The next mornin', after tiffen, which wuz what they call breakfast,
bein' just so ignorant of good Jonesville language, Josiah and I and
Tommy sallied out to see what we could see, the rest of our party
havin' gone out before.
Wantin' to go a considerable ways, we hired two jinrikishas, and I
took Tommy in my lap, and I must say that I felt considerable like a
baby in a baby carriage carryin' a doll; but I got over it and felt
like a grandma before I had gone fur. How Josiah felt I don't know,
though I hearn him disputin' with the man about his prices--we had
took a interpreter with us so we could know what wuz said to us. The
price for a jinrikisha is five sen, and Josiah thought it meant five
cents of our money, and so handed it to him. But the man wuz so
ignorant he didn't know anything about Jonesville money, and he kep'
a-callin' for sen, and the interpreter sez "Sen," holdin' up his five
fingers and speakin' it up loud, and I hearn Josiah say:
"Well, you fool, you, I have given you five cents! What more do you
want?" But at last he wuz made to understand; but when Josiah made him
know where he wanted to go the interpreter said that the sedan
carriers wanted a yen, and my poor pardner had another struggle. Sez
he:
"You consarned fool, how do you spoze I can give you a hen? Do you
spoze I can git into my hen house ten thousand milds off to git you a
hen? Or do you want me to steal one for you?"
"A yen," sez the interpreter, and the way he said it it did sound like
hen.
"Well, I said hen, didn't I?" said my pardner.
But I leaned out of my baby cart and sez, "Y-e-n, Josiah. A yen is
their money, a dollar."
"Oh, why don't they call it a cow or a brindle calf?" He wuz all het
up by his efforts to understand. They call one of their dollars a yen,
a sen is a cent, and a rin is the tenth part of a cent. Josiah fell in
love with the copper rins with square holes in the centre. Sez he:
"How I would love to furnish you with 'em, Samantha, when you went to
the store in Jonesville. I would hand you out five or six rins and you
could string 'em and wear 'em round your neck till you got to the
store."
"Yes," sez I, "half a cent would go a good ways in buyin' family
stores."
"Well, it would have a rich look, Samantha, and I mean to make some
when I git home. Why, Ury and I could make hundreds of 'em out of our
old copper kettle that has got a hole in it, and I shouldn't wonder if
I could pass 'em."
Miss Meechim had a idee that the Japans wuz in a state of barbarism,
but Arvilly who wuz always at swords' pints with her threw such a lot
of statistics at her that it fairly danted her. There are six hundred
newspapers in Japan. The Japanese daily at Tokio has a circulation of
300,000. She has over 3,000 milds of railroads and uses the American
system of checking baggage. Large factories with the best machinery
has been built late years, but a great part of the manufacturing is
done by the people in their own homes, where they turn out those
exquisite fabrics of silk and cotton and rugs of all the colors of the
rainbow, and seemingly as fadeless as that bow. Slavery is unknown,
and there is very little poverty with all the crowded population. The
Japans are our nearest neighbors acrost the Pacific and we've been
pretty neighborly with 'em, havin' bought from 'em within the last ten
years most three hundred millions worth of goods. She would miss us if
anything should happen to us.
Yokohama is a city of 124,000 inhabitants, most all Japans, though in
what they call the settlement there are fifteen or twenty thousand
foreigners. There are beautiful homes here with flower gardens
containing the rarest and most beautiful flowers, trees and shrubs of
all kinds.
The day Josiah had his struggle with the interpreter and Japan money
we rode down the principal streets of Yokohama. And I would stop at
some of the silk shops, though Josiah objected and leaned out of his
jinrikisha and sez anxiously:
"Don't spend more'n half a dozen rins, Samantha, on dress, for you
know we've got more than 10,000 milds to travel and the tarven bills
are high."
Sez I in real dry axents, "If I conclude to buy a dress I shall have
to have as much as a dozen rins; I don't believe that I could git a
handsome and durable one for less." My tone was sarcastical. The idee
of buyin' a silk dress for half a cent! But I didn't lay out to buy; I
wuz jest lookin' round.
I saw in those shops some of the most beautiful silks and embroideries
that I ever did see, and I went into a lacquer shop where there wuz
the most elegant furniture and rich bronzes inlaid with gold and
silver. They make the finest bronzes in the world; a little pair of
vases wuz fifteen hundred dollars and you couldn't get 'em for less.
But why shouldn't there be beautiful things in a country where every
one is a artist?
