Samantha at Saratoga | Page 6

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