Читать книгу Samantha at the World's Fair - Marietta Holley - Страница 6

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Wall, we all enjoyed havin' Christopher there the best that ever wuz. For he wuz very agreeable, as well as oncommon smart, which two qualities don't always go together, as has often been observed by others, and I have seen for myself.

Wall, it wuzn't more than a week or so after Krit arrived and got there, that another relation made his appearance in Jonesville.

It wuz of 'em on his side this time—not like Krit, half hisen and half mine, but clear hisen. Clear Allen, with no Smith at all in the admixture.

Proud enough wuz my pardner of him, and of himself too for bein' born his cousin. (Though that wuz onbeknown to him at the time, and he ort not to have gloried in it.)

But tickled wuz he when word come that Elnathan Allen, Esquire, of Menlo Park, California, wuz a-comin' to Jonesville to visit his old friends.

Tickled wuz he when word come.

That man had begun life poor—poor as a snipe; sometimes I used to handle that very word "Snipe" a-describin' Elnathan Allen's former circumstances to Josiah, when he got too overbearin' about him.

For he had boasted to me about him for years, and years, and a woman can't stand only jest about so much aggravatin' and treadin' on before she will turn like a worm.

That is Bible about "The Worm," and must be believed.

What used to mad me the worst wuz when he would git to comparin' Elnathan with one of 'em on my side who wuz shiftless. Good land! 'Zekiel Smith hain't the only man on earth who is ornary and no account. Every pardner has 'em, more or less, on his side and on hern; let not one pardner boast themselves over the other one; both have their drawbacks.

But Elnathan had done well; I admitted it only when I wuz too much put upon.

He had gone fur West, got rich, invested his capital first rate, some on it in a big Eastern city, and had got to be a millionare.

He wuz a widower with one child, The Little Maid, as he called her; he jest idolized her, and thought she wuz perfect.

And I spoze she wuz oncommon, not from what her Pa said—no, I didn't take all his talk about her for Gospel; I know too much.

But Barzelia Ann Allen (a old maid up to date) had seen her, had been out to California on a excursion train, and had staid some time with 'em.

And she said that she wuz the smartest child this side of Heaven. With eyes of violet blue, big luminous eyes, that draw the hearts and souls of folks right out of their bodies when they looked into 'em, so full of radiant joy and heavenly sweetness wuz they.

And hair of waving gold, and lips and cheeks as pink as the hearts of the roses that climbed all Winter round her winder—and the sweetest, daintiest ways—and so good to everybody, them that wuz poor and sufferin' most of all.

Barzeel wuz always most too enthusiastick to suit me, but I got the idee from what she said that she wuz a oncommon lovely child.

Good land! Elnathan couldn't talk about anything else—like little babblin' brooks runnin' towards the sea, all his talk, every anecdote he told, and every idee he sot forth, jest led up to and ended with that child. Jest like creeks.

He worshipped her.

And he himself told me so many stories about her bein' so good to the poor, and sacrificin' her little comforts for 'em—at her age, too—that I thought to myself, I wonder why you don't take some of them object lessons to heart—why you don't set down at her feet, and learn of her—and I wonder too where she took her sweet charity from, but spoze it wuz from her mother. Her mother had been a beautiful woman, so I had been told. She wuz a Devereaux—nobody that I ever knew, or Josiah. Celeste Devereaux.

The little girl wuz named for her mother. But they always called her The Little Maid.

Wall, to resoom, and to hitch my horse in front of the wagon agin. (Allegory.)

Elnathan had left The Little Maid and her nurse in that Eastern city where he owned so much property, and had come on to pay a flyin' visit to Jonesville, not forgittin' Loontown, you may be sure, where a deceased Aunt had jest died and left her property to him.

He wuz close.

He had left The Little Maid in the finest hotel in the city, so he said. He had looked over more'n a dozen, so I hearn, before he could git one he thought wuz healthy enough and splendid enough for her. At last he selected one, standin' on a considerable rise of ground, with big, high, gorgeous rooms, and prices higher than the very topmost cupalo, and loftiest chimbly pot.

Here he got two big rooms for The Little Maid, and one for the nurse. He got the two rooms for the child so's the air could circulate through 'em.

"Here he got two big rooms."

He wuz very particular about her havin' air of the very purest and best kind there wuz made, and the same with vittles and clothes, etc., etc., etc.

Wall, while he wuz a-goin' on so about pure air and the values and necessities of it, I couldn't help thinkin' of what Barzelia had told me about that big property of hisen in the Eastern city where he had left The Little Maid.

Here, in the very lowest part of the city, he owned hull streets of tenement housen, miserable old rotten affairs, down in stiflin' alleys, and courts, breeders of disease, and crime, and death.

At first some on 'em fell into his hands by a exchange of property, and he found they paid so well, that he directed his agent to buy up a lot of 'em.

Barzelia had told me all about 'em, she was jest as enthusiastick about what she didn't like as what she did; she said the money got in that way, by housin' the poor in such horrible pestilental places, seemed jest like makin' a bargain with Death. Rentin' housen to him to make carnival in.

And while he wuz talkin' to such great length, and with such a satisfied and comfortable look onto his face, about the vital necessities of pure air and beautiful surroundin's, in order to make children well and happy, my thoughts kept a-roamin', and I couldn't help it. Down from the lovely spot where The Little Maid wuz, down, down, into the dretful places that Barzelia had told me about. Where squalor, and crime, and disease, and death walked hand in hand, gatherin' new victims at every step, and where the children wuz a-droppin' down in the poisinous air like dead leaves in a swamp.

I kep a-thinkin' of this, and finally I tackled Elnathan about it, and he laughed, Elnathan did, and begun to talk about the swarms and herds of useless and criminal humanity a-cumberin' the ground, and he threw a lot of statisticks at me. But they didn't hit me. Good land! I wuzn't afraid on 'em, nor I didn't care anything about 'em, and I gin him to understand that I didn't.

