Part 18

under the circumstances, to deprive a father of the society of his child, and a child of the love and care of a parent, disturbed her mind, morning, noon, and night. What had previously seemed her distinct duty no longer appeared so, and she began to wish with all her heart that she had not interfered in the matter.

II

Ku Yum had not been seen for weeks and those who were deputed to bring her into the sheltering home were unable to find her. It was suspected that the little thing purposely kept out of the way—no difficult matter, all Chinatown being in sympathy with her and arrayed against Miss Mason. Where formerly the teacher had met with smiles and pleased greetings, she now beheld averted faces and downcast eyes, and her school had within a week dwindled from twenty-four scholars to four. Verily, though

## acting with the best of intentions, she had shown a lack of diplomacy.

It was about nine o’clock in the evening. She had been visiting little Lae Choo, who was lying low with typhoid fever. As she wended her way home through Chinatown, she did not feel at all easy in mind; indeed, as she passed one of the most unsavory corners and observed some men frown and mutter among themselves as they recognized her, she lost her dignity in a little run. As she stopped to take breath, she felt her skirt pulled from behind and heard a familiar little voice say:

“Teacher, be you afraid?”

“Oh, Ku Yum,” she exclaimed, “is that you?” Then she added reprovingly: “Do you think it is right for a little Chinese girl to be out alone at this time of the night?”

“I be not alone,” replied the little creature, and in the gloom Miss Mason, could distinguish behind her two boyish figures.

She shook her head.

“Ku Yum, will you promise me that you will try to be a good little girl?” she asked.

Ku Yum answered solemnly:

“Ku Yum _never_ be a good girl.”

Her heart hardened. After all, it was best that the child should be placed where she would be compelled to behave herself.

“Come, see my father,” said Ku Yum pleadingly.

Her voice was soft, and her expression was so subdued that the teacher could hardly believe that the moment before she had defiantly stated that she would never be a good girl. She paused irresolutely. Should she make one more appeal to the parent to make her a promise which would be a good excuse for restraining the order of the Court? Ah, if he only would, and she only could prevent the carrying out of that order!

They found Ten Suie among his curiosities, smoking a very long pipe with a very small, ivory bowl. He calmly surveyed the teacher through a pair of gold-rimmed goggles, and under such scrutiny it was hard indeed for her to broach the subject that was on her mind. However, after admiring the little carved animals, jars, vases, bronzes, dishes, pendants, charms, and snuff-boxes displayed in his handsome showcase, she took courage.

“Mr. Ten Suie,” she began, “I have come to speak to you about Ku Yum.”

Ten Suie laid down his pipe and leaned over the counter. Under his calm exterior some strong excitement was working, for his eyes glittered exceedingly.

“Perhaps you speak too much about Ku Yum alleady,” he said. “Ku Yum be my child. I bling him up, as I please. Now, teacher, I tell you something. One, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, nine years go by, I have five boy. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven years go, I have four boy. One, two, three, four, five, six years go by, I have one boy. Every year for three year evil spirit come, look at my boy, and take him. Well, one, two, three, four, five, six years go by, I see but one boy, he four year old. I say to me: Ten Suie, evil spirit be jealous. I be ’flaid he want my one boy. I dless him like one girl. Evil spirit think him one girl, and go away; no want girl.”

Ten Suie ceased speaking, and settled back into his seat.

For some moments Miss Mason stood uncomprehending. Then the full meaning of Ten Suie’s words dawned upon her, and she turned to Ku Yum, and taking the child’s little hand in hers, said:

“Goodbye, Ku Yum. Your father, by passing you off as a girl, thought to keep an evil spirit away from you; but just by that means he brought another, and one which nearly took you from him too.”

“Goodbye, teacher,” said Ku Yum, smiling wistfully. “I never be good girl, but perhaps I be good boy.”

PAT AND PAN

I

They lay there, in the entrance to the joss house, sound asleep in each other’s arms. Her tiny face was hidden upon his bosom and his white, upturned chin rested upon her black, rosetted head.

It was that white chin which caused the passing Mission woman to pause and look again at the little pair. Yes, it was a white boy and a little Chinese girl; he, about five, she, not more than three years old.

“Whose is that boy?” asked the Mission woman of the peripatetic vender of Chinese fruits and sweetmeats.

“That boy! Oh, him is boy of Lum Yook that make the China gold ring and bracelet.”

“But he is white.”

“Yes, him white; but all same, China boy. His mother, she not have any white flend, and the wife of Lum Yook give her lice and tea, so when she go to the land of spilit, she give her boy to the wife of Lum Yook. Lady, you want buy lichi?”

While Anna Harrison was extracting a dime from her purse the black, rosetted head slowly turned and a tiny fist began rubbing itself into a tiny face.

