Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife Part 23

"Yes, alone," sez I, "alone."

"Never!" sez Josiah. "Never will I let my idol go from j.a.pan to Jonesville unprotected. If you must go and make a town's talk from China to Jonesville I'll stand by you." And he took down his hat and ombrell.

"What would you do if you went back?" sez I. "I should think you had done enough as it is; I shall go alone."

"What! you go and leave all the pleasures of this trip and go alone?

Part from your pardner for months and months?"

"Yes," sez I wildly, "and mebby forever. It don't seem to me that I can ever live with a man that is doin' what you are." And hot tears dribbled down onto my sheep's-head night-caps.

"Oh, Samantha!" sez he, takin' out his bandanna and weepin' in consort, "what is money or ambition compared to the idol of my heart?

I'll write to Ury to change the law agin."

"Dear Josiah!" sez I, "I knew, I knew you couldn't be so wicked as to continue what you had begun. But can you do it?" sez I.

Sez he cheerfully, as he see me take out a sheep's-head night-cap and shet down the trunk led, "What man has done, man can do. If Ury can fix a law once, he can fix it twice. And he done it for me." Sez he, "I can repeal it if I am a minter, and when I am a minter." And he got up and took a sheet of paper and begun to write to repeal that law. I gently leggo the ap.r.o.n-string dear Duty had lowered to me; it had held; pure Principle had conquered agin. Oh, the relief and sweetness of that hour! Sweet is the pink blush of roses after the cold snows of winter; sweet is rest after a weary pilgrimage.

Calm and beautiful is the warm ambient air of repose and affection after a matrimonial blizzard. Josiah wuz better to me than he had been for over seven weeks, and his lovin' demeanor didn't change for the worse for as many as five days. But the wicked wrong wuz done away with.

I writ a letter to Ernest White tellin' him I never knowed a word about it till that very day, and my companion had repealed the law, and Cap'n Bardeen had got to move out or stop sellin' whiskey. He knows how I worship Josiah; he didn't expect that I would come out openly and blame him; no, the bare facts wuz enough.

I ended up the letter with a post scriptum remark. Sez I: "Waitstill Webb is sweeter lookin' than ever and as good as pure gold, jest as she always wuz, but the climate is wearin' on her, and I believe she will be back in Jonesville as soon as we are, if not before. She is a lovely girl and would make a Christian minister's home in Loontown or any other town a blessed and happy place."

I thought I wouldn't dast to do anything more than to give such a little blind hint. But to resoom. Folks seem to have a wrong idee about the education of the j.a.panese. There are twenty-eight thousand schools in j.a.pan, besides the private and public kindergartens.

There are over three million native students out of a school population of seven million. There are sixty-nine thousand teachers, all j.a.panese, excepting about two hundred and fifty American, German and English. Nearly ten million dollars (j.a.panese) is raised annually for educational purposes from school fees, taxes, interest on funds, etc. They have compulsory school laws just like ours. And not a drunken native did we see whilst in j.a.pan, and I wish that I could say the same of New York for the same length of time or Chicago or Jonesville.

And for gentle, polite, amiable manners they go as fur ahead of Americans as the leaves of their trees duz, and I've seen leaves there more'n ten feet long. The empire of j.a.pan consists of three thousand eight hundred islands, from one eight hundred milds long to them no bigger than a tin pan, and the population is about forty-three million. I don't spoze any nation on earth ever made faster progress than j.a.pan has in the last thirty years: railways, telegraph postal system. It seems as if all j.a.pan wanted wuz to find out the best way of doin' things, and then she goes right ahead and duz 'em.

Robert Strong wuz talking about what the word j.a.pan meant, the Sunrise Land. And he said some real pretty things about it and so did Dorothy.

They wuz dretful took with the country. Robert Strong has travelled everywhere and he told me that some portions of j.a.pan wuz more beautiful than any country he had ever seen. We took several short journeys into the interior to see the home life of the people, but Robert Strong, who seemed to be by the consent of all of us the head of our expedition, thought that we had better not linger very long there as there wuz so many other countries that we wanted to visit, but 'tennyrate we decided to start for Calcutta from Hongkong, stopping on the way at Shanghai.

CHAPTER XIX

We wuz a goin' to stop for a day or two at Shanghai and I wuz real glad on't, for I felt that I must see the Empress, Si Ann, without any more delay, and I hearn she wuz there visitin' some of her folks.

Yes, I felt the widder Hien Fong ort to hear what I had to say to her with no further delay, I felt it wuz a duty that I owed toward the nation and Josiah.

