Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition

Samantha at the St. Louis
Exposition, by

Marietta Holley
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Title: Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition
Author: Marietta Holley
Release Date: May 19, 2004 [eBook #12386]
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA
AT THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION***
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SAMANTHA AT THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION
BY
JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE (MARIETTA HOLLEY)
ILLUSTRATIONS BY CH. GRUNWALD
1904

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
[Transcriber's note: These are the captioned halftone illustrations.
There are several other uncaptioned line drawings.]
He showed 'em in a careless way as much as fifteen dollars in cash
Josiah's good nater returnin' with every mouthful he took
It is the big crowd that is surgin' through the Pike to and fro, fro and to
"I hain't Theodore. I'm President of a Gas Company."

She laid her pretty head in my lap, sobbin' out, "What shall I do? What
shall I do?"
Good land! I couldn't sort 'em out and describe them that passed by in
an hour. Frontispiece

SAMANTHA AT THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION

CHAPTER I.
I had noticed for some time that Josiah Allen had acted queer. He
would seem lost in thought anon or oftener, and then seemin'ly roust
himself up and try to act natural.
And anon he would drag his old tin chest out from under the back
stairway and pour over musty old deeds and papers, drawed up by his
great-grandpa mebby.
He did this last act so often that I said to him one day, "What under the
sun do you find in them yeller old papers to attract you so, Josiah?"
But he looked queer at me, queer as a dog, as if he wuz lookin' through
me to some distant view that interested him dretfully, and answered
evasive, and mebby he wouldn't answer at all.
And then I'd see him and Uncle Sime Bentley, his particular chum, with
their heads clost together, seemin'ly plottin' sunthin' or ruther, though
what it wuz I couldn't imagine.
And then they would bend their heads eagerly over the daily papers,
and more'n once Josiah got down our old Olney's Atlas and he and
Uncle Sime would pour over it and whisper, though what it wuz about I
couldn't imagine. And if I'd had the curosity of some wimmen it would
drove me into a caniption fit.
And more'n a dozen times I see him and Uncle Sime down by the back
paster on the creek pacin' to and fro as if they wuz measurin' land. And
most of all they seemed to be measurin' off solemn like and important

the lane from the creek lot up to the house and takin' measurements, as
queer lookin' sights as I ever see, and then they would consult the
papers and atlas agin, and whisper and act.
And about this time he begun to talk to me about the St. Louis
Exposition. He opened the subject one day by remarkin' that he spozed
I had never hearn of the Louisana Purchase. He said that the minds of
females in their leisure hours bein' took up by more frivolous things,
such as tattin' and crazy bed-quilts, he spozed that I, bein' a female
woman, had never hearn on't.
And my mind bein' at that time took up in startin' the seams in a blue
and white sock I wuz knittin' for him, didn't reply, and he went on and
talked and talked about it.
But good land! I knowed all about the Louisana Purchase; I knowed it
come into our hands in 1803, that immense tract of land, settlin' forever
in our favor the war for supremacy on this continent between ourselves
and England, and givin' us the broad highway of the Mississippi to sail
to and fro on which had been denied us, besides the enormous future
increase in our wealth and population.
I knowed that between 1700 and 1800 this tract wuz tossted back and
forth between France and Spain and England some as if it wuz a
immense atlas containing pictured earth and sea instead of the real land
and water.
It passed backwards and forwards through the century till 1803 when it
bein' at the time in the hands of France, we bought it of Napoleon
Bonaparte who had got possession of it a few years before, and Heaven
only knows what ambitious dreams of foundin' a new empire in a new
France filled that powerful brain, under that queer three-cornered hat of
hisen when he