“Well, chickabiddy, have you had a nice nap?”

“Tjo ho! tjo ho!”

The black eyes gazed solemnly and disdainfully at the stranger.

“She tell you to be good,” chuckled the old man.

“Oh, you quaint little thing!”

The quaint little thing hearing herself thus apostrophized, turned herself around upon the bosom of the still sleeping boy and, reaching her arms up to his neck, buried her face again, under his chin. This, of course, awakened him. He sat up and stared bewilderedly at the Mission woman.

“What is the boy’s name?” she asked, noting his gray eyes and rosy skin.

His reply, though audible, was wholly unintelligible to the American woman.

“He talk only Chinese talk,” said the old man.

Anna Harrison was amazed. A white boy in America talking only Chinese talk! She placed her bag of lichis beside him and was amused to see the little girl instantly lean over her companion and possess herself of it. The boy made no attempt to take it from her, and the little thing opened the bag and cautiously peeped in. What she saw evoked a chirrup of delight. Quickly she brought forth one of the browny-red fruit nuts, crushed and pulled off its soft shell. But to the surprise of the Mission woman, instead of putting it into her own mouth, she thrust the sweetish, dried pulp into that of her companion. She repeated this operation several times, then cocking her little head on one side, asked:

“Ho ’m ho? Is it good or bad?”

“Ho! ho!” answered the boy, removing several pits from his mouth and shaking his head to signify that he had had enough. Whereupon the little girl tasted herself of the fruit.

“Pat! Pan! Pat! Pan!” called a woman’s voice, and a sleek-headed, kindly-faced matron in dark blue pantalettes and tunic, wearing double hooped gold earrings, appeared around the corner. Hearing her voice, the boy jumped up with a merry laugh and ran out into the street. The little girl more seriously and slowly followed him.

“Him mother!” informed the lichi man.

II

When Anna Harrison, some months later, opened her school for white and Chinese children in Chinatown, she determined that Pat, the adopted son of Lum Yook, the Chinese jeweller, should learn to speak his mother tongue. For a white boy to grow up as a Chinese was unthinkable. The second time she saw him, it was some kind of a Chinese holiday, and he was in great glee over a row of red Chinese candles and punk which he was burning on the curb of the street, in company with a number of Chinese urchins. Pat’s candle was giving a brighter and bigger flame than any of the others, and he was jumping up and down with his legs doubled under him from the knees like an india-rubber ball, while Pan, from the doorstep of her father’s store, applauded him in vociferous, infantile Chinese.

Miss Harrison laid her hand upon the boy’s shoulder and spoke to him. It had not been very difficult for her to pick up a few Chinese phrases. Would he not like to come to her school and see some pretty pictures? Pat shook his ruddy curls and looked at Pan. Would Pan come too? Yes, Pan would. Pan’s memory was good, and so were lichis and shredded cocoanut candy.

Of course Pan was too young to go to school—a mere baby; but if Pat could not be got without Pan, why then Pan must come too. Lum Yook and his wife, upon being interviewed, were quite willing to have Pat learn English. The foster-father could speak a little of the language himself; but as he used it only when in business or when speaking to Americans, Pat had not benefited thereby. However, he was more eager than otherwise to have Pat learn “the speech of his ancestors,” and promised that he would encourage the little ones to practise “American” together when at home.

So Pat and Pan went to the Mission school, and for the first time in their lives suffered themselves to be divided, for Pat had to sit with the boys and tiny Pan had a little red chair near Miss Harrison, beside which were placed a number of baby toys. Pan was not supposed to learn, only to play.

But Pan did learn. In a year’s time, although her talk was more broken and babyish, she had a better English vocabulary than had Pat. Moreover, she could sing hymns and recite verses in a high, shrill voice; whereas Pat, though he tried hard enough, poor little fellow, was unable to memorize even a sentence. Naturally, Pat did not like school as well as did Pan, and it was only Miss Harrison’s persistent ambition for him that kept him there.

One day, when Pan was five and Pat was seven, the little girl, for the first time, came to school alone.

“Where is Pat?” asked the teacher.

“Pat, he is sick today,” replied Pan.

“Sick!” echoed Miss Harrison. “Well, that is too bad. Poor Pat! What is the matter with him?”

“A big dog bite him.”

That afternoon, the teacher, on her way to see the bitten Pat, beheld him up an alley busily engaged in keeping five tops spinning at one time, while several American boys stood around, loudly admiring the Chinese feat.

The next morning Pat received five strokes from a cane which Miss Harrison kept within her desk and used only on special occasions. These strokes made Pat’s right hand tingle smartly; but he received them with smiling grace.

Miss Harrison then turned to five year old Pan, who had watched the caning with tearful interest.

