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Samantha at Coney Island, a novel by Marietta Holley |
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Chapter 19. We Return To Jonesville... |
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_ CHAPTER NINETEEN. WE RETURN TO JONESVILLE AND JOSIAH BUILDS TIRZAH ANN'S COTTAGE WITH STRANGE INVENTIONS AND ADDITIONS
Sez I, "Can't you be megum, Josiah? You wuz all carried away with it, and now you're turned agin it; what makes you turn so _fur_? Can't you see the good side to it?" "No, I can't, and won't!" So we went home some like the Baptist and the Methodist who had a public meetin' to argy their two beliefs, on which they wuz dretful sot, and they converted each other, so the Baptist went home a Methodist, and the Methodist a Baptist. I'd been considerable sot agin it, but I went home with the eye of my spectacles able to look on both sides. The side I didn't like, that it shares with other Pleasure Resorts. And its good side, as a care lightener, and diversion to toil. And a golden Pleasure House to the millions of children who go there every year, many of 'em poor children who get there their only glimpse of rest and light hearted enjoyment. But my dear pardner can't be megum; that quality wuz left out when he wuz manufactured. And now if anyone sez Coney Island, he starts for the barn. Serenus come home a few days after we did. He'd been on the Bowery of Coney Island that night, Josiah havin' refused to go to such a lowdown place with him. So as it often is in this strange world, the wrong-doer comes out ahead, for the _present_. He made a night of it with Jim Cobb, a rural cousin, and not a hair of his head wuz scorched, nor the smell of fire on his garments. But I wuz proud that Josiah withstood temptation, and told him that I would ruther he had got afire, and burned considerable, than had him yield to the tempter. I myself never sot foot on the Bowery; I wuzn't goin' to nasty up my mind with it, though I hearn there wuz some good things to be seen there. Folks told me I'd ort to gone to Brighton, and Atlantic City, and see the milds of beautiful Pleasure places along the ocean, but I sez, "I thank you, but I've seen enough," though there wuz sights there that I would loved to see. Among 'em wuz that Mother's Camp, where thousands and thousands of poor children and their mas go to spend a day in the bracin' atmosphere. And the children have pure milk, and their mas good tea, and they can go there day after day all they want to. How the children look forward to it, and their mas too. [Illustration: "_I myself never sot foot on the Bowery; I wuzn't goin' to nasty up my mind with it, though I hearn there wuz some good things to be seen there._" (_See page 313_)] The goodness and helpfulness of such places along the beach, wrops their bright mantillys over some of the other places not so good and makes folks more lenitent to 'em, as they endure a poor husband for the sake of his good wife, and visey versey. A few days after we got home, Josiah took Penstock and they sot off for a two weeks' stay at Shadow Island. And a few days after they got there he writ me that they had broke ground for the cottage. And that very day I got my feet wet down to the creek paster huntin' for a turkey's nest, and come down with inflamatory rumatiz, and couldn't walk a step for upwards of four weeks, and Ury's wife come and took care on me. My head felt bad too, Coney Island had been too much for me-- Well, Josiah would come home Sundays all wrought up and enthusiastick boastin' what a model house it wuz, jest perfect, and what new and magnificent discoveries he had made to lighten labor, which he wuz goin' to git patented and probable make our everlastin' fortune, as well as make Tirzah Ann perfectly happy. And I'd set with my foot on a piller, and hear him go on and forebode and forebode, and I groaned more about the house than I did with the pain in my lim, though that wuz fearful. Well, after it had been goin' on for about four weeks, one Saturday when he come home over Sunday, he said the house wuz all up and nearin' completion, and he carried the idee if he didn't come right out and say it, that there wuzn't a mansion in the New Jerusalem that went ahead on't. My rumatiz and head wuz quite a little better, and he proposed that I should go back with him Monday mornin' on a short tower and see the house, and be a humble witness and admirer of his glorious triumph (he didn't say these words right out but carried the idee plain in his linement, and hauty demeanor). Well, I concluded to go, and Philury bandaged up my lim in soft flannel moistened with anarky, and packed various bottles of linement, etc., in my portmanty and Ury took us to the train. Well I will pass over our voyage to Shadow Island, but in the fullness of time we arrove there, and stood in front of the cottage. The seen all round it wuz fair indeed, but the structure looked queer, queer as a dog. There wuz piazzas and porticos, and ornament piled on ornament cropped out on every side. It wuz weighted down with cheap little sawed out