Around the World with Josiah Allen's WifeHolley, Marietta
General
Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife
Holley, Marietta
Women travelers -- Fiction
"'O Lord, thou knowest by the morning papers, so and so.' I d'no as a
prayer turned off by a wheel would look much worse or be much less
acceptable."
Josiah looked encouraged, and sez he to me, _soty vosey_, "Arvilly
always did have good horse sense."
Sez I, "They wuzn't run by machinery--wicked, wicked way. A boughten
machine!" sez I, shettin' up my eyes and groanin' agin.
"No," sez Josiah eagerly, "I wuz agoin' to tell you; I've got a wheel
to home and a cylinder that come offen that old furnace regulator that
didn't work, and I thought that with a little of Ury's help I could
fix one up jest as good as this, and I could sell this for twice what
I gin for it to Deacon Henzy or old Shelmadine, or rent it through
hayin' and harvestin' to the brethren, or----"
Sez I, "You would disseminate these wicked practices, would you, in
dear Christian Jonesville? No, indeed."
"I tell you agin I wuzn't a-goin' to use it only in the most hurryin'
times--I----"
But I sez, "I will hear no more; give it back to the man and come with
your pardner!"
And I linked my arm in hisen and motioned to the man to move off with
his wheels. And my looks wuz that dignified and lofty that I spoze it
skairt him and he started off almost immegiately and to once.
And I hain't hern no more about it, but don't know how much more
trouble I may have with it. No knowin' what that man may take it into
his head to do in Jonesville or China. But prayer-wheels! little did I
think when I stood at the altar with Josiah Allen that I should have
to dicker with them.
It only took six hours to sail from Hongkong up to Canton. The scenery
along the Pearl River is not very interesting except the rice fields,
banana groves with pagodas risin' amongst 'em anon or oftener, and
the strange tropical foliage, cactuses that we raise in little jars
riz up here like trees.
The native villages along the ruther flat shore looked kinder
dilapidated and run down, but yet they looked so different from
Jonesville houses that they wuz interestin' in a way. The forts that
we passed occasionally looked as if they would stand quite a strain.
But the queerest sight wuz the floatin' houses that we had to sail
through to land. Two hundred thousand folks live on them boats, are
born on 'em, grow up, marry, raise a family and die, all right there
on the water, just as other folks live on the land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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