The Japan exhibit is on a beautiful hill south of Machinery Palace.
There are seven large buildin's besides the small pagodas and all filled
with objects of interest. It seems as if the hull kingdom of Japan must
have taken hold to make this display what it is. And how they could do
it with a big war goin' on in their midst is a wonder, and shows beyend
words what wonderful people the Japans are.
There are two kinds of exhibits, one by the allied business interests or
Government and the other by individuals. But they all seem to work in
harmony, havin' but one idee, to show off Japan and her resources to the
best advantage, and the display wuz wonderful, from a royal pavilion,
rich in the most exquisite and ornate decorations down to a small bit of
carving that mebby represented the life long labor of some onknown
workman.
In the Transportation Buildin' is a map one hundred feet long, showing
the transportation facilities of the Empire, a perfect network of
railways and telegraph and telephone wires, showin' they have other ways
of gettin' 'round there besides man-carts and jinrikshas, yes, indeed!
it is a wonder what they have done in that direction in fifty years.
The postal exhibit shows they delivered eight hundred and sixteen
million pieces of mail last year, and every post-office has a bank, the
school children have deposited in them eleven millions. I wish our
country would do as well. The exhibit of the steamships show jest as
much enterprise, and how world-wide is their commerce. The saloon of one
of the steamships is a dream of beauty and luxury.
The Temple of Nikko is ornamented by wonderful carving in catalpa,
chrysantheums, etc., and in it in glass cases are the most beautiful
specimens of their embroidery, tapestry, pottery. One pair of vases are
worth ten thousand dollars. As you leave this Temple you see on each
side the finest specimens of Japanese art, painted and embroidered
screens, all kinds of metal, laquear and ivory work; exquisite vases and
priceless old delft wear, and there is a model Japanese house, you feel
that you'd love to live in it. There is one spring room in it that holds
the very atmosphere of spring. The tapestry and crape hangings are
embroidered with cherry blossoms, its one picture is a sweet spring
landscape. Low green stools take the place of stuffy chairs and sofas.
And there wuz an autumn room, autumn leaves of rich colors wuz woven in
the matting and embroidered in the hangings, the screens and walls white
with yellow chrysantheums.
Then there wuz a gorgeous Japan room with walls of exquisitely carved
laquear wood, massive gilt furniture, rich embroidered silk hangings,
and the ceiling wuz a beautifully carved flowery heaven with angels
flying about amidst the flowers. This one room cost forty-five thousand
dollars.
And we see lovely embroidered cloths, porcelain, shrines, urns,
cabinets, chairs all wrought in the highest art, silks of every
description, and sights and sights of it. Fans, parasols, lanterns,
fireworks of all kinds, mattings, straw goods, cameras, etc., etc.
In the mining display is a model of one of their copper mines, and you
see they have the largest furnace in the world, and they not only mine
on land but under the sea, it beats all how them Japanese do go ahead.
There are tall gold and silver bars showing how much they have mined in
these metals.
Their educational exhibit shows the same wonderful energy and
advancement. There is a compulsory educational law and twenty-two per
cent. of the children attend school. There are schools for the blind,
deaf and feeble-minded, and a display of all their excellent methods of
education, from kindergarten to the imperial university.
In the Palace of Electricity on a map thirty feet high and twenty-five
feet wide, you see pictures of Japan's great engineering work, Lake Biwa
Canal, connecting the Lake with Kioto. Irrigating, electricity making,
electrical apparatus invented by them, they have nearly twenty-five
thousand telephones, long and short distance.
In the tea exhibit you see everything relating to this beverage, tea
houses, experimental farms and over one hundred different kinds of tea
are shown. Rice is shown in every stage of its growth, tobacco, fruit,
canned goods.
You can enter the Forestry and Fish departments through a temple built
of twenty different kinds of wood. Here you see all the native forest
woods, bamboo takin' the lead. Their fish and their methods of fishing
are shown off, charts of their fishing grounds and boats. The Japanese
section of the Palace of Fine Arts has the best samples of sculpture,
painting and pottery.