peaks and pints, and triangles perforated with holes for ornaments, but the hull thing looked shiftless, tippin' and lop sided. I stood lookin' at it in silence for a long time, it looked so queer that it sort o' stunted and brow beat me, and my first words wuz spoke as much to my own soul as to my companion, "It looks strange, passin' strange!" "Yes," sez Josiah, "hain't it a uneek plan?" "Yes," sez I, "a uneeker one wuz never seen on this planet." And agin I seemed to lose myself in strange emotions, it looked so awful, a kind of or mingled with my indignation and regret. "Nobody will steal them idees!" sez he proudly. "No," sez I sadly, "you're safe from that." And I sez, as I looked up at the queer, lop sided, flighty, vain thing, "It leans over considerable, Josiah Allen, it is very tippin'." He looked worried, but sez in a sort of apology way, "I had it lean over one side on account of havin' rain water dripp offen the eaves, and have the snow slide off in drifty times. Ruffs have been known to fall in, and I wanted to ensure Tirzah Ann's havin' a ruff over her head anyway." Agin I looked on in solemn or, and sez wonderin'ly, "What will Tirzah Ann say when she sees it?" "I don't care," sez he, "what she sez! if she don't like it she can lump it!" But I could see that the tippin' sides wuz done through a mistake, and he wuz tryin' to cover it up with a mantilly of bravado and boastfulness. I agin kep' silence for quite a spell, and my next words, so fur as I remember 'em, wuz, "Where is the suller?" He stood agast and repeated, "The suller!" He looked perfectly dumb-foundered but wuzn't goin' to give in he made a mistake, it wuz too mortifyin' to his pride, so sez he in faint axents: "I laid out to build it after the house wuz done." Sez I, "What wuz you goin' to do with the dirt?" "Why, I laid out," sez he lookin' helplessly round for a excuse, "I laid out to bring it up in baskets," and he went on brightenin' up as a idee struck him--"I've observed, Samantha, that dirt is handy for house plants, or to plant seeds in the spring of the year." Sez I dryly, "I guess three or four hundred wagon loads won't be needed for house plants, and after Tirzah Ann sees all that dirt lugged up her suller stairs and through her kitchen she won't have much time or ambition for posies." [Illustration: "_'The suller!' He stood agast, perfectly dumb-foundered but wuzn't goin' to give in he had made a mistake. It wuz too mortifying to his pride._" (_See page 318_)] "Well," sez he, a bright idee occurrin' to him, "it will be a first rate job for the men to do rainy days. In buildin' a house there hain't much a man can do durin' a hard thunder storm, or hail storm, but they can go right on with the suller jest as well as though it wuz a sunshiny day. That is one great thing that architects have heretofore overlooked, work that men can do durin' cyclones--I have met that want," sez he proudly. "I should think as much," sez I mekanically, for my thoughts wuzn't there, they wuz afar with Tirzah with her poor health, and the blow that had got to come onto her, when she see this thing that wuz rared up in front of me. Well, I went round to the kitchen door, the winders all seemed sot in tottlin' and shaky, and my pen fails me to tell the looks of them back door steps, they wuz very high here, for the land sloped off sudden, but suffice it to say that I wouldn't trust even one foot on 'em for a dollar bill. There wuz a great long concern that looked like a huge wooden arm that come out of the settin' room winder on that side and seemed to reach down to the water, and sez I, "What, for the land's sake! is that?" "That," sez he proudly, "is the crownin' work of my life! that will make me famous and enormously rich when it becomes known to the world. That is a attachment to hitch onto the sewin' machine, the churn, the coffee mill or any domestic article where foot or hand power is used, and is to be used in pumpin' water." "Pumpin' water!" sez I coldly, "what for?" "Oh, for drinkin', for irrigatin', or for any use that water is used for, puttin' out fires, or anything." Sez I coldly, "Do you spoze that Tirzah Ann with her health, is goin' to set at her sewin' machine and do fine sewin', and at the same time pump water from hour to hour?" "Yes," sez he, "and hain't it a beautiful thought, how it will add to her sweet content and happiness as she sets sewin' on Whitfield's shirts, and thinkin' at the same time she is benefittin' the world at large, quietly and unostentatiously sewin' on gussets, and makin' the desert blossom like a rosy all round her; how happy she will be," sez he. Sez I, "It is a crazy idee! crazy as a loon! What under the sun would she want to pump hundreds and hundreds of barrels of water for? Half a barrel would last 'em a day for all their work." He murmured sunthin' about a fountain, that might be sprayin' up in the front yard, and how beautiful it would be, and enjoyable. And I sez, "Could you set and enjoy yourself lookin' on a fountain risin' up and dashin' jewels of spray all round you, and thinkin' that every drop wuz bein' pumped up by the weary