Samantha at Coney Island Part 7

Deep antiquarian conundrums; stern geological interests! In grapplin'

with 'em I leaned over the taff-rail of the boat and looked way down into the blue green depths, seekin' a answer. But the s.h.i.+nin' waves on top seemed to glitter mockin'ly and fur down, down in the green waves, there seemed to look back a sort of a pityin' gleam that said to me:

"Poor creeter! pa.s.s on with your little vague theories and conjectures; you don't know any more about me than the rest on 'em do, who have tried to write about me." I felt kinder took back and queer.

So vain are we that we don't like to have our carefully constructed theories overthrown. But even as I mused, a voice said to the right of me--a woman talkin' to her little boy:

"The Lost Channel was named from the fact that durin' a war a large body of troops got lost here in the channel in the late autumn and could not find their way out, and was overtaken by the bitter cold and perished here."

Well, mebby if is so, I d'no. But I wuzn't knowin' to it myself, nor Josiah wuzn't. Well, onheedin' our facts or fancies, the river bore us onwards on its breast. Past high green boulders risin' up from the water with nothin' on 'em, not even a tree; jest gray rock lookin'

some like a geni's castle frownin' down onto the intruders into their realm. Then anon a pile of high gray rocks crowned as the Sammist sez "with livin' green." Then in a minute more a little landlocked bay with placid water sweepin' back into a pretty harbor, tree shaded, and mebby a boat anch.o.r.ed there like a soul at rest, or mebby a sail-boat with two young hearts in it driftin' down the sea of their content, as the tiny waves rippled round their oars. Then a grand big mansion lookin' down onto us kinder superciliously. Then a small, pretty farm house with snug outbuildings, a man lookin' at us from the open barn door, and some children playin' round the doorstep. Then a big island with gra.s.sy sh.o.r.es or wooded depths; then a tiny island, not too big for a child's playhouse, and some that wuz only a bit of rock peekin'

out of the water.

And fur off all the time when we could see it wuz the blue hazy distance full of beauty; ever-changin' glimpses of loveliness, givin'

place to new beauties. Fur off, fur off sometimes we could see distant pinnacles and towers, all bathed in the blue s.h.i.+nin' mist. And as the rapt eyes of our Fancy gazed on 'em, they might have been the towers of the New Jerusalem, the Golden city, so dreamlike, so inexpressibly lovely did they seem faintly photographed aginst the soft blue distant heavens.

But cold Reality said in her chillin' practical whisper, "It's nothin'

but Gananoque or Clayton," and she went on, "They hain't anything like the New Jerusalem, either of them."

Alas for us poor mortals! who drive or are driv by the two contendin'

coharts of Imagination, Idealized Fancy and practical Reality. And she always will have the last word, Reality will, and her voice is loud and shrill, and it penetrates into the warm, sweet Indian summer air, where Fancy dwells and where we sometimes visit her for brief intervals. Too brief! too brief! for cold Reality is always hangin'

round; she is always up and dressed ready to put in her note.

I mentioned the metafor to Josiah and he sez, "Yes, it minds me of the man who was brought up before the judge by his wife. She complained he hadn't spoke to her for five years. The judge ast him if that were so, and he said, 'Yes, that's so.' 'But why,' sez the judge, 'why hain't you spoke to your wife for five years?' And the man sez, 'Because I didn't want to interrupt her.'" Josiah declares it is true, but I believe it is jest a slur on wimmen.

But to resoom. Swiftly, silently we sped on with the islands about us, the blue sky overhead and the shadow islands below. And innumerable boats appeared far and near, some with white sails lifted, and followed below by a white shadow sail, and anon a big steamer would glide along, loaded down to its gunwale with crowds of gay pleasure seekers, who would wave their snowy handkerchiefs and salute us, the steamer backin' 'em with its deep grum voice. Or anon we could see a big dark barge sailin' along, and Fancy would whisper to us as we gazed on its mysterious dark sides without a soul in sight:

"It may be the phantom of some old Pirate s.h.i.+p, condemned for its sins to cruise along forever in strange waters, homesick for its native seas." But Reality spoke right up jest as she always will and said it wuz probable some big lake steamer heavy loaded with grain or some great Canadian boat. And then a new seen of beauty would drift into our vision and take our minds off and carry 'em away some distance. Oh, it is no wonder that Faith's soft eyes grew more tender and luminous.

Josiah felt the beauty of the seen, he felt it deeply, but everybody knows that beauty affects folks differently, it always seems to sharpen up my dear companion's appet.i.te, and three cookies in as many minutes wuz offered up on the shrine of his vivid appreciation, and two nut cakes.

We got back to our hotel, the sun about an hour high. Jest before our bark swep' into the haven, and while Josiah and Faith had crossed over to the opposite side of our bark, I hearn a voice on the off quarter windward, and I turned round and see to my dismay that it wuz Mr.

