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

I proceeded to disembark, a-follered by the forms of my Josiah and Miss Plank.

They could think of vittles even at that time, for I heard Josiah say—

"We will settle on some place to go that is handy to a restaurant."

And Miss Plank picked one where the biled corned beef wuz delicious, and the pies and coffee—

Corned beef! oh, my heart, in such a time as this! Beef corned in such a hour! But I forgive 'em and pitied 'em, for it wuz my duty.

[Pg 476]

[Pg 475]

Wall, we told Josiah he should have his way that mornin', and go where he wanted to—and he wanted to tackle Machinery Hall; consequently we tackled it.

And how many acres big do you suppose this buildin' wuz? Seventeen acres and a half is the size of the floor—

Jest half a acre more than Silenas Bobbetses farm, that he broke old Squire Bobbetses will to git, and he and his twin brother Zebulin come to hands and blows about, in front of the Jonesville post-office.

Zebulin said it wuz too much land to give to one of the children—they wuz leven of 'em—and the farm didn't go round—the others didn't have only fifteen acres apiece.

Yes; this one buildin' covered as much ground as Silenas Bobbet gits a good livin' from, a-raisin' cabbage and spinach.

And the buildin' wuz seemin'ly all wrought of white marble, with statutes, and colonnades, and towers, and everything else for its comfort, and inside wuz every machine that wuz ever made or thought on, from a sassage-cutter and apple-parer to a steam engine in full blast.

I believe they tuned up higher and louder when I went in—it wouldn't be nothin' surp[Pg 477]risin' if they did, some as the brass band strikes up as the hero enters.

This song wuz the loud, strong chorus of Labor, that echoes all over the world, grand chorus that is played by the full orkestry of the sons and daughters of toil.

Oh, how many notes there is in this strong, ail-pervadin' anthem! Genius, and Patience, and Ambition, and Enterprise, and Ardent Endeavor—high notes, and low ones, all blent together, all tuned to the hauntin' key. It is a sam that shakes the hull earth with its might.

As I entered this palace, sacred to its song, how its echoes rolled through my ear pans, how them pans seemed to fairly shiver under the mighty strokes of the song, and its weird, painful accompaniment of boilers a-boilin', rollin' mills a-rollin'!

Water wheels, freight elevators—cranes a-cranin', derricks a-derrickin', divin' apparatus, fire-extinguishin' apparatus—

Machines of all sorts and kinds to manufacture all sorts of goods, and all hands to work at it—silk, cotton, wool, linen, ingy-rubber, ropes, and paper.

Saw-mills, wind-mills, printin'-presses a-pressin'. All sorts of tools to make all sorts of picters—engravin's, color printin'—picters from the 16th century up to 1893—they wuz relief engravin's.

[Pg 478]

I spoze they are called so because it is such a relief to think we don't have to look at them old picters now.

And there wuz half-tone processes, mechanical and medicinal processes, and every other process you ever hearn on, and didn't ever hear on, right there in a procession in front of me, and all a-processin'.

And there wuz machines for makin' clocks, and watches, and jewelry, and buttons, and pins, and all kinds of appliances ever used in machinery, and stun, sawin', and glass-grindin' machinery a-grindin' and makin' bricks and pottery, and used in makin' artificial stun—the idee!

You'd a thought the stun wuz all made before the Lord rested.

And there wuz rollin' mills a-rollin', and forges a-forgin', and rollin' trains, and harnesses, and squeezers a-squeezin'—and every machine that wuz ever made to shape metals and tire mills, and mills that wuzn't tired, I guess—I didn't see any, but I spoze they wuz there. But they all looked tired to me—tired as a dog, but I spoze it wuz my feelin's.

I see all through this buildin' that there wuz more wimmen than men there—which shows what interest wimmen takes in solid things as well as ornimental.

[Pg 479]

Wall, we hung around there till I wuz fearfully wore out—with the sights I see and the noise I hearn—and it wuz a relief to my eyes and ears (and I believe them ear pans never will be the pans they wuz before I went in there)—it wuz a relief when my companion begun to feel the nawin's of hunger. And after we went through Machinery Hall we went through the machine shops, at a pretty good jog, and the power-house, where there is the biggest engine in the world—24,000 horse power.

Good land! and in Jonesville we consider 4 horses hitched to a load very powerful; but jest think of it, twenty-four thousand horses jest hitched along in front of each other—why, they would reach from our house clear to Zoar—the idee!

But Josiah's inward state grew worse and worse, and finally sez he, in pitiful axents—

"Samantha, I am in a starvin' state," and Miss Plank looked quite bad.

So at their request we went a little further south to the White Horse Inn.

