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

I knew—for I had been told—that one fourth of all the savin's of civilized man is invested in railroads, and when I thought of how dretful rich some men and countries are, and kings and emperors, etc., I felt prepared to do homage to a undertakin' that had swallowed up one fourth of all that accumulated wealth.

But sence the world begun, never had there been a exhibition before showin' all the railroad systems of the world side by side, all the big American railroads, and great Britain, and France, and Germany.

The Baltimore and Ohio exhibit shows how the railroads of the world have been thought out gradual, and come up from nothin' to what they are—grew up from a little steam carriage that wuz shut up in Paris in 1760 as bein' disordely.

"Disordely!" Good land! there never wuz a new idee worth anything in this world but has been called "disordely" by fools.

You can see that very little carriage here at the Fair; after bein' shut up for two hundred years, it comes out triumphant, just as Columbus has.

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Stevensonses first engine is here—an exact reproduction—and the hull caboodle of the first attempts leadin' up to the engines of to-day.

Dretful interestin' to look at these rough little inventions and to speculate on what prophetic strivin's, and yearnin's, and heartaches, and despairs, and triumphs went into every one on 'em.

For every one on 'em wuz follered, as a man is by his black shadder, by the cold, evil spirits of unbelief, malice, envy, and cheatin'.

The sun the inventors walked under—the glowin' sun of prophecy and foreknowledge—always casts such shadders, some as our sun duz, only blacker.

And every one of them old engines by the help of machinery is moved and turned, just as if Old Time himself had laid his hour-glass offen his head, and wuz a-puttin' his old shoulders under their iron shafts, and a-settin' them to goin' agin, after so long a time.

How I wished as I looked at 'em that Stevenson and the rest of them men who lived, and worked, and suffered ahead of their time, could a been there to see the fruit of their glowin' fancies blow out in full bloom!

But then I thought, as I looked out of a winder into the clear, blue depths of sky overhead, Like as not they are here now, their souls havin' wrought out some finer existence, so etheral that our coarser senses couldn't recognize [Pg 486]'em—mebby they wuz right here round the old home of their thoughts, as men's dreams will hang round the homes of their boyhood.

Who knows now? I don't, nor Josiah.

The New York Central exhibit shows the old Mohawk and Hudson train, a model of the first locomotive sot a-goin' on the Hudson in 1807 with a boundin' heart and a tremblin' hand by Robert Fulton, and which wuz pushed off from the pier and propelled onwards by the sneerin', mockin', unbelievin' laughs of the spectators as much as from the breezes that swept up from the south.

I would gin a cent freely and willin'ly if I could a seen Robert stand there side by side with that old locomotive and the fastest lightin' express of to-day—like seed and harvest—with Josiah and me for a verdant and sympathizin' background.

Oh, what a sight it would a been, if his emotions could a been laid bare, and mine, too!

It would a been a sight long to remember.

But to resoom.

The first locomotive ever seen in Chicago wuz there a-puffin' out its own steam. It must felt proud-sperited in all of its old jints, but it acted well and snorted with the best on 'em. The 999, the fastest engine in the world, wuz by the side of the Clinton, the first engine [Pg 487]ever made. I opened the coach door and got in. It looked jest like a common two-seated buggy of to-day, with seats on top, and water and wood to run it with kep in barrels behind the engine.

And England and Germany, not to be outdone, brung over some of their finest railroads. Why, Wales brought over some of the actual stun ties and iron rails of the first railway in Great Britain; and as for the splendor of the coaches, they go beyend anything that wuz ever seen in the world. Side by side with the finest passenger coaches that London sends stands the Canadian Pacific, with its dinin' and sleepin' cars, and you can form an idee about the richness on 'em when I tell you that the woodwork of 'em is pure mahogany.

And then the other big railroads, not to be outdone, they have their finest and most elegant cars on show—

The Pullman and Wagner and the Empire State, with its lightnin' speed, and post-office and newspaper cars, and freight, and express, and private cars.

There is a German exhibit of some of them likely ambulance cars used by the Red Cross Society in war time—cars that angels bend over as the poor dyin' ones are carried from the battle-field—angels of Healin' and of Pain.

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Then the Belgians have a full exhibit of the light, handy vehicles of all shapes, from a barrel to a basket, that they make to run on rails. Platforms movin' by the instantaneous action of the Westinghouse brake on a train of one hundred cars is a sight to see.

There are railroads for goin' like lightin' over level roads, and goin' up and down, and all sorts of street cars, a-goin' by horses, or mules, or lightnin', as the case might be. President Polk's old carriage looked jest like Grandpa Smedly's great-grandfather's buggy, that stands in this old stun carriage house, and has stood there for 100 years and more.

And all sorts of gorgeous carriages that wuz ever seen or hearn on, and carts, and wagons, and buggies, from a tallyho coach to a invalid's chair and a wheelbarrow, and from a toboggan to a bicycle, and palanquins of Japan, China, India, and Africa.

Howdahs for elephants, saddles for camels, donkey exhibits from South America and Egypt, the rig of the water-carriers of Cairo, the milk-sellers of South America, and the cargados, or human pack-horses, of both sexes of that country—models that show the human and brute forms of labor.

Models of ox-carts, used in Jacob's time, and in which, I dare presoom to say, Old Miss Jacob ust to go a-visitin' to old Miss Abraham and Isaac, and mebby stay all day, she and the children.

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