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Samantha at Saratoga

M >> Marietta Holley >> Samantha at Saratoga



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SAMANTHA AT SARATOGA BY JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE
(Marietta Holly)



Dedication:

TO THE GREAT ARMY OF
SUMMER TRAMPS
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
BY THEIR COMRADE AND FELLOW WANDERER
THE AUTHOR




CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. SAMANTHA AT SARATOGA

CHAPTER II. ARDELIA TUTT AND HER MOTHER

CHAPTER III. THE CHERITY OF THE JONESVILLIANS

CHAPTER IV. ARDELIA AND ABRAM GEE

CHAPTER V. WE ARRIVE AT SARATOGA

CHAPTER VI. SARATOGA BY DAYLIGHT

CHAPTER VII. SEEING THE DIFFERENT SPRINGS

CHAPTER VIII. JOSIAH AND SAMANTHA TAKE A LONG WALK

CHAPTER IX. JOSIAH'S FLIRTATIONS

CHAPTER X. MISS G. WASHINGTON FLAMM

CHAPTER XI. VISIT TO THE INDIAN ENCAMPMENT

CHAPTER XII. A DRIVE TO SARATOGA LAKE

CHAPTER XIII. VISITS TO NOTABLE PLACES

CHAPTER XIV. LAKE GEORGE AND MOUNT McGREGOR

CHAPTER XV. ADVENTURES AT VARIOUS SPRINGS

CHAPTER XVI. AT A LAWN PARTY

CHAPTER XVII. A TRIP TO SCHUYLERVILLE

CHAPTER XVIII. THE SOCIAL SCIENCE MEETING

CHAPTER XIX. ST. CHRISTINA'S HOME

CHAPTER XX. AN ACCIDENT WITH RESULTS




A SORT OF PREFACE.

WHICH IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO READ.

When Josiah read my dedication he said "it wuz a shame to dedicate
a book that it had took most a hull bottle of ink to write, to a
lot of creeters that he wouldn't have in the back door yard."

But I explained it to him, that I didn't mean tramps with broken
hats, variegated pantaloons, ventilated shirt-sleeves, and
barefooted. But I meant tramps with diamond ear-rings, and
cuff-buttons, and Saratoga trunks, and big accounts at their
bankers.

And he said, "Oh, shaw!"

But I went on nobly, onmindful of that shaw, as female pardners
have to be, if they accomplish all the talkin' they want to.

And sez I, "It duz seem sort o' pitiful, don't it, to think how
sort o' homeless the Americans are a gettin'? How the posys that
blow under the winders of Home are left to waste their sweet
breaths amongst the weeds, while them that used to love 'em are a
climbin' mountain tops after strange nosegays."

The smoke that curled up from the chimbleys, a wreathin' its way
up to the heavens -- all dead and gone. The bright light that
shone out of the winder through the dark a tellin' everybody that
there wuz a Home, and some one a waitin' for somebody -- all dark
and lonesome.

Yes, the waiter and the waited for are all a rushin' round
somewhere, on the cars, mebby, or a yot, a chasin' Pleasure, that
like as not settled right down on the eves of the old house they
left, and stayed there.

I wonder if they will find her there when they go back again.
Mebby they will, and then agin, mebby they won't. For Happiness
haint one to set round and lame herself a waitin' for folks to
make up their minds.

Sometimes she looks folks full in the face, sort o' solemn like
and heart-searchin', and gives 'em a fair chance what they will
chuse. And then if they chuse wrong, shee'll turn her back to
'em, for always. I've hearn of jest such cases.

But it duz seem sort o' solemn to think -- how the sweet restful
felin's that clings like ivy round the old familier door steps --
where old 4 fathers feet stopped, and stayed there, and baby feet
touched and then went away -- I declare for't, it almost brings
tears, to think how that sweet clingin' vine of affection, and
domestic repose, and content -- how soon that vine gets tore up
nowadays.

