This was rather unusual, for Uncle Theodore rarely sings, and I am sure I do not know what he meant by it.
By reason of the relationship, Cousin Ned feels free to come to the house without ceremony at all hours of the day. Most of the time he is wearing a "sweater," with a large letter on the breast.
March 30th, 1——
Aunt Gwendolin decided, soon after I came, that I must begin at once to take lessons in Spanish. The teachers are now visiting the house daily, one to teach me the Spanish language, and the other to instruct me how to sing Spanish songs. Señor de Bobadilla has just been here, and I have been screeching away for half an hour in a small room where my aunt has had a piano placed specially for my use. She says she is not going to "bring me out"—that means introduce me to society, grandmother says; that was one of the puzzling questions I carried to her—until I can sing Spanish songs. I see through it all, because of the conversation I heard through the floor opening; she thinks by that means to convince her society friends that I am Spanish instead of Chinese. How very funny!
There was a small dinner-party at this house the other evening, but of course I could not be at the table. I have not "come out." Grandmother argued for my appearing, but Aunt Gwendolin was firm to the contrary, and she won. Ancestors are not much regarded in America.
My aunt gave me permission, however, to look in on the guests when they were seated at the table. She had a large mirror fastened to the door, and by leaving it open at a particular angle I could watch—myself unseen behind a curtain—the ceremony of dining as practised in America.
Mercy! those women with bare arms and bare shoulders sitting there before the men! How could they help blushing for themselves! I just gave one glance at them, then ran away and hid my face!
Having the evening to myself, I went up to my room and enjoyed myself reading my Chinese books. My aunt said that I was to stay at the curtained door, and learn the ways of society by watching the manners of the guests at dinner; but I saw all I wanted to see in one glance. I'd like to carry all those women little shawls to put around their bare shoulders. Mrs. Delancy's was the barest of them all, but I have heard my aunt talk since about how "elegantly gowned Mrs. Delancy was."
A strange thing happened up in my room; I opened one of my books just at the page where it tells about the Chinese ambassadors, on the occasion of their visits to Christian countries, noticing with grave disapproval the décollete costumes of the women at the state functions. What wonder!—if they looked anything like the women at my aunt's dinner party!
Señor de Bobadilla says that I am making remarkable progress with my Spanish songs; he tells grandmother in a half-whisper, as if fearing to let me hear him, that I am very bright and intelligent; he congratulated her on having such a prodigy for a grandchild. Oh, cunning Señor de Bobadilla, you want to continue my lessons indefinitely. I am learning to quiver and shake, and trill, run up the scale, and down the scale, jump from a note away down low to a note away up high. I'll soon be able to sing "Lead me to the Light," as well as the church choir.
The professor looks very Spanish in brown velvet coat, red necktie, shoes shining like a looking-glass, a moustache waxed into long points on each side of his top lip, and hair hanging in a curling brown mat down to his shoulders. Seated at the piano, his thin yellow fingers sprawl over the white and black ivory keys, while in response to my efforts he keeps ejaculating, "Goot! Goot! Excellent! Superb!"
I, dressed in muslin, cream-coloured ground dashed over with wild roses, or blue ground with white chrysanthemums (the latter is not very becoming to my yellow skin) stand at his left hand stretching my mouth to the utmost, trying to give utterance to the tones he is striking on the piano, and trying to look Spanish, too.
Señor de la Prisa is teaching me the Spanish language—a lesson every day, and I am beginning to jabber the strange gibberish like a parrot: "Es un dia bonita. El viento es frio. Se esta haciendo tarde. Es temprano." I'll soon believe myself that I am really Spanish, and have never come from "the country of yellow gods and green dragons," as Uncle Theodore calls my dear native land.
I have been watching people, reading the daily newspapers and my Chinese books, and asking grandmother questions until I feel very wise. I am almost as wise as a real American now.
Some weeks following Mrs. Paton's Sunday visit to my grandmother, I was out for a short walk of pleasure when I overtook her. She was pleased to meet me again, she said, and we walked along together, chatting, at least she talked and I listened, sometimes asking questions.
"Just think of it, my dear," she said, "this is the day on which men are applying for licenses to sell poison to kill their fellow-men."
Then she told me story after story of the terrible misery caused by intoxicating drinks, and the sin and crime they caused people to commit, until I was almost in tears.
A noise of voices and tramping feet interrupted her, and there came around a corner, marching toward us, a long procession of men.
"Who are they?" I inquired, slipping my arm into hers. I had never before seen so many men together.
"Strikers," she returned sadly.
"Strikers?" I exclaimed.
"Yes," she added, "men who will not work until their employers pay them the amount they think they ought to be paid."
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! the great crowd passed us in long file, dusty, worn, hard-worked men. My heart swelled as I looked at their strained faces; I could not go any farther on my walk; I had to rush home to ask grandmother questions.
"Grandmother!" I cried, panting into her room, "strikes in a country that follows Christ!—And men asking for a license to sell poison to their fellow-men!"
I fell on my knees in front of her chair and sobbed, I could not have told why.
She took my face in her soft old withered hands, and holding it was about to speak, when my Aunt Gwendolin, who had overheard me, came into the room and cried indignantly:
"That crank of a Mrs. Paton has been talking to the girl; I know her very words. That woman should be forcibly restrained!"
Grandmother did not answer her, but continued to stroke my face until I grew quieter, and until my aunt had left the room. Then in reply to my many pointed questions she told me in brief, that the reason men got licenses to sell liquor was that they paid money for them, and the country granted them for the sake of the great revenue they brought into its treasury.
"Oh, grandmother!" I cried, raising my head from her lap, "when Britain tried to induce the Chinese Emperor to legalise the opium traffic because of the import duty, he said, 'Nothing shall induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people'!"—I had read all this in my books on China.
Grandmother was wiping away tears, and I said no more.
I went up to my own room, and half an hour later I heard my Uncle Theodore, to whom my grandmother had repeated my words, say:
"She is preternaturally sharp. No girl of this country thinks of the things she does. I suppose they develop younger in those Eastern climes."
"It is all new to her," said my grandmother; "she has just come in upon it and sees it with fresh eyes. The girls here have grown up with it and become used to it by degrees."
"Oh, it's that Oriental blood—half witch, half demon—that's at the bottom of all her tantrums. The Orientals are all a subtle lot, and we as a country are wise to make them stay at home," said my Aunt Gwendolin.
April 10, 1——
Aunt Gwendolin has discovered my Chinese books that I had intended to keep hidden in my room. She came in suddenly one day and found me seated in the midst of them.
"What's this? What's this?" she cried in great agitation. "How are we ever going to get you into the ways of Christianised, civilised folk if you keep feeding your mind on literature about uncivilised people?" And she gathered my books up into her arms and carried them away.
I have them all read, however, and she cannot carry away the thoughts they have left in my mind. What great creatures we human beings are! What a world with which no one else can meddle we can carry around in our little brains and hearts! It is all the same whether they are American or Chinese brains or hearts.
"I see now where she has gotten all her smart sayings about the Chinese," my aunt said to my grandmother and Uncle Theodore. "How can we ever hope to do anything with her when she is being poisoned by such stuff as is in those books? 'For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain' commend me to the Chinese!"
"I'll sicken her of the Chinese," she added: "I'll bring one into the kitchen to cook; then perhaps she'll feel more compunction about acknowledging that she is part Celestial. She actually seems as if she were proud of the fact now."
Grandmother remonstrated, but my aunt replied: "I have always been wanting to try a Chinese cook; they are really the world's cooks and so careful and clean, it is said. Then I would like to give Pearl enough of it. She will not be so fond of claiming kinship with the cook."
The result of all this was that inside of twenty-four hours a Chinaman was installed in the kitchen—and the biscuits are perfect.
His name is Yee Yick; of course he has three names, all Chinamen have; but trying to become Americanised they use only two in this country.
My aunt has decided that it is sufficient to call him Yick. "The English call their servants by their surnames," was all the explanation she made.
Yick is a dude; he has a suit for almost every day in the week, and is very vain of his appearance. His queue is rolled up around his head, which is a sign that he has not yet abandoned his home gods. He is very anxious to learn English, and Betty tells me that he has a slate hanging up in the kitchen on which he is writing English words every spare moment.
I had watched Yick a good deal, but I never exchanged a word with him, until the event occurred about which I am going to write; and I know he never dreamed that I could speak his language. Poor Yick! if he is "chief cook and bottle-washer," as my aunt says, he is my countryman, and I cannot help taking an interest in him.
One day I walked to the end of the veranda which runs the whole length of the house, and glancing in through the kitchen window as I passed, I saw Yick making his tea-biscuits. He had the flour and shortening all mixed, and raising the bowl of milk which was on the table, he took a great mouthful, and then began to force it out in a heavy spray through his teeth into the dish of prepared flour, in the same manner as the Chinese laundryman sprinkles clothes.
I wrung my hands, and cried within myself, "Oh, Yick, you terrible man! You horrible little pigtail!"
