Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (life changing books TXT) đ
- Author: Marietta Holley
Book online «Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (life changing books TXT) đ». Author Marietta Holley
I looked over his shoulder and thought to myself I should think as much, I should think he wouldnât know. There stood Josiah Allen before the glass and of all the sights I ever see his dress went ahead. He had got on a red woolen 222 underskirt and his dressinâ gown over it kinder floated back from it, and he had took out of my trunk a switch of hair that Tirzah Ann had put in, thinkinâ mebby I would want to dress my head different in foreign countries; I hadnât wore it at all, and it wuz clear in the bottom of my trunk, but he had got at it somehow and had fastened it onto his head, and it hung down his back and ended with a big broad, red ribbin bow; it was one of Tommyâs neck-ties. And heâd got all my jewelryââevery mite onâtââand had fastened it onto him on different places, and all of Tommyâs ribbins to tie his collar with, wuz made into bows and pinned onto him, and my C. E. badge and W. C. T. U. bow of white ribbin, and he had got my big palm leaf fan and had tied a big, red bow onât, and he wuz standinâ before the glass fanninâ himself and craninâ his neck one way and tother to see how he looked and admire himself, I spoze. And anon he tried to put the fan over his right ear. The idee! a palm leaf fan that wouldnât shet. And he spoke out to himself:
âNo, I canât do that, but I can be fanninâ myself, all the time fanninâ and bowinâ.â And then he stepped forrerd towards the glass and made a bow so low that his switch flopped over and ketched on the rocker of a chair and he couldnât move either way without jerkinâ his braid off.
âGoodness gracious!â I hearn him say, âI never yet tried to be genteel without its being broke up some way,â and he gin a jerk and left his switch on the floor. He took it up tenderly and smoothed it out and wuz tryinâ to attach it to his head agin. It wuz fastened on by a red ribbin cominâ up over his head and tied on top. But at that minute he ketched sight of me and he looked some meachinâ, but he begun immegiately pourinâ our profuse reasons for his costoom and manners.
Sez he, âYou know, Robert wants us to meet that high official, and I felt that it would help our relations with China if I should dress up China fashion.â
Sez I, âIt will help one of your relations if youâll take off 223 that red petticoat of hern, and ribbins and cameos and badges and things.â
Sez he, âI am doinâ this for political reasons, Samantha, and canât be hampered by domestic reasons and ignorance.â And he kepâ on tyinâ the bow on his foretop.
Sez I, âFor the sake of your children and grandchildren wonât you desist and not put âem to shame and make a laughinâ stock of yourself before Miss Meechim and Arvilly and all the rest?â
âI shall do my duty, Samantha,â sez he, and he pulled out the ribbin of the bow, so that it sot out some like a turban over his forward. âOf course I look very dressy and pretty in this costoom, but that is not my reason for wearinâ it; you and Arvilly are always talking about political men who donât come up to the mark and do their duty by their constituents. I am a very influential man, Samantha, and there is no tellinâ how much good I shall do my country this day, and the sneers of the multitude shall not deter me.â
Sez I, almost fearfully, âThink of the meetinâ house, Josiah, where youâre a deacon and looked up to; what will they say to hear of this, passinâ yourself off for a Chinaman; dressinâ up in petticoats and red ribbins!â
Sez he, craninâ his neck round to see the bow hanginâ down his back, âOur old forefathers went through worse trials than this when they eat their cartridge boxes and friz themselves at Valley Forge,â and he fingered some of them bows and ornaments on his breast agin with a vain, conceited smirk of satisfaction. I wuz at my witsâ end; I glanced at the door; there wuz no lock on it; what should I do? Religion and common sense wouldnât move him, and as for my sharpest weeponââgood vittlesââhere I wuz hampered, I couldnât cook âem for him, what could I do?
Sez he agin, âI only do this for patriotism; I sacrifice myself on the altar of my country,â and he fanned himself gracefully, lookinâ sarahuptishly into the glass.
224âWell,â sez I, growinâ calm as I thought of a forlorn hope, âmebby it is best, Josiah, and I hainât a-goinâ to be outdone by you in patriotism. I too will sacrifice myself.â And I proceeded to comb my hair with a firm look on my face. He looked alarmed.
âWhat do you mean, Samantha?â sez he.
âI wonât let you go ahead of me in sacrificing yourself, Josiah. No, I will go fur ahead of what you or anybody else would do; it will most probable kill me, but I shall not falter.â
âWhat is it, Samantha?â sez he, droppinâ the fan and approachinâ me with agitated mean. âWhat are you goinâ to do? If it is to throw yourself in front of any idol and perish, I will save you if I shed the last drop of blood in my system!â
âYes,â sez I, âyou could do great bizness in savinâ me, togged out as you are, made helpless by your own folly; but,â sez I, in a holler, awful axent, âit hainât that, Josiah; it is fur worse than losinâ my life; that wouldnât be nothinâ in comparison.â
He looked white as a piller case. Sez he: âTell me to once what you lay out to do.â
âWell,â sez I, âif you must know, I spoze that it might help our relations with China if I should part with you and wed a China potentate. It would kill me and be bad for the potentate, but if your countryâs welfare is at stake, if it would help our relations Iââââ
âLet the relations go to Jericho, Samantha! every one on âem, and the Potentates! every one on âem!â and he kicked off them robes quicker than I can tell the tale.