Pomper. He sez to me in a low voice, while his looks spoke volumes of yellow colored literatoor: "I wish to speak a few words to you alone, mum. Can you give me the opportunity?"

I looked him full in that eye of hisen, a hauty cold look, a look as much as 40 degrees below freeze, and said nothin' else but jest that look.

"I have somethin' very important to say to you. Can you hear me?"

Words wuz risin' to my tongue that would wither him forever, and end the vile persecutions I wuz undergoin', when before I could speak the gang plank wuz charged back agin Mr. Pomper's foot in a way that made him leap back like a sportive elephant, and for the moment I wuz free.

But as I wended my pensive way up to the hotel, I made up my mind that if he ever approached me agin I would plainly tell him what wuz what, and so end my purturbations of mind; for I felt if it wuz to go on much longer I should lose a pound of flesh, and mebby a pound and a half, in the stiddy wearin' persecution I wuz undergoin'. And that night at dinner as I ketched the light smoulderin' in that lonely orb, as it wuz bent on our table, and the corner in parlor and piazza where we wuz ensconced, I wondered anew what wuz the attractions that kep'

Mr. Pomper so stiddy at my shrine, And I got so that I almost hated the good looks that wuz ondoin' him and me too. And I looked into the gla.s.s dreamily as I wadded up my back hair and did up the front, and pinned my cameo pin onto my rich cotton and wool parmetty, and wondered if it wuzn't my duty to leave off that pin, and change that parmetty for calico, and sort o' frowzle up my hair onbecomingly in order to wean him from me. But alas! my principles did not seem able to git up onto that bite, so weak are we poor mortals after all our aspirin' efforts.

One curious thing I have ever noticed among men (and wimmen too) and that is the ease and facility with which they will slip out of statements and idees they have promulgated, and turn around in their tracts as easy and graceful as a dummy before a show case. Now there wuz a party to be gin to the hotel for a charitable purpose, each man and woman present givin' 25 cents, and then havin' a social time afterwards, and as the object wuz good I sez to my pardner, "I would like to attend to it." And he acted fairly skairt and horrow struck at the idee and went on eloquent about old folks at our ages, and with our professions, and our rumatiz, follerin' up gayety and show. Sez he, "The place for us evenin's is in our own room readin' our Bibles and Tracks."

And I sez as I calmly wadded up my back hair and smoothed my foretop, "Well, I spoze I can go alone if you feel so."

Then another thought seemed to roust him up; Jealousy seemed to strike her sharp p.r.o.ngs into his slender side, and he sez bitterly, "Yes, goin' down alone into a perfect mawlstrom of men flirtin' and actin'!"

"The mawlstrom won't hurt me," sez I, "I hain't goin' nigh it." But even as I spoke I thought of Mr. Pomper, and sez to myself, Can I help him from comin' nigh me? And as if in answer to my onspoken thoughts my pardner sez:

"Mawlstroms will draw anybody in onbeknown to them; they're deadly dangerous!" And I see him gin a kin' of a s.h.i.+ver. I wuz touched to the heart by the thought of his devotion, and as I fastened my cameo pin more firmly into the rich folds of parmetty at my neck, I sez:

"Dear Josiah, I don't know but you're right. I feel as though I want you near me to protect me." That melted his heart, but alas, did not affect his pocket book, and he sez, "I would go down with you in a minute, Samantha, but jest consider on the 50 cents we would spend there, how much comfort that would bring to some lonely widder, mebby a blind woman, who is a-hunger and ye fed her not."

I looked stiddy at him and sez I, "Josiah Allen, will that poor widder git that fifty cents?"

He answered evasive, and I went on, "It is easy to make the excuse that the money you are asked for in charity will do so much more good somewhere else, but," sez I sternly, "the money don't git there, and you know it." He still kep' his hand in his pocket round that pocket book I believe, whilst he took a new tact: "The air, Samantha, in that room will be stiflin', and if I should take you into that place and you should stifle, I should die away myself, I couldn't live a minute without you, dear Samantha," sez he.

Well, my tizik wuz pretty bad in crowded places and suffice it to say, that though his arguments didn't convince me, they sort o' overpowered me for the time bein', and we stayed in our own room.

Now to show the facility with which folks will turn right round and revolve, I will tell how Josiah seemin'ly forgot mawlstroms, bad air, rumatiz, ages, meetin' housen, principles, etc., and turned right round on the pivot of his inclination. A day or two after he heard down in the office about the dancin' parties they had in the parlor anon or oftener, and he come up into our room enthused with the idee and wanted to branch out and go that night, and I sez:

"What about mawlstroms and gayety, Josiah Allen?"

