Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife Part 9

for a year or two and didn't make much by it, and he thought he see a sign up in the heavens, G. P., and he gin out that he had had a call "go preach," and went to preachin', and he didn't make so well by that as he did by his doctorin', and then he gin out that he had made a mistake in readin' the letters; instead of goin' to preach they meant "give pills," so he went back to his doctorin' agin, and is doin'

first rate. That wuzn't a call.

But to resoom. Elder Wessel jest worshipped this daughter, and thought she wuz the sweetest, dearest girl in the world. And she wuz a pretty girl with soft, bright innocent eyes. She wuz educated in a convent, and had the sweet, gentle manners and onworldly look that so many convent-bred girls have. She and Aronette struck up a warm friendship, though her pa wouldn't have allowed it I spoze if he hadn't seen how much store we all sot by Aronette.

We got real well acquainted with Elder Wessel and Lucia; and her proud pa wuz never tired of singin' her praises or ruther chantin' 'em--he wuz too dignified to sing. Arvilly loved to talk with him, though their idees wuz about as congenial as ile and water. He wuz real mild and conservative, always drinked moderate and always had wine on his table, and approved of the canteen and saloon, which he extolled as the Poor Man's Club. He thought that the government wuz jest right, the big trusts and license laws jest as they should be.

Arvilly dearly loved to send sharp arrows of sarkasm and argument through his coat armor of dignified complacency and self-esteem, for truly his idees wuz to her like a red rag to a bull.

Miss Meechim kinder looked down on Arvilly, and I guess Arvilly looked down on her. You know it happens so sometimes--two folks will feel real above each other, though it stands to reason that one of 'em must be mistook. Miss Meechim thought she wuz more genteel than Arvilly, and was worth more, and I guess she had had better advantages. And Arvilly thought she knew more than Miss Meechim, and I guess mebby she did. Miss Meechim thought she wuz jest right herself, she thought her native land wuz jest right and all its laws and customs, and naterally she looked down dretfully on all foreigners. She and Arvilly had lots of little spats about matters and things, though Miss Meechim wuz so genteel that she kep' her dignity most of the time, though Arvilly gin it severe raps anon or oftener.

But one tie seemed to unite 'em a little--they wuz real congenial on the subject of man. They both seemed to cherish an inherent aversion to that sect of which my pardner is an ornament, and had a strong settled dislike to matrimony; broken once by Arvilly, as a sailor may break his habit of sea-faring life by livin' on sh.o.r.e a spell, but still keepin' up his love for the sea.

But of their talks together and Arvilly's arguments with Elder Wessel more anon and bime by. Arvilly stood up aginst the sea-sickness as she would aginst a obstinate subscriber, and finally brought the sickness to terms as she would the buyer, on the third day, and appeared pale but triumphant, with a subscription book in her hand and the words of her prospectus dribblin' from her lips. She had ordered a trunkful to sell on sight, but Arvilly will never git over what she has went through, never.

As the days went on the big ship seemed more and more to us like a world, or ruther a new sort of a planet we wuz inhabitin'--it kinder seemed to be the centre of the universe. I overheard a woman say one day how monotonous the life wuz. But I thought to myself, mebby her mind wuz kinder monotonous--some be, you know, made so in the first on't; I found plenty enough to interest me, and so Josiah did.

There wuz a big library where you could keep company with the great minds of the past and present. A music room where most always some of the best music wuz to be hearn, for of course there wuz lots of musicians on board, there always is. And for them that wanted it, there wuz a smokin' room, though Josiah or I didn't have any use for it, never havin' smoked anything but a little mullen and catnip once or twice for tizik. And there wuz a billiard room for them that patronized Bill, though I never did nor Josiah, but wuz willin' that folks should act out their own naters. I spoze they played cards there, too. But Josiah and I didn't know one card from another; I couldn't tell Jack from the King to save my life.

We stayed in the music room quite a good deal and once or twice Josiah expressed the wish that he had brought along his accordeon.

And he sez: "It don't seem right to take all this pleasure and not give back anything in return."

But I sez, "I guess they'll git along without hearin' that accordeon."

"I might sing sunthin', I spose," sez he. "I could put on my dressin'

gown and belt it down with the tossels and appear as a singer, and sing a silo."

That wuz the evenin' after Dorothy, in a thin, white dress, a little low in the neck and short sleeves, had stood up and sung a lovely piece, or that is I 'spoze it wuz lovely, it wuz in some foreign tongue, but it sounded first rate, as sweet as the song of a robin or medder lark--you know how we all like to hear them, though we can't quite understand robin and lark language. It wuz kinder good in Josiah to want to give pleasure in return for what he had had, but I argyed him into thinkin' that he and I would give more pleasure as a congregation than as speakers or singers. For after I had vetoed the singin' that good man proposed that he should speak a piece. Sez he, "I could tell most the hull of the American Taxation."

