"A certain collection of Chinese lyrics," he continued, "'A Lute of Jade,' moved a London journal to observe that, the more we look into Chinese nature as revealed by this book of songs, the more we are convinced that our fathers were right in speaking of man's brotherhood. Here's another to a calycanthus flower:
"This is Wang Seng-Ju's tiny poem," he added, "I presume a great many people in this greatly enlightened America never ascribe any sentiment to the Chinaman:
The moon had appeared in all her full-orbed glory, although it was early twilight, and the professor looked at me so earnestly while quoting those words that I actually believe I blushed.
"Ou-Yang Hein penned those lines," he added, raising his hat in adieu. But before we parted I made him promise to write out for me the Chinese verses he had quoted; and it is his beautifully written lines I have copied. I am going to learn them off by heart. How I would love to recite them at one of Aunt Gwendolin's "Drawing-rooms!"
The professor had gone but a few paces when he returned to inquire what hospital poor Lee Yet was in, saying that he would go around and see how he was faring.
"This is such a very selfish world," he added, as if half to himself, "I sometimes fear those poor foreigners that come to our shores get woefully treated."
That was lovely of him! After all, men are brothers under their skin. That was what their great man, Christ, taught—that all men are brothers; he did not except the Chinese, as some Americans want to do.
June 7th, 1——
Almost as soon as Mrs. Yet was pronounced well, and was allowed to go among people again and before Mr. Yet had left the hospital, Baby Yet fell seriously ill—his teeth.
He grew worse, and worse. Yick told me about it one day in a few concise Chinese words, which he snatched an opportunity to drop to me in passing through the dining room. The wily Celestial seems to understand, without being told, that no one is to know that he and I can exchange thoughts in our native tongue.
That afternoon I stole out again, and went down to the little Yet home. It was just as Yick had said, the baby was very ill.
He lay on his little pallet, white and still, almost unconscious, and his mother stood over him wringing her hands, and shedding bitter tears.
"Oh, my baby! My baby! He die and leave me! My heart break!" she cried in Chinese when she saw me. "Precious treasure! Precious treasure!" she continued, bending toward the almost inanimate form on the pallet.
The latter is the almost universal term of endearment in China, and no American mother ever agonised more bitterly than did that Chinese mother over that atom of herself lying before her.
I had to do something to comfort her, so I began to tell her about heaven. I, who was not sure that I could get to that blessed place myself (stealing out on the sly in a grandmother's clothes is not a very heavenly trick), said that whoever missed it, babies would be there.
"Will Chinese babies be there? They do not want them in America," she asked rapidly and tremblingly in Chinese.
"Certainly," I replied; and at that moment I seemed to have a vision of all the babies of this wide world that had died—black babies, brown babies, yellow babies, red babies (probably the colour of their skin was only the earth garb); I saw the whole throng, for grandmother had read to me from the Bible that of such was the kingdom of heaven.
"His tooth not bother him there?" she added.
"No," I returned, "there shall be no more pain there."
"He like it," she continued, almost smiling through her tears.
Then she grew very, very still, and a glow stole over her yellow face which made it beautiful.
I stepped nearer, put my arm around her, and kissed her on the cheek.
She looked at me in a startled way, then drawing a tiny handkerchief from her bosom, she carefully wiped the spot on her cheek where my lips had touched. The practice of kissing is unknown in China.
On the way home, when but a few yards from the house of Mrs. Yet, I met Professor Ballington again, and told him the story about the sick baby.
He asked me to go back with him, and take him in to see it, which I did. He looked scrutinisingly at the little hard pallet on which the baby lay; and what did that dear man do but go out to one of the great stores not far away, and buy the prettiest little cot, and the softest and best mattress that could be found in the market, and order them sent home without delay to that little yellow baby.
Was it the soft mattress that did it? I do not know; but almost immediately the baby seemed to rest easier, and by degrees came back to life and strength.
Oh, this would be a glorious country to live in!—if the people were all like Professor Ballington.
June 10th, 1——
I made my first visit to the theatre. Aunt Gwendolin said I should not go until I came out, but Uncle Theodore said he would take me himself, and defy all fashions and formalities.
"I enjoy seeing the little girl absorbing our civilisation," he said to grandmother; "sometimes I fancy it seems rather uncivilised to her."
Grandmother demurred a good deal; she said she did not know but I would be quite as well, or better, if I never went near a theatre. But Uncle Theodore said that was an old-fashioned idea that grandmother held to because of her Puritan ancestry; that it was generally conceded now that the theatre is a great educator, the greatest educator of the people extant to-day.
"There is going to be a world-renowned actress to-night, a star of first magnitude in the theatrical world," he added, "and I want my niece to have the advantage of hearing her."
I dressed my very prettiest for the occasion. Uncle Theodore always has an eye for the artistic in dress. I donned soft silks, soft ribbons, and soft feathers. It is one of my uncle's ideas that women should be softly clad; he absolutely hates anything hard, stiff, or masculine-looking on a woman.
When we entered the theatre the orchestra was playing most ravishing music. I could have stayed there all night and listened to it without tiring, I believe. It must be the American half of me that is the music-lover, for the Chinese are not very musical.
