The schoolroom was decorated with banners and flags wrought in various colors. Chinese lanterns swung overhead. A big, green, porcelain frog with yellow eyes squatted in the centre of the teacher’s desk. Tropical and native plants: azaleas, hyacinths, palms, and Chinese lilies, filled the air with their fragrance.
It was the day before the Chinese New Year of 18— and Miss McLeod’s little scholars, in the decoration of their schoolroom, had expressed their love of quaint conceits and their appreciation of the beautiful. They were all in holiday attire. There was Han Wenti in sky-hued raiment and loose, flowing sleeves, upon each of which was embroidered a yellow dragon. Han Wenti’s father was the Chief of his clan in America. There was San Kee, the son of the Americanized merchant, stiff and slim in American store clothes. Little Choy, on the girls’ side, proudly wore a checked louisine Mother Hubbard gown, while Fei and Sie looked like humming-birds in their native costume of bright-colored silks flowered with gold.
Miss McLeod’s eyes wandered over the heap of gifts piled on three chairs before her desk, and over the heads of the young givers, to where on a back seat a little fellow in blue cotton tunic and pantaloons sat swinging a pair of white-soled shoes in a “don’t care for anybody” fashion.
Little Me was looked upon almost as a criminal by his schoolfellows. He was the only scholar in all the school who failed to offer at the shrine of the Teacher, and the fact that he was the son of a man who dined on no richer dish than rice and soy gravy did not palliate his offense. There were other scholars who knew not the taste of mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and sucking pigs, yet who were unceasing in their offerings of paper mats, wild flowers, pebbles, strange insects, and other gifts possessing at least a sentimental value. The truth of the matter, however, was that Little Me was neither unappreciative nor unloving. He was simply afflicted with pride. If he could not give in the princely fashion of Hom Hing and Lee Chu, the sons of the richest merchants in Chinatown, he would not give at all.
Yet if Miss McLeod, in her Scotch heart, allowed herself a favorite amongst her scholars, it was Little Me. Many a time had she incurred the displeasure of the parents of Hom Hing and Lee Chu by rejecting the oft-times valuable presents of their chubby, complacent-faced sons. She had seen Little Me’s eyes cloud and his small hands draw up in his sleeves when the pattering footsteps of the braided darlings of the rich led them, with their offerings, to her desk.
“Attention, children!” said Miss McLeod; and she made a little speech in which she thanked her scholars for their tokens of appreciation and affection, but impressed upon them that she prized as much a wooden image of his own carving from a boy who had nothing more to offer, as she did an ivory or jade figure from one whose father could afford to wear gold buttons; that a lichi from the orphan Amoy was as refreshing to her as a basket of oranges from the only daughter of the owner of many fruit ranches. The greatest of all gifts was beyond price. They must remember the story she had told them at Christmas time of the giving of a darling and only Son to a loved people. All the money in the world could not have paid for that dear little boy. He was a free gift.
Little Me stopped swinging his feet in their white-soled shoes. With solemn eyes and puckered brow he meditated over this speech.
The first day of the new year was kept with much rejoicing. There were gay times under the lanterns, quaint ceremonies, and fine feasting. The flutist came out with his flute, the banjo man with his banjo, and the fiddler with his fiddle. No child but had a piece of gold or silver given to him or her, and sweetmeats, loose-skinned oranges, and watermelon seeds were scattered around galore. Strains of music enlivened the dark alleys, and “flowers” or fireworks delighted both old and young. The Literary and Benevolent Societies brought forth those of their number whose imaginations and experiences gave them the power to portray the achievements of heroes, the despair of lovers, the blessings which fall to the lot of the filial son, and the terrible fate of the undutiful, and while the sun went down and long after it had set, groups of fascinated youths sat listening to tales of magic and enchantment.
In the midst of it all Little Me wandered around in his white-soled shoes, and thought of that other story—the story of the Babe.
On the second day of the Chinese New Year, Miss McLeod, her twine bag full to overflowing with little red parcels of joy, stopped before the door of the Chee house. As there was no response to her knock, she lifted the latch and entered a darkened room. By a couch in the furthest corner of the room a woman knelt, moaning and tearful. It was Chee A Tae, Little Me’s mother. Little Me’s proper name was Chee Ping. Miss McLeod touched her shoulder sympathetically. The woman shuddered and the low moans became heartrending cries and sobs. Did the teacher know that her baby was stolen? Some evil spirit had witched him away. Her husband, with some friends, was searching for the child; but she felt sure they would find him—never. She had burnt incense to “Mother” and besought the aid of the goddess of children; but her prayers would not avail, because her husband had neglected that month to send his parents cash for ginseng and broth. He had tried his luck with the Gambling Cash Tiger and failed. Had he been fortunate, his parents would have received twice their usual portion, but as it was, he had lost. And now the baby, the younger brother of Little Me, was lost too.
“How did it happen?” inquired Miss McLeod.
“We were alone—the babe and I,” replied the mother. “My man was visiting and Little Me was playing in the alley. I stepped over with a bowl of boiled rice and a pot of tea for old Sien Tau. We have not much for our own mouths, but it is well to begin the New Year by being kind to those who may not see another. The babe was sleeping when I last beheld him. When I returned, whether he was asleep, awake, in the land of the living or in the spirit world, was withheld from me. A wolf—a tiger heart—alone knew.”
This was truly a case needing sympathy. Miss McLeod did her best, and after a while Chee A Tae sat up and listened with some hope for her husband’s footsteps. He came at last, a tired, gaunt-looking man, wearing in the face of the holiday, the blue cotton blouse and pantaloons of a working Chinaman, and a very dilapidated American slouch hat, around which he had wound his queue. He was followed into the room by several of his countrymen who cast suspicious glances at the white woman present; but, upon recognition came forward, each in turn, and saluted her in American fashion. There were several points of difference between Miss McLeod and the other white teachers of Chinatown which had won for her the special favor of her pupil’s parents. One was that though it was plain to all that she loved her work and taught the children committed to her charge with the utmost patience and care, she was not a child-cuddling and caressing woman. Another, that she had taken pains to learn the Chinese language before attempting to teach her own. Thirdly, she lived in Chinatown, and made herself at home amongst its denizens.
Chee A Tae was bitterly disappointed at seeing her husband without the babe. She arose from her couch, and pulling open the door, which the men had closed behind them, pointed them out again, crying: “Go, find my son! Go, find my son!”
Chee Ping the First turned upon her resentfully. “Woman,” he cried, “that he is lost is your fault. I have searched with my eyes, ears, tongue, and limbs; but one might as well look for a pin at the bottom of the ocean.”
The mother began to weep pitifully. “’Tis the Gambling Cash Tiger,” she sobbed. “’Twas he who caused you to forget your parents and ill fortune has followed therefor. A-ya, A-ya, A-ya. My heart is as heavy as the blackest heavens!”
“What nonsense!” exclaimed Miss McLeod, thinking it time to interfere. “The child cannot be far away. Let us all hunt and see who will find him first.”
A crowd of men, women, and children had gathered outside the door, most of them in gay holiday attire. At these words of the teacher there was an assenting babel of voices, followed by a darting into passages, up stairways, and behind doors. Lanterns were lit for the exploration of underground cellars, stores, closets, stairways, balconies. Not a hole in the vicinity of the Chee dwelling but was penetrated by keen eyes. Rich and poor alike joined in the search, a yellow-robed priest from the joss house and one of the Chiefs of the Six Companies being conspicuously interested.
The mother, following in the footsteps of Miss McLeod, kept up a plaintive wailing. “A-Ya, my young bud, my jade jewel, my peach bloom. Little hands, veined like young leaves; voice like the breath of a zephyr. Alas, the fates are against me! You are lost to your poor mother who is without resource and bound with fetters. Death would be sweet indeed; but that boon is denied.”
The day wore on and evening gradually stole upon them, followed by night. The wind blew in gusts, but the moon had risen and was shining bright so that there was a kind of moonlight even in the dark alleys. The main portion of Chinatown had been thoroughly scoured, and most attention was now being given to the hills which crept up to Powell Street. It was in a top story of a half-way hill tenement that Miss McLeod’s room was located; a cozy little place, for all its apparently comfortless environment. When the wind began to blow bleak from the Bay, her thoughts drifted longingly to her easy chair and cheery grate fire; but only for a moment. Until the baby was found she could know no rest. The distress of these Chinese people was hers; their troubles also. Had she not adopted them as her own when kinfolk had failed her? Their grateful appreciation of the smallest service; their undemonstrative but faithful affection had been as balm to a heart wounded by the indifference and bruised by the ingratitude of those to whom she had devoted her youth, her strength, and her abilities.
Suddenly a cry was heard. Wang Hom Hing, a merchant Chinaman, who had taken command of the search party detailed to explore the upper part of Chinatown, appeared at the door of a rickety tenement—the one in which Miss McLeod had built her nest—and waved, under the lanterns, a Chinese flag, signal that the child was found.
Pell-mell the Chinese rushed towards their country’s emblem. With the exception of Miss McLeod, not a single white person, not even a policeman, had been impressed into the search.
Leading the rushing crowd was Chee Ping the First; in the midst panted A Tae and her white woman friend, and in the wake of all calmly and quietly pattered Little Me. Though usually the chief object of his parents’ attention, this day, or rather night, he seemed altogether forgotten.
Up several flights of stairs streamed the searchers, while from every door on the landings, men, women, and children peered out, inquiring what it all meant. Hemmed in by numbers, the teacher found herself at last blocked outside her own room.
Someone was talking loudly and excitedly. It was Wang Hom Hing, the father of her pupil of that name, and the uncle of another pupil, Lee Chu. What was he saying? The teacher strained her ears to catch his words. Gracious Heavens! He was declaring that she had stolen the child; that it lay in her room, hidden under the coverlets of her bed—positive evidence that she who, under the guise of friendship, had ingratiated herself into their hearts and homes, was in reality a secret enemy.
“Trust her no more—this McLeod, Jean,” he cried. “Though her smile is as sweet as honey, her heart is like a razor.”
There was an ominous silence after this speech.
Wang Hom Hing was a pompous man whose conceit had been inflated by the flattery of wily white people, who, unlike the undiplomatic Scotch woman, did discriminate between the gifts of the rich and poor. Nevertheless, as President of the Water Lily Club and Secretary of the Society of Celestial Reason, he was a man of influence in Chinatown, and this was painfully impressed upon the teacher when Chee A Tae cast upon her a shuddering glance and fell swooning into the arms of a stout countrywoman behind her.
Now, the blood of Scottish chieftains throbbed in Miss McLeod’s veins; and it was this brave blood which, when all the ships in which she had stored her early hopes and dreams had one by one been lost, had borne up her soul above the stormy flood, and helped her to launch another ship in a sea both wild and strange. That ship had weathered many a gale. Should she, after steering it safely into port, allow it to founder—in harbor? Never! That ship was the safe-deposit bank for all her womanly affection and energy. It carried her Chinese work—the work in which she had found consolation, peace, and happiness. Hom Hing should not wreck it without some effort on her part to save.
The intrepid woman, nerved by these thoughts, pushed through the human wall before her and reached the speaker’s side. Sleeping in the midst of the tumult lay the babe, its little hand under its cheek. So pretty a picture that even in her stress and excitement she paused for a moment to wonder and admire.
Then she faced the big Chinaman in his gorgeous holiday robes, her small, slight form drawn to its fullest height, her light blue eyes ablaze.
“Wang Hom Hing,” she cried. “You know you are trying to make my friends believe what you do not believe yourself! I know no more than its mother does about how the dear baby came here.”
The Chinese merchant shrugged his shoulders insolently, and addressing the people again, asked them to judge for themselves. The child had been stolen. The teacher had pretended to aid in a search, yet it had been he and not she who had led the way to her room where it had been found.
Low mutterings were heard throughout the place; but after they had subsided, the white woman, looking around for a friendly face, was surprised and cheered to find many. Her spirits rose.
“How was I to know the child lay in my room?” she indignantly inquired. “I left the place in the early morning. It has been brought there since by someone unknown to me.”
Wang Hom Hing laughed scornfully as he moved away, his revenge, as he thought, complete.
The father of the babe raised his son in his arms and passed him on to the mother who stood with arms outstretched. Clutching the child convulsively, she gazed with horror-struck eyes at the teacher.
“Friends,” cried the white woman, raising her voice in a last effort, “will you allow that man to turn from me your hearts? Have you not known me long enough to believe that though I cannot explain to you how the baby came to be in my room, yet I am innocent of having brought it there. A Tae”—addressing the mother—“can you believe that I would harm one hair of your baby’s head?”
A Tae hesitated, her eyes full of tears. She had loved the teacher, but Wang Hom Hing had sown a poisonous seed in her superstitious mind. Miss McLeod noted her hesitation with a sinking of the heart that was almost despair.
Up hobbled a very old and very tiny woman.
“McLeod, Jean,” she cried, “your gracious and noble qualities of mind and soul merit a happier New Year’s Day than this. Wang Hom Hing’s words cannot deceive old Sien Tau.”
Ah! The Scotch woman grasped gratefully the old Chinese woman’s hand. She could not speak for the tickle in her throat.
Then spake A Tae: “Teacher, forgive me,” besought she.
And the teacher smiled her answer.
A number of men and women came forward, looked into the teacher’s face, thanked her for past kindnesses, and expressed their confidence in her.
“McLeod, Jean,” declared an old man, “you are a hundred women good.”
Which was the highest compliment that Jean McLeod had ever received.
“You are wrong, mother!” said she, turning with a beaming face to old Sien Tau. “This is the happiest day I have known.”
Explained the father of the babe: “The gods, seeing my unworthiness, took from me to give to you.”
And Little Me, straggling to the teacher’s side, piped in the language she herself had taught him:
“I have one brother. I love him all over. You say baby boy best gift, so I give him to you when my father and mother not see. Little Me give better than Lee Chu and Hom Hing.”
It was some time before the tumult occasioned by Little Me’s boastful but sweet confession subsided. It had been heard by all, but was understood wholly by none save the teacher.
That when no watchful eye was there to see, the baby had been carried in Little Me’s sturdy arms from under the home roof to the teacher’s tenement room, was made plain to everyone by the child himself. But it devolved upon Miss McLeod, in order to save her little scholar from obviously justifiable paternal wrath, to explain his reason for the kidnapping, and this she did so clearly and eloquently that the father, raising his first born to his knee, declared in English: “I proud of him. He Number One scholar,” while the mother fondly smiled.
Little Me looked at the baby in his mother’s lap, and then at the teacher. His eyes filled with tears.
“You not like what I give you well enough to keep him,” he sobbed.
“Yes, yes,” consoled Miss McLeod. “I like him so well that I put him away in my heart where I keep the baby of my story. Don’t you remember? That was what the Father of the story gave the baby for. To be kept in the people’s hearts after he had gone back to Him!”
“Ah, yes,” responded the child, his face brightening. “You keep my brother in your heart and I keep him in the house with me and my father and mother. That best of all!”
THE STORY OF ONE WHITE WOMAN
WHO MARRIED A CHINESE
I
Why did I marry Liu Kanghi, a Chinese? Well, in the first place, because I loved him; in the second place, because I was weary of working, struggling and fighting with the world; in the third place, because my child needed a home.
My first husband was an American fifteen years older than myself. For a few months I was very happy with him. I had been a working girl—a stenographer. A home of my own filled my heart with joy. It was a pleasure to me to wait upon James, cook him nice little dinners and suppers, read to him little pieces from the papers and magazines, and sing and play to him my little songs and melodies. And for a few months he seemed to be perfectly contented. I suppose I was a novelty to him, he having lived a bachelor existence until he was thirty-four. But it was not long before he left off smiling at my little jokes, grew restive and cross when I teased him, and when I tried to get him to listen to a story in which I was interested and longed to communicate, he would bid me not bother him. I was quick to see the change and realize that there was a gulf of differences between us. Nevertheless, I loved and was proud of him. He was considered a very bright and well-informed man, and although his parents had been uneducated working people he had himself been through the public schools. He was also an omnivorous reader of socialistic and new-thought literature. Woman suffrage was one of his particular hobbies. Whenever I had a magazine around he would pick it up and read aloud to me the columns of advice to women who were ambitious to become comrades to men and walk shoulder to shoulder with their brothers. Once I ventured to remark that much as I admired a column of men keeping step together, yet men and women thus ranked would, to my mind, make a very unbeautiful and disorderly spectacle. He frowned and answered that I did not understand him, and was too frivolous. He would often draw my attention to newspaper reports concerning women of marked business ability and enterprise. Once I told him that I did not admire clever business women, as I had usually found them, and so had other girls of my acquaintance, not nearly so kind-hearted, generous, and helpful as the humble drudges of the world—the ordinary working women. His answer to this was that I was jealous and childish.