But I slipped back to the front of the veranda without making an audible sound. How could I tell on poor Yick, and bring down such an awful storm on his head as would result? He was a stranger in a strange land, and it was my duty to protect him. Was it such a very wicked thing he had done? He never killed little birds, anyway, and wore them on his head; nor trapped cunning little animals, and strung their heads and tails around his neck! I decided I would not tell on him.
But that evening at dinner I passed the plate of white, flaky biscuits without taking any. I sat at grandmother's left hand, and when she was not looking, I slipped the biscuit which she had taken away from her bread-and-butter plate, and let it slide from my hand down onto the floor. Dear, absent-minded grandmother never missed it. Aunt Gwendolin and Uncle Theodore ate three biscuits each.
"It seems to me that Yick keeps constantly improving in his biscuits," said my aunt, as she reached for her third.
"They ought to be better than other people at most everything," returned my Uncle Theodore, "they have been a long while practising. They may have been making biscuits before Moses was born. The Chinaman possesses a history which dwarfs the little day of modern nations. It is a saying of theirs that from the time heaven was spread and earth was brought into existence China can boast a continuous line of great men."
I looked pleased and smiled. My aunt seeing it said, with a toss of her head:
"A continuous line of great cooks and laundrymen."
That evening when my aunt and uncle were out, and grandmother had gone to bed, I slipped down to the kitchen and stood face to face with Yick.
He almost kotowed to me, but commanding him to stand up, I told him in plain Chinese that I had seen him mixing the biscuits, and disapproved of his plan.
His hair almost seemed to stand on end when he heard me speaking his native tongue. He started to tremble, and his knees bent under him.
"Yee Yick," I continued, in the language he thoroughly understood, "if you ever put the milk in your mouth again, and sift it out through your teeth into the flour, I shall inform the mistress of the house, and you shall be dismissed!"
Trembling all over Yick began rapidly in Chinese to promise that he would never, never be guilty of the act again. Then, as if scarcely able to believe that I could understand his native tongue, he repeated his promise in English.
"No, missee, Yee Yick not putee milk in mouthee! No, missee, Yee Yick not putee milk in mouthee!"
I assured him in Chinese that I would keep the secret of what I had seen on condition that he would keep his promise, and went out of the kitchen, leaving the poor fellow almost in tears. I believe he scarcely knows whether to regard me as a spirit or a being of flesh and blood, it is so hard for him to understand how I can speak Chinese.
The plumbers have closed up the hole in the floor, so I shall hear no more about the "wily Celestial."
April 20th, 1——
While I have been waiting to be prepared to "come out," I determined to walk around the streets and see some more of the doings of Americans. Grandmother gave her consent, with a warning to keep off certain streets.
"It is quite safe for a young girl to walk alone in most places in our country, thank God," said dear grandmother devoutly, "and I am very willing that you should look about you. I remember when I was a girl I liked to walk and see things, too."
But Aunt Gwendolin knocked the whole thing in the head—apparently.
"It is so plebeian for her to go tramping through the streets," she said to my grandmother. "Cannot she be satisfied to go out every day with us in the automobile? The grounds are spacious around this place, and she can have all the exercise she wants right here."
So the question was settled—to all appearance.
A week after my aunt's fiat I read in the daily newspaper that in the "House of Jacob," a certain Jewish synagogue downtown, there was conducted on a certain afternoon every week sewing classes for young Jewish girls. Instantly I decided that I wished to visit it, and see those "Children of Abraham," about whom grandmother had been teaching me in the Bible, those people who were God's favourites, and I set about laying plans to accomplish my desire.
Happily, when that afternoon came around, Aunt Gwendolin went out to a Bridge Party—I have not yet found out what that means, but I hoped that afternoon that she would have a good many bridges to cross, so it would keep her a long time away—and it was Betty's day out.
Previous to this I had found in a closet a black skirt and shawl formerly worn by grandmother, and a bonnet which she had laid aside.
As soon as my aunt had safely departed (I had seen Betty go an hour before), I hastily threw the heavy black satin skirt over mine, draped the black embroidered silk shawl around my shoulders, and tied on the bonnet. With a black chiffon veil, which was not very transparent, tied over my face, I felt very comfortable. It was quite proper for an elderly lady to go anywhere she wished.
Grandmother was taking her customary afternoon nap, as I slipped down the backstairs into the kitchen. Yick, preparing the flour for his biscuits, saw me and started. I could not keep my secret from him; I decided to take him into my confidence and trust him.
So lifting my veil, I looked at him markedly, and told him rapidly in Chinese that he was not to tell any one he had seen me.
He smiled, winked, and nodded knowingly, assuring me in voluble Chinese that he would keep my secret.