And I sez, "I wouldn't harrer up the minds of the rich men on board with thoughts of taxes," sez I, "when lots of 'em are goin' away to get rid on 'em."

"Well," sez he, "I could tell the hull of Robert Kidd."

And I sez, "Well, I wouldn't harrer up their feelin's talkin' about hullsale stealin'; they have enough of that to hum in the big cities."

So gradual I got him off from the idee.

There wuz one little boy about Tommy's age and a sister a little older I felt real sorry for, they looked so queer, and their ma, a thin, wirey, nervous lookin' woman brooded over 'em like a settin' hen over her eggs. They wuz dressed well, but dretful bulged out and swollen lookin', and I sez to their ma one day:

"Are your children dropsical?"

And she sez, "Oh, no, their health is good. The swellin's you see are life preservers." She said that she kep' one on their stomachs night and day.

Well, I knew that they would be handy in a shipwreck, but it made 'em look queer, queer as a dog.

And now whilst the pa.s.sengers are all settin' or standin' on their own forts and tendin' to their own bizness, and the big ship ploughin' its big liquid furrow on the water I may as well tell what Arvilly went through. I spoze the reader is anxious to know the petickulers of how she come to be in the Cuban army and desert from it. The reason of her bein' in the army at all, her husband enlisted durin' the struggle for Cuban independence, and Arvilly jest worshippin' the ground he walked on, and thinkin' the world wuz a blank to her where he wuz not, after the last care he left her wuz removed, and always havin' done as she wuz a mind to as fur as she could, she dressed herself up in a suit of his clothes and enlisted onbeknown to him, so's to be near to him if he got woonded, and 'tennyrate to breathe the same air he did and sleep under the same stars. She adored him.

It must be remembered that Arvilly had never loved a single thing till she fell in love with this man, her folks dyin' off and leavin' her to come up the best she could, and imposed upon and looked down upon on every side, and workin' hard for a livin', and after she got old enough to read and understand, bein' smart as a whip and one of the firmest lovers of justice and fair play that ever wuz born, she become such a firm believer in wimmen's rights that she got enemies that way.

Well, you know right when she started for the World's Fair, helpin'

herself along by sellin' the book, "The Wild, Wicked, and Warlike Deeds of Men" (which she said she felt wuz her duty to promulgate to wimmen to keep 'em from marryin' and makin' fools of themselves).

Well, right there, some like Paul on his way to Jerusalem breathin'

vengeance against his Lord, a great light struck him down in the road, so with Arvilly, the great light of Love stopped her in her career, she dropped her book, married the man she loved and who loved her, and lived happy as a queen till the Cuban war broke out.

Her husband wuz a good man, not the smartest in the world, but a good, honest G.o.d-fearin' man, who had had a hard time to get along, but always tried to do jest right, and who hailed Arvilly's bright intellect and practical good sense and household knowledge as a welcome relief from incompetence in hired girl form in the kitchen.

His first wife died when his little girl wuz born, and she wuz about seven when Arvilly married her pa. Well, he bein' jest what he wuz--conscientious, G.o.d-fearin' and havin' hearn his minister preach powerful sermons on this bein' a war of G.o.d aginst the Devil, enlightenment and Christianity aginst ignorance and barbarism, America aginst Spain--he got all fired up with the sense of what wuz his duty to do, and when his mind wuz made up to that no man or woman could turn him. Arvilly might have just as well spent her tears and entreaties on her soapstun. No, go he must and go he would. But like the good man he wuz, he made everything just as comfortable as he could for her and his little daughter, a pretty creeter that Arvilly too loved dearly. And then he bid 'em a sad adoo, for he loved 'em well, and Arvilly had made his home a comfortable and happy one. But he choked back his tears, tried to smile on 'em with his tremblin'

lips, held 'em both long in his strong arms, onclosed 'em, and they wuz bereft. Well, Arvilly held the weeping little girl in her arms, bent over her with white face and dry eyes, for his sake endured the long days and longer nights alone with the child, for his sake taking good care of her, wondering at the blow that had fell upon her, wondering that if in the future she could be so blest agin as to have a home, for love is the soul of the home, and she felt homeless.