We stopped at a tea house and had a cup of tea, delicious as I never
spozed tea could be and served by pretty young girls with gay colored,
loose silk suits and hair elaborately dressed up with chains and
ornaments; their feet and legs wuz bare, but they wuz covered with
ornaments of brass and jade. Afterwards we passed fields of rice where
men and wimmen wuz working, the men enrobed in their skin toilette of
dragons and other figures and loin cloth and the wimmen in little
scanty skirts comin' from the waist to the knees. Their wages are
eight cents a day. I wondered what some of our haughty kitchen rulers,
who demand a dollar a day and the richest of viands would say if they
wuz put down on a basis of eight cents a day and water and rice diet.
The little bamboo cottages are lovely lookin' from the outside with
their thatched roofs, some on 'em with little bushes growin' out on
the thatch and little bunches of grass growin' out under the eaves.
The children of the poor are entirely naked and don't have a rag on
'em until they're ten or twelve. A lot of 'em come up to the
jinrikishas and called out "oh-hi-o" to Josiah, and he shook his head
and sez affably:
"No, bub, I'm from Jonesville."
But the interpreter explained oh-hi-o means good mornin'; and after
that for days Josiah would say to me as soon as I waked up, "Ohio,"
and wanted to say it to the rest, but I broke it up.
One thing Josiah thought wuz wicked: a Japanese is not allowed to wear
whiskers till he is a grandpa, so old bachelors have to go with smooth
faces.
Sez Josiah, "What if Cousin Zebedee Allen couldn't wear whiskers?
Why," sez he, "his whiskers are his main beauty, and naterally Zeb is
more particular about his looks than if he wuz married. Such laws are
wicked and arbitrary. Why, when I courted my first wife, Samantha, my
whiskers and my dressy looks wuz what won the day. And I d'no," sez he
inquiringly, "but they won your heart."
"No," sez I, "it wuzn't them, and heaven only knows what it wuz; I
never could tell. I've wondered about it a sight."
"Well," sez he, "I didn't know but it wuz my whiskers."
We passed a number of temples where the people worship. The two
principal religions are the Shinto and the Buddhist. The Shinto means,
"The way of the gods," and they believe that their representative is
the Mikado, so of course they lay out to worship him. The Buddhists
preach renunciation, morality, duty, and right living. Bein' such a
case to cling to Duty's apron strings I couldn't feel towards the
Buddhists as Miss Meechim did. Sez she, "Oh, why can't they believe as
we do in America? Why can't they all be Episcopalians?"
But 'tennyrate all religions are tolerated here, and as Arvilly told
Miss Meechim when she wuz bewailin' the fact that they wuzn't all
Episcopals and wuzn't more like our country.
Sez Arvilly, "They don't drownd what they call witches, nor hang
Quakers, nor whip Baptists, nor have twenty wives. It don't do
for us to find too much fault with the religion of other nations,
Miss Meechim, specially them that teaches the highest morality,
self-control and self-sacrifice."
Miss Meechim was huffy, but Arvilly drove the arrer home. "Gamblin' is
prohibted here; you wouldn't be allowed gamble for bed-quilts and
afghans at church socials, Miss Meechim."
Miss Meechim wouldn't say a word. I see she wuz awful huffy. But
howsumever there are lots of people here who believe in the Christian
religion.
We passed such cunning little farms; two acres is called a good farm,
and everything seemed to be growin' on it in little squares, kep' neat
and clean, little squares of rice and wheat and vegetables.
And Josiah sez, "I wonder what Ury would say if I should set him to
transplantin' a hull field of wheat, spear by spear, as they do here,
set 'em out in rows as we do onions. And I guess he'd kick if I should
hitch him onto the plow to plow up a medder, or onto the mower or
reaper. I guess I'd git enough of it. I guess he'd give me my
come-up-ance."
"Not if he wuz so polite as the Japans," sez I.
"And what a excitement it would make in Jonesville," sez Josiah, "if I
should hitch Ury and Philury onto the mowin' machine. I might," he
continered dreamily, "just for a change, drive 'em into Jonesville
once on the lumber wagon."
But he'll forgit it, I guess, and Japan will forgit it too before
long. Their tools are poor and fur behind ourn, and some of their ways
are queer; such as trainin' their fruit trees over arbors as we do
vines. Josiah wuz dretful took with this and vowed he'd train our old
sick no further over a arbor. Sez he, "If I can train that old tree
into a runnin' vine I shall be the rage in Jonesville."
