Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (life changing books TXT) š
- Author: Marietta Holley
Book online Ā«Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (life changing books TXT) šĀ». Author Marietta Holley
Well, we had all searched for three days without finding any trace of the two missing girls. Everything wuz ready for our departure, but Dorothy said that she could not, could not go without Aronette, but Robert Strong said and believed that the child was dead. He had come to the belief that she and Lucia by some accident had fallen into the water and wuz drowned. Dorothy had cried herself sick and she looked wan and white, but beinā so sweet dispositioned she give up when we all said that we must go before long, and said that she would go too, though I knew that her heart would remain there wanderinā round in them queer streets huntinā for her lost one. The morning of the third day after they wuz lost I wuz down in the parlor, when a man come in and spoke to Robert Strong, and they both went out together talking earnestly, and I see in Robertās 161 face a look of horrow and surprise that I had never seen in it before; and the first time Robert saw me alone after that he told me the dretful news. He said that the man that spoke to him was a detective he had employed, and the evening before he had come acrost a man who had been out of town since the night Aronette wuz lost. This man told the detective that he saw her and Lucia and the two young men coming out of a saloon late at night, staggering and reeling they all wuz, and they disappeared down a cross street towards another licensed house of ruin. Licensed by Christian America! Oh, my achinā heart to think onāt! āI wonder if our govermunt is satisfied now,ā I broke out, āsince it has ruined her, one of the sweetest girls in the world. But how did they ever entice āem into that saloon?ā sez I.
āThey might have made them think it was respectable, they do serve lunches at some of them; of course they didnāt know what kind of a place it was. And after they wuz made stupid drunk they didnāt know or care where they went.ā
āI wonder if America is satisfied now!ā I sez agin, āreachinā out her long arms clear acrost the Pacific to lead them sweet girls into the pit she has dug for her soldiers? Oh!ā sez I, āif sheād only been drownded!ā And I wiped my streaminā eyes on my linen handkerchief.
And Robert sithed deep and sez, āYes, if she had only died, and,ā he sez, āI canāt tell Dorothy, I cannot.ā
And I sez, āThere is no need onāt; better let her think sheās dead. How long,ā sez I, turning toward him fierce in my aspect, āhow long is the Lord and decent folks goinā to allow such things to go on?ā
And he sez, āHeaven knows, I donāt.ā And we couldnāt say more, for Dorothy wuz approachinā, and Robert called up a smile to his troubled face as he went forward to meet her. But he told me afterwards that the news had almost killed Elder Wessel. He had to tell him to help him in his search. He wuz goinā to stay on there a spell longer. He had to 162 tell him that Lucia had been seen with Aronette staggering out of a saloon with two young men late at night, reeling down a by-street to that other licensed house which our Christian govermunt keeps nigh the saloon, it is so obleeginā and fatherly to its men and boys.
When he told him Elder Wessel fell right down in his chair, Robert said, and buried his face in his hands, and when he took his hands down it wuz from the face of an old man, a haggard, wretched, broken-down old man.
The Peopleās Club House didnāt wear the kindly beneficent aspect it had wore. He felt that coffee and good books and music would have been safer to fill the Poor Manās Club with; safer for the poor man; safer for the poor manās family. Tea and coffee seemed to look different to him from whiskey, and true liberty that he had talked about didnāt seem the liberty to kill and destroy. The license law didnāt wear the aspect it had wore to him, the two licensed institutions Christian America furnished for its citizens at home and abroad seemed now to him, instead of something to be winked at and excused, to be two accursed hells yawning for the young and innocent and unsuspicious as well as for the wicked and evil-minded. Ungrateful country, here wuz one of thy sons who sung the praises of thy institutions under every sky! Ungrateful indeed, to pierce thy most devoted vassal with this sharp thorn, this unbearable agony.
āFor how was he goinā to live through it,ā he cried. How was he? His beautiful, innocent daughter! his one pet lamb! It was not for her undoing that he had petted and smiled on these institutions, the fierce wolves of prey, and fed them with honeyed words of excuse and praise. No, it wuz for the undoing of some other manās daughter that he had imagined these institutions had been raised and cherished.
He wuz an old broken man when he tottered out of that room. And whilst we wuz moving heaven and earth hunting for the girls he wuz raving with delerium with a doctor 163 and trained nurse over him. Poor man! doomed to spend his hull life a wretched wanderer, searching for the idol of his heart he wuz never to see agināānever!
Well, the time come when we wuz obleeged to leave Manila. Robert Strong, for Dorothyās sake as well as his own, left detectives to help on the search for the lost ones, and left word how to communicate with him at any time. Waitstill Webb, beinā consulted with, promised to do all in her power to help find them, but she didnāt act half so shocked and horrified as I spozed she would, not half so much as Arvilly did. She forgot her canvassinā and wepā and cried for three or four days most all the time, and went round huntinā, actinā moreān half crazy, her feelinās wuz such. But I spoze the reason Waitstill acted so calm wuz that such things wuz so common in her experience. She had knowledge of the deadly saloon and its twin licensed horror, dretful things was occurring all the time, she said.