Well, she watched and worked, takin' good care of the little one, but bolts and bars can't keep out death; Arvilly's arms, though she wuz strong boneded, couldn't. Diphtheria wuz round, little Annie took it; in one week Arvilly wuz indeed alone, and when the sod lay between her and what little likeness of her husband had shone through the child's pretty face, Arvilly formed a strange resolution, but not so strange but what wimmen have formed it before, and probably will agin till G.o.d's truth shall shine on a dark world and be listened to, and wars shall be no more. She made up her mind to foller the man she loved, to enlist. She wuz always a masculine lookin' creeter, big, raw boneded, and when she cut off her hair and parted it on one side in a man's way and put on a suit of her husband's clothes she looked as much, or more like a man than she had ever looked like a woman. She locked the doors of her home till the cruel war should be ended, and he whose love made her home should return. Till then, if indeed it should ever be, she left her happiness there in the empty, silent rooms and sallied off. She had disposed of her stock and things like that, folks not bein' surprised at it, bein' she wuz alone, but all to once she disappeared, utterly and entirely, n.o.body hearn of her and folks thought that mebby she had wandered off in her grief and put an end to her life. Not one word wuz hearn of her until lo and behold! the strange news come, Arvilly's husband wuz killed in a drunken brawl in a licensed Canteen down in Cuba and Arvilly had deserted from the army, and of course bein' a woman they couldn't touch her for it. That wuz the first we ever knowed that she wuz in the army.

CHAPTER VIII

Arvilly deserted from the army and gloried in it; she said, bein' a woman born, she had never had a right, and now she took it. After her husband wuz buried, and her hull life, too, she thought for a spell, she deserted, but bein' ketched and court-martialed, she appeared before the officers in her own skirt and bask waist and dared 'em to touch her. Waitstill Webb, the young sweetheart of the man that shot her husband, wuz with her. Good land! Arvilly didn't lay up nothin'

aginst her or him; he wuz drunk as a fool when he fired the shot. He didn't know what he wuz doin'; he wuz made irresponsible by the law, till he did the deed, and then made responsible by the same law and shot. Waitstill wuz named from a Puritan great-great-aunt, whose beauty and goodness had fell onto her, poor girl! She stood by Arvilly. They wuz made friends on that dretful night when they had stood by the men they loved, one killed and the other to be killed by the govermunt. Poor things! they wuz bein' protected, I spoze our govermunt would call it; it always talks a good deal about protectin'

wimmen; 'tennyrate the mantilly of the law hung over 'em both and shaded 'em, one man layin' dead, shot through the heart, the other condemned to be shot, both on 'em by legal enactments, both men not knowin' or meanin' any more harm than my Josiah up in Jonesville if he had been sot fire to by law and then hung by law because he smoked and blistered. Good land! them that sets a fire knows that there has got to be smoke and blisters, there must be.

The officers they wuz just dumb-foundered at the sight of a woman with a bask waist on in that position--a bein' court-martialed for desertion--and her speech dumb-foundered 'em still more, so I spoze; I hearn it from one who wuz there.

Sez Arvilly to 'em, and they wuz drew up in battle array as you may say, dressed up in uniform and quite a few on 'em, the Stars and Stripes behind 'em, and the mantilly of the law drapin' 'em in heavy folds. And I don't spoze that through her hull life Arvilly wuz ever so eloquent as on that occasion. All her powers of mind and heart wuz electrified by the dretful shock and agony she had underwent, and her words fell like a hard storm of lightenin' and hail out of a sky when it is just stored full of electrical power and has got to bust out.

Sez Arvilly: "You men represent the force and power of the govermunt that falsely sez it is the voice of the people; we two represent the people. As you are the force and power and will of the law, we are the endurance, the suffering. You decide on a war. When did a woman ever have any voice in saying that there should be a war? They bear the sons in agony that you call out to be butchered; their hearts are torn out of their bosoms when they let their husbands, sons and lovers go into the h.e.l.l of warfare, and you tax all her property to raise money to help furnish the deadly weapons that kill and cut to pieces the warm, living, loving forms that they would give their lives for.

"But you men decide on a war, as you have on this. You say it wuz from motives of philanthropy and justice; you drag us, the people, out of peaceful, happy homes to leave all we love, to face mutilation, agony and death; you say your cause wuz just, I say it is a war of revenge--a war of conquest."

Why it fairly made goose pimples run over me when I hearn on't.

Sa.s.sin' the govermunt, she wuz--nothin' more nor less. But she went on worse than ever.

"You say that it wuz to give freedom to the people of Cuba. Look at the millions of your own wimmen enslaved in legal fetters! You say it wuz to protect the wimmen and children of Cuba from the cruelty and brutality of unscrupulous rulers. Look at the wimmen and children of your own country cowering and hiding from crazed drunken husbands, sons and fathers. More misery, murder, suicides, abuse and suffering of every kind is caused by the saloon every day of the year in the United States than ever took place in Cuba in twice the same time, and you not only stand by and see it, but you take pay from the butchers for slaughtering the innocents! You miserable hypocrites, you!" Sez Arvilly, "I would talk about pity and mercy, you that know no pity and no mercy for your own wimmen and children.