But he can't do it. The branches are as thick as his arm. And I sez,
"Children and trees have to be tackled young, Josiah, to bend their
wills the way you want 'em to go." They make a great fuss here over
the chrysantheum, and they are beautiful, I must admit. They don't
look much like mine that I have growin' in a kag in the east winder.
Their common fruits are the persimmons, a sweet fruit about as big as
a tomato and lookin' some like it, with flat black seeds, pears, good
figs, oranges, peaches, apples. There is very little poverty, and the
poorest people are very clean and neat. Their law courts don't dally
for month after month and years. If a man murders they hang him the
same week.
But mebby our ways of lingerin' along would be better in some cases,
if new evidence should be found within a year or so, or children
should grow up into witnesses.
We went into a Japanese house one day. It is made on a bamboo frame,
the roof and sides wuz thatched with rye straw, the winders wuz
slidin' frames divided into little squares covered with thin white
paper. The partitions wuz covered with paper, and movable, so you
could if you wanted to make your house into one large room. Josiah
told me that he should tear out every partition in our house and fix
'em like this. "How handy it would be, Samantha, if I ever wanted to
preach."
And I told him that I guessed our settin' room would hold all that
would come to hear him preach, and sez I, "How would paper walls do
with the thermometer forty below zero?" He looked frustrated, he had
never thought of that.
The house we went into wuz sixteen feet square, divided into four
square rooms. It wuz two stories high, and little porches about two
feet wide wuz on each story, front and back. There wuz no chimney;
there wuz a open place in the wall of the kitchen to let the smoke out
from the little charcoal furnace they used to cook with, and one
kettle wuz used to cook rice and fish; no spoons or forks are needed.
The doors and frame-work wuz painted bronze color. There wuzn't much
furniture besides the furnace and tea-kettle that stands handy to make
tea at any time. A few cups and saucers, a small clock, a family idol,
and a red cushioned platform they could move, high and wide enough for
a seat so several can set back to back, is about all that is
necessary.
Their floors are covered with a lined straw matting, soft as carpet;
they sleep on cotton mats put away in the daytime; their head-rest is
a small block of wood about one foot long, five inches wide and eight
inches high. A pillow filled with cut rye straw and covered with
several sheets of rice paper isn't so bad, though I should prefer my
good goose feather pillows. The Japanese are exceedingly neat and
clean; they could teach needed lessons to the poorer classes in
America.
We one day made an excursion twenty milds on the Tokiado, the great
highway of Japan. It is broad and smooth; five hundred miles long, and
follers the coast. Part of the way we went with horses, and little
side trips into the country wuz made with jinrikishas. Quaint little
villages wuz on each side of the road, and many shrines on the
waysides. That day we see the famous temple of Diabutsu with its
colossal bronze idol. It wuz fifty feet high and eighty-seven feet
round. The eyes three feet and a half wide. One thumb is three and a
half feet round. He seemed to be settin' on his feet.
A widder and a priest wuz kneelin' in front of this idol. The priest
held in one hand a rope and anon he would jerk out melancholy sounds
from a big bronze bell over his head. In his other hand he held some
little pieces of wood and paper with prayers printed on 'em. As he
would read 'em off he would lay one down on the floor, and the widder
would give him some money every time. I thought that wuz jest about
where the prayers went, down on the floor; they never riz higher, I
don't believe.
Josiah wuz kinder took with 'em, and sez he, "How handy that would be,
Samantha, if a man wuz diffident, and every man, no matter how bashful
he is, has more or less wood chips in his back yard. Sometimes I feel
diffident, Samantha."
But I sez, "I don't want any wooden prayers offered for me, Josiah
Allen, and," sez I, "that seen shows jest how widders are imposed
upon."
"Well," sez he, "she no need to dickered with the priest for 'em if
she hadn't wanted to."
And I did wish that that little widder had known about the One ever
present, ever living God, who has promised to comfort the widder, be a
father to the orphan, and wipe away all tears.
But the Sunrise Land is waking up, there is a bright light in the
East:
In the beauty of the lilies Christ is born acrost the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me.
With the sweet gentleness and amiable nater of the Japans what will
not the divine religion of the Lord Jesus do for them? It will be
plantin' seed in good ground that will spring up a hundredfold.
I spoze that it wuz on Robert Strong's account (he is acquainted with
so many big Chinamen and Japans) that we wuz invited to a elegant
tiffen in one of the Mikado's palaces at Tokio. The grounds wuz
beautiful, the garden containing some of the most beautiful specimens
of trees, trained into all shapes, some on 'em hundreds of years old,
but havin' their faculties yet, and growin' jest as they wuz told to,
and all the beautiful flowers and shrubs that Japan can boast of, and
palm trees, bananas, giant ferns and everything else beautiful in the
way of vegetation.
The palace is one of the oldest in Tokio. It wuz only one story high,
but the rooms wuz beautiful. The fan chamber wuz fifty feet square,
the walls covered with fans of every size and shape and color. The
only furniture in this room wuz two magnificent cabinets of lacquer
work and four great, gorgeous bronze vases.
The tiffen wuz gin by a high official; there wuz fifty guests. The
hour was two in the afternoon. There wuz ten ladies present--two
beautiful Japanese ladies, dressed in the rich toilette of Japan. The
lunch cards wuz little squares of scarlet paper, with black Japanese
writing. Josiah looked at the card intently and then whispered to me:
"How be I goin' to know what I am eatin' from these duck tracks?"
But I whispered, "Le's do what the rest do, Josiah, and we'll come out
all right."
But we had a dretful scare, for right whilst we wuz partakin' of the
choice Japan viands a loud rumblin' sound wuz hearn, and I see even as
we rushed to the door the timbers of the ceilin' part and then come
together agin and the great bronze chandelier swing back and forth. My
pardner ketched hold of my hand and hurried me along on a swift run
and wouldn't stop runnin' for some time. I tried to stop him, for I
got out of breath, but he wuz bound to run right back to Yokohama,
thirty miles off. But I convinced him that we would be no safer there,
for you can't argy with earthquake shocks and tell when they're
comin', they are very common in all parts of Japan. After the first
heavy shock there wuz two lighter ones, and that ended it for that
time. But though we all went back to the table, I can't say that I
took any great comfort in the tiffen after that.
A blow has fell onto me I wuzn't prepared for. We found a number of
letters waitin' for us here at the tarven that Robert Strong had
ordered to be forwarded there. It seemed so good, whilst settin'
under a palm tree, seein' jinrikishas go by, and Chinas and Japans, to
set and read about the dear ones in Jonesville, and the old mair and
Snip.
The letters wuz full of affection and cheer, and after readin' 'em I
gathered 'em up and sought my pardner to exchange letters with him, as
I wuz wont to do, and I see he had quite a few, but what was my
surprise to see that man sarahuptishushly and with a guilty look try
to conceal one on 'em under his bandanna. And any woman will know that
all his other letters wuz as dross to me compared to the one he was
hidin'. I will pass over my argyments--and--and words, before that
letter lay in my hand. But suffice it to say, that when at last I read
it and all wuz explained to me, groans and sithes riz from my burdened
heart deeper and despairener than any I had gin vent to in years and
years.
And I may as well tell the hull story now, as I spoze my readers are
most as anxious about it as I wuz. Oh, Josiah! How could you done it?
How I do hate to tell it! Must I tell the shameful facts? Oh, Duty!
lower thy strongest apron strings and let me cling and tell and weep.
And there it had been goin' on for months and I not mistrustin' it.
But Duty, I will hold hard onto thy strings and tell the shameful
tale.
Josiah owned a old dwellin' house in the environs of Jonesville, right
acrost from Cap'n Bardeen's, who rented it of him to store things in.
The town line runs right under the house, so the sink is in Zoar, and
the cupboard always had stood in Jonesville. But owin' to Ernest
White's labors and prayers and votes, his and all other good ministers
and earnest helpers, Jonesville went no-license now jest as Loontown
did last year.
And jest as Satan always duz if he gits holt of souls that he can't
buy or skair, he will try to cheat 'em, he is so suttle. It seems that
after we got away that Cap'n Bardeen moved that cupboard over to the
other side of the room into Zoar and went to sellin' whiskey out
on't. Awful doin's! The minute I read the letter I sez:
"Josiah Allen, do you write this very minute and stop this wicked,
wicked works!" Sez I: "No knowin' how many Jonesvillians will feel
their religion a-wobblin' and tottlin' just by your example; naterally
they would look up to a deacon and emulate his example--do you stop it
to once!"
"No, Samantha," sez he, "Cap'n Bardeen and his father owns more cows
than any other Jonesvillians. If I want to be salesman agin in the
Jonesville factory I mustn't make 'em mad, and they pay a dretful high
rent."
"I wouldn't call it rent," sez I, "I'd call it blood-money. I'd run a
pirate flag up on the ruff with these words on it, 'Josiah Allen,
Deacon.'"