"Oh," he sez, "I shall be there to protect you, Samantha, no mawlstrom can draw you in and destroy you, whilst I have a drop of blood left in my veins! I'll protect you here, and I'd protect you at Coney Island,"

sez he--(that idee never left his mind I believe).

"What about the bad air?" sez I.

"Oh the winder will probable be open, and you can take your turkey feather fan with you." And then I dropped my half jocular tone and sez in deadly earnest:

"Be I leanin' on a Methodist pillow or be I not? Have I a deacon by my side or haven't I?"

But Josiah seemed calm and even gay sperited under my two reproachful orbs that poured their search lights into his very soul, and he sez:

"From all I hear it hain't a wicked dance at all, but jest a pretty dancin' party down in the parlor, jined in by men and wimmen and their children and mebby their grand-children, and it is always so sweet,"

sez he, "to see a man and his grand-children dancin' together. Oh, if Delight wuz only here!" sez he.

I riz up and sez in almost heart breakin' axents:

"Josiah Allen, be you a thinkin' of dancin' yourself?"

"No," sez he, "no, Samantha, I jest want to look on a spell, that's all."

But there wuz a look in his eyes that I hated to see, for I had seen it many times in the past, and it had always foreboded trials to me and humiliation to my pardner. How queer human critters be! what strange and mysterious tacts they will git on and how they will foller up them tacts and fads of theirn. But I d'no as human critters are any worse about follerin' up their tacts and fads and follerin' 'em blind, than old Mom Nater is. Now who hain't noticed her queer moods and how prolonged they be, and how sudden and onexpected they will come onto her? When she takes it into her head to have a pleasant spell of weather, how she'll foller it up, clear skies, pleasant days and nights for weeks and weeks. And if she takes it into her head to have it rain, how she will keep the skies drippin' right along for most all summer. And then when she has a dry spell, how dry she is! no matter how much the dwindlin' creeks and empty wells and springs complain, she has got to carry out her own idees till she gits ready to change.

Josiah Allen, since I had been his pardner had took many a fad into his old head, which he had carried out as only Nater or a man can carry 'em, onreasonable, mysterious, out of season, but bound to let 'em run. Sometimes in the past it had been a desire for singin' base that had laid holt on him, base in every sense the word can be used.

Then agin he had painful and prolonged spells of wantin' to be genteel and fas.h.i.+onable, then anon political ambition had rousted up his rusty old faculties and for months and months Coney Island had been his theme, and wuz now, and so on through a long roll of characters he had desired to play in the drama of life.

But _dancin'!_ never did I expect to see that man with his age and his profession and his achin' old bones, wantin' to dance. But so it wuz, as will be seen in the follerin' pages. Queer as a dog folks are on this planet, and I d'no but the Marites and Jupiters and Saturnses are jest as queer. But to quit eppisodin' and resoom forwards agin.

I have always found that it hain't best to draw the matrimonial rope too tight round your pardner's jungular veins. I see he wuz sot on goin' and I felt I would ruther he would go with me who could have some savin' control over him, than to have him git reckless and sally off alone. So it wuz settled that we should go that night at early candle light. And Faith wuz to go with us. Yes, I, Josiah Allen's wife, had gin my consent to go to a dance. But jest so the environin'

cord of circ.u.mstances gits us all wound up in its tangles time and agin. And as the way of poor weak mortals is, havin' made up my mind to go I tried to bring to mind all the mitigatin' circ.u.mstances I could. I thought of how the lambs capered on the hillside, how the leaves on the trees danced to the music of the south wind, and how even the motes swung round with each other in the sunlight. And then I thought of how David danced before the ark, and how Jeptha's daughter danced out to meet her father (to be sure she had her head took off for it, but I tried to not dwell on that side of the subject). And then I remembered how I did love music, and in spite of myself I felt kinder chirked up thinkin' I should enjoy quite a long spell on't. And thinkses I, if dancin' is a little mite off from the hite Methodists ort to stand on, music is the most heavenly thing we can lay holt of below, so I sort o' tried to even up them two peaks in my mind and lay a level onto 'em and try to make myself believe they struck about a fair plane of megumness, and shet my eyes to the idee that it slanted off some and wuz slippery.

Oh what weak creeters we be anyhow! Well, that night there wuz goin'

to be a extra big party, and I wuz for startin' at once after supper, for truly I felt that I wuz performin' a hard and arjous job, and as my way is I wuz for tacklin' it to once and gittin' over it. Yes, I felt it wuz goin' to be a wearin' job to git Josiah Allen to that parlor durin' them festivities and back agin with no damage or scandal arisin' from the enterprise.

But Faith sez, "It will be too early, they won't begin to dance till eight. We eat at six." And I sez, "For the land's sake! if I'd got to dance I should begin early and stop early, so's to git a little rest."

And she sez:

"Young folks don't think about that."