feet of your own girl by your first wife? That poor delicate little creeter's tired feet, toilin' on hour by hour and day by day." He looked real bad, he hadn't thought so fur, and I went on, "Don't you know it would make the sewin' machine go so hard that no woman could run it a minute, let alone for days and weeks?" His linement fell two or three inches. I see he gin up it needed more strength to run it. "And it looks like furiation too," sez I. "Look!" He snapped out, "What do you spoze I care for looks!" But I see his idees wuz all broke up, as well they might be, Tirzah Ann pumpin' water all day with her feet! the idee! Well, out on one side of the house I see a great pile of bricks, they seemed to be divided in two piles, one wuz good sound bricks, and one wuz broken some, and I sez, "What are these bricks divided off so fur?" "That," sez he, "is a sample of how men see into things." "How?" sez I. "Well, I'll tell you." And he went on proudly, as if glad to git a chance to show off how fur seem' and eqinomical he wuz, and to recover from the machinness that had settled down on him like a dark mantilly, while we discussed the suller and pump attachment. "I got them bricks at a bargain. I hain't got enough good bricks for the hull chimbly, and so I'm goin' to have 'em begin the chimbly on top instead of the usual way of beginin' at the bottom, and then I can see jest how fur my good bricks will go." "How be you goin' to make the top bricks stay up?" sez I, "a layin' up on nothin'?" "That is a man's work," sez he, "a woman couldn't understand it if I should explain it." "No," sez I, "Heaven knows no woman on earth would ever understand that idee!" Well, all I could do he would go that very afternoon and engage a mason to do the work, build the chimbly after his views, beginin' on top instead of the bottom. But though deeply mortified at it, that wuz jest the move that sot me free from my anxieties about the house, for the mason, who wuz a great case for a joke, made so much fun of the idee, and of the hull structure, that my companion threw up the hull job and told me that the house might go to----for anything he cared. I will never tell the place he said the house might go to, it is too wicked to even think on calmly, it begun with an H and that is all that I will ever tell to anybody. Well, when Whitfield and Tirzah Ann come back from Maine and went to Shadow Island to see that strange queer lookin' buildin, I spoze Whitfield laughed till his sides ached. Tirzah cried, they say; cried partly out of sentiment to think her Pa had showed such affection for her as to build the cottage, and partly because it looked so awful, it made her hystericky. But Whitfield sobered down, and when he come back to Jonesville acted good to Josiah, he seemed to be real thankful to Josiah and me for buildin' it, and his grateful, affectionate ways kinder took the edge offen Josiah's humiliation, but then he would probable have sprunted up anyway--mortification never prayed on him for more'n a short time. Well, the end on't wuz, Whitfield hired a good carpenter to oversee the work, and some strong workmen who wuz able to lift and lug, there wuz plenty of lumber, and in four weeks the house wuz transmogrified into a good lookin' cottage. They built on a L, I believe they called it, which they're to use as a store room, and under that Tirzah Ann is to have her suller, Whitfield wuzn't the man to deprive her of that comfort. And in some way they straightened up the house, and put in a winder here and there, tore off lots of the ornaments, but left on some of the piazzas, and balconies, and things, and it wuz a pretty and commogious lookin' cottage. They painted the hull concern a soft buff color, with red ruffs that looked real picturesque settin' back aginst the dark green of the trees. And sure enough the first week in September we had our party there. It wuzn't a surprise--no, Heaven knows the surprise wuz when we first laid eyes on the house as Josiah left it--but it wuz a very agreable party. Tirzah Ann did well by us in cookin' (of course we helped her) and we all stayed three days and two nights; Thomas J. and Maggie and the children, and Josiah and me. Tirzah Ann and Whitfield stayed longer, so's to leave everything in first rate order for another year. They sot out some pretty shrubs and made some posy beds under the winders, and planted bulbs in 'em, that they spozed would rise up and break out in sunny smiles when they met 'em another summer. They lay out to take sights of comfort in that house--yes indeed! And I shouldn't be at all surprised if it ended by our all havin' cottages there for summer comfort. It looks like it now. Though I told 'em I'd ruther have our cottage on the main land pretty nigh to 'em; there's places where the land juts out into the river havin' all the looks of a island on the fore side, and on the hindside more solidity somehow. And with the society of the Saint on the front side, and Safety on the hind side, it seems as if anybody could take considerable comfort there. _ |
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