Samantha at Coney Island Part 22

The agony I had went through there, and my joy in his recovery wuz such, that I didn't throw Josiah's waywardness in his face (not much of any). But if you'll believe it--and I don't spoze you will--he turned the tables 'round, and blamed me. That is often done by pardners of both sects, when they feel real guilty, to try to draw attention off their own misdoin's, by findin' fault with their pardners. It has been done time and agin, and I spoze will be, as long as man is man, and woman is woman.

When I told him that I rid down there with Deacon Gansey, that man acted jealous and mad as a hen. He never liked him, they fell out years ago about a rail fence, and wuz hurt. But now he acted furious, and his last words to Bildad wuz:

"I want you to have a funeral for Deacon Gansey before I see you agin, and I'll pick out the him I want you to sing at his funeral:

"Believein', we rejoice, To see the cuss removed."

But I spoke right up and sez, "Don't you bury him till he is dead, Bildad, no matter who tells you to."

And Josiah didn't like that, or acted as if he didn't; mebby he wuz subterfugin' to draw off attention. Truly, pardners is a mysterious problem, and it takes sights of wisdom and patience to solve' em, and sometimes you can't git the right answer to 'em then, male or female.

As we left Surf Avenue I looked back on the blackened ruins of what had been the fair City of Dreamland, the broken totterin' remains of that glorious tower, the black tangled ma.s.ses of iron and steel, the ruins of the great animal house mixed with the ashes of a hundred and twenty animals, and I see with my mind's eye that great flat plain of blackened ruins, all cleared away, and green velvety gra.s.s, and trees, and fountains sprayin' over shrubs, and flowers, and white smooth paths windin' through the bloom and verdure clear down to the clean sand of the water's verge. And the high fence of Exclusion that shets them from other fair parks along the sh.o.r.e removed, thousands and thousands and thousands of happy children playin' there in the pure air, takin' in in one summer day enough strength to last 'em through a crowded, suffocatin', weary week. And grown folks, rich and poor, tired of city sights and sounds, strollin' about or settin' on comfortable seats lookin' off on the water, or watchin' the play of their children, the fresh air blowin' some of their cares and troubles away.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

WE RETURN TO JONESVILLE AND JOSIAH BUILDS TIRZAH ANN'S COTTAGE WITH STRANGE INVENTIONS AND ADDITIONS

CHAPTER NINETEEN

WE RETURN TO JONESVILLE AND JOSIAH BUILDS TIRZAH ANN'S COTTAGE WITH STRANGE INVENTIONS AND ADDITIONS

I told Josiah I hoped my vision would come true, and they would make an open park of Dreamland, so the millions who visit Coney Island could git a good look at Mom Nater and old Ocean. "And heaven knows,"

sez I, "there would be amus.e.m.e.nts enough left in Luny, and Steeple Chase Park, and other resorts all along the sh.o.r.e." And he said he didn't care a dum what they did with it. Sez he, "They needn't build it up on my account, for I won't patronize 'em any more!" And I told him, "I guessed he wouldn't be missed, specially Sundays and holidays." And he said, "Miss me or not, they needn't try to git me there agin, and they may jest as well give up hopin' to, first as last."

Sez I, "Can't you be megum, Josiah? You wuz all carried away with it, and now you're turned agin it; what makes you turn so _fur_? Can't you see the good side to it?"

"No, I can't, and won't!"

So we went home some like the Baptist and the Methodist who had a public meetin' to argy their two beliefs, on which they wuz dretful sot, and they converted each other, so the Baptist went home a Methodist, and the Methodist a Baptist.

I'd been considerable sot agin it, but I went home with the eye of my spectacles able to look on both sides. The side I didn't like, that it shares with other Pleasure Resorts. And its good side, as a care lightener, and diversion to toil. And a golden Pleasure House to the millions of children who go there every year, many of 'em poor children who get there their only glimpse of rest and light hearted enjoyment.

But my dear pardner can't be megum; that quality wuz left out when he wuz manufactured. And now if anyone sez Coney Island, he starts for the barn.

Serenus come home a few days after we did. He'd been on the Bowery of Coney Island that night, Josiah havin' refused to go to such a lowdown place with him. So as it often is in this strange world, the wrong-doer comes out ahead, for the _present_. He made a night of it with Jim Cobb, a rural cousin, and not a hair of his head wuz scorched, nor the smell of fire on his garments.

But I wuz proud that Josiah withstood temptation, and told him that I would ruther he had got afire, and burned considerable, than had him yield to the tempter.

I myself never sot foot on the Bowery; I wuzn't goin' to nasty up my mind with it, though I hearn there wuz some good things to be seen there. Folks told me I'd ort to gone to Brighton, and Atlantic City, and see the milds of beautiful Pleasure places along the ocean, but I sez, "I thank you, but I've seen enough," though there wuz sights there that I would loved to see.

Among 'em wuz that Mother's Camp, where thousands and thousands of poor children and their mas go to spend a day in the bracin'

atmosphere. And the children have pure milk, and their mas good tea, and they can go there day after day all they want to. How the children look forward to it, and their mas too.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_I myself never sot foot on the Bowery; I wuzn't goin'

to nasty up my mind with it, though I hearn there wuz some good things to be seen there._" (_See page 313_)]

The goodness and helpfulness of such places along the beach, wrops their bright mantillys over some of the other places not so good and makes folks more lenitent to 'em, as they endure a poor husband for the sake of his good wife, and visey versey.

