Samantha at the World's Fair Part 74

It wuz a statute of woman named Justice--a female big as life, made of solid silver from her head to her heels, and a-standin' on a gold world--

Jest as they do in the streets of the New Jerusalem. Oh, my heart, think on't!

Yes, it tickled me to a extraordinary degree, for sech a thing must mean sunthin'! The world borne on the outspread wings of an eagle is under her feet, and under that is a foundation of solid gold.

First, the riches of the earth to the bottom; then the eagle Ambition, and wavin' wings of power and conquest, carryin' the hull round world, and then, above 'em all, Woman.

Yes, Justice in the form of woman stood jest where she ort to stand--right on top of the world.

Justice and Woman has too long been crumpled down, and trod on. But she has got on top now, and I believe will stay there for some time.

She holds a septer in her right hand, and in her left a pair of scales.

She holds her scales evenly balanced--that is jest as it ort to be; they have always tipped up on the side of man (which has been the side of Might).

But now they are held even, and _Right_ will determine how the notches stand, not Might.

I don't believe that the Nation would make a statute of woman out of solid silver, and stand it on top of the world, if it didn't lay out to give her sect a little mite of what she symbolizes.

They hain't a-goin' to make a silver woman and call it Justice, if they lay out to keep their idee of wimmen in the future, as they have in the past, the holler pewter image stuffed full of all sorts of injustices, and meannesses, and downtroddenness.

They hain't a-goin' to stand the figger of woman and Justice on top of the world, and then let woman herself grope along in the deepest and darkest swamps and mora.s.ses of injustice and oppression, taxed without representation, condemned and hung by laws they have no voice in makin'.

Goin' on in the future as in the past--bringin' children into the world, dearer to 'em than their heart's blood, and then have their hearts torn out of 'em to see these children go to ruin before 'em through the foolishness and wickedness of laws they have no power to prevent--nay, if they are rich, to see their loved ones helped to their doom by their own wealth; taxed to extend and perpetuate these means of death and h.e.l.l, and they with their hands bound by the chains of Slavery and old Custom.

But things are a-goin' to be different. I see it plain. And I looked on that figger with big emotions in my heart, and my umbrell in my hand.

I knew the Nation wuzn't a-goin' to depicter woman with the hull earth at her feet, and then deny her the rights of the poorest dog that walks that globe. No; that would be makin' too light of her, and makin'

perfect fools of themselves.

They wouldn't of their own accord put a septer in her hand, if they laid out to keep her where she is now--under the rule of the lowest criminal landed on our sh.o.r.es, and beneath n.i.g.g.e.rs, and Injuns, and a-settin' on the same bench in a even row with idiots, lunaticks, and criminals.

No; I think better of 'em; they are a-goin' to carry out the idee of that silver image in the gold of practical justice, I believe.

If I hadn't thought so, I would a-histed up my umbrell and hit that septer of hern, and knocked that globe out from under her feet.

And them four mountaineers, a-guardin' her with rifles in their hands, might have led me off to prison for it if they had wanted too--I would a done it anyway.

But, as I sez, I hope for better things, and what give me the most courage of anything about it wuz that Justice had got her bandages off.

That is jest what I have wanted her to do for a long time. I had advised Justice jest as if she had been my own Mother-in-law. I had argued with her time and agin to take that bandage offen her eyes.

And when I see that she had took my advice, and meditated on what happiness and freedom wuz ahead for my sect, and realized plain that it wuz probable all my doin's--why, the proud and happy emotions that swelled my breast most broke off four b.u.t.tons offen my bask waist. And onbeknown to me I carried myself in that proud and stately way that Josiah asked me anxiously--

"If I had got a crick in my back?"

I told him, "No, I hadn't got any crick, but I had proud and lofty emotions on the inside of my soul that no man could give or take away."

"Wall," sez he, "you walked considerable like our old peac.o.c.k when she wants to show off."

I pitied him for his short-sightedness, but unconsciously I did, I dare presoom to say, onbend a little in my proud gait.

And we proceeded onwards.

Wall, on our way home we heard a bystander a-speakin' about the beautiful vistas, and the other one replied, and said how wonderful and beautiful he considered 'em.

And Josiah sez to me, "Where be them 'Vistas,' anyway? I've hearn more talk about 'em than a little--do they keep 'em in cases, or be they rolled up in rolls? I want to see 'em, anyway," and he turned and went to go into one of the big palaces. Sez he, "He seemed to be a-pintin'

this way; we must have missed 'em the day we wuz here."

But I took holt of his arm and drawed him back, and I pinted down the long, beautiful distance, the glorious view bounded by the snowy sculptured heights of palaces--long, green, flower-gemmed avenues of beauty--with the blue waters a-s.h.i.+nin' calm behind towerin' statutes of marvellous conception, and sez I--

"Behold a vista!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Behold a vista!"]

He put on his specs and looked clost, and sez he--

"I don't see nothin' out of the common."

"No," sez I; "spiritual things are spiritually discerned. The wind bloweth where it listeth," sez I.

"Oh, bring up the Bible," sez he; "there is a time for all things."

He acted real pudgiky.

But I at last got him to understand what a vista wuz, and I told him that Mr. Burnham and the others who had charge of buildin' this marvellous city took no end of pains to design these marvellous picters--more lovely than wuz ever painted on canvas sence the world begun.

And sez I, as I looked round me once more, some as Moses did on Pisga's height, "and viewed the landscape o'er"--

Sez I, "I _must_ thank the head one here--I _must_ thank Director-General Davis in my own name, and in the name of Jonesville, and the world, for gittin' up this incomparable spectacle, the like of which will never be seen agin by livin' eyes."

And if you'll believe it, I hadn't hardly finished speakin' when who should come towards us but General Davis himself. I knew him in a minute, for his picter had been printed in papers as many as two or three times since the Fair begun--it wuz a real good-lookin' face, anyway, in a paper or out of it.

And I gathered up the folds of my cotton umbrell more gracefully in my left hand, and kinder shook out the drapery of my alpaca skirt, and wuz jest advancin' to accost him, when Josiah laid holt of my arm and whispered in a sharp axent--

"I won't have it. You hain't a-goin' to stop and visit with that man."

I faced him with dignity and with some madness in my liniment, and sez I, "Why?"

Sez he, "Do you ask why?"

"Yes," sez I, with that same n.o.ble, riz-up look on my eyebrow--"why?"

"Wall," sez he, a-lookin' kinder meachin', "I want sunthin' to eat, and you'd probable talk a hour with him by the way you've praised up his doin's here."

By this time General Davis wuz fur away.

And I sithed, when I thought on't, what he'd lost by not receivin' my eloquent and heartfelt thanks, and what I'd lost in not givin' 'em.