Samantha at the World's Fair Part 5

She thought of Elnathan's sharp orders not to go down into the city, and not to let The Little Maid out of her sight.

Wall, she thought it over, and thought that mebby if she kep one of her promises good, she would be forgive the other.

Jest as the Israelites did about the manny, and jest as You did when you told your wife you would bring her home a present, and come home early--and you bore her home a bracelet, at four o'clock in the mornin'.

And jest as I did when I said, under the influence of a stirring sermon, that I wouldn't forgit it, and I would live up to it--wall, I hain't forgot it.

But tenny rate, the upshot of the matter wuz that the nurse thought she would keep half of the Master's orders--she wouldn't let The Little Maid out of her sight.

So she hired a cab--she had plenty of money, Elnathan didn't stent her on wages. He had his good qualities, Elnathan did.

And she and The Little Maid rolled away, down through the broad, beautiful streets, lined with stately housen and filled with a throng of gay, handsome, elegantly clothed men, wimmen, and children.

Down into narrower business streets, with lofty warehouses on each side, and full of a well-dressed, hurrying crowd of business men--down, down, down into the dretful street she had sot out to find.

With crazy, slantin' old housen on either side--forms of misery filling the narrow, filthy street, wearing the semblance of manhood and womanhood. And worst of all, embruted, and haggard, and aged childhood.

Filth of all sorts c.u.mbering the broken old walks, and hoverin' over all a dretful sicknin' odor, full of disease and death.

Wall, when they got there, The Little Maid (she had a tender heart), she wuz pale as death, and the big tears wuz a-rollin' down her cheeks, at the horrible sights and sounds she see all about her.

Wall, Jean hurried her up the rickety old staircase into her sister's room, where Jean and Kate fell into each other's arms, and forgot the world while they mingled their tears and their laughter, and half crazy words of love and bewildered joy.

The Little Maid sot silently lookin' out into the dirty, dretful court-yard, swarmin' with ragged children in every form of dirt and discomfort, squalor and vice.

She had never seen anything of the kind before in her guarded, love-watched life.

She didn't know that there wuz such things in the world.

Her lips wuz quiverin'--her big, earnest eyes full of tears, as she started to go down the broken old stairs.

And her heart full of desires to help 'em, so we spoze.

But her tears blinded her.

Half way down she stumbled and fell.

The nurse jumped down to help her. She wuz hefty--two hundred wuz her weight; the stairs, jest hangin' together by links of planked rotteness, fell under 'em--down, down they went, down into the depths below.

The nurse was stunted--not hurt, only stunted.

But The Little Maid, they thought she wuz dead, as they lifted her out.

Ivory white wuz the perfect little face, with the long golden hair hangin' back from it, ivory white the little hand and arm hangin' limp at her side.

She wuz carried into Katy's room, a doctor wuz soon called. Her arm wuz broken, but he said, after she roused from her faintin' fit, and her arm wuz set--he said she would git well, but she mustn't be moved for several days.

Jean, wild with fright and remorse, thought she would conceal her sin, and git her back to the hotel before she telegrafted to her father.

Jest as you thought when you eat cloves the other night, and jest as I thought when I laid the Bible over the hole in the table-cover, when I see the minister a-comin'.

Wall, the little arm got along all right, or would, if that had been all, but the poisonous air wuz what killed the little creeter.

For five days she lay, not sufferin' so much in body, but stifled, choked with the putrid air, and each day the red in her cheeks deepened, and the little pulse beat faster and faster.

And on the fifth day she got delerious, and she talked wild.

She talked about cool, beautiful parks bein' made down in the stiflin', crowded, horrible courts and byways of the cities--

With great trees under which the children could play, and look up into the blue sky, and breathe the sweet air--she talked about fresh dewey gra.s.s on which they might lay their little hollow cheeks, and which would cool the fever in them.

She talked about a fountain of pure water down where now wuz filth too horrible to mention.

She talked _very_ wild--for she talked about them terrible slantin' old housen bein' torn down to make room for this Paradise of the future.

Had she been older, words might have fallen from her feverish lips of how the woes, and evils, and crimes of the lower cla.s.ses always react upon the upper.

She might have pictured in her dreams the drama that is ever bein'

enacted on the pages of history--of the sorely oppressed ma.s.ses turnin'

on the oppressors, and drivin' them, with themselves, out to ruin.

Pages smeared with blood might have pa.s.sed before her, and she might have dreamed--for she wuz _very_ delerious--she might have dreamed of the time when our statesmen and lawgivers would pause awhile from their hard task of punishin' crime, and bend their energies upon avertin' it--

Helpin' the poor to better lives, helpin' them to justice. Takin' the small hands of the children, and leadin' them away from the overcrowded prisons and penitentaries toward better lives--

When Charity (a good creeter, too, Charity is) but when she would step aside and let Justice and True Wisdom go ahead for a spell--

When co-operative business would equalize wealth to a greater degree--when the government would control the great enterprises, needed by all, but addin' riches to but few--when comfort would nourish self-respect, and starved vice retreat before the dawnin' light of happiness.

Had she been older she might have babbled of all this as she lay there, a victim of wrong inflicted on the low--a martyr to the folly of the rich, and their injustice toward the poor.

But as it wuz, she talked only with her little fever-parched lips of the lovely, cool garden.

Oh, they wuz wild dreams, flittin', flittin', in little vague, tangled idees through the childish brain!

But the talk wuz always about the green, beautiful garden, and the crowds of little children walkin' there.

And on the seventh day (that wuz after Elnathan got there, and me and Josiah, bein' telegrafted to)--

On the seventh day she begun to talk about a Form she saw a-walkin' in the garden--a Presence beautiful and divine, we thought from her words.

He smiled as he saw the happiness of the children. He smiled upon her, he wuz reachin' out his arms to her.

And about evenin' she looked up into her father's face and knew him--and she said somethin' about lovin' him so--and somethin' about the beautiful garden, and the happy children there, and then she looked away from us all with a smile, and I spozed, and I always shall spoze, that the Divine One a-walkin' in the cool of the evenin' in the garden, the benign Presence she saw there, happy in the children's happiness, drew nearer to her, and took her in his arms--for it says--

"He shall carry the lambs in His bosom."

That wuz two years ago. Elnathan Allen is a changed man, a changed man.

I hain't mentioned the word surplus population to him. No, I hadn't the heart to.