reat seen terminated.
Miss Flanders and Elam had gone--they shrunk from publicity. I guess
they wuz afraid it wuz too great a job, the ceremony attendin' our
givin' these noble foreigners the freedom of our native town.
But they no need to. A willin' mind makes a light job.
It had been gin to 'em, and gin well, too.
Wall, Josiah and I didn't stay very much longer. I'd have been glad to
seen the Princess sent out from Spain to our doin's, and I know she will
feel it, not seein' of me.
She wuzn't there, but I thought of her as I wended my way out, as I
looked over the grandeur of the seen that her female ancestor had
rendered possible.
Thinkses I, she must have different feelin's from what her folks did in
fourteen hundred.
Then how loath they wuz to even listen to Columbuses pathetic appeals
and prayers! But they did at last touch the heart of a woman. That woman
believed him, while the rest of Spain sneered at him. Had she lived,
Columbus wouldn't have been sent to prison in chains. No, indeed! But
she passed away, and Spain misused him. But now they send their
royalties to meet with all the kings and queens of the earth to bow down
to his memory.
As we wended out, the caravels lay there in the calm water--the Santa
Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, all becalmed in front of the convent.
No more rough seas in front of 'em; they furl their sails in the
sunlight of success.
All is glory, all is rejoicing, all is praise.
Four hundred years after the brave soul that planned and accomplished it
all died heart-broken and in chains, despised and rejected by men,
persecuted by his enemies, betrayed by his friends.
True, brave heart, I wonder if the God he trusted in, and tried to
honor, lets him come back on some fair mornin' or cloudless moonlight
evenin', and look down and see what the nations are sayin' and doin' for
him in eighteen hundred and ninety-three!
I don't know, nor Josiah don't.
But as I stood a-thinkin' of this, the sun come out from under a cloud
and lit up the caravels with its golden light, and lay on the water like
a long, shinin' path leadin' into glory.
And a light breeze stirred the white sails of the Santa Maria, some as
though it wuz a-goin' to set sail agin.
And the shadders almost seemed alive that lay on the narrer deck.
After we left La Rabida, Josiah wanted to go and see the exhibit called
Man and his Works.
Sez he, "I'll show you now, Samantha, what _our_ works
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