But, in spite of his unkind remarks and evident contempt for me, I wished to please him. He was my husband and I loved him. Many an afternoon, when through with my domestic duties, did I spend in trying to acquire a knowledge of labor politics, socialism, woman suffrage, and baseball, the things in which he was most interested.
It was hard work, but I persevered until one day. It was about six months after our marriage. My husband came home a little earlier than usual, and found me engaged in trying to work out problems in subtraction and addition. He laughed sneeringly. “Give it up, Minnie,” said he. “You weren’t built for anything but taking care of kids. Gee! But there’s a woman at our place who has a head for figures that makes her worth over a hundred dollars a month. Her husband would have a chance to develop himself.”
This speech wounded me. I knew it was James’ ambition to write a book on social reform.
The next day, unknown to my husband, I called upon the wife of the man who had employed me as stenographer before I was married, and inquired of her whether she thought I could get back my old position.
“But, my dear,” she exclaimed, “your husband is receiving a good salary! Why should you work?”
I told her that my husband had in mind the writing of a book on social reform, and I wished to help him in his ambition by earning some money towards its publication.
“Social reform!” she echoed. “What sort of social reformer is he who would allow his wife to work when he is well able to support her!”
She bade me go home and think no more of an office position. I was disappointed. I said: “Oh! I wish I could earn some money for James. If I were earning money, perhaps he would not think me so stupid.”
“Stupid, my dear girl! You are one of the brightest little women I know,” kindly comforted Mrs. Rogers.
But I knew differently and went on to tell her of my inability to figure with my husband how much he had made on certain sales, of my lack of interest in politics, labor questions, woman suffrage, and world reformation. “Oh!”“Oh!” I cried, “I am a narrow-minded woman. All I care for is for my husband to love me and be kind to me, for life to be pleasant and easy, and to be able to help a wee bit the poor and sick around me.”
Mrs. Rogers looked very serious as she told me that there were differences of opinion as to what was meant by “narrow-mindedness,” and that the majority of men had no wish to drag their wives into all their business perplexities, and found more comfort in a woman who was unlike rather than like themselves. Only that morning her husband had said to her: “I hate a woman who tries to get into every kink of a man’s mind, and who must be forever at his elbow meddling with all his affairs.”
I went home comforted. Perhaps after a while James would feel and see as did Mr. Rogers. Vain hope!
My child was six weeks old when I entered business life again as stenographer for Rutherford & Rutherford. My salary was fifty dollars a month—more than I had ever earned before, and James was well pleased, for he had feared that it would be difficult for me to obtain a paying place after having been out of practise for so long. This fifty dollars paid for all our living expenses, with the exception of rent, so that James would be able to put by his balance against the time when his book would be ready for publication.
He began writing his book, and Miss Moran the young woman bookkeeper at his place collaborated with him. They gave three evenings a week to the work, sometimes four. She came one evening when the baby was sick and James had gone for the doctor. She looked at the child with the curious eyes of one who neither loved nor understood children. “There is no necessity for its being sick,” said she. “There must be an error somewhere.” I made no answer, so she went on: “Sin, sorrow, and sickness all mean the same thing. We have no disease that we do not deserve, no trouble which we do not bring upon ourselves.”
I did not argue with her. I knew that I could not; but as I looked at her standing there in the prime of her life and strength, broad-shouldered, masculine-featured, and, as it seemed to me, heartless, I disliked her more than I had ever disliked anyone before. My own father had died after suffering for many years from a terrible malady, contracted while doing his duty as a physician and surgeon. And my little innocent child! What had sin to do with its measles?
When James came in she discussed with him the baseball game which had been played that afternoon, and also a woman suffrage meeting which she had attended the evening before.
After she had gone he seemed to be quite exhilarated. “That’s a great woman!” he remarked.
“I do not think so!” I answered him. “One who would take from the sorrowful and suffering their hope of a happier existence hereafter, and add to their trials on earth by branding them as objects of aversion and contempt, is not only not a great woman but, to my mind, no woman at all.”
He picked up a paper and walked into another room.
“What do you think now?” I cried after him.
“What would be the use of my explaining to you?” he returned. “You wouldn’t understand.”
How my heart yearned over my child those days! I would sit before the typewriter and in fancy hear her crying for her mother. Poor, sick little one, watched over by a strange woman, deprived of her proper nourishment. While I took dictation from my employer I thought only of her. The result, of course, was, that I lost my place. My husband showed his displeasure at this in various ways, and as the weeks went by and I was unsuccessful in obtaining another position, he became colder and more indifferent. He was neither a drinking nor an abusive man; but he could say such cruel and cutting things that I would a hundred times rather have been beaten and ill-used than compelled, as I was, to hear them. He even made me feel it a disgrace to be a woman and a mother. Once he said to me: “If you had had ambition of the right sort you would have perfected yourself in your stenography so that you could have taken cases in court. There’s a little fortune in that business.”
I was acquainted with a woman stenographer who reported divorce cases and who had described to me the work, so I answered: “I would rather die of hunger, my baby in my arms, then report divorce proceedings under the eyes of men in a court house.”
“Other women, as good as you, have done and are doing it,” he retorted.
“Other women, perhaps better than I, have done and are doing it,” I replied, “but all women are not alike. I am not that kind.”
“That’s so,” said he. “Well, they are the kind who are up to date. You are behind the times.”
One evening I left James and Miss Moran engaged with their work and went across the street to see a sick friend. When I returned I let myself into the house very softly for fear of awakening the baby whom I had left sleeping. As I stood in the hall I heard my husband’s voice in the sitting-room. This is what he was saying:
“I am a lonely man. There is no companionship between me and my wife.”
“Nonsense!” answered Miss Moran, as I thought a little impatiently. “Look over this paragraph, please, and tell me if you do not think it would be well to have it follow after the one ending with the words ‘ultimate concord,’ in place of that beginning with ‘These great principles.’”
“I cannot settle my mind upon the work tonight,” said James in a sort of thick, tired voice. “I want to talk to you—to win your sympathy—your love.”
I heard a chair pushed back. I knew Miss Moran had arisen.
“Good night!” I heard her say. “Much as I would like to see this work accomplished, I shall come no more!”
“But, my God! You cannot throw the thing up at this late date.”
“I can and I will. Let me pass, sir.”
“If there were no millstone around my neck, you would not say, sir,’sir,’ in that tone of voice.”voice.”
The next I heard was a heavy fall. Miss Moran had knocked my big husband down.
I pushed open the door. Miss Moran, cool and collected, was pulling on her gloves. James was struggling to his feet.
“Oh, Mrs. Carson!” exclaimed the former. “Your husband fell over the stool. Wasn’t it stupid of him!”
James, of course, got his divorce six months after I deserted him. He did not ask for the child, and I was allowed to keep it.
II
I was on my way to the waterfront, the baby in my arms. I was walking quickly, for my state of mind was such that I could have borne twice my burden and not have felt it. Just as I turned down a hill which led to the docks, someone touched my arm and I heard a voice say:
“Pardon me, lady; but you have dropped your baby’s shoe!”
“Oh, yes!” I answered, taking the shoe mechanically from an outstretched hand, and pushing on.
I could hear the waves lapping against the pier when the voice again fell upon my ear.
“If you go any further, lady, you will fall into the water!”
My answer was a step forward.
A strong hand was laid upon my arm and I was swung around against my will.
“Poor little baby,” went on the voice, which was unusually soft for a man’s. “Let me hold him!”
I surrendered my child to the voice.
“Better come over where it is light and you can see where to walk!”
I allowed myself to be led into the light.
Thus I met Liu Kanghi, the Chinese who afterwards became my husband. I followed him, obeyed him, trusted him from the very first. It never occurred to me to ask myself what manner of man was succoring me. I only knew that he was a man, and that I was being cared for as no one had ever cared for me since my father died. And my grim determination to leave a world which had been cruel to me, passed away—and in its place I experienced a strange calmness and content.
“I am going to take you to the house of a friend of mine,” he said as he preceded me up the hill, the baby in his arms.
“You will not mind living with Chinese people?” he added.
An electric light under which we were passing flashed across his face.
I did not recoil—not even at first. It may have been because he was wearing American clothes, wore his hair cut, and, even to my American eyes, appeared a good-looking young man—and it may have been because of my troubles; but whatever it was I answered him, and I meant it: “I would much rather live with Chinese than Americans.”
He did not ask me why, and I did not tell him until long afterwards the story of my unhappy marriage, my desertion of the man who had made it impossible for me to remain under his roof; the shame of the divorce, the averted faces of those who had been my friends; the cruelty of the world; the awful struggle for an existence for myself and child; sickness followed by despair.
The Chinese family with which he placed me were kind, simple folk. The father had been living in America for more than twenty years. The family consisted of his wife, a grown daughter, and several small sons and daughters, all of whom had been born in America. They made me very welcome and adored the baby. Liu Jusong, the father, was a working jeweler; but, because of an accident by which he had lost the use of one hand, was partially incapacitated for work. Therefore, their family depended for maintenance chiefly upon their kinsman, Liu Kanghi, the Chinese who had brought me to them.
“We love much our cousin,” said one of the little girls to me one day. “He teaches us so many games and brings us toys and sweets.”
As soon as I recovered from the attack of nervous prostration which laid me low for over a month after being received into the Liu home, my mind began to form plans for my own and my child’s maintenance. One morning I put on my hat and jacket and told Mrs. Liu I would go down town and make an application for work as a stenographer at the different typewriting offices. She pleaded with me to wait a week longer—until, as she said, “your limbs are more fortified with strength”; but I assured her that I felt myself well able to begin to do for myself, and that I was anxious to repay some little part of the expense I had been to them.
“For all we have done for you,” she answered, “our cousin has paid us doublefold.”
“No money can recompense your kindness to myself and child,” I replied; “but if it is your cousin to whom I am indebted for board and lodging, all the greater is my anxiety to repay what I owe.”
When I returned to the house that evening, tired out with my quest for work, I found Liu Kanghi tossing ball with little Fong in the front porch.
Mrs. Liu bustled out to meet me and began scolding in motherly fashion.
“Oh, why you go down town before you strong enough? See! You look all sick again!” said she.
She turned to Liu Kanghi and said something in Chinese. He threw the ball back to the boy and came toward me, his face grave and concerned.
“Please be so good as to take my cousin’s advice,” he urged.
“I am well enough to work now,” I replied, “and I cannot sink deeper into your debt.”
“You need not,” said he. “I know a way by which you can quickly pay me off and earn a good living without wearing yourself out and leaving the baby all day. My cousin tells me that you can create most beautiful flowers on silk, velvet, and linen. Why not then you do some of that work for my store? I will buy all you can make.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed, “I should be only too glad to do such work! But do you really think I can earn a living in that way?”
“You certainly can,” was his reply. “I am requiring an embroiderer, and if you will do the work for me I will try to pay you what it is worth.”
So I gladly gave up my quest for office work. I lived in the Liu Jusong house and worked for Liu Kanghi. The days, weeks, and months passed peacefully and happily. Artistic needlework had always been my favorite occupation, and when it became a source both of remuneration and pleasure, I began to feel that life was worth living, after all. I watched with complacency my child grow amongst the little Chinese children. My life’s experience had taught me that the virtues do not all belong to the whites. I was interested in all that concerned the Liu household, became acquainted with all their friends, and lost altogether the prejudice against the foreigner in which I had been reared.
I had been living thus more than a year when, one afternoon as I was walking home from Liu Kanghi’s store on Kearney Street, a parcel of silks and floss under my arm, and my little girl trudging by my side, I came face to face with James Carson.
“Well, now,” said he, planting himself in front of me, “you are looking pretty well. How are you making out?”
I caught up my child and pushed past him without a word. When I reached the Liu house I was trembling in every limb, so great was my dislike and fear of the man who had been my husband.
About a week later a letter came to the house addressed to me. It read:
204 Buchanan Street
Dear Minnie,—If you are willing to forget the past and make up, I am, too. I was surprised to see you the other day, prettier than ever—and much more of a woman. Let me know your mind at an early date.
Your affectionate husband,
James
I ignored this letter, but a heavy fear oppressed me. Liu Kanghi, who called the evening of the day I received it, remarked as he arose to greet me that I was looking troubled, and hoped that it was not the embroidery flowers.
“It is the shadow from my big hat,” I answered lightly. I was dressed for going down town with Mrs. Liu who was preparing her eldest daughter’s trousseau.
“Some day,” said Liu Kanghi earnestly, “I hope that you will tell to me all that is in your heart and mind.”
I found comfort in his kind face.
“If you will wait until I return, I will tell you all tonight,” I answered.
Strange as it may seem, although I had known Liu Kanghi now for more than a year, I had had little talk alone with him, and all he knew about me was what he had learned from Mrs. Liu; namely, that I was a divorced woman who, when saved from self-destruction, was homeless and starving.
That night, however, after hearing my story, he asked me to be his wife. He said: “I love you and would protect you from all trouble. Your child shall be as my own.”
I replied: “I appreciate your love and kindness, but I cannot answer you just yet. Be my friend for a little while longer.”
“Do you have for me the love feeling?” he asked.
“I do not know,” I answered truthfully.
Another letter came. It was written in a different spirit from the first and contained a threat about the child.
There seemed but one course open to me. That was to leave my Chinese friends. I did. With much sorrow and regret I bade them goodbye, and took lodgings in a part of the city far removed from the outskirts of Chinatown where my home had been with the Lius. My little girl pined for her Chinese playmates, and I myself felt strange and lonely; but I knew that if I wished to keep my child I could no longer remain with my friends.
I still continued working for Liu Kanghi, and carried my embroidery to his store in the evening after the little one had been put to sleep. He usually escorted me back; but never asked to be allowed, and I never invited him, to visit me, or even enter the house. I was a young woman, and alone, and what I had suffered from scandal since I had left James Carson had made me wise.
It was a cold, wet evening in November when he accosted me once again. I had run over to a delicatessen store at the corner of the block where I lived. As I stepped out, his burly figure loomed up in the gloom before me. I started back with a little cry, but he grasped my arm and held it.
“Walk beside me quietly if you do not wish to attract attention,” said he, “and by God, if you do, I will take the kid tonight!”
“You dare not!” I answered. “You have no right to her whatever. She is my child and I have supported her for the last two years alone.”
“Alone! What will the judges say when I tell them about the Chinaman?”
“What will the judges say!” I echoed. “What can they say? Is there any disgrace in working for a Chinese merchant and receiving pay for my labor?”
“And walking in the evening with him, and living for over a year in a house for which he paid the rent. Ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha!”
His laugh was low and sneering. He had evidently been making enquiries concerning the Liu family, and also watching me for some time. How a woman can loathe and hate the man she has once loved!
We were nearing my lodgings. Perhaps the child had awakened and was crying for me. I would not, however, have entered the house, had he not stopped at the door and pushed it open.
“Lead the way upstairs!” said he. “I want to see the kid.”
“You shall not,” I cried. In my desperation I wrenched myself from his grasp and faced him, blocking the stairs.
“If you use violence,” I declared, “the lodgers will come to my assistance. They know me!”
He released my arm.
“Bah!” said he. “I’ve no use for the kid. It is you I’m after getting reconciled to. Don’t you know, Minnie, that once your husband, always your husband? Since I saw you the other day on the street, I have been more in love with you than ever before. Suppose we forget all and begin over again!”
Though the tone of his voice had softened, my fear of him grew greater. I would have fled up the stairs had he not again laid his hand on my arm.
“Answer me, girl,” said he.
And in spite of my fear, I shook off his hand and answered him: “No husband of mine are you, either legally or morally. And I have no feeling whatever for you other than contempt.”
“Ah! So you have sunk!”—his expression was evil—“The oily little Chink has won you!”
I was no longer afraid of him.
“Won me!” I cried, unheeding who heard me. “Yes, honorably and like a man. And what are you that dare sneer at one like him. For all your six feet of grossness, your small soul cannot measure up to his great one. You were unwilling to protect and care for the woman who was your wife or the little child you caused to come into this world; but he succored and saved the stranger woman, treated her as a woman, with reverence and respect; gave her child a home, and made them both independent, not only of others but of himself. Now, hearing you insult him behind his back, I know, what I did not know before—that I love him, and all I have to say to you is, Go!”
And James Carson went. I heard of him again but once. That was when the papers reported his death of apoplexy while exercising at a public gymnasium.
Loving Liu Kanghi, I became his wife, and though it is true that there are many Americans who look down upon me for so becoming, I have never regretted it. No, not even when men cast upon me the glances they cast upon sporting women. I accept the lot of the American wife of an humble Chinaman in America. The happiness of the man who loves me is more to me than the approval or disapproval of those who in my dark days left me to die like a dog. My Chinese husband has his faults. He is hot-tempered and, at times, arbitrary; but he is always a man, and has never sought to take away from me the privilege of being but a woman. I can lean upon and trust in him. I feel him behind me, protecting and caring for me, and that, to an ordinary woman like myself, means more than anything else.