The boxes were full of wonderfully well-dressed men and women. How beautiful women can look in this great country, dressed in every colour of the rainbow! Men are of less account in America; but they looked well enough, too, in black coats and white shirt-bosoms.
After awhile the heavenly music stopped, the curtain on the stage rolled up, and the play began.
At first it was entrancing, magnificent—the stage-furnishings, gorgeously dressed women, clever-looking men, all acting a part—a lovely world without anything to mar it, right there in that small space of the stage before our eyes.
Then a woman, the star actress, came in wearing a very décolleté gown (I am getting hardened to them now), and began to talk in a manner I never had imagined people in good society would talk—right before those hundreds of men and women. I'll not write it down; I do not wish to remember it. But the party of women on the stage, instead of being shocked or ashamed, all laughed little, rippling, merry laughs. My cheeks burned, and I did not dare to look at anybody, not even Uncle Theodore.
After that I could not like the theatre any more and drawing away within myself, I looked and listened as if the actors had been hundreds of miles from me.
When the play was over and we were on the way home Uncle Theodore said: "If I had known the nature of the play, I would not have taken you to-night, Pearl."
"But I," I cried, "I am only one! There were hundreds of people being educated as well as I!"
Uncle Theodore turned and looked at me quickly; then he said coldly:
"My dear, you have a great deal yet to learn."
When we reached home I went at once upstairs to my room, and Uncle Theodore retired to his den.
Neither of us has ever mentioned the subject since.
Cousin Ned is around morning, noon, and night now. He is walking with a crutch, having had his shin kicked at a foot-ball match.
June 20th, 1——
I went with grandmother to-day on her weekly visit to the "Home for Incurable Children." Grandmother goes to carry her presents, and "to cheer up the little folk," she says; I went prompted by curiosity.
We were ushered in by a cheery, wholesome-looking maid who knew grandmother, and gave her the freedom of the house.
We first entered the ward where the older children were kept, and there grandmother distributed her books and pictures.
While she sat to rest I wandered from one cot to another, where white little faces looked up at me, pleasantly answering my questions, or volunteering information.
"I am a new patient," one midget said, with a placid air of importance.
"I'm goin' to have an operation to-morrow," said another exultingly.
"That's one blessed fact about children," said the attending nurse, "they never fret in anticipation. They look forward with positive pride to a new experience—even if it is an operation."
In one bright room three boys were playing a game of number-cards, one a hunchback, another with crippled lower limbs, and a third, seated on a long high bench, handling the cards with his toes, his arms and hands being useless.
The top part of the foot of the socks belonging to this last lad had been cut off, and he was picking the cards off the table with his bare toes; passing them from foot to foot, and replacing a certain card on the table, quite as expertly as another boy might do it with his fingers.
I walked into another room to see the little babies; blind, crooked-limbed, distorted, never going to be able to use their bodies properly.
"Why does God leave them here?" I demanded of grandmother as soon as we had reached the open air again.
"Perhaps," said grandmother quietly, "to give us the blessed privilege of acting the God toward them."
"Christianity means brotherhood, Pearl, dear," she added, after we had walked several yards in silence.
What a great country this America is! Caring for its ailing and crippled in such a beautiful way!
"Oh, China!" I cried, when I was all alone in my own room, "you would drown your blind, crooked-limbed, distorted babies, or throw them out on the hillsides to die! Oh, China! China! would you could come over here and see how America treats her 'weak and wounded, sick and sore?' These are the words of a church hymn."
I said something to this effect the same evening to grandmother, and she replied:
"Perhaps, my dear, it may be the duty of some of us to carry America to China."
Seaside, July 31st, 1——
We are at the seaside. It is the fashion in America for whole families to shut up their houses in hot weather and go off to some summer resort—the women of them—whether to be cool, or to be in the fashion I do not yet know. Grandmother wanted to go one place, Aunt Gwendolin to another, and Uncle Theodore, who said he might run over for a few Sundays, to yet another. At last a charming spot upon the Atlantic coast was decided upon. Uncle Theodore settled the question emphatically, because dear grandmother needed the revivifying influence of the sea air.
Aunt Gwendolin fretted a little at first for fear it might be humdrum, and commonplace, and for fear none of "our set" would be there; but she recovered from her depression when she heard that Mrs. Delancy, Mrs. Deforest, Mrs. Austin, and others of the same clique had also chosen that particular part of the coast as their recuperating place.
Mrs. Delancy dropped in one day to tell her that the whole fashionable tide had turned toward that coast this summer, and she knew we should have a "simply grand season."
Aunt Gwendolin's spirits rose after that, and she immediately went about ordering a most elaborate summer wardrobe—morning gowns, evening gowns, walking suits, yachting suits, bathing suits.
Uncle Theodore went ahead of the rest of the party and engaged a suite of rooms in the most fashionable hotel on the Beach, from the broad balconies of which the view of the sea is grand, and the air delicious.
Grandmother and I spend much time together. As I am not "out" Aunt Gwendolin says that I cannot attend any of the functions to which she is going daily—and nightly. I do not know what I miss by being obliged to stay away from the parties and balls, but I know it is very delightful wandering on the beach with grandmother, watching the lights, shades, and colours on the water, the dipping and skimming of the water birds, the movements of the lobster fishers, the going out and coming in of the tide, and all the many, many objects of interest around the great sea world; never caring whether I am fashionable or not fashionable, whether anybody is noticing me or not noticing me.
The only objects that I do not like to look at on this sea beach are the human bathers. The sea-gulls taking their bath are graceful, but, oh! those grown-up women in skirts up to their knees, and bare arms, wandering over the beach like great ostriches! They mar the picture of beauty which the earth and sky and sea unite to make, and I would shut them up if I had the power—or add more length to their bathing suits.
Perhaps the sea-gulls would not look graceful either if they had half their feathers off.
We were here a week when Professor Ballington came. We were all a little surprised to see him because he is not a "society man," as Aunt Gwendolin says. He does not appear to care much for "functions," and spends much time wandering on the beach. Grandmother and I meet him frequently.
One time when I went out for a little run before breakfast I found him staring at the great green sea that kept restlessly licking the sand at his feet. He looked lonesome, and I tried to say something to cheer him up. Then he asked permission to join me in my stroll, and we had a most delightful time, finding shells, and stones, the formations of various periods of time, Professor Ballington said. He seems to know everything. I do not wonder he cares so little for society, or the company of women in general. Strange how much more the men, the cultured men, the society men, of America know than the women! I suppose it is because the women have to spend so much time talking about the change of sleeves.
There was a dance one night in the ballroom, which is around at the opposite side of the house from our apartments, and leaving grandmother absorbed in her book, I slipped around on the balcony and peeped through the slats of the closed shutters on the dancers within.
All was in a whirl, and there I saw, with my own two eyes, men with their arms around the waists of women, whirling those same women around the great room in time to music played by an orchestra. It made me dizzy to look at them.
"Wouldn't that shock China!" I cried. "Shall I have to submit to that when I come out? Oh, why cannot I always stay in?"
I was so excited I did not know I was talking aloud, until the voice of Professor Ballington over my head said:
"You do not like the thought of coming out into society? You would like always to stay in domestic retirement?"
"Yes, yes," I said; "what can save me from coming out?"
"Marry some good man," he said, "and spend your energies making a quiet, happy home for him."
He was looking at me in a very peculiar way, and I felt frightened, I don't know why, and skipped along the balcony back to grandmother's sitting-room.
When I entered who should be there talking to grandmother but Mrs. Paton. She said she had felt lonesome without grandmother in the city, and had made up her mind to spend a week at the seaside.
"Oh, grandmother!" I cried, as soon as I had greeted Mrs. Paton, "shall I have to come out? Cannot I always stay in?"
Grandmother clasped my hand in hers, in the old way she had of quieting me, and explained to Mrs. Paton that I did not incline to the ways of society people, and had a dread of entering the world which Aunt Gwendolin loved so well.
"Give your life to some noble cause, my dear," said Mrs. Paton earnestly, turning her eyes upon me. "The world is in sore need of consecrated women. You could be a foreign missionary, or a home missionary. Oh, don't waste your life on the frivolity called Society!"
This is not Professor Ballington's advice. Which is right? How glad I am that in this "land of the free," I am not compelled to follow any will but my own!
August Seaside.
Well, I did get a surprise last evening while out strolling on the beach, for whom should I meet but "Sawbones," otherwise Chauffeur Graham. He is having summer holidays now, and before settling down to some work to make money for his autumn college expenses, he snatched a day to get a whiff of sea air, he said.
He seemed very pleased to see me, and I was delighted to see him, and extended my hand to him in cordial greeting.
I know Aunt Gwendolin would object to her niece shaking hands with the chauffeur—it was the medical man I shook hands with.
I stayed out there as long as I dared, and we had a lovely stroll along the beach in the moonlight, the waves whispering at our feet as we walked and talked. Chauffeur Graham said that it always seemed to him that the waves were coming from the many far-off lands with their incessant pleadings that we carry our enlightenment and advantages to the suffering places of the earth.
That was the medical man speaking in him. He must be noble or he would never hear those voices in the waves.
How I wish it were proper for me to give him some of the money I do not know what to do with, so that he could go on with his studies and not need to work between times to earn a pittance.
Grandmother says she is going to engage him again in the autumn, when we all return to the city; she knows him now, and feels safe in his hands, he is so careful.
"It is such a nuisance to have a man that you cannot command at any hour of the day—or night," said Aunt Gwendolin. "Make him understand, if you engage him again, that all his time belongs to us. These gentlemen chauffeurs who are straining after a university education are unendurable!"
"He shall have whatever time he wants for his studies or examinations. It is the least I can do to show my sympathy with his life work," returned my grandmother.
Another Stroll.
I had another stroll this evening on the beach with Chauffeur Graham—while Aunt Gwendolin was getting ready for the dance—and he told me something.
"When I am through with my medical course," he said, "I intend to go to China to practise what I have learned."
I stopped suddenly in my walk and faced him. "Why are you going to China?" I demanded.
It makes me indignant to have this nation, an infant in years, patronising my hoary-headed Empire!
