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Samantha at Coney Island, a novel by Marietta Holley |
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Chapter 13. In Which Josiah And Serenus Depart... |
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_ CHAPTER THIRTEEN. IN WHICH JOSIAH AND SERENUS DEPART SARAHUPTISHUSLY FOR CONEY ISLAND AND I START IN PURSUIT
Sez I, "Why should you invite him to go to Shadow Island?" "Oh he's got such good judgment," sez he. I felt dubersome, but bein' so mellered in sperit by his consentin' to build the cottage I didn't stand out. And they started the next mornin' at sunrise for Shadow Island as I spozed. Till the next day but one Miss Gowdey come over to borry a drawin' of tea and she sez, "Serenus and Josiah are havin' a gay time at Coney Island. I've jest had a card from Serenus." You could have knocked me down with a pin feather. But so powerful is my mind, though it seemed to roll to and fro under my foretop and my knees wobbled under me, I did up the tea with marble composure and a piece of paper, and she sot off with it, and then I fell into a rockin' chair with almost frenzied forebodin's. What! _what_ wuz Josiah Allen doin' in that place of folly and fashion? Could he keep his innocence amidst the awful temptations? I'd hearn there wuz places there where folks stood on their heads; wuz his brain strong enough to stand the jolt? Spozein' them iron horses should kick him over? Spozein' he got wrecked on the Immoral railway? Or went up on the Awful Tower and fell off? Spozein' the elephants should tread on him? Or the boyconstructors or tigers git after him? Or he should go to the moon and git lost there and be obleeged to stay? Oh the wild fears that raced through my foretop; mebby they wuzn't reasonable but they gored me jest the same. What must I, what could I do? I couldn't tell. [Illustration: "_'Serenus and Josiah are havin' a gay time at Coney Island. I've jest had a card from Serenus,' sez Miss Gowdey. You could have knocked me down with a pin feather._" (_See page 214_)] But all of a sudden I thought of what Serenus said about a woman twice my size dressed in gaudy red, forever takin' after folks--What would Josiah do if she took after him? And no doubt she would, for looked at through the magnifying lens of Absence and Anxiety he looked passingly beautiful. As I thought of her I knowed what I would do. Sez I, "I will go and tear him away and bring him back to duty and his mournin' pardner." But how could I go, wuz my next thought? How dast I venter there alone? I lacked both courage and a summer suit. But when did Samantha ever fail to lay holt of Duty's apron strings when they dangled in front of her? Better go clothed in a righteous purpose and a old parmetty than in the richest new alpacky and a craven sperit. I knowed that if I had wanted a hobble skirt or a hayrem, or a hip cosset there wuz no time to git 'em. But Heaven knows I didn't want 'em, treasurin' as I did the power to walk and breathe. Suffice it to say the next mornin' the risin' sun gilded my brown straw bunnet and umbrell as I descended from the car at the Grand Central. Havin' walked round and round, and through and through that immense depo, huffin' it from as fur as from our house to Jonesville, gittin' lost time and agin, and bein' found and sot right by onlookers and bystanders, in the fullness of time I emerged out on't with a deep sithe of relief. Believin' as I do that the great beneficent Power that fills the ether about us, will bring us the help our sperit desires if we ask for it, it didn't surprise me that almost the first man I met after I left the press and turmoil of the throng, wuz Deacon Gansy, who moved from Jonesville and is now runnin' a provision store in New York. I inquired for my cousin Bildad Smith of Coney Island and told him I wuz goin' there. Sez I, "You know Bildad's wife is runnin' down." Which wuzn't a lie, but on the very edge on't, for what did I care for her enjoyment of poor health? And he said he wuz goin' down there in his delivery auto to carry 'em some fresh butter and eggs and he would take me. I thought it wuzn't a chance to refuse. Bildad runs a eatin' house on Coney Island. So I sot off with Deacon Gansy, and after goin' through Chaos and Destruction on lower New York streets, and Williamsburg bridge, and acrost it, for all the folks in New York and Brooklyn wuz there that day--and after passin' through crowded, hustlin', bustlin' streets, we found ourselves anon on the broad beautiful Ocean Avenue smooth as glass and as broad as from our house to hern that was Submit Tewksbury's and I guess wider. Bordered on each side with four rows of noble trees with paths between 'em. The deacon said there wuz over 'leven thousand trees along that avenue, and I didn't dispute him. He got real talkative and kinder bragged on how much money he wuz makin', said he'd bought a place up in Harlem, and sez he, "I've got another auto for pleasure drivin'." Sez I, "_Is_ it pleasure to drive a car through such crowded places as we've been through to-day?" And he said it wuz, if folks wouldn't act mean. Sez he, "Last Sunday I took my wife out in the country and a old man in a buggy kep' right in front of me and wouldn't turn out, and I had to squeeze through between him and the ditch." "Did you git through safe?" sez I. "Yes, I did, but I had to bend my mud guard right up agin his hoss's side and scraped the skin raw, and raked its collar off." "What did the old man say?" sez I. "I never heard such language out of the mouth of man, and of course as a deacon I couldn't listen to such profanity, so I hurried right away." "Hadn't you ort to return the hoss collar, Deacon?" "Oh no, I couldn't stop to listen to such wicked talk." That wuz jest like deacon Gansy; he thought he wuz awful religious but I always felt dubersome about it. But on we went through the matchless beauty of the drive. And anon we ketched a view of the blue tostin' waves of the Atlantic, the air jest as fresh and invigoratin' as when it blowed unto Columbuses weary foretop when he discovered us. And like his dantless cry to his fearful pilot, so my soul echoed the same cry to my deprestin' fears: "Sail on, and on, and on," to the goal of our own desires. Our two quests wuz some different, he wuz seekin' a new continent and I an old Josiah. But I knowed the Atlantic breezes never blowed on two more determined and noble linements than hisen and mine. And I felt that we would have been real congenial if he hadn't died too soon, or I been born too late. _ |
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