Chapter XXIX: The Englishman and Mark Twain's Joke, "that's How They Wash in India"

In my home town I was once asked to give a travel talk in a large stone church, the occasion being a rally for the Christian Endeavor Society.

It had been announced that there would be no charge for admission; furthermore, it had been thoroughly advertised that the young ladies of the church would furnish a delectable spread to the audience in the church parlors just as soon as I got through talking.

The town turned out _en masse_.

As the parson was leading me to the rostrum, the lights went out and there was Egyptian darkness.

After an anxious wait of five minutes, it being a hard stunt to get such a fine audience together in the classic, intellectual center in which I live, even with a chromo offer, the parson, fearing it would leave, made a little speech in the direction where he hoped the audience was--he couldn't see it--it was an act of faith.

He begged our good people to be patient under the trying circumstances, explained that the burned-out fuse would soon be replaced, that an electrician was even now on his way to the church, and told them that a good thing was in store for them--he assured them, "Mr. Allen is still with us."

Five more minutes passed and darkness still brooded.

Again the parson gave the audience, which he hoped was still there, the same little speech, assuring them again, "Mr. Allen is still with us--there's a good thing coming."

At the end of fifteen minutes he repeated it again, assuring them a good thing was coming--the coffee began to boil in the church kitchen, the aroma floating through the auditorium--the lights came on and there hadn't one guilty man escaped. The audience was still there.

Kind reader, you'd never guess what _I_ was thinking about during that trying fifteen minutes.

Well, I was trying to think of an appropriate story to open my speech with, to illustrate the situation--something about where the lights went out.

I thought, and _thought_, and THOUGHT, but could not fetch it, but the next morning I thought of a corker--I am descended from the English.

All my ancestors came from England and settled in New England. New England was chiefly inhabited by Indians at the time, but, I suppose, there still lurks a trace of English in me.

That old joke about the English being slow is no joke--it's a sad fact.

If further proof than my inability to corral that illustration inside of fifteen minutes were necessary, I've demonstrated it coming through India this trip.

The universal way of washing clothes in India is for a native, they call him a dobe, to take his clothes to the bank of a stream, conveniently near a large stone.

The larger the stone the better. One weighing from one to three tons is an ideal size.

The dobe picks up a garment, souses it in the water, and flails the stone with it.

The dobe is a particularly vigorous man. The average Indian is of a lymphatic nature, excepting the dobe. He is animated with a strenuousness entirely lacking in all other callings.

Mark Twain, passing through India some fifteen years ago, noting the strange sights, remarked that all over India he had seen the natives trying to break huge stones with a shirt; but, he added, he hadn't, in a single instance, seen one succeed.

Just to see whether our English cousins over here in India had caught that joke yet, when our train crossed a stream I would draw a chance English traveler's attention to the ubiquitous dobe flailing a stone, and wonderingly ask: "Why does the man try to break the stone that way?"--and every time the Englishman has explained to me that he wasn't trying to break the stone; and he would further kindly explain, "That's the way the Indians do their washing," and he would invariably add: "Beastly stupid, don't you know, isn't it?"

And every time I've sadly admitted that it was.