"If a man is going to do his duty by the world," he returned, "he will go where his work is most needed. They have no native medical school in China.
"They are a great people," he added after a short pause, "likely to be in the van of the world's march in the ages to come; and I want to have a hand in getting them ready. Napoleon said, 'When China moves she will move the world.' All the broken legs will be set in this country whether I am here to set them or not; I want to go where they will not be set unless I do it."
I repeated the lines which I had heard them sing in the church.
"That's about the way it is," he returned, looking at me in pleased surprise.
He left this morning on an early train, to go back to the peg and grind, and now the place is slow and lonesome. After all I think it is better to have to peg and grind; it surely must be the spice of life which rich people miss. I do not care how quickly the hot months pass, and we can go back to the city again.
Sept. 30th, 1——
We are all back in the city again, and settled into the old routine; but there is a new excitement in the air. Aunt Gwendolin insists that I require to go to some fashionable "Young Ladies' Boarding School," to be "finished." She says (but not in grandmother's hearing) that I do not talk as I should, that my voice is quite ordinary, and I must learn the tone of society ladies before I can be brought out.
"You mean the artificial tone?" said Uncle Theodore, who was present when I was getting my lecture.
"Call it what you like, Theodore," snapped Aunt Gwendolin, "it is the tone used by an American society woman; the girl talks yet in the natural voice of a child."
"Would that she could always keep it," returned Uncle Theodore.
After much talking my aunt persuaded my grandmother that I should go to some such school.
"My dear," said grandmother timidly, "your aunt seems to think you may gain much by a period spent in some good school. She may be right. It certainly cannot hurt you, and if it can be of any benefit there is nothing to prevent your having it."
To comfort dear grandmother I raised no objection, and it is settled that I go in the fall term. The choice of a school was left entirely to Aunt Gwendolin, and she has decided upon the most expensive and most fashionable one in the country. She has been corresponding with the lady principal; my rooms have been ordered; and everything is complete.
One day my aunt placed in my hand one of her monogrammed sheets of writing-paper, pointing to the following paragraph:
"It is the family's wish that much attention be given to preparing the young girl whom I am sending to you, for Society; heavy or arduous work in any other line is of secondary consideration. The prestige of your school could not fail to be enhanced by the presence of a Spanish girl of good family."
"I am not a Spanish girl, Aunt Gwendolin!" I said.
"I did not say you were," returned my aunt, "I simply said the prestige of her school could not fail to be enhanced by the presence of one."
Have I got to live up to that?
Boarding School, October 10th, 1——
I am here at last, accompanied by two large leather trunks, which Aunt Gwendolin has filled with all sorts of costumes, for all sorts of occasions.
A page opened the door in response to the hackman's ring, when after some hours' journey by rail, I arrived at the fashionable "Boarding School," and a maid conducted me up a flight of softly carpeted steps to my appointed rooms.
I had not more than taken off my wraps, when Madam Demill (she has declared that her name should be spelled De Mille, but it has become corrupted in this democratic America) the head of the establishment, called upon me. She was cold, hard, stately; a creature of whalebone and steel as to body, and of pompadours and artificial braids as to head.
She announced after her first greeting that there was going to be a party that evening, and she wished me to be dressed in evening costume, and appear in the drawing-room at half past eight o'clock.
"If you would wear some of your distinctly Spanish costumes it would be very apropos," she added. "I see you have the decided Spanish complexion. I am glad you are pronounced in your nationality; it is so much more interesting. As you did not arrive in time for dinner, a tray shall be brought to your room with sufficient refreshment to keep you in good feature until you partake of the refreshment offered at the party," she added as she swept from the room.
How helpless I felt! I was to dress in evening costume for the "party." What was I to put on? For the first time in my life I wished that Aunt Gwendolin were near me. How I longed for my yellow silk gown that my governess in China had designed with flowing sleeves trimmed with "sprawling dragons!" I knew I looked better in that than in anything else, and I knew how to put it on; no infinitesimal hooks and eyes, pins and buttons, to be found, and put in exact places; which if one fails to do in the American gown the whole thing goes awry.
My worry was dispelled by the arrival of the maid with the promised tray. It was not too heavily laden to prevent me from completely emptying it, with the exception of the dishes.
While I was eating the maid unpacked my trunks,—you have not got to do much for yourself in a fashionable boarding school—hanging the articles in an adjoining clothes closet. During the same period of time a happy thought occurred to me.
"I will call Aunt Gwendolin over the long distance telephone and ask her what I shall wear at the party to-night!" was the happy inspiration.
In response to my request the maid conducted me to the telephone, and when the connection was made, I called:
"Hello, Aunt Gwendolin! This is the Yellow Pearl speaking!"
"How does that little minx know that she is the yellow peril?" I heard my aunt say, probably to Uncle Theodore in the room beside her. Then she turned to me and replied:
"Well."
"What gown shall I wear to-night at the party?"
Back over the two hundred miles of field, forest, lake, came Aunt Gwendolin's thin, squeaky voice:
"Wear your cream-coloured Oriental lace."
"Does it fasten in the front or back? If in the back I cannot put it on myself!" I returned, over the fields and trees and waters.
