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“Another innocent, ignorant young creature,” sez I; “two little butterflies fluttering about instead of one, not thinkin’ or carin’ for the fouler’s net,” sez I, smilin’ on her pleasant, for I couldn’t help it. For I knew the heart of youth, and the monotony of life, and the need of young hearts for each other. But I didn’t like the young men’s looks and told her so agin, and she laughed, and said she didn’t like their looks either. Sez she, “Their breath always smells of the whiskey. Faugh!” sez she, “it makes me sick,” and she shrugged her shoulders in the true French way.
And I sez agin, lookin’ solemn, “No young man whose breath smells of whiskey is safe for any young girl to associate with. It is a pizen atmosphere that blasts every sweet and pure thing that comes nigh it.” And I sithed.
And she said in her own sweet way that she knew I was telling the truth, for I talked just as her own sweet mother did. And she bent down with one of her pretty foreign ways and kissed my hand. Dear little thing, I didn’t spoze my talk had done her much good, but then I considered it couldn’t do her any hurt ’tennyrate. And so I left the event to the overruling Power, just as we poor weak mortals have to.
151CHAPTER XIII
Well, a day or two after that Josiah and I wuz takin’ a walk, meetin’ occasionally Turks all dressed Turkey fashion, and Japans, and Yankees and men and wimmen and children, when who should we meet face to face but Cousin John Richard, that blessed man. As I said, we had writ and writ and tried to find him, but didn’t know but we should have to hunt round considerable, but wuz bound to not leave the islands till we’d seen him. But lo and behold! here he wuz, lookin’ just as good and heavenly minded as ever. He wuz santerin’ along apparently lost in deep thought or nearly lost.
But when he see us he grasped our hands with a welcome that made us know that no matter to what a extent a man’s soul may live in the heavens, his heart is tied with deathless ties to the relations on his own side and to their pardners if they be congenial.
We stopped stun still and talked quite a spell about different things, our health, the relations and so forth.
Anon I sez, “Cousin John Richard, you look wan and pale, but it is a blessed work you are doin’.”
He had opened a midnight mission, helpin’ the weak and tempted and overcome of both sects, preachin’ the love of Christ and follerin’ his teachin’ up by good works.
He told us all about it as we santered on and said he wuz not weary or discouraged. And I could see that though his linement looked pale and worn a deathless light shone in his deep kind eyes and I knew he wuz endurin’ as seein’ Him who wuz invisible.
As we walked on he said, sadly pintin’ to a barren lookin’152spot sown thick with graves, “In this deadly climate the Drink Demon has little to do to assist his brother, Death. Our poor northern boys fall like rotten leaves before a hurricane.”
Sez I, lookin’ up to the blue sky, “Why don’t the heavens fall when such things affront the light of day!”
“The patience of God,” sez Cousin John Richard, “is one of the things we cannot measure.”
“Nor his pity nuther,” sez I in heart-broken axents, for as I looked at them thickly sown graves and thought of the mothers and wives and sweethearts fur, fur away mournin’ for them that wuz not, my tears fell and I wiped ’em off with my snowy linen handkerchief.
Well, Cousin John Richard had an appointment in another part of the city and we parted away from each other, he promisin’ to come and see us at our tarven before we left the city.
Well, we didn’t make a long stay in Manila. But Arvilly beset me to go with her to see General Grant, who was here on a tour of inspection, on this subject so near to her heart, and which she had made her lifework. She said that it wuz my duty to go.
But I sez, “Arvilly, you talk so hash; I can’t bear to have the son of the man who saved his country talked to as I am afraid you will if you git to goin’.”
Sez she, “I won’t open my head. You know the subject from A to izzard. I’ll jest stand by and listen, but somebody ort to talk to him. Hundreds and hundreds of American saloons in this one city! Forced onto these islands by our country. Sunthin’ has got to be done about it. If you don’t go and talk to him about it I shall certainly go alone, and if I do go,” sez she, “he will hear talk that he never hearn before.”
“I’ll go, Arvilly,” sez I hurriedly, “I’ll go and do the best I can, but if you put in and talk so hash it will jest throw me off the track.”
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“A promise is a promise,” sez she; “I never did break my word yet.”
Well, havin’ made the necessary preliminary moves, we met General Grant by appointment in his own quarters. Before we got inside the lines we had to advance and give the countersign, which wuz Whiskey. Arvilly planted herself right there like a balky mule and said she would die in her tracks before she said it. But I, knowin’ that it wouldn’t make nor break the traffick, sez, “Whiskey,” and I added, “May the Lord destroy it!” Arvilly sez, “Amen!” and we walked in past the astounded sentry with out heads up. (General Grant hadn’t nothin’ to do with that countersign; it wuz some officer’s doin’s.) Well, General Grant seemed quite pleased to see us. He’s a real good-lookin’ man, and if he hadn’t any properties of his own he would be beloved for his pa’s sake, but he has properties of his own. He is a good man and a smart one. Well, the first compliments bein’ passed, I lanched out into my bizness.
Sez I, “Brigadier General Grant, I have come to you on the most important mission any ambassador ever travelled on.”
Sez he, “What sovereign, madam, do you represent, and from what country do you come?” Sez I, “Brigadier General Grant, my mission is from the Lord of Hosts, and the country I come to plead for is your own native land––the United States––the land your own illustrious pa saved with the Lord’s help.”
He wuz deeply affected I see and invited us to set down, consequently we sot. And I sez, plungin’ to once into my bizness as my way is in Jonesville or the Antipathies: “Brigadier General, everybody knows that you are a brave man and a good man.” He thanked me and looked pleased, as well he might from such an enconium from one of the first wimmen of the ages, and I resoomed: “General Grant,” sez I, “are you brave enough and good enough to tackle the worst foe America ever had?”
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Sez he, “What foe do you allude to, mam?”
Sez I, “The foe that slays one hundred thousand a year, and causes ten thousand murders every year, steals the vittles and clothes from starvin’ wimmen and children, has its deadly grip on Church and State, and makes our civilization and Christianity a mock and byword amongst them that think.”