The voyage from Yokohama to Shanghai is very interesting, a part of it is through the inland sea, mountains and valleys on both sides, many islands and large and small towns all along the sh.o.r.es. Our hull party kep' well and all enjoyed all the strange picturesque scenery, most as new to us as if we wuz on another planet. Yes, I d'no as Jupiter would look any stranger to us than the country did, or Mars or Saturn.

We wuz over a day crossin' the Yaller Sea, well named, for its water is as yaller as the sands on its sh.o.r.es. I'd hate to wash white clothes in it. And as we drew near Shanghai it wuz all alive with Chinese junks full of men, wimmen and children. The children here on these boats seem to be tied up with ropes, givin' 'em room to crawl round, same as I have tied up Jonesville hens that wanted to set.

Shanghai means, "approaching the sea," and I spoze it might just as well mean approaching from the sea, as we did. Old Shanghai is surrounded by a wall and moat and is entered by six gates, the roads are only ten feet wide and dirty and bad smellin', and most of its houses are small, though there are a few very fine buildings, according to their style, lots of little piazzas jutting out everywhere with the ends turned up, that seems to be their taste; why a ruff or a piazza straight acrost would have been a boon to my Jonesville trained eyes. The houses on the princ.i.p.al streets are used for shops; no winders on the first floor; they are all open in front during the day and closed by heavy latticework at night.

The favorite carriage here is a wheelbarrow, the wheel in the centre and a seat on each side. Josiah and I got into one, he carryin' Tommy in his lap, but he sez with a groan:

"I never spozed that I should git down to this, Samantha, to ride in a wheelbarrow. What would Ury say! I am glad he can't see it, or Deacon Henzy or any of the other Jonesville brothers and sistern."

The furrin suburbs are laid out like a European city, with broad streets, well lighted and clean. We went on the Bubbling Well Road, named from a boiling spring a few miles out. The road is broad and smooth as gla.s.s with beautiful villas along the way; we also pa.s.sed a great number of small burying places. They have to bury folks according to the rules of Feng Shui. If Feng Shui should order a burial place in a dooryard it would have to be there. It rules buildings, customs, laws, everything. I asked a Chinaman who could talk English what this Feng Shui wuz that they had to obey it so strictly, and he described it as being like the wind and water: like wind because you don't know where it come from nor when it would go or where; and like water because you could never know how to grasp it, it would elude you and slip away and you would have nothing in your hand to show. Miss Meechim cried out about the enormity of such a law and laid it to the evil doin's of furriners, but Arvilly said that it wuz some like the laws we had in America, for we found out on inquiry that money would most always appease this great Feng Shui and git it to consent to most anything if it wuz paid enough, just as it did in America.

Josiah said he had a good mind to set up some such thing in Jonesville when he got back, sez he, "I wouldn't name it Feng Shui just like this, I might call it Fine Shue or sunthin' like that. And jest see, Samantha, how handy it would be if the meetin' house went aginst me I would jest git up and lift up my hand and say, 'Fine Shue has decided. It will be as I say.' Or on 'lection day, if I wuzn't put up for office, or when they elect somebody besides me, or at the cheese factory if they put up another salesman, or on the beat, if they wanted another pathmaster, I'd jest call on the Fine Shue and there I'd be. Why, Samantha," sez he, gittin' carried away in his excitement, "I could git to be President jest as easy as fallin' off a log if I could make the Fine Shue work."

"Yes," sez I, "but that is a big if; but do you want to, Josiah, turn back the wheels of our civilization that are creaky and jolty enough, heaven knows, back into worse and more swampy paths than they are runnin' in now?"

"I d'no," sez Josiah, "but it would be all right if it wuz run by a man like me; a Methodist in full standin', and one of the most enlightened and Christian men of the times."

But I lifted my hand in a warnin' way and sez, "Stop, Josiah Allen, to once! such talk is imperialism, and you know I am sot like a rock aginst that. Imperialism is as much out of place in a republic as a angel in a glue factory."

Well, I am in hopes that ten thousand milds of travel will jolt some idees out of his mind.

Being in Shanghai over Sunday, we attended service held by a missionary. It wuz a beautiful service which we all enjoyed. The words of this good Christian man in prayer and praise sounded to our ears as sweet as the sound of waters in a desert land. Over a hundred wuz present, and after service the pulpit wuz moved off and several wuz baptized in water jest as they do in America.

The rich and poor seem to live side by side more than they do in our country, and rich merchants live over their shops; mebby it is to protect them from the Feng Shui, for if that gits on track of a rich man a great part of his wealth is appropriated by the government; it very often borrys their money--or what it calls borryin'.

Shanghai wuz the first place where I see men carryin' fans. When they're not fannin' themselves they put the fan at the back of their neck, for a ornament I guess.