But the crownin' beauty of the Japanese display is the Enchanted Garden
(well-named). A charmin' little lake lies in the midst of flower beds
and hedges, dotted by aquatic flowers. Beds of hydrangeas and
chrysantheums and other bright flowers glow in the sunlight. A pretty
summer house stands on a little island and bending over the water are
dwarf pine trees brought from Japan. At one end is a waterfall, and
there is a pleasant tea house where pretty Japan girls serve tea on the
broad galleries.
Beyend the lake you see a model Japanese house and not fur off is the
headquarters of the Japanese commission. Near the top of the hill is a
large pavilion made of wood and bamboo. It is used as a reception room,
and here you see Japanese costooms from the earliest day to the present.
Here are pictures of the Emperor and Empress. There is a display here
also of the Red Cross society, medical boxes of army and navy, etc. This
is the only hint this courteous country gives of the great war going on
at home that would stop the exhibit of most any other country. They are
a wonderful people and are making swift strides to the front in every
direction. I took sights of comfort here and so did Josiah.
I said a big war would stop the exhibit of most every country--it has
stopped Russia--she don't have much show here to the Fair, they wanted
to, and laid out to, but couldn't on account of havin' to go to war. It
is dretful busy this year, killin' off men, and sendin' out men all the
time to be killed, so of course, it can't devour the same time in more
peaceful occupations.
I wuz really sorry, for I always liked the Zar. Of course, we don't
visit back and forth, he havin' the misfortune to not live neighbor to
us. But I always thought he wuz likely, real smart and good-natered,
lovin' his wife and babies devotedly, settin' a splendid example in this
direction to other high potentates who act and behave more or less.
And his Peace Proclamation, like a tall white monument riz up for men
and angels to admire. How its pure luminous light lit up this dark earth
and streamed clear up to heaven, the blessed influence it shed abroad
wuz so beneficient and divine. How much I and the hull world thought
on't.
And here it is all broke to smash, for of course, it wuz right in his
way and he had to tromple on over it, he and the squadrons he called to
war.
I don't know exactly the right or wrong on't, it is hard sometimes to
keep track of ethics in a Jonesville quarrel, and when two big Empires
git to cuttin' up and actin' and sassin', and dastin' each other to do
thus and so, I can't be expected to know all the ins and outs of their
dispute.
But I do know this, that the beautiful Peace Monument is smashed all to
pieces under the feet of the thousands and thousands of men sent out to
murder and be murdered, and it is doubtful to me if the Zar can ever
contoggle it up agin to be as strong as it wuz before. You know he will
nachully git his muscles and will and temper kinder stiff jinted leadin'
the armies and gittin' so awful mad.
But, there they be, these two great nations, Japan and Russia, sendin'
out their peaceable and well-behaved sons by the thousands and hundreds
of thousands to cut each other to-pieces, shoot, maim and murder each
other, for that is what war is, it is on purpose to kill men, the
greatest crime in the civil calendar.
As I told Josiah one night to Miss Huff's, as I laid down a paper givin'
the details of a bloody battle which wuz headed "A Great Victory."
Victory! the idee! hundreds of men borne bleeding from the field
suffering tortures worse than death and every pang they felt twice
suffered by them that loved 'em, watching and waiting at home in
agonized suspense, hundreds more layin' with their white, dead faces
upturned to heaven as if in mute appeal and wonder that such a horror as
war could be in a world where the words of the gentle Christ had been
hearn.
Sez I, "I can't understand it, Josiah, John Jones gits mad and kills one
man, a small boneded man too, and weakly, couldn't live long anyway, and
John had been abused by him shameful and wuz dretful mad at him. A
horrified state law clutches John Jones and kills him. Public Opinion
sez good enough for John, it will keep other murderous-minded men at bay
mebby.
"But I always loved justice, and if a king gits mad and kills or causes
to be killed hundreds of thousands of men I can't see why he if
successful should be admired for it, have a monument riz up to show
forth his nobility and school boys be taught to emulate his greatness."
Josiah said, "That wuz different, a war between nations wuz planned
ahead, it wuzn't murder."
"But," sez I, "if John Jones had planned killin' his man he would git
hung the sooner."
"Well," sez Josiah, "great national quarrels has to be settled some way.
Nations wouldn't go to war unless they wuz aggravated."
Sez I, "John Jones wuz aggravated. Murders hain't generally planned or
committed in class meetin's, and love feasts."
"Well," sez Josiah, scratchin' his head, "it is different."
But I sez, "How different, Josiah, they are both murders."
Sez Josiah, "I guess I'll go down to Grandpa Huff's room and borry the
World." But I kep' thinkin' on't after he left about war and what it
wuz. Rivers of human blood flowin' through ruined countries, follered by
the horrible specters of pestilence, disease and famine, moral and
financial ruin. Acres and acres of graves filled with forms once full of
throbbing life and hope and dreams of future happiness, cut down like
grass before the mower. Wives, mothers, sisters, sweethearts see the sun
of their life's joy go down in blackness, their heaven of love and
happiness changed into a hell of misery by somebody's quarrel,
somebody's greed and ambition. How many of the common soldiers who make
up the great body of the army know or care about the right or wrong of
their cause. They go into the fight like dumb-driven cattle, suffer and
die and make their loved ones die a hundred deaths jest because they are
hired to do it, hired to murder their fellow men, jest as you would hire
a man to cut down a grove of underbrush. They go out to this wholesale
slaughter to kill or be killed, to meet all the black awful influences
that foller the armies, go gayly to the sound of bugle and drum.
It is the common people who bleed and die, it is the hearts of the
common people that are wrung; it is their wives and orphan children who
have to struggle along and strive and die, or live and suffer by this
cause.
And who can tell the moral, physical and financial ruin, the sickenin'
and terrible effects of evil habits formed there, the sin and woe that
like a black cloud follers the army? The recordin' angel himself can't
do the sum till the day of judgment, not till then can he add up the
broad, ever-widenin' effects of evil and sorrow that follers a great war
and that shall go on and on till time shall be no more.
Calm judicial eyes lookin' back at this problem from the happy days when
Peace and Love shall rule the world, from the era when Courts of
Arbitration will settle national differences, will look back on the
bloody godless warfare of to-day with more horrow than we do on the
oncivilized doin's of our savage ancestors.
It is strange, hain't it, to think eighteen centuries of Christian
teaching hain't wiped the blood stains off the face of the earth, as it
would like to? Yes, indeed! our Lord's words are luminous with Charity,
Peace and Love. But the vengeful black clouds of war sweep up between
the nations and the Sermon on the Mount and hides its words so they
can't, or don't heed 'em.
And I d'no what's goin' to be done. I guess them that don't believe in
war must keep on givin' in their testimony, keep peggin' away at Public
Opinion and constant droppin' will wear away stun.
But to resoom backwards. We stayed so long in Japan that I couldn't
devote so much time to France as I wanted to, for they too had a fine
display. The most beautiful exhibit we saw was the reproduction of the
Grand Trienon, the favorite home of Napoleon, brought from all
appearances from Versailles with its famous garden and sot down here in
St. Louis.
There is a big central pavilion and on each side wings, each terminating
in a pavilion joined by tall marble columns. The ruff is surrounded by a
balustrade ornamented by vases and beautiful statutes. The same
balustrade extends the hull length of the building below, five hundred
and thirty-four feet.
And below it stretches the beautiful garden, terraces, lake, fountains,
statutes, rare flowers, shrubs and trees. Winding walks in which the
great Conqueror might have walked with his brain teemin' with ambitious
plans. I didn't want to leave the garden it was so beautiful, but time
wuz passin' and we went inside and went through room after room, each
one seemin'ly more beautiful than the one we had seen last. The
picture-room wuz specially beautiful filled as it is with treasures of
French art. And all the rooms wuz gorgeous with tapestries, elaborate
carving, sculpture, painting, the most exquisite decorations of all
kinds showing what a beauty and pleasure-loving race can gather about it
of beauty and grandeur if it sets out to.