Only when the son of Liu Kanghi lays his little head upon my bosom do I question whether I have done wisely. For my boy, the son of the Chinese man, is possessed of a childish wisdom which brings the tears to my eyes; and as he stands between his father and myself, like yet unlike us both, so will he stand in after years between his father’s and his mother’s people. And if there is no kindliness nor understanding between them, what will my boy’s fate be?
HER CHINESE HUSBAND
Now that Liu Kanghi is no longer with me, I feel that it will ease my heart to record some memories of him—if I can. The task, though calling to me, is not an easy one, so throng to my mind the invincible proofs of his love for me, the things he has said and done. My memories of him are so vivid and pertinacious, my thoughts of him so tender.
To my Chinese husband I could go with all my little troubles and perplexities; to him I could talk as women love to do at times of the past and the future, the mysteries of religion, of life and death. He was not above discussing such things with me. With him I was never strange or embarrassed. My Chinese husband was simple in his tastes. He liked to hear a good story, and though unlearned in a sense, could discriminate between the good and bad in literature. This came of his Chinese education. He told me one day that he thought the stories in the Bible were more like Chinese than American stories, and added: “If you had not told me what you have about it, I should say that it was composed by the Chinese.” Music had a soothing though not a deep influence over him. It could not sway his mind, but he enjoyed it just as he did a beautiful picture. Because I was interested in fancy work, so also was he. I can see his face, looking so grave and concerned, because one day by accident I spilt some ink on a piece of embroidery I was working. If he came home in the evenings and found me tired and out of sorts, he would cook the dinner himself, and go about it in such a way that I felt that he rather enjoyed showing off his skill as a cook. The next evening, if he found everything ready, he would humorously declare himself much disappointed that I was so exceedingly well.
At such times a gray memory of James Carson would arise. How his cold anger and contempt, as exhibited on like occasions, had shrivelled me up in the long ago. And then—I would fall to musing on the difference between the two men as lovers and husbands.
James Carson had been much more of an ardent lover than ever had been Liu Kanghi. Indeed it was his passion, real or feigned, which had carried me off my feet. When wooing he had constantly reproached me with being cold, unfeeling, a marble statue, and so forth; and I, poor, ignorant little girl, would wonder how it was I appeared so when I felt so differently. For I had given James Carson my first love. Upon him my life had been concentrated as it has never been concentrated upon any other. Yet—!
There was nothing feigned about my Chinese husband. Simple and sincere as he was before marriage, so was he afterwards. As my union with James Carson had meant misery, bitterness, and narrowness, so my union with Liu Kanghi meant, on the whole, happiness, health, and development. Yet the former, according to American ideas, had been an educated broad-minded man; the other, just an ordinary Chinaman.
But the ordinary Chinaman that I would show to you was the sort of man that children, birds, animals, and some women love. Every morning he would go to the window and call to his pigeons, and they would flock around him, hearing and responding to his whistling and cooing. The rooms we lived in had been his rooms ever since he had come to America. They were above his store, and large and cool. The furniture had been brought from China, but there was nothing of tinsel about it. Dark wood, almost black, carved and antique, some of the pieces set with mother-of-pearl. On one side of the inner room stood a case of books and an ancestral tablet. I have seen Liu Kanghi touch the tablet with reverence, but the faith of his fathers was not strong enough to cause him to bow before it. The elegant simplicity of these rooms had surprised me much when I was first taken to them. I looked at him then, standing for a moment by the window, a solitary pigeon peeking in at him, perhaps wondering who had come to divert from her her friend’s attention. So had he lived since he had come to this country—quietly and undisturbed—from twenty years of age to twenty-five. I felt myself an intruder. A feeling of pity for the boy—for such he seemed in his enthusiasm—arose in my breast. Why had I come to confuse his calm? Was it ordained, as he declared?
My little girl loved him better than she loved me. He took great pleasure in playing with her, curling her hair over his fingers, tying her sash, and all the simple tasks from which so many men turn aside.
Once the baby got hold of a set rat trap, and was holding it in such a way that the slightest move would have released the spring and plunged the cruel steel into her tender arms. Kanghi’s eyes and mine beheld her thus at the same moment. I stood transfixed with horror. Kanghi quietly went up to the child and took from her the trap. Then he asked me to release his hand. I almost fainted when I saw it. “It was the only way,” said he. We had to send for the doctor, and even as it was, came very near having a case of blood poisoning.
I have heard people say that he was a keen business man, this Liu Kanghi, and I imagine that he was. I did not, however, discuss his business with him. All I was interested in were the pretty things and the women who would come in and jest with him. He could jest too. Of course, the women did not know that I was his wife. Once a woman in rich clothes gave him her card and asked him to call upon her. After she had left he passed the card to me. I tore it up. He took those things as a matter of course, and was not affected by them. “They are a part of Chinatown life,” he explained.
He was a member of the Reform Club, a Chinese social club, and the Chinese Board of Trade. He liked to discuss business affairs and Chinese and American politics with his countrymen, and occasionally enjoyed an evening away from me. But I never needed to worry over him.
He had his littlenesses as well as his bignesses, had Liu Kanghi. For instance, he thought he knew better about what was good for my health and other things, purely personal, than I did myself, and if my ideas opposed or did not tally with his, he would very vigorously denounce what he called “the foolishness of women.” If he admired a certain dress, he would have me wear it on every occasion possible, and did not seem to be able to understand that it was not always suitable.
“Wear the dress with the silver lines,” he said to me one day somewhat authoritatively. I was attired for going out, but not as he wished to see me. I answered that the dress with the silver lines was unsuitable for a long and dusty ride on an open car.
“Never mind,” said he, “whether it is unsuitable or not. I wish you to wear it.”
“All right,” I said. “I will wear it, but I will stay at home.”
I stayed at home, and so did he.
At another time, he reproved me for certain opinions I had expressed in the presence of some of his countrymen. “You should not talk like that,” said he. “They will think you are a bad woman.”
My white blood rose at that, and I answered him in a way which grieves me to remember. For Kanghi had never meant to insult or hurt me. Imperious by nature, he often spoke before he thought—and he was so boyishly anxious for me to appear in the best light possible before his own people.
There were other things too: a sort of childish jealousy and suspicion which it was difficult to allay. But a woman can forgive much to a man, the sincerity and strength of whose love makes her own, though true, seem slight and mean.
Yes, life with Liu Kanghi was not without its trials and tribulations. There was the continual uncertainty about his own life here in America, the constant irritation caused by the assumption of the white men that a white woman does not love her Chinese husband, and their actions accordingly; also sneers and offensive remarks. There was also on Liu Kanghi’s side an acute consciousness that, though belonging to him as his wife, yet in a sense I was not his, but of the dominant race, which claimed, even while it professed to despise me. This consciousness betrayed itself in words and ways which filled me with a passion of pain and humiliation. “Kanghi,” I would sharply say, for I had to cloak my tenderness, “do not talk to me like that. You are my superior.... I would not love you if you were not.”
But in spite of all I could do or say, it was there between us: that strange, invisible—what? Was it the barrier of race—that consciousness?
Sometimes he would talk about returning to China. The thought filled me with horror. I had heard rumors of secondary wives. One afternoon the cousin of Liu Kanghi, with whom I had lived, came to see me, and showed me a letter which she had received from a little Chinese girl who had been born and brought up in America until the age of ten. The last paragraph in the letter read: “Emma and I are very sad and wish we were back in America.” Kanghi’s cousin explained that the father of the little girls, having no sons, had taken to himself another wife, and the new wife lived with the little girls and their mother.
That was before my little boy was born. That evening I told Kanghi that he need never expect me to go to China with him.
“You see,” I began, “I look upon you as belonging to me.”
He would not let me say more. After a while he said: “It is true that in China a man may and occasionally does take a secondary wife, but that custom is custom, not only because sons are denied to the first wife, but because the first wife is selected by parents and guardians before a man is hardly a man. If a Chinese marries for love, his life is a filled-up cup, and he wants no secondary wife. No, not even for sake of a son. Take, for example, me, your great husband.”
I sometimes commented upon his boyish ways and appearance, which was the reason why, when he was in high spirits, he would call himself my “great husband.” He was not boyish always. I have seen him, when shouldering the troubles of kinfolk, the quarrels of his clan, and other responsibilities, acting and looking like a man of twice his years.
But for all the strange marriage customs of my husband’s people I considered them far more moral in their lives than the majority of Americans. I expressed myself thus to Liu Kanghi, and he replied: “The American people think higher. If only more of them lived up to what they thought, the Chinese would not be so confused in trying to follow their leadership.”
If ever a man rejoiced over the birth of his child, it was Liu Kanghi. The boy was born with a veil over his face. “A prophet!” cried the old mulatto Jewess who nursed me. “A prophet has come into the world.”
She told this to his father when he came to look upon him, and he replied: “He is my son; that is all I care about.” But he was so glad, and there was feasting and rejoicing with his Chinese friends for over two weeks. He came in one evening and found me weeping over my poor little boy. I shall never forget the expression on his face.
“Oh, shame!” he murmured, drawing my head down to his shoulder. “What is there to weep about? The child is beautiful! The feeling heart, the understanding mind is his. And we will bring him up to be proud that he is of Chinese blood; he will fear none and, after him, the name of half-breed will no longer be one of contempt.”
Kanghi as a youth had attended a school in Hong Kong, and while there had made the acquaintance of several half Chinese half English lads. “They were the brightest of all,” he told me, “but they lowered themselves in the eyes of the Chinese by being ashamed of their Chinese blood and ignoring it.”
His theory, therefore, was that if his own son was brought up to be proud instead of ashamed of his Chinese half, the boy would become a great man.
Perhaps he was right, but he could not see as could I, an American woman, the conflict before our boy.
After the little Kanghi had passed his first month, and we had found a reliable woman to look after him, his father began to take me around with him much more than formerly, and life became very enjoyable. We dined often at a Chinese restaurant kept by a friend of his, and afterwards attended theatres, concerts, and other places of entertainment. We frequently met Americans with whom he had become acquainted through business, and he would introduce them with great pride in me shining in his eyes. The little jealousies and suspicions of the first year seemed no longer to irritate him, and though I had still cause to shrink from the gaze of strangers, I know that my Chinese husband was for several years a very happy man.
Now, I have come to the end. He left home one morning, followed to the gate by the little girl and boy (we had moved to a cottage in the suburbs).
“Bring me a red ball,” pleaded the little girl.
“And me too,” cried the boy.
“All right, chickens,” he responded, waving his hand to them.
He was brought home at night, shot through the head. There are some Chinese, just as there are some Americans, who are opposed to all progress, and who hate with a bitter hatred all who would enlighten or be enlightened.
But that I have not the heart to dwell upon. I can only remember that when they brought my Chinese husband home there were two red balls in his pocket. Such was Liu Kanghi—a man.
THE AMERICANIZING OF PAU TSU
I
When Wan Hom Hing came to Seattle to start a branch of the merchant business which his firm carried on so successfully in the different ports of China, he brought with him his nephew, Wan Lin Fo, then eighteen years of age. Wan Lin Fo was a well-educated Chinese youth, with bright eyes and keen ears. In a few years’ time he knew as much about the business as did any of the senior partners. Moreover, he learned to speak and write the American language with such fluency that he was never at a loss for an answer, when the white man, as was sometimes the case, sought to pose him. “All work and no play,” however, is as much against the principles of a Chinese youth as it is against those of a young American, and now and again Lin Fo would while away an evening at the Chinese Literary Club, above the Chinese restaurant, discussing with some chosen companions the works and merits of Chinese sages—and some other things. New Year’s Day, or rather, Week, would also see him, business forgotten, arrayed in national costume of finest silk, and color “the blue of the sky after rain,” visiting with his friends, both Chinese and American, and scattering silver and gold coin amongst the youngsters of the families visited.
It was on the occasion of one of these New Year’s visits that Wan Lin Fo first made known to the family of his firm’s silent American partner, Thomas Raymond, that he was betrothed. It came about in this wise: One of the young ladies of the house, who was fair and frank of face and friendly and cheery in manner, observing as she handed him a cup of tea that Lin Fo’s eyes wore a rather wistful expression, questioned him as to the wherefore:
“Miss Adah,” replied Lin Fo, “may I tell you something?”
“Certainly, Mr. Wan,” replied the girl. “You know how I enjoy hearing your tales.”
“But this is no tale. Miss Adah, you have inspired in me a love—”
Adah Raymond started. Wan Lin Fo spake slowly.
“For the little girl in China to whom I am betrothed.”
“Oh, Mr. Wan! That is good news. But what have I to do with it?”
“This, Miss Adah! Every time I come to this house, I see you, so good and so beautiful, dispensing tea and happiness to all around, and I think, could I have in my home and ever by my side one who is also both good and beautiful, what a felicitious life mine would be!”
“You must not flatter me, Mr. Wan!”
“All that I say is founded on my heart. But I will speak not of you. I will speak of Pau Tsu.”
“Pau Tsu?”
“Yes. That is the name of my future wife. It means a pearl.”
“How pretty! Tell me all about her!”
“I was betrothed to Pau Tsu before leaving China. My parents adopted her to be my wife. As I remember, she had shining eyes and the good-luck color was on her cheek. Her mouth was like a red vine leaf, and her eyebrows most exquisitely arched. As slender as a willow was her form, and when she spoke, her voice lilted from note to note in the sweetest melody.”
Adah Raymond softly clapped her hands.
“Ah! You were even then in love with her.”
“No,” replied Lin Fo thoughtfully. “I was too young to be in love—sixteen years of age. Pau Tsu was thirteen. But, as I have confessed, you have caused me to remember and love her.”
Adah Raymond was not a self-conscious girl, but for the life of her she could think of no reply to Lin Fo’sFo’s speech.
“I am twenty-two years old now,” he continued. “Pau Tsu is eighteen. Tomorrow I will write to my parents and persuade them to send her to me at the time of the spring festival. My elder brother was married last year, and his wife is now under my parents’ roof, so that Pau Tsu, who has been the daughter of the house for so many years, can now be spared to me.”
“What a sweet little thing she must be,” commented Adah Raymond.
“You will say that when you see her,” proudly responded Lin Fo. “My parents say she is always happy. There is not a bird or flower or dewdrop in which she does not find some glad meaning.”
“I shall be so glad to know her. Can she speak English?”
Lin Fo’s face fell.
“No,” he replied, “but,”—brightening—“when she comes I will have her learn to speak like you—and be like you.”
II
Pau Tsu came with the spring, and Wan Lin Fo was one of the happiest and proudest of bridegrooms. The tiny bride was really very pretty—even to American eyes. In her peach and plum colored robes, her little arms and hands sparkling with jewels, and her shiny black head decorated with wonderful combs and pins, she appeared a bit of Eastern coloring amidst the Western lights and shades.
Lin Fo had not been forgotten, and her eyes under their downcast lids discovered him at once, as he stood awaiting her amongst a group of young Chinese merchants on the deck of the vessel.
The apartments he had prepared for her were furnished in American style, and her birdlike little figure in Oriental dress seemed rather out of place at first. It was not long, however, before she brought forth from the great box, which she had brought over seas, screens and fans, vases, panels, Chinese matting, artificial flowers and birds, and a number of exquisite carvings and pieces of antique porcelain. With these she transformed the American flat into an Oriental bower, even setting up in her sleeping-room a little chapel, enshrined in which was an image of the Goddess of Mercy, two ancestral tablets, and other emblems of her faith in the Gods of her fathers.
The Misses Raymond called upon her soon after arrival, and she smiled and looked pleased. She shyly presented each girl with a Chinese cup and saucer, also a couple of antique vases, covered with whimsical pictures, which Lin Fo tried his best to explain.
The girls were delighted with the gifts, and having fallen, as they expressed themselves, in love with the little bride, invited her through her husband to attend a launch party, which they intended giving the following Wednesday on Lake Washington.
Lin Fo accepted the invitation in behalf of himself and wife. He was quite at home with the Americans and, being a young man, enjoyed their rather effusive appreciation of him as an educated Chinaman. Moreover, he was of the opinion that the society of the American young ladies would benefit Pau Tsu in helping her to acquire the ways and language of the land in which he hoped to make a fortune.
Wan Lin Fo was a true son of the Middle Kingdom and secretly pitied all those who were born far away from its influences; but there was much about the Americans that he admired. He also entertained sentiments of respect for a motto which hung in his room which bore the legend: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
“What is best for men is also best for women in this country,” he told Pau Tsu when she wept over his suggestion that she should take some lessons in English from a white woman.
“It may be best for a man who goes out in the street,” she sobbed, “to learn the new language, but of what importance is it to a woman who lives only within the house and her husband’s heart?”
It was seldom, however, that she protested against the wishes of Lin Fo. As her mother-in-law had said, she was a docile, happy little creature. Moreover, she loved her husband.