And in the cause of duty I kep on a-tacklin' him about them housen of hisen, and advisin' him to tear 'em down, and build wholesome ones, and in the place of the worst ones, to help make some little open breathin' places for the poor creeters down there, with a green tree now and then.

And then agin he brung up the utter worthlessness, and shiftlessness, and viciousness of the class I wuz a-talkin' about.

And then I sez—"How is anybody a-goin' to live pattern lives, when they are a-starvin' to death? And how is anybody a-goin' to enjoy religion when they are a-chokin'?"

And then he threw some more statisticks at me, dry and hard ones too; and agin he see they didn't hit me, and then he kinder laughed agin, and assumed something of a jokelar air—such as men will when they are a-talkin' to wimmen—dretful exasperatin', too—and sez he—

"You are a Philosopher, Cousin Samantha, and you must know such housen as you are a-talkin' about are advantageous in one way, if in no other—they help to reduce the surplus population. If it wuzn't for such places, and for the electric wires, and bomb cranks, and accidents, etc., the world would git too full to stand up in."

"Help to reduce the surplus population!" sez I, and my voice shook with indignation as I said it. Sez I—

"Elnathan Allen, you had better stop a-pilin' up your statisticks, for a spell, and come down onto the level of humanity and human brotherhood."

Sez I, "Spozen you should take it to yourself for a spell, imagine how it would be with you if you had been born there onbeknown to yourself." Sez I, "If you wuz a-livin' down there in them horrible pits of disease and death—if you wuz a-standin' over the dyin' bed of wife or mother, or other dear one, and felt that if you could bring one fresh, sweet breath of air to the dear one, dyin' for the want of it, you would almost barter your hopes of eternity—

"If you stood there in that black, chokin' atmosphere, reekin' with all pestilental and moral death, and see the one you loved best a-slippin' away from you—borne out of your sight, borne away into the onknown, on them dead waves of poisinous, deathly air—I guess you wouldn't talk about reducin' the Surplus Population."

I had been real eloquent, and I knew it, for I felt deeply what I said.

But Elnathan looked cheerful under all my talk. It didn't impress him a mite, I could see.

He felt safe. He wuz sure the squalor and sufferin' never would or could touch him. He thought, in the words of the Him slightly changed, that: "He could read his title clear to Mansions with all the modern improvements."

He and The Little Maid wuz safe. The world looked further off to him, the woes, and wants, and crimes of our poor humanity seemed quite a considerable distance away from him.

Onclouded prosperity had hardened Elnathan's heart—it will sometimes—hard as Pharo's.

But he wuz a visitor and one of the relations on his side, and I done well by him, killed a duck and made quite a fuss.

The business of settlin' the estate took quite a spell, but he didn't hurry any.

He said "the nurse wuz good as gold, she would take good care of The Little Maid. She wrote to him every day;" and so she did, the hussy, all through that dretful time to come.

Oh dear me! oh dear suz!

The nurse, Jean, had a sister who had come over from England with a cargo of trouble and children—after Jean had come on to California.

And Elnathan, good-natured when he wuz a mind to be, had listened to Jean's story of her sister's woes, with poverty, hungery children, and a drunken husband, and had given this sister two small rooms in one of his tenement housen, and asked so little for them, that they wuz livin' quite comfortable, if anybody could live comfortable, in such a stiflin', nasty spot.

Their rooms wuz on top of the house, and wuz kept clean, and so high up that they could get a breath of air now and then.

But the way up to 'em led over a crazy pair of stairs, so broken and rotten that even the Agent wuz disgusted with 'em and had wrote a letter to Elnathan asking for new stairs, and new sanitary arrangements, as the deaths wuz so frequent in that particular tenement, that the Agent wuz frightened, for fear they would be complained of by the City Fathers—though them old fathers can stand a good deal without complainin'.

Wall, the Agent wrote, but Elnathan wuz at that time buildin' a new orchid house (he had more'n a dozen of 'em before) for The Little Maid; she loved these half-human blossoms.

And he wuz buildin' a high palm house, and a new fountain, and a veranda covered with carved lattice-work around The Little Maid's apartments. And a stained-glass gallery, leading from the conservatory to the greenhouses, and these other houses I have mentioned, so that The Little Maid could walk out to 'em on too sunny days, or when it misted some.

And so he wrote back to his Agent, that "he couldn't possibly spend any money on stairs or plumbin' in a tenement house, for the repairs he wuz making on his own place at Menlo Park would cost more than a hundred thousand dollars—and he felt that he couldn't fix them stairs, and he thought anyway it wuzn't best to listen to the complaints of complaining tenants." And he ended in that jokelar way of hisen—

"That if you listened to 'em, and done one thing for 'em, the next thing they would want would be velvet-lined carriages to ride out in."

And the Agent, havin' jest seen the tenth funeral a-wendin' out of that very house that week, and bein' a man of some sense, though hampered, wrote back and said—"Carriages wouldn't be the next thing that they would all want, but coffins."

He said sence he had wrote to Elnathan more than a dozen had been wanted there in that very house, and the tenants had been borne out in 'em.

(And laid in fur cleaner dirt than they wuz accustomed to there;) he didn't write this last—that is my own eppisodin'.

And agin the Agent mentioned the stairs, and agin he mentioned the plumbin'.

But Elnathan wuz so interested then and took up in tryin' to decide whether he would have a stained-glass angel or some stained-glass cherubs a-hoverin' over the gallery in front of The Little Maid's room, that he hadn't a mite of time to argue any further on the subject—so he telegrafted—

"No repairs allowed. Elnathan Allen."