The detectives also seemed to regard it as nothing out of the common, and as to the saloon-keeper, so much worse things wuz happeninā all the time in his profession, so much worse crimes, that he and his rich pardner, the American Govermunt, sees goinā on all the time in their countless places of bizness, murders, suicides, etc., that they evidently seemed to consider this a very commonplace affair; and so of the other house kepā by the two pardners, the brazen-faced old hag and Christian America, there, too, so many more terrible things wuz occurrinā all the time that this wuz a very tame thing to talk about.
But to us who loved her, to us whose hearts wuz wrung thinkinā of her, mourninā for her, cryinā on our pillers, seekinā with agonized, hopeless eyes for our dear one, we kepā on searchinā day and night, hopinā aginst hope till the last minute of our stay there. And the moon and stars of the tropics looked in night after night to the room where the old father lay at deathās door, mourning for his beautiful innocent daughter who wuz lostāālost.
164But the hour come for us to go and we went, and right by us, day or night, in sun or shade, from that hour on a black shadder walked by the side on us in place of the dimpled, merry face of the little maid. We didnāt forgit her in the highest places or the lowest. And after days and days had passed I felt guilty, and as if I hadnāt ort to be happy, and no knowinā where sheād drifted to in the cruel under world, and wuz like sea-weed driftinā in the ocean current. And when we wuz out eveninās, no matter where I wuz, I watched the faces of every painted, gaudy dressed creeter I see, flittinā down cross streets, hoping and dreading to see Aronetteās little form. Arvilly and Miss Meechim openly and loudly, and Dorothyās pale face and sorrowful eyes, told the story that they too wuz on the watch and would always be. But never did we catch a glimpse of her! never, never.
As we drew nigh to the city of Victoria on Hongkong island we see that it wuz a beautiful place. Big handsome houses built of gray stun, broad roads tree-bordered, leadinā up from terrace to terrace, all full of trees, covered with luxuriant tropical foliage. It wuz a fair seen clear from the waterās edge, with its tall handsome houses risinā right up from the edge of the bay, clear up to the top of Victoria mountain, that stands up two thousand feet, seemināly lookinā over the city to see what it is about. And this is truth and not clear simely, for the Governor General and Chief Justice have houses up there which they call bungalows, and of course they have got to see what is goinā on. The hull island is only nine milds long and three wide. And here we wuz ten thousand milds from home. Did the Hongkongers ever think onāt, that they wuz ten thousand milds from Jonesville? I hope they didnāt, it would make āem too melancholy and deprested.
We all went to a comfortable tarven nigh by, and after partakinā of nourishinā food, though kinder queer, and a good nightās rest, we felt ready to look round and see what we 165 could. Josiah and I, with little Tommy, wuz the first ones up in the morninā, and after breakfast we sallied out into the street. Here I proposed that we should take a jinrikisha ride. This is a chair some like a big willow chair, only with a long pole fastened to each side and two men to carry you round. Josiah wuz real took with the looks on āem, and as the prize wuz low we got into the chairs, Tommy settinā in Josiahās lap, and wuz carried for quite a ways through the narrer streets, with shops juttinā out on each side, makinā āem still narrerer.
Josiah gin orders that I overheard to āgo at a pretty good jog past the stores where wimmen buy sooveneers,ā but I presoomed that they didnāt understand a word he said, so it didnāt do any hurt and I laid out to git some all the same. But what a sight them streets wuz; they wuz about twenty feet wide, and smooth and clean, but considerable steep. To us who wuz used to the peaceful deacons of Jonesville and their alpaca-clad wives and the neighbors, who usually borry sleeve and skirt and coat and vest patterns, and so look all pretty much alike, what a sight to see the folks we did in goinā through just one street. Every sort of dress that ever wuz wore we see there, it seemed to meāāEuropeans, Turks, Mohomadeans, Malays, Japanese, Javanese, Hindoos, Portuguese, half castes, and Chinese coolies. Josiah still called āem ācoolers,ā because they wuz dressed kinder cool, but carryinā baskets, buckets, sedans, or trottinā a sort of a slow trot hitched into a jinrikisha, or holdinā it on each side with their hands, with most nothinā on and two pigtail braids hanginā down their backs, and such a jabberinā in language strange to Jonesville ears; peddlers yellinā out their goods, bells ginglinā, gongs, fire-crackers, and all sorts of work goinā on right there in the streets. Strange indeed to Jonesville eyes! Catch our folks takinā their work outdoors; we shouldnāt call it decent.
We went to the Public Gardens, which wuz beautiful with richly colored ornamental shrubbery. I sez to Josiah:
āDid I ever expect to see allspice trees?ā
166And he sez: āI canāt bear allspice anyway.ā
āWell,ā sez I, ācinnamon trees; who ever thought of seeinā cinnamon trees?ā
Anā he looked at āem pretty shrewd and sez: āWhen I git home I shanāt pay no forty cents a pound for cinnamon. I can tell āem Iāve seen the trees and I know it ort to be cheaper.ā Sez he, āI could scrape off a pound or two with my jack-knife if we could carry it.ā
But I hurried him on; I wuznāt goinā to lug a little wad of cinnamon ten thousand milds, even if he got it honest. Well, we stayed here for quite a spell, seeinā all the beautiful flowers, magnificent orchidsāāthat would bring piles of money to home, jest as common here as buttercups and daisies in Jonesville, and other beautiful exotics, that we treasure so as houseplants, growinā out-doors here in
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