Jest a little way from this Tower of Silence is the spot where the Brahmans burn their dead; there are so many that the fires are kep’ burnin’ all the time. And a little ways off is the place where the English bury their dead.
And I d’no but one way is as good as another. The pale 247 shadder of the real tower of silence has fell on ’em all and silenced ’em. It don’t make much difference what becomes of the husk that is wropped round the wheat. The freed soul soarin’ off to its own place wouldn’t care what become of the wornout garment it dropped in its flight.
But to resoom: We all went out for a drive through the streets; Josiah and I and Arvilly and little Tommy in a little two-wheeled cart settin’ facin’ each other drawed by two buffalo cows. Robert and Dorothy and Miss Meechim occupied another jest ahead on us. The driver sot on the tongue of the wagon, and would pull their tails instead of whippin’ ’em when he wanted ’em to go faster. The cows’ ears wuz all trimmed off with bells and gay streamers of cotton cloth, and their tails had big red bows on ’em, and Josiah whispered to me:
“You see, Samantha, if I don’t get some ear and tail trimmin’ for old Brindle and Lineback when I git home; our cows are goin’ to have some advantage of our tower if they couldn’t travel with us. And,” sez he, “what a show we could make, Samantha, ridin’ in to meetin’ behind ’em; bells a-jinglin’ and ribbins a-flyin’, I dressed in a long silk frock and you all covered with jewelry.”
“Well,” sez I (wantin’ to break up the idee to once), “if we do that, I must be buyin’ some jewelry right away.”
“Oh, Samantha,” sez he anxiously, “can’t you take a joke? I wouldn’t drive anything but the old mair for love or money. And your cameo pin is so beautiful and so becoming to you.”
We went by a good many Parsees in that drive, and Arvilly sez, “They look so rich somehow, I believe I shall try to canvass some on ’em.” And that afternoon about sundown she seein’ one on ’em goin’ into a little garden she follered him in; he wuz dressed in such a gorgeous way that she wuz almost sure of a customer, but jest as she wuz gettin’ the “Twin Crimes” out of her work-bag, he took off his outer frock, lain it down on the ground and knelt down, 248 facin’ the sunset, and sprinkled his head, breast and hands three times from a little dish he had with him, and then begun to pray and kep’ up his devotions for half an hour, and Arvilly of course not wantin’ to break up a meetin’ put her book into her work-bag and went away. I kinder like the idee of their worshippin’ under the blue dome of heaven, though of course I didn’t like their idee of worshippin’ the created instead of the Creator. In travellin’ through these countries more and more every day did I feel to thank the Lord that I wuz a member of the M. E. meetin’ house in Jonesville, U. S., a humble follower of him who went about doing good, but I didn’t feel like goin’ on as Miss Meechim did. How she did look down on the Parsees and compared ’em to the Piscopals to their immense disadvantage.
But Arvilly, the iconoclast, sez, “These Parsees boast that there is not a pauper or woman of bad character in the hull of their sect, and I wonder if any other religious sect in America could say as much as that, Miss Meechim?”
Miss Meechim turned her head away and sniffed some; she hates to enter into a argument with Arvilly, but she wuz gittin’ real worked up and I don’t know how it would have ended, but I spoke right up and quoted some Bible to ’em, thinkin’ mebby that it might avert a storm.
Sez I, “Charity vaunteth not itself. Charity thinketh no evil, suffereth long and is kind.”