Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition | Page 2

more respectful to call him Mr. Bonaparte, he wanted money bad, and he didn't want England to git ahead, and so he sold it to us.
He acted some as Miss Bobbett did when she sot up her niece, Mahala Hen, in dressmakin' for fear Miss Henzy's girl would git all the custom and git rich. She'd had words with Miss Henzy and wanted to bring down her pride. And we bein' some like Miss Hen in sperit (she had had trouble with Miss Henzy herself, and wuz dretful glad to have Mahala sot up), we wuz more'n willin' to buy it of Mr. Bonaparte. You know he didn't like England, he had had words with her, and almost come to hands and blows, and it did come to that twelve years afterwards.
But poor creeter! I never felt like makin' light of his reverses, for do not we, poor mortals! have to face our Waterloo some time durin' our lives, when we have fought the battle and lost, when the ground is covered with slain Hopes, Ambition, Happiness, when the music is stilled, the stringed instruments and drums broken to pieces, or givin' out only wailin' accompaniments to the groans and cries of the dyin' layin' low in the dust.
We marched onward in the mornin' mebby with flyin' colors towards Victory, with gaily flutterin' banners and glorious music. Then come the Inevitable to crush us, and though we might not be doomed to a desert island in body, yet our souls dwell there for quite a spell.
Till mebby we learn to pick up what is left of value on the lost field, try to mend the old instruments that never sound as they did before. Sew with tremblin' fingers the rents in the old tattered banners which Hope never carries agin with so high a head, and fall into the ranks and march forward with slower, more weary steps and our sad eyes bent toward the settin' sun.
But to stop eppisodin' and resoom. I had hearn all about how it wuz bought and how like every new discovery, or man or woman worth while, the Purchase had to meet opposition and ridicule, though some prophetic souls, like Thomas Jefferson, Mr. Livingstone and others, seemed to look forward through the mists of the future and see fertile fields and stately cities filled with crowds of prosperous citizens, where wuz then almost impassable swamps and forests inhabited by whoopin' savages.
And Mr. Bonaparte himself, let us not forgit in this proud year of fulfilled hopes and achievement and progress how he always seemed to set store by us and his words wuz prophetic of our nation's glorious destiny.
I had knowed all about this but Josiah seemed to delight to instruct me as carefully as a mother would guide a prattlin' child jest beginnin' to walk on its little feet. And some times I would resent it, and some times when I wuz real good natured, for every human bein' no matter how high principled, has ebbs and flows in their moral temperatures, some times I would let him instruct me and take it meekly like a child learnin' its A-B abs.
But to resoom. Day by day Josiah's strange actions continued, and at intervals growin' still more and more frequent and continuous he acted, till at last the truth oozed out of him like water out of a tub that has been filled too full, it wuz after an extra good meal that he confided in me.
He said the big celebration of the Louisana Purchase had set him to thinkin' and he'd investigated his own private affairs and had discovered important facts that had made him feel that he too must make a celebration of the Purchase of the Allen Homestead.
"On which we are now dwellin', Samantha," sez he. "Seventy-four acres more or less runnin' up to a stake and back agin, to wit, as the paper sez."
Sez I, "You needn't talk like a lawyer to me, Josiah Allen, but tell me plain as a man and a deacon what you mean."
"Well, I'm tellin' you, hain't I, fast as I can? I've found out by my own deep research (the tin trunk wuzn't more'n a foot deep but I didn't throw the trunk in his face), I've discovered this remarkable fact that this farm the very year of the Louisana Purchase came into the Allen family by purchase. My great-great-grandfather, Hatevil Allen, bought it of Ohbejoyful Gowdey, and the papers wuz signed the very day the other momentous purchase wuz made.
"There wuz fourteen children in the family of old Hatevil, jest as many as there is States in the purchase they are celebratin' to St. Louis.
"And another wonderful fact old Hatevil Allen paid jest the same amount for this farm that our Government paid for