And France shows off well also in manufactures, electricity, machinery,
transportation, etc. All together this is the best exhibit she has ever
made, and she has reason to be proud on't.
England makes a good show in products and processes in every Exposition
building. In the Palace of Varied Industries she gives a model of one of
her charming country houses, a model indeed of comfort and luxury.
Her national pavilion is built of red brick and stone and is a
reproduction of the Orangery, a building two hundred years old. It wuz
Queen Ann's favorite home, and I didn't blame Ann a mite for lovin' it.
As I walked through the beautiful and stately rooms I thought I would
have loved to neighbor with Ann and spend some time with her.
The gardens outside are so beautiful you don't want to leave 'em, shaded
avenues, terraces, flower beds, yew and box shrubs trained into shapes
of lions and big birds. Josiah wuz entranced here, and as he stood lost
in admiration of them green animals growin' right out of the ground, he
sez:
"My first job in Jonesville is cut out, Samantha."
As first chaperone I looked at him tenderly and sez, "Don't jar your
mind too much, Josiah, don't dwell on tuckerin' things."
"But," sez he, pintin' to the green form of the lion growin' right out
of the ground, "do you see what a impressive and noble figger the old
mair is goin' to cut when Ury and I sculp her out of the pig-nose apple
tree? We can do it by odd jobs, and the apples hain't good for nothin'
anyway."
But I sez, "You can't prune apple trees into figgers, Josiah, it takes
different trees, and that is too big anyway."
"That's a woman's way of talkin'; I want her in heroic size, she's
worthy on't. I expect," he went on, "the road will be jest lined with
Jonesvillians, and we'l see 'em hangin' over the orchard fence lookin'
on and admirin' the beautiful statter, I think I can see her now, head
up, tail out, mane a flutterin'--you'll see, Samantha."
"Oh, dear!" sez I, "I expect I will see more than I want to."
But goin' on a little furder we see what put such vain and onpractical
idees out of his head. We wandered into a spot where there wuz
old-fashioned flowers, such as grow in the green meadows and hedges of
old England, and there wuz some old wimmen wrinkled and gray, poorly
clad, lookin' at them daisies and cow-slips and laughin' and cryin' over
'em.
They wuz fur from the old home and the summer time of youth and love, a
half century of years and dreary wastes of sea and land lay between 'em,
but these cow-slip blows and daisies took them back to their youth and
the sunny fields they wandered in with the young lover whose eyes wuz as
blue as the English violets, while their own cheeks wuz as rosy as the
thorn flowers.
When the hull world lay hid in a rosy mist, and they wuz the centre of
it, and life wuz new, and hope and happiness gilded the future, and the
Fairy land of America wuz beckonin' to 'em out of the rosy mist.
Fifty years of dusty, smoky tenement life, hard work, child-birth,
rearing children, toil, disappointment, pain--where wuz they? They had
all gone. They wuz eighteen agin; they wuz pickin' the rosy blooms in
the dear home land, and love wuz whisperin' to 'em that they wuz sweeter
than the flowers.
I took out my snowy handkerchief and almost cried myself, the tears just
run down my face, and Josiah blowed his nose on his bandanna, and I
believe furtively wiped his eyes. But men never love to betray such
sentimental emotion, and most immegiately he asked me in a gruff tone
for a fried cake, and I handed him one absently and as one who dreams,
and we went on and met the girls at the rondevoo appointed.
I'd had my supper and wuz restin' in my room, Molly and Blandina had
gone for a walk accompanied by Billy Huff, and Josiah had gone down to
set with grandpa Huff a spell, when Aunt Tryphena come in and said a
lady wuz there to see me; I asked her who it wuz, and she said:
"I don't know, but guess it is some 'big bug trash,' 'tennyrate she come
in a antymobile that stands to the door without hitchin'."