It is a sort of a runnin' vine anyway, and folks use it as sech,
they run with it. Jest as it puts its tendrils out to cling round
some fence post, or lilock bush, they pull it up, and start off
with it. And then its roots get dry, and it is some time before
it will begin to put out little shoots and clingin' leaves agin
round some petickular mountain top, or bureau or human bein'. And
then it is yanked up agin, poor little runnin' vine, and run with
-- and so on -- and so on -- and so on.

Why sometimes it makes me fairly heart-sick to think on't. And I
fairly envy our old 4 fathers, who used to set down for several
hundred years in one spot. They used to get real rested, it must
be they did.

Jacob now, settin' right by that well of his'n for pretty nigh two
hundred years. How much store he must have set by it during the
last hundred years of 'em! How attached he must have been to it!

Good land! Where is there a well that one of our rich old
American patriarks will set down by for two years, leavin' off the
orts. There haint none, there haint no such a well. Our
patriarks haint fond of well water, anyway.

And old Miss Abraham now, and Miss Isaac -- what stay to home
wimmen they wuz, and equinomical!

What a good contented creeter Sarah Abraham wuz. How settled
down, and stiddy, stayin' right to home for hundreds of years.
Not gettin' rampent for a wider spear, not a coaxin' old Mr.
Abraham nights to take her to summer resorts, and winter hants of
fashion.

No, old Mr. Abraham went to bed, and went to sleep for all of her.

And when they did once in a hundred years, or so, make up their
minds to move on a mile or so, how easy they traveled. Mr.
Abraham didn't have to lug off ten or twelve wagon loads of
furniture to the Safe Deposit Company, and spend weeks and weeks a
settlin' his bisness, in Western lands, and Northern mines,
Southern railroads, and Eastern wildcat stocks, to get ready to
go. And Miss Abraham didn't have to have a dozen dress-makers in
the house for a month or two, and messenger boys, and dry goods
clerks, and have to stand and be fitted for basks and polenays,
and back drapery, and front drapery, and tea gowns, and dinner
gowns, and drivin' gowns, and mornin' gowns, and evenin' gowns,
and etectery, etcetery, etcetery.

No, all the preperations she had to make wuz to wrop her mantilly
a little closter round her, and all Mr. Abraham had to do wuz to
gird up his lions. That is what it sez. And I don't believe it
would take much time to gird up a few lions, it don't seem to me
as if it would.

And when these few simple preperations had been made, they jest
histed up their tent and laid it acrost a camel, and moved on a
mild or two, walkin' afoot.

Why jest imagine if Miss Abraham had to travel with eight or ten
big Saratoga trunks, how could they have been got up onto that
camel? It couldn't lave been done. The camel would have died,
and old Mr. Abraham would also have expired a tryin' to lift 'em
up. No, it was all for the best.

And jest think on't, for all of these simple, stay to home ways,
they called themselves Pilgrims and Sojourners. Good land! What
would they have thought nowadays to see folks make nothin' of
settin' off for China, or Japan or Jerusalem before breakfast.

And what did they know of the hardships of civilization? Now to
sposen the case, sposen Miss Abraham had to live in New York
winters, and go to two or three big receptions every day, and to
dinner parties, and theatre parties, and operas and such like,
evenin's, and receive and return about three thousand calls, and
be on more 'n a dozen charitable boards (hard boards they be too,
some on 'em) and lots of other projects and enterprizes -- be on
the go the hull winter, with a dress so tight she couldn't breathe
instead of her good loose robes, and instead of her good
comfortable sandals have her feet upon high-heeled shoes pinchin'
her corns almost unto distraction. And then to Washington to go
all through it agin, and more too, and Florida, and Cuba; and then
to the sea-shore and have it all over agin with sea bathin' added.

And then to the mountains, and all over agin with climbin' round
added. Then to Europe, with seas sickness, picture galleries,
etc., added. And so on home agin in the fall to begin it all over
agin.

Why Miss Abraham would be so tuckered out before she went half
through with one season, that she would be a dead 4 mother.

And Mr. Abraham -- why one half hour down at the stock exchange
would have been too much for that good old creeter. The yells and
cries, and distracted movements of the crowd of Luker Gatherers
there, would have skairt him to death. He never would have lived
to follow Miss Abraham round from pillow to post through summer
and winter seasons -- he wouldn't have lived to waltz, or
toboggen, or suffer other civilized agonies. No, he would have
been a dead patriark. And better off so, I almost think.

Not but what I realize that civilization has its advantages. Not
but what I know that if Mr. Abraham wanted Miss Abraham to part
his hair straight, or clean off his phylackrity when she happened
to be out a pickin' up manny, he couldn't stand on one side of his
tent and telephone to bring her back, but had to yell at her.

And I realize fully that if one of his herd got strayed off into
another county, they hadn't no telegraf to head it off, but the
old man had to poke off through rain or sun, and hunt it up
himself. And he couldn't set down cross-legged in front of his
tent in the mornin', and read what happened on the other side of
the world, the evenin' before.

And I know that if he wanted to set down some news, they had to
kill a sheep, and spend several years a dressin' off the hide into
parchment -- and kill a goose, or chase it up till they wuz beat
out, for a goose-quill.

And then after about 20 years or so, they could put it down that
Miss Isaac had got a boy -- the boy, probably bein' a married man
himself and a father when the news of his birth wuz set down.

I realize this, and also the great fundimental fact that underlies
all philosophies, that you can't set down and stand up at the same
time -- and that no man, however pure and lofty his motives may
be, can't lean up against a barn door, and walk off simultanious.
And if he don't walk off, then the great question comes in, How
will he get there? And he feels lots of times that he must stand
up so's to bring his head up above the mullien and burdock stalks,
amongst which he is a settin', and get a wider view-a broader
horizeon. And he feels lots of time, that he must get there.

This is a sort of a curius world, and it makes me feel curius a
good deal of the time as we go through it. But we have to make
allowances for it, for the old world is on a tramp, too. It can't
seem to stop a minute to oil up its old axeltrys -- it moves on,
and takes us with it. It seems to be in a hurry.

Everything seems to be in a hurry here below. And some say Heaven
is a place of continual sailin' round and goin' up and up all the
time. But while risin' up and soarin' is a sweet thought to me,
still sometimes I love to think that Heaven is a place where I can
set down, and set for some time.

I told Josiah so (waked him up, for he wuz asleep), and he said he
sot more store on the golden streets, and the wavin' palms, and
the procession of angels. (And then he went to sleep agin.)

But I don't feel so. I'd love, as I say, to jest set down for
quite a spell, and set there, to be kinder settled down and to
home with them whose presence makes a home anywhere. I wouldn't
give a cent to sail round unless I wuz made to know it wuz my duty
to sail. Josiah wants to.

But, as I say, everybody is in a hurry. Husbands can't hardly
find time to keep up a acquaintance with their wives. Fathers
don't have no time to get up a intimate acquaintance with their
children. Mothers are in such a hurry -- babys are in such a
hurry -- that they can't scarcely find time to be born. And I
declare for't, it seems sometimes as if folks don't want to take
time to die.

The old folks at home wait with faithful, tired old eyes for the
letter that don't come, for the busy son or daughter hasn't time
to write it -- no, they are too busy a tearin' up the running vine
of affection and home love, and a runnin' with it.

Yes, the hull nation is in a hurry to get somewhere else, to go
on, it can't wait. It is a trampin' on over the Western slopes, a
trampin' over red men, and black men, and some white men a
hurryin' on to the West -- hurryin' on to the sea. And what then?

Is there a tide of restfulness a layin' before it? Some cool
waters of repose where it will bathe its tired forward, and its
stun-bruised feet, and set there for some time?

I don't s'pose so. I don't s'pose it is in its nater to. I
s'pose it will look off longingly onto the far off somewhere that
lays over the waters -- beyend the sunset.


JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE.
NEW YORK, June, 1887.




I.

SAMANTHA AT SARATOGA.


The idee on't come to me one day about sundown, or a little before
sundown. I wuz a settin' in calm peace, and a big rockin' chair
covered with a handsome copperplate, a readin' what the Sammist
sez about "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity." The words struck deep,
and as I said, it was jest that very minute that the idee struck
me about goin' to Saratoga. Why I should have had the idee at
jest that minute, I can't tell, nor Josiah can't. We have talked
about it sense.

But good land! such creeters as thoughts be never wuz, nor never
will be. They will creep in, and round, and over anything, and
get inside of your mind (entirely unbeknown to you) at any time.
Curious, haint it? -- How you may try to hedge 'em out, and shet
the doors and everything. But they will creep up into your mind,
climb up and draw up their ladders, and there they will be, and
stalk round independent as if they owned your hull head; curious!

Well, there the idee wuz -- I never knew nothin' about it, nor how
it got there. But there it wuz, lookin' me right in the face of
my soul, kinder pert and saucy, sayin', "You'd better go to
Saratoga next summer; you and Josiah."

But I argued with it. Sez I, "What should we go to Saratoga for?
None of the relations live there on my side, or on hison; why
should we go?"

But still that idee kep' a hantin me; "You'd better go to Saratoga
next summer, you and Josiah." And it whispered, "Mebby it will
help Josiah's corns." (He is dretful troubled with corns.) And
so the idee kep' a naggin' me, it nagged me for three days and
three nights before I mentioned it to my Josiah. And when I did,
he scorfed at the idee. He said, "The idee of water curing them
dumb corns -- "

Sez I, "Josiah Allen, stranger things have been done;" sez I,
"that water is very strong. It does wonders."

And he scorfed agin and sez, "Don't you believe faith could cure
em?"

Sez I, "If it wuz strong enough it could."

But the thought kep a naggin' me stiddy, and then -- here is the
curious part of it -- the thought nagged me, and I nagged Josiah,
or not exactly nagged; not a clear nag; I despise them, and always
did. But I kinder kep' it before his mind from day to day, and
from hour to hour. And the idee would keep a tellin' me things
and I would keep a tellin' 'em to my companion. The idee would
keep a sayin' to me, "It is one of the most beautiful places in
our native land. The waters will help you, the inspirin' music,
and elegance and gay enjoyment you will find there, will sort a
uplift you. You had better go there on a tower;" and agin it sez,
"Mebby it will help Josiah's corns."

And old Dr. Gale a happenin' in at about that time, I asked him
about it (he doctored me when I wuz a baby, and I have helped 'em
for years. Good old creetur, he don't get along as well as he ort
to. Loontown is a healthy place.) I told him about my strong
desire to go to Saratoga, and I asked him plain if he thought the
water would help my pardner's corns. And he looked dreadful wise
and he riz up and walked across the floor 2 and fro several times,
probably 3 times to, and the same number of times fro, with his
arms crossed back under the skirt of his coat and his eyebrows
knit in deep thought, before he answered me. Finely he said, that
modern science had not fully demonstrated yet the direct bearing
of water on corn. In some cases it might and probably did
stimulate 'em to greater luxuriance, and then again a great flow
of water might retard their growth.

Sez I, anxiously, "Then you'd advise me to go there with him?"

"Yes," sez he, "on the hull, I advise you to go."

Them words I reported to Josiah, and sez I in anxious axents, "Dr.
Gale advises us to go."

And Josiah sez, "I guess I shan't mind what that old fool sez."

Them wuz my pardner's words, much as I hate to tell on 'em. But
from day to day I kep' it stiddy before him, how dang'r'us it wuz
to go ag'inst a doctor's advice. And from day to day he would
scorf at the plan. And I, ev'ry now and then, and mebby oftener,
would get him a extra good meal, and attack him on the subject
immegatly afterwards. But all in vain. And I see that when he
had that immovible sotness onto him, one extra meal wouldn't
soften or molify him. No, I see plain I must make a more voyalent
effort. And I made it. For three stiddy days I put before that
man the best vittles that these hands could make, or this brain
could plan.

And at the end of the 3d day I gently tackled him agin on the
subject, and his state wuz such, bland, serene, happified, that he
consented without a parlay. And so it wuz settled that the next
summer we wuz to go to Saratoga. And he began to count on it and
make preparation in a way that I hated to see.

Yes, from the very minute that our two minds wuz made up to go to
Saratoga Josiah Allen wuz set on havin' sunthin new and uneek in
the way of dress and whiskers. I looked coldly on the idee of
puttin' a gay stripe down the legs of the new pantaloons I made
for him, and broke it up, also a figured vest. I went through
them two crisises and came out triumphent.

Then he went and bought a new bright pink necktie with broad long
ends which he intended to have float out, down the front of his
vest. And I immegatly took it for the light-colored blocks in my
silk log-cabin bedquilt. Yes, I settled the matter of that pink
neck-gear with a high hand and a pair of shears. And Josiah sez
now that he bought it for that purpose, for the bedquilt, because
he loves to see a dressy quilt, -- sez he always enjoys seein' a
cabin look sort o' gay. But good land! he didn't. He intended
and calculated to wear that neck-tie into Saratoga, -- a sight for
men and angels, if I hadn't broke it up.

But in the matter of whiskers, there I was powerless. He trimmed
'em (unbeknow to me) all off the side of his face, them good
honerable side whiskers of hisen, that had stood by him for years
in solemnity and decency, and begun to cultivate a little patch on
the end of his chin. I argued with him, and talked well on the
subject, eloquent, but it wuz of no use, I might as well have
argued with the wind in March.

He said, he wuz bound on goin' into Saratoga with a fashionable
whisker, come what would.

And then I sithed, and he sez, -- " You have broke up my pantaloons,
my vest, and my neck-tie, you have ground me down onto plain
broadcloth, but in the matter of whiskers I am firm! Yes!" sez he
"on these whiskers I take my stand!"

And agin I sithed heavy, and I sez in a dretful impressive way, as
I looked on 'em, "Josiah Allen, remember you are a father and a
grandfather!"

And he sez firmly, "If I wuz a great-grandfather I would trim my
whiskers in jest this way, that is if I wuz a goin' to set up to
be fashionable and a goin' to Saratoga for my health."

And I groaned kinder low to myself, and kep' hopin' that mebby
they wouldn't grow very fast, or that some axident would happen to
'em, that they would get afire or sunthin'. But they didn't. And
they grew from day to day luxurient in length, but thin. And his
watchful care kep' 'em from axident, and I wuz too high princepled
to set fire to 'em when he wuz asleep, though sometimes, on a
moonlight night, I was tempted to, sorely tempted.

But I didn't, and they grew from day to day, till they wuz the
curiusest lookin' patch o' whiskers that I ever see. And when we
sot out for Saratoga, they wuz jest about as long as a shavin'
brush, and looked some like one. There wuz no look of a
class-leader, and a perfesser about 'em, and I told him so. But
he worshiped 'em, and gloried in the idee of goin' afar to show
'em off.

But the neighbors received the news that we wuz goin' to a
waterin' place coldly, or with ill-concealed envy.

Uncle Jonas Bently told us he shouldn't think we would want to go
round to waterin' troughs at our age.

And I told him it wuzn't a waterin' trough, and if it wuz, I
thought our age wuz jest as good a one as any, to go to it.

He had the impression that Saratoga wuz a immense waterin' trough
where the country all drove themselves summers to be watered. He
is deef as a Hemlock post, and I yelled up at him jest as loud as
I dast for fear of breakin' open my own chest, that the water got
into us, instid of our gettin' into the water, but I didn't make
him understand, for I hearn afterwards of his sayin' that, as nigh
as he could make out we all got into the waterin' trough and wuz
watered.

