Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (ebook reader android txt) 📖

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 198 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 199 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 200 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 201 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: