Wall, Josiah and I didn't stay very much longer. I'd have been glad to
seen the Princess sent out from Spain to our doin's, and I know she will
feel it, not seein' of me.
She wuzn't there, but I thought of her as I wended my way out, as I
looked over the grandeur of the seen that her female ancestor had
rendered possible.
Thinkses I, she must have different feelin's from what her folks did in
fourteen hundred.
Then how loath they wuz to even listen to Columbuses pathetic appeals
and prayers! But they did at last touch the heart of a woman. That woman
believed him, while the rest of Spain sneered at him. Had she lived,
Columbus wouldn't have been sent to prison in chains. No, indeed! But
she passed away, and Spain misused him. But now they send their
royalties to meet with all the kings and queens of the earth to bow down
to his memory.
As we wended out, the caravels lay there in the calm water--the Santa
Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, all becalmed in front of the convent.
No more rough seas in front of 'em; they furl their sails in the
sunlight of success.
All is glory, all is rejoicing, all is praise.
Four hundred years after the brave soul that planned and accomplished it
all died heart-broken and in chains, despised and rejected by men,
persecuted by his enemies, betrayed by his friends.
True, brave heart, I wonder if the God he trusted in, and tried to
honor, lets him come back on some fair mornin' or cloudless moonlight
evenin', and look down and see what the nations are sayin' and doin' for
him in eighteen hundred and ninety-three!
I don't know, nor Josiah don't.
But as I stood a-thinkin' of this, the sun come out from under a cloud
and lit up the caravels with its golden light, and lay on the water like
a long, shinin' path leadin' into glory.
And a light breeze stirred the white sails of the Santa Maria, some as
though it wuz a-goin' to set sail agin.
And the shadders almost seemed alive that lay on the narrer deck.
After we left La Rabida, Josiah wanted to go and see the exhibit called
Man and his Works.
Sez he, "I'll show you now, Samantha, what _our_ works are. I'll show
you the most beautiful and august exposition on the grounds."
Sez he, "You boasted high about wimmen's doin's, and they wuz fair," sez
he, "what I call fair to middlin'. But in this you'll see grandeur and
True Greatness."
Josiah didn't know a thing about the show, only what he gathered from
its name; and feelin' as he did about himself and his sect, he naterally
expected wonders.
So, leanin' on the arm of Justice, I accompanied him into the buildin',
which wuzn't fur from La Rabida.
But almost the first room we went into, Josiah almost swooned at the
sight, and I clung to his arm instinctively. There we wuz amongst more
than three thousand skeletons and skulls.
Why, the goose pimples that rose on me didn't subside till most night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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