We were dismayed to find on our return that one of the too loyal missionaries had, in supposed obedience to the edict, closed the little room, where services had been held with the natives, and they were worshiping secretly in one or another of their own little homes. We at once threw open our own house and regularly gathered the Christians there, till all the mission were willing to use the little chapel again.
Shortly after our return the queen invited me to a private audience, in order to give me a very unique pair of gold bracelets, which she had ordered made for a wedding present, and which had not been ready before we went to the country. She also gave a ring set with a beautiful pearl for my husband. She kindly asked about our trip, and was, as usual, all that was friendly and considerate. I wish I could give the public a true picture of the queen as she appeared at her best, but this would be impossible, even had she permitted a photograph to be taken, for her charming play of expression while in conversation, the character and intellect which were then revealed, were only half seen when the face was in repose. She wore her hair like all Korean ladies, parted in the center, drawn tightly and very smoothly away from the face and knotted rather low at the back of the head. A small ornament (indicating her rank, I suppose, as I have never seen any other woman wear one) was worn on the top of the head; fastened by a narrow black band. One or two very ornamental long hairpins of gold filigree set with coral, pearls or jewels were stuck through the knot of hair at the back. She usually wore a yellow silk chogerie, or jacket waist, like those worn by all Korean women, fastened with a pearl or amber button and a very long flowing blue silk skirt. All her garments were of silk, exquisitely dainty.
Her majesty seemed to care little for ornaments, and wore very few. No Korean women wear earrings (except young girls in the north, who wear a large silver hoop), and the queen was no exception, nor have I ever seen her wear a necklace, a brooch, or a bracelet. She must have had many rings, but I never saw her wear more than one or two of European manufacture, set with not so many nor so large diamonds as numbers of American women of moderate means and station often display. She had any number of beautiful watches, which she never wore. According to Korean custom, she carried a number of filigree gold ornaments decorated with long silk tassels fastened at her side. So simple, so perfectly refined were all her tastes in dress, it is difficult to think of her as belonging to a nation called half civilized.
On the occasion of this visit she gave me a fresh proof of her thoughtful kindness. I was wearing my wedding dress and very thin satin slippers, and as I was leaving it suddenly began to rain. My chair was nearly half a mile distant, waiting outside the gate, according to rule. The queen, whom nothing escaped, noted the rain, and my difficulty. She came in person to the window and imperatively ordered word to be sent to the gate for my chair to be brought to the waiting room.
PLEASURE HOUSE. [PAGE 22]
But this was too much. The officials who attended me there said that such an exception as this in my favor would awaken bitter criticism and jealousy, that one of the highest officials in the land was at that moment waiting at the gate for the shower to pass so that he could attend at an audience, and would be obliged to walk through the rain. They therefore begged that I would wave the fulfilment of the queen’s order and walk to my chair. I saw the reason and the good sense in their protest, and of course at once consented, as much comforted by the queen’s kind intention as if my slippers and silk gown had been well protected. This rule for the exclusion of chair coolies was changed soon after, and my chair was brought close to the royal apartments.
That summer was passed on a high bluff on the banks of the river, in a Korean summer house, which belonged to the king, which their majesties had allowed our mission to use a previous year, and which favor was now extended to us. It was situated on the rocks about fifty feet above the water, and was one of those charming, cool and picturesque summer refuges which Koreans understand building to perfection. Its roof, with artistically upward curving corners, was supported on several stout pillars, but its walls were all windows of light wood, in fancy open-work designs, which were covered with paper on one side, and which, being made to swing out and hook to the roof, formed a very effective awning. Here with a breeze always sweeping through, effectively screened from the sun, with a perfect view of the mountains and the Han River, with its lovely green valley, Mr. Underwood worked nearly all summer on his small dictionary, Mr. Gale or Mr. Hulbert giving him much useful help at times. My husband had been at work on a larger dictionary, which he planned to make a very full and complete one, for nearly three years, and had already many thousands of definitions of words with synonyms. It was to be both Korean-English and English-Korean, not like the French, merely the Korean into the foreign tongue. It was a darling scheme of his heart, on which he was putting all the time that could be spared from direct mission work; but persuaded by his brethren that something was sorely needed immediately by missionaries now beginning to arrive, he laid his magnum opus aside for the present, not without regret, but without a backward look, and working without cessation from early dawn into the night hours all that long summer, prepared and finished the small dictionary, for the convenience at the present indigent moment of those who were struggling with the language.
The following fall, the loved secretary, Dr. Mitchell, and Mrs. Mitchell visited our mission and gave us all much advice and help, for which we were most grateful. We were not then quite so well housed as now. Our homes were mud-walled and rather damp, often leaking badly in rainy season and admitting much frosty air through numerous cracks in the winter. Many of our windows were not glazed, but merely covered with paper. During the doctor’s visit there came one night a heavy storm of wind and rain, which beat against the window near our bed, and thoroughly demolished it, the rain pouring in on the floor. The roof leaked over us, but with umbrellas and waterproofs we kept quite dry. In the morning, however, at the sight of the flooded floor and the paper windows hanging in shreds, Dr. Mitchell gave us a severe reprimand for our carelessness, warning us that missionaries are far too expensive commodities to be so ill protected. A lesson it were well for all young missionaries to learn, but which, as a rule, alas! they are too slow to heed.