“You allude to Intemperance, I presume,” sez he. He’s dretful smart; he knew it in a minute from my description.
“Yes,” sez I, “a foe a million times as dangerous as any your army ever faced, and a million times as hard to chase out of its ambuscade.”
Sez I, “Frederic (I thought mebby it would sound more convincin’ and friendly if I called him Frederic, and I wanted to convince him; I wanted to like a dog), I don’t believe in war, but when your men died in battle they didn’t moulder out a livin’ death, chained to tender hearts, dragged along the putrid death path with ’em. Their country honored ’em; they wuzn’t thrust into dishonored graves, some as paupers, some as criminals swingin’ from scaffolds. Their country mourns for ’em and honors ’em. It wuzn’t glad to cover their faces away from the light, brutish faces to hant ’em with reproach, I should think, knowin’ how they died. Try to think of that, Frederic; try to take it to heart.”
I hearn Arvilly behind me breathin’ hard and kinder chokin’ seemin’ly, and I knew she wuz holdin’ herself in as tight as if she had a rope round her emotions and indignations to keep her from breakin’ in and jinin’ our talk, but she wuz as true as steel to her word and didn’t say nothin’ and I resoomed:
“You’ve got to take such things to hum to realize ’em,” sez I. “Owin’ to a sweet mother and a good father your boy mebby is safe. But spozein’ he wuzn’t, spozein’ you and his sweet ma had to look on as millions of other pas and mas have to and see his handsome, manly young face growin’ red, dissipated, brutal; his light, gay young heart changed155to a demon’s, and from bein’ your chief pride you had to hide him out of sight like the foul and loathsome leper he had become. Millions of other pas and mas that love their boys as well as you love yours have to do this. And if it wuz your boy what would you say of the legalized crime that made him so? Wouldn’t you turn the might of your great strength aginst it?”
He didn’t speak out loud, but I see from his looks that he would. “Then,” sez I, “do, do think of other pas and mas and sisters and sweethearts and wives weepin’ and wailin’ for husbands, sons and brothers slain by this enemy! I spoze,” sez I reasonably, “that you think it is an old story and monotonous, but Love is an old story and Grief and Death, but they are jest as true as at the creation and jest as solemn.” I thought he looked a good deal convinced, but he looked as if he wuz thinkin’ of the extreme difficulty of reachin’ and vanquishin’ this foe intrenched as it is in the lowest passions of men, hidin’ behind the highest legal barriers and barricaded behind meetin’ house doors, guarded by the ballots of saint and sinner; I read these thoughts on his forehead, and answered ’em jest as if he’d spoke.
Sez I, “When your illustrious father come up face to face with a foe no other general could manage, did he flinch and draw back because it had been called onmanageable by everybody else? No, he drawed a line between good and evil, black and white, and says, ‘I’ll fight it right out on this line.’ And he did, and before his courage and bravery and persistence the foe fell. Now, Frederic, here is the biggest foe that the American people are facin’ to-day; here are weak generals and incompetent ones. Nobody can manage it; them high in authority wink at it and dassent tackle it, and so on down through all the grades of society––Church and State––they dassent touch it. And what is the burnin’est shame, them that ort to fight it support it with all the political and moral help they can give it. Here is a chance, Frederic, for you to do tenfold more for your country’s good156than ever your revered father did, and you know and I know that if it wasn’t for this great evil and a few others, such as the big Trusts and a few other things, our country is the greatest and best that the sun ever shone on. If we loved our country as we ort to we would try to make her do away with these evils and stand up perfect under the heavens. It is the ma that loves her child that spanks her into doin’ right if she can’t coax her, and now do lay hold and help your country up onto the highest pedestal that a country ever stood on, and I’ll help boost all I can.” I hearn behind me a loud “amen,” turned into a cough. Arvilly wuzn’t to blame; it spoke itself onbeknown to her.
Sez I, “This is a hard job I am askin’ you to tackle. The foe your father fit was in front of him, but this foe is within and without, and has for allies, powers and principalities and the Prince of Darkness. And now will you, bearin’ the name you do, of General Grant, will you flinch before this black-hearted foe that aims at the heart and souls of your countrymen and countrywomen, or will you lead the Forlorn Hope? I believe that if you would raise the White Banner and lead on this army of the Cross, Church and State would rally to your battle-cry, angels would swarm round your standard and the Lord of Hosts go forward before you.”
He didn’t say he would, I spoze he wuz too agitated. But he sez sunthin’ in a real polite way about what a good Ambassador his country had in me.
But I sez sadly, “I can’t do much, Frederic. I am a woman, and the only weepon that is able to slay this demon is hung up there in Washington, D. C. Wimmen can’t reach up to it, they can’t vote. But you can; your arm is longer, and with that you can slay this demon as St. George slew the dragon. And heaven itself would drop down heavenly immortelles to mix with our laurel leaves to crown your forehead. Think on it, Frederic, no war wuz ever so holy, no war on earth wuz ever so full of immortal consequences.”
And here I riz up, for I felt that I must leave the Presence,157not wantin’ to make the Presence twice glad. I reached out my right hand and sez, “Good-by, and God bless you, for your own sake and for the sake of your noble pa.”
He looked earnest and thoughtful, that allusion to the boy he loved so, named after his illustrious grandpa, had touched his very soul. I felt that I had not lost my breath or the eloquence I had lavished. I felt that he would help save other bright young boys from the demon that sought their lives––the bloody demon that stalks up and down our country wrapped in a shelterin’ mantilly made of the Stars and Stripes––oh, for shame! for shame that it is so! But I felt that General Grant would come up to the help of the Lord aginst the mighty, I felt it in my bones. But I wuz brung down a good deal in my feelin’s as Arvilly advanced to the front. She had kep’ her word as to talkin’, though the indignant sniffs and sithes behind me showed how hard it had been for her to keep her word, but now she advanced and sez, as she drew out her two books from her work bag: “General Grant, I have two books here I would like to show you, one is the ‘Twin Crimes of America: Intemperance and Greed,’ that subject so ably presented to you by Samantha; the other is ‘The Wild, Wicked and Warlike Deeds of Men.’”
