Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (ereader with dictionary .TXT) 📕

Well, Miss Meechim wanted to see the Goblin tapestry, so we visited the Goblin manufactory. These tapestries are perfectly beautiful, fourteen thousand shades of wool are used in their construction. What would Sister Sylvester Bobbett say? She thought the colors in her new rag carpet went ahead of anything, and she didn’t have more’n fourteen at the outside, besides black and but-nut color. But fourteen thousand colors––the idee!

Yes, we rid through the marvellously beautiful streets under triumphal arches and more warlike ones and visited all the most beautiful sights in the city and the adjacent country, and who do you spoze I met as I walked along in the Bois de Boulogne? It wuz the Princess Ulaly. The rest of our party wuz some little distance off and I wuz santerin’ along charmed with the beauty about me when who should I meet face to face but Ulaly. Yes, it wuz Ulaly Infanty.

I wuz highly tickled, for I considered her a likely young woman and sot store by her when I met her to home at the World’s Fair. She knowed me in a minute and seemed as glad to see me as I wuz her, and I sez to her most the first thing after the compliments wuz passed, “Who would have thought, Ulaly, when we parted in Chicago, U. S., that the next time we should meet would be in Paris?”

“Yes, indeed!” sez she, “who would have thought it.” And I went on to say, for I see she looked real deprested:

“Ulaly, things hain’t come out as I wanted ’em to; I felt real bad about it after your folks sold their jewelry to help discover us. I dare presume to say they have been sorry 307 time and agin that they ever found us, and I wouldn’t blame ’em, for as Josiah sez to me:

“‘Where would we be to-day if it hadn’t been for Columbus? Like enough we shouldn’t been discovered at all.’ Sez he, ‘Most probable we should be Injins.’ But don’t lay it to Josiah or me, Ulaly, we hain’t to blame, we didn’t do a thing to bring on the trouble. Of course we remembered the Maine some, we had to, and your folks couldn’t blame us for it. Josiah and me felt real provoked and mortified to think that after folks had gin their jewelry to discover us they should blow us up in that way. But I sez to Josiah, ‘Because three hundred are sent onprepared into eternity it hain’t no reason three thousand should be.’ We are great cases for peace, Josiah and I be, and would have managed most any way, even been run on some and imposed upon a little ruther than to have rushed into the onspeakable horrors of war.

“And I don’t want you to blame William, either; he held onto the dogs of war with both hands a tryin’ to hold ’em in.”

“William?” sez she inquirin’ly.

“Yes, William McKinley, our President. He jest held onto them dogs till they wuz likely to tear him to pieces, then he had to leggo. Them dogs wuz jest inflamed by havin’ yellow literatoor shook in their faces, and yells from greedy politicians and time servers, till they wuz howlin’ mad and would have barked themselves blind if he hadn’t leggo. But he didn’t want to, William didn’t, he wanted peace dreadfully.” And she said real sweet, that she knew he did.

“Well, it turned out jest as it did, Ulaly. But I think just as much of you as I did before you lost your propputy, and I d’no as the propputy Uncle Sam got hold of in the dicker is a goin’ to do him much good, not for quite a spell anyway. There is such a thing as bein’ land poor, taxes are heavy, hired help hain’t to be relied on and the more you have the more you have to watch and take care on, though of course it is a pleasure to a certain set of faculties and 308 some particular bumps in your head, to own a path as you may say, most round the world, steppin’ off from California to Hawaii and then on to the Philippines, ready to step off from there, Heaven knows how fur or when or where. It is a pleasure to a certain part of your mind, but other parts of your head and heart hold back and don’t cheer in the procession. But howsumever, Ulaly, that is neither here nor there. I hope your folks are so as to git round. I wuz sorry enough to hear that you and your pardner don’t live agreeable. But though it is a pity, pardners have had spats from Eden to Chicago and I d’no but they always will. The trouble is they take pardners as boons instead of dispensations, and don’t lean hard enough on scripter.

“But this is not the time or place for sermons on how to be happy, though married. How is Christina and Alfonso? I’m afraid he’s gittin’ obstropolous, and I d’no but Christina will have to give him a good spankin’ before she gits through. Of course, spankin’ a king seems quite a big job to tackle, and of course he’s pretty old for it. But it don’t do to let children have their heads too much. One good spankin’ will strike in truth when reams of sermons and tearful expostulations will fail. You might just mention to Christina what I’ve said, and then she can do as she wants to with fear and tremblin’.”

But I see my folks passin’ down a distant path, and I sez: “I will now bid you adoo, Ulaly, as time and Arvilly and Josiah are passin’ away.” She bid me a real pleasant good-by, and I withdrawed myself and jined my folks.

One day the hull of our party visited Fontainbleu and went through the apartments of kings and queens and popes and cardinals. The rooms of Napoleon wuz full of the thrilling interest that great leader always rousted up, and always will, I spoze, till history’s pages are torn up and destroyed. And in the rooms of Marie Antoinette we see the lovely costly things gin to this beautiful queen when the people loved her, and she, as she slept under the beautiful draperies gin by 309 the people, never dreamed, I spoze, that the hands that wrought love and admiration into these fabrics would turn on her and rend her.

But Marie didn’t do right. Carelessness, oppression, neglect of the people’s rights, a few grasping the wealth of the nation while the people suffer and starve, weave bloody colors into the warp and woof of life from Paris to New York and Washington, D. C., and so on to Jonesville. And we went through the apartments of Louis Philippe, Francis I., Louis XIII., etc., and Madam Maintenon’s apartments and Diana de Poyter’s, and seen her monogram decorating the apartment interwoven with the king’s. I hated to see it, but couldn’t do nothin’ to break it up at this late day. Miss Meechim walked through these apartments with her nose in the air, having sent Dorothy into the garden with Robert Strong and Tommy, and Arvilly wouldn’t cross the thresholt, and I didn’t blame her, though havin’ my lawful pardner by my side I ventered.

But Arvilly led off into the beautiful gardens, where we found her settin’ with Robert Strong and Dorothy and Tommy by the fountain.

We wanted to explore the forests of Fontainbleu, but only had time for a short drive through it, but found it most picturesque and beautiful what we see of it.

Bein’ such a case for freedom, Arvilly wanted to see the Column of July riz up on the site of the old prison of the Bastile. And I did, too. I felt considerable interested in this prison, havin’ seen the great key that used to lock up the prisoners at Mount Vernon––a present to our own George Washington from that brave Frenchman and lover of liberty, Lafayette.

A brave man held in lovin’ remembrance by our country, and I spoze always will be, as witness his noble statute gin by our school children to France this present year. That his statute and G. Washington’s should be gin to France by America, and that Josiah Allen’s wife and Josiah should 310 also be permitted to adorn their shores simeltaneous and to once, what a proud hour for France! Well might she put her best foot forrerd and act happy and hilarious!

But to resoom: The last afternoon of our stay in Paris, Arvilly and I went to see