Around the World with Josiah Allen's WifeHolley, Marietta
General
Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife
Holley, Marietta
Women travelers -- Fiction
And we talked about it how he wuz carryin' everyday reason and common
sense into Sunday religion. Sez Arvilly, "He teaches young voters that
while prayers are needful and necessary, votes are jest as needful,
for bad or careless votin' destroys all the good that Christian effort
duz, all that prayer asks for and gits from a pityin' God. Every
saloon is shet up in Loontown and folks flock to hear him from as fur
off as Zoar and the town of Lyme. He don't have standin'-room in his
meetin'-house, let alone settin'-room, and they have got to put on an
addition."
And I sez agin what I had often said before, "What a object lesson
Elder White's work in Jonesville is, and how plainly it teaches what I
have always known, that nothin' can stand aginst the united power of
the church of Christ, and if Christian folks banded together and voted
as they prayed, the Saloon, the Canteen, the Greedy Trusts, the
licensed house of shame, monument of woman's disgrace, would all have
to fall."
"But they won't do it," sez Arvilly in a mad cross axent. "They'll
keep right on preachin' sermons against wrong and votin' to sustain
it, if they vote at all. Gamblin' for bed-quilts and afghans to git
money to send woollen clothin' to prespirin' heathens in torrid
countries, while our half-clad and hungry poor shiver in the cold
shadder of their steeples oncared for and onthought on."
I sez, "Don't be so hash, Arvilly; you know and I know that the church
has done and is doin' oncounted good. And they're beginnin' to band
themselves together to help on true religion and goodness and peace."
"Well," sez Arvilly, "I should think it wuz time they did!"
I see a deep shadder settlin' down on her eye-brow, and I knowed she
wuz a thinkin' of what she had went through.
Well, the next day we sot out for Paris, via Marseilles. We had a
pleasant trip up the beautiful blue Mediterranean, a blue sky
overhead, a blue sea underneath. Once we did have quite a storm,
makin' the ship rock like a baby's cradle when its ma is rockin' it
voylent to git it to sleep.
I wuzn't sea-sick at all nor Tommy, but my poor companion suffered,
and so did many of the passengers. There wuz a young chap who wuz the
picture of elegance when he come aboard, and dretful big feelin' I
should judge from his looks and acts. But, oh, how low sea-sickness
will bring the hautiest head! I see him one day leanin' up agin the
side of the ship lookin' yeller and ghastly. His sleek clothes all
neglected lookin', his hat sot on sideways, and jest as I wuz passin'
he wuz sayin' to the aristocratic lookin' chap he wuz travellin'
with:
"For Heaven's sake, Aubrey, throw me overboard!"
His mean wuz wild, and though I didn't like his words I made excuses
for him, knowin' that mankind wuz as prone to rampage round in
sickness and act as sparks are to fly up chimbly. But, take it as a
whole, we had a pleasant voyage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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