"Yes, you can, get some of the girls to fasten it for you," cried the voice through the phone. "Be sure and wear that; it so emphasises your Spanish style of beau——"
I hung up the receiver.
At my request the maid helped me to get into the cream Oriental lace; and at half past eight I made my appearance in the drawing-room, as to dress, looking like a Spanish grande dame, and as to face, looking as yellow, and lonesome, and sour as the fiercest Spanish brigand.
I was introduced to Mr. This-One, and Mr. That-One and Mr. The-Other-One. They all looked alike to me, with high collars, and patent-leather shoes. After awhile there was a little dance, but as I did not know how I had to sit against the wall, and Madam Demill said I must be put under a dancing master at once.
The day following, in the afternoon (all the so-called lessons are gone through in the forenoon, and we have nothing to do but amuse ourselves the rest of the day) a number of the girls came to call on me in my apartments. There were a dozen or more of them present when an arrogant-looking one, with her hair arranged in an immense pompadour over her forehead, from ear to ear, drawled through her nose.
"I suppose you do not love Americans since we beat your country at the battle of Manila?"
"No," I said truthfully, "I do not love Americans." (Of course I mentally excepted grandmother, Professor Ballington, Chauffeur Graham—and Uncle Theodore when he acts nice.)
The girls threw their chins into the air, their eyes shot fire, and I heard several faint sniffs.
Then a slim, golden-haired, blue-eyed girl stepped out from the group, and coming quickly to my side, she put her arm around me and said:
"We'll make her love us!" and she actually touched her rosebud lips to my yellow cheek.
Since that I have not hated Americans quite so savagely.
The act seemed to have a softening effect on the others, too, for from that time they all have treated me very decently, even the girl with the pompadour.
Golden Hair seems to have a great deal of influence in the school. There are some nice girls in America.
Oct. 15th, 1——
Life in this "Fashionable Boarding School" is just about a repetition, daily, of what transpired the evening of my arrival. It is not worth recording, so I am closing up my diary until I return to grandmother's. It takes Yick, and Mrs. Yet, and Chauffeur Graham, and Professor Ballington, and even a pinch of Aunt Gwendolin to give a little spice to life.
Thanksgiving
I took a run back to grandmother's for what those Americans call Thanksgiving—It is most amusing to foreigners like me—and Yick.
On grandmother's table there was what they tell me is the regulation dinner for the day—roast turkey and pumpkin pie.
When Yick, in his best costume, had walked proudly into the dining room with the immense turkey on a platter, and deposited it on the table, he returned to the kitchen convulsed with laughter, Betty has told me since.
"Christians queer people! Christians queer people!" he sputtered merrily. "Thank God eat turkey, thank God eat turkey!"
I knew what Yick meant, the Oriental idea of thanking God would have been some act of self-denial. It was hard for the poor "heathen Chinee" to construe the American self-indulgence into an act of thanksgiving. Poor Yick, and poor Yellow Pearl! How far both of you are from comprehending civilisation.
Holidays, Dec. 20th, 1——
I am back again at grandmother's for the holidays. Grandmother and Uncle Theodore seemed so glad to see me that I am beginning to feel quite as if this were home. Yick and Betty are still here, Chauffeur Graham still manipulates the automobile.
Mrs. Delancy gave a "little Christmas dance," as she calls it, last night, and the description has come out in the morning paper:
"The home of Mrs. Delancy was transformed into a bower of flowers, ferns and softly shaded lights, on the night of her Christmas dance. The hall and staircase were decorated with Southern smilax entwined with white flowers, and the dressing-rooms with mauve orchids; while in the drawing-room the mantelpiece was banked with Richmond roses and maidenhair ferns, and that in the dining room with lily-of-the-valley and single daffodils. Passing through the dining room, where an orchestra was stationed behind a screen of bamboo, twined with flowers, the guests entered the Japanese tea pavilion, which had been erected for the occasion. The entrance was formed of bamboo trellis work covered with Southern smilax, flowers, and innumerable tiny electric lights. The walls were covered with fluted yellow silk, and from the ceiling depended dozens of baskets filled with flowers interspersed with Japanese lanterns and parasols. Huge bouquets of chrysanthemums were fastened against the wall. The table was exquisitely decorated with enormous baskets of flowers; in the centre was one with large mauve orchids over which was tilted a large pink Japanese umbrella, trimmed with violets, while from each basket sprang bamboo wands suspended from which were Japanese lanterns filled with lily-of-the-valley and violets, the whole forming the most beautiful scheme of decoration seen this season."
How tired I am writing it all! I wonder if any one felt tired looking at it.
Then followed a description of the ladies' gowns:
"The ladies were simply stunning in their smartest gowns, Mrs. Delancy queening it in an exquisite apple-green satin, with pearls and diamonds; Miss Morgan (which means my respected aunt), whose sparkling blonde beauty always charms her friends, in maize chiffon, through which sparkled a gold-sequined bodice and underskirt, and Mrs. Deforest, dark and graceful, in a rich white satin gown. Mrs. Austin looked extremely handsome in a most becoming orchid gown, with ribbon of the same shade twisted in her dark hair."
