A Yankee in the Far East Part 2

"I made a few more trips to the dentist, to ask him if he was dead sure he hadn't got me breaking in some other fellow's teeth; and if he would plane them down a little here and there.

"He growled considerable. Said he'd get them too loose, and then I'd be having trouble the other way.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "When I didn't have them in my wife was giving me Hail Columbia"]

"Well, I got so I could wear those teeth and think of something else at the same time; and then I started for San Francisco to catch this s.h.i.+p. I can't understand it at all; but somehow or other, those teeth have shrunk. They began to shrink as soon as I struck the Pullman, and when I got aboard this s.h.i.+p the blamed things had shrunk some more.

They got so they would drop on me while eating. I'd be going along all right, when all of a sudden, with a mouth-full of victuals, I'd find myself chewing those false teeth with my other teeth. I felt like a cannibal chewing a corpse. I felt like a ghoul robbing a graveyard. It was worse than the neck of a chicken, that any man who has kept house for twenty years or so, knows all about. After you've helped all the rest, all that's left for you is the neck, don't you know?"

"Missouri" had me crying; but I gave three emphatic and sympathetic nods. I've kept house for more than twenty years, and I'm a connoisseur myself on that part of the fowl--and the gizzard.

"Well," "Missouri" continued, "I felt like a Fiji Islander before the missionaries taught them to love their enemies, but not to eat them.

So I'm wearing those teeth in my coat pocket.

"I may not look so young, but I don't feel so like a blithering savage. I hate to go home without a full set of teeth, though.

"How are the j.a.panese on dentistry, Mr. Allen? Do you suppose I could get fixed up over there?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "With a mouthful of victuals, I'd find myself chewing those false teeth with my other teeth"]

I told him I didn't know about their dentistry, but that they were clever little beggars. That they were strong on tea and tooth brushes.

"Tea, teeth, and tooth brushes," "Missouri" said, in a speculative and hopeful tone. "Now maybe so, maybe so," and we parted for the night.

"Missouri" is not a half bad sort, and, anyway, his teeth story is different than a yarn on seasickness.

III

WONG LEE--THE HUMAN BELLOWS

This is a fine, large s.h.i.+p--j.a.panese line.

I don't call to mind any line of s.h.i.+ps I have not sailed on prior to this voyage in my chasing up and down the world in search of a "meal ticket," and pleasure; but this is my first voyage on a j.a.panese liner, and I'm simply delighted with it.

It contrasts delightfully with a s.h.i.+p I sailed on, on one of my former trips across the Pacific.

That boat was all right, too. Good s.h.i.+p, good service--particularly good service--Chinese help; and anyone who has ever sailed with Chinese crews, waiters and room boys, knows what that means--nothing better in that line. I had a fine stateroom and a good room boy--that boy was a treasure.

I cottoned to that boy the minute he grabbed my baggage at the wharf, and blandly said, "You blong my," as he led me to my stateroom.

There was an obnoxious sign in that stateroom which read: "No Smoking in Staterooms." I settled for the long voyage, hung a coat over that sign, and lit up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Wong," I said, "how fas.h.i.+on you talkee so?

"No can slmoke stlate loom!

"No tlouble slmoke stlate loom. Can slmoke stlate loom easy, see?"]

Wong Lee flagged me with a word of warning: "No can slmoke stlate room. Slmoke loom, can do."

"Wong," I said, "how fas.h.i.+on you talkee so? 'No can slmoke stlate loom!' No tlouble slmoke stlate loom. Can slmoke stlate loom easy, see?"

If anyone tells you the Chinese can't see a joke, tell them to guess again. Wong saw that little one--saw it through a cloud of smoke, at that. Wong shut my stateroom door, like a boy in the b.u.t.tery stealing jam, and said: "Lofficers findee out. They flobid."

"All right, Wong, I won't tell them if you don't," I said. And Wong didn't--Wong certainly didn't betray me.

The further we sailed the more I became attached to the boy--he took such excellent care of me--I got so I really loved that boy.

All Wong's other duties seemed easy compared to his efforts, in my behalf, to see that my slight and harmless infraction of the s.h.i.+p's rules should not be discovered. If I dropped a little ash, Wong was on hand to brush it up. A tell-tale cigar stub, carelessly left--Wong was there to whisk it out of sight with: "Lofficers may come insplection any time. No can tell when."

