Chapter 14

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XIV

A dretful thing has happened! I am almost too agitated to talk about it, but when I went down with my pardner and Tommy to breakfast ruther late, for we wrote some letters before we went down, Miss Meechim broke the news to me with red eyes, swollen with weepin'. Aronette, that dear sweet little maid that had waited on all on us as devoted as if we wuz her own mas and mas, wuz missin'. Her bed hadn't been slep' in for all night; she went out early in the evenin' on a errent for Dorothy and hadn't come back.

She slept in a little room off from Dorothy's, who had discovered Aronette's absence very early in the morning, and they had all been searching for her ever sence. But no trace of her could be found; she had disappeared as utterly as if the earth had opened and swallowed her up. Dorothy wuz sick in bed from worry and grief; she loved Aronette like a sister; and Miss Meechim said, bein' broke up by sorrow, "Next to my nephew and Dorothy I loved that child."

And anon another dretful thing wuz discovered. Whilst we wuz talkin' about Aronette, Elder Wessel rushed in distracted, with his neck-tie hangin' under one ear, and his coat buttoned up wrong and the feathers of his conceit and egotism and self-righteousness hangin' limp as a wet hen.

Lucia had gone too; had disappeared jest as Aronette had, no trace could be found of her; her bed had not been slept in. She, too, had gone out on an errent the evening before. She and Aronette had been seen to leave the hotel together in the early evening. Elder Wessel, half distracted, searched for them with all his strength of mind and purse.

I started Josiah off a huntin' the minute he had got through eatin'. He refused pint blank to go before. "Eat," sez I, "who can eat in such a time as this?"

Sez he, "It goes agin my stomach every mou'ful I take (which was true anyway), but we must eat, Samantha," sez he, helpin' himself to another cake. "We must eat so's to keep up our strength to hunt high and low."

Well, I spozed he wuz in the right on't, but every mou'ful he consumed riled me. But at last the plate wuz emptied and the coffee pot out and he sot off. And we searched all that day and the next and the next, and so did Miss Meechim and Arvilly, with tears runnin' down her face anon or oftener.

Robert Strong, led on, Miss Meechim said by her anxiety, but I thought mebby by the agony in Dorothy's sweet eyes as well as his own good heart, didn't leave a stone unturned in his efforts to find 'em. But they had disappeared utterly, no trace could be found of 'em. They had been seen during the evening with the two young men they had got acquainted with and that I didn't like. They had been seen speaking with them as they came out of the shop where Dorothy had sent Aronette, and the young men could not be found.

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 bein' 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 wanderin' round in them queer streets huntin' 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 Robert's 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 achin' heart to think on't! "I wonder if our govermunt is satisfied now," I broke out, "since it has ruined her, one of the sweetest girls in the world. But how did they ever entice 'em into that saloon?" sez I.

"They might have made them think it was respectable, they do serve lunches at some of them; of course they didn't know what kind of a place it was. And after they wuz made stupid drunk they didn't know or care where they went."

"I wonder if America is satisfied now!" I sez agin, "reachin' out her long arms clear acrost the Pacific to lead them sweet girls into the pit she has dug for her soldiers? Oh!" sez I, "if she'd only been drownded!" And I wiped my streamin' eyes on my linen handkerchief.

And Robert sithed deep and sez, "Yes, if she had only died, and," he sez, "I can't tell Dorothy, I cannot."

And I sez, "There is no need on't; better let her think she's dead. How long," sez I, turning toward him fierce in my aspect, "how long is the Lord and decent folks goin' to allow such things to go on?"

And he sez, "Heaven knows, I don't." And we couldn't say more, for Dorothy wuz approachin', 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 goin' to stay on there a spell longer. He had to 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 obleegin' 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 People's Club House didn't 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 Man's Club with; safer for the poor man; safer for the poor man's family. Tea and coffee seemed to look different to him from whiskey, and true liberty that he had talked about didn't seem the liberty to kill and destroy. The license law didn't 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.

