Part 11 (1/2)
I knew she thought everything of that him, and thought mebby it would sort o' quiet her some since she rejected the paneky I spoke of. But her face at the very last looked white and riz up and luminous, and her eyes shone. I felt queer.
The next day wuz Sunday and Josiah and I went to the Tabernacle to meetin'. Faith havin' a headache didn't go. But before I go any furder I will back up the boat and moor it to the sh.o.r.e, while I tell you what the result wuz so fur as Mr. Pomper wuz concerned. At the breakfast table next mornin' he cast languis.h.i.+n' glances at Faith, and then looked round the room proudly as much as to say:
”Gentlemen and ladies, behold my choice, and I hain't sorry I chose her out of the throng of waitin' wimmen.”
But some time durin' that day he found out his mistake. I don't know exactly how Faith managed to pierce the rhinocerous hide of his self-conceit with the truth, but she did somehow let him know that his attentions wuz futile, futiler than he ever mistrusted his attentions could be.
But he wuzn't danted and down-casted more'n several minutes, I guess, for anon I see him walkin' with a woman almost as ponderous as he wuz, and as she wuz all janglin' with black jet and as humbly as humbly could be, I mistrusted that he had gone back to his allegiance to the widder, and I think he looked happier than I had ever seen him. He looked as if he wuz rejoiced that his temporary thraldom to sentiment wuz over, and common sense and practical gain wuz in the ascendancy agin. And though it hain't much matter, I will say I read his marriage in the paper the next week:
”Amaziah Pomper to Euphrasia, relict of Elnathan Fatt.”
But I d'no as Faith knew anything about it, for she didn't stay with us only a few days longer, she went on to visit her aunt Petrie and so on to the Ohio, makin' a solemn promise to me to stop and visit us on her way home the last of September. Well, I will now onhitch the boat and row back, and then let it sail on down the stream of history. As I said, the next day after that singular experience of Faith's wuz Sunday, and my pardner and I went to the Tabernacle. We wuz told that there wuz to be oncommon exercises that day owin' to the visit of a great Evangelist from the West. Lots of folks had come on the night boats so as to be there to hear him. For if the angel Gabriel wanted to preach there to lost sinners, he couldn't land there on Sunday unless he swum or come cross lots (that is, unless he flowed down).
The folks on that island are too good to let anyone come there to meetin' unless they come sarahuptishously. I asked a trustee once why it wuz wicked for folks to ride there to meetin'.
And he said, ”A merciful man is merciful to his beast.”
Sez I, ”A steamer hain't a beast, and if it wuz, it wouldn't tucker it out much to come over from the bay or Clayton.” And he said the sailors would have to toil to git 'em there.
”So the driver and the horses have to toil to git sinners to meetin'
on the main land,” sez I. And he said, ”The steamers would make noise and confusion, and disturb the sweet Sabbath calm.” I felt there wuz some truth in this, though it wouldn't make nigh so much noise as the thousands of church bells clangin' out church time in cities and villages.
Sez he, ”If we allowed boats to land here we should be overrun with excursionists who don't care for Sunday as a day of holy quiet and rest, and our peaceful Sabbath would be turned into a carnival of pleasure seekers, flirtations, giggles, brown paper parcels, egg sh.e.l.ls, cigar smoke and sandwiches.”
And I sez, ”Like as not that is so.” And I felt that mebby he wuz in the right on't. But some don't like it and feel that they'd ort to take the resk.
CHAPTER TEN
WE HEAR A GREAT TEMPERANCE SERMON, BUT JOSIAH STILL HANKERS FOR CONEY ISLAND
CHAPTER TEN
WE HEAR A GREAT TEMPERANCE SERMON, BUT JOSIAH STILL HANKERS FOR CONEY ISLAND
Ever since I had been to the Thousand Island Park, my mind had roamed onto that idee of the Tabernacle with a sort of or. It is a big impressive word and one calculated to impress a stranger and sojourner. And so when we made up our minds to attend to it I almost instinctively put on my best alpacky dress (London brown) and I also run a new ribbin into my braize veil and tied it round my bunnet so it would hang in graceful folds adown the left side of my frame, I also put on my black mitts and my mantilly with tabs; of course I carried my faithful umbrell.
I looked well. Faith had a bad headache, I guess the job of gittin'
that information into Mr. Pomper's head had tuckered her out, so I and my pardner sot off alone. All the way there my mind wuz real riz up thinkin' I wuz goin' to see sunthin' very grand lookin' and scriptural, and I said over and over to myself a number of times with deep respect and or, ”Tabernacle! Tabernacle!”
Yes, I felt some as if I wuz the Queen of Sheba and Josiah wuz Solomon, though I might have knowed, my pardner lacked the first ingregient in Solomon's nater, wisdom. And I probable wuzn't so dressy as Miss Sheba, 'tennyrate I hadn't no crown or septer, a brown straw bunnet and umbrell meetin' my wants better, but not nigh so dashy lookin'. But my feelin's all come from the name of the place we wuz bound for, and the patriarchical, Biblical past my mind wuz rovin'
round in. Yes, my mind wuz rousted up and runnin' on the trimmin's of the Ark and Temple. I thought like as not I should see purple curtains hung on s.h.i.+nin' poles, jest so many cubits long and high, and gorgeous carpets to walk on and ornaments and fringes and tossels.
I would not ask questions, but I wuz prepared for splendid lookin'
things and lots of 'em. Well, if you'll believe me there wuzn't a thing there that I expected to see, not a ornament or curtain or tossel, and nothin' but jest common ground to walk on like our suller bottom or dooryard. And long benches all through it as fur as the eye could reach almost.
The platform wuz big as most meetin' housen, but bare and plain, and there wuz what seemed to be sheets hung up round the hull concern, though rolled up so we could see out all round us. There wuz only one way it come up to my idees, and that wuz the cubits. I should think it wuz jest about as many cubits long and broad as anything ever wuz or ever will be. They say it will hold five thousand folks, and I should judge they wuz all there that mornin', and had brung their children and relations on both sides.