Chapter I: Preface: Sez Josiah, as he see me writin’ this preface

“Seems to me, Samantha, you’ve writ enough prefaces.”

(He wanted me to start the supper; but, good land! it wuzn’t only half past five, and I had a spring chicken all ready to fry, and my cream biscuit wuz all ready for the oven, on the kitchen table.)

Sez he, “It seems to me you’ve writ enough on em.”

And I sez, “Wall, Josiah, I’d hate to sadden the world by sayin’ I wouldn’t write any more.”

And he sez, “How do you know it would sadden the world--how do you know it would?” And he continued: “Samantha, I hain’t wanted to dampen you, but I have always considered your writin’s weak; naterally they would be, bein’ writ by a woman; and,” sez he, as he looked longin’ly towards the buttery door and the plump chicken, “a woman’s spear lays in a different direction.”

And I sez, “I thought I’d write some of our adventures in our trip abroad--that happy time,” sez I, lookin’ inquirin’ly at him.

“Happy time!” sez he, a-kinder ’nashin’ his teeth--“happy! gracious Heavens! Do you want to bring up my sufferin’s agin, when I jest lived through ’em?”

“Wall,” sez I, a-gittin’ up and approachin’ the buttery, and takin’ down the tea-kettle and fryin’-pan and coffee-pot, “I have writ other things in the book that I am more interested in myself.”

He sot kinder still and demute as I put the chicken on to fry in butter, and put the cream biscuit in the oven, and poured the bilein’ water on the fragrant coffee; his mean seemed to grow softer, and he sez:

“Mebby I wuz too hash a-sayin’ what I did about your writin’s, Samantha; I guess you write as well as you know how to; I guess you _mean_ well;” and as he see me a-spreadin’ the snowy table-cloth on the little round table, and a-puttin’ on some cream cheese and some peach sass, he sez further:

“Nobody is to blame for what they don’t know, Samantha.”

I looked down affectionately and pityin’ly on his old bald head and then further off--way off into mysterious spaces no mortal feet has ever trod, and I sez:

“That is so, Josiah.”

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Chapter PAGE Preface vii List of Illustrations xi I. Trains of Retrospection 1 II. A Heathen Missionary 32 III. Off into Side Paths 57 IV. Samantha’s Sword of Truth and Justice 85 V. A Heathen’s Standard of Morality 105 VI. A Little Fun and its Price 119 VII. The Embarkation 135 VIII. Landing in the Emerald Isle 153 IX. A Visit to Blarney Castle 173 X. Killarney, Dublin, and a Wake 183 XI. Josiah as a Banshee 197 XII. Robert Burns and Highland Mary 223 XIII. Edinburgh and Mary Queen of Scots 241 XIV. Memories of Sir Walter Scott 262 XV. Old York and its Cathedral 281 XVI. Edensor and the Duke of Devonshire 300 XVII. Josiah has an Adventure 322 XVIII. Shottery and Warwick Castle 354 XIX. The Lake District and its Poets 374 XX. The Arrival in London 389 XXI. Westminster and Parliament Houses 400 XXII. Samantha Sees a Doctor 418 XXIII. St. Paul’s and the Duke of Wellington 433 XXIV. “The Widder Albert” 445 XXV. A Visit to the British Museum 464 XXVI. Paris and its Beauties 486 XXVII. Napoleon and other Great Frenchmen 510 XXVIII. Germany and Belgium 525 XXIX. Samantha Climbs the Righi 548 XXX. Milan, Genoa, Venice 574 XXXI. Colosseum and Catacombs 602 XXXII. Fashionable Watering-Places 616 XXXIII. Cathedrals and Castles in Spain 627 XXXIV. Josiah’s Devotion 640 XXXV. The Queen, Ulaley, and a Bull-Fight 651 XXXVI. A Spanish Funeral and a Jonesville One 664 XXXVII. Al Faizi Says Good-Bye 674 XXXVIII. Home again, from a Foreign Shore 683 XXXIX. Martin’s Terrible Lesson 693 XL. Good-Night, Little Pardner 707 Other Works by Josiah Allen’s Wife. 715

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE “He riz right up and shook his fist at the man with the nightcap” _Frontispiece_ Twilight on the broad ocean 1 Asleep in his narrer bunk 4 Two prettier, winnin’er creeters never lived than them two 9 “Aunt Samantha, where is Heaven? Is it up in the sky?” 12 He sassed him and yelled out, “You dum fool, you, throw me a board!” 16 “It depends on whose lives they be” 18 Josiah and me put on our strongest specks 27 It wuz very dressy when it wuz done 31 A dark figger that riz up like a strange picter aginst the sunset 34 “I don’t love to hear that; that sounds bad” 39 “‘That man is a Christian.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘Because he is drunk’” 45 “Uncle Sam a-wadin’ in sin up to his old knee jints” 49 The game of Bulls and Bears 52 Al Faizi made a deep bow, almost to the floor 55 Sez I, a-risin’ up in the democrat, “I’ll git out” 61 She met me with a sweet smile 68 Finally, he got to be quarrelsome 75 Ellick lay drunk in the office 80 It wuz Ellick Gurley 87 “Yes, it _wuz_ sunthin’ else; it wuz _you_” 97 “Save the Sam, it may come in handy in the futer” 102 With one of his low, reverential bows 112 As the elder took it he turned pale 125 I took down my old Atlas 131 In time to kiss us and clasp our hands in partin’ 139 Her big blue eyes wuz full of tears 142 Then took his umbrell and started for the door 147 We tottered up on deck, two pale, thin figgers 151 The lord with a pink paper suit on 157 With a stern look, calculated to wither him 166 We went in what they call a “jauntin’ car” 171 Three beautiful lakes 184 Drinkin’ and tobacco-smokin’ in the little hovel drove ’em out 189 Drippin’ wet when he come back 201 Alice stood there, white and tremblin’ 206 A dark figger a-standin’ up on a little rock 209 I laid out to talk to Victoria on the subject 217 Samantha and Ellen Douglas 219 This immortal pair of lovers 230 The same furies that pursued the drunken Tam 238 Edinburgh Castle 250 The National Covenant signed by the Earl of Sutherland 254 When Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald parted 259 “I could sing to you,” sez he 263 “When they got dirty, jest wet a towel and clean ’em off” 268 “I never should think of usin’ it” 274 Josiah wuz dretful took with it 281 “What a sensation it would create in Jonesville!” 285 That sentinul twelve or fourteen hundred years ago 289 “With the ends of the fingers a-hangin’ down” 294 Robin Hood 299 “It don’t pay to tussel with ’em” 301 Martin sent his card in 307 Josiah’s home-made waterfall 313 Her common-sense shoe 319 A quaint, old-fashioned tarvern 322 Says he, “I’m a-goin’ back--it is my duty” 328 Shakespeare’s ghost reading the effusions on the walls of his house 337 A great many portraits of Shakespeare 344 The font in which Shakespeare was baptized 350 The supper that man eat wuz enormous 353 “You couldn’t eat that full of porridge” 359 “The more I see of moats, the more determined I be to have one round our house” 362 “I am going to work for the poor” 370 My tone chilled him to the veins 379 Martin with his patronizin’ ways 384 A livin’ poem bound up in a girl’s sweet body 386 Them letters wuz a stroke of genius 391 A hull soap-box full 395 We stood long and silently by the graves of the great dead 401 An immense chair, the four legs bein’ four animals 407 “When I’m elected to Congress I’m goin’ to wear my hat the hull time” 415 That little dude doctor, with his cane and his eyeglass 421 “I have had some trouble with my back lately, and I want you to look at it” 424 Samantha’s faith cure 427 “Yes,” sez Josiah, “old Domono probble had his hands full with her” 442 “Almost in the shadow of the Bank of England, I found the greatest want and wretchedness” 455 Right in front of the tarvern, I have seen with my own eyes as many as five teams and two open buggies 459 “Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of Jonesville?” 468 Napoleon’s tooth 472 Josiah at the London “Zoo” 477 “Calf-o-lay! I hain’t a calf or a ox!” he shouted 486 “How stylish I would look” 489 “I don’t spoze I could ever git to be nigh so graceful as she is” 492 Josiah, “cultered and travelled,” schemes for Jonesvillian out-door dinner parties, à la Paris, and how Samantha foresees the result 500 There wuz the clothes he wore that he ust to button over that restless, ambitious heart 505 With his arms folded, and that old hat of hisen on, and his inscrutable eyes fixed on the heights 512 A-wipin’ my face on sech genteel towels 518 “I believe he’d sell the steelyards that Jestice weighs things in, if he could git a few cents for ’em” 523 “No attention paid to rumatiz, or meal times, or corns” 526 “A woman jest dressin’ herself--she seems all broke up” 537 I thought more’n likely I should be melted into tears 540 A-leadin’ Adrian and a-plannin’ sunthin’ with him relatin’ to a whistle 543 A hogsit as big as the Jonesville tarvern 553 We did indeed go slow, but sure; for in two hours’ time we arrove on the summit 556 “They have emulative Mas, who are bound that they shan’t be out-travelled” 561 Ye-o-lo-leo-leo-leo--the melogious cry of the Alpine shepherds 563 Listening to the organ’s grand, melancholy voice 566 I thought considerable about William Tell and his exploits with Gessler, apples, etc. 568 Divine realms of melody wuz brung to view by his heavenly vision 579 “If this smell keeps on, and the dum muskeeters keeps on a-bitin’, one man will ‘see Venice and die’” 581 “Next thing I’d know you’d have a inquisition a-goin’ on” 588 The Tower of Pisa 599 The Colosseum 602 “The guides went ahead with flarin’ lights” 607 Mr. Goldwind, one of Martin’s business rivals 616 “I have faith that it aches like the old Harry” 623 I see one of the officials take up my sheep’s-head nightcap 628 A smile of admiration swep’ over his dark visage 628 Heavey, rough carts, drawed by an ox and a cow lashed together by ropes wound round their horns 631 At my request he hooked up my dress skirt in the back 647 She knowed me to once--a happy smile curved her pretty lips 653 The Matador 661 His victim 661 How cold his feet must have been cold mornin’s 666 “I go back to my own country--I have many things to teach my people--to avoid” 675 They had sent Philury out, like a dove, on the front doorstep to meet us 684 His looks wuz so onbecomin’ to a deacon and a path-master 687 Sez Martin agin, “I am sick to death of these everlasting complaints” 698 He fell down jest like a log at my feet 701 A faithful creeter with a strong breath, caused by stimulants, I believe 704 He busted out into tears and buried his face in his hands 709 Finis 714

SAMANTHA IN EUROPE.