"You no tellee onee me," he said significantly, with grimaces and gesticulations.
Going out through the back door, and down through a lane at the back of the house, I was soon on the street.
Taking the street-cars—in which Aunt Gwendolin thinks it is very plebeian to ride—I was soon whirled down in front of the "House of Jacob."
What a mercy it is, in this curious America, that so many people are plebeian and ride in street-cars that they do not pay any attention to one another. Nobody noticed my grandmotherly garb.
A woman reporter entered the front door of the synagogue along with me, and I imagined that I was regarded with some deference—grandmother's old skirt and shawl are made of rich material.
I followed the reporter around the room in which the classes were held, a few yards in the rear.
There they were, a hundred or more little Jewish children, red-headed, black-headed, blonde-headed, and Jewish women had them arranged in groups, and were teaching them to sew.
"These little red-heads are typical Russian Jews," I heard the director of the ceremonies say to the reporter, "only in this country a few months. There's one that has the marked Jewish features," she added, pointing to another type of child. "They are all fond of jewellery—an Oriental trait."
Dear, dear, I only stayed a short time looking at them. They are not much different from others, those people who struck rocks and water gushed out, had manna and quails rained down on them, and walked through a wilderness led by a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. I have seen hundreds of Chinese who looked just as remarkable. I cannot understand why God showed partiality to Abraham's children.
I went out onto the street again, and wandered on till I came to what I recognized as Chinese quarters. There were the laundries of Hoy Jan, Lem Tong, Lee Ling, and the shops and warehouses of Moy Yen, Man Hing, and Cheng Key. The dear names; it did me almost as much good to look at them as it could to make a visit to my own country.
As I walked down the quiet street, a wistful oval face looked down on me from a window. A Chinese woman's face, and the first I had seen since coming to America. Stepping into a little shop near by, a shop containing preserved ginger, curious embroidered screens, little ivory elephants and jade ornaments, I asked who lived in the house where I saw the face at the window, and was informed that it was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Lee Yet.
It was drawing near dinner time in my grandmother's house; already I had stayed out longer than I had intended: I had no time to investigate further regarding Mrs. Yet.
When I got back to the house I found that my aunt had returned before me, but fortunately had not noticed my absence.
When Yick walked into the dining room with the steaming plum-pudding for our dinner, Aunt Gwendolin said:
"Yick, who was that little old woman I saw coming up our back lane half an hour ago?"
"Me nevee see no little old womee," returned Yick, with a child-like smile.
"How stupid those Chinese are," said my aunt, when Yick had left the room. "I certainly saw an old woman, and there that creature never saw her!"
The Creature had helped a young woman take off her black bonnet and shawl, and escape up the backstairs half an hour before.
I suppose it's "that Oriental blood—half witch, and half demon" that's at the bottom of my tantrum of this afternoon.
April 25th, 1——
Mrs. Paton has been in to make another Sunday visit to grandmother; she is an old friend and privileged to come when she chooses—and as before I had the privilege of hearing her talk.
"We are calling ourselves a Christian country," she said to grandmother, "and yet we care more for pleasure than for anything else. An actress is paid more money in one month than a preacher of the Gospel is paid in a year. Does not that show what the people of our country care most for? Going over to Christianise the heathen forsooth! We are not following Christ ourselves! What an example we set them! How can we expect them to think much of our religion when they see it has done so little for us?
"Christianity is despised, and rightly so. It is called cant, and so it is; going around with the Bible under its arm, and never obeying its precepts. We want more men overturning the tables of the money-changers, and upsetting the commercialism that is grinding other men down to starvation!"
Dear grandmother was not argumentative, and gently assented to all her visitor was saying.
"When this country is really following Christ itself," continued the visitor, "we shall see our wealthy men, instead of using their wealth to build palaces, and to minister to the pride of themselves in a thousand forms, choosing to lead the simple life, with personal expenditure cut down to a minimum, and their ability to minister to others increased to a maximum; in short we will find them following in the footsteps of their Lord. Man is really the richer as he decreases his wants, and increases his capacity to help."
When she rose to leave, at the end of an hour's chat, she said very solemnly to me as she held my hand in a farewell clasp:
"My dear, each man and woman is born with an aptitude to do something impossible to any other. You have an aptitude that the world has no match for. It is your aptitude for your own peculiar and immediate duty."
Oh, how solemn the words look as I write them down. What can my duty be? I wonder when I am going to find out. Aunt Gwendolin thinks it is to sing Spanish songs, I know; she firmly believes that to be my own peculiar and immediate duty. Grandmother thinks it is to study the Bible. And Uncle Theodore thinks it is to look artistically dressed. I have not come to a conclusion yet as to what I think myself.
