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

Wall, inside that board fence wuz a number of cabins or huts, containin' some of 'em a hide bag or a bed, a dog sled with some strips of tin for a harness, and some plain tables, white as snow in some huts, and in some as black as dirt could make 'em.

There wuz about fifty or sixty males and females and children there, and one on 'em, a little bit of a baby, born right there on the Fair ground.

She wuz about as big as a little toy doll. She wuz a-swingin' there in a little hammock, and she didn't seem to care a mite whether she wuz born up to the Arctic Pole or in Chicago. Good land! what did she care about the pole? Mother love wuz the hull equatorial circle to her, and it wuz a-bendin' right over her.

The little mother had pantaloons on, and didn't seem to like it; she had a long jacket and some moccasins.

Right there inside of that board fence is as good a object lesson as you'll find of the cleansin' and elevatin' power of the Christian religion. There wuz two heathen families, and their cabins wuz dirty and squalid, whil[Pg 496]e the Christianized homes are as clean and pure as hands can make 'em.

First godliness, and then cleanliness.

The way the Esquimos tell their age is to have a bag with stuns in it for years. Every year in the middle of summer they drop a stun in. How handy that would be for them who want to act young—why jest let the summer run by without droppin' the stun in, or let a hole come sort o' axidental in the bag, and let a few drop out. But, then, what good would it do?

Sence Old Time himself is a-storin' up the stunny years in his bag that can't be dickered with, or deceived.

And he will jest hit you over the head with them stuns; they will hit your head and make it gray—hit your eyes, and they will lose their bright light—hit your strong young limbs and make 'em weak and sort o' wobblin'.

What use is there a-tryin' to drop 'em out of your own private collection of stuns?

But to resoom. The Esquimos show forth some traits that are dretful interestin' to a philosopher and a investigator.

They do well with what they have to do with.

[Pg 497]

Now, no sewin' machine ever made finer stitches than they take on their sleepin' bags and their rain coats, etc.

But the thread they use is only reindeer sinews split fine with their teeth.

What would they do with sewin' silk and No. 70 thread?

I believe they would do wonders if they had things to do with.

There wuz one young boy who they said wuz fifteen, but he didn't look more'n seven or eight. He looked out from his little cap that come right up from his coat, or whatever you call it; it looks some like the loose frock that Josiah sometimes wears on the farm, only of course Josiah's don't have a hood to it.

No, indeed; I never can make him wear a hood in our wildest storms, nor a sun-bunnet.

But this little Esquimo, whose name is Pomyak, he looked out on the world as if he wuz a-drinkin' in knowledge in every pore; he looked kinder cross, too, and morbid. I guess lookin' at ice-suckles so much had made his nater kinder cold.

And who knows what changes it will make in his future up there in the frozen north—his summer spent here in Chicago?

[Pg 498]

Anyway, durin' the long, long night, he will always have sunthin' besides the northern lights to light up its darkness.

What must memory do for him as he sits by the low fire durin' the six months night?

Cold and blackness outside, and in his mind the warm breath of summer lands, the gay crowds, the throng of motley dressed foreigners, the marvellous city of white palaces by the blue waters.

Wall, Josiah got real rested and sort o' sot up agin. And he laid his hand agin lovin'ly on the boards as we left the seen.

Wall, on our way home I had an awful trial with Josiah Allen. Mebby what he had seen that day had made him feel kind o' riz up, and want to act.

He and I wuz a-wendin' our way along the lagoon, when all of a sudden he sez—

"Samantha, I want to go out sailin' in a gondola—I want to swing out and be romantic," sez he.

Sez he, "I always wanted to be romantic, and I always wanted to be a gondolier, but it never come handy before, and now I will! I will be romantic, and sail round with you in a gondola. I'd love to go by moonlight, but sunlight is better than nothin'."