A few days after we got home, Josiah took Penstock and they sot off for a two weeks' stay at Shadow Island. And a few days after they got there he writ me that they had broke ground for the cottage. And that very day I got my feet wet down to the creek paster huntin' for a turkey's nest, and come down with inflamatory rumatiz, and couldn't walk a step for upwards of four weeks, and Ury's wife come and took care on me. My head felt bad too, Coney Island had been too much for me--

Well, Josiah would come home Sundays all wrought up and enthusiastick boastin' what a model house it wuz, jest perfect, and what new and magnificent discoveries he had made to lighten labor, which he wuz goin' to git patented and probable make our everlastin' fortune, as well as make Tirzah Ann perfectly happy. And I'd set with my foot on a piller, and hear him go on and forebode and forebode, and I groaned more about the house than I did with the pain in my lim, though that wuz fearful.

Well, after it had been goin' on for about four weeks, one Sat.u.r.day when he come home over Sunday, he said the house wuz all up and nearin' completion, and he carried the idee if he didn't come right out and say it, that there wuzn't a mansion in the New Jerusalem that went ahead on't. My rumatiz and head wuz quite a little better, and he proposed that I should go back with him Monday mornin' on a short tower and see the house, and be a humble witness and admirer of his glorious triumph (he didn't say these words right out but carried the idee plain in his linement, and hauty demeanor). Well, I concluded to go, and Philury bandaged up my lim in soft flannel moistened with anarky, and packed various bottles of linement, etc., in my portmanty and Ury took us to the train.

Well I will pa.s.s over our voyage to Shadow Island, but in the fullness of time we arrove there, and stood in front of the cottage. The seen all round it wuz fair indeed, but the structure looked queer, queer as a dog. There wuz piazzas and porticos, and ornament piled on ornament cropped out on every side. It wuz weighted down with cheap little sawed out peaks and pints, and triangles perforated with holes for ornaments, but the hull thing looked shiftless, tippin' and lop sided.

I stood lookin' at it in silence for a long time, it looked so queer that it sort o' stunted and brow beat me, and my first words wuz spoke as much to my own soul as to my companion, "It looks strange, pa.s.sin'

strange!"

"Yes," sez Josiah, "hain't it a uneek plan?"

"Yes," sez I, "a uneeker one wuz never seen on this planet." And agin I seemed to lose myself in strange emotions, it looked so awful, a kind of or mingled with my indignation and regret.

"n.o.body will steal them idees!" sez he proudly.

"No," sez I sadly, "you're safe from that." And I sez, as I looked up at the queer, lop sided, flighty, vain thing, "It leans over considerable, Josiah Allen, it is very tippin'."

He looked worried, but sez in a sort of apology way, "I had it lean over one side on account of havin' rain water dripp offen the eaves, and have the snow slide off in drifty times. Ruffs have been known to fall in, and I wanted to ensure Tirzah Ann's havin' a ruff over her head anyway."

Agin I looked on in solemn or, and sez wonderin'ly, "What will Tirzah Ann say when she sees it?"

"I don't care," sez he, "what she sez! if she don't like it she can lump it!"

But I could see that the tippin' sides wuz done through a mistake, and he wuz tryin' to cover it up with a mantilly of bravado and boastfulness. I agin kep' silence for quite a spell, and my next words, so fur as I remember 'em, wuz, "Where is the suller?"

He stood agast and repeated, "The suller!" He looked perfectly dumb-foundered but wuzn't goin' to give in he made a mistake, it wuz too mortifyin' to his pride, so sez he in faint axents:

"I laid out to build it after the house wuz done." Sez I, "What wuz you goin' to do with the dirt?"

"Why, I laid out," sez he lookin' helplessly round for a excuse, "I laid out to bring it up in baskets," and he went on brightenin' up as a idee struck him--"I've observed, Samantha, that dirt is handy for house plants, or to plant seeds in the spring of the year."

Sez I dryly, "I guess three or four hundred wagon loads won't be needed for house plants, and after Tirzah Ann sees all that dirt lugged up her suller stairs and through her kitchen she won't have much time or ambition for posies."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_'The suller!' He stood agast, perfectly dumb-foundered but wuzn't goin' to give in he had made a mistake. It wuz too mortifying to his pride._" (_See page 318_)]

"Well," sez he, a bright idee occurrin' to him, "it will be a first rate job for the men to do rainy days. In buildin' a house there hain't much a man can do durin' a hard thunder storm, or hail storm, but they can go right on with the suller jest as well as though it wuz a sunshiny day. That is one great thing that architects have heretofore overlooked, work that men can do durin' cyclones--I have met that want," sez he proudly.

"I should think as much," sez I mekanically, for my thoughts wuzn't there, they wuz afar with Tirzah with her poor health, and the blow that had got to come onto her, when she see this thing that wuz rared up in front of me.

Well, I went round to the kitchen door, the winders all seemed sot in tottlin' and shaky, and my pen fails me to tell the looks of them back door steps, they wuz very high here, for the land sloped off sudden, but suffice it to say that I wouldn't trust even one foot on 'em for a dollar bill. There wuz a great long concern that looked like a huge wooden arm that come out of the settin' room winder on that side and seemed to reach down to the water, and sez I, "What, for the land's sake! is that?"

"That," sez he proudly, "is the crownin' work of my life! that will make me famous and enormously rich when it becomes known to the world. That is a attachment to hitch onto the sewin' machine, the churn, the coffee mill or any domestic article where foot or hand power is used, and is to be used in pumpin' water."