When I get so terribly lonesome in this America that I cannot stand it any longer, I get Betty to steal down my yellow silk out of the box in the attic, the one trimmed with green dragons, and I dress up in it, and put on my head the pretty embroidered band that the Chinese women wear instead of the hideous hats of America, and sweep up and down the room like a peacock with a spreading tail, Betty going into raptures over my appearance, sometimes laughing hysterically, and sometimes almost in tears, because they have "no such grand clothes in America." If Aunt Gwendolin hears a noise and comes trailing along the hall, I jump into bed and cover myself up, yellow silk and all, and Betty proceeds to bathe my head for a headache—I really have one by that time.
How many foreigners they have in this great country, Shanghai roosters, Turkey hens, Persian cats, Arabian horses. I wonder do all those foreign creatures feel something calling them back, back to their own country?
Cousin Ned spends most all his time at grandmother's at present. He had his arm broken at a baseball game, and is carrying it in a sling.
April 30th, 1——
We had the pleasure of Professor Ballington's company at lunch to-day—Uncle Theodore had him down in his office on some business, and insisted on his coming home and lunching with him.
When he and my uncle walked in unannounced they found grandmother, Aunt Gwendolin, and me in the sitting-room.
The professor shook hands with me in a very friendly manner; he really seemed pleased to see me. Oh, it is awfully nice for a girl in a strange land, feeling alone and lonesome, to have some one glad to see her. He had not spoken to me since that morning my uncle introduced me to him, but he has seen me a number of times when I have been out in the carriage with my grandmother and aunt.
He seated himself beside me, and we were just beginning to chat pleasantly when my Aunt Gwendolin said:
"You have not heard our little Dependency sing, Professor Ballington?"
Grandmother's cheeks flushed, and Uncle Theodore looked embarrassed.
"Pearl, dear," she added sweetly, addressing me, "give us one of your stirring Spanish songs before we go to lunch. You can sing better before lunch than after."
In obedience to the request—which I felt to be a command—I went to the piano and sang lightly the only Spanish song I could sing.
All the hearers seemed pleased with my effort. Professor Ballington looked calmly at me, but a smile lay behind his blue eyes. What did that smile mean?
We immediately sat down to lunch, and I was saved the embarrassment of having to tell that I could only sing one Spanish song. I guess Aunt Gwendolin made sure that no such a dilemma should occur.
By some stray remark of Uncle Theodore's, the conversation at the table turned on what he calls the "Asiatic Problem."
"Those dreadful Asiatics," interposed Aunt Gwendolin, "so sly and subtle, they certainly should be shut out. They are a menace to any country."
"Above all nations is humanity," smilingly returned Professor Ballington.
"Especially those inferior people, the Chinese," added my aunt.
"We can scarcely call the Chinese inferior, Miss Morgan," returned Professor Ballington. (How I wanted to give him a hug!) "The Chinaman despises our day of small things. Like the Jew he possesses a great national history which dwarfs that of all other nations. The golden era of Confucius lies back five hundred years before the coming of Christ, and the palmy days of the Chan dynasty antedate the period of David and Solomon."
"Oh, yes," said my aunt curtly, "but what has he accomplished in all that time? We regard them as a nation of laundrymen."
"And they regard us as a nation of shopkeepers, and express lofty contempt for our greed of gain," said the professor.
"The idea!" said my aunt scornfully; "the fact is I always feel inclined to relegate the yellow-skinned denizens of China to the brute kingdom. Think of the dreadful things that happen there! Life itself is of small account to them!"
"One of our own writers," returned the professor, "says, 'Life is safer in Pekin than in New York.' Another writer adds, 'Chicago beats China for official dishonesty!'"
"It is a nation which for thousands of years has set more store by education than any other nation under the sun," said Uncle Theodore, "I have been reading up about them lately" (that's because of me) "and it is perfectly astonishing, their high ideals. There are clearly marked gradations in society, and the highest rank is open only to highly educated men. First, the scholar; because mind is superior to wealth. Second, the farmer; because the mind cannot act without the body, and the body cannot exist without food and raiment. Third, the mechanic; because next to food and raiment shelter is necessary. Fourth, the tradesman; men to carry on exchange and barter become a necessity. And last of all the soldier; because his business is to destroy, and not to build up society. How does that compare with our country which makes more of the destroyer than of any other citizen? No man in China can rise to any position of responsibility except by education; money in this country will carry a man into the legislature if he cannot write his own name."
"Chinese ethics are grand," added the professor. "Listen to the teaching of Lao Teh. 'I would meet good with good, but I would also meet evil with good, confidence with confidence—distrust with confidence. Virtue is both good and trustful.'"
"There isn't a doubt that they are a wonderful people," returned Uncle Theodore. "When our ancestors were wandering about in sheep-skins and goat-skins—if in any other skins but their own—China had a civilisation. Wrong seems to be not a question of right with us, but of might. We do not attempt to stop people taking chances on the stock exchange; taking such chances is perfectly legal, but taking chances in a lottery is a serious offence. If a Chinaman takes chances in a little game which he understands, the morals of the community are endangered, and the poor Celestial must be hurried off to jail. We civilised people allow betting at a horse-race, and disallow it in other places. It is only the uninfluential people we send to jail for violation of the law."
They talked back and forth in an animated way for some time. I was dying to speak, but did not dare; but I am sure that once in the heat of the argument, Professor Ballington shot a glance across the table at me which spoke volumes. The same smile was in his eyes that was there when I sang for him my one Spanish song. What did he mean? Can he guess? Does he know that I am not Spanish?—that I am the Yellow Pearl?
May 5th, 1——
A very important item has appeared in the newspaper to-day—poor Lee Yet has fallen into trouble; rather, other people are trying to get him into trouble, and his wife, the little oval-faced Mrs. Yet, has been subpœnaed to appear as a witness in his behalf.
That dear little sad woman to have to go to court before all those Americans! "She shall not be studied and laughed at as a curiosity. She shall be dressed up like an American woman!" I declared as soon as I read the item.
In pursuance of my idea this afternoon, I a second time donned grandmother's garments—lucky that grandmother and I are the same height—and a second time left the house unnoticed by any one except Yick.
How very much at home I feel in the garments of an elderly gentlewoman! Perhaps I am walking around the world the eighteen-year-old reincarnation of some dear, silken-clad old granny who inhabited this sphere hundreds of years ago.
I quickly found my way down to the home of Mrs. Yet, and rapped at the door.
It was opened by the little woman herself, who looked even sadder than when I first saw her. I addressed her in Chinese and lifting my veil, told her that I had come to make her a visit. She smiled in a pleased way, opened wide the door, and invited me into the house. She had never noticed the discrepancy between my antiquated dress and young face, and was blissfully unconscious that my garments were fifty years (more or less) out of date.
On my entrance something small and pink moved behind a wire screen in the corner of the room, and Mrs. Yet clipclapped across the floor in her Chinese sandals, and picked up a little bundle of Chinese life, saying:
"This my baby. He eighteen month. He sick—get tooth—got one tooth."
We talked about the baby, she sometimes speaking in Chinese, and sometimes in broken English, until we felt acquainted. Then I said:
"Mrs. Yet, I see by the newspaper that you will have to appear in court to give evidence in behalf of your husband. You do not want to go there in Chinese dress to be the subject of curiosity, and newspaper remark?"
The trouble which had left her face while she was talking about the baby, reappeared, and tears gathered in her almond eyes.
It was more than I could stand, and I cried, "Don't! Don't! Mrs. Yet—I have come to make things all right—I, your country-woman—speaking your own language. I am going to give myself the pleasure of dressing you like an American woman."
She remonstrated politely but I urged so strongly that at last she yielded; and it seemed when she did so as if a great burden had rolled from off her pale little face.
Immediately I went out to one of the great stores and ordered several costumes for her to "fit on"—I wasn't a child any longer. Grandmother's rich old skirt and shawl carried weight a second time (they could not see my face distinctly through the veil), for without hesitation a woman was despatched with the costumes.
This woman expert worked over the little Mrs. Yet, pinching, and pulling, and puckering, after the manner of American dressmakers, until she had her resplendent in a rich maroon-coloured wool costume, which exactly suited her olive skin, and made her almost a beauty.
At last the costume was satisfactorily settled and paid for. Oh, it is nice to have plenty of money to pay for all one wants. Father left me plenty (and although I do not control it until I come of a certain age, I get a liberal monthly instalment). I then went to a milliner's and bought a hat of a shade to harmonise with the costume. It was trimmed with ribbon, and deep, rich, maroon roses, and just looked too sweet for anything. "Youthful and stylish," as the milliner said. Why not? Mrs. Yet is young, and she has just as good a right to look stylish as any American woman!
Happy? I should say I am! I never was happier in my life than I am to-night; even if I did steal out in grandmother's old clothes, and am a "sly, subtle Oriental."
May 10th, 1——
The Court met to-day, and there has appeared in the evening papers this notice:
"A novelty in the shape of a Chinese woman witness appeared in the Sessions yesterday. Mrs. Lee Yet went into the box in behalf of her husband. Her trim little figure was becomingly attired in a dark-red, tailored costume, and a reddish trimmed hat set off to perfection her rich Oriental complexion and features, beautiful in their national type. She gave her evidence without an interpreter, and did much toward clearing her husband of the accusations falsely laid against him."
Oh, isn't it delightful to think that I have been instrumental in bringing all this to a happy issue! I shall carry this newspaper down to Mrs. Yet's home, and read to her this pleasing paragraph.
May 11th, 1——
A "Windfall," as Uncle Theodore calls it, has come to the family; grandmother was quite a "well-to-do" woman before, now she is a rich woman. Some investments in mines that grandfather made years ago have turned out to be of marvellous value, and the result is that my grandmother, my Uncle Theodore, my Aunt Gwendolin have greatly increased in wealth.
Aunt Gwendolin wanted to change the form of our living at once; she would introduce a page and a butler to our household staff. But grandmother said she was accustomed to a quiet life and preferred it. She insists, in spite of my aunt's protests, that a Chinese cook, a house-maid, a laundress, a gardener, and that lovely chauffeur ought to be enough to attend to the wants of four people.
Aunt Gwendolin stormed, and said it was so common to live as we did, that the English always kept a butler; but grandmother was firm. Another example that mothers in America can rule in the house if they wish.
Grandmother seemed a good deal concerned about this sudden acquisition of wealth. "An addition of silver to bell-metal does not add to the sweetness of the tone," she said. "I fear an undue proportion of silver impairs more than bells."
May 13th, 1——
"BULLS AND BEARS IN A HARD STRUGGLE OVER WHEAT." Uncle Theodore read the great headline from his evening paper.
"Wild scenes prevailed to-day at the Board of Trade," he continued, "when John Smith began taking in his profits on wheat. It is estimated that he made a profit of over three hundred thousand in less than half an hour. Altogether he has cleared more than five millions on his wheat deal, and that within six months."
"Dear me! Dear me!" cried grandmother, "and people dying for want of bread!"
"Well," returned Uncle Theodore, "Smith is only a highly sensitive product of our so-called civilisation; the civilisation we are rushing and straining to carry to the quiet, unassuming people whom we call heathen. They have no millionaires, made so at the expense of their brothers. When we teach them all the graft, lynching, homicide, enormities of trusts, railroads, new religions, and quack remedies, we shall have them civilised."
"Christianity has to blush for Christendom," sighed grandmother.
I have been asking grandmother since how bulls and bears could struggle over wheat; and she tells me that the strugglers are not four-footed beasts at all, but men. I see how it is, bulls and bears are both cantankerous animals, which, if they come in conflict about anything, are sure to have a fight; and men who have given evidence of like natures have been called after those fierce animals. It must be that way. I have asked grandmother whether that is not the way they came by their names, and she said she supposed it must be.
May 21st, 1——
My poor despised people have fallen upon hard lines. Lee Yet met with an accident on the street and had to be taken to the hospital where he must remain for weeks, and the day following Mrs. Yet was stricken down with diphtheria.
I was out in the automobile with grandmother and Aunt Gwendolin and chancing to pass the house of Lee Yet, I saw the awful word "Diphtheria." in black letters on a scarlet ground, tacked to the door.
That night when all his day's work was done I gave Yick a coin and asked him to go down and learn who was stricken with the disease.
He came back with the intelligence that it was poor little Mrs. Yet, and that there was no one waiting on her.
Fortunately the next afternoon Aunt Gwendolin went to "bridge," and again donning grandmother's garments, I slipped out of the house and down to the home of Mrs. Yet.
Meeting the doctor at the door, just as he was coming out, I ordered him to engage a nurse.
He looked at me in surprise, but I paid in advance for a week's service, so he could do nothing but obey me.
Opening the door I went into the front room of the little home and found the Celestial baby fretting away in its cradle just as any other baby would fret if left to itself. I began to call it all sorts of pet names in Chinese, and the little slant-eye cooed and smiled back at me as if he really liked it.
A Chinese neighbour woman came in and told me that the baby was to be kept in the front room, while its mother was quarantined in a room upstairs. She further informed me that she came in twice a day to feed the baby, and the rest of the time he was alone.
"I have it! I have it!" I cried exultingly to my own interior self, "I know now my aptitude! I know now what I can do that is impossible to any other; it surely is impossible to any other—in this nation of an hour—to jabber the Chinese I can jabber to this eighteen months' old baby! I shall come here and take care of him, while the trained nurse is taking care of the mother upstairs. I'll come for awhile every day anyway, and will pay the Chinese woman, who cannot leave her laundry-minding in the daytime, to take care of him at night! He's just as much a dear human baby as any purple-and-fine-linen American baby!"
How fortune favoured me that evening! Aunt Gwendolin announced that she was going in the morning on a month's visit to another city.
She was not much more than out the door the following day when I asked grandmother's permission to go where I liked every afternoon of the week.
Dear grandmother remonstrated a little—for fear I might tire myself too much—or might go where it was not wise to go, etc., etc. But I coaxed, and I won the day.
A strange event happened the very first afternoon. Just as I had passed through the lane at the rear of the house, who should be standing there at the back gate but the chauffeur, beside the automobile. He knew me despite my grandmotherly garb (as I had commenced going to the house of Mrs. Yet in grandmother's black shawl, bonnet, and skirt, I thought it better to continue doing so), politely touched his cap, and said if I had far to go it would take him but a few minutes to whirl me there in the automobile.
He is very good looking, and a gentleman. Uncle Theodore says he is a student who is taking this means to earn money further to pursue his medical studies. Sometimes Uncle Theodore familiarly calls him "Sawbones."
Nodding my assent, I entered the car, gave my directions, and soon was down in front of Mrs. Yet's small house.
I lifted the fretting little baby out of his cradle as soon as I entered, washed and dressed him, he kicking and squirming just as I suppose any other baby kicks and squirms. All the fear I had was that he would roll out of my hands, he was such a slippery little eel when his body was wet.
Where did I learn how to wash and dress a baby? I must have known how by instinct, for I never did it, or saw it done before. The Chinese woman who keeps the little Oriental at night told me the articles that went next the skin, and I had no trouble guessing about where to put the others. After one or two attempts I did it as well as a mother of twenty babies.
Every day I am being conveyed down to my duties in the automobile. The chauffeur seemed to divine that I would go out every afternoon (perhaps because Aunt Gwendolin was away) without my telling him, and is always waiting at the little rear gate in the back street to obey my commands.
What a delightful time we are having! "When the cat's away the mice can play!"
Dear grandmother has never seen me either leave or return to the house, but necessarily Yick and Betty are both into the secret.
"'For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,' commend me to the Chinese."
May 22d, 1——
A most impressive occurrence has transpired, as Mrs. Paton would say. Just as I was coming out of Mrs. Yet's house this afternoon who should be passing but Professor Ballington!
I had not yet dropped my black chiffon veil, and glancing down from his great height of six feet, he looked me full in the face.
At the same instant he saw the word, "Diphtheria," in the great black letters on a scarlet ground, and stopping he exclaimed:
"Why, Miss Pearl! This is a surprise! Do you know where you are—what risk you are running? Diphtheria is contagious—very!"
"I know," I replied, "but some one has to mind a little Chinese baby in there. Its father is in the hospital, and its mother is shut in a room upstairs with diphtheria, and there is no one to stay all afternoon with the baby if I do not. He's a Chinese baby, and of no account in America," I added. (I came within one of telling him that I was the only one who could call him pet names in the language he could understand; wouldn't Aunt Gwendolin have taken a fit?) "I just had to come," I pleaded, seeing his look of disapproval. "Each man and woman is born with an aptitude to do something impossible to any other, an aptitude that the world has no match for, Mrs. Paton says; and I have just found out that my aptitude, impossible to any other, is to mind this Chinese baby; no one else can match me in this!"
He looked less severe, almost kind, and half as if he could scarcely keep from laughing. Then he said, "Have you disinfectants? They are very necessary."
I shook my head, and he said:
"Come with me to a drug store and I will supply you with a stock."
And I, decked in my grandmother's cast-off clothes, walked along the street, and into the "Palace Drug Store" with the elegantly dressed and caned professor.
He didn't seem the least ashamed of me; indeed, he was so polite that I forgot for the moment that my dress was anything odd—forgot it until I saw a young man clerk looking at me in an amused way; then I dropped my thick veil.
The professor insisted on my taking a certain kind of lozenge to hold in my mouth while I was in the infected house, and ordered quantities and quantities of disinfectants carried there, giving me instruction as to how they should be used.
When we were walking back to the house of Mrs. Yet, the professor remarked that the Chinese were a people worth studying.
"Have you heard any of their poetry, Miss Pearl?" he questioned. And before I had time to reply—perhaps he thought he had no right to make me give an answer to that question, he is a "great philologist"—he continued: "Could anything be more exquisite than those lines to a plum blossom?