This inn is a exact reproduction of the famous White Horse Inn in England. Thinkin' so much of Dickens as I do (introduced to him by Thomas Jefferson), it wuz a comfort to see over the mantlery-piece the well-known form of "Sam Weller," the old maid, and others of Dickenses char[Pg 480]acters, that seem jest as real to me as Thomas Jefferson, or Tirzah Ann.

Over the main entrance is a statute of a white horse, lookin' considerable like our old mair, only more high-headed.

The original inn had a open court, where stage-coaches drove in to unload, and from which Mr. Pickwick and his faithful Sam Weller often alighted.

But instead of using it for horses now, they use it for a smokin'-room for men; they can't use it for both of 'em, for horses don't want to go in there—horses don't smoke; tobacco makes 'em sick—sick as a snipe.

Man is the only animal, so fur as I know, who can have tobacco in any shape put into his mouth without resentin' it, it is so nasty.

Wall, we got a good clean meal there at a reasonable price, though Miss Plank thought there wuzn't enough emptin' in the bread, and the sponge cake lacked sugar. But I think they know how to cook there—that inn is the headquarters of the Pickwick Club. Lots of English folks go there, as is nateral.

Wall, after we had a lunch and rested for a spell, Josiah proposed that we should go and see the Transportation Buildin'.

[Pg 481]

Miss Plank had to leave us now to go home and see about her cookin'. And we wended on alone.

On our way there we met Thomas J. and Maggie and Isabelle. They wuz jest a-goin' to Machinery Hall. Maggie and Isabelle looked sweet as two new-blown roses, and Thomas J. smart and handsome.

We stopped and visited quite a spell, real affectionate and agreeable.

Oh, what a interestin' couple our son and his wife are! and Isabelle is a girl of a thousand.

Krit had gone on to Dakota, on business, they said, but wuz comin' back anon—or mebby before.

Truly, if anybody had kep track of their pride and self-conceit, and counted how many times it fell, and fell hard, too, durin' the World's Fair, it would have been a lesson to 'em on the vanity of earthly things, and a good lesson in rithmetic, too.

Why, they couldn't tell the number of times unless they could go up into millions, and I d'no but trillions.

Why, it would keep a-fallin' and a-fallin' the hull durin' time you wuz there, if you kep watch on it to see; but truly you didn't have no time to, no more'n you did your breathin', only when it took a little deeper fall than common, and then as it lay prostrate and wounded, it drawed your attention to it.

[Pg 482]

Now, at Jonesville, the neighborin' wimmen had envied and looked up to my transportation facilities.

Miss Gowdy and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury would often say to me—

"Oh, if I had your way of gittin' round—if I could only have your way of goin' jest where you want to and when you want to!"

Such remarks had fed my vanity and pride.

And I will own right up, like a righteous sinner, that I had ofttimes, though I had on the outside a becomin' appearance of modesty—

Yet on the inside I wuz all puffed up by a feelin' of my superior advantages—

As I would set up easy on the back seat of the democrat, and the old mair would bear me on gloriously, and admired by the neighborin' wimmen who walked along the side of the road afoot, and anon the old mair a-leavin' 'em fur behind.

And, like all high stations, that back seat in the democrat and that noble old mair had brung down envy onto me and mean remarks.

It come straight back to me—Miss Lyman Tarbox told she that wuz Sally Ann Mayhew, and she that wuz Sally Ann told the minister's wife, and she told her aunt, and her aunt told my son-in-law's mother, and[Pg 483] Miss Minkley told Tirzah Ann, and she told me—it come straight—

"That Josiah Allen's wife looked like a fool, and acted like one, a-settin' up a-ridin' whenever she went anywhere, while them that wuz full as likely walked afoot!"

I took them remarks as a tribute to my greatness—a plain acknowledgement of my superior means of locomotion and transportation.

They didn't break the puff ball of my vanity and pride, and let the wind out—no, indeed!

But alas! alas! as I entered the Transportation Buildin', and looked round me, there wuz no gentle prick to that overgrown puff ball to let the gas out drizzlin'ly and gradual—no, there wuz a sudden smash, a wild collapse, a flat and total squshiness—the puff ball wuz broke into a thousand pieces, and the wind it contained, where wuz it? Ask the breezes that wafted away Cæsar's last groans, that blowed up the dust over buried Pompeii.

The buildin' itself wuz a sight—why, it is 960 feet long, and the cupola in the centre 166 feet high, with eight elevators to take you up to it; the great main entrance wuz all overlaid with gold—looked full as good as Solomon's temple, I do believe—and broad enough and big enough for a hull army of giants to walk through abreast, and then room enough for Josiah and me besides.

[Pg 484]

But it wuz on the inside of it that my pride fell and broke all to pieces, as I looked round me and down the long distance behind