Samantha at the World's Fair by Marietta Holley (ebook and pdf reader txt) 📕

thought that "the Lord loveth whom He chasteneth," walks out under his mournin' weed, and pats the sleek sides of his Alderney cow, and its fat, healthy young one, and ponders on how he could improve their condition, and better the stock, and mebby has passin' thoughts on some bloomin' young girl, who he could persuade to try the fate of the first.

And he'll have no trouble in doin' so—not at all; putty is hard in comparison to wimmin's heads and hearts, sometimes.

But I am, indeed, eppisodin', and to resoom, and proceed.

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In this world, where the material, the practical, so oft overshadows the spiritual, it didn't surprise me a mite to have this noble—noble liberal art display crowded back by less riz up and exalted ones.

And oh, what curious things we did see in this Hall of Wonders—curious as a dog, and curiouser.

The New South Wales exhibit in the west gallery is awful big, and divided into five courts, and all full of Beauty and Use.

These Australians are pert and kinder sassy; they look on our country as old, and wore out—some as we look at our Ma Country.

But their exhibit is a wonderful one—exhibit of their mines, that they say are a-goin' to be the richest in the World.

And lots of pictures showin' their strange, melancholy Australian scenery.

And their big trees. Why, one of these trees, they say, is the biggest yet discovered in the World; it is 400 and 80 feet high.

And it wuz here that I see the very queerest thing that I ever did see in my life; it wuz in their collection of strange stuffed birds, and animals which wuz large, and complete, and rangin' from the Emu down to a pure white hummin'-bird.

[Pg 347]

It wuz here that I see this Thing that Scientists hain't never classified; it is about the size of a beaver—has fur like a seal, eyes like a fish, is web-footed, lays eggs, and hatches its young and lives in the water.

It is called a Platypus—there wuz four on 'em.

Queer creeter as I ever see. No wonder that Scientists furled their spectacles in front of it, and sot down discouraged.

Wall, we hung round there till most night, and Josiah and I went home as tired as two dogs, and tireder. And we both gin in that we hadn't seen nothin' to what we might have seen there; as you may say, we hadn't done any more justice to the contents of that buildin' than we would if we had undertook to count the slate-stuns in our old creek back of our house clear from Jonesville to Zoar—- more'n five miles of clear slate-stun. What could we do to it in one day?

But fatigue and hunger—on Josiah's part, a prancin' team—bore us away, and we went home in pretty good sperits after all, though some late.

Miss Plank had a good supper. We wuz late, but she had kept it warm for us—some briled chicken, and some green peas, and a light nice puddin',[Pg 348] and other things accordin'; and Josiah did indeed do justice to it.

CHAPTER XIII.

Wall, the next day after our visit to the Manafactures and Liberal Arts Buildin', I told Josiah to-day I wouldn't put it off a minute longer, I wuz goin' to see the Convent of La Rabida; and sez I, "I feel mortified and ashamed to think I hain't been before." Sez I, "What would Christopher Columbus say to think I had slighted him all this time if he knew on't!"

And Josiah said "he guessed I wouldn't git into any trouble with Columbus about it, after he'd been dead four hundred years."

"Wall," sez I, "I don't spoze I would, but I d'no but folkses feelin's can be hurt if their bodies have moved away from earth. I d'no anything about it, nor you don't, Josiah Allen."

"Wall," he said, "he wouldn't be afraid to venter it."

He wanted to go to the Live-Stock Exhibit that day—wanted to like a dog.

But I persuaded him off the notion, and I don't know but I jest as soon tell how I done it.

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I see Columbus's feelin's wouldn't do, and so forth, nor sentiment, nor spirituality, don't appeal to Josiah Allen nothin' as vittles do.

So I told him, what wuz indeed the truth, that a restaurant was nigh there where delicious food could be obtained at very low prices.

He yielded instantly, and sez he, "It hain't hardly fair, when Christopher is the cause of all these doin's, that he should be slighted so by us."

And I sez, "No, indeed!" so we went directly there by the nearest way, which wuz partly by land and partly by water; and as our boat sailed on through the waves under the brilliant sunshine and the grandeur of eighteen ninety-three, did it not make me think of Him, weary, despairin', misunderstood, with his soul all hemmed in by envious and malicious foes, so that there wuz but one open path for him to soar in, and that wuz upward, as his boat crept and felt its way along through the night, and storm, and oncertainty of 1492.

Wall, anon or about that time, we drew near the place where I wanted to be.

The Convent of La Rabida is a little to the east of Agricultural Hall, a sort of a inlet lake that feeds a long portion of the grand canal.

A promontory is formed by the meetin' of the two waters, and all round this point[Pg 350] of land, risin' to a height of twenty-two feet, is a rough stun wall.

This wall is a reproduction of the dangerous coast of Spain, and back on this rise of ground can be seen the Convent of La Rabida, a fac-simile, or, as you might say, a similer fact, a exact reproduction of the convent where Columbus planned out his voyage to the new world.

Yes, within these walls wuz born the great and darin' scheme of Columbus—a great birth indeed; only next to us in eternal consequences to the birth in the manger.

It stands jest as it ort to, a-facin' the risin' sun.

A low, eight-sided cupalo surmounts the choir space inside the chapel, and above the nave rises the balcony.

On three sides of a broad, open court are the lonesome cloisters in which the Monks knelt in their ceaseless prayers.

The chapel floor is a little higher than the court and cloisters, and is paved with bricks.

It wuz at this very convent door that Columbus arrived heart-sore and weary after seven years' fruitless labor in the cause he held so clost to his heart.

Seven long years that he had spent beggin' and importunin' for help to carry out his Heaven-sent visions.

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A livin' light shinin' in his sad eyes, and he couldn't git anybody else to see it.

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The constant washin' of new seas on new shores, and he couldn't git anybody to hear 'em.

A constant glow, prophetic and ardent, longin' to carry the religion of Christ into a new land that he knew wuz a-waitin' him, but everybody else deaf and dumb to his heart-sick longin's.

Oh, I thought to myself as I stood there, if that poor creeter could only had a few of the gorgeous banners that wuz waved out to the air, enough to clothe an army; if he could have only had enough of 'em to made him a hull shirt; if he could have had enough of the banquets spread to his memory, enough to feed all the armies of the earth; if he could have a slice of bread and a good cup of tea out of 'em, how glad I would be, and how glad he would have been!

But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.

Hungry and in rags, almost naked, foot-sore, heart-sore, he arrived at the convent gate, to ask food and shelter for himself and child.