Sez General Grant, risin’ up: “I haven’t time, madam, to examine them, but put me down as a subscriber to both.” Arvilly wuz in high sperits all the way back. As we wended our way to the tarven agin who should we find but Waitstill Webb, and we wuz dretful glad on’t, for we wuz layin’ out to leave Manila in a few days, and this would be our last meetin’ for some time, if not forever. Though I wuz glad to see when questioned by me about her return that she didn’t act so determined as she had acted about devotin’ her hull life to nursin’ the sick.
She told Arvilly confidential that she had had a letter from Ernest White since we had seen her. Arvilly knew that he had wanted to make her his bride before she left Jonesville. But the two ghosts, her murdered love and her duty,158stalked between ’em then, and I spozed wuz stalkin’ some now. But as I said more previous, the sun will melt the snow, and no knowin’ what will take place. I even fancied that the cold snow wuz a little more soft and slushy than it had been, but couldn’t tell for certain.
159CHAPTER XIV
A dretful thing has happened! I am almost too agitated to talk about it, but when I went down with my pardner and Tommy to breakfast ruther late, for we wrote some letters before we went down, Miss Meechim broke the news to me with red eyes, swollen with weepin’. Aronette, that dear sweet little maid that had waited on all on us as devoted as if we wuz her own mas and mas, wuz missin’. Her bed hadn’t been slep’ in for all night; she went out early in the evenin’ on a errent for Dorothy and hadn’t come back.
She slept in a little room off from Dorothy’s, who had discovered Aronette’s absence very early in the morning, and they had all been searching for her ever sence. But no trace of her could be found; she had disappeared as utterly as if the earth had opened and swallowed her up. Dorothy wuz sick in bed from worry and grief; she loved Aronette like a sister; and Miss Meechim said, bein’ broke up by sorrow, “Next to my nephew and Dorothy I loved that child.”
And anon another dretful thing wuz discovered. Whilst we wuz talkin’ about Aronette, Elder Wessel rushed in distracted, with his neck-tie hangin’ under one ear, and his coat buttoned up wrong and the feathers of his conceit and egotism and self-righteousness hangin’ limp as a wet hen.
Lucia had gone too; had disappeared jest as Aronette had, no trace could be found of her; her bed had not been slept in. She, too, had gone out on an errent the evening before. She and Aronette had been seen to leave the hotel together in the early evening. Elder Wessel, half distracted, searched for them with all his strength of mind and purse.
I started Josiah off a huntin’ the minute he had got160through eatin’. He refused pint blank to go before. “Eat,” sez I, “who can eat in such a time as this?”
Sez he, “It goes agin my stomach every mou’ful I take (which was true anyway), but we must eat, Samantha,” sez he, helpin’ himself to another cake. “We must eat so’s to keep up our strength to hunt high and low.”
Well, I spozed he wuz in the right on’t, but every mou’ful he consumed riled me. But at last the plate wuz emptied and the coffee pot out and he sot off. And we searched all that day and the next and the next, and so did Miss Meechim and Arvilly, with tears runnin’ down her face anon or oftener.
Robert Strong, led on, Miss Meechim said by her anxiety, but I thought mebby by the agony in Dorothy’s sweet eyes as well as his own good heart, didn’t leave a stone unturned in his efforts to find ’em. But they had disappeared utterly, no trace could be found of ’em. They had been seen during the evening with the two young men they had got acquainted with and that I didn’t like. They had been seen speaking with them as they came out of the shop where Dorothy had sent Aronette, and the young men could not be found.
Well, we had all searched for three days without finding any trace of the two missing girls. Everything wuz ready for our departure, but Dorothy said that she could not, could not go without Aronette, but Robert Strong said and believed that the child was dead. He had come to the belief that she and Lucia by some accident had fallen into the water and wuz drowned. Dorothy had cried herself sick and she looked wan and white, but bein’ so sweet dispositioned she give up when we all said that we must go before long, and said that she would go too, though I knew that her heart would remain there wanderin’ round in them queer streets huntin’ for her lost one. The morning of the third day after they wuz lost I wuz down in the parlor, when a man come in and spoke to Robert Strong, and they both went out together talking earnestly, and I see in Robert’s161face a look of horrow and surprise that I had never seen in it before; and the first time Robert saw me alone after that he told me the dretful news. He said that the man that spoke to him was a detective he had employed, and the evening before he had come acrost a man who had been out of town since the night Aronette wuz lost. This man told the detective that he saw her and Lucia and the two young men coming out of a saloon late at night, staggering and reeling they all wuz, and they disappeared down a cross street towards another licensed house of ruin. Licensed by Christian America! Oh, my achin’ heart to think on’t! “I wonder if our govermunt is satisfied now,” I broke out, “since it has ruined her, one of the sweetest girls in the world. But how did they ever entice ’em into that saloon?” sez I.
“They might have made them think it was respectable, they do serve lunches at some of them; of course they didn’t know what kind of a place it was. And after they wuz made stupid drunk they didn’t know or care where they went.”
“I wonder if America is satisfied now!” I sez agin, “reachin’ out her long arms clear acrost the Pacific to lead them sweet girls into the pit she has dug for her soldiers? Oh!” sez I, “if she’d only been drownded!” And I wiped my streamin’ eyes on my linen handkerchief.
And Robert sithed deep and sez, “Yes, if she had only died, and,” he sez, “I can’t tell Dorothy, I cannot.”
And I sez, “There is no need on’t; better let her think she’s dead. How long,” sez I, turning toward him fierce in my aspect, “how long is the Lord and decent folks goin’ to allow such things to go on?”