There was a lot more of the same, but my hand refuses to write it. One would think it was a number of half-grown children the newspaper reporter was trying to please by saying nice things about them. Strange that in this America nothing is ever said about what the women say or do at those social functions; nothing seems worth noticing about them but the kind of clothes they have on. The men do not count for anything at all.
I wonder was Professor Ballington there. I wonder did he look at any one with that smile away back in his eyes which was there when he looked at me the time I sang my one Spanish song.
December 21st, 1——
Yick has given us a new diversion. Aunt Gwendolin gave him orders to make a particularly nice layer-cake for an afternoon "tea."
Yick is quite proud of his cakes, and this day he wished to outdo anything he had previously done, so he made a layer cake, icing it with red and white trimmings. He delights to get a new recipe, or find some new way of decoration. The daily paper, which always in the end finds its way into the kitchen, had evidently attracted his attention. He saw in the advertisement pages a round box with an inscription on top. Taking the box for a cake, he decorated his culinary effort in imitation of the picture. Aunt Gwendolin never saw it until it was carried in to the table, before all the finest ladies of the city, and this was what they all read, in three rows of red letters across the white icing:
Dodd's
Kidney
Pills
Who says my people are not clever and original?
Dec. 23d, 1——
It is drawing near the festive season in this remarkable land, and there is a great bustle everywhere. Some people are concerned about providing luxuries for themselves, and some are concerned about providing for those poorer than themselves.
Mrs. Delancy came in all fagged out from her arduous work of shopping.
"I have just been treating myself to a few little Christmas presents," she gasped, as she carried a great, fat, pug dog and deposited him on grandmother's best white satin sofa pillow. She called the dog many endearing names, such as "darling," "little baby boy," "sweet one," and "tootsy-wootsy."
Dogs are thought as much of as babies in America; those are the very same terms of endearment that the women address to their babies.
"I had to leave this little darling in a restaurant to be fed and cared for while I did my shopping," she explained. "He would come with me, the pet."
She then informed Aunt Gwendolin that she had been to the milliner's and ordered five hats, and had just completed the purchase of a three thousand dollar jacket at the furrier's.
The dog on the pillow whined in the midst of her recital, and she stopped long enough to go over and give him a kiss.
She was still enlarging on the beauty of the fur coat, when the housemaid tapped on the door, and ushered Mrs. Paton into the sitting-room.
"I heard that you ladies were here," she said, "and I thought you might like to have the privilege of helping a little in those charities," and she began to unfold some papers which she held in her hand.
"Oh, my dear Mrs. Paton, do not ask me to-day, really," exclaimed Mrs. Delancy, holding up her hands. "I am among the poor myself to-day, and you know charity begins at home. I really haven't a cent to give to any one else. I'm stony broke, as the boys say. I have laid out so much money to-day for necessities!"
Mrs. Paton then turned to my aunt and said, "Gwendolin, do give something out of the thousands you are expending on self-indulgence to help those who have not the necessities of life!"
Taking the paper into her hand with an ungracious air, my aunt wrote down a certain amount, and then passed it back.
"Dear me!" sighed Mrs. Delancy, as soon as Mrs. Paton had left the place, "how tired I get of those people with their solicitations for some Y. M. C. A., or Y. W. C. A., or something else eternally. They'd keep a person poor if one paid any heed to them, really! Some one starving or unclothed every time! It does annoy me so to hear harrowing tales!"
January 1st, 1——
Last night there was a sound of revelry in this great land. At the solemn hour of midnight, when the old year was dying, and the new year was just being born, one class of people in this American city rushed out into the open streets, cheering, blowing horns, ringing bells, and making all possible noises on all sorts of musical instruments. Another class celebrated the birth of the new year by eating an elaborate meal. This is what appeared in the morning paper regarding the latter:
How fond of eating Americans are!
This is the first time I have seen the birth of a new year in any but my native land, and my mind goes back to the celebration on a similar occasion in China. It is a solemn event there. For weeks the people are preparing for it; houses are cleaned, and debts are paid, for a Chinaman, if he has any self-respect, will be sure to pay his debts before the new year.
I told this to Uncle Theodore a few days ago, and he said, "I wish that Americans would rise to that state of grace."
Nobody goes to bed that night, but all sit up waiting for the first hour of the new year, when the father of the home, his wife and children all worship before the spirit tablets of their ancestors, and then at the shrine of the household gods.
Then the door is opened, and the whole family with the servants go outside and bow down to a certain part of the heavens, and so worship heaven and earth, and receive the spirit of gladness and good fortune, which they say comes from that quarter.
At the same hour, when the old year is dying, China's Emperor, as High Priest of his people, goes in state to worship. Kneeling alone under the silent stars he renders homage to the Superior Powers. He on his imperial throne makes the third in the great Trinity, Heaven, Earth, and Man. Should there come a famine or pestilence, upon him rests the blame, and he must by sacrifice and prayer atone for the imperfections of which heaven has seen him guilty.
Oh, China! I would prefer kneeling with you under the silent stars on New Year's eve, to feasting at the groaning tables, or ringing the bells and blowing the horns of this great, civilised, noisy America!
