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Samantha at Coney Island and

a Thousand Other Islands

CHAPTER ONE

IN WHICH THE CONEY ISLAND MICROBE

ENTERS OUR QUIET HOME

When Serenus Gowdey got back last fall from Brooklyn, where his twin brother, Sylvester, lives, he couldn’t talk about anything but Coney Island. He slighted religion, stopped runnin’ down relations, politics wuz left in the lurch, and cows, hens, and crops, wuz to him as if they wuzn’t. He acted crazy as a loon about that Island.

Why, Sylvester’ses wife told Miss Dagget and she told the Editor of the Augur’s wife, and she told Ben Lowry’s widder, and she told the Editor of the Gimlet’s mother-in-law, and she told me. It come straight, that Serenus only stayed there nights and to a early breakfast, but spent his hull durin’ time to Coney Island, and he a twin too. She said Sylvester felt so 4 hurt she wuz afraid it would make a lastin’ hardness. And it made me enough trouble too, yes indeed! for he would come and pour out his praises of that frisky, frivolous spot into Josiah’s too willin’ ears, till he got him as wild as he wuz about it.

Why, evenin’s after he’d been there recountin’ its attractions till bed-time, Josiah would be so wrought up he’d ride night mairs most all night. He’d spring up in bed cryin’ out, “All aboard for Coney Island!” or, “There is the Immoral Railway! See the divin’ girls, and the Awful Tower. Get a hot dog; look at the alligators, etc., etc.” I gin him catnip to soothe his nerve, but that didn’t git the pizen out of his system; no, acres of catnip couldn’t.

Oh, how dead sick I’d git of their talk, Coney Island! Luna Park! Well named, I’d say to myself, it is enough to make anybody luny to hear so much about it. Steeple Chase! chasin’ steeples, folly and madness. Dreamland! night mairs, most probable. Why, from Serenus’ talk that I hearn onwillingly about toboggan slides, merry-go-rounds, swings, immoral railways, skatin’ rinks, diving girls, loops de loops, and bumps de bumps, trips to the moon and trashy shows of all kinds I got the idee there 5 wuzn’t nothin’ there God had made, only the Ocean and the little incubator babies, though them two shows wuzn’t what you might call similar and the same size. Why, I myself, with my powerful mind, would git so cumfuddled hearin’ his wild and glarin’ descriptions, that my brain would seem to turn over under my foretop, and I didn’t wonder at Josiah’s bein’ led away by it, much as I lamented it, for he soon declared that go there he would.

In vain I reminded him that he wuz a deacon and a grand-father. He said he didn’t care how many deacons he wuz, or how many grand-fathers; he wuz goin’ to see that beautiful and entrancin’ place with his own eyes. I tried to quell him down, but couldn’t quell him worth a cent, with Serenus firin’ him up on the other side.

One Sunday, Elder Minkley preached an eloquent sermon describing the glories of the New Jerusalem, and Josiah said goin’ home that from Serenus’ tell, the elder had gin a crackin’ good description of Coney Island.

I groaned aloud. And he sez, “You may groan and sithe all you’re a minter; I shall see that magnificent place before I die.”

“Well,” sez I coldly, “I don’t want to talk 6 about it Sunday. If you’ve got to talk about shows and Pleasure Huntin’, do it week days, and don’t pollute this sacred day with it.”

“Pollute nothing!” sez he, and we didn’t speak for over two milds. But another weariness wuz ahead on me, and another strain on my overworked ear pans. Jest about this time, Whitfield Minkley, our Tirzah Ann’s husband, got jest as much carried away and enthused over some other Islands, though he had more to show for his het up state of mind. One thousand and seventy wuz the number of islands he fell voylently in love with and tried to make us the same. He had been to Canada on bizness and went through them islands, and wuz overcome by their extreme beauty. I’d heard that Whitfield’s islands wuz as beautiful as anything this side of the Heavenly gardens. Still, with Serenus on one side praisin’ up Coney, and Whitfield on the other praisin’ up his islands, I got so dead tired of ’em that I wished there wuzn’t a single island on the hull face of the earth. Yes, extreme weariness had got me so low down as that.

One evenin’, Serenus had been there and talked three hours stiddy, describin’ the charms and attractions of his island. The rush and roar 7 of the mechanical amusements, so wonderful they made scientific men wonder. The educated animals that showed how fur animals could be made to reason and understand. The constant hustle and bustle of the immense crowds, ever comin’, ever goin’, ever movin’, never stoppin’. He stood up some of the time describin’ the wonders and splendors there, and tramped up and down our kitchen floor, swingin’ his arms and actin’, till, when he left at late bed-time, Josiah wuz pale with longin’, and when I got up to lock the door and let out the cat, my head seemed to go round and round, and I had to hang onto the door nob to stiddy myself.