The school teacher, a young man, with long, small lims, and some
pimpley on the face, but well meanin', he sez to me: "Saratoga is
a beautiful spah."

And I sez warmly, "It aint no such thing, it is a village, for I
have seen a peddler who went right through it, and watered his
horses there, and he sez it is a waterin' place, and a village."

"Yes," sez he, "it is a beautiful village, a modest retiren city,
and at the same time it is the most noted spah on this continent."

I wouldn't contend with him for it wuz on the stoop of the meetin'
house, and I believe in bein' reverent. But I knew it wuzn't no
"spah," -- that had a dreadful flat sound to me. And any way I
knew I should face its realities soon and know all about it. Lots
of wimen said that for anybody who lived right on the side of a
canal, and had two good, cisterns on the place, and a well, they
didn't see why I should feel in a sufferin' condition for any more
water; and if I did, why didn't I ketch rain water?

Such wuz some of the deep arguments they brung up aginst my
embarkin' on this enterprise, they talked about it sights and
sights; -- why, it lasted the neighbors for a stiddy conversation,
till along about the middle of the winter. Then the Minister's
wife bought a new alpacky dress -- unbeknown to the church till it
wuz made up -- and that kind o' drawed their minds off o' me for a
spell.

Aunt Polly Pixley wuz the only one who received the intelligence
gladly. And she thought she would go too. She had been kinder
run down and most bed rid for years. And she had a idee the water
might help her. And I encouraged Aunt Polly in the idee, for she
wuz well off. Yes, Mr. and Miss Pixley wuz very well off though
they lived in a little mite of a dark, low, lonesome house, with
some tall Pollard willows in front of the door in a row, and jest
acrost the road from a grave-yard.

Her husband had been close and wuzn't willin' to have any other
luxury or means of recreation in the house only a bass viol, that
had been his father's -- he used to play on that for hours and
hours. I thought that wuz one reason why Polly wuz so nervous. I
said to Josiah that it would have killed me outright to have that
low grumblin' a goin' on from day to day, and to look at them tall
lonesome willows and grave stuns.

But, howsumever, Polly's husband had died durin' the summer, and
Polly parted with the bass viol the day after the funeral. She
got out some now, and wuz quite wrought up with the idee of goin'
to Saratoga.

But Sister Minkley; sister in the church and sister-in-law by
reason of Wbitefield, sez to me, that she should think I would
think twice before I danced and waltzed round waltzes.

And I sez, "I haint thought of doin' it, I haint thought of
dancin' round or square or any other shape."

Sez she, "You have got to, if you go to Saratoga."

Sez I, "Not while life remains in this frame."

And old Miss Bobbet came up that minute -- it wuz in the store
that we were a talkin' -- and sez she, "It seems to me, Josiah
Allen's wife, that you are too old to wear low-necked dresses and
short sleeves."

"And I should think you'd take cold a goin' bareheaded," sez Miss
Luman Spink who wuz with her.

Sez I, lookin' at 'em coldly, "Are you lunys or has softness begun
on your brains?"

"Why," sez they, "you are talking about goin' to Saratoga, hain't
you?"

"Yes," sez I.

"Well then you have got to wear 'em," says Miss Bobbet. "They
don't let anybody inside of the incorporation without they have
got on a low-necked dress and short sleeves."

"And bare-headed," sez Miss Spink; "if they have' got a thing on
their heads they won't let 'em in."

Sez I, "I don't believe it"

Sez Miss Bobbet, "It is so, for I hearn it, and hearn it straight.
James Robbets's wife's sister had a second cousin who lived
neighbor to a woman whose niece had been there, been right there
on the spot. And Celestine Bobbet, Uncle Ephraim's Celestine,
hearn it from James'es wife when she wuz up there last spring, it
come straight. They all have to go in low necks."

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