He wuz agitated and sez, "Oh, no, Samantha; I wouldn't do that for the
world, I am so well thought on in the M. E. meetin' house."
"Well, you won't be well thought on if you do such a thing as this!"
sez I. "Jest think how Ernest White, that good devoted minister, has
labored and prayed for the good of souls and bodies, and you tryin'
your best to overthrow it all. How could you do it, Josiah?"
"Well, I may as well tell you, Samantha, I writ to Ury and kinder left
it to him. He knows my ambitions and my biziness. He knows how handy
money is, and he fixed it all straight and right."
"Ury!" sez I, "why should you leave it to Ury? Does he keep your
conscience and clean it off when it gits black and nasty by such
doin's as this?"
"No, Samantha, I've got my conscience all right. I brought it with me
on my tower."
"Why should you leave it to Ury? He's your hired man, he would do as
you told him to," sez I. "For a Methodist deacon such acts are
demeanin' and disgustin' for a pardner and Jonesville to witness, let
alone the country." And agin I sez, "You can stop it in a minute if
you want to, and you know right from wrong, you know enough to say
yes or no without bringin' Ury into the scrape; Ury! spozein' you git
him into it, I can tell you he won't bear the brunt of it before the
bar of this country or that bar up above. You'll have to carry the
responsibility of all the evil it duz, and it will be a lastin'
disgrace to you and the hull Methodist meetin-house if you let it go
on."
Agin he sez, "Ury fixed it all right."
"How did Ury fix it?" sez I, in the cold axents of woman's skorn and
curiosity.
"Well, Ury said, make Bardeen stop sellin' whiskey out of the
cupboard, make him sell it out of the chist. There is a big chist
there that Bardeen bought to keep grain in, sez Ury; let Bardeen move
that cupboard acrost the room back into Jonesville, set the chist up
on the sink in Zoar and sell it out of that. Ury said that in his
opinion that would make it all right, so that a perfessor and a
Methodist deacon could do it with a clear conscience."
Sez I, "Do you write to once, Josiah Allen, and tell Bardeen to either
stop such works, or move right out."
"Well," sez he blandly, real bland and polite, "I will consider it,
Samantha, I will give it my consideration."
"No, no, Josiah Allen, you know right from wrong, truth from
falsehood, honesty from dishonesty, you don't want to consider."
"Yes, I do, Samantha; it is so genteel when a moral question comes up
to wait and consider; it is very fashionable."
"How long do you lay out to wait, Josiah Allen?" sez I, coldly.
"Oh, it is fashionable to not give a answer till you're obleeged to,
but I will consult agin with Ury and probable along by Fall I can give
you my ultimatum."
"And whilst you are a considerin' Bardeen will go on a sellin' pizen
to destroy all the good that Ernest White, that devoted minister of
Christ, and all the good men and wimmen helpers have done and are a
doin'."
"Well," sez Josiah, "I may as well tell you, you would probably hear
on't, Ernest White writ me some time ago, and sent me a long petition
signed by most all the ministers and leadin' men and wimmen, beggin'
me to stop Bardeen."
"Well, what did you tell him, Josiah Allen?"
"I told him, Samantha, I would consider it."
"And," sez I, "have you been all this time, months and months, a
considerin'?"
"Yes, mom," sez he, in a polite, genteel tone, "I have."
"Well, do you stop considerin' to once, Josiah Allen."
"No, Samantha, a pardner can do a good deal, but she can't break up a
man's considerin'. It is very genteel and fashionable, and I shall
keep it up."
I groaned aloud; the more I thought on't, the worse I felt. Sez I, "To
think of all the evils that are a flowin' out of that place, Josiah,
and you could stop it to once if you wuz a minter."
"But," sez Josiah, "Ury sez that if it wuzn't sold there by Cap'n
Bardeen the factory folks would go over into Zoar and git worse likker
sold by low down critters."
Sez I, "You might as well say if Christians don't steal and murder, it
will be done by them of poor moral character. That is one strong
weepon to kill the evil--confine the bizness to the low and vile and
show the world that you, a Methodist and a deacon, put the bizness
right where it belongs, with murder and all wickedness, not as you are
sayin' now by your example, it is right and I will protect it."
"Well," sez Josiah, as sot as a old hen settin' on a brick bat, "it is
law; Ury has settled it."
My heart ached so that it seemed to clear my head. "We'll see," sez I,
"if it can't be changed. I'll know before a week has gone over my
head." And I got up and dragged out the hair trunk, sithin' so deep
that it wuz dretful to hear, some like the melancholy winter winds
howlin' round a Jonesville chimbly.
