Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition Part 16

Josiah whispers, "Samantha, have you got on your gold beads?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I wear 'em under my collar but most always take 'em off in a thunder storm not wantin' to be struck in my neck. And I seen him furtively gittin' ready to throw away his jack-knife. But at that minute the storm calms down and Josiah replaces his knife jest as we enter New York harbor. A flight over sea and land, forest and city, and we land agin at the Exposition.

As we disembarked Josiah grasped holt of my hand ostensibly to help me but really in tender greeting, and sez in fervid axents, "I wouldn't have you take that trip alone, Samantha, without me with you to protect you, not for worlds."

"No," sez Blandina, "what would we have done without dear Uncle Josiah by our side?"

I didn't argy but felt that he wouldn't with his size and weight made much headway agin them whales and water monsters to say nothin' of danger by drowndin' and fallin' from the sky. But he felt neat and we wended our way on.

Josiah said he didn't care about goin' to Asia, and I said it wuz a pity not to when we wuz so nigh, but he kinder hurried me on.

I told him that the Streets of Seville interested me, for it wuz planned by a woman, the only woman who ever received a concession in a amus.e.m.e.nt street of a Exposition.

And Josiah sez, "I shall spend my money on sunthin' of more importance; it probable all runs to crazy quilts and tattin."

But it wuz no such thing, it wuz perfectly beautiful, as I've hearn folks say that have been there. But I see he wuz beginnin' to look kinder mauger, and as first chaperone I sez anxiously, "Where do you want to go, dear Josiah? Do you want to go to Hagenbecks Animal Show?"

"No, I don't; I shall see animals enough when I git home in my own barnyard."

"Well, do you want to go to the Hereafter, Josiah?"

"No, we shall git there all right if we keep on without my payin' out money. I told you I wuzn't goin' to pay to go in to all these places."

"Well, do you want to go to France or Ceylon or Persia? Or Cairo? Or where do you want to go?"

Sez he, cross as a bear, "I want to go where I can git sunthin' to eat."

And I sez, "Dear Josiah, I've been so took up I forgot your appet.i.te; we will go to once." And havin' heard that good food could be got in j.a.pan we hastened thither.

CHAPTER XI.

We entered Fair j.a.pan through a big gateway a hundred feet high. It wuz called the Temple of Kiko, it wuz all covered with carvin' and gold ornaments. And they say it couldn't be made now of the same materials for a million dollars. It would been magnificent lookin' if it hadn't been for what looked like serpents wreathin' up the pillars in front. I hate snakes! and they're the last ornaments I would ever sculp over my front door.

Blandina said they wuz dragons, and mebby they wuz. 'Tennyrate they wuz fastened to the pillars and didn't offer to hurt us. We got quite a good meal, but queer, in a tea-house on the borders of the lake. They had the best tea I ever drinked. I asked 'em how long they steeped it, and how much they put in for a drawin', but they bein' ignorant didn't seem to understand me. But I enjoyed bein' there, for whilst our inner men and wimmen wuz bein' refreshed our minds wuz enriched by this real picture of life in j.a.pan, for in there it is jest as if we had traveled thousands of milds and wuz sot down in the real j.a.pan.

After the edge of Josiah's hunger wuz squenched he begun to look about him and praise up the looks of the Geisha girls that wuz dancin' or rather posterin' in their pretty modest way, and some on 'em playin' on queer lookin' instruments that looked some like my carpet sweeper.

These girl musicians wuz settin' on the floor dressed in what seemed to be gay colored night gowns, and they looked well enough, kinder innocent and modest lookin'. But I told him it wuzn't becomin' in a old man and a professor to be so enthusiastick over young girls dancin' and playin'.

And he sez, "Oh, well, fetch on your girl blinders and I'll put 'em on. But till you git 'em for me and harness me up in 'em I've got to look round some."

But I told him there wuz enough for him to see besides girls and there wuz. For it beats all what long strides the j.a.pans have made in every branch of education and culture. If they keep on in the next century as they have in this some of the so-called advanced nations will have to take a back seat and let this little brown, polite people stand to the head. But then they have been cultured for hundreds of years, though lots of folks don't seem to know it.

But I am sorry to say it wuzn't the high art and culture of j.a.pan that Josiah wuz most interested in, but the queer things, such as the strange stunted trees trained into forms of men and animals hundreds of years old and no higher than a common chair, and lots of 'em not so high. And there wuz roosters with tails twenty-five feet long.

Josiah said he wuz bound to git an egg and see if he could hatch one.

And I sez, "Where would it roost? It's tail is long agin as the hen house is high."

Well, he said in the summer it could roost on top of the barn with its tail kinder hangin' down and out over the smoke house.

