Well, one week later we found ourselves agin on the boundless deep,
the broad Pacific, bound for the Philippines. How fur off from
Jonesville did I seem as I thought on't, but Love journeyed with me,
and Duty. Tommy wuz gittin' fat and rosy, his cough grew better every
day, and he looked and acted like a different child.
This wuz to be a longer voyage than we had took. We layed out to stop
to the Philippines first, and so on to China and Japan. It beats all
how soon you settle down and seem to feel as if the great ship you are
embarked on is the world, and the little corner you occupy your home,
specially if you have a devoted pardner with you to share your corner,
for Love can make a home anywhere. Arvilly got a number of new
subscribers and made friends amongst the passengers, but Elder Wessel
avoided her. And he didn't seem to like Sister Evangeline. I told him
what I had seen and hearn, for it seemed to me like a olive branch
bore into our dark, rainy world by a dove of Paradise. But he scoffed
at it; he said that it wuz all imagination. But I sez: "It hain't
imagination that the poor woman wuz dyin' and Sister Evangeline saved
her." And he said that wuz a coincidence, and I said that it wuz a
pity there wuzn't more such coincidences. And he didn't answer me at
all. He wuz settin' up on his creed with his legs hangin' off, and he
sot straight, no danger of his gittin' off and goin' down amongst the
poor steerage passengers and helpin' 'em. He thought he wuz a eminent
Christian, but in my opinion he might have been converted over agin
without doin' him any harm.
Well, the big world we wuz inhabitin' moved on over the calm waters.
Josiah read a good deal, settin' in the library with Tommy on his
knee. And I read some myself, but took considerable comfort studyin'
the different passengers, some as if they wuz books with different
bindin's, some gilt and gay, some dull and solid and some sombry, but
each with different readin' inside.
And stiddy and swift, onheedin' any of our feelin's or fears, the
great ship ploughed on, takin' us towards that wuz comin' to meet us
onbeknown to us. Miss Meechim kep' up pretty well, keepin' a good
lookout on Dorothy, but restin' her mind on Robert Strong's
protection, and Robert and Dorothy seemed to enjoy themselves better
and better all the time, singing together, and walking up and down the
deck for hours on pleasant days and matchless nights lit with the
brilliant light of moon and star, and Southern Cross, and I didn't
know what other light might be shinin' on 'em onbeknown to Miss
Meechim, but mistrusted by me.
Elder Wessel, when we wuz with Lucia, didn't seem to want anything
else on earth. She wuz a pretty girl, but I could see that she wuz
very romantic; she had read sights of novels, and wuz lookin' out for
some prince in disguise to ride up on a white charger to carry her off
and share his throne. But I could see that if the right influences wuz
throwd around her she had the makin' of a noble woman in her, and I
hoped she would grow up a good, helpful woman. She had a great
influence over Aronette, whose nater wuz more yieldin' and gentle, and
I didn't altogether approve of their intimacy, but considered that it
would be broke off pretty quick, as they would part for good and all
when we got to China. You may wonder why I worried about Aronette;
well, the reason wuz, I loved her, jest as everybody else did who knew
her well. She wuz a darling girl, always sweet tempered, always trying
to help somebody; Dorothy loved her just as much as though she wuz her
sister and would have treated her exactly like one if it hadn't been
for Miss Meechim. She loved Aronette herself, and showed her love by
her goodness, buying her everything she needed and didn't need, but
she wuz so hauty naturally that she insisted on Aronette's keepin' her
place, as she said. And she was so sweet dispositioned and humble
sperited she didn't want to do any different. Well, I spoze Miss
Meechim wuz right; if Aronette wuz Dorothy's maid it wuzn't to be
expected that she would take her visitin' with her, and it wuz
Aronette's delight to wait on Dorothy as devotedly as if no ties of
love bound their young hearts together. Robert Strong liked and
respected her, I spoze mebby on Dorothy's account, and Tommy adored
her; why, even Josiah felt towards her, he said, some as if she wuz
Tirzah Ann growed young agin.
