Samantha at the Worlds Fair | Page 4

not over four feet.)
But Mother held to her own opinion, and so did a good many of the
relations, mostly females. It wuz talked over quite a good deal amongst
the Smiths. The wimmen all blamed Tryphenia more or less. The men

mostly approved of savin' the sugar.
But good land! how I am eppisodin', and to resoom and go on.
As I say, it wuz jest after this that Uncle Ezra's folks moved up to
Maine, Christopher Columbus bein' still onborn for years and years.
But bein' born in due time, or ruther as I may say out of due time, for
Uncle Ezra and Aunt Tryphenia had been married over twenty years
before they had a child, and then they branched out and had two, and
then stopped--
But bein' born at last and growin' up to be a good-lookin' young man
and well-to-do in the world, he come out to Jonesville on business and
also to foller up the ties of relationship that wuz stretched out acrost hill
and dale clear from Maine to Jonesville.
Strange ties, hain't they? that are so little that they are invisible to the
naked eye, or spectacles, or the keenest microscope, and yet are so
strong and lastin' that the strongest sledge-hammer can't break 'em or
even make a dent into 'em.
And old Time himself, that crumbles stun work and mountains, can't
seem to make any impression on 'em. Curious, hain't it?
But to leave moralizin' and to resoom, it was on Friday, P.M., that he
arrove at our home.
I see a good-lookin' young chap a-comin' up the path from the front
gate with my Josiah, and I hastily but firmly turned my apron the other
side out--I had been windin' some blue yarn that day for some socks for
my Josiah, and had colored it a little--it wuz a white apron--and then I
waited middlin' serene till he come in with him.
And lo! and behold! Josiah introduced him as Christopher Columbus
Allen, my own cousin on my own side, and also on hisen.
He wuz a very good-lookin' chap, some older than Thomas Jefferson,

and I do declare if he didn't look some like him, which wouldn't be
nothin' aginst the law, or aginst reason, bein' that they wuz related to
each other.
I wuz glad enough to see him, and I inquired after the relations with
considerable interest, and some affection (not such an awful sight,
never havin' seen 'em much, but a little, jest about enough).
And then I learnt with some sadness that his father and mother had
passed away not long before that, and that his sister Isabelle wuz not
over well.
And there wuz another coincerdence that struck aginst me almost hard
enough to knock me down.
Isabelle! jest think on't, when my mind wuz on a perfect strain about
Isabelle Casteel.
Columbus and Isabelle!--the idee!
Why, my reason almost tottered on its throne under my recent best
head-dress, when I hearn him speak the name. Christopher Columbus a
tellin' me about Isabelle--
I declare I wuz that wrought up that I expected every minute to hear
him tell me somethin' about Ferdinand; but I do believe that I should
have broke down under that.
But it wuz all explained out to me afterwards by another relation that
come onto us onexpected shortly afterwards.
It seemed that Uncle Ezra and Aunt Tryphenia, after they went to
Maine, moved into a sort of a new place, where it wuz dretful
lonesome.
They lost every book they had, owin' to a axident on their journey, and
the only book their nighest neighbor had wuz the life of Queen Isabelle.
[Illustration: They lost every book they had, owin' to a axident on their

journey.]
And so Aunt Tryphenia for years wuz, as you may say, jest saturated
with that book. And she named her two children, born durin' that time
of saturation, Christopher Columbus and Isabelle. And I presoom if she
had had another, she would have named it King Ferdinand. Though I
hain't sure of this--you can't be postive certain of any such thing as this.
Besides it might have been born a girl onbeknown to her.
But I know that she never washed them children with anything but
Casteel soap, and she talked sights and sights about Spain and things.
So I hearn from Uncle Jered Smith, who visited them while he wuz up
on a tower through Maine, a-sellin' balsam of pine for the lungs.
Wall, Isabelle had a sort of a runnin' down, so Krit said. He begged us
to call him that--said that all his mates at school called him so. He had
been educated quite high. Had been to deestrick school sights, and then
to a 'Cademy and College. He had