第53章 VISITS TO NOTABLE PLACES(2)

Wall, if I should tell the truth which I am fur from not wantin'

to do, I should say that at first sight, it wuz rather of a bleak, lonesome lookin' spot, kinder wild and desolate lookin'.

But as we went further along in it, we came to some little nooks and sheltered paths and spots, that seemed more collected together and pleasant.There wuz some big high stuns and monuments, and some little ones but not one so low that it hadn't cast a high, dark shadow over somebody's life.

There wuz one in the shape of a big see shell.I s'pose some mariner lay under that, who loved the sea.Or mebby it wuz put up by some one who had the odd fancy that put a shell to your ear you will hear a whisperin' in it of a land fur away, fur away.

Not fur from this wuz a stun put up over a young engineer who had been killed instantly by his engine.There wuz a picture of the locomotive scraped out on the stun, and in the cab of the engine wuz his photograph, and these lines wuz underneath:

My engine now lies still and cold, No water does her boiler hold;The wood supplies its flames no more, My days of usefulness are o'er.

We wended our way in and out of the silent streets for quite a spell, and then we went and sot down on the broad piazza of the sort of chapel and green-house that stood not fur from the entrance.And while we sot there we see another inhabitent come there to the village to stay.

It wuz a long procession, fur it wuz a good man who had come.

And many of his friends come with him jest as fur as they could:

wife, children, and friends, they come with him jest as fur as they could, and then he had to leave 'em and go on alone.How weak love is, and how strong.It wuz too weak to hold him back, or go with him, though they would fain have done so.But it wuz strong enough to shadow the hull world with its blackness, blot out the sun and the stars, and scale the very mounts of heaven with its wild complaints and pleadin's.A strange thing love is, haint it?

Wall, we sot there for quite a spell and my companion wantin', Ispose, to make me happy, took out a daily paper out of his pocket and went to readin' the deaths to me.He always loves to read the deaths and marriages in a paper.He sez that is the literature that interests him.And then I s'pose he thought at such a time, it wuz highly appropriate.So I didn't break it up till he began to read a long obituary piece about a child's death; about its being cut down like a flower by a lightin'

stroke out of a cloudless sky, and about what a mysterious dispensation of Providence it wuz, etc., etc.And then there wuz a hull string of poetry dedicated to the heart-broken mother bewailin' the mystery on't, and wonderin' why Providence should do such strange, onlookedfor things, etc., and etcetery, and so 4th.

And I spoke right up and sez, "That is a slander onto Providence and ort to be took as such by every lover of justice."Josiah wuz real horrified, he had been almost sheddin' tears he wuz so affected by it; to think the little creeter should be torn away by a strange chance of Providence from a mother who worshipped her, and whose whole life and every thought wuz jest wrapped up in the child, and who never had thought nor cared for anything else only just the well bein' of the child and wardin' trouble off of her, for so the piece stated.And he sez in wild amaze, "What do you mean, Samantha? What makes you talk so?""Because," sez I, "I know it is the truth.I know the hull story;" and then I went on and told it to him, and he agreed with me and felt jest as I did.

You see, the mother of the child wuz a perfect high flyer of fashion and she always wore dresses so tight, that she couldn't get her hands up to her head to save her life, after her corset wuz on.Wall, she wuz out a walkin' with the child one day, or rather toddlin' along with it, on her high-heeled sboes.They wuz both dressed up perfectly beautiful, and made a most splendid show.Wall, they went into a store on their way to the park, and there wuz a big crowd there, and the mother and the little girl got into the very middle of the crowd.They say there wuz some new storks for sale that day, and some cattail flags, and so there wuz naturelly a big crowd of wimmen a buyin' 'em, and cranes.And some way, while they stood there a heavy vase that stood up over the child's head fell down and fell onto it, and hurt the child so, that it died from the effects of it.

The mother see the vase when it flrst begun to move, she could have reached up her hands and stiddied it, and kep' it from fallin', if she could have got 'em up, but with that corset on, the hull American continent might have tumbled onto the child's head and she couldn't have moved her arms up to keep it off;couldn't have lifted her arms up over the child's head to save her life.No, she couldn't have kep' one of the States off, nor nothin'.And then talk about her wardin' trouble offen the child, why she COULDN'T ward trouble off, nor nothin' else with that corset on.She screemed, as she see it a comin' down onto the head of her beloved little child, but that wuz all she could do.The child wuz wedged in by the throng of folks and couldn't stir, and they wuz all engrossed in their own business which wuz pressin', and very important, a buyin' plates, and plaks, with bull-rushes, and cranes, and storks on 'em, so naturelly, they didn't mind what wuz a goin' on round 'em.And down it come!

And there it wuz put down in the paper, "A mysterious dispensation of Providence." Providence slandered shamefully and I will say so with my last breath.

What are mothers made for if it haint to take care of the little ones God gives 'em.What right have they to contoggle themselves up in a way that they can see their children die before 'em, and they not able to put out a hand to save 'em.Why, a savage mother is better than this, a heathen one.And if I had my way, there would be a hull shipload of savages and heathens brought over here to teach and reform our too civilized wimmen.I'd bring 'em over this very summer.