Samantha at the St. Louis ExpositionHolley, Marietta
General
Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition
Holley, Marietta
Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904 : Saint Louis, Mo.) -- Fiction
There you are in the beautiful Court of St. Louis. And right in the
centre sets Saint Louis himself on a prancin' horse, holdin' up a cross,
I wuz glad to see that cross held up as if in benediction over all the
immense crowd below, it seemed as if it begun the Fair right, jest as it
begins the week right to go to meetin' Sunday.
I always sot store by Saint Louis. Leadin' them Crusades of hisen to
protect Christians and free the Holy Land from lawless invaders. How
much I thought on him for it. Though I could advised him for his good in
lots of things if I'd been 'round.
Now his marryin' a girl twelve years old who ort to been in pantalettes
and high aprons, I should tried to break it up, I should told him plain
and square that I wouldn't have heard for a minute to his marryin' our
Tirzah Ann at that age. She shouldn't married him if he'd been King
Louis twenty or thirty instead of nine. But I wuzn't there and he went
on and had his way, as men will.
But he acted noble in lots of things, made a wise ruler and a generous
one, lived and died like a hero. And I was glad to see him riz up in
such a sightly place, holdin' up the cross he wuz willin' to give his
life for.
He looked first rate, he wore a sort of a helmet and had a cloak on,
shaped some like my long circle cape, only it didn't set so good, and I
wuz sorry they didn't have my pattern to cut it by. Hisen kinder curled
up at the back, they ort to cut it ketterin'. Two noble statutes stood
on each side on him, kinder guardin' him as it were, though he didn't
need it as long as he clung to the cross. Scattered all along by the
side of the broad paths wuz little green oasises, on which the
splendor-tired and people-tired eyes could rest and recooperate a
little.
In front of you quite a little ways off on each side stood immense
snow-white palaces each one on 'em seemin' more beautiful than the last
one you looked at, full of sculptured beauty and with long, long rows of
pearl white collumns and ornaments of all kinds. Beyond, but still as it
were in the foreground, as it ort to, high up on a lofty pedestal stood
the statute of Peace.
My pardner, who for reasons named, wuz inclined to pick flaws in this
glorious Exposition, sez to me:
"What's the use of sculpin' Peace up on so high a monument and showin'
her off as if she wuz safe and sound, and then histin' cannons up right
by her throwin' balls that will travel twenty milds and then knock her
sky high."
I sithed, but almost onbeknown to myself looked at the Cross, and hoped
that that divine light would go ahead through the wilderness of world
warfare makin' a safe path, so Peace could git down from her high
monument bime-by and walk round some through the world without gittin'
her head blowed off.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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