But it wuzn't a minute before his eyes wuz took up with some images, some big ones covered with the most exquisite carvin', down to them so small, if you'll believe it, they wuz carved out of a single kernel of rice. And there wuz gold fish and a hundred other kinds of fishes, and you see there the common houses of the people and people livin' in them jest as they do in their own country, and a royal palace, arched bridges, lanterns hangin' everywhere, paG.o.das, temples, lagoons with ornamental boats, cascades, etc. All made a pretty picture, though curious.

Then in Asakusa, a native village of j.a.pan, is forty stores and there you see the most beautiful display of rugs, carved ivory and wood, porcelain, jewels, fans, paintings, etc., and the workmen busy making 'em right before your eyes. And in the narrer streets jugglers, acrobats, fortune tellers are giving their mysterious performances. There are bands of music, jinrikishaws with men harnessed up in 'em, and you can ride in 'em if so inclined.

There wuz quite a number of places on the Pike that we pa.s.sed that I kinder wanted to see, but Josiah wuzn't willin' to pay out too much money, and what interested me most wuz the foreign countries that I had never had a chance to see, they havin' the misfortune to be so fur from Jonesville. But when we got to the Chinese Village, it had such a magnificent and showy front that Josiah never made an objection to goin' inside.

I wuz dretful glad to go there, you know it is nater to want to do what you can't. And China has been so determined to keep Josiah and I and the world out of her empire, I wuz glad enough to git in, and wuz real interested lookin' at them queer yeller pig-tailed little creeters with dresses on, and their funny little houses.

There wuz a big Chinese theatre, and a Joss house where they wors.h.i.+p Joss, whoever he or she may be, I wanted to have their religion explained to me, there wuz a guide there to do it.

But Josiah said that as a deacon he wouldn't countenance it, for I might be led into idolatry. And when I argued with him he whispered to me:

"Samantha, if you insist on hangin' round their meetin' house here any longer I shall say out loud, 'By Joss!'"

At that fearful threat I started on, I wouldn't let him demean himself before the heathen.

You can see here in this country, as in j.a.pan, native workers plyin' their different trades, mechanics, painters, jewelers, etc., etc. Silk weavers usin' the same old, onhandy looms they used centuries ago, ivory carvers fas.h.i.+onin' elephants and other animals, and all on 'em tryin' to sell to us in their high-pitched voices.

I had quite a number of emotions here in China a musin' on the oldness and strangeness of their civilization, and wonderin' if it would ever be merged into a newer, fresher life.

Blandina didn't share my lofty emotions, she simpered some and said, "I believe they would make lovely husbands if their eyes wuz sot in straighter and they dressed different."

And I sez, "I wouldn't admire 'em in that capacity, but after all they would be equinomical husbands. If you had a calico dress kinder wore off round the bottom you could cut it off and make 'em wear it, men's clothes are so expensive it would be quite a savin'. And you could pa.s.s him off for the hired girl if strangers come onexpected, though that is sunthin' I wouldn't approve on, fur from it, a hauty sperit goes before a fall, as I told Josiah once when he got on a new kind of collar that held his head up so high he fell over the wood-box."

But to resoom. The Chinese are curious lookin', but equinomical, they can live on a few grains of rice a day, and America owes 'em a debt of grat.i.tude anyway for tunnelin' her Rocky Mountains, buildin' her big railroads and diggin' ditches to water the land and make it beautiful that they're shet out of.

Blandina sez to me as we wended our way out, "No man ort to be turned back out of this country." She said the Chinee wuz good, industrious, equinomical and peaceable.

And I sez, "Yes, they work well and don't go round like some other foreigners with a chip on their shoulder. But," sez I, "Blandina, I will not tell the nation what to do in this matter; there is so much to be said on both sides it must not depend on me to settle it, and they needn't ask me to."

I hadn't more than said these words as we wuz strollin' along when who should we meet but Royal and Rosy Nelson. I knowed they wuz to be married the very day after we left for St. Louis. We wuz invited but couldn't go, our plans bein' all laid and tickets bought, but I sent 'em a handsome present, for I wuz highly tickled with the match.

Truly no rose ever looked sweeter hangin' on its bough than did Rosy Nelson hangin' onto the arm of her devoted consort, and he I thought wuz well named, so royal and proud wuz his mean as he introduced his wife.

I kissed her warmly right there in China and promised to make her a all day's visit soon as I got home, I'm lottin' on't.

We talked a little about past troubles caused by Jabezeses and inventions, and the glories of the Fair, and then they strolled off happy as two turkle doves, not needin' or desirin' any other company than their own, and showin' it plain by their actions. Josiah was put out about it for he wanted to find out about how things wuz to home, bein' highly tickled to meet a male Jonesvillian.

Blandina sez as they walked away, bound up in each other and both on 'em wropped up in the glowin' mantilly of youth and joy: "Oh, happy, happy wedded souls! how I envy you."

And Josiah sez in a fraxious axent, "How queer it is that two such smart young folks can look and act so spooney, but thank heaven! it won't last. It won't be long before Royal will be willin' to pa.s.s the time o' day with a Jonesvillian."