Samantha at the World's Fair. Marietta Holley
their Pa got back. And as he didn't git back, of course they kept on a-stayin', and had to be took care on. They wuz bright little creeters, and the very apples of their eyes. But they cost money, and they cost love, and Tom had to give it, for they lost what little property they had about this time—and the feeble Grandma couldn't do much, and the Grandpa died not long after the eppisode I am about to relate.
So it all devolved onto Tom. And Tom riz up to his duties nobly, though it wuz with a sad heart, as wuz spozed, for Isabelle, when she see what had come onto him to do, wouldn't hold him to his engagement—she insisted on his bein' free.
I spoze she thought she wouldn't burden him with two more helpless ones, and then mebby she thought the two spans wouldn't mate very well. And most probable they would have been a pretty cross match. (I mean, that is, a sort of a melancholy, down-sperited yoke, and if anybody laughs at it, I would wish 'em to laugh in a sort of a mournful way.)
Wall, Tom Freeman, after Isabelle sot him free, bein' partly mad and partly heart-broken, as is the way of men who are deep in love, and want their way, but anyway wantin' to keep out of the sight of the one who, if he couldn't have her for his own, he wanted to forgit—he packed up bag and baggage and went West.
Isabelle wouldn't correspond with him, so she told him in that last hour—still and calm on the outside, and her heart a-bleedin' on the inside, I dare presoom to say; no, she wanted him to feel free.
What creeters, what creeters wimmen be for makin' martyrs of themselves, and burnt sacrifices—sometimes I most think they enjoy it, and then agin I don't know!
But Isabelle acted from a sense of duty, for she jest worshipped the ground Tom Freeman walked on, so everybody knew, and so she bid adieu to Tom and Happiness, and lived on.
Wall, one of 'em must stay at home with the old folks, either she or Christopher Columbus. And when a man and a woman love each other as Isabelle and Krit did, when wuz it ever the case but what if there wuz any sacrificin' to do the woman wuz the one to do it.
It is her nater, and I don't know but a real true woman takes as much comfort in bein' sort o' onhappy for the sake of some one she loves, as she would in swingin' right out and a-enjoyin' herself first rate.
A woman who really loves anything has the makin' of a first-class martyr in her. And though she may not be ever tied to a stake, and gridirons be fur removed from her, still she has a sort of a silent hankerin' or aptitude for martrydom. That is, she would fur ruther be onhappy herself than to have the beloved object wretched. And if either of 'em has got to face trouble and privation, why she is the one that stands ready to face 'em.
So Isabelle sent Krit off into the great world to conquer it if possible.
And Krit, as the nater of man is, felt that he would ruther branch and work his way along through the World, and work hard and venter and dare and try to conquer fortune, than to set round and endure and suffer and be calm.
Men are not, although they are likely creeters and I wish 'em well, yet truth compels me to say that they are not very much gin to follerin' this text, "To suffer and be calm."
No, they had ruther rampage round and kill the lions in the way than to camp down in front of 'em and try to subdue 'em with kindness and long sufferin'.
Krit, as the nateral nater of man is, felt that he could and would earn a good place in the World, win it with hard work, and then lift Isabelle up onto the high platform by the side of him.
Though whether he had made any plans as how he wuz a-goin' to hist up the two feeble old invalids, that I can't state, not knowin'.
But Isabelle, he did lay out to do well by her, thinkin' as he did such a amazin' lot of her, and knowin' how she gin up her own ambitious hopes for his sake, and knowin' well, though he didn't really feel free to interfere, how she had signed the death-warrant to her own happiness when she parted with Tom Freeman. But so it wuz.
Wall, Krit wouldn't have to lift up the old folks onto any worldly hite, for the Lord took 'em up into His own habitation, higher I spoze than any earthly mount. About six months before Krit come to Jonesville, they both passed away most at the same time, and wuz buried in one grave.
Wall, we all on us in Jonesville thought a sight of Krit before he had been with us a week. He had come partly to see a man in Jonesville on particular business, and partly to see us. He wuz a civil engineer, jest as civil and polite a one as I ever laid eyes on, and wuz a-doin' well, but Thomas Jefferson thought he could help him to a still better place and position.
Thomas J. is very popular in Jonesville. He is doin' a big business all over the county, and is very influential.
Wall, Krit's business bid fair to keep him for some time in Jonesville and the vicinity, and as he see that Josiah Allen and I wuz a-makin' preperations to go to the World's Fair—and bein' warmly pursuaded by us to that effect, he concluded to stay and accompany us thither. The idee wuz very agreeable to us.
He said his sister Isabelle, after she wuz a little recooperated from her grief for the old folks, and recovered a little from the sickness that she had after they left her, she too laid out to come on to Chicago, and spend a few weeks.
He wuz a-layin' out to reconoiter round and find a good place for her to board and take good care on her. He thought enough on her—yes, indeed.
But, as he said, she wuz jest struck right down seemin'ly with her grief at the loss of them two old folks.
You see, if your head has been a-restin' for some time on a piller, even if it is a piller of stun, when it is drawed out sudden from under you, your head jars down on the ground dretful heavy and hard.
And when you've been carryin' a burden for a long time, when it is took sudden from you you have a giddy feelin', you feel light and faint and wobblin'.
And then she loved 'em—she loved her poor old charges with a daughter's love and with all the love a mother gives to a helpless baby, with the pity added that gray hairs and toothless gums must amount to added up over the sum of dimples and ivory and coral that makes up a baby's beautiful helplessness.
And they wuz took from her dretful sudden. There wuz a sort of a influenza prevailin' up round their way, and lots of strong healthy folks suckumbed to it, and it struck onto these poor old feeble ones some like simiters, and mowed 'em right down.
The old lady wuz took down first, and her great anxiety wuz—"That Pa shouldn't know that she wuz so sick."
But before she died, "Pa" in another room wuz took with it, and passed away a day before she did.
She worried all that mornin' about "Pa," and—"How bad he would feel if he knew she wuz so sick!" But along late in the afternoon, when the Winter sun wuz makin' a pale reflection on the wall through the south winder, she looked up, and sez she—
"Why, there stands Pa right by my bed, and he wants me to git up and go with him. And, Isabelle, I must go."
And she did.
And Isabelle wuz left alone.
They wuz buried in one grave. And the funeral sermon, they say, wuz enough to melt a stun, if there had been any stuns round where they could hear it.
Isabelle didn't hear it (don't git the idee that I am a-wantin' to compare her to a stun; no, fur from it). She wuz a-layin' to home on a bed, with her sad eyes bent on nothin'ess and emptiness and utter desolation, so it seemed to her.
But after a time she begun to pick up a little, judgin' from her letters to her brother Krit. He had to leave her jest after the