Читать книгу Samantha on the Race Problem - Marietta Holley - Страница 5

“THE DARK FACES OF THESE APOSTLES.”

“Methinks the dark faces of these apostles will shine with the glowing image of God’s love and providence—the providence that watched over them and kept them in a strange land, and then brought them back in safety, fitted to tell the story of God’s love and power, and His mercy that had redeemed them and made them free.

“And when the lowest and most unknowing one shall ask, ‘Who are these?’ methinks the answer will be as it was to St. John: ‘These are they who come out of great tribulations.’”

I wuz demute, and didn’t say nuthin’, and John Richard sez, in a deep axent and a earnest one, “But will this Government be warned by past judgments and past experience and be wise in time?

“I don’t know,” sez he, a answerin’ himself; for truly I didn’t know what to say nor how to say it.

“You spoke just now of the expense. It will cost less now to avert an evil than it will cost for its overthrow, when time, and national follies, and men’s bad passions, and inevitable causes have matured it, and the red cloud has burst in its livid fury over a doomed land. But time will tell.

“But while delays go on, the mills of the gods are grinding on; time nor tide cannot stop them. And if this nation sits down at its ease for a decade longer, woe to this republic!”

I wuz so thrilled, and skairt, and enthused by Cousin John Richard’s eloquence and strange and fiery words and flowery language that when I sort o’ come to myself I looked up, a expectin’ to see Josiah bathed in tears, for he weeps easy.

But even as I looked, I heard a low, peaceful snore. And I see that Josiah Allen had so fur forgot good manners and what wuz due to high principles and horspitality as to set there fast asleep. Yes, sleepin’ as sweet as a babe in its mother’s arms.

I looked mortified, I know.

But Cousin John Richard took it all historically—nuthin’ personal could touch him, so it seemed.

And sez he to me. “There is a fair instance of what I have told you, cousin—a plain illustration of the indifference and unbelief of the North as to the state of affairs in the Southern States.”

“Wall,” sez I, “Josiah has been broke of his rest some durin’ the year with newraligy, and you must overlook it in him.”

And, wantin’ to change the subject, I asked him if he wouldn’t like a glass of new milk before retirin’ and goin’ to bed.

And he said he would; and I brung it in to him with a little plate of crackers on a tray. And as I come by Josiah Allen I made calculation ahead to hit him axidentally on his bald head with my elbow.

And he started up, with his face nearly covered with smiles and mortification, and sez he:

“That last remark of yours, Cousin John Richard, wuz very convincin’ and eloquent.”

The remark wuz, “I like new milk very much.”

But I wouldn’t throw that milk into his face. And Cousin John received the milk and the remark with composure.

And I kep’ them two men down on to relations, and sheep, and such like subjects till I got ’em off to bed.

I give John Richard a good dose of spignut syrup, for he complained of a sore throat, and he wuz hoarse as a frog. Good land! I should have thought he would be, talkin’ as much as he had, and eloquent too.

Eloquence is dretful tuckerin’; I know well its effects on the system, though mebby I hadn’t ort to be the one to say it.

Wall, in the mornin’ Cousin John Richard wuz weak as a cat. All tired out. He couldn’t hardly get round. And I made him lay down on the lounge in the settin’ room, and I give him spignut syrup once a hour most all day, and kep’ him warm, and lumps of maple sugar for his cough.

And by night he seemed like a new man—that spignut syrup is wonderful; few people know the properties of it.

Wall, Josiah and I both took such a likin’ to that good onselfish eloquent creeter that we prevailed on him to stay a week with us right along.

And we took him to see the children, and Josiah took him up to Uncle Thomas’es, and Cousin Sophronia’s on his own side, and we done well by him.

And I fixed up his clothes with Philury’s help—they wuz good ones, but they needed a woman. But we mended ’em and rubbed ’em up with ammonia where it wuz needed, and they wuz in good condition when he went back to his work.

Good land! wild oxen, nor camels, nor nuthin’ couldn’t have kep’ him from that “field” of hisen.

But when it come the mornin’ for him to leave, he hated to go—hated to like a dog.

And we hated to have him go, we liked him the best that ever wuz. And we tried to make him promise to come to see us agin. But he seemed to feel dubersome about it; he said he would have to go where his work called him.

His bizness now up North wuz to see about some money that had been subscribed for a freedmen’s school and meetin’ house. But he promised to write to us now and then, and he spoke with deep feelin’ about the “sweet rest he had had there,” and how he never should forget it; he talked real eloquent about it, and flowery, but he meant every word, we could see he did.

It happened curius about the chapter Josiah read that mornin’—he most always reads the first one he opens to. And it wuz the one where Paul tells about his hard work and trials, and how the Lord had brought him out of ’em all.

How he wuz beaten with rods, and stuned, and wuz in perils of waters, and perils by his own countrymen, and perils by the heathen, and in the wilderness, and amongst false brethren, in weariness, and painfulness, and hunger and thirst, and cold and nakedness.

And how he gloried in his weakness and infirmities, if so God’s strength should be made perfect and His will be accomplished.

I declare for it, I couldn’t help thinkin’ of Cousin John Richard, though mebby it hain’t right to compare one of our relations to Paul, and then agin I didn’t spoze Paul would care. I knew they both on ’em wuz good, faithful, earnest creeters anyway.

Then Cousin John Richard prayed a prayer that almost caught us up to the gates of Paradise, it wuz so full of heavenly love, and tenderness, and affection for us, and devotion to his work, and everything good, and half saintly.

And then most imegiatly he went away on the mornin’ stage.

And at the very last, when most every other man would be a thinkin’ of umberells or shawl straps, he took our hands in hisen and sez:

“Stand fast in the faith! be strong!” And then he bid us “good-bye, and God bless us!” and wuz gone.

Good, faithful, hard-workin’ creeter. The views he had promulgated to us wuz new and startlin’, and Josiah and he couldn’t agree on ’em; but where is there two folks who think alike on every subject?

But whether they wuz true or false, I knew that John Richard believed every word he had said about the state of affairs in the South.