I knowed in a minute it wuz Jane Olive Perkins and told her to bring her
up to my room. And she entered with more than her usual gushin' warmth
of manner, and told me the first thing that I grew better and younger
lookin' every year.
But I kinder waved the idee off and told her, I didn't feel so young as
I did twenty or thirty years ago.
I acted well. (But then I spoze I do look remarkable young for one of my
years, and I admired her good horse sense in seein' it so plain.) But
she looked real mauger, and I sez:
"You look kinder beat out, Jane Olive, hain't you well?"
Yes, she said she wuz well, but had so many cares that they wore on her.
"Why," sez I, "you don't try to do your housework alone, do you?"
No, she said she had ten servants.
So I knowed she didn't have to do the heaviest of her work, but her face
looked dretful tired and disappinted and I knowed it wuz caused by her
efforts to git into fashionable society, for I'd hearn more about it
since I come here, Miss Huff knowed a woman that lived neighbor to her,
she said that in spite of all Sam Perkinses money and Jane Olive's
efforts she couldn't git so fur into the circle of the first as she
wanted to, though she had done everything a woman could do.
Went off summers where the first went and winters too. When it wuz
fashionable to go to springs and seasides she went and ocean trips and
south and north, and when it wuz the fashion to go into the quiet
country she come to Jonesville.
And now she wuz tryin' a new skeem to git into the first, she got up a
name for bein' very charitable. That took her in, or that is part way
in, for her money went jest as fur and wuz jest as welcome to heathens
and such as if it wuzn't made out of pork. It went jest as fur as the
money that wuz handed down from four fathers or even five or six fathers
who wuz small farmers and trappers in Manhattan years and years ago. Her
money went jest as fur as though it had descended onto her from the sale
of the mink skins and cabbages of the grandpas of the 400.
Well, as I say, this did more than all her other efforts put together,
and took her inside furder, for givin' as much as she did they had to
invite her to set down on the same charitable boards where these genteel
females wuz settin'. And when a passel of wimmen are settin' down on one
board they have to be more sociable and agreeable like, than if they wuz
settin' round on different piles of lumber.
So Jane Olive wuz highly tickled and gin money freely. And now I don't
want it understood that Jane Olive done every mite of this work and gin
every cent of money for the speech of people or to git on in fashionable
life. No, she wuz kinder good hearted and felt sorry for the afflicted.
Her motives wuz mebby about half and half, half goodness and half
ambition, and that is I spoze a little worse than the average, though
motives will git dretfully mixed up, evil is worse than Canada thistles
to git mixed with good wheat.
When some good object rises up and our souls burn within us aginst wrong
and injustice and bigotry and such, we may think in our wropped moments
that our motives are all good. But most always some little onworthy
selfish motive will come sneakin' in by some back door of the heart and
wiggle its way along till it sets down right by the side of our highest
whitest motives and stays there onbeknown to us. It is a pity that it is
so, but human nater is human nater and we are all on us queer, queer as
dogs. Once in awhile you'll see some rare soul that seems as if all
onworthy motives have been driv out by the angels of divine Purity and
Endeavor, but they're scurce, scurce as hen's teeth.
Jane Olive wuz highly tickled with her success, and then, as is the way
of human creeters, when she'd done well she wanted to do better. She
wanted to outdo the other females settin' on the boards with her, she
wanted her board to tip higher than theirn, so she took it into her head
to build a Home for Fallen Wimmen in that end of the city where she
lived. She said that there wuz sights and sights of wimmen that had
fallen round there, and sights that wuz fallin', and I spozed there wuz.
I spozed that anywhere that Sam Perkins lived there would be apt to be,
and she took the idee of buildin' a home for 'em, it wuz a first rate
thought, but in my opinion it didn't go fur enough, it didn't cover the
hull ground.
Well, Jane Olive had gin of her own money ten thousand dollars and had
raised nine thousand more, twenty thousand would build it, and she wuz
collectin' round even in St. Louis when she met anybody she thought
would give; she knowed how the welfare of humanity, specially female
humanity, lay down on my heart, therefore she tackled me.