Sez I, âJosiah, you neednât tear every rag youâve got on; take âem off quietly.â Heâd put âem on over his own clothes. He obeyed me implicitly, and sez he anxiously, as he laid âem all on the bed:
âYouâve gin up the idee, hainât you, Samantha?â
Sez I, âI have for the present, Josiah, I wuz only doinâ 225 it to emulate your sacrifice; if you donât sacrifice yourself any further, I shanât.â
He hadnât been so good to me for sometime as he wuz for the rest of that day. I only done it to stop his display, and my conscience hainât been quite at rest ever sence about it, but then a woman has to work headwork to keep her pardner within bounds. I wuznât goinâ to have him make a fool of himself before Arvilly and Miss Meechim. Arvilly would never let him hearn the end onât nor me nuther.
Well, we met the potentate in our own clothes and he met us in his own clothes, jest as he and we had a right to. He wuz a real sensible man, so Robert Strong said, and he understood a good deal of his talk and ort to know.
Well, from Shanghai we sailed for Hongkong and then embarked for Point de Galle on the island of Ceylon, expectinâ to stop on the way at Saigon in Cochin-China and Singapore.
It wuz dretful windy and onpleasant at first. It is much pleasanter to read about a monsoon in Jonesville with your feet on a base burner than to experience one on a steamer. Everything swayed and tipped and swung, that could, even to our stomachs. We only made a short stop at Saigonââa hotter place I wuz never in. I thought of the oven in our kitchen range and felt that if Philury wuz bakinâ bread and meat and beans and got into the oven to turn âem, she knew a little about the climate we wuz enjoying.
As we ascended the river our ship got a little too near the shore and kinder run its prow into a jungle where the monkeys hung from the tree-tops and made fun of us, I spoze, mad at our invadinâ their domain and wanted us to pay, âtennyrate the muskeeters sent in their bills, sharp ones. Saigon is a pretty place set in its tropical scenery; it has eighty or ninety thousand inhabitants and belongs to France. The natives are small and slower than time in the primer.
Singapore is an island in the straits of Malacca and is twenty-four milds long and fourteen wide; it is a British 226 province ruled by native princes under the Queen. Here the days and nights are of equal length and it rains about every day; it has a mixed population, Chinamen, Malays, Europeans and a few Americans, mebby a hundred thousand in all.
We didnât stay long here, but rode out in what they called a Jherry lookinâ like a dry goods box drawed by a couple of ponies.
Josiah sez to me, âI am glad that the Malay coolers wear a little more than the Japans.â And the coolies here did wear besides their red loin cloth a narrer strip of white cotton cloth hanginâ over their left shoulders. Our hotel wuz a very comfortable one; it consisted of several buildinâs two stories high connected by covered halls; it wuz surrounded by handsome trees and beautiful ornamental shrubbery and flowers.
The wide verandas wuz very pleasant, with their bamboo chairs and couches and little tables where you could have tea served. Birds of the most beautiful plumage soared and sung in the trees, and butterflies that looked like flowers on wings fluttered about. You canât tell men from wimmen by their clothes. They all wear earrings and bracelets and nose-rings. Josiah sez to me:
âI have always said, Samantha, that men didnât dress gay enough; a few bracelets and breastpins and earrings would add to a manâs looks dretfully, and I mean to set the fashion in Jonesville. It would take ten years offen my age. Jest see how proud the men walk; they feel that theyâre dressed up; it gives âem a lofty look.â
The men did seem to have a different gait from the females; the wimmen looked more meek and meachin. We didnât stay long in Saigon, but we visited the Whampoo garders and found that they were perfectly beautiful, made by Mr. Whampoo, a rich Chinaman. There wuz fifty acres under most perfect cultivation. Here the Chinese fad of dwarfing and training trees wuz carried to perfection; there 227 wuz trees trained into all sorts of shapes. One wuz a covered carriage about three feet high, with a horse, all tree, but natural as life; and then there wuz pagodas and men and wimmen and animals and birds all growinâ and havinâ to be trimmed by the patient Chinese gardener. The tree they can use best is a evergreen with a little leaf and a white flower not much bigger than the head of a pin. But there wuz not only every tropical tree you could think on, palm, cocoanut, nutmeg, cinnamon, tea, coffee, and clove bush, but trees and plants from every part of the world, some from America.
Here wuz a Victoria lily in its full beauty, the dark green leaves edged with brown and red, as big round as our washtub, and turned up on the edges about two inches. Each plant has one leaf and one flower. And we see the most lovely orchids here; Dorothy thought them the most beautiful of all. Well, in a day or two we sot out for Ceylonâs isle.
As we drew nigh to Ceylon I sez to Josiah: âDid you ever expect, Josiah Allen, to feel
ââThe balmy breezes
That blow from Ceylonâs Isle
Where every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile?ââ
And he sez, holdinâ on his hat, âI shouldnât call these breezes very bammy, and you no need to lay such a powerful stress on man, Samantha, that term, man, means wimmen too in this case.â
âYes,â sez Arvilly, who wuz standinâ nigh, âthat term, man, always includes wimmen when there is any blame or penalty attached, but when it sez âMan is born free and equal,â it means men
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