Arvilly's heart she won completely by makin' her a bag to carry the
"Twin Crimes" in. It wuz made of handsome black silk, worked all round
in pink silk in a handsome pattern, and she had worked on one side in
big letters, "The Twin Crimes of America, Intemperance and Greed."
Arvilly almost cried with joy when she gin it to her, and sez to me,
"That Aronette is the best girl in the hull world and the sweetest.
Look at that embroidery," sez she, holdin' up the handsome bag before
my eyes, "you can see that as fur as you can see me; that bag alone is
enough to sell the book, and I wuz jest wearin' out the agent's copy.
There hain't anything in the world I wouldn't do for that girl." Yes,
we all loved her dearly, and a dozen times a day we would say to each
other what should we ever do without Aronette.
Josiah wuz seasick some, but not nigh so bad as he thought, and Tommy
kept well and happy all the time, and wonnered and wonnered at
everything and seemed to take comfort in it, and he would set in his
little chair on deck and talk to Carabi for hours, and I d'no whether
Carabi wuz enjoyin' the trip or not; I didn't seem to have any way of
knowin'. One day Tommy and I wuz lookin' off on the broad blue waters
and we see approachin' what looked like a boat with its tiny sail set.
It looked so like a boat set out from fairyland that instinctively I
thought of Carabi, but a passenger standin' by said that it wuz a
Nautilus, and afterwards we see lots of 'em. And the Southern Cross
bent over us nights as if to uphold our souls with the thought that
our heavenly gardeen would take care on us. And some nights the sea
wuz lit up with phosphorescent light into a seen of glory that I can't
describe and hain't goin' to let Josiah try to; I hain't a goin' to
have that man made light of, and Shakespeare couldn't do justice to
it. Low down over our heads the heavens leaned, the glassy waters
aspired upward in sparks of flame. The south wind whispered soft,
strange secrets to us, sweeping up from the misty horizon. Our souls
listened--but shaw! I said I wuzn't goin' to try to describe the glory
and I hain't.
And the ship sailed on. One evenin' there wuz another steamer sighted,
most everybody wuz on deck. Sister Evangeline wuz down takin' care of
that poor woman and child and the fever patients; Tommy wuz asleep;
Josiah wuz readin' the old newspaper he had wropped his clothes in,
and which he had treasured fondly. He wuz readin' the advertisements,
Help Wanted and such. I asked him what good them advertisements would
do him ten thousand milds from hum, but he said no knowin' what might
happen and anything in the paper wuz good readin'.
That man's blind adherence to party has caused me many a forebodin',
it is a menace to good government and public safety, and I have told
him so. Well, I santered down into the cabin and there I found Elder
Wessel all alone. He had jest been readin' a powerful editorial that
coincided with his views exactly, and he leaned back and put a thumb
in each arm-hole of his vest and sez:
"What a glorious work the United States is doin' here in the
Philippines."
And I sez, "Yes, that is so, the United States is doin' a great and
noble work in educating and civilizing the natives, if it wuzn't for
the one great mistake she is making and duz make wherever she plants
her banner in a new country amongst a new people.
"Side by side with her schoolhouses and churches that are trying to
lift humanity heavenward the American Saloon is found lowering
humanity and undoing the work these ministers and teachers have so
faithfully tried to do."
I guess he didn't hear me, but 'tennyrate he went right on: "Oh,
yes, oh, yes, our Christian nation goes to these benighted islands,
carrying Christianity and civilization in its hand. Of course they
may not ever come up to the hite of our own perfect, matchless
civilization, but they will approach it, they will approach it."
Sez Arvilly: "Our nation won't come up to them in years and years, if
it ever duz!"
He jumped as if he had been shot; he thought we wuz alone, and sez:
"Why--why, Sister Arvilly--you must admit these savages are behind us
in knowledge."
"So much the worse for us; the sin of ignorance is goin' to be winked
at, but if we know better we ort to do better." Elder Wessel wuz
stunted, but he murmured instinctively sunthin' about our carryin' the
Bible and the knowledge of heaven to 'em.