“Pan!” said the teacher, “you have been just as naughty as Pat, and you must be punished too.”

“I not stay away flom school!” protested Pan.

“No,”—severely—“you did not stay away from school; but you told me a dog had bitten Pat, and that was not true. Little girls must not say what is not true. Teacher does not like to slap Pan’s hands, but she must do it, so that Pan will remember that she must not say what is not true. Come here!”

Pan, hiding her face in her sleeve, sobbingly arose.

The teacher leaned forward and pulling down the uplifted arm, took the small hand in her own and slapped it. She was about to do this a second time when Pat bounded from his seat, pushed Pan aside, and shaking his little fist in the teacher’s face, dared her in a voice hoarse with passion:

“You hurt my Pan again! You hurt my Pan again!”

They were not always lovers—those two. It was aggravating to Pat, when the teacher finding he did not know his verse, would turn to Pan and say:

“Well, Pan, let us hear you.”

And Pan, who was the youngest child in school and unusually small for her years, would pharisaically clasp her tiny fingers and repeat word for word the verse desired to be heard.

“I hate you, Pan!” muttered Pat on one such occasion.

Happily Pan did not hear him. She was serenely singing:

“Yesu love me, t’is I know, For the Bible tell me so.”

But though a little seraph in the matter of singing hymns and repeating verses, Pan, for a small Chinese girl, was very mischievous. Indeed, she was the originator of most of the mischief which Pat carried out with such spirit. Nevertheless, when Pat got into trouble, Pan, though sympathetic, always had a lecture for him. “Too bad, too bad! Why not you be good like me?” admonished she one day when he was suffering “consequences.”

Pat looked down upon her with wrathful eyes.

“Why,” he asked, “is bad people always so good?”

III

The child of the white woman, who had been given a babe into the arms of the wife of Lum Yook, was regarded as their own by the Chinese jeweller and his wife, and they bestowed upon him equal love and care with the little daughter who came two years after him. If Mrs. Lum Yook showed any favoritism whatever, it was to Pat. He was the first she had cradled to her bosom; the first to gladden her heart with baby smiles and wiles; the first to call her Ah Ma; the first to love her. On his eighth birthday, she said to her husband: “The son of the white woman is the son of the white woman, and there are many tongues wagging because he lives under our roof. My heart is as heavy as the blackest heavens.”

“Peace, my woman,” answered the easy-going man. “Why should we trouble before trouble comes?”

When trouble did come it was met calmly and bravely. To the comfortably off American and wife who were to have the boy and “raise him as an American boy should be raised,” they yielded him without protest. But deep in their hearts was the sense of injustice and outraged love. If it had not been for their pity for the unfortunate white girl, their care and affection for her helpless offspring, there would have been no white boy for others to “raise.”

And Pat and Pan? “I will not leave my Pan! I will not leave my Pan!” shouted Pat.

“But you must!” sadly urged Lum Yook. “You are a white boy and Pan is Chinese.”

“I am Chinese too! I am Chinese too!” cried Pat.

“He Chinese! He Chinese!” pleaded Pan. Her little nose was swollen with crying; her little eyes red-rimmed.

But Pat was driven away.

* * * * *

Pat, his schoolbooks under his arm, was walking down the hill, whistling cheerily. His roving glance down a side street was suddenly arrested.

“Gee!” he exclaimed. “If that isn’t Pan! Pan, oh, Pan!” he shouted.

Pan turned. There was a shrill cry of delight, and Pan was clinging to Pat, crying: “Nice Pat! Good Pat!”

Then she pushed him away from her and scanned him from head to foot.

“Nice coat! Nice boot! How many dollars?” she queried.

Pat laughed good-humoredly. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Mother bought them.”

“Mother!” echoed Pan. She puckered her brows for a moment.

“You are grown big, Pat,” was her next remark.

“And you have grown little, Pan,” retorted Pat. It was a year since they had seen one another and Pan was much smaller than any of his girl schoolfellows.

“Do you like to go to the big school?” asked Pan, noticing the books.

“I don’t like it very much. But, say, Pan, I learn lots of things that you don’t know anything about.”

Pan eyed him wistfully. finally she said: “O Pat! A-Toy, she die.”

“A-Toy! Who is A-Toy?”

“The meow, Pat; the big gray meow! Pat, you have forgot to remember.”

Pat looked across A-Toy’s head and far away.

“Chinatown is very nice now,” assured Pan. “Hum Lock has two trays of brass beetles in his store and Ah Ma has many flowers!”

“I would like to see the brass beetles,” said Pat.

“And father’s new glass case?”

“Yes.”

“And Ah Ma’s flowers?”

“Yes.”

“Then come, Pat.”

“I can’t, Pan!”

“Oh!”

Again Pat was walking home from school, this time in company with some boys. Suddenly a glad little voice sounded in his ear. It was Pan’s.

“Ah, Pat!” cried she joyfully. “I find you! I find you!”

“Hear the China kid!” laughed one of the boys.

Then Pat turned upon Pan. “Get away from me,” he shouted. “Get away from me!”

And Pan did get away from him—just as fast as her little legs could carry her. But when she reached the foot of the hill, she looked up and shook her little head sorrowfully. “Poor Pat!” said she. “He Chinese no more; he Chinese no more!”

THE CROCODILE PAGODA

When the father of Chung and Choy returned from the big city where lived their uncle, he brought each of his little girls a present of a pretty, painted porcelain cup and saucer. Chung’s was of the blue of the sky after rain, and on the blue was painted a silver crane and a bird with a golden breast. Choy’s cup was of a milky pink transparency, upon which light bouquets of flowers appeared to have been thrown; it was so beautiful in sight, form, and color that there seemed nothing in it to be improved upon. Yet was Choy discontented and envied her sister, Chung, the cup of the blue of the sky after rain. Not that she vented her feelings in any unseemly noise or word. That was not Choy’s way. But for one long night and one long day after the pretty cups had been brought home, did Choy remain mute and still, refusing to eat her meals, or to move from the couch upon which she had thrown herself at sight of her sister’s cup. Choy was sulking.

On the evening of the long day, little Chung, seated on her stool by her mother’s side, asked her parent to tell her the story of the picture on the vase which her father had brought from the city for her mother. It was a charming little piece of china of a deep violet velvet color, fluted on top with gold like the pipes of an organ, and in the centre was a pagoda enamelled thereon in gold and silver. Chung knew that there must be a story about that pagoda, for she had overheard her father tell her mother that it was the famous Crocodile Pagoda.

“There are no crocodiles in the picture. Why is it called a crocodile pagoda?” asked Chung.

“Listen, my Jes’mine flower,” replied the mother. She raised her voice, for she wished Choy, her Orchid Flower, also to hear the story.

“Once upon a time, there was a big family of crocodiles that lived in a Rippling River by a beach whose sands were of gold. The young crocodiles had a merry life of it, and their father and mother were very good and kind to them. But one day, the young crocodiles wanted to climb a hill back of the beach of golden sand, and the parents, knowing that their children would perish if allowed to have their way, told them: ‘Nay, nay.’

“The young crocodiles thereupon scooped a large hole in the sand and lay down therein. For half a moon they lived there, without food or drink, and when their parents cried to them to come out and sport as before in the Rippling River, they paid no attention whatever, so sadly sulky their mood.

“One day there came along a number of powerful beings, who, when they saw the golden sands of the Rippling River, exclaimed: ‘How gloriously illuminating is this beach! Let us build a pagoda thereon.’ They saw the hole which the young crocodiles had made, but they could not see the hole-makers at the bottom thereof. So they set to work and filled the hole, and on top thereof they built a great pagoda. That is the pagoda of the picture on the vase.”

“And did the children crocodiles never get out?” asked Chung in a sad little voice.

“No, daughter,” replied the mother. “After the pagoda was on top of them they began to feel very hungry and frightened. It was so dark. They cried to their father and mother to bring them food and find them a way to the light; but the parent crocodiles, upon seeing the pagoda arise, swam far away. They knew that they never more should see their children. And from that day till now, the young crocodiles have remained in darkness under the pagoda, shut off forever from the light of the sun and the Rippling River.”

“Please, honorable mother,” spake a weak little voice, “may I have some tea in my pretty, pink porcelain cup?”

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Transcriber’s Note

Several words appear with and without hyphenation, and are retained as printed: passersby/passers-by, everyday/every-day, singsong/sing-song, doorstep/door-step.

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.

3.11 comforted Mrs. Spring Fragrance[,] Added. 4.22 said Mr[.] Spring Fragrance Added. 36.6 but schoolgirls in comparison.[”] Added. 50.21 in a long yellow book[.] Added. 114.26 “Oh![”] I cried, Added. 119.28 ‘Let me pass, sir,[’] Added. 119.29 in that tone of voice.[’]” Removed. 146.29 think of no reply to Lin [W/F]o’s speech. Replaced. 152.21 At these word[s] the girl bent Added. 171.22 [“]She seems less every day,” Added. 172.12 “Then,[”] said the young fellow, Added. 174.21 The lawyer moved le[si/is]urely Transposed. 228.8 a little mouse sq[u]eaked it Inserted. 281.17 making worse my broken wing[?/.] Replaced. 284.15 answered the other birds.[”] Removed. 315.10 smile and sing whe[n]ever she had the baby Inserted. 328.28 She [was] interested Inserted.