Part 16 (1/2)

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.