Josiah made a note in his pocket diary: "Mem--To git a fan the day after I git home, to carry it to Jonesville to meetin', to fan myself with it on the way there before Elder Minkley and Brother Henzy.

Mem--A red and yaller one." But of this fan bizness more anon.

There are not many wimmen in the streets here. The poorer cla.s.s of Chinese let their feet grow to the natural size; it is only the aristocracy who bind up their feet.

But my mission to the Empress wore on me. I felt that I must not delay seekin' a augience. And, as it happened, or no, not happened--it wuz to be--one day whilst Josiah and Arvilly and Tommy and I wuz walkin'

in a beautiful garden, the rest of the party bein' away on another tower after pleasure and instruction, Josiah and Tommy had gone to see the fish in a fountain a little ways off, and Arvilly wuz some distance away, when all of a sudden I heard a bystander say in a low, awe-struck voice, "There is the Empress."

She wuz walkin' through the garden with two ladies-in-waiting, and a elegant carriage wuz goin' slow a little ways off, givin' her a chance for excercise, I spoze. She wuz dressed in a long, colored silk night-gown--or it wuz shaped like one--though they wear 'em day times, all embroidered and glitterin' with precious stuns. She didn't have her crown on--mebby it wuz broke and away to be fixed--but her hair wuz combed dretful slick and stuck full of jewelled pins and stars, etc. I knowed her by her picture, and also by my feelin's, and I sez to myself, Now is the time for me to onburden myself of the important mission that had been layin' so heavy on my chist. Yes, Duty's ap.r.o.n strings jest drawed me right up in front of her, and I advanced, holdin' out my hand in as friendly a way as if she had come for a all-day's visit to me in Jonesville. Her ladies-in-waitin' kinder fell back, and as I advanced I bowed real low--as low as I dasted to, for I felt that I wouldn't have ketched my feet in the facin' of my dress and fell down at that time for a dollar bill. She's smart; she recognized my lofty sperit, and her greetin' wuz considerable cordial, though held back by her Chinese education.

Sez I, "Empress Si Ann (I d'no but I ort to call her Sarah Ann, that's probable her name docked off by her folks to pet her. But I thought I wouldn't meddle with a pet name; I'd call her Si Ann)."

Sez I, "I set out from Jonesville with a important message for you, and I've bore it over the ocean on a tower and now I lay it at your feet."

I here paused to give her a chance to wonder what it wuz, and get some excited, then I went on, "I felt that I must see you on my own account and Josiah's and the nation's, and tell you not to, oh, not to lay that Piece Conference to us. I have laid awake nights worryin' about it, for fear you'd think that Josiah and I, bein' prominent Americans, had jined in and wuz tryin' to cut China to pieces. But we hadn't a thing to do with it."

I meant to keep Josiah in the background, knowin' the Chinese aversion to mix up the sects in company, but he'd come back and he had to put in his oar here and sez he, "No, they couldn't git me to jine 'em. I wuz down with a crick at the time and Samantha had to nuss me. We had our hands full and we couldn't have jined 'em anyway," he sez.

I wunk at him and stepped on his toe, but nothin' could stop him, and he went on, "I wouldn't have jined 'em anyway, Miss Hein Fong, I wouldn't treat a neighbor so."

"Neighbor?" sez she wonderin'ly.

"Yes," sez he, "you know our land jines on the under side. China jines my paster in the middle, though owin' to the way our land lays we can't neighbor much, and," sez he, "you're enough sight better neighbors than some I've got, your folks are old settlers and have always tended to their own bizness and kep' their cattle and hens to hum, which is more than I can say for all the neighbors whose land jines mine."

But I could see that the ladies-in-waitin' wuz oneasy at havin' a man talkin' to 'em so free and I kinder advanced in front of him and sez:

"Josiah and I wuz dretful tickled with the idee at first when we spozed that conference meant real p-e-a-c-e and tryin' to bring the most beautiful gift of G.o.d and joy of heaven nigher to earth. Why, it jest riz us right up, we felt so highly tickled with it. But when we see 'em begin to spell it p-i-e-c-e, and quarrel over the pieces, why, then we turned right agin 'em. Why, good land! even if it wuz right, Josiah has got all the land he wants to work and more too, and as I tell him, what is the use of him or the nation havin' a great lot of land to stand idle and pay taxes on, and keep a gang of hired men to watch. Men and nations can git land poor, I believe."

I see she liked what I said about the Peace Commission, but I wuz afraid she didn't git my idee jest right, so I sez, "I believe in the first on't the Zar's idee come right down from heaven, filtered into his comprehension mebby through a woman's apprehension. But you know how it is, Si Ann, in the berry lot now if there are bushes hangin'