January 7th, 1——
Oh, glorious! Grandmother says I need not go back to boarding school for the winter term; she says the family always go South during the cold weather, and she wants me to go with them. Wants me, think of it, wants me. Isn't it nice to have somebody want one along with her! I believe grandmother really loves me. Aunt Gwendolin doesn't; she wanted me sent back to school. She said I would never be fit to be brought out with that kind of carrying on. I love those that love me, but as for loving those that hate me, as grandmother had been teaching me from the Bible, I haven't come to that yet.
That reminds me, I wish Aunt Gwendolin would stop snapping at Yick; I am afraid some day he will kill himself on the doorstep, so his ghost may haunt her the rest of her life. But I think he likes grandmother and the other members of the family sufficiently well to cause him to refrain from that act of Chinese revenge.
Mexico, February 1st, 1——
A great migratory movement has taken place in our family—we are now in the warm, sunny country called Mexico.
Aunt Gwendolin was the cause of it. She said she was tired of going to Florida, that it was so common to go there now, everybody was going there, that the latest thing was to winter in Mexico, and she thought we all ought to follow suit. She talked and argued so much about it that she persuaded grandmother and Uncle Theodore to her way of thinking, and after travelling hundreds of miles in Pullman and sleeper cars, here we are in this land of cactus fences, tortillas, great snakes, and parrots; this land where roses and strawberries grow all the year round; where in some parts are luscious tropical fruits, flowers, and palms.
Mrs. Delancy has come along with us, and Professor Ballington says he may join our party later. There are many Americans around us in the various towns—it is so fashionable at present to winter in Mexico.
Uncle Theodore takes me out for long walks with him in this land of perpetual summer, and we see many strange and interesting sights. The rich are so very rich, and the poor are so very poor. There is one drawback—we had to leave behind us our automobile. Of course we can hire one here, but we can not have our own lovely chauffeur, and grandmother says she is afraid to trust any of those Mexicans. I suppose our poor chauffeur is pegging away hard over his medical lore now, while I am lounging around doing nothing. The granddaughter of a millionairess, with money to get anything I want, and yet I am beginning to think there is nothing worth getting. It is lovely to be poor like the chauffeur and have to work hard for something. My life is so small and worthless that I am oppressed with it.
One of the sights that interest us the most when we are out in the country are the cactus hedges. There are great palisades of the organ-cactus lining the railways, and there are ragged, loose-jointed varieties used for corralling cattle. Great plantations of a species of cactus called maguey with stiff, prickly leaves a dull, bluish-green, are seen in abundance. From this plant the Mexicans get not only thread, pins, and needles, but pulque, the juice or sap of the plant, which they ferment and make into a national beverage. Pulque is used by the Mexicans as whisky is used by Americans, and opium by Chinamen.
Great fields of maize are cultivated, of which there are two or three crops a year. The food of the people is tortillas, made out of this maize mashed into a paste and baked into flat cakes.
I ate those tortillas when I first came, as a curiosity, a native production, but I am not going to eat any more. While Uncle Theodore and I were watching a woman making them, great drops of perspiration fell from her brow into the paste. She pounded away, poor tired creature, and paid no heed to the drops. Poor women of Mexico, they have to work so hard, preparing the paste, and making those little cakes to be eaten hot at every meal! But no more tortillas for me.
We visited the old churches which are beautifully decorated with veined marble and alabaster. Precious stones seem to grow in this remarkable land.
"Keep your eyes open, Pearl," said my uncle, "and you may pick up some opals, or amethysts. They grow in this country, and I have heard they can be had for the picking."
Mexico, February 12th, 1——
I have made a discovery—I have found out America's Princely Man! It is Abraham Lincoln, and this is his Birthday!
Magazines have been coming down from the North telling us all about this Princely Man, and I have asked grandmother and Uncle Theodore hundreds of questions, it seems to me, about him. And I can see that they never get tired answering those questions, but seem as if they could talk about him forever.
Scarcely a political debate occurs, either in Congress or in the Press of the country, but the possible views or actual example of Abraham Lincoln are quoted as the strongest argument, Uncle Theodore says.
The magazines find it impossible to publish too much about him. Mention of his name in an incidental fashion from a stage or forum draws a burst of cheering; or if the reference is of a humorous nature the laughter is close to tears.
"With love and reverence his memory is cherished by the American people as is the memory of no other man," said dear grandmother. "Quoting a 'Decoration Day' orator," she added, "'He was called to go by the sorrowful way, bearing the awful burden of his people's woe, the cry of the uncomforted in his ears, the bitterness of their passion on his heart. Misunderstood, misjudged, he was the most solitary of men. He had to tread the wine-press alone, and of the people none went with him. But he turned not back. He never faltered. As one upheld, sustained by the Unseen Hand, he set his face steadfastly, undaunted, unafraid, until in Death's black minute he paid glad life's arrears: the slaves free! Himself immortal!'"
Yes, it is quite certain that Abraham Lincoln is America's Princely Man!