And he sez, “Heaven knows, I don’t.” And we couldn’t say more, for Dorothy wuz approachin’, and Robert called up a smile to his troubled face as he went forward to meet her. But he told me afterwards that the news had almost killed Elder Wessel. He had to tell him to help him in his search. He wuz goin’ to stay on there a spell longer. He had to162tell him that Lucia had been seen with Aronette staggering out of a saloon with two young men late at night, reeling down a by-street to that other licensed house which our Christian govermunt keeps nigh the saloon, it is so obleegin’ and fatherly to its men and boys.
When he told him Elder Wessel fell right down in his chair, Robert said, and buried his face in his hands, and when he took his hands down it wuz from the face of an old man, a haggard, wretched, broken-down old man.
The People’s Club House didn’t wear the kindly beneficent aspect it had wore. He felt that coffee and good books and music would have been safer to fill the Poor Man’s Club with; safer for the poor man; safer for the poor man’s family. Tea and coffee seemed to look different to him from whiskey, and true liberty that he had talked about didn’t seem the liberty to kill and destroy. The license law didn’t wear the aspect it had wore to him, the two licensed institutions Christian America furnished for its citizens at home and abroad seemed now to him, instead of something to be winked at and excused, to be two accursed hells yawning for the young and innocent and unsuspicious as well as for the wicked and evil-minded. Ungrateful country, here wuz one of thy sons who sung the praises of thy institutions under every sky! Ungrateful indeed, to pierce thy most devoted vassal with this sharp thorn, this unbearable agony.
“For how was he goin’ to live through it,” he cried. How was he? His beautiful, innocent daughter! his one pet lamb! It was not for her undoing that he had petted and smiled on these institutions, the fierce wolves of prey, and fed them with honeyed words of excuse and praise. No, it wuz for the undoing of some other man’s daughter that he had imagined these institutions had been raised and cherished.
He wuz an old broken man when he tottered out of that room. And whilst we wuz moving heaven and earth hunting for the girls he wuz raving with delerium with a doctor163and trained nurse over him. Poor man! doomed to spend his hull life a wretched wanderer, searching for the idol of his heart he wuz never to see agin––never!
Well, the time come when we wuz obleeged to leave Manila. Robert Strong, for Dorothy’s sake as well as his own, left detectives to help on the search for the lost ones, and left word how to communicate with him at any time. Waitstill Webb, bein’ consulted with, promised to do all in her power to help find them, but she didn’t act half so shocked and horrified as I spozed she would, not half so much as Arvilly did. She forgot her canvassin’ and wep’ and cried for three or four days most all the time, and went round huntin’, actin’ more’n half crazy, her feelin’s wuz such. But I spoze the reason Waitstill acted so calm wuz that such things wuz so common in her experience. She had knowledge of the deadly saloon and its twin licensed horror, dretful things was occurring all the time, she said.
The detectives also seemed to regard it as nothing out of the common, and as to the saloon-keeper, so much worse things wuz happenin’ all the time in his profession, so much worse crimes, that he and his rich pardner, the American Govermunt, sees goin’ on all the time in their countless places of bizness, murders, suicides, etc., that they evidently seemed to consider this a very commonplace affair; and so of the other house kep’ by the two pardners, the brazen-faced old hag and Christian America, there, too, so many more terrible things wuz occurrin’ all the time that this wuz a very tame thing to talk about.
But to us who loved her, to us whose hearts wuz wrung thinkin’ of her, mournin’ for her, cryin’ on our pillers, seekin’ with agonized, hopeless eyes for our dear one, we kep’ on searchin’ day and night, hopin’ aginst hope till the last minute of our stay there. And the moon and stars of the tropics looked in night after night to the room where the old father lay at death’s door, mourning for his beautiful innocent daughter who wuz lost––lost.
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But the hour come for us to go and we went, and right by us, day or night, in sun or shade, from that hour on a black shadder walked by the side on us in place of the dimpled, merry face of the little maid. We didn’t forgit her in the highest places or the lowest. And after days and days had passed I felt guilty, and as if I hadn’t ort to be happy, and no knowin’ where she’d drifted to in the cruel under world, and wuz like sea-weed driftin’ in the ocean current. And when we wuz out evenin’s, no matter where I wuz, I watched the faces of every painted, gaudy dressed creeter I see, flittin’ down cross streets, hoping and dreading to see Aronette’s little form. Arvilly and Miss Meechim openly and loudly, and Dorothy’s pale face and sorrowful eyes, told the story that they too wuz on the watch and would always be. But never did we catch a glimpse of her! never, never.
As we drew nigh to the city of Victoria on Hongkong island we see that it wuz a beautiful place. Big handsome houses built of gray stun, broad roads tree-bordered, leadin’ up from terrace to terrace, all full of trees, covered with luxuriant tropical foliage. It wuz a fair seen clear from the water’s edge, with its tall handsome houses risin’ right up from the edge of the bay, clear up to the top of Victoria mountain, that stands up two thousand feet, seemin’ly lookin’ over the city to see what it is about. And this is truth and not clear simely, for the Governor General and Chief Justice have houses up there which they call bungalows, and of course they have got to see what is goin’ on. The hull island is only nine milds long and three wide. And here we wuz ten thousand milds from home. Did the Hongkongers ever think on’t, that they wuz ten thousand milds from Jonesville? I hope they didn’t, it would make ’em too melancholy and deprested.
We all went to a comfortable tarven nigh by, and after partakin’ of nourishin’ food, though kinder queer, and a good night’s rest, we felt ready to look round and see what we165could. Josiah and I, with little Tommy, wuz the first ones up in the mornin’, and after breakfast we sallied out into the street. Here I proposed that we should take a jinrikisha ride. This is a chair some like a big willow chair, only with a long pole fastened to each side and two men to carry you round. Josiah wuz real took with the looks on ’em, and as the prize wuz low we got into the chairs, Tommy settin’ in Josiah’s lap, and wuz carried for quite a ways through the narrer streets, with shops juttin’ out on each side, makin’ ’em still narrerer.
