Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (ebook reader android txt) đź“–
- Author: Marietta Holley
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But I sez, “I do hope the bill will pass for the sake of Justice, if nothin’ else. Justice,” sez I, “must have been so shamed to see such things goin’ on that she wuz glad she wore bandages over her eyes; and her hands have shook so she hain’t weighed even for some time; to see her sect taxed without representation, punished and hung by laws she has no voice in makin’.”
Josiah sez, “I admit that that is ruther hard, Samantha, but that hain’t the nick on’t. The pint is that wimmen hain’t got the self-control that men has. The govermunt is afraid of her emotional nater; she gits wrought up too quick. She is good as gold, almost a angel, in fact, as we male voters have always said. But she is too hasty; she hain’t got the perfect calmness, the firm onmovable sense of right and wrong, the patience and long sufferin’ that we men have; 191 she flies off too sudden one way or t’other; govermunt well fears she would be a dangerous element in the body politick.”
Jest as Josiah finished this remark Arvilly read out a thrillin’ editorial about the war between Russia and Japan; the editor commented on the wickedness of men plungin’ two great empires into warfare, slaughterin’ thousands and thousands of men, bringin’ ontold wretchedness, distress, pestilence and destitution just to gratify ambition or angry passion. For it wuz this, he said, in the first place, whatever it became afterward.
A war of defence, of course, argued an aggressor, and he talked eloquent about Courts of Arbitration which would do away with the wholesale butchery and horror of war. And he called eloquent on Peace to fly down on her white wings bearing the olive branch, to come and stop this unutterable woe and crime of war.
(Arvilly left off readin’ to remind Josiah that Peace wuz always depictered as a female, and then resoomed her readin’.)
In conclusion, the editor lamented the fact that in the annals of our nation men so often forgot the Golden Rule and gin vent to voylent passions and onbecomin’ behavior.
Sez Josiah, “I guess I will take Tommy and go out for a little walk, Samantha, I feel kinder mauger.”
“I should think you would!” sez Arvilly, lookin’ hull reams of by-laws and statutes at him.
And I sez, “Whilst you’re walkin’, dear Josiah, you might meditate on the danger to the govermunt from wimmen’s emotional nature, and the patience and long sufferin’ of men voters.” I said it real tender and good, but he snapped me up real snappish.
Sez he, “I shall meditate on what I’m a minter. Come, Tommy,” and they went out.
And the next day we started for Yokohama. I had felt kinder dubersome about goin’ through countries that wuz plunged in a great war, but we got along all right, nobody shot at us or made any move to, and we didn’t see anybody hurt. But knowed that the warfare wuz ragin’ away somewhere out of our sight.
Death wuz marchin’ along on his pale horse in front of the army, and hearts wuz breakin’ and the light of the sun and of life darkened in thousands and thousands of grand and humble homes.
I felt dretful when I thought on’t, but hain’t goin’ to harrow up the reader’s feelin’s talkin’ about it, knowin’ it won’t do any good, and anyway they’ve all read the particulars in the daily papers.
Well, we reached Yokohama with no fatal casualties to report, though my pardner wuz real seasick, but brightened up as we drew nigh to shore. Here and there a little village with quaint houses could be seen, and anon a temple or shrine riz up above the beautiful tropical foliage and further off the Fujiyama, the sacred mountain, riz up above the other mountains.
We come into the harbor about half-past three and arrove at our tarven about five. When we drew nigh the shore almost naked boatmen come out to meet us in their sampans, as they call their little boats (Josiah called ’em “sass pans” right to their face, but I don’t spoze they understood it). They wuz to take us into the shore and they wuz yellin’ to each other fearful as they pushed their boats ahead. Their toilettes consisted mostly of figgers pricked into their skins, 193 dragons and snakes seemed their favorite skin ornaments, the color wuz blue mostly with some red. Josiah sez to me as we looked down on ’em from the dock:
“Them coolers wouldn’t have to carry a Saratoga trunk with ’em when they travel; a bottle of ink and a pin would last ’em through life.” It wuz a real hot day, and Josiah continered, “Well, their clothin’ is comfortable anyway, that’s why they are called coolers, because they’re dressed so cool,” and, sez he, “what a excitement I could make in Jonesville next summer in dog-days by introducin’ this fashion.”
I looked on him in horrow, and he added hastily, “Oh, I should wear a short tunic, Samantha, comin’ down most to my knees, with tossels on it, and I shouldn’t wear snakes or dragons on my skin, I should wear some texts of Scripter, or appropriate quotations, as Josiah the fair, or Josiah the pride of Jonesville, runnin’ down my legs and arms, and I shouldn’t have ’em pricked in, I could have ’em painted in gay colors.”
“Oh, heavens!” sez I, lookin’ up to the sky, “what won’t I hear next from this man!”
“I hadn’t said I should do it, Samantha; and ’tennyrate it would be only through dog-days. I said what a excitement it would make if I concluded to do it.”
Sez I, “It is a excitement that would land you in Jonesville jail, and ort to.”
But at that minute Arvilly and Miss Meechim come up to us and broke off the conversation. Japan boatmen jest wear a cloth round their loins, and some of ’em had a little square of matting fastened by a rope round their necks to keep the rain offen their backs.
After goin’ through the custom house, where we got off easy, we went to a tarven called the Grand Hotel and had a good night’s rest.
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.
195But 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 196 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 197 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
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