I would like to make something happen in the world that would be talked about after I am dead. Grandmother says that it is only something that one does for the good of the world that is remembered after he is dead. "If a man has money, people will lionize him as long as he is living for the sake of it," she says, "but money counts for nothing when a man is dead."
"Money!" said Uncle Theodore, who had been listening to our talk. "I doubt whether Abe ever owned enough to buy a farm."
February 15th, 1——
One comfort, I am not bothered much with Aunt Gwendolin—she has become acquainted with a French nobleman, Count de Pensier, and he is attracting all her attention, thanks be to goodness! Mrs. Delancy is delighted, and is doing all she can to further the acquaintance. "It is not every day that one has the privilege of associating daily and hourly with one of the titled aristocracy of the old world," she has said several times in my hearing.
When we first arrived Aunt Gwendolin saw some of the Spanish ladies wearing mantillas on their heads, and she immediately bought one for me.
"There!" she said when I put it on, "isn't that simply perfect? Doesn't that make her Spanish through and through?" She says that when I become a thorough Spanish-American she is going to give a "coming out party" for me.
The scarf is really quite becoming. Uncle Theodore admired it, or admired me with it on, so I wear it wound around my head when I go on my rambles through the country with him. I really much prefer it to the bristling hats of the American women, and it is quite pleasant to be called "señorita," and to be thought Spanish.
These long head scarfs are also worn by the poor women, but theirs are made of cotton. On the street they carry their babies strapped to their backs with it, the little heads and legs bobbing up and down until one would think they might snap off. Sometimes the scarf ties the baby to the mother's bosom, thus leaving her hands free for other work.
"Our American sensibilities" (quoting Aunt Gwendolin) "are sometimes shocked by Mexican doings."
One day we saw a procession headed by the father carrying a tiny coffin on his head. Behind him walked the mother dragging by the hand a little bare-foot girl, of two or three; and behind them again trotted a dog. The father was drunk, and staggered as he walked.
As we watched the little procession on the way to the graveyard they passed in front of a saloon where they sold pulque. The father wanted another drink, so he started to enter the saloon taking the little coffin under his arm. He stumbled on the threshold, and the little pine box fell out of his hands down onto the flag-stones, the cover coming off. And we saw a little dead baby within the coffin, with a crown of gilt paper on its head, and a cross of gilt paper on its brow. In its little hands were a bunch of flowers. The man laughed awkwardly, put the lid on the coffin and placed it on his head again, proceeding toward the graveyard without his drink, followed by the mother, the girl, and the dog.
"Why do not the American missionaries who are crossing oceans to find heathen, look for them at their own doorstep?" said Uncle Theodore afterwards, when he was telling the story to grandmother.
"Sure enough," returned grandmother, "it does look as if the unenlightened of its own continent is America's first duty."
Aunt Gwendolin is having moonlight walks and talks innumerable with Count de Pensier—and—oh, I am having LIBERTY!
February 21st, 1——
We have had some unusual excitement lately—a bull and tiger fight. The day following, the description came out in a morning paper:
"A fight between a Tiagua bull and a Bengal tiger in the bull ring this afternoon was most ferocious, and will result in the death of both animals. The sickening spectacle was witnessed by 5,500 people, largely Americans, and many of them tourists, who stopped over here especially to witness the barbaric spectacle. After three bulls had been despatched in the regulation manner, the star performance was pulled off. The two animals, enclosed in an iron cage, about thirty feet square, were brought together, and the battle between the enraged brutes commenced. The bull was first taken into the enclosure and given the usual bull fight tortures to arouse his ire, and then the iron cage containing the tiger was wheeled up to the entrance; but the tiger refused to get out and open the battle, and the bull attempted to get into the small cage and get at his adversary. The bull was badly scratched about the face. Finally the tiger came from his cage, and the bull gored the cat with a long, sharp horn as he emerged. With a screech of pain, the cat, with a powerful lunge, broke the bull's right leg, and then the two animals went into the fight for their lives. The tiger was able to spring out of the way of the bull in a number of instances, but when the big, heavy animal caught his adversary it went hard with the tiger. The bull stepped upon the tiger in one instance and there was a crunching of ribs audible in the seats of the amphitheatre.
"The bull disabled the tiger in the back, and after that the fighting was tame, and the Americans cried for pity, while the Mexicans cheered and wanted the performance to continue."
Mrs. Delancy, and Aunt Gwendolin, along with Uncle Theodore and Count de Pensier, attended the fight. Grandmother would not go, and I stayed with her.
"A Christian lady going to a bull fight," I said to grandmother under my breath.
"Yes, my dear," returned grandmother looking really pale, "it shocks me quite as much as you. It was not so when I was young. American women of the present day must see everything. It is deplorable!"
When the scene was the most harrowing, and the Americans were calling for the fight to be stopped, Aunt Gwendolin, and I believe several other American women, fainted, and had to be carried out.
"Dear me, dear me," said grandmother again, when she heard the harrowing details. "That is just the way with Americans of the present day; they must see everything. It was not so when I was young."
Who should walk into our presence at that very moment but Professor Ballington. He had heard grandmother's remark, without knowing the cause for her words, and as he was shaking hands with us he said:
"You believe the poet Watson diagnosed Uncle Sam's case when he said: