Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (life changing books TXT) 📗

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 204 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 205 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 206 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, 207 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, 208 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 209 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,