But as the days and weeks went by the girl bride whose life hitherto had been spent in the quiet retirement of a Chinese home in the performance of filial duties, in embroidery work and lute playing, in sipping tea and chatting with gentle girl companions, felt very much bewildered by the novelty and stir of the new world into which she had been suddenly thrown. She could not understand, for all Lin Fo’s explanations, why it was required of her to learn the strangers’ language and adopt their ways. Her husband’s tongue was the same as her own. So also her little maid’s. It puzzled her to be always seeing this and hearing that—sights and sounds which as yet had no meaning for her. Why also was it necessary to receive visitors nearly every evening?—visitors who could neither understand nor make themselves understood by her, for all their curious smiles and stares, which she bore like a second Vashti—or rather, Esther. And why, oh! why should she be constrained to eat her food with clumsy, murderous looking American implements instead of with her own elegant and easily manipulated ivory chopsticks?
Adah Raymond, who at Lin Fo’s request was a frequent visitor to the house, could not fail to observe that Pau Tsu’s small face grew daily smaller and thinner, and that the smile with which she invariably greeted her, though sweet, was tinged with melancholy. Her woman’s instinct told her that something was wrong, but what it was the light within her failed to discover. She would reach over to Pau Tsu and take within her own firm, white hand the small, trembling fingers, pressing them lovingly and sympathetically; and the little Chinese woman would look up into the beautiful face bent above hers and think to herself: “No wonder he wishes me to be like her!”
If Lin Fo happened to come in before Adah Raymond left he would engage the visitor in bright and animated conversation. They had so much of common interest to discuss, as is always the way with young people who have lived any length of time in a growing city of the West. But to Pau Tsu, pouring tea and dispensing sweetmeats, it was all Greek, or rather, all American.
“Look, my pearl, what I have brought you,” said Lin Fo one afternoon as he entered his wife’s apartments, followed by a messenger-boy, who deposited in the middle of the room a large cardboard box.
With murmurs of wonder Pau Tsu drew near, and the messenger-boy having withdrawn Lin Fo cut the string, and drew forth a beautiful lace evening dress and dark blue walking costume, both made in American style.
For a moment there was silence in the room. Lin Fo looked at his wife in surprise. Her face was pale and her little body was trembling, while her hands were drawn up into her sleeves.
“Why, Pau Tsu!” he exclaimed, “I thought to make you glad.”
At these wordswords the girl bent over the dress of filmy lace, and gathering the flounce in her hand smoothed it over her knee; then lifting a smiling face to her husband, replied: “Oh, you are too good, too kind to your unworthy Pau Tsu. My speech is slow, because I am overcome with happiness.”
Then with exclamations of delight and admiration she lifted the dresses out of the box and laid them carefully over the couch.
“I wish you to dress like an American woman when we go out or receive,” said her husband. “It is the proper thing in America to do as the Americans do. You will notice, light of my eyes, that it is only on New Year and our national holidays that I wear the costume of our country and attach a queue. The wife should follow the husband in all things.”
A ripple of laughter escaped Pau Tsu’s lips.
“When I wear that dress,” said she, touching the walking costume, “I will look like your friend, Miss Raymond.”
She struck her hands together gleefully, but when her husband had gone to his business she bowed upon the floor and wept pitifully.
III
During the rainy season Pau Tsu was attacked with a very bad cough. A daughter of Southern China, the chill, moist climate of the Puget Sound winter was very hard on her delicate lungs. Lin Fo worried much over the state of her health, and meeting Adah Raymond on the street one afternoon told her of his anxiety. The kind-hearted girl immediately returned with him to the house. Pau Tsu was lying on her couch, feverish and breathing hard. The American girl felt her hands and head.
“She must have a doctor,” said she, mentioning the name of her family’s physician.
Pau Tsu shuddered. She understood a little English by this time.
“No! No! Not a man, not a man!” she cried.
Adah Raymond looked up at Lin Fo.
“I understand,” said she. “There are several women doctors in this town. Let us send for one.”
But Lin Fo’s face was set.
“No!” he declared. “We are in America. Pau Tsu shall be attended to by your physician.”
Adah Raymond was about to protest against this dictum when the sick wife, who had also heard it, touched her hand and whispered: “I not mind now. Man all right.”
So the other girl closed her lips, feeling that if the wife would not dispute her husband’s will it was not her place to do so; but her heart ached with compassion as she bared Pau Tsu’s chest for the stethoscope.
“It was like preparing a lamb for slaughter,” she told her sister afterwards. “Pau Tsu was motionless, her eyes closed and her lips sealed, while the doctor remained; but after he had left and we two were alone she shuddered and moaned like one bereft of reason. I honestly believe that the examination was worse than death to that little Chinese woman. The modesty of generations of maternal ancestors was crucified as I rolled down the neck of her silk tunic.”
It was a week after the doctor’s visit, and Pau Tsu, whose cough had yielded to treatment, though she was still far from well, was playing on her lute, and whisperingly singing this little song, said to have been written on a fan which was presented to an ancient Chinese emperor by one of his wives:
“Of fresh new silk,
All snowy white,
And round as a harvest moon,
A pledge of purity and love,
A small but welcome boon.
While summer lasts,
When borne in hand,
Or folded on thy breast,
’Twill gently soothe thy burning brow,
And charm thee to thy rest.
But, oh, when Autumn winds blow chill,
And days are bleak and cold,
No longer sought, no longer loved,
’Twill lie in dust and mould.
This silken fan then deign accept,
Sad emblem of my lot,
Caressed and cherished for an hour,
Then speedily forgot.”
“Why so melancholy, my pearl?” asked Lin Fo, entering from the street.
“When a bird is about to die, its notes are sad,” returned Pau Tsu.
“But thou art not for death—thou art for life,” declared Lin Fo, drawing her towards him and gazing into a face which day by day seemed to grow finer and more transparent.
IV
A Chinese messenger-boy ran up the street, entered the store of Wan Hom Hing & Co. and asked for the junior partner. When Lin Fo came forward he handed him a dainty, flowered missive, neatly folded and addressed. The receiver opened it and read:
Dear and Honored Husband,—Your unworthy Pau Tsu lacks the courage to face the ordeal before her. She has, therefore, left you and prays you to obtain a divorce, as is the custom in America, so that you may be happy with the Beautiful One, who is so much your Pau Tsu’s superior. This, she acknowledges, for she sees with your eyes, in which, like a star, the Beautiful One shineth. Else, why should you have your Pau Tsu follow in her footsteps? She has tried to obey your will and to be as an American woman; but now she is very weary, and the terror of what is before her has overcome.
Your stupid thorn,
Pau Tsu
Mechanically Lin Fo folded the letter and thrust it within his breast pocket. A customer inquired of him the price of a lacquered tray. “I wish you good morning,” he replied, reaching for his hat. The customer and clerks gaped after him as he left the store.
Out in the street, as fate would have it, he met Adah Raymond. He would have turned aside had she not spoken to him.
“Whatever is the matter with you, Mr. Wan?” she inquired. “You don’t look yourself at all.”
“The density of my difficulties you cannot understand,” he replied, striding past her.
But Adah Raymond was persistent. She had worried lately over Pau Tsu.
“Something is wrong with your wife,” she declared.
Lin Fo wheeled around.
“Do you know where she is?” he asked with quick suspicion.
“Why, no!” exclaimed the girl in surprise.
“Well, she has left me.”
Adah Raymond stood incredulous for a moment, then with indignant eyes she turned upon the deserted husband.
“You deserve it!” she cried, “I have seen it for some time: your cruel, arbitrary treatment of the dearest, sweetest little soul in the world.”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Adah,” returned Lin Fo, “but I do not understand. Pau Tsu is heart of my heart. How then could I be cruel to her?”
“Oh, you stupid!” exclaimed the girl. “You’re a Chinaman, but you’re almost as stupid as an American. Your cruelty consisted in forcing Pau Tsu to be—what nature never intended her to be—an American woman; to adapt and adopt in a few months’ time all our ways and customs. I saw it long ago, but as Pau Tsu was too sweet and meek to see any faults in her man I had not the heart to open her eyes—or yours. Is it not true that she has left you for this reason?”
“Yes,” murmured Lin Fo. He was completely crushed. “And some other things.”
“What other things?”
“She—is—afraid—of—the—doctor.”
“She is!”—fiercely—“Shame upon you!”
Lin Fo began to walk on, but the girl kept by his side and continued:
“You wanted your wife to be an American woman while you remained a Chinaman. For all your clever adaptation of our American ways you are a thorough Chinaman. Do you think an American would dare treat his wife as you have treated yours?”
Wan Lin Fo made no response. He was wondering how he could ever have wished his gentle Pau Tsu to be like this angry woman. Now his Pau Tsu was gone. His anguish for the moment made him oblivious to the presence of his companion and the words she was saying. His silence softened the American girl. After all, men, even Chinamen, were nothing but big, clumsy boys, and she didn’t believe in kicking a man after he was down.
“But, cheer up, you’re sure to find her,” said she, suddenly changing her tone. “Probably her maid has friends in Chinatown who have taken them in.”
“If I find her,” said Lin Fo fervently, “I will not care if she never speaks an American word, and I will take her for a trip to China, so that our son may be born in the country that Heaven loves.”
“You cannot make too much amends for all she has suffered. As to Americanizing Pau Tsu—that will come in time. I am quite sure that were I transferred to your country and commanded to turn myself into a Chinese woman in the space of two or three months I would prove a sorry disappointment to whomever built their hopes upon me.”
Many hours elapsed before any trace could be found of the missing one. All the known friends and acquaintances of little Pau Tsu were called upon and questioned; but if they had knowledge of the young wife’s hiding place they refused to divulge it. Though Lin Fo’s face was grave with an unexpressed fear, their sympathies were certainly not with him.
The seekers were about giving up the search in despair when a little boy, dangling in his hands a string of blue beads, arrested the attention of the young husband. He knew the necklace to be a gift from Pau Tsu to the maid, A-Toy. He had bought it himself. Stopping and questioning the little fellow he learned to his great joy that his wife and her maid were at the boy’s home, under the care of his grandmother, who was a woman learned in herb lore.
Adah Raymond smiled in sympathy with her companion’s evident great relief.
“Everything will now be all right,” said she, following Lin Fo as he proceeded to the house pointed out by the lad. Arrived there, she suggested that the husband enter first and alone. She would wait a few moments.
“Miss Adah,” said Lin Fo, “ten thousand times I beg your pardon, but perhaps you will come to see my wife some other time—not today?”
He hesitated, embarrassed and humiliated.
In one silent moment Adah Raymond grasped the meaning of all the morning’s trouble—of all Pau Tsu’s sadness.
“Lord, what fools we mortals be!” she soliloquized as she walked home alone. “I ought to have known. What else could Pau Tsu have thought?—coming from a land where women have no men friends save their husbands. How she must have suffered under her smiles! Poor, brave little soul!”
IN THE LAND OF THE FREE
I
See, Little One—the hills in the morning sun. There is thy home for years to come. It is very beautiful and thou wilt be very happy there.”
The Little One looked up into his mother’s face in perfect faith. He was engaged in the pleasant occupation of sucking a sweetmeat; but that did not prevent him from gurgling responsively.
“Yes, my olive bud; there is where thy father is making a fortune for thee. Thy father! Oh, wilt thou not be glad to behold his dear face. ’Twas for thee I left him.”
The Little One ducked his chin sympathetically against his mother’s knee. She lifted him on to her lap. He was two years old, a round, dimple-cheeked boy with bright brown eyes and a sturdy little frame.
“Ah! Ah! Ah! Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!” puffed he, mocking a tugboat steaming by.
San Francisco’s waterfront was lined with ships and steamers, while other craft, large and small, including a couple of white transports from the Philippines, lay at anchor here and there off shore. It was some time before the Eastern Queen could get docked, and even after that was accomplished, a lone Chinaman who had been waiting on the wharf for an hour was detained that much longer by men with the initials U. S. C. on their caps, before he could board the steamer and welcome his wife and child.
“This is thy son,” announced the happy Lae Choo.
Hom Hing lifted the child, felt of his little body and limbs, gazed into his face with proud and joyous eyes; then turned inquiringly to a customs officer at his elbow.
“That’s a fine boy you have there,” said the man. “Where was he born?”
“In China,” answered Hom Hing, swinging the Little One on his right shoulder, preparatory to leading his wife off the steamer.
“Ever been to America before?”
“No, not he,” answered the father with a happy laugh.
The customs officer beckoned to another.
“This little fellow,” said he, “is visiting America for the first time.”
The other customs officer stroked his chin reflectively.
“Good day,” said Hom Hing.
“Wait!” commanded one of the officers. “You cannot go just yet.”
“What more now?” asked Hom Hing.
“I’m afraid,” said the first customs officer, “that we cannot allow the boy to go ashore. There is nothing in the papers that you have shown us—your wife’s papers and your own—having any bearing upon the child.”
“There was no child when the papers were made out,” returned Hom Hing. He spoke calmly; but there was apprehension in his eyes and in his tightening grip on his son.
“What is it? What is it?” quavered Lae Choo, who understood a little English.
The second customs officer regarded her pityingly.
“I don’t like this part of the business,” he muttered.
The first officer turned to Hom Hing and in an official tone of voice, said:
“Seeing that the boy has no certificate entitling him to admission to this country you will have to leave him with us.”
“Leave my boy!” exclaimed Hom Hing.
“Yes; he will be well taken care of, and just as soon as we can hear from Washington he will be handed over to you.”
“But,” protested Hom Hing, “he is my son.”
“We have no proof,” answered the man with a shrug of his shoulders; “and even if so we cannot let him pass without orders from the Government.”
“He is my son,” reiterated Hom Hing, slowly and solemnly. “I am a Chinese merchant and have been in business in San Francisco for many years. When my wife told to me one morning that she dreamed of a green tree with spreading branches and one beautiful red flower growing thereon, I answered her that I wished my son to be born in our country, and for her to prepare to go to China. My wife complied with my wish. After my son was born my mother fell sick and my wife nursed and cared for her; then my father, too, fell sick, and my wife also nursed and cared for him. For twenty moons my wife care for and nurse the old people, and when they die they bless her and my son, and I send for her to return to me. I had no fear of trouble. I was a Chinese merchant and my son was my son.”
“Very good, Hom Hing,” replied the first officer. “Nevertheless, we take your son.”
“No, you not take him; he my son too.”
It was Lae Choo. Snatching the child from his father’s arms she held and covered him with her own.
The officers conferred together for a few moments; then one drew Hom Hing aside and spoke in his ear.
Resignedly Hom Hing bowed his head, then approached his wife. “’Tis the law,” said he, speaking in Chinese, “and ’twill be but for a little while—until tomorrow’s sun arises.”
“You, too,” reproached Lae Choo in a voice eloquent with pain. But accustomed to obedience she yielded the boy to her husband, who in turn delivered him to the first officer. The Little One protested lustily against the transfer; but his mother covered her face with her sleeve and his father silently led her away. Thus was the law of the land complied with.
II
Day was breaking. Lae Choo, who had been awake all night, dressed herself, then awoke her husband.
“’Tis the morn,” she cried. “Go, bring our son.”
The man rubbed his eyes and arose upon his elbow so that he could see out of the window. A pale star was visible in the sky. The petals of a lily in a bowl on the window-sill were unfurled.
“’Tis not yet time,” said he, laying his head down again.
“Not yet time. Ah, all the time that I lived before yesterday is not so much as the time that has been since my little one was taken from me.”
The mother threw herself down beside the bed and covered her face.
Hom Hing turned on the light, and touching his wife’s bowed head with a sympathetic hand inquired if she had slept.
“Slept!” she echoed, weepingly. “Ah, how could I close my eyes with my arms empty of the little body that has filled them every night for more than twenty moons! You do not know—man—what it is to miss the feel of the little fingers and the little toes and the soft round limbs of your little one. Even in the darkness his darling eyes used to shine up to mine, and often have I fallen into slumber with his pretty babble at my ear. And now, I see him not; I touch him not; I hear him not. My baby, my little fat one!”
“Now! Now! Now!” consoled Hom Hing, patting his wife’s shoulder reassuringly; “there is no need to grieve so; he will soon gladden you again. There cannot be any law that would keep a child from its mother!”
Lae Choo dried her tears.
“You are right, my husband,” she meekly murmured. She arose and stepped about the apartment, setting things to rights. The box of presents she had brought for her California friends had been opened the evening before; and silks, embroideries, carved ivories, ornamental lacquer-ware, brasses, camphorwood boxes, fans, and chinaware were scattered around in confused heaps. In the midst of unpacking the thought of her child in the hands of strangers had overpowered her, and she had left everything to crawl into bed and weep.
Having arranged her gifts in order she stepped out on to the deep balcony.
The star had faded from view and there were bright streaks in the western sky. Lae Choo looked down the street and around. Beneath the flat occupied by her and her husband were quarters for a number of bachelor Chinamen, and she could hear them from where she stood, taking their early morning breakfast. Below their dining-room was her husband’s grocery store. Across the way was a large restaurant. Last night it had been resplendent with gay colored lanterns and the sound of music. The rejoicings over “the completion of the moon,” by Quong Sum’s firstborn, had been long and loud, and had caused her to tie a handkerchief over her ears. She, a bereaved mother, had it not in her heart to rejoice with other parents. This morning the place was more in accord with her mood. It was still and quiet. The revellers had dispersed or were asleep.
A roly-poly woman in black sateen, with long pendant earrings in her ears, looked up from the street below and waved her a smiling greeting. It was her old neighbor, Kuie Hoe, the wife of the gold embosser, Mark Sing. With her was a little boy in yellow jacket and lavender pantaloons. Lae Choo remembered him as a baby. She used to like to play with him in those days when she had no child of her own. What a long time ago that seemed! She caught her breath in a sigh, and laughed instead.
“Why are you so merry?” called her husband from within.
“Because my Little One is coming home,” answered Lae Choo. “I am a happy mother—a happy mother.”
She pattered into the room with a smile on her face.
The noon hour had arrived. The rice was steaming in the bowls and a fragrant dish of chicken and bamboo shoots was awaiting Hom Hing. Not for one moment had Lae Choo paused to rest during the morning hours; her activity had been ceaseless. Every now and again, however, she had raised her eyes to the gilded clock on the curiously carved mantelpiece. Once, she had exclaimed:
“Why so long, oh! why so long?” Then apostrophizing herself: “Lae Choo, be happy. The Little One is coming! The Little One is coming!” Several times she burst into tears and several times she laughed aloud.
Hom Hing entered the room; his arms hung down by his side.
“The Little One!” shrieked Lae Choo.
“They bid me call tomorrow.”
With a moan the mother sank to the floor.
The noon hour passed. The dinner remained on the table.
III
The winter rains were over: the spring had come to California, flushing the hills with green and causing an ever-changing pageant of flowers to pass over them. But there was no spring in Lae Choo’s heart, for the Little One remained away from her arms. He was being kept in a mission. White women were caring for him, and though for one full moon he had pined for his mother and refused to be comforted he was now apparently happy and contented. Five moons or five months had gone by since the day he had passed with Lae Choo through the Golden Gate; but the great Government at Washington still delayed sending the answer which would return him to his parents.
Hom Hing was disconsolately rolling up and down the balls in his abacus box when a keen-faced young man stepped into his store.
“What news?” asked the Chinese merchant.
“This!” The young man brought forth a typewritten letter. Hom Hing read the words:
“Re Chinese child, alleged to be the son of Hom Hing, Chinese merchant, doing business at 425 Clay street, San Francisco.
“Same will have attention as soon as possible.”
Hom Hing returned the letter, and without a word continued his manipulation of the counting machine.
“Have you anything to say?” asked the young man.
“Nothing. They have sent the same letter fifteen times before. Have you not yourself showed it to me?”
“True!” The young man eyed the Chinese merchant furtively. He had a proposition to make and he was pondering whether or not the time was opportune.
“How is your wife?” he inquired solicitously—and diplomatically.
Hom Hing shook his head mournfully.
“She“She seems less every day,” he replied. “Her food she takes only when I bid her and her tears fall continually. She finds no pleasure in dress or flowers and cares not to see her friends. Her eyes stare all night. I think before another moon she will pass into the land of spirits.”
“No!” exclaimed the young man, genuinely startled.
“If the boy not come home I lose my wife sure,” continued Hom Hing with bitter sadness.
“It’s not right,” cried the young man indignantly. Then he made his proposition.
The Chinese father’s eyes brightened exceedingly.
“Will I like you to go to Washington and make them give you the paper to restore my son?” cried he. “How can you ask when you know my heart’s desire?”
“Then,”“Then,” said the young fellow, “I will start next week. I am anxious to see this thing through if only for the sake of your wife’s peace of mind.”
“I will call her. To hear what you think to do will make her glad,” said Hom Hing.
He called a message to Lae Choo upstairs through a tube in the wall.
In a few moments she appeared, listless, wan, and hollow-eyed; but when her husband told her the young lawyer’s suggestion she became as one electrified; her form straightened, her eyes glistened; the color flushed to her cheeks.
“Oh,” she cried, turning to James Clancy, “You are a hundred man good!”
The young man felt somewhat embarrassed; his eyes shifted a little under the intense gaze of the Chinese mother.
“Well, we must get your boy for you,” he responded. “Of course”—turning to Hom Hing—“it will cost a little money. You can’t get fellows to hurry the Government for you without gold in your pocket.”
Hom Hing stared blankly for a moment. Then: “How much do you want, Mr. Clancy?” he asked quietly.
“Well, I will need at least five hundred to start with.”
Hom Hing cleared his throat.
“I think I told to you the time I last paid you for writing letters for me and seeing the Custom boss here that nearly all I had was gone!”
“Oh, well then we won’t talk about it, old fellow. It won’t harm the boy to stay where he is, and your wife may get over it all right.”
“What that you say?” quavered Lae Choo.
James Clancy looked out of the window.
“He says,” explained Hom Hing in English, “that to get our boy we have to have much money.”
“Money! Oh, yes.”
Lae Choo nodded her head.
“I have not got the money to give him.”
For a moment Lae Choo gazed wonderingly from one face to the other; then, comprehension dawning upon her, with swift anger, pointing to the lawyer, she cried: “You not one hundred man good; you just common white man.”
“Yes, ma’am,” returned James Clancy, bowing and smiling ironically.
Hom Hing pushed his wife behind him and addressed the lawyer again: “I might try,” said he, “to raise something; but five hundred—it is not possible.”
“What about four?”
“I tell you I have next to nothing left and my friends are not rich.”
“Very well!”
The lawyer moved leisurelyleisurely toward the door, pausing on its threshold to light a cigarette.
“Stop, white man; white man, stop!”
Lae Choo, panting and terrified, had started forward and now stood beside him, clutching his sleeve excitedly.
“You say you can go to get paper to bring my Little One to me if Hom Hing give you five hundred dollars?”
The lawyer nodded carelessly; his eyes were intent upon the cigarette which would not take the fire from the match.
“Then you go get paper. If Hom Hing not can give you five hundred dollars—I give you perhaps what more that much.”
She slipped a heavy gold bracelet from her wrist and held it out to the man. Mechanically he took it.
“I go get more!”
She scurried away, disappearing behind the door through which she had come.
“Oh, look here, I can’t accept this,” said James Clancy, walking back to Hom Hing and laying down the bracelet before him.
“It’s all right,” said Hom Hing, seriously, “pure China gold. My wife’s parent give it to her when we married.”
“But I can’t take it anyway,” protested the young man.
“It is all same as money. And you want money to go to Washington,” replied Hom Hing in a matter of fact manner.
“See, my jade earrings—my gold buttons—my hairpins—my comb of pearl and my rings—one, two, three, four, five rings; very good—very good—all same much money. I give them all to you. You take and bring me paper for my Little One.”
Lae Choo piled up her jewels before the lawyer.
Hom Hing laid a restraining hand upon her shoulder. “Not all, my wife,” he said in Chinese. He selected a ring—his gift to Lae Choo when she dreamed of the tree with the red flower. The rest of the jewels he pushed toward the white man.
“Take them and sell them,” said he. “They will pay your fare to Washington and bring you back with the paper.”
For one moment James Clancy hesitated. He was not a sentimental man; but something within him arose against accepting such payment for his services.
“They are good, good,” pleadingly asserted Lae Choo, seeing his hesitation.
Whereupon he seized the jewels, thrust them into his coat pocket, and walked rapidly away from the store.
IV
Lae Choo followed after the missionary woman through the mission nursery school. Her heart was beating so high with happiness that she could scarcely breathe. The paper had come at last—the precious paper which gave Hom Hing and his wife the right to the possession of their own child. It was ten months now since he had been taken from them—ten months since the sun had ceased to shine for Lae Choo.
The room was filled with children—most of them wee tots, but none so wee as her own. The mission woman talked as she walked. She told Lae Choo that little Kim, as he had been named by the school, was the pet of the place, and that his little tricks and ways amused and delighted every one. He had been rather difficult to manage at first and had cried much for his mother; “but children so soon forget, and after a month he seemed quite at home and played around as bright and happy as a bird.”
“Yes,” responded Lae Choo. “Oh, yes, yes!”
But she did not hear what was said to her. She was walking in a maze of anticipatory joy.
“Wait here, please,” said the mission woman, placing Lae Choo in a chair. “The very youngest ones are having their breakfast.”
She withdrew for a moment—it seemed like an hour to the mother—then she reappeared leading by the hand a little boy dressed in blue cotton overalls and white-soled shoes. The little boy’s face was round and dimpled and his eyes were very bright.
“Little One, ah, my Little One!” cried Lae Choo.
She fell on her knees and stretched her hungry arms toward her son.
But the Little One shrunk from her and tried to hide himself in the folds of the white woman’s skirt.
“Go’way, go’way!” he bade his mother.
THE CHINESE LILY
Mermei lived in an upstairs room of a Chinatown dwelling-house. There were other little Chinese women living on the same floor, but Mermei never went amongst them. She was not as they were. She was a cripple. A fall had twisted her legs so that she moved around with difficulty and scarred her face so terribly that none save Lin John cared to look upon it. Lin John, her brother, was a laundryman, working for another of his countrymen. Lin John and Mermei had come to San Francisco with their parents when they were small children. Their mother had died the day she entered the foreign city, and the father the week following, both having contracted a fever on the steamer. Mermei and Lin John were then taken in charge by their father’s brother, and although he was a poor man he did his best for them until called away by death.
Long before her Uncle died Mermei had met with the accident that had made her not as other girls; but that had only strengthened her brother’s affection, and old Lin Wan died happy in the knowledge that Lin John would ever put Mermei before himself.
So Mermei lived in her little upstairs room, cared for by Lin John, and scarcely an evening passed that he did not call to see her. One evening, however, Lin John failed to appear, and Mermei began to feel very sad and lonely. Mermei could embroider all day in contented silence if she knew that in the evening someone would come to whom she could communicate all the thoughts that filled a small black head that knew nothing of life save what it saw from an upstairs window. Mermei’s window looked down upon the street, and she would sit for hours, pressed close against it, watching those who passed below and all that took place. That day she had seen many things which she had put into her mental portfolio for Lin John’s edification when evening should come. Two yellow-robed priests had passed below on their way to the joss house in the next street; a little bird with a white breast had fluttered against the window pane; a man carrying an image of a Gambling Cash Tiger had entered the house across the street; and six young girls of about her own age, dressed gaily as if to attend a wedding, had also passed over the same threshold.
But when nine o’clock came and no Lin John, the girl began to cry softly. She did not often shed tears, but for some reason unknown to Mermei herself, the sight of those joyous girls caused sad reflections. In the midst of her weeping a timid knock was heard. It was not Lin John. He always gave a loud rap, then entered without waiting to be bidden. Mermei hobbled to the door, pulled it open, and there, in the dim light of the hall without, beheld a young girl—the most beautiful young girl that Mermei had ever seen—and she stood there extending to Mermei a blossom from a Chinese lily plant. Mermei understood the meaning of the offered flower, and accepting it, beckoned for her visitor to follow her into her room.
What a delightful hour that was to Mermei! She forgot that she was scarred and crippled, and she and the young girl chattered out their little hearts to one another. “Lin John is dear, but one can’t talk to a man, even if he is a brother, as one can to one the same as oneself,” said Mermei to Sin Far—her new friend, and Sin Far, the meaning of whose name was Pure Flower, or Chinese Lily, answered:
“Yes, indeed. The woman must be the friend of the woman, and the man the friend of the man. Is it not so in the country that Heaven loves?”
“What beneficent spirit moved you to come to my door?” asked Mermei.
“I know not,” replied Sin Far, “save that I was lonely. We have but lately moved here, my sister, my sister’s husband, and myself. My sister is a bride, and there is much to say between her and her husband. Therefore, in the evening, when the day’s duties are done, I am alone. Several times, hearing that you were sick, I ventured to your door; but failed to knock, because always when I drew near, I heard the voice of him whom they call your brother. Tonight, as I returned from an errand for my sister, I heard only the sound of weeping—so I hastened to my room and plucked the lily for you.”
The next evening when Lin John explained how he had been obliged to work the evening before Mermei answered brightly that that was all right. She loved him just as much as ever and was just as glad to see him as ever; but if work prevented him from calling he was not to worry. She had found a friend who would cheer her loneliness.
Lin John was surprised, but glad to hear such news, and it came to pass that when he beheld Sin Far, her sweet and gentle face, her pretty drooped eyelids and arched eyebrows, he began to think of apple and peach and plum trees showering their dainty blossoms in the country that Heaven loves.
It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. Lin John, working in his laundry, paid little attention to the street uproar and the clang of the engines rushing by. He had no thought of what it meant to him and would have continued at his work undisturbed had not a boy put his head into the door and shouted:
“Lin John, the house in which your sister lives is on fire!”
The tall building was in flames when Lin John reached it. The uprising tongues licked his face as he sprung up the ladder no other man dared ascend.
“I will not go. It is best for me to die,” and Mermei resisted her friend with all her puny strength.
“The ladder will not bear the weight of both of us. You are his sister,” calmly replied Sin Far.
“But he loves you best. You and he can be happy together. I am not fit to live.”
“May Lin John decide, Mermei?”
“Yes, Lin John may decide.”
Lin John reached the casement. For one awful second he wavered. Then his eyes sought the eyes of his sister’s friend.
“Come, Mermei,” he called.
“Where is Sin Far?” asked Mermei when she became conscious.
“Sin Far is in the land of happy spirits.”
“And I am still in this sad, dark world.”
“Speak not so, little one. Your brother loves you and will protect you from the darkness.”
“But you loved Sin Far better—and she loved you.”
Lin John bowed his head.
“Alas!” wept Mermei. “That I should live to make others sad!”
“Nay,” said Lin John, “Sin Far is happy. And I—I did my duty with her approval, aye, at her bidding. How then, little sister, can I be sad?”
THE SMUGGLING OF TIE CO
Amongst the daring men who engage in contrabanding Chinese from Canada into the United States Jack Fabian ranks as the boldest in deed, the cleverest in scheming, and the most successful in outwitting Government officers.
Uncommonly strong in person, tall and well built, with fine features and a pair of keen, steady blue eyes, gifted with a sort of rough eloquence and of much personal fascination, it is no wonder that we fellows regard him as our chief and are bound to follow where he leads. With Fabian at our head we engage in the wildest adventures and find such places of concealment for our human goods as none but those who take part in a desperate business would dare to dream of.
Jack, however, is not in search of glory—money is his object. One day when a romantic friend remarked that it was very kind of him to help the poor Chinamen over the border, a cynical smile curled his moustache.
“Kind!” he echoed. “Well, I haven’t yet had time to become sentimental over the matter. It is merely a matter of dollars and cents, though, of course, to a man of my strict principles, there is a certain pleasure to be derived from getting ahead of the Government. A poor devil does now and then like to take a little out of those millionaire concerns.”
It was last summer and Fabian was somewhat down on his luck. A few months previously, to the surprise of us all, he had made a blunder, which resulted in his capture by American officers, and he and his companion, together with five uncustomed Chinamen, had been lodged in a county jail to await trial.
But loafing behind bars did not agree with Fabian’s energetic nature, so one dark night, by means of a saw which had been given to him by a very innocent-looking visitor the day before, he made good his escape, and after a long, hungry, detective-hunted tramp through woods and bushes, found himself safe in Canada.
He had had a three months’ sojourn in prison, and during that time some changes had taken place in smuggling circles. Some ingenious lawyers had devised a scheme by which any young Chinaman on payment of a couple of hundred dollars could procure a father which father would swear the young Chinaman was born in America—thus proving him to be an American citizen with the right to breathe United States air. And the Chinese themselves, assisted by some white men, were manufacturing certificates establishing their right to cross the border, and in that way were crossing over in large batches.
That sort of trick naturally spoiled our fellows’ business, but we all know that “Yankee sharper” games can hold good only for a short while; so we bided our time and waited in patience.
Not so Fabian. He became very restless and wandered around with glowering looks. He was sitting one day in a laundry, the proprietor of which had sent out many a boy through our chief’s instrumentality. Indeed, Fabian is said to have “rushed over” to “Uncle Sam” himself some five hundred Celestials, and if Fabian had not been an exceedingly generous fellow he might now be a gentleman of leisure instead of an unimmortalized Rob Roy.
Well, Fabian was sitting in the laundry of Chen Ting Lung & Co., telling a nice-looking young Chinaman that he was so broke that he’d be willing to take over even one man at a time.
The young Chinaman looked thoughtfully into Fabian’s face. “Would you take me?” he inquired.
“Take you!” echoed Fabian. “Why, you are one of the ‘bosses’ here. You don’t mean to say that you are hankering after a place where it would take you years to get as high up in the ‘washee, washee’ business as you are now?”
“Yes, I want go,” replied Tie Co. “I want go to New York and I will pay you fifty dollars and all expense if you take me, and not say you take me to my partners.”
“There’s no accounting for a Chinaman,” muttered Fabian; but he gladly agreed to the proposal and a night was fixed.
“What is the name of the firm you are going to?” inquired the white man.
Chinamen who intend being smuggled always make arrangements with some Chinese firm in the States to receive them.
Tie Co hesitated, then mumbled something which sounded like “Quong Wo Yuen” or “Long Lo Toon,” Fabian was not sure which, but did not repeat the question, not being sufficiently interested.
He left the laundry, nodding goodbye to Tie Co as he passed outside the window, and the Chinaman nodded back, a faint smile on his small, delicate face lingering until Fabian’s receding form was lost to view.
It was a pleasant night on which the two men set out. Fabian had a rig waiting at the corner of the street; Tie Co, dressed in citizen’s clothes, stepped into it unobserved, and the smuggler and would-be-smuggled were soon out of the city. They had a merry drive, for Fabian’s liking for Tie Co was very real; he had known him for several years, and the lad’s quick intelligence interested him.
The second day they left their horse at a farmhouse, where Fabian would call for it on his return trip, crossed a river in a row-boat before the sun was up, and plunged into a wood in which they would remain till evening. It was raining, but through mud and wind and rain they trudged slowly and heavily.
Tie Co paused now and then to take breath. Once Fabian remarked:
“You are not a very strong lad, Tie Co. It’s a pity you have to work as you do for your living,” and Tie Co had answered:
“Work velly good! No work, Tie Co die.”
Fabian looked at the lad protectingly, wondering in a careless way why this Chinaman seemed to him so different from the others.
“Wouldn’t you like to be back in China?” he asked.
“No,” said Tie Co decidedly.
“Why?”
“I not know why,” answered Tie Co.
Fabian laughed.
“Haven’t you got a nice little wife at home?” he continued. “I hear you people marry very young.”
“No, I no wife,” asserted his companion with a choky little laugh. “I never have no wife.”
“Nonsense,” joked Fabian. “Why, Tie Co, think how nice it would be to have a little woman cook your rice and to love you.”
“I not have wife,” repeated Tie Co seriously. “I not like woman, I like man.”
“You confirmed old bachelor!” ejaculated Fabian.
“I like you,” said Tie Co, his boyish voice sounding clear and sweet in the wet woods. “I like you so much that I want go to New York, so you make fifty dollars. I no flend in New York.”
“What!” exclaimed Fabian.
“Oh, I solly I tell you, Tie Co velly solly,” and the Chinese boy shuffled on with bowed head.
“Look here, Tie Co,” said Fabian; “I won’t have you do this for my sake. You have been very foolish, and I don’t care for your fifty dollars. I do not need it half as much as you do. Good God! how ashamed you make me feel—I who have blown in my thousands in idle pleasures cannot take the little you have slaved for. We are in New York State now. When we get out of this wood we will have to walk over a bridge which crosses a river. On the other side, not far from where we cross, there is a railway station. Instead of buying you a ticket for the city of New York I shall take train with you for Toronto.”
Tie Co did not answer—he seemed to be thinking deeply. Suddenly he pointed to where some fallen trees lay.
“Two men run away behind there,” cried he.
Fabian looked round them anxiously; his keen eyes seemed to pierce the gloom in his endeavor to catch a glimpse of any person; but no man was visible, and, save the dismal sighing of the wind among the trees, all was quiet.
“There’s no one,” he said somewhat gruffly—he was rather startled, for they were a mile over the border and he knew that the Government officers were on a sharp lookout for him, and felt, despite his strength, if any trick or surprise were attempted it would go hard with him.
“If they catch you with me it be too bad,” sententiously remarked Tie Co. It seemed as if his words were in answer to Fabian’s thoughts.
“But they will not catch us; so cheer up your heart, my boy,” replied the latter, more heartily than he felt.
“If they come, and I not with you, they not take you and it be all lite.”
“Yes,” assented Fabian, wondering what his companion was thinking about.
They emerged from the woods in the dusk of the evening and were soon on the bridge crossing the river. When they were near the centre Tie Co stopped and looked into Fabian’s face.
“Man come for you, I not here, man no hurt you.” And with the words he whirled like a flash over the rail.
In another flash Fabian was after him. But though a first-class swimmer, the white man’s efforts were of no avail, and Tie Co was borne away from him by the swift current.
Cold and dripping wet, Fabian dragged himself up the bank and found himself a prisoner.
“So your Chinaman threw himself into the river. What was that for?” asked one of the Government officers.
“I think he was out of his head,” replied Fabian. And he fully believed what he uttered.
“We tracked you right through the woods,” said another of the captors. “We thought once the boy caught sight of us.”
Fabian remained silent.
Tie Co’s body was picked up the next day. Tie Co’s body, and yet not Tie Co, for Tie Co was a youth, and the body found with Tie Co’s face and dressed in Tie Co’s clothes was the body of a girl—a woman.
Nobody in the laundry of Chen Ting Lung & Co.—no Chinaman in Canada or New York—could explain the mystery. Tie Co had come out to Canada with a number of other youths. Though not very strong he had always been a good worker and “very smart.” He had been quiet and reserved among his own countrymen; had refused to smoke tobacco or opium, and had been a regular attendant at Sunday schools and a great favorite with Mission ladies.
Fabian was released in less than a week. “No evidence against him,” said the Commissioner, who was not aware that the prisoner was the man who had broken out of jail but a month before.
Fabian is now very busy; there are lots of boys taking his helping hand over the border, but none of them are like Tie Co; and sometimes, between whiles, Fabian finds himself pondering long and earnestly over the mystery of Tie Co’s life—and death.
THE GOD OF RESTORATION
He that hath wine hath many friends,” muttered Koan-lo the Second, as he glanced backwards into the store out of which he was stepping. It was a Chinese general store, well stocked with all manner of quaint wares, and about a dozen Chinamen were sitting around; whilst in an adjoining room could be seen the recumbent forms of several smokers who were discussing business and indulging in the fascinating pipe during the intervals of conversation.
Noticeable amongst the smokers was Koan-lo the First, a tall, middle-aged Chinaman, wearing a black cap with a red button. Koan-lo the First was cousin to Koan-lo the Second, but whereas Koan-lo the Second was young and penniless, Koan-lo the First was one of the wealthiest Chinese merchants in San Francisco and a mighty man amongst the people of his name in that city, who regarded him as a father.
Koan-lo the Second had been instructed by Koan-lo the First to meet Sie, the latter’s bride, who was arriving that day by steamer from China. Koan-lo the First was too busy a man to go down himself to the docks.
So Koan-lo the Second and Sie met—though not for the first time. Five years before in a suburb of Canton City they had said to one another: “I love you.”
Koan-lo the Second was an orphan and had been educated and cared for from youth upwards by Koan-lo the First.
Sie was the daughter of a slave, which will explain why she and Koan-lo the Second had had the opportunity to know one another before the latter left with his cousin for America. In China the daughters of slaves are allowed far more liberty than girls belonging to a higher class of society.
“Koan-lo, ah Koan-lo,” cooed Sie softly and happily as she recognized her lover.
“Sie, my sweetest heart,” returned Koan-lo the Second, his voice both glad and sad.
He saw that a mistake had been made—that Sie believed that the man who was to be her husband was himself—Koan-lo the Second.
And all the love that was in him awoke, and he became dizzy thinking of what might yet be.
Could he explain that the Koan-lo who had purchased Sie for his bride, and to whom she of right belonged, was his cousin and not himself? Could he deliver to the Koan-lo who had many friends and stores of precious valuables the only friend, the only treasure he had ever possessed? And was it likely that Sie would be happy eating the rice of Koan-lo the First when she loved him, Koan-lo the Second?
Sie’s little fingers crept into his. She leaned against him. “I am tired. Shall we soon rest?” said she.
“Yes, very soon, my Sie,” he murmured, putting his arm around her.
“I was too glad when my father told me that you had sent for me,” she whispered.
“I said: ‘How good of Koan-lo to remember me all these years.’”
“And did you not remember me, my jess’-mine flower?”
“Why need you ask? You know the days and nights have been filled with you.”
“Having remembered me, why should you have dreamt that I might have forgotten you?”
“There is a difference. You are a man; I am a woman.”
“You have been mine now for over two weeks,” said Koan-lo the Second. “Do you still love me, Sie?”
“Look into mine eyes and see,” she answered.
“And are you happy?”
“Happy! Yes, and this is the happiest day of all, because today my father obtains his freedom.”
“How is that, Sie?”
“Why, Koan-lo, you know. Does not my father receive today the balance of the price you pay for me, and is not that, added to what you sent in advance, sufficient to purchase my father’s freedom? My dear, good father—he has worked so hard all these years. He has ever been so kind to me. How glad am I to think that through me the God of Restoration has decreed that he shall no longer be a slave. Yes, I am the happiest woman in the world today.”
Sie kissed her husband’s hand.
He drew it away and hid with it his face.
“Ah, dear husband!” cried Sie. “You are very sick.”
“No, not sick,” replied the miserable Koan-lo—“but, Sie, I must tell you that I am a very poor man, and we have got to leave this pretty house in the country and go to some city where I will have to work hard and you will scarcely have enough to eat.”
“Kind, generous Koan-lo,” answered Sie, “you have ruined yourself for my sake; you paid too high a price for me. Ah, unhappy Sie, who has pulled Koan-lo into the dust! Now let me be your servant, for gladly would I starve for your sake. I care for Koan-lo, not riches.”
And she fell on her knees before the young man, who raised her gently, saying:
“Sie, I am unworthy of such devotion, and your words drive a thousand spears into my heart. Hear my confession. I am your husband, but I am not the man who bought you. My cousin, Koan-lo the First, sent for you to come from China. It was he who bargained for you, and paid half the price your father asked whilst you were in Canton, and agreed to pay the balance upon sight of your face. Alas! the balance will never be paid, for as I have stolen you from my cousin, he is not bound to keep to the agreement, and your father is still a slave.”
Sie stood motionless, overwhelmed by the sudden and terrible news. She looked at her husband bewilderedly.
“Is it true, Koan-lo? Must my father remain a slave?” she asked.
“Yes, it is true,” replied her husband. “But we have still one another, and you say you care not for poverty. So forgive me and forget your father. I forgot all for love of you.”
He attempted to draw her to him, but with a pitiful cry she turned and fled.
Koan-lo the first sat smoking and meditating.
Many moons had gone by since Koan-lo the Second had betrayed the trust of Koan-lo the First, and Koan-lo the First was wondering what Koan-lo the Second was doing, and how he was living. “He had little money and was unused to working hard, and with a woman to support what will the dog do?” thought the old man. He felt injured and bitter, but towards the evening, after long smoking, his heart became softened, and he said to his pipe: “Well, well, he had a loving feeling for her, and the young I suppose must mate with the young. I think I could overlook his ungratefulness were he to come and seek forgiveness.”
“Great and honored sir, the dishonored Sie kneels before you and begs you to put your foot on her head.”
These words were uttered by a young Chinese girl of rare beauty who had entered the room suddenly and prostrated herself before Koan-lo the First. He looked up angrily.
“Ah, I see the false woman who made her father a liar!” he cried.
Tears fell from the downcast eyes of Sie, the kneeler.
“Good sir,” said she, “ere I had become a woman or your cousin a man, we loved one another, and when we met after a long separation, we both forgot our duty. But the God of Restoration worked with my heart. I repented and now am come to you to give myself up to be your slave, to work for you until the flesh drops from my bones, if such be your desire, only asking that you will send to my father the balance of my purchase price, for he is too old and feeble to be a slave. Sir, you are known to be a more than just man. Oh, grant my request! ’Tis for my father’s sake I plead. For many years he nourished me, with trouble and care; and my heart almost breaks when I think of him. Punish me for my misdeeds, dress me in rags, and feed me on the meanest food! Only let me serve you and make myself of use to you, so that I may be worth my father’s freedom.”
“And what of my cousin? Are you now false to him?”
“No, not false to Koan-lo, my husband—only true to my father.”
“And you wish me, whom you have injured, to free your father?”
Sie’s head dropped lower as she replied:
“I wish to be your slave. I wish to pay with the labor of my hands the debt I owe you and the debt I owe my father. For this I have left my husband.”
Koan-lo the First arose, lifted Sie’s chin with his hand, and contemplated with earnest eyes her face.
“Your heart is not all bad,” he observed. “Sit down and listen. I will not buy you for my slave, for in this country it is against the law to buy a woman for a slave; but I will hire you for five years to be my servant, and for that time you will do my bidding, and after that you will be free. Rest in peace concerning your father.”
“May the sun ever shine on you, most gracious master!” cried Sie.
Then Koan-lo the First pointed out to her a hallway leading to a little room, which room he said she could have for her own private use while she remained with him.
Sie thanked him and was leaving his presence when the door was burst open and Koan-lo the Second, looking haggard and wild, entered. He rushed up to Sie and clutched her by the shoulder.
“You are mine!” he shouted. “I will kill you before you become another man’s!”
“Cousin,” said Koan-lo the First, “I wish not to have the woman to be my wife, but I claim her as my servant. She has already received her wages—her father’s freedom.”
Koan-lo the Second gazed bewilderedly into the faces of his wife and cousin. Then he threw up his hands and cried:
“Oh, Koan-lo, my cousin, I have been evil. Always have I envied you and carried bitter thoughts of you in my heart. Even your kindness to me in the past has provoked my ill-will, and when I have seen you surrounded by friends, I have said scornfully: ‘He that hath wine hath many friends,’ although I well knew the people loved you for your good heart. And Sie I have deceived. I took her to myself, knowing that she thought I was what I was not. I caused her to believe she was mine by all rights.”
“So I am yours,” broke in Sie tremblingly.
“So she shall be yours—when you are worthy of such a pearl and can guard and keep it,” said Koan-lo the First. Then waving his cousin away from Sie, he continued:
“This is your punishment; the God of Restoration demands it. For five years you shall not see the face of Sie, your wife. Meanwhile, study, think, be honest, and work.”
“Your husband comes for you today. Does the thought make you glad?” questioned Koan-lo the First.
Sie smiled and blushed.
“I shall be sorry to leave you,” she replied.
“But more glad than sad,” said the old man. “Sie, your husband is now a fine fellow. He has changed wonderfully during his years of probation.”
“Then I shall neither know nor love him,” said Sie mischievously. “Why, here he—”
“My sweet one!”
“My husband!”
“My children, take my blessing; be good and be happy. I go to my pipe, to dream of bliss if not to find it.”
With these words Koan-lo the First retired.
“Is he not almost as a god?” said Sie.
“Yes,” answered her husband, drawing her on to his knee. “He has been better to me than I have deserved. And you—ah, Sie, how can you care for me when you know what a bad fellow I have been?”
“Well,” said Sie contentedly, “it is always our best friends who know how bad we are.”
The sun was conquering the morning fog, dappling with gold the gray waters of San Francisco’s bay, and throwing an emerald radiance over the islands around.
Close to the long line of wharves lay motionless brigs and schooners, while farther off in the harbor were ships of many nations riding at anchor.
A fishing fleet was steering in from the open sea, scudding before the wind like a flock of seabirds. All night long had the fishers toiled in the deep. Now they were returning with the results of their labor.
A young Chinese girl, watching the fleet from the beach of Fisherman’s Cove, shivered in the morning air. Over her blue cotton blouse she wore no wrap; on her head, no covering. All her interest was centred in one lone boat which lagged behind the rest, being heavier freighted. The fisherman was of her own race. When his boat was beached he sprang to her side.
“O’Yam, what brings you here?” he questioned low, for the curious eyes of his fellow fishermen were on her.
“Your mother is dying,” she answered.
The young man spake a few words in English to a Greek whose boat lay alongside his. The Greek answered in the same tongue. Then Fou Wang threw down his nets and, with the girl following, walked quickly along the waterfront, past the wharves, the warehouses, and the grogshops, up a zigzag hill and into the heart of Chinatown. Neither spoke until they reached their destination, a dingy three-storied building.
The young man began to ascend the stairs, the girl to follow. Fou Wang looked back and shook his head. The girl paused on the lowest step.
“May I not come?” she pleaded.
“Today is for sorrow,” returned Fou Wang. “I would, for a time, forget all that belongs to the joy of life.”
The girl threw her sleeve over her head and backed out of the open door.
“What is the matter?” inquired a kind voice, and a woman laid her hand upon her shoulder.
O’Yam’s bosom heaved.
“Oh, Liuchi,” she cried, “the mother of Fou Wang is dying, and you know what that means to me.”
The woman eyed her compassionately.
“Your father, I know,” said she, as she unlocked a door and led her companion into a room opening on to the street, “has long wished for an excuse to set at naught your betrothal to Fou Wang; but I am sure the lad to whom you are both sun and moon will never give him one.”
She offered O’Yam some tea, but the girl pushed it aside. “You know not Fou Wang,” she replied, sadly yet proudly. “He will follow his conscience, though he lose the sun, the moon, and the whole world.”
A young woman thrust her head through the door.
“The mother of Fou Wang is dead,” cried she.
“She was a good woman—a kind and loving mother,” said Liuchi, as she gazed down upon the still features of her friend.
The young daughter of Ah So Nan burst into fresh weeping. Her pretty face was much swollen. Ah So Nan had been well loved by her children, and the falling tears were not merely waters of ceremony.
At the foot of the couch upon which the dead was laid, stood Fou Wang, his face stern and immovable, his eye solemn, yet luminous with a steadfast fire. Over his head was thrown a white cloth. From morn till eve had he stood thus, contemplating the serene countenance of his mother and vowing that nothing should be left undone which could be done to prove his filial affection and desire to comfort her spirit in the land to which it had flown. “Three years, O mother, will I give to thee and grief. Three years will I minister to thy three souls,” he vowed within himself, remembering how sacred to the dead woman were the customs and observances of her own country. They were also sacred to him. Living in America, in the midst of Americans and Americanized Chinese, the family of Fou Wang, with the exception of one, had clung tenaciously to the beliefs of their forefathers.
“All the living must die, and dying, return to the ground. The limbs and the flesh moulder away below, and hidden away, become the earth of the fields; but the spirit issues forth and is displayed on high in a condition of glorious brightness,” quoted a yellow-robed priest, swinging an incense burner before a small candle-lighted altar.
It was midnight when the mourning friends of the family of Fou Wang left the chief mourner alone with his dead mother.
His sister, Fin Fan, and the girl who was his betrothed wife brushed his garments as they passed him by. The latter timidly touched his hand—an involuntary act of sympathy—but if he were conscious of that sympathy, he paid no heed to it, and his gaze never wavered from the face of the dead.
II
My girl, Moy Ding Fong is ready if Fou Wang is not, and you must marry this year. I have sworn you shall.”
Kien Lung walked out of the room with a determined step. He was an Americanized Chinese and had little regard for what he derided as “the antiquated customs of China,” save when it was to his interest to follow them. He was also a widower desirous of marrying again, but undesirous of having two women of like years, one his wife, the other his daughter, under the same roof-tree.
Left alone, O’Yam’s thoughts became sorrowful, almost despairing. Six moons had gone by since Ah So Nan had passed away, yet the son of Ah So Nan had not once, during that time, spoken one word to his betrothed wife. Occasionally she had passed him on the street; but always he had gone by with uplifted countenance, and in his eyes the beauty of piety and peace. At least, so it seemed to the girl, and the thought of marriage with him had seemed almost sacrilegious. But now it had come to this. If Fou Wang adhered to his resolve to mourn three years for his mother, what would become of her? She thought of old Moy Ding Fong and shuddered. It was bitter, bitter.
There was a rapping at the door. A young girl lifted the latch and stepped in. It was Fin Fan, the sister of her betrothed.
“I have brought my embroidery work,” said she, “I thought we could have a little talk before sundown when I must away to prepare the evening meal.”
O’Yam, who was glad to see her visitor, brewed some fresh tea and settled down for an exchange of confidences.
“I am not going to abide by it,” said Fin Fan at last. “Hom Hing is obliged to return to China two weeks hence, and with or without Fou Wang’s consent I go with the man to whom my mother betrothed me.”
“Without Fou Wang’s consent!” echoed O’Yam.
“Yes,” returned Fin Fan, snapping off a thread. “Without my honorable brother’s consent.”
“And your mother gone but six moons!”
O’Yam’s face wore a shocked expression.
“Does the fallen leaf grieve because the green one remains on the tree?” queried Fin Fan.
“You must love Hom Hing well,” murmured O’Yam—“more than Fou Wang loves me.”
“Nay,” returned her companion, “Fou Wang’s love for you is as big as mine for Hom Hing. It is my brother’s conscience alone that stands between him and you. You know that.”
“He loves not me,” sighed O’Yam.
“If he does not love you,” returned Fin Fan, “why, when we heard that you were unwell, did he sleeplessly pace his room night after night until the news came that you were restored to health? Why does he treasure a broken fan you have cast aside?”
“Ah, well!” smiled O’Yam.
Fin Fan laughed softly.
“Fou Wang is not as other men,” said she. “His conscience is an inheritance from his great-great-grandfather.” Her face became pensive as she added: “It is sad to go across the sea without an elder brother’s blessing.”
She repeated this to Liuchi and Mai Gwi Far, the widow, whom she met on her way home.
“Why should you,” inquired the latter, “when there is a way by which to obtain it?”
“How?”
“Did Ah So Nan leave no garments behind her—such garments as would well fit her three souls—and is it not always easy to delude the serious and the wise?”
“Ah!”
III
O’Yam climbed the stairs to the joss house. The desire for solitude brought her there; but when she had closed the door upon herself, she found that she was not alone. Fou Wang was there. Before the images of the Three Wise Ones he stood, silent, motionless.
“He is communing with his mother’s spirit,” thought O’Yam. She beheld him through a mist of tears. Love filled her whole being. She dared not move, because she was afraid he would turn and see her, and then, of course, he would go away. She would stay near him for a few moments and then retire.
The dim light of the place, the quietness in the midst of noise, the fragrance of some burning incense, soothed and calmed her. It was as if all the sorrow and despair that had overwhelmed her when her father had told her to prepare for her wedding with Moy Ding Fong had passed away.
After a few moments she stepped back softly towards the door. But she was too late. Fou Wang turned and beheld her.
She fluttered like a bird until she saw that, surprised by her presence, he had forgotten death and thought only of life—of life and love. A glad, eager light shone in his eyes. He made a swift step towards her. Then—he covered his face with his hands.
“Fou Wang!” cried O’Yam, love at last overcoming superstition, “must I become the wife of Moy Ding Fong?”
“No, ah no!” he moaned.
“Then,” said the girl in desperation, “take me to yourself.”
Fou Wang’s hands fell to his side. For a moment he looked into that pleading face—and wavered.
A little bird flew in through an open window, and perching itself upon an altar, began twittering.
Fou Wang started back, the expression on his face changing.
“A warning from the dead,” he muttered, “a warning from the dead!”
An iron hand gripped O’Yam’s heart. Life itself seemed to have closed upon her.
IV
It was afternoon before evening, and the fog was rolling in from the sea. Quietness reigned in the plot of ground sacred to San Francisco’s Chinese dead when Fou Wang deposited a bundle at the foot of his mother’s grave and prepared for the ceremony of ministering to her three souls.
The fragrance from a wall of fir trees near by stole to his nostrils as he cleared the weeds and withered leaves from his parent’s resting place. As he placed the bowls of rice and chicken and the vase of incense where he was accustomed to place it, he became dimly conscious of a presence or presences behind the fir wall.
He sighed deeply. No doubt the shade of his parent was restless, because—
“Fou Wang,” spake a voice, low but distinct.
The young man fell upon his knees.
“Honored Mother!” he cried.
“Fou Wang,” repeated the voice, “though my name is on thy lips, O’Yam’s is in thy heart.”
Conscience-stricken, Fou Wang yet retained spirit enough to gasp:
“Have I not been a dutiful son? Have I not sacrificed all for thee, O Mother! Why, then, dost thou reproach me?”
“I do not reproach thee,” chanted three voices, and Fou Wang, lifting his head, saw three figures emerge from behind the fir wall. “I do not reproach thee. Thou hast been a most dutiful son, and thy offerings at my grave and in the temple have been fully appreciated. Far from reproaching thee, I am here to say to thee that the dead have regard for the living who faithfully mourn and minister to them, and to bid thee sacrifice no more until thou hast satisfied thine own heart by taking to wife the daughter of Kien Lung and given to thy sister and thy sister’s husband an elder brother’s blessing. Thy departed mother requires not the sacrifice of a broken heart. The fallen leaf grieves not because the green leaf still clings to the bough.”
Saying this, the three figures flapped the loose sleeves of the well-known garments of Ah So Nan and faded from his vision.
For a moment Fou Wang gazed after them as if spellbound. Then he arose and rushed towards the fir wall, behind which they seemed to have vanished.
“Mother, honored parent! Come back and tell me of the new birth!” he cried.
But there was no response.
Fou Wang returned to the grave and lighted the incense. But he did not wait to see its smoke ascend. Instead he hastened to the house of Kien Lung and said to the girl who met him at the door:
“No more shall my longing for thee take the fragrance from the flowers and the light from the sun and moon.”
THE PRIZE CHINA BABY
The baby was the one gleam of sunshine in Fin Fan’s life, and how she loved it no words can tell. When it was first born, she used to lie with her face turned to its little soft, breathing mouth and think there was nothing quite so lovely in the world as the wee pink face before her, while the touch of its tiny toes and fingers would send wonderful thrills through her whole body. Those were delightful days, but, oh, how quickly they sped. A week after the birth of the little Jessamine Flower, Fin Fan was busy winding tobacco leaves in the dark room behind her husband’s factory. Winding tobacco leaves had been Fin Fan’s occupation ever since she had become Chung Kee’s wife, and hard and dreary work it was. Now, however, she did not mind it quite so much, for in a bunk which was built on one side of the room was a most precious bundle, and every now and then she would go over to that bunk and crow and coo to the baby therein.
But though Fin Fan prized her child so highly, Jessamine Flower’s father would rather she had not been born, and considered the babe a nuisance because she took up so much of her mother’s time. He would rather that Fin Fan spent the hours in winding tobacco leaves than in nursing baby. However, Fin Fan managed to do both, and by dint of getting up very early in the morning and retiring very late at night, made as much money for her husband after baby was born as she ever did before. And it was well for her that that was so, as the baby would otherwise have been taken from her and given to some other more fortunate woman. Not that Fin Fan considered herself unfortunate. Oh, no! She had been a hard-working little slave all her life, and after her mistress sold her to be wife to Chung Kee, she never dreamt of complaining, because, though a wife, she was still a slave.
When Jessamine flower was about six months old one of the ladies of the Mission, in making her round of Chinatown, ran in to see Fin Fan and her baby.
“What a beautiful child!” exclaimed the lady. “And, oh, how cunning,” she continued, noting the amulets on the little ankles and wrists, the tiny, quilted vest and gay little trousers in which Fin Fan had arrayed her treasure.
Fin Fan sat still and shyly smiled, rubbing her chin slowly against the baby’s round cheek. Fin Fan was scarcely more than a child herself in years.
“Oh, I want to ask you, dear little mother,” said the lady, “if you will not send your little one to the Chinese baby show which we are going to have on Christmas Eve in the Presbyterian Mission schoolroom.”
Fin Fan’s eyes brightened.
“What you think? That my baby get a prize?” she asked hesitatingly.
“I think so, indeed,” answered the lady, feeling the tiny, perfectly shaped limbs and peeping into the brightest of black eyes.
From that day until Christmas Eve, Fin Fan thought of nothing but the baby show. She would be there with her baby, and if it won a prize, why, perhaps its father might be got to regard it with more favor, so that he would not frown so blackly and mutter under his breath at the slightest cry or coo.
On the morning of Christmas Eve, Chung Kee brought into Fin Fan’s room a great bundle of tobacco which he declared had to be rolled by the evening, and when it was time to start for the show, the work was not nearly finished. However, Fin Fan dressed her baby, rolled it in a shawl, and with it in her arms, stealthily left the place.
It was a bright scene that greeted her upon arrival at the Mission house. The little competitors, in the enclosure that had been arranged for them, presented a peculiarly gorgeous appearance. All had been carefully prepared for the beauty test and looked as pretty as possible, though in some cases bejewelled head dresses and voluminous silken garments almost hid the competitors. Some small figures quite blazed in gold and tinsel, and then there were solemn cherubs almost free from clothing. The majority were plump and well-formed children, and there wasn’t a cross or crying baby in the forty-five. Fin Fan’s baby made the forty-sixth, and it was immediately surrounded by a group of admiring ladies.
How Fin Fan’s eyes danced. Her baby would get a prize, and she would never more need to fear that her husband would give it away. That terrible dread had haunted her ever since its birth. “But surely,” thought the little mother, “if it gets a prize he will be so proud that he will let me keep it forever.”
And Fin Fan’s baby did get a prize—a shining gold bit—and Fin Fan, delighted and excited, started for home. She was so happy and proud.
Chung Kee was very angry. Fin Fan was not in her room, and the work he had given her to do that morning was lying on the table undone. He said some hard words in a soft voice, which was his way sometimes, and then told the old woman who helped the men in the factory to be ready to carry a baby to the herb doctor’s wife that night. “Tell her,” said he, “that my cousin, the doctor, says that she long has desired a child, and so I send her one as a Christmas present, according to American custom.”
Just then came a loud knocking at the door. Chung Kee slowly unbarred it, and two men entered, bearing a stretcher upon which a covered form lay.
“Why be you come to my store?” asked Chung Kee in broken English.
The men put down their burden, and one pulled down the covering from that which lay on the stretcher and revealed an unconscious woman and a dead baby.
“It was on Jackson Street. The woman was trying to run with the baby in her arms, and just as she reached the crossing a butcher’s cart came around the corner. Some Chinese who knows you advised me to bring them here. Your wife and child, eh?”
Chung Kee stared speechlessly at the still faces—an awful horror in his eyes.
A curious crowd began to fill the place. A doctor was in the midst of it and elbowed his way to where Fin Fan was beginning to regain consciousness.
“Move back all of you; we want some air here!” he shouted authoritatively, and Fin Fan, roused by the loud voice, feebly raised her head, and looking straight into her husband’s eyes, said:
“Chung Kee’s baby got first prize. Chung Kee let Fin Fan keep baby always.”
That was all. Fin Fan’s eyes closed. Her head fell back beside the prize baby’s—hers forever.
LIN JOHN
It was New Year’s Eve. Lin John mused over the brightly burning fire. Through the beams of the roof the stars shone, far away in the deep night sky they shone down upon him, and he felt their beauty, though he had no words for it. The long braid which was wound around his head lazily uncoiled and fell down his back; his smooth young face was placid and content. Lin John was at peace with the world. Within one of his blouse sleeves lay a small bag of gold, the accumulated earnings of three years, and that gold was to release his only sister from a humiliating and secret bondage. A sense of duty done led him to dream of the To-Come. What a fortunate fellow he was to have been able to obtain profitable work, and within three years to have saved four hundred dollars! In the next three years, he might be able to establish a little business and send his sister to their parents in China to live like an honest woman. The sharp edges of his life were forgotten in the drowsy warmth and the world faded into dreamland.
The latch was softly lifted; with stealthy step a woman approached the boy and knelt beside him. By the flickering gleam of the dying fire she found that for which she searched, and hiding it in her breast swiftly and noiselessly withdrew.
Lin John arose. His spirits were light—and so were his sleeves. He reached for his bowl of rice, then set it down, and suddenly his chopsticks clattered on the floor. With hands thrust into his blouse he felt for what was not there. Thus, with bewildered eyes for a few moments. Then he uttered a low cry and his face became old and gray.
A large apartment, richly carpeted; furniture of dark and valuable wood artistically carved; ceiling decorated with beautiful Chinese ornaments and gold incense burners; walls hung from top to bottom with long bamboo panels covered with silk, on which were printed Chinese characters; tropical plants, on stands; heavy curtains draped over windows. This, in the heart of Chinatown. And in the midst of these surroundings a girl dressed in a robe of dark blue silk worn over a full skirt richly embroidered. The sleeves fell over hands glittering with rings, and shoes of light silk were on her feet. Her hair was ornamented with flowers made of jewels; she wore three or four pairs of bracelets; her jewel earrings were over an inch long.
The girl was fair to see in that her face was smooth and oval, eyes long and dark, mouth small and round, hair of jetty hue, and figure petite and graceful.
Hanging over a chair by her side was a sealskin sacque, such as is worn by fashionable American women. The girl eyed it admiringly and every few moments stroked the soft fur with caressing fingers.
“Pau Sang,” she called.
A curtain was pushed aside and a heavy, broad-faced Chinese woman in blouse and trousers of black sateen stood revealed.
“Look,” said the beauty. “I have a cloak like the American ladies. Is it not fine?”
Pau Sang nodded. “I wonder at Moy Loy,” said she. “He is not in favor with the Gambling Cash Tiger and is losing money.”
“Moy Loy gave it not to me. I bought it myself.”
“But from whom did you obtain the money?”
“If I let out a secret, will you lock it up?”
Pau Sang smiled grimly, and her companion, sidling closer to her, said: “I took the money from my brother—it was my money; for years he had been working to make it for me, and last week he told me that he had saved four hundred dollars to pay to Moy Loy, so that I might be free. Now, what do I want to be free for? To be poor? To have no one to buy me good dinners and pretty things—to be gay no more? Lin John meant well, but he knows little. As to me, I wanted a sealskin sacque like the fine American ladies. So two moons gone by I stole away to the country and found him asleep. I did not awaken him—and for the first day of the New Year I had this cloak. See?”
“Heaven frowns on me,” said Lin John sadly, speaking to Moy Loy. “I made the money with which to redeem my sister and I have lost it. I grieve, and I would have you say to her that for her sake, I will engage myself laboriously and conform to virtue till three more New Years have grown old, and that though I merit blame for my carelessness, yet I am faithful unto her.”
And with his spade over his shoulder he shuffled away from a house, from an upper window of which a woman looked down and under her breath called “Fool!”
TIAN SHAN’S KINDRED SPIRIT
Had Tian Shan been an American and China to him a forbidden country, his daring exploits and thrilling adventures would have furnished inspiration for many a newspaper and magazine article, novel, and short story. As a hero, he would certainly have far outshone Dewey, Peary, or Cook. Being, however, a Chinese, and the forbidden country America, he was simply recorded by the American press as “a wily Oriental, who, ‘by ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,’ is eluding the vigilance of our brave customs officers.” As to his experiences, the only one who took any particular interest in them was Fin Fan.
Fin Fan was Tian Shan’s kindred spirit. She was the daughter of a Canadian Chinese storekeeper and the object of much concern to both Protestant Mission ladies and good Catholic sisters.
“I like learn talk and dress like you,” she would respond to attempts to bring her into the folds, “but I not want think like you. Too much discuss.” And when it was urged upon her that her father was a convert—the Mission ladies declaring, to the Protestant faith, and the nuns, to the Catholic—she would calmly answer: “That so? Well, I not my father. Beside I think my father just say he Catholic (or Protestant) for sake of be amiable to you. He good-natured man and want to please you.”
This independent and original stand led Fin Fan to live, as it were, in an atmosphere of outlawry even amongst her own countrywomen, for all proper Chinese females in Canada and America, unless their husbands are men of influence in their own country, conform upon request to the religion of the women of the white race.
Fin Fan sat on her father’s doorstep amusing herself with a ball of yarn and a kitten. She was a pretty girl, with the delicate features, long slanting eyes, and pouting mouth of the women of Soo Chow, to which province her dead mother had belonged.
Tian Shan came along.
“Will you come for a walk around the mountain?” asked he.
“I don’t know,” answered Fin Fan.
“Do!” he urged.
The walk around the mountain is enjoyable at all seasons, but particularly so in the fall of the year when the leaves on the trees are turning all colors, making the mount itself look like one big posy.
The air was fresh, sweet, and piny. As Tian Shan and Fin Fan walked, they chatted gaily—not so much of Tian Shan or Fin Fan as of the brilliant landscape, the sun shining through a grove of black-trunked trees with golden leaves, the squirrels that whisked past them, the birds twittering and soliloquizing over their vanishing homes, and many other objects of nature. Tian Shan’s roving life had made him quite a woodsman, and Fin Fan—well, Fin Fan was his kindred spirit.
A large oak, looking like a smouldering pyre, invited them to a seat under its boughs.
After happily munching half a dozen acorns, Fin Fan requested to be told all about Tian Shan’s last adventure. Every time he crossed the border, he was obliged to devise some new scheme by which to accomplish his object, and as he usually succeeded, there was always a new story to tell whenever he returned to Canada.
This time he had run across the river a mile above the Lachine Rapids in an Indian war canoe, and landed in a cove surrounded by reefs, where pursuit was impossible. It had been a perilous undertaking, for he had had to make his way right through the swift current of the St. Lawrence, the turbulent rapids so near that it seemed as if indeed he must yield life to the raging cataract. But with indomitable courage he had forged ahead, the canoe, with every plunge of his paddles, rising on the swells and cutting through the whitecaps, until at last he reached the shore for which he had risked so much.
Fin Fan was thoughtful for a few moments after listening to his narration.
“Why,” she queried at last, “when you can make so much more money in the States than in Canada, do you come so often to this side and endanger your life as you do when returning?”
Tian Shan was puzzled himself. He was not accustomed to analyzing the motives for his actions.
Seeing that he remained silent, Fin Fan went on:
“I think,” said she, “that it is very foolish of you to keep running backwards and forwards from one country to another, wasting your time and accomplishing nothing.”
Tian Shan dug up some soft, black earth with the heels of his boots.
“Perhaps it is,” he observed.
That night Tian Shan’s relish for his supper was less keen than usual, and when he laid his head upon his pillow, instead of sleeping, he could only think of Fin Fan. Fin Fan! Fin Fan! Her face was before him, her voice in his ears. The clock ticked Fin Fan; the cat purred it; a little mouse squeakedsqueaked it; a night-bird sang it. He tossed about, striving to think what ailed him. With the first glimmer of morning came knowledge of his condition. He loved Fin Fan, even as the American man loves the girl he would make his wife.
Now Tian Shan, unlike most Chinese, had never saved money and, therefore, had no home to offer Fin Fan. He knew, also, that her father had his eye upon a young merchant in Montreal, who would make a very desirable son-in-law.
In the early light of the morning Tian Shan arose and wrote a letter. In this letter, which was written with a pointed brush on long yellow sheets of paper, he told Fin Fan that, as she thought it was foolish, he was going to relinquish the pleasure of running backwards and forwards across the border, for some time at least. He was possessed of a desire to save money so that he could have a wife and a home. In a year, perhaps, he would see her again.
Lee Ping could hardly believe that his daughter was seriously opposed to becoming the wife of such a good-looking, prosperous young merchant as Wong Ling. He tried to bring her to reason, but instead of yielding her will to the parental, she declared that she would take a place as a domestic to some Canadian lady with whom she had become acquainted at the Mission sooner than wed the man her father had chosen.
“Is not Wong Ling a proper man?” inquired the amazed parent.
“Whether he is proper or improper makes no difference to me,” returned Fin Fan. “I will not marry him, and the law in this country is so that you cannot compel me to wed against my will.”
Lee Ping’s good-natured face became almost pitiful as he regarded his daughter. Only a hen who has hatched a duckling and sees it take to the water for the first time could have worn such an expression.
Fin Fan’s heart softened. She was as fond of her father as he of her. Sidling up to him, she began stroking his sleeve in a coaxing fashion.
“For a little while longer I wish only to stay with you,” said she.
Lee Ping shook his head, but gave in.
“You must persuade her yourself,” said he to Wong Ling that evening. “We are in a country where the sacred laws and customs of China are as naught.”
So Wong Ling pressed his own suit. He was not a bad-looking fellow, and knew well also how to honey his speech. Moreover, he believed in paving his way with offerings of flowers, trinkets, sweetmeats.
Fin Fan looked, listened, and accepted. Every gift that could be kept was carefully put by in a trunk which she hoped some day to take to New York. “They will help to furnish Tian Shan’s home,” said she.
Twelve moons had gone by since Tian Shan had begun to think of saving and once again he was writing to Fin Fan.
“I have made and I have saved,” wrote he. “Shall I come for you?”
And by return mail came an answer which was not “No.”
Of course, Fin Fan’s heart beat high with happiness when Tian Shan walked into her father’s store; but to gratify some indescribable feminine instinct she simply nodded coolly in his direction, and continued what might be called a flirtation with Wong Ling, who had that morning presented her with the first Chinese lily of the season and a box of the best preserved ginger.
Tian Shan sat himself down on a box of dried mushrooms and glowered at his would-be rival, who, unconscious of the fact that he was making a third when there was needed but a two, chattered on like a running stream. Thoughtlessly and kittenishly Fin Fan tossed a word, first to this one, and next to that; and whilst loving with all her heart one man, showed much more favor to the other.
Finally Tian Shan arose from the mushrooms and marched over to the counter.
“These yours?” he inquired of Wong Ling, indicating the lily and the box of ginger.
“Miss Fin Fan has done me the honor of accepting them,” blandly replied Wong Ling.
“Very good,” commented Tian Shan. He picked up the gifts and hurled them into the street.
A scene of wild disorder followed. In the midst of it the father of Fin Fan, who had been downtown, appeared at the door.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
“Oh, father, father, they are killing one another! Separate them, oh, separate them!” pleaded Fin Fan.
But her father’s interference was not needed. Wong Ling swerved to one side, and falling, struck the iron foot of the stove. Tian Shan, seeing his rival unconscious, rushed out of the store.
The moon hung in the sky like a great yellow pearl and the night was beautiful and serene. But Fin Fan, miserable and unhappy, could not rest.
“All your fault! All your fault!” declared the voice of conscience.
“Fin Fan,” spake a voice near to her.
Could it be? Yes, it surely was Tian Shan.
She could not refrain from a little scream.
“Sh! Sh!” bade Tian Shan. “Is he dead?”
“No,” replied Fin Fan, “he is very sick, but he will recover.”
“I might have been a murderer,” mused Tian Shan. “As it is I am liable to arrest and imprisonment for years.”
“I am the cause of all the trouble,” wept Fin Fan.
Tian Shan patted her shoulder in an attempt at consolation, but a sudden footfall caused her to start away from him.
“They are hunting you!” she cried. “Go! Go!”
And Tian Shan, casting upon her one long farewell look, strode with rapid steps away.
Poor Fin Fan! She had indeed lost every one, and added to that shame, was the secret sorrow and remorse of her own heart. All the hopes and the dreams which had filled the year that was gone were now as naught, and he, around whom they had been woven, was, because of her, a fugitive from justice, even in Canada.
One day she picked up an American newspaper which a customer had left on the counter, and, more as a habit than for any other reason, began spelling out the paragraphs.
A Chinese, who has been unlawfully breathing United States air for several years, was captured last night crossing the border, a feat which he is said to have successfully accomplished more than a dozen times during the last few years. His name is Tian Shan, and there is no doubt whatever that he will be deported to China as soon as the necessary papers can be made out.
Fin Fan lifted her head. Fresh air and light had come into her soul. Her eyes sparkled. In the closet behind her hung a suit of her father’s clothes. Fin Fan was a tall and well-developed young woman.
“You are to have company,” said the guard, pausing in front of Tian Shan’s cage. “A boy without certificate was caught this morning by two of our men this side of Rouse’s Point. He has been unable to give an account of himself, so we are putting him in here with you. You will probably take the trip to China together.”
Tian Shan continued reading a Chinese paper which he had been allowed to retain. He was not at all interested in the companion thrust upon him. He would have preferred to be left alone. The face of the absent one is so much easier conjured in silence and solitude. It was a foregone conclusion with Tian Shan that he would never again behold Fin Fan, and with true Chinese philosophy he had begun to reject realities and accept dreams as the stuff upon which to live. Life itself was hard, bitter, and disappointing. Only dreams are joyous and smiling.
One star after another had appeared until the heavens were patterned with twinkling lights. Through his prison bars Tian Shan gazed solemnly upon the firmament.
Some one touched his elbow. It was his fellow-prisoner.
So far the boy had not intruded himself, having curled himself up in a corner of the cell and slept soundly apparently, ever since his advent.
“What do you want?” asked Tian Shan not unkindly.
“To go to China with you and to be your wife,” was the softly surprising reply.
“Fin Fan!” exclaimed Tian Shan. “Fin Fan!”
The boy pulled off his cap.
“Aye,” said he. “’Tis Fin Fan!”
THE SING SONG WOMAN
I
Ah Oi, the Chinese actress, threw herself down on the floor of her room and, propping her chin on her hands, gazed up at the narrow strip of blue sky which could be seen through her window. She seemed to have lost her usually merry spirits. For the first time since she had left her home her thoughts were seriously with the past, and she longed with a great longing for the Chinese Sea, the boats, and the wet, blowing sands. She had been a fisherman’s daughter, and many a spring had she watched the gathering of the fishing fleet to which her father’s boat belonged. Well could she remember clapping her hands as the vessels steered out to sea for the season’s work, her father’s amongst them, looking as bright as paint could make it, and flying a neat little flag at its stern; and well could she also remember how her mother had taught her to pray to “Our Lady of Pootoo,” the goddess of sailors. One does not need to be a Christian to be religious, and Ah Oi’s parents had carefully instructed their daughter according to their light, and it was not their fault if their daughter was a despised actress in an American Chinatown.
The sound of footsteps outside her door seemed to chase away Ah Oi’s melancholy mood, and when a girl crossed her threshold, she was gazing amusedly into the street below—a populous thoroughfare of Chinatown.
The newcomer presented a strange appearance. She was crying so hard that red paint, white powder, and carmine lip salve were all besmeared over a naturally pretty face.
Ah Oi began to laugh.
“Why, Mag-gee,” said she, “how odd you look with little red rivers running over your face! What is the matter?”
“What is the matter?” echoed Mag-gee, who was a half-white girl. “The matter is that I wish that I were dead! I am to be married tonight to a Chinaman whom I have never seen, and whom I can’t bear. It isn’t natural that I should. I always took to other men, and never could put up with a Chinaman. I was born in America, and I’m not Chinese in looks nor in any other way. See! My eyes are blue, and there is gold in my hair; and I love potatoes and beef, and every time I eat rice it makes me sick, and so does chopped up food. He came down about a week ago and made arrangements with father, and now everything is fixed and I’m going away forever to live in China. I shall be a Chinese woman next year—I commenced to be one today, when father made me put the paint and powder on my face, and dress in Chinese clothes. Oh! I never want anyone to feel as I do. To think of having to marry a Chinaman! How I hate the Chinese! And the worst of it is, loving somebody else all the while.”
The girl burst into passionate sobs. The actress, who was evidently accustomed to hearing her compatriots reviled by the white and half-white denizens of Chinatown, laughed—a light, rippling laugh. Her eyes glinted mischievously.
“Since you do not like the Chinese men,” said she, “why do you give yourself to one? And if you care so much for somebody else, why do you not fly to that somebody?”
Bold words for a Chinese woman to utter! But Ah Oi was not as other Chinese women, who all their lives have been sheltered by a husband or father’s care.
The half-white girl stared at her companion.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“This,” said Ah Oi. The fair head and dark head drew near together; and two women passing the door heard whispers and suppressed laughter.
“Ah Oi is up to some trick,” said one.
II
The Sing Song Woman! The Sing Song Woman!” It was a wild cry of anger and surprise.
The ceremony of unveiling the bride had just been performed, and Hwuy Yen, the father of Mag-gee, and his friends, were in a state of great excitement, for the unveiled, brilliantly clothed little figure standing in the middle of the room was not the bride who was to have been; but Ah Oi, the actress, the Sing Song Woman.
Every voice but one was raised. The bridegroom, a tall, handsome man, did not understand what had happened, and could find no words to express his surprise at the uproar. But he was so newly wedded that it was not until Hwuy Yen advanced to the bride and shook his hand threateningly in her face, that he felt himself a husband, and interfered by placing himself before the girl.
“What is all this?” he inquired. “What has my wife done to merit such abuse?”
“Your wife!” scornfully ejaculated Hwuy Yen. “She is no wife of yours. You were to have married my daughter, Mag-gee. This is not my daughter; this is an impostor, an actress, a Sing Song Woman. Where is my daughter?”
Ah Oi laughed her peculiar, rippling, amused laugh. She was in no wise abashed, and, indeed, appeared to be enjoying the situation. Her bright, defiant eyes met her questioner’s boldly as she answered:
“Mag-gee has gone to eat beef and potatoes with a white man. Oh, we had such a merry time making this play!”
“See how worthless a thing she is,” said Hwuy Yen to the young bridegroom.
The latter regarded Ah Oi compassionately. He was a man, and perhaps a little tenderness crept into his heart for the girl towards whom so much bitterness was evinced. She was beautiful. He drew near to her.
“Can you not justify yourself?” he asked sadly.
For a moment Ah Oi gazed into his eyes—the only eyes that had looked with true kindness into hers for many a moon.
“You justify me,” she replied with an upward, pleading glance.
Then Ke Leang, the bridegroom, spoke. He said: “The daughter of Hwuy Yen cared not to become my bride and has sought her happiness with another. Ah Oi, having a kind heart, helped her to that happiness, and tried to recompense me my loss by giving me herself. She has been unwise and indiscreet; but the good that is in her is more than the evil, and now that she is my wife, none shall say a word against her.”
Ah Oi pulled at his sleeve.
“You give me credit for what I do not deserve,” said she. “I had no kind feelings. I thought only of mischief, and I am not your wife. It is but a play like the play I shall act tomorrow.”
“Hush!” bade Ke Leang. “You shall act no more. I will marry you again and take you to China.”
Then something in Ah Oi’s breast, which for a long time had been hard as stone, became soft and tender, and her eyes ran over with tears.
“Oh, sir,” said she, “it takes a heart to make a heart, and you have put one today in the bosom of a Sing Song Woman.”