Josiah gin orders that I overheard to “go at a pretty good jog past the stores where wimmen buy sooveneers,” but I presoomed that they didn’t understand a word he said, so it didn’t do any hurt and I laid out to git some all the same. But what a sight them streets wuz; they wuz about twenty feet wide, and smooth and clean, but considerable steep. To us who wuz used to the peaceful deacons of Jonesville and their alpaca-clad wives and the neighbors, who usually borry sleeve and skirt and coat and vest patterns, and so look all pretty much alike, what a sight to see the folks we did in goin’ through just one street. Every sort of dress that ever wuz wore we see there, it seemed to me––Europeans, Turks, Mohomadeans, Malays, Japanese, Javanese, Hindoos, Portuguese, half castes, and Chinese coolies. Josiah still called ’em “coolers,” because they wuz dressed kinder cool, but carryin’ baskets, buckets, sedans, or trottin’ a sort of a slow trot hitched into a jinrikisha, or holdin’ it on each side with their hands, with most nothin’ on and two pigtail braids hangin’ down their backs, and such a jabberin’ in language strange to Jonesville ears; peddlers yellin’ out their goods, bells ginglin’, gongs, fire-crackers, and all sorts of work goin’ on right there in the streets. Strange indeed to Jonesville eyes! Catch our folks takin’ their work outdoors; we shouldn’t call it decent.
We went to the Public Gardens, which wuz beautiful with richly colored ornamental shrubbery. I sez to Josiah:
“Did I ever expect to see allspice trees?”
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And he sez: “I can’t bear allspice anyway.”
“Well,” sez I, “cinnamon trees; who ever thought of seein’ cinnamon trees?”
An’ he looked at ’em pretty shrewd and sez: “When I git home I shan’t pay no forty cents a pound for cinnamon. I can tell ’em I’ve seen the trees and I know it ort to be cheaper.” Sez he, “I could scrape off a pound or two with my jack-knife if we could carry it.”
But I hurried him on; I wuzn’t goin’ to lug a little wad of cinnamon ten thousand milds, even if he got it honest. Well, we stayed here for quite a spell, seein’ all the beautiful flowers, magnificent orchids––that would bring piles of money to home, jest as common here as buttercups and daisies in Jonesville, and other beautiful exotics, that we treasure so as houseplants, growin’ out-doors here in grand luxuriance––palms, tree-ferns, banian trees, everything I used to wonder over in my old gography I see right here growin’ free. Tommy wuz delighted with the strange, beautiful flowers, so unlike anything he had ever seen before. We had got out and walked round a spell here, and when we went to git into our sedan chairs agin, I wuz a little behind time, and Josiah hollered out to me:
“Fey tea, Samantha!”
“Tea?” sez I. “I hain’t got any tea here.” And I sez with dignity, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Fey tea,” he sez agin, lookin’ clost at me.
And I sez agin with dignity, “I don’t know what you mean.” And he sez to me: “I am talkin’ Chinese, Samantha; that means ‘hurry up.’ I shall use that in Jonesville. When you’re standin’ in the meetin’ house door talkin’ about bask patterns and hired girls with the female sisters, and I waitin’ in the democrat, I shall holler out, ‘Fie tea, Samantha;’ it will be very stylish and uneek.”
I didn’t argy with him, but got in well as I could, but havin’ stepped on my dress and most tore it, Josiah hollered out, “See sum! see sum! Samantha!”
167
And I, forgittin’ his fashionable aims, sez to him, “See some what, Josiah?”
“See sum, Samantha. That means ‘be careful.’ I shall use that too in Jonesville. How genteel that will make me appear to holler out to Brother Gowdey or Uncle Sime Bentley, in a muddy or slippery time, ‘See sum, Brother Gowdey; see sum, Uncle Sime!’ Such doin’s will make me sought after, Samantha.”
“Well,” sez I, “we’d better be gittin’ back to the tarven, for Arvilly will be wonderin’ where we are and the rest on ’em.”
“Well, just as you say, Samantha,” and he leaned back in his chair and waved his hand and says to the men, “Fey tea, fey tea; chop, chop.”
I expect to see trouble with that man in Jonesville streets with his foreign ways.
Well, we wuz passin’ through one of the narrer streets, through a perfect bedlam of strange cries in every strange language under the sun, so it seemed, and seein’ every strange costoom that wuz ever wore, when, happy sight to Jonesville eyes, there dawned on my weary vision a brown linen skirt and bask, made from my own pattern.
Yes, there stood Arvilly conversin’ with a stately Sikh policeman. She held up the “Twin Crimes” in a allurin’ way and wuz evidently rehearsin’ its noble qualities. But as he didn’t seem to understand a word she said she didn’t make a sale. But she wuz lookin’ round undanted for another subscriber when she ketched sight of us. And at my request we dismissed the jinrikishas and walked back to the tarven with her.
Dorothy and Miss Meechim and Robert Strong come back pretty soon from a tower of sight-seein’, and they said we’d all been invited to tiffen with the Governor-General the next day. Well, I didn’t have the least idee what it wuz, but I made up my mind to once that if tiffenin’ wuz anything relatin’ to gamblin’ or the opium trade, I shouldn’t168have a thing to do with it. But Josiah spoke right up and sez he had rather see tiffen than anybody else in China, and mistrustin’ from Robert’s looks that he had made a mistake, he hastened to add that tiffenin’ wuz sunthin’ he had always hankered after; he had always wanted to tiffen, but hadn’t the means in Jonesville.
Sez Robert, “Then I shall accept this invitation for breakfast for all our party.” And after they went out I sez: “I’d hold myself a little back, Josiah. To say that you’d never had means to take breakfast in Jonesville shows ignorance and casts a slur on me.”
“Oh, I meant I never had any tiffen with it, Samantha; you’ll see it don’t mean plain breakfast; you’ll see that they’ll pass some tiffen, and we shall have to eat it no matter what it’s made on, rats or mice or anything. Whoever heard of common breakfast at twelve M.?”
Well, it did mean just breakfast, and we had a real good time. We went up in sedan chairs, though we might have gone on the cars. But we wanted to go slower to enjoy the scenery.
I had thought the view from the hill back of Grout Nickleson’s wuz beautiful, and also the Pali at Honolulu, but it did seem to me that the seen we looked down on from the top of Victoria mountain wuz the most beautiful I ever did see. The city lay at our feet embowered in tropical foliage, with its handsome uneek buildin’s, its narrer windin’ streets stretchin’ fur up the mountain side, runnin’ into narrerer mountain paths covered with white sand. The beautiful houses and gardens of the English colony clost down to the shore. The tall masts of the vessels in the harbor looking like a water forest with flowers of gayly colored flags. And further off the Canton or Pearl River, with scores of villages dotting its banks; glittering white temples, with their pinnacles glistening in the sunlight; pagodas, gayly painted with gilded bells, rising up from the beautiful tropical foliage;169broad green fields; mountains soarin’ up towards the blue heavens and the blue waters of the sea.
A fair seen, a fair seen! I wished that sister Henzy could see it, and told Josiah so.
And he sez with a satisfied look, “Wait till I describe it to ’em, Samantha. They’d ruther have me describe it to ’em than see it themselves.” I doubted it some, but didn’t contend.
The breakfast wuz a good one, though I should have called it dinner to home. Josiah wuz on the lookout, I could see, for tiffen to be passed, but it wuzn’t, so he ort to give up, but wouldn’t; but argyed with me out to one side that “they wuz out of tiffen, and hadn’t time to buy any and couldn’t borry.”
Well, the Governor-General seemed to be greatly taken with Dorothy. A relation on his own side wuz the hostess, and Miss Meechim acted real relieved when it turned out that he had a wife who wuz visiting in England.
I sot at the right hand of the Governor-General and I wanted to talk to him on the opium question and try to git him to give up the trade, but concluded that I wouldn’t tackle him at his own table. But I kep’ up a stiddy thinkin’.
That very mornin’ I read in the daily paper that two missionaries had arrived there the day before, and on the same steamer three hundred chests of opium.
Poor creeters! didn’t it seem mockin’ the name of religion to help convert the natives and on the same steamer send three hundred chests of the drug to ondo their work and make idiots and fiends of ’em.
It seemed to me some as if I should read in the Jonesville “Augur” or “Gimlet” that our govermunt had sent out three or four fat lambs to help the starvin’ poor and sent ’em in the care of thirty or forty tigers and wild cats.
No doubt the lambs would git there, but they would be inside the wild cats and tigers.
Such wicked and foolish and inconsistent laws if made by170women would make talk amongst the male sect, and I wouldn’t blame ’em a mite; I should jine with ’em and say, “Sure enough it is a proof that wimmen don’t know enough to vote and hain’t good enough; let ’em drop the political pole, retire into the background and study statesmanship and the Bible, specially the golden rule.” But to resoom.
Arvilly tried to turn the conversation on the “Twin Crimes” of America, but didn’t come right out and canvass him, for which I wuz thankful. They all paid lots of attention to Tommy, who had a great time, and I spoze Carabi did too.
We had fruits and vegetables at the table, all gathered from the Governor-General’s garden––fresh fruit and vegetables in February, good land! Pickin’ berries and pineapples while the Jonesvillians’ fruit wuz snowballs and icesuckles; jest think on’t!
Well, Robert Strong thought we had better proceed on to Canton the next day and we wuz all agreeable to it.
After we all went back to the tarven and I had laid down a spell and rested, I went out with Arvilly and Tommy for a little walk, Miss Meechim, and Dorothy, and Robert Strong havin’ gone over to Maceo, the old Portuguese town on the mainland. They wanted to see the place where Camoens wrote his great poem, “The Lusiad,” and where he writ them heart-breakin’ poems to Catarina. Poor creeters! they had to be separated. King John sent him off from Lisbon, wantin’ the girl himself, so I spoze. Catarina died soon of a broken heart, but Camoens lived on for thirty years in the body, and is livin’ now and will live on in the Real Life fer quite a spell.
Yes, his memory is jest as fresh now as it ever wuz in them streets he wandered in durin’ his sad exile, while the solid stun his feet trod on has mouldered and gone to pieces, which shows how much more real the onseen is than the seen, and how much more indestructible. Iron pillars and granite columns aginst which his weary head had leaned oft-times171had all mouldered and decayed. But the onseen visions that Camoens see with his rapt poet’s eye wuz jest as fresh and deathless as when he first writ ’em down. And his memory hanted the old streets, and went before ’em and over ’em. How much more real than the tropical birds that wheeled and glittered in the luxuriant tropical foliage, though they couldn’t lay hands on ’em and ketch ’em and bring a few to me, much as I would liked to have had ’em. But these bein’ the real, as I say, they wuz also with me way over in Hongkong. I thought a sight on him all the time they wuz gone, and afterwards I thought of the honor and dignity his noble verse had gin to his country, and how princely the income they had gin him after they let him return from his exile. Twenty-one dollars a year! What a premium that wuz upon poesy; the Muse must have felt giddy to think she wuz prized so high, and his native land repented of the generosity afterwards and stopped the twenty-one dollars a year.
But then after his starved and strugglin’ life wuz ended his country acted in the usual way, erected monuments in his honor, and struck off medals bearin’ his liniment. The worth of one medal or one little ornament on the peak of one of his statutes might have comforted the broken heart and kep’ alive the starved body and gin him some comfort. But that hain’t the way of the world; the world has always considered it genteel and fashionable to starve its poets, and stun its prophets, with different kinds of stuns, but all on ’em hard ones; not that it has done so in every case, but it has always been the fashionable way.
