We entered Fair Japan through a big gateway a hundred feet high. It wuz
called the Temple of Kiko, it wuz all covered with carvin' and gold
ornaments. And they say it couldn't be made now of the same materials
for a million dollars. It would been magnificent lookin' if it hadn't
been for what looked like serpents wreathin' up the pillars in front. I
hate snakes! and they're the last ornaments I would ever sculp over my
front door.
Blandina said they wuz dragons, and mebby they wuz. 'Tennyrate they wuz
fastened to the pillars and didn't offer to hurt us. We got quite a good
meal, but queer, in a tea-house on the borders of the lake. They had the
best tea I ever drinked. I asked 'em how long they steeped it, and how
much they put in for a drawin', but they bein' ignorant didn't seem to
understand me. But I enjoyed bein' there, for whilst our inner men and
wimmen wuz bein' refreshed our minds wuz enriched by this real picture
of life in Japan, for in there it is jest as if we had traveled
thousands of milds and wuz sot down in the real Japan.
After the edge of Josiah's hunger wuz squenched he begun to look about
him and praise up the looks of the Geisha girls that wuz dancin' or
rather posterin' in their pretty modest way, and some on 'em playin' on
queer lookin' instruments that looked some like my carpet sweeper.
These girl musicians wuz settin' on the floor dressed in what seemed to
be gay colored night gowns, and they looked well enough, kinder innocent
and modest lookin'. But I told him it wuzn't becomin' in a old man and a
professor to be so enthusiastick over young girls dancin' and playin'.
And he sez, "Oh, well, fetch on your girl blinders and I'll put 'em on.
But till you git 'em for me and harness me up in 'em I've got to look
round some."
But I told him there wuz enough for him to see besides girls and there
wuz. For it beats all what long strides the Japans have made in every
branch of education and culture. If they keep on in the next century as
they have in this some of the so-called advanced nations will have to
take a back seat and let this little brown, polite people stand to the
head. But then they have been cultured for hundreds of years, though
lots of folks don't seem to know it.
But I am sorry to say it wuzn't the high art and culture of Japan that
Josiah wuz most interested in, but the queer things, such as the strange
stunted trees trained into forms of men and animals hundreds of years
old and no higher than a common chair, and lots of 'em not so high. And
there wuz roosters with tails twenty-five feet long.
Josiah said he wuz bound to git an egg and see if he could hatch one.
And I sez, "Where would it roost? It's tail is long agin as the hen
house is high."
Well, he said in the summer it could roost on top of the barn with its
tail kinder hangin' down and out over the smoke house.
But it wuzn't a minute before his eyes wuz took up with some images,
some big ones covered with the most exquisite carvin', down to them so
small, if you'll believe it, they wuz carved out of a single kernel of
rice. And there wuz gold fish and a hundred other kinds of fishes, and
you see there the common houses of the people and people livin' in them
jest as they do in their own country, and a royal palace, arched
bridges, lanterns hangin' everywhere, pagodas, temples, lagoons with
ornamental boats, cascades, etc. All made a pretty picture, though
curious.
Then in Asakusa, a native village of Japan, is forty stores and there
you see the most beautiful display of rugs, carved ivory and wood,
porcelain, jewels, fans, paintings, etc., and the workmen busy making
'em right before your eyes. And in the narrer streets jugglers,
acrobats, fortune tellers are giving their mysterious performances.
There are bands of music, jinrikishaws with men harnessed up in 'em, and
you can ride in 'em if so inclined.
There wuz quite a number of places on the Pike that we passed that I
kinder wanted to see, but Josiah wuzn't willin' to pay out too much
money, and what interested me most wuz the foreign countries that I had
never had a chance to see, they havin' the misfortune to be so fur from
Jonesville. But when we got to the Chinese Village, it had such a
magnificent and showy front that Josiah never made an objection to goin'
inside.
I wuz dretful glad to go there, you know it is nater to want to do what
you can't. And China has been so determined to keep Josiah and I and the
world out of her empire, I wuz glad enough to git in, and wuz real
interested lookin' at them queer yeller pig-tailed little creeters with
dresses on, and their funny little houses.
