But I am hitchin’ the horse behind the wagon and to resoom backwards. The Reunion wuz put off a week and the Suffrage Meetin’ wuz two days away, so I told Lorinda I didn’t believe I would have a better time to carry Serepta Pester’s errents to Washington, D.C. Josiah said he guessed he would stay and help wait on Hiram Cagwin, and I approved on’t, for Lorinda wuz gittin’ wore out.
And then Josiah made so light of them errents I felt that he would be a drawback instead of a help, for how could I keep a calm and noble frame of mind befittin’ them lofty errents, and how could I carry ’em stiddy with a pardner by my side pokin’ fun at ’em, and at me for carryin’ ’em, jarrin’ my sperit with his scorfin’ and onbelievin’ talk?
And as I sot off alone in the trolley I thought of how they must have felt in old times a-carryin’ the Urim and Thumim. And though I hadn’t no idee what them wuz, yet I always felt that the carriers of ’em must have felt solemn and high-strung. Yes, my feelin’s wuz such as I felt of the heft and importance of them errents not alone to Serepta Pester, but to the hull race of wimmen that it kep’ my mental head rained up so high that I couldn’t half see and enjoy the sight of the most beautiful city in the world, and still I spoze its grandeur and glory sort o’ filtered down through my conscientiousness, as cloth grows white under the sun’s rays onbeknown to it.
Anon I left the trolley and walked some ways afoot. It wuz a lovely day, the sun shone down in golden splendor upon the splendor beneath it. Broad, beautiful clean streets, little fresh green parks, everywhere you could turn about, and big ones full of flowers and fountains, and trees and statutes.
And anon or oftener I passed noble big stun buildings, where everything is made for the nation’s good and profit. Money and fish and wisdom and all sorts of patented things and garden seeds and tariffs and resolutions and treaties and laws of every shape and size, good ones and queer ones and reputations and rates and rebates, etc., etc. But it would devour too much time to even name over all that is made and onmade there, even if I knowed by name the innumerable things that are flowin’ constant out of that great reservoir of the Nation, with its vast crowd of law-makers settin’ on the lid, regulatin’ its flow and spreadin’ it abroad over the country, thick and thin.
But on I went past the Capitol, the handsomest buildin’ on the Globe, standin’ in its own Eden of beauty. By the Public Library as long as from our house to Grout Hozleton’s, and I guess longer, and every foot on’t more beautifler ornamented than tongue can tell. But I didn’t dally tryin’ to pace off the size on’t, though it wuz enormous, for the thought of what I wuz carryin’ bore me on almost regardless of my matchless surroundin’s and the twinges of rumatiz. And anon I arrived at the White House, where my hopes and the hopes of my sect and Serepta Pester wuz sot. I will pass over my efforts to git into the Presence, merely sayin’ that they were arjous and extreme, and I wouldn’t probably have got in at all had not the Presence appeared with a hat on jest goin’ out for a walk, and see me as I wuz strivin’ with the emissary for entrance. I spoze my noble mean, made more noble fur by the magnitude of what I wuz carryin’, impressed him, for suffice it to say inside of five minutes the Presence wuz back in his augience room, and I wuz layin’ out them errents of Serepta’s in front of him.
He wuz very hefty, a good-lookin’ smilin’ man, a politer demeanored gentlemanly appearner man I don’t want to see. But his linement which had looked so pleasant and cheerful growed gloomy and deprested as I spread them errents before him and sez in conclusion:
“Serepta Pester sent these errents to you, she wanted intemperance done away with, the Whiskey Ring broke up and destroyed, she wanted you to have nothin’ stronger than root beer when you had company to dinner, she offerin’ to send you some burdock and dandeline roots and some emptins to start it with, and she wanted her rights, and wanted ’em all by week after next without fail.”
He sithed hard, and I never see a linement fall furder than hisen fell, and kep’ a-fallin’. I pitied him, I see it wuz a hard stent for him to do it in the time she had sot, and he so fleshy too. But knowin’ how much wuz at the stake, and how the fate of Serepta and wimmen wuz tremblin’ in the balances, I spread them errents out before him. And bein’ truthful and above board, I told him that Serepta wuz middlin’ disagreeable and very humbly, but she needed her rights jest as much as though she wuz a wax-doll. And I went on and told him how she and her relations had suffered from want of rights, and how dretfully she had suffered from the Ring till I declare talkin’ about them little children of hern, and her agony, I got about as fierce actin’ as Serepta herself, and entirely onbeknown to myself I talked powerful on intemperance and Rings, and such.
When I got down agin onto my feet I see he had a still more worried and anxious look on his good-natured face, and he sez: “The laws of the United States are such that I can’t do them errands, I can’t interfere.”
“Then,” sez I, “why don’t you make the United States do right?”
He said sunthin’ about the might of the majority, and the powerful corporations and rings, and that sot me off agin. And I talked very powerful and allegored about allowin’ a ring to be put round the United States and let a lot of whiskey dealers and corporations lead her round, a pitiful sight for men and angels. Sez I, “How duz it look before the nations to see Columbia led round half-tipsy by a Ring?”
He seemed to think it looked bad, I knew by his looks.
Sez I, “Intemperance is bad for Serepta and bad for the Nation.”
He murmured sunthin’ about the revenue the liquor trade brought the Govermunt.
But I sez, “Every penny is money right out of the people’s pockets; every dollar the people pay into the liquor traffic that gives a few cents into the treasury, is costin’ the people ten times that dollar in the loss intemperance entails, loss of labor, by the inability of drunken men to do anything but wobble and stagger, loss of wealth by the enormous losses of property and taxation, of alms-houses, mad-houses, jails, police forces, paupers’ coffins, and the diggin’ of thousands and thousands of graves that are filled yearly by them that reel into ’em.” Sez I, “Wouldn’t it be better for the people to pay that dollar in the first place into the treasury than to let it filter through the dram-seller’s hands, a few cents of it fallin’ into the national purse at last, putrid and heavy with all these losses and curses and crimes and shames and despairs and agonies?”
He seemed to think it would, I see by the looks of his linement he did. Every honorable man feels so in his heart, and yet they let the Liquor Ring control ’em and lead ’em round. “It is queer, queer as a dog.” Sez I, “The intellectual and moral power of the United States are rolled up and thrust into that Whiskey Ring and bein’ drove by the whiskey dealers jest where they want to drive ’em.” Sez I, “It controls New York village and nobody denies it, and the piety and philanthropy and culture and philosophy of that village has to be drawed along by that Ring.” And sez I, in low but startlin’ tones of principle:
“Where, where is it a-drawin’ ’em to? Where is it drawin’ the hull nation to? Is it drawin’ ’em down into a slavery ten times more abject and soul-destroyin’ than African slavery ever wuz? Tell me,” sez I firmly, “tell me!”
He did not try to frame a reply, he could not find a frame. He knowed it wuz a conundrum boundless as truth and God’s justice, and as solemnly deep in its sure consequences of evil as eternity, and as sure to come as that is.
Oh, how solemn he looked, and how sorry I felt for him, for I knowed worse wuz to come, I knowed the sharpest arrow Serepta Pester had sent wuz yet to pierce his sperit. But I sort o’ blunted the edge on’t what I could conscientiously. Sez I, “I think myself Serepta is a little onreasonable, I myself am willin’ to wait three or four weeks. But she’s suffered dretful from intemperance from the Rings and from the want of rights, and her sufferin’s have made her more voylent in her demands and impatienter,” and then I fairly groaned as I did the rest of the errent, and let the sharpest arrow fly from the bo.
“Serepta told me to tell you if you didn’t do these errents you should not be President next year.”
He trembled like a popple leaf, and I felt that Serepta wuz threatenin’ him too hard. Sez he, “I do not wish to be President again, I shall refuse to be nominated. At the same time I do wish to be President and shall work hard for the nomination if you can understand the paradox.”
“Yes,” sez I, “I understand them paradoxes. I’ve lived with ’em as you may say, all through my married life.”
A clock struck in the next room and I knowed time wuz passin’ swift.
Sez the President, “I would be glad to do Serepta’s errents, I think she is justified in askin’ for her rights, and to have the Ring destroyed, but I am not the one to do them.”
Sez I, “Who is the man or men?”
He looked all round the room and up and down as if in hopes he could see someone layin’ round on the floor, or danglin’ from the ceilin’, that would take the responsibility offen him, and in the very nick of time the door opened after a quick rap, and the President jumped up with a relieved look on his linement, and sez:
“Here is the very man to do the errents.” And he hastened to introduce me to the Senator who entered. And then he bid me a hasty adoo, but cordial and polite, and withdrew himself.
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