"What are you a goin' to do, Samantha?" sez Josiah anxiously.
"I am goin' back home," sez I, "to-morrer to see about that law."
"Alone?" sez he.
"Yes, alone," sez I, "alone."
"Never!" sez Josiah. "Never will I let my idol go from Japan to
Jonesville unprotected. If you must go and make a town's talk from
China to Jonesville I'll stand by you." And he took down his hat and
ombrell.
"What would you do if you went back?" sez I. "I should think you had
done enough as it is; I shall go alone."
"What! you go and leave all the pleasures of this trip and go alone?
Part from your pardner for months and months?"
"Yes," sez I wildly, "and mebby forever. It don't seem to me that I
can ever live with a man that is doin' what you are." And hot tears
dribbled down onto my sheep's-head night-caps.
"Oh, Samantha!" sez he, takin' out his bandanna and weepin' in
consort, "what is money or ambition compared to the idol of my heart?
I'll write to Ury to change the law agin."
"Dear Josiah!" sez I, "I knew, I knew you couldn't be so wicked as to
continue what you had begun. But can you do it?" sez I.
Sez he cheerfully, as he see me take out a sheep's-head night-cap and
shet down the trunk led, "What man has done, man can do. If Ury can
fix a law once, he can fix it twice. And he done it for me." Sez he,
"I can repeal it if I am a minter, and when I am a minter." And he got
up and took a sheet of paper and begun to write to repeal that law. I
gently leggo the apron-string dear Duty had lowered to me; it had
held; pure Principle had conquered agin. Oh, the relief and sweetness
of that hour! Sweet is the pink blush of roses after the cold snows of
winter; sweet is rest after a weary pilgrimage.
Calm and beautiful is the warm ambient air of repose and affection
after a matrimonial blizzard. Josiah wuz better to me than he had been
for over seven weeks, and his lovin' demeanor didn't change for the
worse for as many as five days. But the wicked wrong wuz done away
with.
I writ a letter to Ernest White tellin' him I never knowed a word
about it till that very day, and my companion had repealed the law,
and Cap'n Bardeen had got to move out or stop sellin' whiskey. He
knows how I worship Josiah; he didn't expect that I would come out
openly and blame him; no, the bare facts wuz enough.
I ended up the letter with a post scriptum remark. Sez I: "Waitstill
Webb is sweeter lookin' than ever and as good as pure gold, jest as
she always wuz, but the climate is wearin' on her, and I believe she
will be back in Jonesville as soon as we are, if not before. She is a
lovely girl and would make a Christian minister's home in Loontown or
any other town a blessed and happy place."
I thought I wouldn't dast to do anything more than to give such a
little blind hint. But to resoom. Folks seem to have a wrong idee
about the education of the Japanese. There are twenty-eight thousand
schools in Japan, besides the private and public kindergartens.
There are over three million native students out of a school
population of seven million. There are sixty-nine thousand teachers,
all Japanese, excepting about two hundred and fifty American, German
and English. Nearly ten million dollars (Japanese) is raised annually
for educational purposes from school fees, taxes, interest on funds,
etc. They have compulsory school laws just like ours. And not a
drunken native did we see whilst in Japan, and I wish that I could
say the same of New York for the same length of time or Chicago or
Jonesville.
And for gentle, polite, amiable manners they go as fur ahead of
Americans as the leaves of their trees duz, and I've seen leaves there
more'n ten feet long. The empire of Japan consists of three thousand
eight hundred islands, from one eight hundred milds long to them no
bigger than a tin pan, and the population is about forty-three
million. I don't spoze any nation on earth ever made faster progress
than Japan has in the last thirty years: railways, telegraph postal
system. It seems as if all Japan wanted wuz to find out the best way
of doin' things, and then she goes right ahead and duz 'em.
Robert Strong wuz talking about what the word Japan meant, the Sunrise
Land. And he said some real pretty things about it and so did Dorothy.
They wuz dretful took with the country. Robert Strong has travelled
everywhere and he told me that some portions of Japan wuz more
beautiful than any country he had ever seen. We took several short
journeys into the interior to see the home life of the people, but
Robert Strong, who seemed to be by the consent of all of us the head
of our expedition, thought that we had better not linger very long
there as there wuz so many other countries that we wanted to visit,
but 'tennyrate we decided to start for Calcutta from Hongkong,
stopping on the way at Shanghai.