"For how was he goin' to live through it," 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 man's 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 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 agin--never!

Well, the time come when we wuz obleeged to leave Manila. Robert Strong, for Dorothy's 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, bein' consulted with, promised to do all in her power to help find them, but she didn't act half so shocked and horrified as I spozed she would, not half so much as Arvilly did. She forgot her canvassin' and wep' and cried for three or four days most all the time, and went round huntin', actin' more'n half crazy, her feelin's 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 happenin' all the time in his profession, so much worse crimes, that he and his rich pardner, the American Govermunt, sees goin' 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 kep' by the two pardners, the brazen-faced old hag and Christian America, there, too, so many more terrible things wuz occurrin' 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 thinkin' of her, mournin' for her, cryin' on our pillers, seekin' with agonized, hopeless eyes for our dear one, we kep' on searchin' day and night, hopin' 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 death's door, mourning for his beautiful innocent daughter who wuz lost--lost.

But 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 didn't forgit her in the highest places or the lowest. And after days and days had passed I felt guilty, and as if I hadn't ort to be happy, and no knowin' where she'd drifted to in the cruel under world, and wuz like sea-weed driftin' in the ocean current. And when we wuz out evenin's, no matter where I wuz, I watched the faces of every painted, gaudy dressed creeter I see, flittin' down cross streets, hoping and dreading to see Aronette's little form. Arvilly and Miss Meechim openly and loudly, and Dorothy's 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, leadin' up from terrace to terrace, all full of trees, covered with luxuriant tropical foliage. It wuz a fair seen clear from the water's edge, with its tall handsome houses risin' right up from the edge of the bay, clear up to the top of Victoria mountain, that stands up two thousand feet, seemin'ly lookin' 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 goin' 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 on't, that they wuz ten thousand milds from Jonesville? I hope they didn't, it would make 'em too melancholy and deprested.

We all went to a comfortable tarven nigh by, and after partakin' of nourishin' food, though kinder queer, and a good night's rest, we felt ready to look round and see what we could. Josiah and I, with little Tommy, wuz the first ones up in the mornin', 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 'em, and as the prize wuz low we got into the chairs, Tommy settin' in Josiah's lap, and wuz carried for quite a ways through the narrer streets, with shops juttin' out on each side, makin' 'em still narrerer.

Josiah gin orders that I overheard to "go at a pretty good jog past the stores where wimmen buy sooveneers," but I presoomed that they didn't understand a word he said, so it didn't 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 goin' through just one street. Every sort of dress that ever wuz wore we see there, it seemed to me--Europeans, Turks, Mohomadeans, Malays, Japanese, Javanese, Hindoos, Portuguese, half castes, and Chinese coolies. Josiah still called 'em "coolers," because they wuz dressed kinder cool, but carryin' baskets, buckets, sedans, or trottin' a sort of a slow trot hitched into a jinrikisha, or holdin' it on each side with their hands, with most nothin' on and two pigtail braids hangin' down their backs, and such a jabberin' in language strange to Jonesville ears; peddlers yellin' out their goods, bells ginglin', gongs, fire-crackers, and all sorts of work goin' on right there in the streets. Strange indeed to Jonesville eyes! Catch our folks takin' their work outdoors; we shouldn't call it decent.

We went to the Public Gardens, which wuz beautiful with richly colored ornamental shrubbery. I sez to Josiah:

"Did I ever expect to see allspice trees?"

And he sez: "I can't bear allspice anyway."

"Well," sez I, "cinnamon trees; who ever thought of seein' cinnamon trees?"

An' he looked at 'em pretty shrewd and sez: "When I git home I shan't pay no forty cents a pound for cinnamon. I can tell 'em I've seen the trees and I know it ort to be cheaper." Sez he, "I could scrape off a pound or two with my jack-knife if we could carry it."