Arvilly snapped out: "What good will that do if we carry private hells
to burn 'em up before they die? A pretty help that is! What is the use
of teachin' 'em about heaven if our civilization makes sure the first
thing it duz to keep 'em out of it, for no drunkard shall inherit
heaven. What's the use of gittin' 'em to hankerin' after sunthin' they
can't have."
The Elder wuz almost paralyzed, but he murmured instinctively sunthin'
about our duty to the poor naked heathen hanging like monkeys from the
tree tops, like animals even in their recreation. And Arvilly bein' so
rousted up and beyend reasonable reason, sez: "That's their bizness
about not bein' clothed, and anyway it is jest as the Lord started
the human race out in the Garden of Eden, and they do wear enough to
cover their nakedness, and that's more than some of our fashionable
wimmen do, and 'tennyrate they don't suffer so much as our wimmen do
with their torturin' tight shoes and steel instruments of agony bound
round their waists, compressin' their vital organs into a mass of
deformity."
Elder Wessel wuz so browbeat that he kinder got offen his subject, and
with a dazed look he murmured sunthin' about "the wicked religion of
Cuba when the Americans took it--the Papal indulgences, the cruel bull
fights, the national recreations--you could always tell the low state
of a nation's civilization by the brutish recreations they indulged
in."
Sez Arvilly, in a loud, mad axent, "Talk about brutal amusements, why
they ort to send missionaries to America to reform us as fur up in
decency as to use animals to fight fur our recreation instead of human
bein's. Bulls hain't spozed to have immortal souls, and think how
America pays two men made in the image of God so much an hour--high
wages, too--to beat and pound and maim and kill each other for the
amusement of a congregation of Christian men and wimmen, who set and
applaud and howl with delight when a more cruel blow than common fells
one on 'em to the earth. And then our newspapers fight it all over for
the enjoyment of the family fireside, for the wimmen and children and
invalids, mebby, that couldn't take in the rare treat at first sight.
Every blow, every cruel bruise that wuz made in the suffering flesh
reproduced for Sunday reading. And if one of the fighters is killed
and his mangled body taken out of the fighting ring forever, taken
home to his wife and children with the comfortin' peticulars that he
wuz killed for the amusement of men and wimmen, most on 'em church
members, and all citizens of our Christian republic by special license
of the government, why then the newspapers, which are the exponents of
our civilization and the teachers of our youth, have a splendid time
relating the ghastly story under staring headlines. After all this,
talk to me about our country's dastin to have the face to reform any
other country's amusement. Our prize fights that our nation gives
licenses for its people to enjoy are as much worse than bull fights,
in view of America's professions of goodness, as it would be for an
angel to fly down 'lection day amongst a drunken crowd and git drunk
as a fool, and stagger round and act with her wings dirty and
a-floppin'."
Elder Wessel wuz took completely back, I could see, by Arvilly's
eloquence, and I wuz myself. The sharp-toothed harrow of grief had
turned up new furrows in her soul, in which strange plants growed. And
before Elder Wessel could speak she went on a-thinkin' back about
sunthin' he'd said.
"Indulgences to sin! If I granted licenses for all kinds of sin for
money, as our nation duz, I wouldn't talk about Papal indulgences. See
how wimmen are used--embruted, insulted, ground beneath the heel of
lust and ruin by these same license laws."
"But, Sister Arvilly," sez he, "I was reading only this morning a
sermon upon how much our civilization had to do in lifting women into
the high place they occupy to-day."
"High place!" sez Arvilly, and I fairly trembled in my shoes to hear
her axent. "Wimmen occupy a dretful high place. I can tell you jest
the place she occupies. You have been told of it often enough; you ort
to know it, but don't seem to. A woman occupies the same bench with
lunatics, idiots and criminals, only hern is enough sight harder under
legal licenses and taxation laws."
"But," sez the Elder, "the courtesy with which women are treated, the
politeness, the deference----"
"If you wuz kicked out of your meetin' house, Elder Wessel, would it
make any difference to you whether the shue you wuz kicked with wuz
patent leather or cowhide? The important thing to you would be that
you wuz layin' on the ground outside, and the door locked behind
you."
Sez Elder Wessel, "That is a strong metafor, Sister Arvilly. I had
never looked at it in that light before."
"I presume so," sez she. "The very reason why there are so many
cryin' abuses to-day is because good men spend their strength in
writin' eloquent sermons aginst sin, and lettin' it alone, instead
of grapplin' with it at the ballot box. Our Lord took a whip and
scourged the money changers out of the temple. And that is what
ministers ort to do, and have got to do, if the world is saved
from its sins--scourge the money changers who sell purity and honor,
true religion and goodness for money.
"Satan don't care how much ministers talk about temperance and
goodness and morality in the pulpit to a lot of wimmen and children
that the congregations are made up of mostly, or how many essays are
writ about it, tied with blue ribbin. But when ministers and church
members take hold on it as Ernest White has and attacks it at the
ballot box, and defends and reinforces the right and left flank with
all the spiritual and material and legal forces he can muster, why
then Satan feels his throne tremble under him and he shakes in his
shues."
But before Elder Wessel could frame a reply Josiah come in with the
news that the steamer had approached and brung mail to the passengers.
And we all hurried up to see what we had got.
Well, the steamer wuz passin' away like ships in the night, but I
found that I had several letters from home. The children wuz gettin'
well. Philury and Ury well and doin' well. And one letter wuz from
Cousin John Richard, that blessed creeter! who, it will be remembered,
went to Africa as a missionary to help the colony of freedmen to a
knowledge of the true freedom in Christ Jesus. Only two idees that
blessed creeter ever seemed to have: first, what his duty wuz, and,
second, to do it. His letter run as follows:
"Dear Cousin: Here in the far off tropics where I thought to live and
die with the people I have loved and given my life to help, the Lord
has wonderfully blessed our labors. The Colony is prospering as I
never expected to see it. The people are beginning to see that a true
republic can only exist by governing one's own self, that in the hands
of each individual is the destiny of the nation. We are a peaceful
people, greatly helped under the Lord by the fact that not a saloon
blackens the pure air of Victor.
"How can the crazed brain of a drunken man help a nation only to
weaken and destroy? How can children born under the curse of drink be
otherwise than a burden and curse to the public weal? How can a
righteous ruler handle this menace to freedom and purity save to stamp
it beneath his feet? As we have no saloons in Victor, so we have no
almshouses or prisons, the few poor and wrongdoers being cared for by
private individuals, remunerated by public tax.
"So greatly has the Lord prospered us that I felt I was needed
elsewhere more than here; I felt that America instead of Africa needed
the help of teachers of the Most High. Tidings have reached me from
the Philippines that made me think it was my duty to go there. Into
these islands, inhabited, as has been said, by people 'half devil,
half child,' has been introduced the worst crime of America, the drink
evil, the worst demon outside the bottomless pit, making of sane, good
men brutes and demons, a danger to themselves and the whole
community.
"It is hard to believe that a Christian civilization, a Christian
ruler, should send regiments of bright young boys so far from all the
deterring influences of home and home life; send those who were the
light of happy homes, the idols of fond hearts, to face the dreadful
climate, the savage warfare, to colonize the graveyards in the sodden
earth, to be thrown into the worst evils of war, to face danger and
death, and with all this provided by the government that should
protect them this dreadful temptation to ensnare their boyish wills
and lead them into captivity.
"Then I could not leave Victor, but now that I can I feel that God is
calling me to go there to preach the gospel of Christ, to fight this
mighty foe, Intemperance, to preach the gospel of sane and clean
living and thinking. Knowing from my experience here in Victor, had I
no other knowledge of it, how that blessed gospel of love is the only
true liberty. For what advantage is liberty of the body when the soul,
the weak will, is bound in the most galling of chains?
"America is doing a great work in educating and helping this country,
and were it not for this evil I go to combat, its work would be
blessed of God and man.
"So, as I said, I sail to-morrow for the Philippines with three of my
native converts, good Christians, willing to die, if need be, for
their faith."
This letter had been written more than a month, so long had it been
comin' to me, and I wuz tickled enough to think that when we got to
the Philippines we should see Cousin John Richard.