And the very next forenoon Whitfield and Tirzah Ann and little Delight come to spend the day. Her name is Anna Tirzah, but I called her Heart’s Delight, she wuz so sweet and pretty, and we’ve shortened it into Delight. I wuz glad to see ’em and done well by ’em in cookin’. I had a excelent dinner started—roast fowl and vegetables and orange puddin’, etc.—but Whitfield, jest as soon as he sot down, begun to descant on the beauty of his islands. I groaned and sithed out in the buttery. “Islands agin! I had one island last night till bed-time, and now I’ve got one thousand and seventy ahead on me.”

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“Serenus Gowdey tramped up and down our kitchen floor swingin’ his arms and describin’ the wonders of Coney Island.” (See page 7)

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He begun jest as I put my potatoes on to bile, I wuz goin’ to smash ’em with plenty of cream and butter; I hearn him till dinner wuz on the table, and I wuz turnin’ out the rich, fragrant coffee and addin’ the cream to it, and his praise on ’em wuz still flowin’ in a stiddy stream, and then I asked him, in one of his short pauses for breath, how Grout Nickelson’s rumatiz wuz.

He answered polite but brief, and resoomed the subject nearest and dearest. I then, with dizzy foretop and achin’ ear pans, tried to turn his mind onto politics and religion, no avail. I tried cotton cloth, carbide, lamb’s wool blankets, Panama Canal, literatoor, X rays, hens’ eggs, Standard Oil, the school mom, reciprocity, and the tariff; not a mite of change, all his idees swoshin’ up against them islands, and tryin’ to float off our minds there with hisen. I thought of what I’d hearn Thomas J. read about Tennyson’s character, who “didn’t want to die a listener,” and I sez in a firm voice, “I’ve had a letter from Cousin Faithful Smith. She’s comin’ here next spring to make a visit.”

Whitfield said he should love to see Cousin 10 Faith, but whilst she wuz here, we all ort to go to the Thousand Islands.

Sez Josiah firmly, “We ort to take her to Coney Island,” and he went on rehearsin’ Serenuses praises, and the education and the bliss one could git there. He rid his hobby nobly, but Whitfield, bein’ young and spry, could ride his hobby faster and furder, till finally Josiah got discouraged, and sot still a spell, and then scratched his head, and went out to the barn. And Whitfield seated himself with ease on his hobby, which pranced about us till, well as I love the children, I felt relieved to see ’em go, for my head felt as if the river wuz rushin’ through it. And after they left and we driv over to the post office, it seemed as if the democrat wuz a boat and the dusty road a broad, liquid stream, down which we wuz glidin’ and the neighin’ of the old mair (we had to leave her colt to home) wuz the snort of a steamer. My dreams that night wuz about the Saint Lawrence, kinder swoshy and floatin’ round.

Well, the cold winter passed away, as winters will, if you have patience to wait (or if you don’t either, to be exact and truthful). The shiverin’ earth begun to git a little warmer, 11 kinder shook herself and partly throwed off the white fur robe she’d wore all huddled round herself so long, and as the sun looked down closter and more smilin’ it throwed it clear off and begun to put on its new green spring suit. Them same smiles, only more warm and persuadin’ like, coaxed the sweet sap up into the bare maple tops in Josiah’s sugar bush and the surroundin’ world, till them same sunny smiles wuz packed away in depths of sugar loaves and golden syrup in our store room. Wild-flowers peeped out in sheltered places; pussy willows bent down and bowed low as they see their pretty faces in the onchained brook; birds sung amongst the pale green shadders of openin’ leaves; the west wind jined in the happy chorus. And lo! on lookin’ out of our winder before we knowed it, as it were, we see Spring had come!

And with the spring come my expected visitor, Faithful Smith. She is my own cousin on my own side, called by some a old maid. But she hain’t so very old, and she’s real good-lookin’—better than when she wuz a girl, I think, for life has been cuttin’ pure and sweet meanin’s into her face, some as they carve beauty into a cameo. She’s kinder pale and her sweet soul seems to look right out at you from her soft gray 12 eyes, and the lay of her hull face is such that you would think, if the fire of happiness could be built up under it (in her soul), it would light up into loveliness.

She wuz disappinted some years ago (or I d’no what you would call it) when she sent the man away herself. But she had a Bo when she wuz a girl by the name of Richard West. Dick West wuz the fullest of fun you ever see, though generous and good hearted; but he boasted on not believin’ anything, and Faithful’s father, bein’ a church member of the closest kind, and she brung up as you may say, right inside the tabernacle, with her Pa’s phylakracy hangin’ on the very horns of the altar, you may know what opposition Richard got from her Pa and her own conscience. Her conscience, as so many good girl’s consciences are, wuz a perfect tyrant, and drove her round—that, and her Pa. He wanted to be a good man, but wuz bigoted and couldn’t see no higher than the top of the steeple, and didn’t want to. And take these facts, with her deep true love for Richard, you may know she got tossted about more’n considerable.

Richard would make fun right in meetin’—make fun of their religious observances—and 13 finally, though he wuz good natured, and did all his pranks through light-hearted mischief and not malice, yet at last he did git mad at the old deacon, who wuz comin’ it dretful strong on him with his doctrines and exhortin’ him, tellin’ him he wuz a lost soul and had been from before his birth. Then Richard sassed him right back and told him he didn’t believe in his idee of the Deity.

The old deacon couldn’t stand such talk. He turned him outdoors, slammed the door in his face, and forbid Faith to speak to him again. She obeyed her Pa and her own conscience; but it seemed to take all the nip out of her life. You see, she loved this young man; and when anyone like Faith loves it hain’t for a week or a summer, but for life.

He writ to her burnin’ words of love and passion, for he loved her too in the old-fashioned way Adam did Eve—no other woman round, you know. And the words he writ wuz, I spoze, enough to melt a slate stun, let alone a heart, tender and true. She never writ a word back, and at last she wouldn’t read his letters and sent ’em back onopened. That madded him and he went on from bad to worse, swung right out into wickedness. He seemed to git harder and harder, and finally seein’ he could make no more impression on Faith than he could on white clear crystal, he went off west, as fur as Michigan at first, so I hearn, and so on, I don’t know where to.

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“The old deacon couldn’t stand such talk. He turned him outdoors, slammed the door in his face, and forbid Faith to speak to him again.” (See page 13)

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Well, Faith lived on in the old home, very calm and sweet actin’, with a shadder on her pretty face, worryin’ dretful about her lover, so it wuz spozed. But at last it seemed to wear off and a clear white light took its place on her gentle forward, as if her trouble had bleached off the earthly in her nature so her white soul could show through plain. Mebby she’d got willin’ to trust even his future with the Lord.

Dretful good to children and sick folks and them that wuz in trouble, Faith wuz. Good to her Pa, who wuz very disagreable in his last days, findin’ fault with his porridge and with sinners, and most of them round him. But she took care on him patient, rubbed his back and soaked his feet, and read the Sams to him, and reconciled him all she could, and finally he went out into the Great Onknown to find out his own mistakes if he had made any, and left Faith alone.

The house wuz a big square one with a large front yard with some Pollard willers standin’ 16 in a row in front on’t, through which the wind come in melancholy sithes into the great front chamber at night where Faith slept, or ruther lay. And the moon fallin’ through the willers made mournful reflections on the clean-painted floor, and I spoze Faith looked at ’em and read her past in the white cold rays and her future too.

She hired a man and his wife to live in part of the house, and she herself lived on there, a life as cold and colorless as a nun’s. But there wuz them that said that she loved that young West to-day jest as well as she did the day they parted, bein’ one of the constant naters that can’t forgit; that she kep’ his birthdays every year, but sarahuptishously, and on the anniversary of the day she parted with him, nobody ever see her from mornin’ till night.

The tall Pollard willers wuz the only ones that could look down into her chamber, and see how she looked, or what she wuz doin’. And they never told, only jest murmured and sithed, and kinder took on about it in their own way. But the next day, Faith always looked paler and sweeter than ever, they said.

Well, I wuz glad enough to see Faith. I think a sight on her and she of me, and we had 17 a real good time. Josiah sez to me the day after she come, “She is the flower of your family!”

And I told him I didn’t know as I should put it in jest that way, and he might jest as well be mejum, sez I, “You’re quite apt to demean the relation on my side, and if you take it into your head to praise one of the females, you no need to go too high.”

“Well,” he repeated, “she is the flower of the Smith race. Of course,” sez he, glancin’ at my liniment and then off towards the buttery full of good vittles, “I always except you, Samantha, who I consider the fairest flower that ever blowed out on the family tree of Smith.”

Josiah is a man of excelent judgment. But to resoom backward, I had a dretful good visit with Faith and enjoyed her bein’ with us the best that ever wuz. Instead of makin’ work she helped, though I told her not to. She would wipe and I would wash, and we would git through the dishes in no time. She hunted round in my work basket and found some nightcaps I’d begun and would finish ’em, put more work on ’em than I should, for I slight my every day sheep’s-head nightcaps. But she trimmed ’em and cat-stitched ’em, till they wuz beautiful to look upon. She wuz always very sweet and 18 gentle in her ways. As wuz said of her once, she entered a room so quietly and gracefully, she made all the other wimmen there feel as if they’d come in on horse-back. Now that I hadn’t seen her for some time, it seemed as if I hadn’t remembered how lovely and interestin’ she wuz.

We had a good visit talkin’ about the world’s work, and reciprocity, and Woman’s suffrage—which we both believed in—and hens, both settin’ and layin’. And we talked about the relation on our two sides. Of course, some of the wimmen hadn’t done as we thought they ort to; but we didn’t run ’em, only wuz sorry they wuz so different.

There wuz Aunt Nancy John and Aunt Nancy Jim, widders of the two old Smith twins. I told Faith I wuz sorry they wuzn’t more like her mother and mine, our mothers wuz so much better dispositioned, and fur better lookin’, and didn’t try to color their hair and act younger than they wuz; and Uncle Preserved’s boy, a lawyer, I told Faith it wuz a pity he wuzn’t more like our Thomas Jefferson, though it wuzn’t to be expected that there could be two boys amongst the relations so nearly perfect as Thomas Jefferson wuz; but I didn’t act 19 hauty, only wuz sorry he hadn’t turned out so well.

And Uncle Lemuel’s two girls, I said I wouldn’t want it told out of the family, but they wuz extravagant and slack, and their houses didn’t look much like Tirzah Ann’s and Maggie’s house. But we hadn’t ort to expect many such housekeepers as our children wuz. And we talked about the Thousand Islands and she promised to go out with Josiah and me the next summer if nothin’ happened. And Josiah then and there, tried to make us promise to go to Coney Island on our way there. “On our way,” sez I, “it would be five hundred milds out of our way!”

“And well worth it!” sez he, “to see what Serenus see, and hear what Serenus hearn. Why I git so carried away jest hearin’ about that magnificent spot that I have to fairly hang onto myself to keep from startin’ there to once bareheaded.”

“I know it, Josiah; you’ve acted luny about it. And if jest hearin’ about it harrers your nerve so, what would seein’ it do?”

“My nerve ain’t harrered,” he sez.

Sez I, “Can you deny I have had to give you quarts of catnip after you have had a seancy 20 with Serenus about that frivolous spot, full of hilarity and temptation?”

“Because you have drownded out my insides with catnip, it hain’t no sign I needed it. And I tell you, Samantha Allen, you may demean that grand glorious place all you’re a minter; I shall see it ere long. It is the shinin’ gole I have rared up in front of me and I’m bound to set on it.”

Sez I, “If you hain’t got any nobler gole than that ahead on you I pity you from the bottom of my heart.” And to kinder skair him I sez agin, “Do you, a Christian deacon, want to act frisky and go pleasure-huntin’ at your age?”

“Why,” sez he, “Serenus sez it is the most entrancin’ly beautiful and fascinatin’ spot on earth. He sez, and can prove, it is the biggest playground in the hull world, to say nothin’ of what you can learn there, and folks come from foreign countries jest to see it. Their first question when they land is, ‘Where is Coney Island? Lead me to it!’ ”

“Oh shaw!” sez I.

“Well, it is so, and why should such droves of folks go there if it hain’t worth it? Serenus sez and can prove, that a million folks go there in one day sometimes, and hundreds of thousands most every day.” 21

Sez I solemnly, “Do you remember the him, ‘Broad is the road that leads,’ you know where. ‘And thousands walk together there.’ Do you want to walk with ’em, Josiah?”

“Yes, I do, and lay out to.”

Oh how deep the pizen had gone into his solar system! I see scarin’ didn’t do no good, so I tried tender talk to wean him from the idee. I told him I thought too much on him to resk him there in such crowds. He wuz too small boneded and his head too weak to grapple with the lures and temptations that would surround him, and I’d never give my consent to his goin,’ much less lead him into temptation.

“Lead your granny!” sez he in a rough axent. And that wuz all the good my lovin’ talk did.

Faith said she didn’t care about goin’. But we took her to visit the children, though the day I took her to Whitfield’s he had of course, jest like Josiah, to ride that hobby of hisen which raced and cavorted round us, till before night he got us both most as wild as he wuz about the Islands. But she had to go from our house to Uncle Ornaldo Smithses, and had promised to visit friends out to Ohio durin’ the summer. I hated to have her go.