I stepped on his foot hard under the table, and he broke off with a low groan, but I spoze they would lay it to a foreigner’s strange ways. After the sweetmeats wuz partook of we had dried melon seeds, the host handin’ ’em round by the handful. Josiah slipped his into his pocket. I wuz mortified enough, but he said:
“Of course he wants us to plant ’em; nobody but a fool would expect us to eat melon seeds or horse feed.”
I wuz glad Josiah didn’t speak in China, I guess they didn’t understand him. A rice-wine wuz passed with this, which of course I did not partake of. Much as I wanted to be polite I could not let this chance pass of holdin’ up my temperance banner. I had seen enough trouble caused by folks in high station not holdin’ up temperance principles at banquets, and I wuzn’t to be ketched in the same way, so I waived it off with a noble and lofty jester, but Miss Meechim drinked wine every time it wuz passed, and she got real tonguey before we went home, and her eyes looked real kinder glassy––glassier than a perfessor’s eyes ort to look. Then we had bird’s-nest soup, which is one of the most costly luxuries to be had in Canton. They are found on precipitous rocks overhanging the sea, and one must risk his life to get them. It didn’t taste any better to me than a chip. It seemed to be cut in little square yeller pieces, kind 186 of clear lookin’, some like preserved citron only it wuz lighter colored, and Josiah whispered to me:
“We can have bird’s-nest soup any day to hum, Samantha. Jest think of the swaller’s nest in the barn and robin’s nest and crow’s nest, why one crow’s nest would last us a week.”
“It would last a lifetime, Josiah, if I had to cook it; sticks and straw.”
“Well, it would be real uneek to cook one, or a hornet’s nest, and would be a rarity for the Jonesvillians, and in the winter, if we run out of bird’s-nest, you could cook a hen’s nest.”
But I sez, “Keep still, Josiah, and let’s see what we’ll have next.”
Well, we had ham, fish, pigeon’s eggs and some things I didn’t know the name of. The host took up a little mess of sunthin’ on his chop stick and handed it to me. I dassent refuse it, for he meant it as a honor, but I most know it wuz rat meat, but couldn’t tell for certain. I put my shoulder blades to the wheel and swallered it, but it went down hard.
Bowls of rice wuz passed round last. Between the courses we had the best tea I ever tasted of; only a few of the first leaves that open on the tea plant are used for this kind of tea, and a big field would be gone over for a pound of it. After it is cured it is flavored with the tea blossom. I had spozed I had made good tea to home on my own hot water tank, and drinked it, but I gin up that I had never tasted tea before.
On our way home we went through the Street of Benevolence and I wuz ashamed to run Miss Meechim in my mind.