Samantha at Coney Island, and a Thousand Other Islands. Marietta Holley
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“The old deacon couldn’t stand such talk. He turned him outdoors, slammed the door in his face, and forbid Faith to speak to him again.” (See page 13)
15
Well, Faith lived on in the old home, very calm and sweet actin’, with a shadder on her pretty face, worryin’ dretful about her lover, so it wuz spozed. But at last it seemed to wear off and a clear white light took its place on her gentle forward, as if her trouble had bleached off the earthly in her nature so her white soul could show through plain. Mebby she’d got willin’ to trust even his future with the Lord.
Dretful good to children and sick folks and them that wuz in trouble, Faith wuz. Good to her Pa, who wuz very disagreable in his last days, findin’ fault with his porridge and with sinners, and most of them round him. But she took care on him patient, rubbed his back and soaked his feet, and read the Sams to him, and reconciled him all she could, and finally he went out into the Great Onknown to find out his own mistakes if he had made any, and left Faith alone.
The house wuz a big square one with a large front yard with some Pollard willers standin’ 16 in a row in front on’t, through which the wind come in melancholy sithes into the great front chamber at night where Faith slept, or ruther lay. And the moon fallin’ through the willers made mournful reflections on the clean-painted floor, and I spoze Faith looked at ’em and read her past in the white cold rays and her future too.
She hired a man and his wife to live in part of the house, and she herself lived on there, a life as cold and colorless as a nun’s. But there wuz them that said that she loved that young West to-day jest as well as she did the day they parted, bein’ one of the constant naters that can’t forgit; that she kep’ his birthdays every year, but sarahuptishously, and on the anniversary of the day she parted with him, nobody ever see her from mornin’ till night.
The tall Pollard willers wuz the only ones that could look down into her chamber, and see how she looked, or what she wuz doin’. And they never told, only jest murmured and sithed, and kinder took on about it in their own way. But the next day, Faith always looked paler and sweeter than ever, they said.
Well, I wuz glad enough to see Faith. I think a sight on her and she of me, and we had 17 a real good time. Josiah sez to me the day after she come, “She is the flower of your family!”
And I told him I didn’t know as I should put it in jest that way, and he might jest as well be mejum, sez I, “You’re quite apt to demean the relation on my side, and if you take it into your head to praise one of the females, you no need to go too high.”
“Well,” he repeated, “she is the flower of the Smith race. Of course,” sez he, glancin’ at my liniment and then off towards the buttery full of good vittles, “I always except you, Samantha, who I consider the fairest flower that ever blowed out on the family tree of Smith.”
Josiah is a man of excelent judgment. But to resoom backward, I had a dretful good visit with Faith and enjoyed her bein’ with us the best that ever wuz. Instead of makin’ work she helped, though I told her not to. She would wipe and I would wash, and we would git through the dishes in no time. She hunted round in my work basket and found some nightcaps I’d begun and would finish ’em, put more work on ’em than I should, for I slight my every day sheep’s-head nightcaps. But she trimmed ’em and cat-stitched ’em, till they wuz beautiful to look upon. She wuz always very sweet and 18 gentle in her ways. As wuz said of her once, she entered a room so quietly and gracefully, she made all the other wimmen there feel as if they’d come in on horse-back. Now that I hadn’t seen her for some time, it seemed as if I hadn’t remembered how lovely and interestin’ she wuz.
We had a good visit talkin’ about the world’s work, and reciprocity, and Woman’s suffrage—which we both believed in—and hens, both settin’ and layin’. And we talked about the relation on our two sides. Of course, some of the wimmen hadn’t done as we thought they ort to; but we didn’t run ’em, only wuz sorry they wuz so different.
There wuz Aunt Nancy John and Aunt Nancy Jim, widders of the two old Smith twins. I told Faith I wuz sorry they wuzn’t more like her mother and mine, our mothers wuz so much better dispositioned, and fur better lookin’, and didn’t try to color their hair and act younger than they wuz; and Uncle Preserved’s boy, a lawyer, I told Faith it wuz a pity he wuzn’t more like our Thomas Jefferson, though it wuzn’t to be expected that there could be two boys amongst the relations so nearly perfect as Thomas Jefferson wuz; but I didn’t act 19 hauty, only wuz sorry he hadn’t turned out so well.
And Uncle Lemuel’s two girls, I said I wouldn’t want it told out of the family, but they wuz extravagant and slack, and their houses didn’t look much like Tirzah Ann’s and Maggie’s house. But we hadn’t ort to expect many such housekeepers as our children wuz. And we talked about the Thousand Islands and she promised to go out with Josiah and me the next summer if nothin’ happened. And Josiah then and there, tried to make us promise to go to Coney Island on our way there. “On our way,” sez I, “it would be five hundred milds out of our way!”
“And well worth it!” sez he, “to see what Serenus see, and hear what Serenus hearn. Why I git so carried away jest hearin’ about that magnificent spot that I have to fairly hang onto myself to keep from startin’ there to once bareheaded.”
“I know it, Josiah; you’ve acted luny about it. And if jest hearin’ about it harrers your nerve so, what would seein’ it do?”
“My nerve ain’t harrered,” he sez.
Sez I, “Can you deny I have had to give you quarts of catnip after you have had a seancy 20 with Serenus about that frivolous spot, full of hilarity and temptation?”
“Because you have drownded out my insides with catnip, it hain’t no sign I needed it. And I tell you, Samantha Allen, you may demean that grand glorious place all you’re a minter; I shall see it ere long. It is the shinin’ gole I have rared up in front of me and I’m bound to set on it.”
Sez I, “If you hain’t got any nobler gole than that ahead on you I pity you from the bottom of my heart.” And to kinder skair him I sez agin, “Do you, a Christian deacon, want to act frisky and go pleasure-huntin’ at your age?”
“Why,” sez he, “Serenus sez it is the most entrancin’ly beautiful and fascinatin’ spot on earth. He sez, and can prove, it is the biggest playground in the hull world, to say nothin’ of what you can learn there, and folks come from foreign countries jest to see it. Their first question when they land is, ‘Where is Coney Island? Lead me to it!’ ”
“Oh shaw!” sez I.
“Well, it is so, and why should such droves of folks go there if it hain’t worth it? Serenus sez and can prove, that a million folks go there in one day sometimes, and hundreds of thousands most every day.” 21
Sez I solemnly, “Do you remember the him, ‘Broad is the road that leads,’ you know where. ‘And thousands walk together there.’ Do you want to walk with ’em, Josiah?”
“Yes, I do, and lay out to.”
Oh how deep the pizen had gone into his solar system! I see scarin’ didn’t do no good, so I tried tender talk to wean him from the idee. I told him I thought too much on him to resk him there in such crowds. He wuz too small boneded and his head too weak to grapple with the lures and temptations that would surround him, and I’d never give my consent to his goin,’ much less lead him into temptation.
“Lead your granny!” sez he in a rough axent. And that wuz all the good my lovin’ talk did.
Faith said she didn’t care about goin’. But we took her to visit the children, though the day I took her to Whitfield’s he had of course, jest like Josiah, to ride that hobby of hisen which raced and cavorted round us, till before night he got us both most as wild as he wuz about the Islands. But she had to go from our house to Uncle Ornaldo Smithses, and had promised