But I hurried him on; I wuzn't goin' to lug a little wad of cinnamon ten thousand milds, even if he got it honest. Well, we stayed here for quite a spell, seein' all the beautiful flowers, magnificent orchids--that 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, growin' out-doors here in grand luxuriance--palms, tree-ferns, banian trees, everything I used to wonder over in my old gography I see right here growin' free. Tommy wuz delighted with the strange, beautiful flowers, so unlike anything he had ever seen before. We had got out and walked round a spell here, and when we went to git into our sedan chairs agin, I wuz a little behind time, and Josiah hollered out to me:

"Fey tea, Samantha!"

"Tea?" sez I. "I hain't got any tea here." And I sez with dignity, "I don't know what you mean."

"Fey tea," he sez agin, lookin' clost at me.

And I sez agin with dignity, "I don't know what you mean." And he sez to me: "I am talkin' Chinese, Samantha; that means 'hurry up.' I shall use that in Jonesville. When you're standin' in the meetin' house door talkin' about bask patterns and hired girls with the female sisters, and I waitin' in the democrat, I shall holler out, 'Fie tea, Samantha;' it will be very stylish and uneek."

I didn't argy with him, but got in well as I could, but havin' stepped on my dress and most tore it, Josiah hollered out, "See sum! see sum! Samantha!"

And I, forgittin' his fashionable aims, sez to him, "See some what, Josiah?"

"See sum, Samantha. That means 'be careful.' I shall use that too in Jonesville. How genteel that will make me appear to holler out to Brother Gowdey or Uncle Sime Bentley, in a muddy or slippery time, 'See sum, Brother Gowdey; see sum, Uncle Sime!' Such doin's will make me sought after, Samantha."

"Well," sez I, "we'd better be gittin' back to the tarven, for Arvilly will be wonderin' where we are and the rest on 'em."

"Well, just as you say, Samantha," and he leaned back in his chair and waved his hand and says to the men, "Fey tea, fey tea; chop, chop."

I expect to see trouble with that man in Jonesville streets with his foreign ways.

Well, we wuz passin' through one of the narrer streets, through a perfect bedlam of strange cries in every strange language under the sun, so it seemed, and seein' every strange costoom that wuz ever wore, when, happy sight to Jonesville eyes, there dawned on my weary vision a brown linen skirt and bask, made from my own pattern.

Yes, there stood Arvilly conversin' with a stately Sikh policeman. She held up the "Twin Crimes" in a allurin' way and wuz evidently rehearsin' its noble qualities. But as he didn't seem to understand a word she said she didn't make a sale. But she wuz lookin' round undanted for another subscriber when she ketched sight of us. And at my request we dismissed the jinrikishas and walked back to the tarven with her.

Dorothy and Miss Meechim and Robert Strong come back pretty soon from a tower of sight-seein', and they said we'd all been invited to tiffen with the Governor-General the next day. Well, I didn't have the least idee what it wuz, but I made up my mind to once that if tiffenin' wuz anything relatin' to gamblin' or the opium trade, I shouldn't have a thing to do with it. But Josiah spoke right up and sez he had rather see tiffen than anybody else in China, and mistrustin' from Robert's looks that he had made a mistake, he hastened to add that tiffenin' wuz sunthin' he had always hankered after; he had always wanted to tiffen, but hadn't the means in Jonesville.

Sez Robert, "Then I shall accept this invitation for breakfast for all our party." And after they went out I sez: "I'd hold myself a little back, Josiah. To say that you'd never had means to take breakfast in Jonesville shows ignorance and casts a slur on me."

"Oh, I meant I never had any tiffen with it, Samantha; you'll see it don't mean plain breakfast; you'll see that they'll pass some tiffen, and we shall have to eat it no matter what it's made on, rats or mice or anything. Whoever heard of common breakfast at twelve M.?"

Well, it did mean just breakfast, and we had a real good time. We went up in sedan chairs, though we might have gone on the cars. But we wanted to go slower to enjoy the scenery.

I had thought the view from the hill back of Grout Nickleson's wuz beautiful, and also the Pali at Honolulu, but it did seem to me that the seen we looked down on from the top of Victoria mountain wuz the most beautiful I ever did see. The city lay at our feet embowered in tropical foliage, with its handsome uneek buildin's, its narrer windin' streets stretchin' fur up the mountain side, runnin' into narrerer mountain paths covered with white sand. The beautiful houses and gardens of the English colony clost down to the shore. The tall masts of the vessels in the harbor looking like a water forest with flowers of gayly colored flags. And further off the Canton or Pearl River, with scores of villages dotting its banks; glittering white temples, with their pinnacles glistening in the sunlight; pagodas, gayly painted with gilded bells, rising up from the beautiful tropical foliage; broad green fields; mountains soarin' up towards the blue heavens and the blue waters of the sea.

A fair seen, a fair seen! I wished that sister Henzy could see it, and told Josiah so.

And he sez with a satisfied look, "Wait till I describe it to 'em, Samantha. They'd ruther have me describe it to 'em than see it themselves." I doubted it some, but didn't contend.

The breakfast wuz a good one, though I should have called it dinner to home. Josiah wuz on the lookout, I could see, for tiffen to be passed, but it wuzn't, so he ort to give up, but wouldn't; but argyed with me out to one side that "they wuz out of tiffen, and hadn't time to buy any and couldn't borry."

Well, the Governor-General seemed to be greatly taken with Dorothy. A relation on his own side wuz the hostess, and Miss Meechim acted real relieved when it turned out that he had a wife who wuz visiting in England.

I sot at the right hand of the Governor-General and I wanted to talk to him on the opium question and try to git him to give up the trade, but concluded that I wouldn't tackle him at his own table. But I kep' up a stiddy thinkin'.

That very mornin' I read in the daily paper that two missionaries had arrived there the day before, and on the same steamer three hundred chests of opium.

Poor creeters! didn't it seem mockin' the name of religion to help convert the natives and on the same steamer send three hundred chests of the drug to ondo their work and make idiots and fiends of 'em.

It seemed to me some as if I should read in the Jonesville "Augur" or "Gimlet" that our govermunt had sent out three or four fat lambs to help the starvin' poor and sent 'em in the care of thirty or forty tigers and wild cats.

No doubt the lambs would git there, but they would be inside the wild cats and tigers.

Such wicked and foolish and inconsistent laws if made by women would make talk amongst the male sect, and I wouldn't blame 'em a mite; I should jine with 'em and say, "Sure enough it is a proof that wimmen don't know enough to vote and hain't good enough; let 'em drop the political pole, retire into the background and study statesmanship and the Bible, specially the golden rule." But to resoom.

Arvilly tried to turn the conversation on the "Twin Crimes" of America, but didn't come right out and canvass him, for which I wuz thankful. They all paid lots of attention to Tommy, who had a great time, and I spoze Carabi did too.

We had fruits and vegetables at the table, all gathered from the Governor-General's garden--fresh fruit and vegetables in February, good land! Pickin' berries and pineapples while the Jonesvillians' fruit wuz snowballs and icesuckles; jest think on't!

Well, Robert Strong thought we had better proceed on to Canton the next day and we wuz all agreeable to it.

After we all went back to the tarven and I had laid down a spell and rested, I went out with Arvilly and Tommy for a little walk, Miss Meechim, and Dorothy, and Robert Strong havin' gone over to Maceo, the old Portuguese town on the mainland. They wanted to see the place where Camoens wrote his great poem, "The Lusiad," and where he writ them heart-breakin' poems to Catarina. Poor creeters! they had to be separated. King John sent him off from Lisbon, wantin' the girl himself, so I spoze. Catarina died soon of a broken heart, but Camoens lived on for thirty years in the body, and is livin' now and will live on in the Real Life fer quite a spell.

Yes, his memory is jest as fresh now as it ever wuz in them streets he wandered in durin' his sad exile, while the solid stun his feet trod on has mouldered and gone to pieces, which shows how much more real the onseen is than the seen, and how much more indestructible. Iron pillars and granite columns aginst which his weary head had leaned oft-times had all mouldered and decayed. But the onseen visions that Camoens see with his rapt poet's eye wuz jest as fresh and deathless as when he first writ 'em down. And his memory hanted the old streets, and went before 'em and over 'em. How much more real than the tropical birds that wheeled and glittered in the luxuriant tropical foliage, though they couldn't lay hands on 'em and ketch 'em and bring a few to me, much as I would liked to have had 'em. But these bein' the real, as I say, they wuz also with me way over in Hongkong. I thought a sight on him all the time they wuz gone, and afterwards I thought of the honor and dignity his noble verse had gin to his country, and how princely the income they had gin him after they let him return from his exile. Twenty-one dollars a year! What a premium that wuz upon poesy; the Muse must have felt giddy to think she wuz prized so high, and his native land repented of the generosity afterwards and stopped the twenty-one dollars a year.

But then after his starved and strugglin' life wuz ended his country acted in the usual way, erected monuments in his honor, and struck off medals bearin' his liniment. The worth of one medal or one little ornament on the peak of one of his statutes might have comforted the broken heart and kep' alive the starved body and gin him some comfort. But that hain't the way of the world; the world has always considered it genteel and fashionable to starve its poets, and stun its prophets, with different kinds of stuns, but all on 'em hard ones; not that it has done so in every case, but it has always been the fashionable way.

Dorothy and Robert talked quite a good deal about the sad poet and his works, their young hearts feelin' for his woe; mebby sunthin' in their own hearts translatin' the mournful history; you know plates have to be fixed jest right or the colors won't strike in. It is jest so in life. Hearts must be ready to photograph the seens on, or they won't be took. Some hearts and souls are blank plates and will always remain so. Arvilly seemed lost in thought as they talked about the poet (she hain't so well versed in poetry as she is in the license laws and the disabilities of wimmen), and when she hearn Robert Strong say, "Camoens will live forever," she sez dreamily:

"I wonder if he'd want to subscribe for the 'Twin Crimes'?" And sez she, "I am sorry I didn't go over with you and canvass him." Poor thing! she little knew he had got beyend canvassin' and all other cares and troubles of life two hundred years ago. But Miss Meechim wuz dretful worked up about the gambling going on at Maceo, and she sez it is as bad as at Monte Carlo. (I didn't know who he wuz, but spozed that he wuz a real out and out gambler and blackleg). And sez she, "Oh, how bad it makes me feel to see such wickedness carried on. How it makes my heart yearn for my own dear America!" Miss Meechim is good in some things; she is as loyal to her own country as a dog to a root, but Arvilly sez:

"I guess we Americans hadn't better find too much fault with foreign natives about gambling, when we think of our stock exchanges, huge gamblin' houses where millions are gambled for daily; thousands of bushels of wheat put up there that never wuz growed only in the minds of the gamblers. Why," sez Arvilly, warmin' up with her subject, "we are a nation of gamblers from Wall Street, where gamblin' is done in the name of greed, down to meetin' houses, where bed-quilts and tidies are gambled for in the name of religion. From millionaires who play the game for fortunes down to poor backwoodsmen who raffle for turkeys and hens, and children who toss pennies for marbles."

Sez Miss Meechim, "I guess I will take a little quinine and lay down a spell." Arvilly tosted her head quite a little after she retired and then she went out to canvass a clerk in the office. Arvilly is dantless in carriage, but she is too hash. I feel bad about it. _

Read next: Chapter 15

Read previous: Chapter 13

Table of content of Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book