Dorothy and Robert talked quite a good deal about the sad poet and his works, their young hearts feelin’ for his woe; mebby sunthin’ in their own hearts translatin’ the mournful history; you know plates have to be fixed jest right or the colors won’t strike in. It is jest so in life. Hearts must be ready to photograph the seens on, or they won’t be took. Some hearts and souls are blank plates and will172always remain so. Arvilly seemed lost in thought as they talked about the poet (she hain’t so well versed in poetry as she is in the license laws and the disabilities of wimmen), and when she hearn Robert Strong say, “Camoens will live forever,” she sez dreamily:
“I wonder if he’d want to subscribe for the ‘Twin Crimes’?” And sez she, “I am sorry I didn’t go over with you and canvass him.” Poor thing! she little knew he had got beyend canvassin’ and all other cares and troubles of life two hundred years ago. But Miss Meechim wuz dretful worked up about the gambling going on at Maceo, and she sez it is as bad as at Monte Carlo. (I didn’t know who he wuz, but spozed that he wuz a real out and out gambler and blackleg). And sez she, “Oh, how bad it makes me feel to see such wickedness carried on. How it makes my heart yearn for my own dear America!” Miss Meechim is good in some things; she is as loyal to her own country as a dog to a root, but Arvilly sez:
“I guess we Americans hadn’t better find too much fault with foreign natives about gambling, when we think of our stock exchanges, huge gamblin’ houses where millions are gambled for daily; thousands of bushels of wheat put up there that never wuz growed only in the minds of the gamblers. Why,” sez Arvilly, warmin’ up with her subject, “we are a nation of gamblers from Wall Street, where gamblin’ is done in the name of greed, down to meetin’ houses, where bed-quilts and tidies are gambled for in the name of religion. From millionaires who play the game for fortunes down to poor backwoodsmen who raffle for turkeys and hens, and children who toss pennies for marbles.”
Sez Miss Meechim, “I guess I will take a little quinine and lay down a spell.” Arvilly tosted her head quite a little after she retired and then she went out to canvass a clerk in the office. Arvilly is dantless in carriage, but she is too hash. I feel bad about it.
173CHAPTER XV
Arvilly and I went out for a walk, takin’ Tommy with us. We thought we would buy some sooveneers of the place. Sez Arvilly, “I want to prove to the Jonesvillians that I’ve been to China, and I want to buy some little presents for Waitstill Webb, that I can send her in a letter.”
And I thought I would buy some little things for the children, mebby a ivory croshay hook for Tirzah Ann and a paper cutter for Thomas J., and sunthin’ else for Maggie and Whitfield. It beats all what exquisite ivory things we did see, and in silver, gold, shell, horn and bamboo, every article you can think on and lots you never did think on, all wrought in the finest carvin’ and filigree work. Embroideries in silk and satin and cloth of gold and silver, every beautiful thing that wuz ever made you’d see in these shops.
I wuz jest hesitatin’ between a ivory bodkin with a butterfly head and a ivory hook with a posy on the handle, when I hearn the voice of my pardner, seemin’ly makin’ a trade with somebody, and I turned a little corner and there I see him stand tryin’ to beat down a man from Tibet, or so a bystander told me he wuz, a queer lookin’ creeter, but he understood a few English words, and Josiah wuz buyin’ sunthin’ as I could see, but looked dretful meachin and tried to conceal his purchase as he ketched my eye. I see he wuz doin’ sunthin’ he ort not to do, meachinness and guilt wuz writ down on his liniment. But my axent and mean wuz such that he produced the object and tried hard to explain and apologize.
It wuz a little prayer-wheel designed for written prayers to be put in and turned with a crank, or it could be hitched174to water power or a wind-mill or anything, and the owner could truly pray without ceasing. Oh how I felt as he explained! I felt that indeed the last straw wuz bein’ packed onto my back, but Josiah kep’ on with his apoligizin’.
“You needn’t look like that, Samantha; I can tell you I hain’t gin up religion or thought on’t. I want you to know that I am still a strong, active member of the M. E. meetin’ house, but at the same time,” sez he, “if I––if there––spozein’ there wuz, as it were, some modifications and conveniences that would help a Christian perfessor along, I don’t know as I would be to blame to avail myself of ’em.”
Sez I, “If you’re guiltless what makes you look so meachin?”
“Well, I most knew you wouldn’t approve on it, but,” sez he, “I can tell you in a few short words what it will do. You can write your prayers all out when you have time and put ’em into this wheel and turn it, or you can have it go by water, you can hitch it to the windmill and have it a-prayin’ while you water the cattle in the mornin’, and I thought, Samantha, that in hayin’ time or harvestin’ when I am as busy as the old Harry I could use it that way, or I could be a turnin’ it on my way to the barn to do the chores, or I could hitch it onto the grin’stone and Ury and I could pray for the whole family whilst we wuz whettin’ the scythes.”
“Not for me,” sez I, groanin’ aloud, “not for me.”
“You needn’t look like that, Samantha; I tell you agin I wuzn’t goin’ to use it only when I wuz driv to death with work. And I tell you it would be handy for you when you expected a houseful of company, and Philury wuz away.”
“No, indeed!” sez I; “no such wicked, wicked work will be connected with my prayers.”
“Well,” sez Arvilly, “I d’no as it would be much wickeder than some prayers I’ve hearn when folks wuz in a hurry; they would run their thanksgivin’s into their petitions and them into their amens, and gallop through ’em so there wuzn’t a mite of sense in ’em. Or take so much175pains to inform the Lord about things. I hearn one man say,” sez Arvilly:
“‘O Lord, thou knowest by the morning papers, so and so.’ I d’no as a prayer turned off by a wheel would look much worse or be much less acceptable.”
Josiah looked encouraged, and sez he to me,soty vosey, “Arvilly always did have good horse sense.”
Sez I, “They wuzn’t run by machinery––wicked, wicked way. A boughten machine!” sez I, shettin’ up my eyes and groanin’ agin.
“No,” sez Josiah eagerly, “I wuz agoin’ to tell you; I’ve got a wheel to home and a cylinder that come offen that old furnace regulator that didn’t work, and I thought that with a little of Ury’s help I could fix one up jest as good as this, and I could sell this for twice what I gin for it to Deacon Henzy or old Shelmadine, or rent it through hayin’ and harvestin’ to the brethren, or–––”
Sez I, “You would disseminate these wicked practices, would you, in dear Christian Jonesville? No, indeed.”