[Ill.u.s.tration: My great fear was that before we landed at Yokohama Wong would surely burst in his efforts to keep the smoke in my stateroom blown out of the porthole]

It wasn't my uneasiness at fear of being found out that robbed me of some of the pleasures of the trip, but an anxious fear that Wong, 'round whom the tendrils of my heart's affections were gaining strength each day as we neared the mystic land of the rising sun--my great fear was that before we landed at Yokohama, Wong would surely burst in his efforts to keep the smoke in my stateroom blown out of the port-hole.

Now this s.h.i.+p is different. No silly rules that drive a man out of his room onto the deck, or the smoking room, when he feels like drawing a little inspiration from the weed that cheers but don't inebriate--I like this s.h.i.+p.

"Land ho!" Hawaii in the distance.

IV

HAWAII--AND THE FISHERMAN WHO'D SIGN THE PLEDGE

"Under the setting sun, in the Mid-Pacific, lie the Islands of the Hawaiian group, which present to the traveler or home-seeker more alluring features than are combined in any other country in the world.

Nowhere else are such pictures of sea and sky and plain and mountain, such magnificence of landscape, such bright suns.h.i.+ne and tempering breeze, such fragrant foliage, such brilliant colorings in bush and tree, such dazzling moonlight.

"With a climate world-excelling for its equableness, these happy islands afford a refuge for those who would escape the rigors of cold or heat encountered in the temperate zones; an entertaining resort for the pleasure-seeker, an almost virgin field of research for the scientist, a sanitarium for the ill, weary or overwrought. For the man who would build a home where conditions of life are most nearly ideal, and where nature works with man and not against him, Hawaii smiles a radiant welcome.

"It is withal an entrancing land, these mid-sea dots, for the combination of tropical suns.h.i.+ne and sea breeze produces a climate which can be compared to nothing on any mainland, and by reason of peculiar situation, to that of no other island group. Hawaii has a temperature which varies not more than 10 degrees through the day, and which has an utmost range during the year from 85 degrees to 55 degrees. Sweltering heat or biting cold are unknown, sunstroke is a mythical name for an unthought thing, a frost-bite is heard of no more than a polar bear.

"Conjure up a memory of the most perfect May day, when suns.h.i.+ne, soft airs and fragrance of buds and smiling Nature combine to make the heart glad, multiply it by 365, and the result is the climate of Hawaii. The sky, with the blue of the Riviera and the brilliance of a sea-sh.e.l.l, is seldom perfectly clear. Ever the fleecy white clouds blowing over the sea form ma.s.ses of lace-like broidery across the blue vault, adding to the natural beauty, and when gilded or rouged by sunrise or sunset make the heavens a miracle of color.

"And, as in Nature's bounty the climate was made close to perfection, so the good dame continued her work and gave to the land such features as would make not alone a happy home for man, but as well a pleasure ground: for there are mountains and valleys, bays and cataracts, cliffs and beaches in varied form and peculiar beauty, foliage rich in color and rare in fragrance, flowers of unusual form and hue, and all without a poisonous herb or vine, or a dangerous reptile or animal. To fit the paradise was sent a race of people stalwart in size, hospitable, merry, and music-loving. The door is always open and over its lintel is '_Aloha_,' which means 'Welcome.' All are given cordial greeting on the summer sh.o.r.es of the Evening Isles, and nowhere else may be found so many joys and such new lease of life as under Hawaii's smiling skies.

"More prominent than any other cause for this condition of affairs is the fact that Hawaii is windswept throughout the year. The northeast trades bring with them new vitality, and make of Hawaii a paradise where life is pleasure all the year round. From out of the frozen north, picking from the blossoming whitecaps the fragrant and sustaining ozone, sweeping across the breakers to caress the land, comes the constant northeast trade-wind. It is not a strong, harsh blow at all, rather a fanning breeze--Nature's punkah. The average velocity for the year is but eight miles per hour. The mission of the trade-wind is a beneficent one always. Cyclones or hurricanes in Hawaii are unknown."

I didn't write the above. That is a piece of pure plagiarism on my part. I snitched it from a folder put out by the Hawaiian Promotion Society.

The first time I saw that folder I got hold of it on s.h.i.+pboard a few hours before reaching Honolulu the first time I came here, years ago.

I read it through and smiled like Noah's neighbors when he allowed there was going to be a wet spell--and got off the s.h.i.+p and "did"

Honolulu.

I kept on smiling, albeit not cynically.