There wuz a big Chinese theatre, and a Joss house where they worship
Joss, whoever he or she may be, I wanted to have their religion
explained to me, there wuz a guide there to do it.
But Josiah said that as a deacon he wouldn't countenance it, for I might
be led into idolatry. And when I argued with him he whispered to me:
"Samantha, if you insist on hangin' round their meetin' house here any
longer I shall say out loud, 'By Joss!'"
At that fearful threat I started on, I wouldn't let him demean himself
before the heathen.
You can see here in this country, as in Japan, native workers plyin'
their different trades, mechanics, painters, jewelers, etc., etc. Silk
weavers usin' the same old, onhandy looms they used centuries ago, ivory
carvers fashionin' elephants and other animals, and all on 'em tryin' to
sell to us in their high-pitched voices.
I had quite a number of emotions here in China a musin' on the oldness
and strangeness of their civilization, and wonderin' if it would ever be
merged into a newer, fresher life.
Blandina didn't share my lofty emotions, she simpered some and said, "I
believe they would make lovely husbands if their eyes wuz sot in
straighter and they dressed different."
And I sez, "I wouldn't admire 'em in that capacity, but after all they
would be equinomical husbands. If you had a calico dress kinder wore off
round the bottom you could cut it off and make 'em wear it, men's
clothes are so expensive it would be quite a savin'. And you could pass
him off for the hired girl if strangers come onexpected, though that is
sunthin' I wouldn't approve on, fur from it, a hauty sperit goes before
a fall, as I told Josiah once when he got on a new kind of collar that
held his head up so high he fell over the wood-box."
But to resoom. The Chinese are curious lookin', but equinomical, they
can live on a few grains of rice a day, and America owes 'em a debt of
gratitude anyway for tunnelin' her Rocky Mountains, buildin' her big
railroads and diggin' ditches to water the land and make it beautiful
that they're shet out of.
Blandina sez to me as we wended our way out, "No man ort to be turned
back out of this country." She said the Chinee wuz good, industrious,
equinomical and peaceable.
And I sez, "Yes, they work well and don't go round like some other
foreigners with a chip on their shoulder. But," sez I, "Blandina, I will
not tell the nation what to do in this matter; there is so much to be
said on both sides it must not depend on me to settle it, and they
needn't ask me to."
I hadn't more than said these words as we wuz strollin' along when who
should we meet but Royal and Rosy Nelson. I knowed they wuz to be
married the very day after we left for St. Louis. We wuz invited but
couldn't go, our plans bein' all laid and tickets bought, but I sent 'em
a handsome present, for I wuz highly tickled with the match.
Truly no rose ever looked sweeter hangin' on its bough than did Rosy
Nelson hangin' onto the arm of her devoted consort, and he I thought wuz
well named, so royal and proud wuz his mean as he introduced his wife.
I kissed her warmly right there in China and promised to make her a all
day's visit soon as I got home, I'm lottin' on't.
We talked a little about past troubles caused by Jabezeses and
inventions, and the glories of the Fair, and then they strolled off
happy as two turkle doves, not needin' or desirin' any other company
than their own, and showin' it plain by their actions. Josiah was put
out about it for he wanted to find out about how things wuz to home,
bein' highly tickled to meet a male Jonesvillian.
Blandina sez as they walked away, bound up in each other and both on 'em
wropped up in the glowin' mantilly of youth and joy: "Oh, happy, happy
wedded souls! how I envy you."
And Josiah sez in a fraxious axent, "How queer it is that two such smart
young folks can look and act so spooney, but thank heaven! it won't
last. It won't be long before Royal will be willin' to pass the time o'
day with a Jonesvillian."
I told him there wuz nothin' so beautiful as love. "No, nor nothin' that
makes folk act so like pesky fools, they don't act as though they knew
putty."
I hated such oncongenial idees. But couldn't deny they wuz spooney, for
they wuz, not a small teaspoon but a big silver dinner spoon, and I
believe it will last. Not the outward form of the spoon, oh, no, that
would be too wearisome to the world and themselves, but the precious
metal that forms it. Love is the greatest thing in the world.
Blandina had always lived in a back place and had never heard a
graphophone, so bein' kinder tired, and bein' nigh a place where they
had one, we went in at her request and sot for quite a spell.
And we heard voices and songs gay and sad, marches and melodies,
loftiest oratory, maddest mirth and profoundest feeling all comin' out
of a little square box, what a idee!
What a man that Edison is. It seems always like watchin' the wonderful
onseen secrets of nater, like seein' the mortal made immortal to think
that voices we've loved and mourned as they wuz hushed in the last
stillness can sound out agin, breakin' our hearts with the same old
echoes, the same old sweetness of the voice we loved and lost, talkin'
in mortal words and axents to us when they've long, long ago learnt the
immortal language, beheld the immortal seens.
Why Cleopatra's voice might have been stored up as she made love to
Antony, or the voice of the relation on her own side, old Mr. Pharo
himself orderin' the Hebrews to git out of his premises, and their back
talk about plaguin' him till he wuz willin' they should go.
Why even Eve scoldin' Adam about slackness in gittin' kindlin' wood or
her pardner complainin' about her wastefulness and extravagance in usin'
so many fig leaves for her fall suit. Oh, how nateral, how nateral that
would sound to wimmen.
Or old Noah's voice as he stood in the Ark door bagonin and shoutin' to
the animals to walk in male and female. Or his voice kinder soothin' and
patronizin' tellin' the female dove to go out and shirk round on the
water and see if it wuz safe for the males in the party to go out. Oh,
how nateral that would sound to wimmen, soundin' out through the
centuries.
And on and on down the long years, Job's voice complainin' of the bitter
comfort of his friend's familiar talk. He'd stood losin' family and
fortune and had stood biles but the seven days' visitation and the "I
told-you-sos" and the advice of well wishers wuz too much for him.
And Solomon's talk to Miss Sheba and hem to him. And Daniel's talk by
the deep waters, and mebby the Great Voice that said to him:
"Understand!"
And brave Queen Esther's voice facin' her enemies and a drunken king,
and sweet Ruth's, and Paul's incomparable words, and St. John's. Or the
lofty voices of the Patriot fathers as they nobly shrieked for freedom
as they threw their pardner's tea overboard, while they hung onto their
whiskey and tobacco that wuz taxed twice as high.
Oh, how their impassioned cries for liberty, and how they would
willin'ly sacrifice their wives favorite beveridge ruther than to yield
to the tyrant. How nateral, how nateral them noble yells would sound to
their descendant females, the Daughters of the Revolution, and all the
rest. What would it be for us all to hear them axents, and it could have
been done if Edison had been born sooner and that little box had been
round.
I didn't wonder that Blandina wuz enthused, it is enough to enthuse
anybody that never has hearn it, she said she laid out to go every day
three or four times a day and stay jest as long as she could.
One of the most remarkable sights we see on the Pike wuz Jim Key, a
horse that is valued at a hundred thousand dollars, who travels in his
own private car. A horse that can read and write, spell, understand
mathematics, go to the post office, git mail from any box, give chapter
and verse of Bible text where the horse is mentioned, uses the
telephone, and is so intelligent you expect him to break out in oratory
any time.
Josiah wuz spell bound here, I could hardly tear him away. And sez he:
"The first thing I do when I go home will be to send the colt to the
deestrick school."
I told him the teacher wouldn't want him whinnerin' round amongst her
scholars, and mebby gallopin' and snortin' round the schoolroom.
But he wuz as firm as adamant in his idee. And Id'no what I shall do
about it. But spoze the trustees will have to head him off.
Josiah wanted to go and see the Fire Fighters, he said he thought he
could git some idees to tell the brethren that wuz in the fire company,
and Blandina and I wanted to see the Esquimeaux Village. We went on,
Josiah promisin' to meet us there. And as we went I said:
"I've sung for years about Greenland's icy mountains, but never spozed I
should set my eyes on 'em." For there towerin' up to the skies wuz
immense ice mountains peaked and desolate lookin', and inside it looked
worse yet. A bare snowy place broken by cold lookin' water dotted with
ice islands and surrounded by tall ice peaks. I don't spoze it wuz real
ice and snow, but looked like it.
And there wuz reindeers hitched to sleds, and the low round huts of the
natives lookin' jest like the pictures in our old Gography. And there
wuz some white bears natural as life, and dog teams haulin' sledges,
toiling up the steep cliffs hitched tantrum. The natives wuz queer
lookin' little creeters, dark complexioned, dressed in furs and thick
costooms. But little Nancy Columbus born at the World's Fair, Chicago,
wuz cute as she could be.
There wuz a big street show at the other end of the Pike and this place
wuz most deserted by sight-seers, and Blandina and I sot down on a bench
by the side of one of these little housen to rest. As we did so we hearn
the voice of oratory comin' from the other side, where some Esquimeaux
seemed to be gathered with open mouths and wonderin' linements. The
orator seemed to be finishin' his address in words as follers:
"Let us not permit ourselves to be spiritually incapacitated by
quandaries regarding the control of earthly matter. Let us
circumnavigate the ethereal realms of unexplored ether, quander the
unquanderable until the everlastin' stupendiousness of the whyness of
the what shall dawn on the enraptured vision, and precipitate the
effulgent tissues of ethereal matter in one glorious pulchritude of
transcendentalism."
As the speaker paused for needed breath Blandina clasped her hands and
sithed out, "Oh, what glorious eloquence! I never hearn anything like
it!"
And I sez, "I never did but once, I know that voice, though I hain't
hearn it for twenty years; that is Prof. Aspire Todd." And I thought to
myself, he is practicin' over a speech, and thought the Esquimeaux would
stand it better than tribes less humble and good natered. And so it
turned out; he hoped he would be invited to speak at a scientific
meetin' to take place in Festival Hall in a day or two, and bein' to the
Inside Inn he'd tried to orate his speech in his own room, but it is
built so shammy you can hear things from one end to the other, and they
threatened him with horse whippin' on one side and lynchin' on the
other, and bein' drove to it he tried it on the Esquimeauxs. They stood
it pretty well, though I noticed one or two on 'em weepin' bitterly, not
knowin' what ailed 'em.
Well, to resoom backward, I sez to Blandina, "I hearn Aspire Todd at a
Fourth of July celebration in Josiah's sugar bush."
"Oh," sez Blandina, claspin' her hands, "would it be possible for you to
introduce me to that noble being?"
Sez I, "You like his talk then?"
"Oh, yes!" sez she, shutting her eyes and clasping her hands. "His
matchless eloquence is beyond praise."
"So 'tis," sez I, "way beyond my praise. But I can introduce you if you
want me to; he visited me that time he wuz in Jonesville and stayed to
supper." So as he come round the corner of the buildin' follered by some
bewildered lookin' natives I put out my hand and sez, "I don't know as
you know me, Professor Aspire Todd, but you visited me in Jonesville. I
am Josiah Allen's wife."
He grasped my hand almost warmly and sez, "Indeed my memory retroacts
readily on that delightsome remembrance."
And then I introduced Blandina, knowin' I wuz makin' her perfectly happy
by so doin'. He'd growed old considerable, which I didn't blame him for
and didn't see as he could help it, twenty years havin' gone by. His
hair, which wuz still long and hung down over his turn-down collar, wuz
streaked with gray. But he still had the same kind of a curious,
sentimental, high-flown look to him.
I didn't admire his looks, but Blandina's manners to him wuz worshipful,
and it seemed to agree with him first rate, he seemed really to take to
her. And as he asked to accompany and go with us to the next exhibit, I
fell in with it, and when my pardner come walked ahead with him while
Professor Todd follered with a perfectly blissful Blandina, and before
they parted he arranged a rondevoo next day with Blandina.
I wuz beat out when I got home and Miss Huff sent Aunt Pheeny up to my
room with a glass of hot lemonade and some crackers, supper not bein'
quite ready owin' to shiftless works in the kitchen. Molly wuz in my
room also sweet as a June rosy. Aunt Tryphena wuz quiverin' with
excitement, and she sez, "Lazy, good for nothin' things! but it hain't
what they _do_ that I mind but it is their iggorance I despise."
Sez Molly, "If they are ignorant you ought to overlook it, Aunt Pheeny."
[Illustration]
"Overlook it!" sez she, turnin' an' facin' us with her hands on her
portly hips. "I hain't used to no such trash. When anybody has lived
with the highest nobility they can't stomach such low down niggers. Why,
I used to have 'em kneelin' at my feet, four or five at a time, askin'
what I'd have for dinner. And that poor, iggorent, low-down cook in the
kitchen told me jest now I lied about Prince Arthur, that there never
wuz such a prince, and I sez to her, 'How any black nigger can stand
makin' bakin' powder biscuit and tell such lies is a mystery to me.'"
"Well, you know Princes are not common in this country," sez I.
She drew herself up more hautily, "Such a Prince as that hain't common
in no country! Why he's so handsome and good the very birds in the trees
will stop singin' to listen to his talk, and the grass turn brighter
green where he's stepped on it, and the May-flowers peek up and blush
with happiness if he looks at 'em."
"How come you to leave him, Aunt Pheeny, if he wuz so perfect?"
"I tole you before," sez she with dignity, "that when he went off to
school I wuzn't in no ways bound to stay with ole Miss. She wuz jealous,
you know, jealous of me. Prince Arthur made more of me, we used to sing
together, you know I've sung in Concorts and Operations, been a star in
'em. Ole Miss couldn't sing no more than a green frog. And he always
said when he got married I wuz to live with him, that nachully sot up
his Ma's back, and I santered off one day, never tole her I wuz goin',
but jest lifted up my train, I wore long pink and blue satin dresses
then, and I jest santered out the house over to Californy and Asia and
so on to Chicago, and then hired out to Miss Dotie's ma. And here I is!"
sez she firmly, and took up the empty tray and departed.
She wuz a good singer, her voice full of the sweetness and heart
searchin' pathos of her race. And her wild flights of imagination never
hurt anyone but herself.
Well, after supper, which they called dinner, I felt considerable
better. Josiah stayed down in the parlor talkin' to Grandpa Huff and
Billy, and Molly come up in my room agin and sot with me, whilst
twilight let down her soft gray mantilly round us and pinned it to the
earth with silver stars (metafor).
I always take it as a great compliment when folks confide the deepest
secrets of their heart to me. And Id'no why it is, but they most always
do; I mean them that I take to nachully. Sometimes I've felt first rate
by it and spozed it wuz because I had such a noble riz up look to my
face. But Josiah sez it is because I have such a soft look that folks
think they can pour their griefs into me and they will sink in, some
like water into cotton battin, and they can lose sight of their sorrows
for a spell and relieve 'em some. Well, Id'no which it is, but
'tennyrate as Molly sot there with me lookin' as wan and pale as a white
rose on a cold November evenin' she told me the whole story, hid from
her own folks but revealed unto a Samantha.
Josiah may say what he's a mind to, but I believe it is the natural
nobility of my linement that drawed it from her. While she wuz away
visitin' this school chum in a southern city she met a young chap
handsome as Appolyan, I knew from what she said, and so talented and
gifted, I could see in a minute they had fell in love voylently from the
very first time they met, and day by day the attraction growed till they
wuz completely wropped up in each other. She said he seemed to worship
her.
But strange, strange thing! with all the love he showed her, in every
word and act, he left her without a word, only a sort of a wild note
saying he could not endure the wretchedness of seeing a heaven so near
that he could not hope to enter, and after that silence, deep, dark and
onbroken silence and despair. "And my heart is broken!" sez she, as she
laid her pretty head in my lap sobbin' out, "What shall I do! Oh, what
shall I do!"
She wep' and cried and cried and wep', and I wep' with her, my snowy
handkerchief held in one hand, the other hand tenderly caressin' the
bowed head in my lap. But as she said the word Silence it brung up
sunthin' I had read that very day, and I sez:
"Dear, did you ever hear of enterin' into the Silence?"
"Yes," sez Molly, liftin' her tear wet, sweet face, "I have a friend who
enters into the Silence for hours, and she says that everything she
greatly desires and asks for at that time, is given her. She calls it
the New Thought."
"And I call it the Old Thought, Molly, older than the creation of man.
And what they call Entering into the Silence, I call Waiting on the
Lord. And what I call prayer, they, from what I read, most probable call
waking up the solar plexus, whatever that may be. But it don't make much
difference what a thing is called, the name is but a pale shadow
compared to the reality. Disciples of the New Thought, Christian
Scientists, Healers, Spiritualists, etc., are, I believe, reaching out
and feeling for the Light as posies growin' in a dark suller send out
little pale shoots huntin' for the sunlight. And so I feel kinder soft
and meller towards the hull caboodle on 'em though I can't foller all
their beliefs.
"For I, as a member of the M.E. meetin' house, call this great
beneficient over-rulin' Power that sot the world spinnin' on its
axletrees and holds it up, lest it dashes aginst the planets, and
directs the flight of the tiny bird fleeing before the snows; this
Mighty Force that controls us from the cradle to the grave, but which we
cannot see no more than we can see His servants, the cold and wind that
freezes us or the warmth and love that blesses us. This Power, that
whether we scoff or pray, holds us all in the hollow of His mighty hand,
I call God the Father, Son and Holy Guest, and believe it once took
mortal shape and dwelt with humanity to uplift and bless it. And that
love, that torture, crucifixion and death could not slay still yearns
over this sad old world, still as the comforting Guest makes its home in
human hearts that love and trust."
Molly sot still with her pretty head leaning aginst me and I went on,
"In the story of His life and death, that volume that holds the wisdom
of the old and ripened glory of the new, that holy book sez, 'He that
dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under shadow
of the Almighty.'
"What a place to abide in, Molly, the shadow of the All Loving, the All
Mighty one, a shadow that casts glowing light instead of darkness like
our earthly shadows, a pure white light in which, lookin' through the
eye-glass of faith we can read the meanin' of all the sorrows and
perplexities and troubles he permits us to endure, and find every word
on 'em gilt edged with glory.
"Spiritualists, Christian Healers, etc., may name this what they will.
Disciples of the New Thought may call it the Silence, but I shall keep
right on callin' it the Secret Place of the Most High. And He who
inhabits that sacred place has promised that if you reverently and
obediently enter and dwell therein and trust in Him, He will give you
the desire of your heart.
"So all you've got to do, Molly, is to do as he tells you to, obey and
trust Him jest as the child trusts his pa, and asks him for what he
wants most, you must ask Him for the desire of your heart, and if it is
best for you, dear, He will bring it to pass."
"Do you think so?" sez she, brightenin' up more'n considerable.
"No, I don't think so. I _know_ it."
Well, them consolin' words, for thought is a _real thing_, and I jest
wropped her round with my tenderness and compassion, I guess they
comforted her some, 'tennyrate she promised me sweetly that she would
obey and trust, and I felt considerable better about her.
I wuz sorry for her as sorry as I could be, but I had a strong feelin'
inside of my heart (mebby some wise, sweet angel whispered it to me)
that everything would come out right in the end, and Molly would git the
desire of her heart.
She's belonged to the meetin' house for years. But sometimes members git
some shock that jars 'em and sends 'em out of the narrer road for quite
a spell and they git kinder lost gropin' through the dark shadders of
earthly disappointment and sorrow. Nothin' but the light that streams
down from above can pierce them glooms, and I knowed by the sweet light
that lit up Molly's linement that her face wuz turned in the right
direction and she wouldn't look sideways, behind or before, but would
seek for light and help from above.