“I tell you agin I wuzn’t a-goin’ to use it only in the most hurryin’ times––I–––”
But I sez, “I will hear no more; give it back to the man and come with your pardner!”
And I linked my arm in hisen and motioned to the man to move off with his wheels. And my looks wuz that dignified and lofty that I spoze it skairt him and he started off almost immegiately and to once.
And I hain’t hern no more about it, but don’t know how much more trouble I may have with it. No knowin’ what that man may take it into his head to do in Jonesville or China. But prayer-wheels! little did I think when I stood at the altar with Josiah Allen that I should have to dicker with them.
It only took six hours to sail from Hongkong up to Canton. The scenery along the Pearl River is not very interesting except the rice fields, banana groves with pagodas176risin’ amongst ’em anon or oftener, and the strange tropical foliage, cactuses that we raise in little jars riz up here like trees.
The native villages along the ruther flat shore looked kinder dilapidated and run down, but yet they looked so different from Jonesville houses that they wuz interestin’ in a way. The forts that we passed occasionally looked as if they would stand quite a strain. But the queerest sight wuz the floatin’ houses that we had to sail through to land. Two hundred thousand folks live on them boats, are born on ’em, grow up, marry, raise a family and die, all right there on the water, just as other folks live on the land.
If a young man courts a girl he takes her and her setting out, which is mebby a extra night gown, or I don’t know what they do call ’em––their dresses look like night gowns. Well, she will take that and a rice kettle and go into his junk and mebby never leave it through her life only to visit her friends. The children swarmed on them boats like ants on a ant-hill, and they say that if they git too thick they kinder let ’em fall overboard, not push ’em off, but kinder let ’em go accidental like, specially girls, they kinder encourage girls fallin’ off. And the Chinese think that it is wrong to save life. If any one is drownin’, for instance, they think that it is the will of the higher Power and let ’em go. But they look down on girls dretfully. If you ask a Chinaman how many children he has got he will say “Two children and two piecee girl.” Jest as if boys was only worthy to be called children, and girls a piece of a child. Miss Meechim wuz indignant when that way of theirs wuz mentioned; she considers herself as good if not better than one man and a half. Sez she: “The idee of calling a boy a child, and a girl a piece of a child, or words that mean that.”
But Arvilly sez, “Well, how much better is it in the United States––or most of ’em? Girls don’t even have the comfort of thinkin’ that they’re a piece of a person; they’re just nothin’ at all in the eyes of the law––unless the law177wants to tax ’em to raise money.” Sez she, “I would be thankful ’lection day if I wuz a piece of a woman, so that five or six of us would make a hull citizen.” Miss Meechim had never thought on’t before, she said she hadn’t, but nobody could git her to say a word aginst American customs no more than they could aginst herself. She thinks that she and America are perfect, but puts herself first. Well, America is the best land under the sun; I’ve always said so. But I feel towards it as I do towards Josiah: what faults it has I want to talk it out of, so that it will stand up perfect among nations as Josiah could amongst men if he would hear to me. Arvilly likes to stir Miss Meechim up; I believe she sez things a purpose sometimes to set Miss Meechim off; but then Arvilly talks from principle, too, and she is real cute.
There wuz all sorts of boats, theatre junks and concert junks and plain junks, and Josiah wuz dretful took with this floatin’ city, and sez to once that he should build a house boat as soon as he got home––he and Ury. He said that he could use the old hay-rack to start it––that and the old corn-house would most make it.
“Where will you put it?” sez I.
“Oh, on the creek or the canal,” sez he. “It will be so uneek for us to dwell when we want to, on the briny deep.”
“I guess there hain’t much brine in the creek or the canal,” Josiah.
“Well, I said that for poetical purposes. But you know that it would be very stylish to live in a boat, and any time we wanted to, when onexpected company wuz comin’, or the tax collector or book agent, jest hist the sail and move off, it would be dretful handy as well as stylish.”
“Well, well,” sez I, “you can’t build it till you git home.” I felt that he would forgit it before then. Arvilly looked thoughtfully at ’em and wondered how she wuz goin’ to canvass ’em, and if they would do as Josiah intimated if they see her comin’. Miss Meechim wondered if they could178git to meetin’ in time, they seemed to move so slow, and Robert Strong said to Dorothy:
“Well, a poor man can feel that he owns the site his home stands on, as well as the rich man can, and that would be a hopeless attempt for him in our large American cities, and he can’t be turned out of his home by some one who claims the land.”
And Tommy wondered how the little boys could play ball, and if they didn’t want to slide down hill, or climb trees, or pick berries, and so on and so on. And every one on us see what wuz for us to see in the movin’ panoramy.
Canton is a real queer city. The streets are so narrer that you can almost reach out your hands and touch the houses on both sides, they are not more than seven or eight feet wide. There are no horses in Canton, and you have to git about on “shanks’s horses,” as Josiah calls it, your own limbs you know, or else sedan chairs, and the streets are so narrer, some on ’em, that once when we met some big Chinese man, a Mandarin I believe they called him, we had to hurry into one of the shops till he got by, and sometimes in turnin’ a corner the poles of our chairs had to be run way inside of the shops, and Josiah said:
“I would like to see how long the Jonesvillians would stand such doin’s; I would like to see old Gowdey’s fills scrapin’ my cook stove, it is shiftless doin’s, and ort to be stopped.”
But I knew he couldn’t make no change and I hushed him up as well as I could. Robert Strong got quite a comfortable tarven for us to stay in. But I wuz so afraid all the time of eatin’ rats and mice that I couldn’t take any comfort in meat vittles. They do eat rats there, for I see ’em hangin’ in the markets with their long tails curled up, ready to bile or fry. Josiah said he wished he had thought on’t, he would brung out a lot to sell, and he wuz all rousted up to try to make a bargain to supply one of these shops with rats and mice. Sez he: