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sometimes in turninā€™ a corner the poles of our chairs had to be run way inside of the shops, and Josiah said:

ā€œI would like to see how long the Jonesvillians would stand such doinā€™s; I would like to see old Gowdeyā€™s fills scrapinā€™ my cook stove, it is shiftless doinā€™s, and ort to be stopped.ā€

But I knew he couldnā€™t make no change and I hushed him up as well as I could. Robert Strong got quite a comfortable tarven for us to stay in. But I wuz so afraid all the time of eatinā€™ rats and mice that I couldnā€™t take any comfort in meat vittles. They do eat rats there, for I see ā€™em hanginā€™ in the markets with their long tails curled up, ready to bile or fry. Josiah said he wished he had thought onā€™t, he would brung out a lot to sell, and he wuz all rousted up to try to make a bargain to supply one of these shops with rats and mice. Sez he:

179

ā€œIt will be clear profit, Samantha, for I want to get rid on ā€™em, and all the Jonesvillians do, and if I can sell their carcasses I will throw in the hide and taller. Why, I can make a corner on rats and mice in Jonesville; I can git ā€™em by the wagon load of the farmers and git pay at both ends.ā€ But I told him that the freightage would eat up the profits, and he see it would, and gin up the idee onwillinā€™ly.

Though I donā€™t love such hot stuff as we had to eat, curry, and red peppers, and chutney, not to home I donā€™t, but I see it wuz better to eat such food there on account of the climate. Some of our party had to take quinine, too, for the stomachā€™s sake to keep up, for you feel there like faintinā€™ right away, the climate is such.

It must be that the Chinese like amusements, for we see sights of theatres and concert rooms and lanterns wuz hanginā€™ everywhere and bells. And there wuz streets all full of silk shops, and weavers, and jewelry, and cook shops right open on either side. All the colors of the rainbow and more too you see in the silks and embroideries, and jewelry of all kinds and swinginā€™ signs and mat awnings overhead, and the narrer streets full of strange lookinā€™ folks, in their strange lookinā€™ dresses.

We visited a joss house, and a Chinamanā€™s paradise where opium eaters and smokers lay in bunks lookinā€™ as silly and happy as if they wouldnā€™t ever wake up agin to their tawdy wretchedness. We visited a silk manufactory, a glass blowing shop. We see a white marble pagoda with several tiers of gilded bells hanginā€™ on the outside. Inside it wuz beautifully ornamented, some of the winders wuz made of the inside of oyster shells; they made a soft, pleasant light, and it had a number of idols made of carved ivory and some of jade stun, and the principal idol wuz a large gilded dragon.

Josiah said the idee of worshippinā€™ such a looking creeter as that. Sez he, ā€œI should ruther worship our old gander.ā€ And Miss Meechim wuz horrified, too, at the wickedness of the Chinese in worshippinā€™ idols.

180

But Arvilly walked around it with her head up, and said that America worshipped an idol that looked enough sight worse than that and a million times worse actinā€™. Sez she, ā€œThis idol will stay where it is put, it wonā€™t rare around and murder its worshippers.ā€

And Miss Meechim sez coldly, ā€œI donā€™t know what you mean; I know that I am an Episcopalian and worship as our beautiful creed dictates.ā€

Sez Arvilly, ā€œAnybody that sets expediency before principle, from a king to a ragpicker; any one who cringes to a power he knows is vile and dangerous, and protects and extends its influence from greed and ambition, such a one worships a far worse idol than this peaceable, humbly-lookinā€™ critter and looks worse to me enough sight.ā€

I hearn Miss Meechim say out to one side to Dorothy, ā€œHow sick I am of hearing her constant talk against intemperance; from California to China I have had to hear it. And you know, Dorothy, that folks can drink genteel.ā€

But Dorothy, with her sweet lips trembling and her white dimpled chin quivering, sez, ā€œI should think we had suffered enough from the Whiskey Power, Auntie, to hear anything said against it, and at any time.ā€

And Robert Strong jined in with Dorothy, and so Miss Meechim subsided, and I see a dark shadder creep over her face, too, and tears come into her pale blue eyes. She hainā€™t forgot Aronette, poor little victim! Crunched and crushed under the wheels of the monster Juggernaut America rolls round to crush its people under. I wuz some like Arvilly. When I thought of that I didnā€™t feel to say so much aginst them foreign idols, though they wuz humbly lookinā€™ as I ever see. And speakinā€™ of idols, one day we see twelve fat hogs in a temple, where they wuz kept as sacred animals, and here agin Miss Meechim wuz horrified and praised up American doinā€™s, and run down China, and agin Arvilly made remarks. Sez she:

ā€œThe hogs there wallowing in their filth are poor lookinā€™ 181 things to kneel down and worship, but theyā€™re shut up here with priests to tend to ā€™em; they canā€™t git out to roam round and entice innocents into their filthy sties and perpetuate their swinish lives, and that is more than we can say of the American beastly idols, or our priesthood who fatten them and themselves and then let ā€™em out to rampage round and act.ā€

Miss Meechim sithed deep and remarked to me ā€œthat the tariff laws wuz a absorbinā€™ topic to her mind at that time.ā€ She did it to change the subject.

We went to a Chinese crematory and the Temple of Longevity, where if you paid enough you could git a promise of long life. Josiah is clost, but he gin quite a good deal for him, and wuz told that he would live to be one hundred and twenty-seven years of age. He felt well. Of course we had a interpreter with is who talked for us. Josiah wanted me to pay, too, for a promise. Sez he with a worried look:

ā€œI shall be wretched as a widower, Samantha; do patronize ā€™em, I had ruther save on sunthinā€™ else than this.ā€

So to please him I gin ā€™em a little more than he did, and they guaranteed me one hundred and forty years, and then Josiah worried agin and wanted me to promise not to marry agin after he wuz gone. He worships me. And I told him that if I lived to be a hundred and forty I guessed I shouldnā€™t be thinkinā€™ much about marryinā€™, and he looked easier in his mind.

One day we met a weddinā€™ procession, most a mild long, I should say. The bride wuz ahead in her sedan chair, her dress wuz richly embroidered and spangled, a veil fringed with little pearls hung over her face. Pagodas with tinkling gilt bells, sedan chairs full of silk and cloth and goods of all kinds wuz carried in the procession by coolies. Idols covered with jade and gilt jewelry, a company of little children beatinā€™ tom-toms and gongs, and the stuffed bodies of animals all ornamented with gilt and red paper riggers wuz carried, 182 and at the tail end of the procession come the friends of the family.

The bridegroom wuznā€™t there, he wuz waitinā€™ to hum in his own or his fatherā€™s house for the bride heā€™d never seen. But if the brideā€™s feet wuz not too large he would most likely be suited.

Miss Meechim said, ā€œPoor young man! to have to take a wife he has never seen; how widely different and how immeasurably better are such things carried on in America.ā€

Sez Arvilly, ā€œWhat bridegroom ever did see his bride as she really wuz? Till the hard experience of married life brought out her hidden traits, good and bad? Or what wife ever see her husbandā€™s real temper and character until after years of experience?ā€

Sez I, ā€œThatā€™s so; leaves are turned over in Josiah Allenā€™s mind now as long as weā€™ve been pardners that has readinā€™ on ā€™em as strange to me as if they wuz writ in Chinese or Japan.ā€

But then it must be admitted that not to see your wifeā€™s face and know whether sheā€™s cross-eyed or snub-nosed is tryinā€™. But they say it is accordinā€™ to the decree of Feng Shui, and therefore they accept it willingly. They have a great variety of good fruit in Cantonā€“ā€“some that I never see beforeā€“ā€“but their vegetables donā€™t taste so good as ours, more stringy and watery, and their eggs they want buried six months before usinā€™ ā€™em. I believe that sickened me of China as much as anything. But then some folks at home want their game kepā€™ till it hainā€™t fit to eat in my opinion. But eggs! they should be like CƦsarā€™s wife, above suspicionā€“ā€“the idee of eatinā€™ ā€™em with their shells all blue and spotted with ageā€“ā€“the idee!

183 CHAPTER XVI

We wuz all invited one day to dine with a rich Chinaman Robert Strong had got acquainted with in San Francisco. Arvilly didnā€™t want to go, and offered to keep Tommy with her, and the rest of us went. The house wuz surrounded with a high wall, and we entered through a small door in this wall, and went into a large hall openinā€™ on a courtyard. The host met us and we set down on a raised seat covered with red cloth under some big, handsome lanterns that wuz hung over our heads. Servants with their hair braided down their backs and with gay dresses on brought in teaā€“ā€“as good as any I ever drankā€“ā€“and pipes. Josiah whispered to me:

ā€œHow be I agoinā€™ to smoke tobacco, Samantha? It will make me sick as death. You know I never smoked anything but a little catnip and mullen for tizik. I wonder if heā€™s got any catnip by him; Iā€™m goinā€™ to ask.ā€

But I kepā€™ him from it, and told him that we could just put the stems in our mouths, and pretend to smoke enough to be polite.

ā€œHypocrasy,ā€ sez Josiah, ā€œdonā€™t become a deacon in high standinā€™. If I pretend to smoke I shall smoke, and take a good pull.ā€ And he leaned back and shut his eyes and took his pipe in his hand, and I guess he drawed on it more than he meant to, for he looked bad, sickish and white round his mouth as anything. But we all walked out into the garden pretty soon and he looked resuscitated.

It was beautiful there; rare flowers and exotics of all kinds, trees that I never see before and lots that I had seen, sparklinā€™ fountains with gold fish, grottos all lit up by colored 184 lanterns, and little marble tablets with wise sayings. Josiah said he believed they wuz ducksā€™ tracks, and wondered how ducks ever got up there to make ā€™em, but the interpreter read some on ā€™em to us and they sounded first rate. Way up on a artificial rock, higher than the Jonesville steeple, wuz a beautiful pavilion with gorgeous lanterns in it and beautiful bronzes and china.

In the garden wuz growinā€™ trees, trimmed all sorts of shapes, some on ā€™em wuz shaped like bird cages and birds wuz singinā€™ inside of ā€™em. There wuz one like a jinrikisha with a horse attached, all growinā€™, and one like a boat, and two or three wuz pagodas with gilt bells hanginā€™ to ā€™em, another wuz shaped like a dragon, and some like fish and great birds. It wuz a sight to see ā€™em, all on ā€™em a growinā€™, and some on ā€™em hundreds of years old. Josiah says to me:

ā€œIf I ever live to git home I will surprise Jonesville. I will have our maple and apple trees trimmed in this way if I live. How uneek it will be to see the old snow apple tree turned into a lumber wagon, and the pound sweet into a corn house, and the maples in front of the house you might have a couple on ā€™em turned into a Goddess of Liberty and a statter of Justice, you are such a hand for them two females,ā€ sez he. ā€œOf course we should have to use cloth for Justiceā€™s eye bandages, and her steelyards I believe Ury and I could trim out, though they might not weigh jest right to the notch.ā€

And I sez, ā€œJustice has been used to that, to not weighinā€™ things right, it wouldnā€™t surprise her.ā€ But I told him it would be sights of work and mebby heā€™ll give it up.

Soon afterwards we wuz all invited to dinner in this

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