But anon, or about that time, he spoke out in pitiful axents—
"Samantha, if I can't show off any at the Equinomical Counsel, I'd love to see them male law-makers a-settin' in the Capitol at Washington, D.C. I'd love to mingle with 'em, Samantha. You know, and I know, too, that I am one of 'em. Wuzn't I chose arbitrator in Seth Meezik's quarrel with his father-in-law? Hain't I sot on juries in the past, and hain't I liable to set?
"I want to see them male law-makers, Samantha. I want to be intimate with 'em."
I almost trembled. I can withstand my pardner's angry or excited moods, but here I see pleadin' and longin'; I see I had a hard job in front of me. I hate to dissapint him. I hate to, like a dog. But duty nerved me, and I sez—
"Josiah, less talk it over before you decide to go. Less bring up some of the laws them males have made, or allow to go on.
"I want to talk to you about 'em, Josiah," sez I, "before I let you depart to be intimate with 'em." Sez I, "Do you remember the old adage, a dog is known by the company he keeps? Before you go to be one of them dogs, Josiah Allen, and be known as one of 'em, less recall some of the lawful incidents of a few months back." Sez I, "We won't raise our skirts and wade back into history to any great depth, and hove out a large quantity of 'em, but will keep in the shaller water of a few short fleetin' months, and pick up one or two of the innumerable number of 'em; and then, if you want to go, why—" sez I, in the tremblin' axents of fond affection—"why, I will pack your saddle-bags."
Then I went on calmly and brung up a few laws and laid 'em down before him.
I brung up the Indians doin's, the Mormons, the Chinese, all on 'em flagrant.
But still he had that longin' look on his face.
Then I brung up the rotten political doin's, the unjust laws prevailin' in regard to female wimmen, and also the onrighteousness of the liquor laws and the abomination of the license question; I talked powerful and eloquent on them awful themes, but as I paused a minute for needed breath, he murmured—
"I want to be intimate with 'em, Samantha."
And then, bein' almost at my wits' end, I dropped the general miscellaneous way I had used, and begun to bring up little separate instances of the injustices of the Law. And I see he begun to be impressed.
How true it is that, from the Bible down to Josiah Allen's Wife, you have to talk in stories in order to impress the masses! You have to hold up the hammer of a personal incident to drive home the nail of Truth and have it clench and hold fast.
But mine wuz some different—mine wuz facts, every one of 'em.
I could have brung them to that man and laid 'em down in front of him from that time, almost half past ten a.m., and kep stiddy at it till ten p.m., and then not know that I had took any from the heap, so high and lofty is the stack of injustices and wrongs committed in the name of the Law and shielded by its mantilly.
But I had only brung up two, jest two of 'em; not the most flagrant ones either, but the first ones that come into my mind, jest as it is when you go to a pile of potatoes to git some for dinner, you take the first ones you come to, knowin' there is fur bigger ones in the pile.
But them potatoes smashed up with cream and butter are jest as satisfyin' as if they wuz bigger.
So these little truthful incidents laid down in front of my pardner convinced him; so they wuz jest as good for me to use as if I had picked out bigger and more flagranter ones.
I first brung up before him the case of the good little Christian school-teacher who had toiled for years at her hard work and laid up a little money, and finally married a sick young feller more'n half out of pity, for he hadn't a cent of money, and had the consumption, and took good care of him till he died.
And wantin' to humor him, she let him make his will, though he didn't so much as own the sheet of paper he wrote on, or the ink or the pen.
And after his death she found he had willed away their onborn child, and when it wuz a few months old, and her love had sent out its strong shoots, and wropped the little life completely round, his brother she had never seen come on from his distant home and took that baby right out of its mother's arms, and bore it off, accordin' to law.
I looked curiously at him as I concluded this true tale, but he murmured almost mechanically—
"I want to mingle with 'em, Samantha; I feel that I want to be intimate with 'em."
But his axent wuz weak, weak as a cat, and I felt that my efforts wuz not bein' throwed away. So I hurriedly laid holt of another true incident that I thought on, and hauled it up in front of him.
"Think of the case of the pretty Chinese girl of twelve years—jest the age of our Tirzah Ann, when you used to be a-holdin' her on your knee, and learnin' her the Sunday-school lesson, and both on us a-kissin' her, and a-brushin' back her hair from her sweet May-day face, and a-pettin' her, and a-holdin' her safe in our heart of hearts.
"Jest think of that little girl bein' sold for a slave by her rich male father, and brought to San Francisco, the home of the brave and the free, and there put into a place which she thought wuz fur worse than the bottomless pit—for that she considered wuz jest clean brimstone, and despair, and vapory demons.
"But this child, with five or six other wimmen, wuz put into a sickenin' den polluted with every crime, and subject to the brutal passions of a crowd of live, dirty human devils.
"And when, half dead from her dreadful life, she ran away at the peril of her life, and wuz taken in by a charitable woman, and nursed back to life and sanity agin.
"The law took that baby out of that safe refuge, and give her back into the hands of her brutal master—took her back, knowin' the life she would be compelled to lead.
"Think if it wuz our Tirzah Ann, Josiah Allen!"
"Dum the dum fools!" sez he, a chokin' some, and then he pulled out his bandanna handkerchief and busted right out a-cryin' onto it.
"Dum 'em, I say!" sez he, out of its red and yeller depths. "I'd love to skin the hull on 'em, Judge and Jury."
And I sez meanin'ly, "Now, do you want to go and be intimate with them law-makers, Josiah Allen?"
"No," sez he, a-wipin' his eyes and a-lookin' mad, "no, I don't! I want sunthin' to eat!"
And I riz up imegatly, and got a good dinner—a extra good one. And he never said another word about goin' to Washington, D.C.
CHAPTER VI.
There wuz sights and sights of talk in Jonesville and the adjacent and surroundin' world about the World's Fair bein' open on Sundays.
There wuz sights and sights of fightin' back and forth about the rights and the wrongs of it.
And there wuz some talk about the saloons bein' open too, bein' open week days and Sundays.
But, of course, there wuzn't so much talk about that; it seemed to be all settled from the very first on't that the saloons wuz a-goin' to be open the hull of the time—that they must be.
Why, it seemed to be understood that drunkards had to be made and kep up; murderers, and asassins, and thieves, and robbers, and law-breakers of every kind, and fighters, and wife-beaters, and arsons, and rapiners, and child-killers had to be made. That wuz neccessary, and considered