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 asa.s.sins, 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 so from the first. For if this trade wuz to stop for even one day out of the seven, why, where would be the crimes and casualities, the cuttin's up and actin's, the murders and the suicides, to fill up the Sunday papers with?

And to keep the police courts full and a-runnin' over with business, and the prisons, and jails, and reformatorys full of victims, and the morgues full of dead bodies.

No; the saloons had to be open Sundays; that wuz considered as almost a settled thing from the very first on't.

Why, the nation must have considered it one of the neccessarys, or it wouldn't have gone into partnership with 'em, and took part of the pay.

But there wuz a great and almost impa.s.sioned fight a-goin' on about havin' the World's Fair, the broad gallerys of art and beauty, bein'

open to the public Sunday.

Lots of Christian men and wimmen come right out and said, swore right up and down that if Christopher Columbus let folks come to his doin's on Sunday they wouldn't go to it at all.

I spoze mebby they thought that this would skare Christopher and make him gin up his doin's, or ruther the ones that wuz a-representin' him to Chicago.

They did talk fearfully skareful, and calculated to skare any man that hadn't went through with what Christopher had. They said that ruther than have the young people who would be gathered there from the four ends of the earth--ruther than have these innocent young creeters contaminated by walkin' through them rooms and lookin' at them wonders of nature and art, why, they had ruther not have any Fair at all.

Why, I read sights and sights about it, and hearn powerful talk, and immense quant.i.ties of it.

And one night I hearn the most masterly and convincin' arguments brung up on both sides--arguments calculated to make a bystander wobble first one way and then the other, with the strength and power of 'em.

It wuz at a church social held to Miss Lums, and a number of us had got there early, and this subject wuz debated on before the minister got there.

Deacon Henzy wuz the one who give utterance to the views I have promulgated.

He said right out plain, "That no matter how keen the slight would be felt, he shouldn't attend to it if it wuz open Sunday." He said "that the country would be ruined if it took place."

"Yes," sez Miss Cornelius Cork, "you are right, Deacon Henzy. I wouldn't have Cornelius Jr. go to Chicago if the Fair is open Sundays, not for a world full of gold. For," sez she, "I feel as if it would be the ruin of him."

And then sister Arvilly Lanfear (she is always on the contrary side), sez she--"Why?"

"Why?" sez Miss Cork. "You ask why? You a woman and a perfessor?"

"Yes," sez Arvilly--"why?"

Sez Miss Cork, "It would take away all his reverence for the Sabbath, and the G.o.d who appointed that holy day of rest. His morals would be all broke up, and he would be a ruined boy. I expect that he will be there two months--that would make eight days of worldliness and wickedness; and I feel that long enough before the eighth day had come his principles would be underminded, and his morals all tottered and broke down."

"Why?" sez Arvilly. "There hain't any wickedness a-goin' on to the Fair as I know of; it is a goin' to be full and overflowin' of object lessons a teachin' of the greatness and the glory of the Lord of Heaven, and the might and power of the human intellect. Wonders of Heaven, and wonders of earth, and I don't see how they would be apt to ruin and break down anybody's morals a-contemplatin' 'em--not if they wuz sound when they begun.

"It seems to me it would make 'em have ten times the reverence they had before--reverence and awe and worshipful love for the One, the great and loving mind that had thought out all these marvels of beauty and grandeur and spread 'em out for His children's happiness and instruction."

"Oh, yes," sez Miss Cork. "On week days it is a exaltin' and upliftin'

and dreadful religious sight; but on Sundays it is a crime to even think on it. Sundays should be kep pure and holy and riz up, and I wouldn't have Cornelius desecrate himself and the Sabbath by goin' to the Fair not for a world full of gold."

"Where would he go Sundays while he wuz in Chicago if he didn't go there?" sez Arville.

She is real cuttin' sometimes, Arville is, but then Miss Cork loves to put on Arville, and twit her of her single state, and kinder act high-headed and throw Cornelius in her face, and act.

Sez Arville--"Where would Cornelius Jr. go if he didn't go to the Fair?"

Cornelius Jr. drinks awful and is onstiddy, and Miss Cork hemmed and hawed, and finally said, in kind of a meachin' way--

"Why, to meetin', of course."

He hadn't been in a meetin'-house for two years, and we all knew it, and Miss Cork knew that we knew it--hence the meach.

"He don't go to meetin' here to Jonesville," sez Arville.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He don't go to meetin' here."]

It wuz real mean in her, but I spoze it wuz to pay Miss Cork off for her aggravatin'.

And she went on, "I live right acrost the road from Fa.s.set's saloon, and I see him and more'n a dozen other Jonesvillians there most every Sunday.

"Goin' to Chicago hain't a-goin' to born a man agin, and change all their habits and ways to once, and I believe if Cornelius Jr. didn't go to the Fair he would go to worse places."

"Well," sez Miss Cornelius Cork, "if he did, I wouldn't have to bear the sin. I feel that it is my duty to lift my voice and my strength aginst the Sunday openin' of the Fair, and even if the boys did go to worse places, my conscience would be clear; the sin wouldn't rest on my head."

Sez Arville, "That is the very way I have heard wimmen talk who burned up their boys' cards, and checker-boards, and story-books, and drove their children away from home to find amus.e.m.e.nt.

"They wanted the boys to set down and read the Bible and sam books year in and year out, but they wouldn't do it, for there wuz times when the young blood in 'em riz up and clamered for recreation and amus.e.m.e.nt, and seein' that they couldn't git it at home, under the fosterin' care of their father and mother, why, they looked for it elsewhere, and found it in low saloons and bar-rooms, amongst wicked and depraved companions.

And then, when their boys turned out gamblers and drunkards, they would say that their consciences wuz clear.

"But," says Arville, "that hain't the way the Lord done. He used Sundays and week days to tell stories to the mult.i.tude, to amuse 'em, draw 'em by the silken cord of fancy towards the true and the right, draw 'em away from the bad towards the good. And if I had ten boys--"

"Which you hain't no ways likely to have," says Miss Cork; "no, indeed, you hain't."

"No, thank Heaven! there hain't no chance on't. But if I had ten boys I would ruther have 'em wanderin' through them beautiful halls, full of the wonders of the world which the Lord made and give to His children for their amus.e.m.e.nt and comfort--I would ruther have 'em there than to have 'em help swell a congregation of country loafers in a city saloon--learnin' in one day more lessons in the height and depth of depravity than years of country livin' would teach 'em.

"These places, and worse ones, legalized places of devils' pastime, will lure and beckon the raw youth of the country. They will flaunt their gaudy attractions on every side, and appeal to every sense but the sense of decency.

"And I would feel fur safer about the hull ten of 'em, if I knew they wuz safe in the art galleries, full of beauty and sublimity, drawin'

their minds and hearts insensibly and in spite of themselves upward and onward, or lookin' at the glory and wonders of practical and mechanical beauty--the beauty of use and invention.

"After walkin' through a buildin' forty-five acres big, and some more of 'em about as roomy, I should be pretty sure that they wouldn't git out of it in time to go any great lengths in sin that day; and they would be apt to be too f.a.gged out and dead tired to foller on after Satan any great distance."

"Well," says Miss Snyder, "I d'no but I should feel safer about my Jim and John to have 'em there in the Fair buildin's than runnin' loose in the streets of Chicago. They won't go to meetin' every Sunday, and I can't make 'em; and if they do go, they will go in the mornin' late, and git out as soon as the Amen is said.

"My boys are as good as the average--full as good; but I know when they hain't got anything to do, and git with other boys, they will cut up and act."