"You pose before foreign nations as a reformer, a righter of wrongs, when you have cherished and are cherishing now the most gigantic crime and wrong that ever cursed a people; turning a deaf ear to the burdened and dying about you; wives, mothers, daughters--for whose safety and well-being you are responsible--have told you that the saloon killed all the manhood and n.o.bility of their husbands, sons, and fathers; made the pure, good men, who loved and protected them, into cold-hearted brutes and demons who would turn and rend them--still you would not hear. You have seen the dretful procession of one hundred thousand funerals pa.s.s before you every year, slain by this foe that you pamper and protect.

"Lovers of good laws have told you that the saloon blocked up the way to every reform and wuz the greatest curse of the day; still you threw your mighty protection around the system and helped it on. The most eminent doctors have told you that drunkenness ruined the bodies of men; Christian clergymen told you that it ruined their souls, and that the saloon was the greatest enemy the Church of Christ had to contend with to-day; that when by its efforts and sacrifices it saved one soul from ruin, the saloon ruined two to fill the place of that one who wuz saved, and still you opholded it.

"Pet.i.tions signed by hundreds of thousands of the best people of the land have been sent to you, but these pet.i.tions, weighted down with the tears and prayers of these people, have been made a jest and a mock of by you. And strangest, most awful of sights--incredible almost to men and angels--this govermunt, that sot out as a reformer to Christianize Cuba and the Philippines, have planted there this heaviest artillery of Satan, the saloon, to bind the poor islanders in worse bondage and misery than they ever dremp on. Hain't you ashamed of yourself! You fool and villain!" (Oh! dear me! Oh, dear suz! To think on't; Arvilly wuz talkin' to the govermunt, and callin' it a fool and villain! The idee! Why, it wuz enough to skair anybody most to death!) I spoze it made a great adoo. I spoze that the men who represented the govermunt wuz too horrified to make a reply. Arvilly always did go too fur when she got to goin'. But it can't be denied that she had great reason for her feelin's, for the strongest argument wuz still to come. I spoze she got almost carried away by her own talk and feelin's, for all of a sudden they said she lifted her long bony hand and arm--Arvilly always wuz kinder spare in flesh--she lifted up her arm and her bony forefinger seemed to be follerin' the lines of some words writ up there on the wall, sez she slowly, in a awful voice:

"My country! thou are weighed in the balance and found wanting!"

It wuz indeed thrillin', but after a minute's silence she went on: "Look at me!" sez she, pintin' that same forefinger first at herself and then at the tall veiled figger of the young girl beside her--"Look at us; we, the people, represent to you another of your favorite reforms, the Canteen, that product of civilization and Christianity you transplanted from our holy sh.o.r.es to the benighted tropics. How many pet.i.tions have you had wet with the tears of wives and mothers, weighted down with their prayers to close this gateway to h.e.l.l. But no, for a price, as Judas sold his Lord, you have trafficked in human souls and will do so. And you are the power--you control; we are the people--we suffer. We leave all we love, we go out and fight your battles when you tell us to, we face mutilation and death for you--isn't that enough? No; besides the foe in front you set us aginst, you introduce a foe into our midst that is a million times as fatal and remorseless. The foe in front only aims at our bodies; this foe, before it kills our bodies, kills honor, manhood, all that is n.o.ble and worthy to be loved--a devilish foe indeed, but by your command it is let loose upon us; we are the people, we must endure it.

Look at me!"--agin she pinted that bony forefinger at herself--"I had a husband I loved as well as the gracious lady in the White House loves her husband. He wuz a good man. He thought he owed a duty to his country. He went to fight her battles at her call. He might have escaped Spanish bullets, but not this foe this Christian govermunt set aginst him. In a low Canteen, a vile drinking den, rented by you for the overthrow of men's souls and bodies, in a drunken brawl a bullet aimed by a crazed brain for another poor ruined boy reached my husband's faithful heart, faithful to the country that slew him, not for patriotism or honor, but for a few pennies of money--not even the thirty pieces of silver Judas earnt for betraying his Lord. This bullet wuz sent from the hand of a young man, a college graduate, one of the n.o.blest, brightest and best of men until this foe our govermunt set for him vanquished him. He got into a quarrel with another drunken youth, another victim of the Canteen, and meant to shoot him, but the unsteady hand sent it into the heart of my husband, who went into that vile place thinkin' he could appease the quarrel. This young man was shot for _your_ crime and here is his widow," and turning to Waitstill, she said, "Lift up your vail; let them look upon us, the people."

The young girl drew back her vail and a face of almost perfect beauty wuz disclosed, but white as death. The big dark eyes wuz full of sorrow and despair, sadder than tears. She simply said:

"I loved him--he was murdered--I have come to denounce his murderers."

Her voice wuz low, but the words fell like drops of blood, so vivid, so full were they of the soul of her being.