredity compared to gumption and draining.

Josiah, as I said, wanted to see the Tower of London. It is the most celebrated fortress in England. It is awful old, and good land! if I wuz shet up there I shouldn't never expect to break out. Some of the walls are fifteen feet thick. The White Tower, they say, wuz begun by William the Conqueror, a man that I told the guide politely, "wuz quite widely known, and I had hearn a sight of him though I had never had the pleasure of his acquaintance." It wuz completed in one thousand ninety-eight.

Josiah and I wandered round there for hours, and should most probable got lost and mebby been gropin' round there to-day if it hadn't been for the guide.

I wuz dretful interested in London Bridge. The present structure cost seven million, so they say, and I wouldn't have built it for a cent less. I thought as I stood there of what had took place on that spot since Sir William Wallace's day and how his benign head (most every b.u.mp on it good ones) wuz put up there a mark for the insultin' jeers of the populace, and it made me feel bad and sorry for Helen, his last wife, she that wuz Helen Mar. But Sir Thomas More's head wuz nailed up in the same place, and the Bishop of Rochester's and lots of others.

It wuzn't right.

And then I thought of the gay seens that had took place there, the tournaments and triumphal marches and grand processions and sad ones, and the great mult.i.tude who have pa.s.sed over it, prince and beggar, velvet and rags, a countless throng constantly pa.s.sing, constantly changing, no more to be counted than the drops of water in the silent stream below, all the time, all the time sweepin' on to the sea. I had sights of emotions.

And all the while I wuz in London, in the gay streets and quiet ones, in palace or park, the shade of d.i.c.kens walked by my side or a little in advance, seemin' to pint out to me the places where he had walked when he see visions and dreamed dreams. And I almost expected to meet Little Nell leading her grandpa, or David Copperfield, or Peggoty searching for Em'ly, or some of our Mutual Friends.

And so with Thackeray. As I looked up at the gloomy houses on some quiet street I almost expected to see the funeral hatchment of old Sir Pitt Crawley's wife and Becky Sharp's little pale face peering out, or sweet Ethel Newcomb and her cousin Clive, and the dear old General and Henry Esmond, and etc., etc. And so with Alfred Tennyson. In some beautiful place of drooping foliage and placid water I almost felt that I should see the mystic barge drawin' nigh and I too should float off into some Lotus land. And so with all the other beloved poets and authors who seem nigher to us than our next door neighbors in the flesh.

Dorothy havin' never been there, felt that she must see Shakespeare's home, which is a journey of only three hours by rail, so we made a visit there one day, pa.s.sing through some of England's most beautiful seenery on our way, grand old parks with stately houses rising up in their midst, gray stun churches in charming little villages, thatched-roof cottages, picturesque water-mills; it wuz all a lovely picture of rural England.

It being a little too long a journey for one day, we stayed all night at Shakespeare's Inn, where the great poet went daily for his gla.s.s of stimulant--so they say. But I am glad I don't believe everything that I hear.

Arvilly mourned to think that she couldn't have sold him America's twin crimes: "Intemperance and Greed"; but I kinder changed the subject. As much store as I set by Arvilly's cast-iron principles, somehow I couldn't bear the thought of having Shakespeare canva.s.sed.

All the rooms are named after Shakespeare's plays, painted over the doors in black letters. We slept in "All's Well That Ends Well"--a good name--and we slept peaceful, thinkin' likely that it would turn out so. Miss Meechim had the "Merry Wives of Windsor." She wanted to change with Arvilly, who had "Love's Labor's Lost," but Arvilly wouldn't budge.

Miss Meechim told me in confidence that if Shakespeare could have had the benefit of her advice he would probable have called it "The Unfortunate Wives of Windsor." "And then," sez she, "I could have occupied it with more pleasure." But I didn't much think that he would have changed his plans or poetry if she had been on the spot.

The next morning early we set out for Shakespeare's cottage, described so often, saw the room in which the great poet was born, and wuz told that nothing had been changed there since he lay in his cradle, which we could believe as we looked about us on the low walls, the diamond panes of the windows and the quaint old furniture. The cottage is now used for Shakespeare's relics, some of which looked as if they might be real, and some as if they wuz made day before yesterday. We visited the church where he wuz baptized and saw on one of the pews the metal plate on which is engraved the name of the poet's father.

And, thinkin' that a visit to Shakespeare's home wouldn't be complete without seeing the place where his heart journeyed whilst his life wuz young and full of hope and joy, we drove out to Shottery, to the little farmhouse where his sweetheart, Ann Hathaway, lived.

It is a quaint little cottage, and after going through it we drank a gla.s.s of water drawn up by a well sweep from the very same old well from which Shakespeare drank so many times. As I stood there I saw in fancy the rosy, dimpled Ann handing the crystal water to the boy, Will, who mebby whispered to her as he took the gla.s.s sweet words, all rhyming with youth and joy and love.

And the same blue sky bent above us; birds wheeled and sung over our heads, descendants, mebby, of the birds that sung to them that day. I had sights of emotions--sights of 'em--and so I did in the cottage as I sot on the old, old settle in the corner of the fireplace, whose age n.o.bdy could dispute, as its stiff old joints are strengthened with bands of iron, where young Will Shakespeare and his sweetheart often sat, and where he might have read to her the new poem in honor of her charms:

"To melt the sad, make blithe the gay, And nature charm Ann hath a way.

She hath a will, She hath a way-- To breathe delight, Ann Hathaway."

He or she didn't dream of his future greatness, and I dare say that old Pa Hathaway, who mebby slept nigh by, might have complained to her ma, "Wonderin' what that fool meant by talkin' in poetry at that time of night." And, mebby, if he soared too high and loud in verse, old Pa Hathaway might have called out: