THE THREE SOULS OF AH SO NAN
The sun was conquering the morning fog, dappling with gold the gray waters of San Francisco’s bay, and throwing an emerald radiance over the islands around.
Close to the long line of wharves lay motionless brigs and schooners, while farther off in the harbor were ships of many nations riding at anchor.
A fishing fleet was steering in from the open sea, scudding before the wind like a flock of seabirds. All night long had the fishers toiled in the deep. Now they were returning with the results of their labor.
A young Chinese girl, watching the fleet from the beach of Fisherman’s Cove, shivered in the morning air. Over her blue cotton blouse she wore no wrap; on her head, no covering. All her interest was centred in one lone boat which lagged behind the rest, being heavier freighted. The fisherman was of her own race. When his boat was beached he sprang to her side.
“O’Yam, what brings you here?” he questioned low, for the curious eyes of his fellow fishermen were on her.
“Your mother is dying,” she answered.
The young man spake a few words in English to a Greek whose boat lay alongside his. The Greek answered in the same tongue. Then Fou Wang threw down his nets and, with the girl following, walked quickly along the waterfront, past the wharves, the warehouses, and the grogshops, up a zigzag hill and into the heart of Chinatown. Neither spoke until they reached their destination, a dingy three-storied building.
The young man began to ascend the stairs, the girl to follow. Fou Wang looked back and shook his head. The girl paused on the lowest step.
“May I not come?” she pleaded.
“Today is for sorrow,” returned Fou Wang. “I would, for a time, forget all that belongs to the joy of life.”
The girl threw her sleeve over her head and backed out of the open door.
“What is the matter?” inquired a kind voice, and a woman laid her hand upon her shoulder.
O’Yam’s bosom heaved.
“Oh, Liuchi,” she cried, “the mother ofFou Wang is dying, and you know what that means to me.”
The woman eyed her compassionately.
“Your father, I know,” said she, as she unlocked a door and led her companion into a room opening on to the street, “has long wished for an excuse to set at naught your betrothal to Fou Wang; but I am sure the lad to whom you are both sun and moon will never give him one.”
She offered O’Yam some tea, but the girl pushed it aside. “You know not Fou Wang,” she replied, sadly yet proudly. “He will follow his conscience, though he lose the sun, the moon, and the whole world.”
A young woman thrust her head through the door.
“The mother of Fou Wang is dead,” cried she.
“She was a good woman—a kind and loving mother,” said Liuchi, as she gazed down upon the still features of her friend.
The young daughter of Ah So Nan burst into fresh weeping. Her pretty face was much swollen. Ah So Nan had been well loved by her children, and the falling tears were not merely waters of ceremony.
At the foot of the couch upon which thedead was laid, stood Fou Wang, his face stern and immovable, his eye solemn, yet luminous with a steadfast fire. Over his head was thrown a white cloth. From morn till eve had he stood thus, contemplating the serene countenance of his mother and vowing that nothing should be left undone which could be done to prove his filial affection and desire to comfort her spirit in the land to which it had flown. “Three years, O mother, will I give to thee and grief. Three years will I minister to thy three souls,” he vowed within himself, remembering how sacred to the dead woman were the customs and observances of her own country. They were also sacred to him. Living in America, in the midst of Americans and Americanized Chinese, the family of Fou Wang, with the exception of one, had clung tenaciously to the beliefs of their forefathers.
“All the living must die, and dying, return to the ground. The limbs and the flesh moulder away below, and hidden away, become the earth of the fields; but the spirit issues forth and is displayed on high in a condition of glorious brightness,” quoted a yellow-robed priest, swinging an incense burner before a small candle-lighted altar.
It was midnight when the mourning friendsof the family of Fou Wang left the chief mourner alone with his dead mother.
His sister, Fin Fan, and the girl who was his betrothed wife brushed his garments as they passed him by. The latter timidly touched his hand—an involuntary act of sympathy—but if he were conscious of that sympathy, he paid no heed to it, and his gaze never wavered from the face of the dead.
My girl, Moy Ding Fong is ready if Fou Wang is not, and you must marry this year. I have sworn you shall.”
Kien Lung walked out of the room with a determined step. He was an Americanized Chinese and had little regard for what he derided as “the antiquated customs of China,” save when it was to his interest to follow them. He was also a widower desirous of marrying again, but undesirous of having two women of like years, one his wife, the other his daughter, under the same roof-tree.
Left alone, O’Yam’s thoughts became sorrowful, almost despairing. Six moons had gone by since Ah So Nan had passed away, yet the son of Ah So Nan had not once, duringthat time, spoken one word to his betrothed wife. Occasionally she had passed him on the street; but always he had gone by with uplifted countenance, and in his eyes the beauty of piety and peace. At least, so it seemed to the girl, and the thought of marriage with him had seemed almost sacrilegious. But now it had come to this. If Fou Wang adhered to his resolve to mourn three years for his mother, what would become of her? She thought of old Moy Ding Fong and shuddered. It was bitter, bitter.
There was a rapping at the door. A young girl lifted the latch and stepped in. It was Fin Fan, the sister of her betrothed.
“I have brought my embroidery work,” said she, “I thought we could have a little talk before sundown when I must away to prepare the evening meal.”
O’Yam, who was glad to see her visitor, brewed some fresh tea and settled down for an exchange of confidences.
“I am not going to abide by it,” said Fin Fan at last. “Hom Hing is obliged to return to China two weeks hence, and with or without Fou Wang’s consent I go with the man to whom my mother betrothed me.”
“Without Fou Wang’s consent!” echoed O’Yam.
“Yes,” returned Fin Fan, snapping off a thread. “Without my honorable brother’s consent.”
“And your mother gone but six moons!”
O’Yam’s face wore a shocked expression.
“Does the fallen leaf grieve because the green one remains on the tree?” queried Fin Fan.
“You must love Hom Hing well,” murmured O’Yam—“more than Fou Wang loves me.”
“Nay,” returned her companion, “Fou Wang’s love for you is as big as mine for Hom Hing. It is my brother’s conscience alone that stands between him and you. You know that.”
“He loves not me,” sighed O’Yam.
“If he does not love you,” returned Fin Fan, “why, when we heard that you were unwell, did he sleeplessly pace his room night after night until the news came that you were restored to health? Why does he treasure a broken fan you have cast aside?”
“Ah, well!” smiled O’Yam.
Fin Fan laughed softly.
“Fou Wang is not as other men,” said she. “His conscience is an inheritance from his great-great-grandfather.” Her face became pensive as she added: “It is sad to go across the sea without an elder brother’s blessing.”
She repeated this to Liuchi and Mai Gwi Far, the widow, whom she met on her way home.
“Why should you,” inquired the latter, “when there is a way by which to obtain it?”
“How?”
“Did Ah So Nan leave no garments behind her—such garments as would well fit her three souls—and is it not always easy to delude the serious and the wise?”
“Ah!”
O’Yam climbed the stairs to the joss house. The desire for solitude brought her there; but when she had closed the door upon herself, she found that she was not alone. Fou Wang was there. Before the images of the Three Wise Ones he stood, silent, motionless.
“He is communing with his mother’s spirit,” thought O’Yam. She beheld him through a mist of tears. Love filled her whole being. She dared not move, because she was afraid he would turn and see her, and then, of course, he would go away. She would stay near him for a few moments and then retire.
The dim light of the place, the quietness inthe midst of noise, the fragrance of some burning incense, soothed and calmed her. It was as if all the sorrow and despair that had overwhelmed her when her father had told her to prepare for her wedding with Moy Ding Fong had passed away.
After a few moments she stepped back softly towards the door. But she was too late. Fou Wang turned and beheld her.
She fluttered like a bird until she saw that, surprised by her presence, he had forgotten death and thought only of life—of life and love. A glad, eager light shone in his eyes. He made a swift step towards her. Then—he covered his face with his hands.
“Fou Wang!” cried O’Yam, love at last overcoming superstition, “must I become the wife of Moy Ding Fong?”
“No, ah no!” he moaned.
“Then,” said the girl in desperation, “take me to yourself.”
Fou Wang’s hands fell to his side. For a moment he looked into that pleading face—and wavered.
A little bird flew in through an open window, and perching itself upon an altar, began twittering.
Fou Wang started back, the expression on his face changing.
“A warning from the dead,” he muttered, “a warning from the dead!”
An iron hand gripped O’Yam’s heart. Life itself seemed to have closed upon her.
It was afternoon before evening, and the fog was rolling in from the sea. Quietness reigned in the plot of ground sacred to San Francisco’s Chinese dead when Fou Wang deposited a bundle at the foot of his mother’s grave and prepared for the ceremony of ministering to her three souls.
The fragrance from a wall of fir trees near by stole to his nostrils as he cleared the weeds and withered leaves from his parent’s resting place. As he placed the bowls of rice and chicken and the vase of incense where he was accustomed to place it, he became dimly conscious of a presence or presences behind the fir wall.
He sighed deeply. No doubt the shade of his parent was restless, because—
“Fou Wang,” spake a voice, low but distinct.
The young man fell upon his knees.
“Honored Mother!” he cried.
“Fou Wang,” repeated the voice, “though my name is on thy lips, O’Yam’s is in thy heart.”
Conscience-stricken, Fou Wang yet retained spirit enough to gasp:
“Have I not been a dutiful son? Have I not sacrificed all for thee, O Mother! Why, then, dost thou reproach me?”
“I do not reproach thee,” chanted three voices, and Fou Wang, lifting his head, saw three figures emerge from behind the fir wall. “I do not reproach thee. Thou hast been a most dutiful son, and thy offerings at my grave and in the temple have been fully appreciated. Far from reproaching thee, I am here to say to thee that the dead have regard for the living who faithfully mourn and minister to them, and to bid thee sacrifice no more until thou hast satisfied thine own heart by taking to wife the daughter of Kien Lung and given to thy sister and thy sister’s husband an elder brother’s blessing. Thy departed mother requires not the sacrifice of a broken heart. The fallen leaf grieves not because the green leaf still clings to the bough.”
Saying this, the three figures flapped the loose sleeves of the well-known garments of Ah So Nan and faded from his vision.
For a moment Fou Wang gazed after them as if spellbound. Then he arose and rushed towards the fir wall, behind which they seemed to have vanished.
“Mother, honored parent! Come back and tell me of the new birth!” he cried.
But there was no response.
Fou Wang returned to the grave and lighted the incense. But he did not wait to see its smoke ascend. Instead he hastened to the house of Kien Lung and said to the girl who met him at the door:
“No more shall my longing for thee take the fragrance from the flowers and the light from the sun and moon.”
The baby was the one gleam of sunshine in Fin Fan’s life, and how she loved it no words can tell. When it was first born, she used to lie with her face turned to its little soft, breathing mouth and think there was nothing quite so lovely in the world as the wee pink face before her, while the touch of its tiny toes and fingers would send wonderful thrills through her whole body. Those were delightful days, but, oh, how quickly they sped. A week after the birth of the little Jessamine Flower, Fin Fan was busy winding tobacco leaves in the dark room behind her husband’s factory. Windingtobacco leaves had been Fin Fan’s occupation ever since she had become Chung Kee’s wife, and hard and dreary work it was. Now, however, she did not mind it quite so much, for in a bunk which was built on one side of the room was a most precious bundle, and every now and then she would go over to that bunk and crow and coo to the baby therein.
But though Fin Fan prized her child so highly, Jessamine Flower’s father would rather she had not been born, and considered the babe a nuisance because she took up so much of her mother’s time. He would rather that Fin Fan spent the hours in winding tobacco leaves than in nursing baby. However, Fin Fan managed to do both, and by dint of getting up very early in the morning and retiring very late at night, made as much money for her husband after baby was born as she ever did before. And it was well for her that that was so, as the baby would otherwise have been taken from her and given to some other more fortunate woman. Not that Fin Fan considered herself unfortunate. Oh, no! She had been a hard-working little slave all her life, and after her mistress sold her to be wife to Chung Kee, she never dreamt of complaining, because, though a wife, she was still a slave.
When Jessamine flower was about six months old one of the ladies of the Mission, in making her round of Chinatown, ran in to see Fin Fan and her baby.
“What a beautiful child!” exclaimed the lady. “And, oh, how cunning,” she continued, noting the amulets on the little ankles and wrists, the tiny, quilted vest and gay little trousers in which Fin Fan had arrayed her treasure.
Fin Fan sat still and shyly smiled, rubbing her chin slowly against the baby’s round cheek. Fin Fan was scarcely more than a child herself in years.
“Oh, I want to ask you, dear little mother,” said the lady, “if you will not send your little one to the Chinese baby show which we are going to have on Christmas Eve in the Presbyterian Mission schoolroom.”
Fin Fan’s eyes brightened.
“What you think? That my baby get a prize?” she asked hesitatingly.
“I think so, indeed,” answered the lady, feeling the tiny, perfectly shaped limbs and peeping into the brightest of black eyes.
From that day until Christmas Eve, Fin Fan thought of nothing but the baby show. She would be there with her baby, and if it won a prize, why, perhaps its father mightbe got to regard it with more favor, so that he would not frown so blackly and mutter under his breath at the slightest cry or coo.
On the morning of Christmas Eve, Chung Kee brought into Fin Fan’s room a great bundle of tobacco which he declared had to be rolled by the evening, and when it was time to start for the show, the work was not nearly finished. However, Fin Fan dressed her baby, rolled it in a shawl, and with it in her arms, stealthily left the place.
It was a bright scene that greeted her upon arrival at the Mission house. The little competitors, in the enclosure that had been arranged for them, presented a peculiarly gorgeous appearance. All had been carefully prepared for the beauty test and looked as pretty as possible, though in some cases bejewelled head dresses and voluminous silken garments almost hid the competitors. Some small figures quite blazed in gold and tinsel, and then there were solemn cherubs almost free from clothing. The majority were plump and well-formed children, and there wasn’t a cross or crying baby in the forty-five. Fin Fan’s baby made the forty-sixth, and it was immediately surrounded by a group of admiring ladies.
How Fin Fan’s eyes danced. Her baby would get a prize, and she would never more need to fear that her husband would give it away. That terrible dread had haunted her ever since its birth. “But surely,” thought the little mother, “if it gets a prize he will be so proud that he will let me keep it forever.”
And Fin Fan’s baby did get a prize—a shining gold bit—and Fin Fan, delighted and excited, started for home. She was so happy and proud.
Chung Kee was very angry. Fin Fan was not in her room, and the work he had given her to do that morning was lying on the table undone. He said some hard words in a soft voice, which was his way sometimes, and then told the old woman who helped the men in the factory to be ready to carry a baby to the herb doctor’s wife that night. “Tell her,” said he, “that my cousin, the doctor, says that she long has desired a child, and so I send her one as a Christmas present, according to American custom.”
Just then came a loud knocking at the door. Chung Kee slowly unbarred it, and two men entered, bearing a stretcher upon which a covered form lay.
“Why be you come to my store?” asked Chung Kee in broken English.
The men put down their burden, and one pulled down the covering from that which lay on the stretcher and revealed an unconscious woman and a dead baby.
“It was on Jackson Street. The woman was trying to run with the baby in her arms, and just as she reached the crossing a butcher’s cart came around the corner. Some Chinese who knows you advised me to bring them here. Your wife and child, eh?”
Chung Kee stared speechlessly at the still faces—an awful horror in his eyes.
A curious crowd began to fill the place. A doctor was in the midst of it and elbowed his way to where Fin Fan was beginning to regain consciousness.
“Move back all of you; we want some air here!” he shouted authoritatively, and Fin Fan, roused by the loud voice, feebly raised her head, and looking straight into her husband’s eyes, said:
“Chung Kee’s baby got first prize. Chung Kee let Fin Fan keep baby always.”
That was all. Fin Fan’s eyes closed. Her head fell back beside the prize baby’s—hers forever.
LIN JOHN
It was New Year’s Eve. Lin John mused over the brightly burning fire. Through the beams of the roof the stars shone, far away in the deep night sky they shone down upon him, and he felt their beauty, though he had no words for it. The long braid which was wound around his head lazily uncoiled and fell down his back; his smooth young face was placid and content. Lin John was at peace with the world. Within one of his blouse sleeves lay a small bag of gold, the accumulated earnings of three years, and that gold was to release his only sister from a humiliating and secret bondage. A sense of duty done led him to dream of the To-Come. What a fortunate fellow he was to have been able to obtain profitable work, and within three years to have saved four hundred dollars! In the next three years, he might be able to establish a little business and send his sister to their parents in China to live like an honest woman. The sharp edges of his life were forgotten in the drowsy warmth and the world faded into dreamland.
The latch was softly lifted; with stealthystep a woman approached the boy and knelt beside him. By the flickering gleam of the dying fire she found that for which she searched, and hiding it in her breast swiftly and noiselessly withdrew.
Lin John arose. His spirits were light—and so were his sleeves. He reached for his bowl of rice, then set it down, and suddenly his chopsticks clattered on the floor. With hands thrust into his blouse he felt for what was not there. Thus, with bewildered eyes for a few moments. Then he uttered a low cry and his face became old and gray.
A large apartment, richly carpeted; furniture of dark and valuable wood artistically carved; ceiling decorated with beautiful Chinese ornaments and gold incense burners; walls hung from top to bottom with long bamboo panels covered with silk, on which were printed Chinese characters; tropical plants, on stands; heavy curtains draped over windows. This, in the heart of Chinatown. And in the midst of these surroundings a girl dressed in a robe of dark blue silk worn over a full skirt richly embroidered. The sleeves fell over hands glittering with rings, and shoes of light silk were on her feet. Her hair wasornamented with flowers made of jewels; she wore three or four pairs of bracelets; her jewel earrings were over an inch long.
The girl was fair to see in that her face was smooth and oval, eyes long and dark, mouth small and round, hair of jetty hue, and figure petite and graceful.
Hanging over a chair by her side was a sealskin sacque, such as is worn by fashionable American women. The girl eyed it admiringly and every few moments stroked the soft fur with caressing fingers.
“Pau Sang,” she called.
A curtain was pushed aside and a heavy, broad-faced Chinese woman in blouse and trousers of black sateen stood revealed.
“Look,” said the beauty. “I have a cloak like the American ladies. Is it not fine?”
Pau Sang nodded. “I wonder at Moy Loy,” said she. “He is not in favor with the Gambling Cash Tiger and is losing money.”
“Moy Loy gave it not to me. I bought it myself.”
“But from whom did you obtain the money?”
“If I let out a secret, will you lock it up?”
Pau Sang smiled grimly, and her companion,sidling closer to her, said: “I took the money from my brother—it was my money; for years he had been working to make it for me, and last week he told me that he had saved four hundred dollars to pay to Moy Loy, so that I might be free. Now, what do I want to be free for? To be poor? To have no one to buy me good dinners and pretty things—to be gay no more? Lin John meant well, but he knows little. As to me, I wanted a sealskin sacque like the fine American ladies. So two moons gone by I stole away to the country and found him asleep. I did not awaken him—and for the first day of the New Year I had this cloak. See?”
“Heaven frowns on me,” said Lin John sadly, speaking to Moy Loy. “I made the money with which to redeem my sister and I have lost it. I grieve, and I would have you say to her that for her sake, I will engage myself laboriously and conform to virtue till three more New Years have grown old, and that though I merit blame for my carelessness, yet I am faithful unto her.”
And with his spade over his shoulder he shuffled away from a house, from an upper window of which a woman looked down and under her breath called “Fool!”
TIAN SHAN’S KINDRED SPIRIT
Had Tian Shan been an American and China to him a forbidden country, his daring exploits and thrilling adventures would have furnished inspiration for many a newspaper and magazine article, novel, and short story. As a hero, he would certainly have far outshone Dewey, Peary, or Cook. Being, however, a Chinese, and the forbidden country America, he was simply recorded by the American press as “a wily Oriental, who, ‘by ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,’ is eluding the vigilance of our brave customs officers.” As to his experiences, the only one who took any particular interest in them was Fin Fan.
Fin Fan was Tian Shan’s kindred spirit. She was the daughter of a Canadian Chinese storekeeper and the object of much concern to both Protestant Mission ladies and good Catholic sisters.
“I like learn talk and dress like you,” she would respond to attempts to bring her into the folds, “but I not want think like you. Too much discuss.” And when it was urged upon her that her father was a convert—theMission ladies declaring, to the Protestant faith, and the nuns, to the Catholic—she would calmly answer: “That so? Well, I not my father. Beside I think my father just say he Catholic (or Protestant) for sake of be amiable to you. He good-natured man and want to please you.”
This independent and original stand led Fin Fan to live, as it were, in an atmosphere of outlawry even amongst her own countrywomen, for all proper Chinese females in Canada and America, unless their husbands are men of influence in their own country, conform upon request to the religion of the women of the white race.
Fin Fan sat on her father’s doorstep amusing herself with a ball of yarn and a kitten. She was a pretty girl, with the delicate features, long slanting eyes, and pouting mouth of the women of Soo Chow, to which province her dead mother had belonged.
Tian Shan came along.
“Will you come for a walk around the mountain?” asked he.
“I don’t know,” answered Fin Fan.
“Do!” he urged.
The walk around the mountain is enjoyable at all seasons, but particularly so in the fallof the year when the leaves on the trees are turning all colors, making the mount itself look like one big posy.
The air was fresh, sweet, and piny. As Tian Shan and Fin Fan walked, they chatted gaily—not so much of Tian Shan or Fin Fan as of the brilliant landscape, the sun shining through a grove of black-trunked trees with golden leaves, the squirrels that whisked past them, the birds twittering and soliloquizing over their vanishing homes, and many other objects of nature. Tian Shan’s roving life had made him quite a woodsman, and Fin Fan—well, Fin Fan was his kindred spirit.
A large oak, looking like a smouldering pyre, invited them to a seat under its boughs.
After happily munching half a dozen acorns, Fin Fan requested to be told all about Tian Shan’s last adventure. Every time he crossed the border, he was obliged to devise some new scheme by which to accomplish his object, and as he usually succeeded, there was always a new story to tell whenever he returned to Canada.
This time he had run across the river a mile above the Lachine Rapids in an Indian war canoe, and landed in a cove surrounded by reefs, where pursuit was impossible. It hadbeen a perilous undertaking, for he had had to make his way right through the swift current of the St. Lawrence, the turbulent rapids so near that it seemed as if indeed he must yield life to the raging cataract. But with indomitable courage he had forged ahead, the canoe, with every plunge of his paddles, rising on the swells and cutting through the whitecaps, until at last he reached the shore for which he had risked so much.
Fin Fan was thoughtful for a few moments after listening to his narration.
“Why,” she queried at last, “when you can make so much more money in the States than in Canada, do you come so often to this side and endanger your life as you do when returning?”
Tian Shan was puzzled himself. He was not accustomed to analyzing the motives for his actions.
Seeing that he remained silent, Fin Fan went on:
“I think,” said she, “that it is very foolish of you to keep running backwards and forwards from one country to another, wasting your time and accomplishing nothing.”
Tian Shan dug up some soft, black earth with the heels of his boots.
“Perhaps it is,” he observed.
That night Tian Shan’s relish for his supper was less keen than usual, and when he laid his head upon his pillow, instead of sleeping, he could only think of Fin Fan. Fin Fan! Fin Fan! Her face was before him, her voice in his ears. The clock ticked Fin Fan; the cat purred it; a little mousesqueakedsqueakedit; a night-bird sang it. He tossed about, striving to think what ailed him. With the first glimmer of morning came knowledge of his condition. He loved Fin Fan, even as the American man loves the girl he would make his wife.
Now Tian Shan, unlike most Chinese, had never saved money and, therefore, had no home to offer Fin Fan. He knew, also, that her father had his eye upon a young merchant in Montreal, who would make a very desirable son-in-law.
In the early light of the morning Tian Shan arose and wrote a letter. In this letter, which was written with a pointed brush on long yellow sheets of paper, he told Fin Fan that, as she thought it was foolish, he was going to relinquish the pleasure of running backwards and forwards across the border, for some time at least. He was possessed of a desire to save money so that he could have a wife anda home. In a year, perhaps, he would see her again.
Lee Ping could hardly believe that his daughter was seriously opposed to becoming the wife of such a good-looking, prosperous young merchant as Wong Ling. He tried to bring her to reason, but instead of yielding her will to the parental, she declared that she would take a place as a domestic to some Canadian lady with whom she had become acquainted at the Mission sooner than wed the man her father had chosen.
“Is not Wong Ling a proper man?” inquired the amazed parent.
“Whether he is proper or improper makes no difference to me,” returned Fin Fan. “I will not marry him, and the law in this country is so that you cannot compel me to wed against my will.”
Lee Ping’s good-natured face became almost pitiful as he regarded his daughter. Only a hen who has hatched a duckling and sees it take to the water for the first time could have worn such an expression.
Fin Fan’s heart softened. She was as fond of her father as he of her. Sidling up to him, she began stroking his sleeve in a coaxing fashion.
“For a little while longer I wish only to stay with you,” said she.
Lee Ping shook his head, but gave in.
“You must persuade her yourself,” said he to Wong Ling that evening. “We are in a country where the sacred laws and customs of China are as naught.”
So Wong Ling pressed his own suit. He was not a bad-looking fellow, and knew well also how to honey his speech. Moreover, he believed in paving his way with offerings of flowers, trinkets, sweetmeats.
Fin Fan looked, listened, and accepted. Every gift that could be kept was carefully put by in a trunk which she hoped some day to take to New York. “They will help to furnish Tian Shan’s home,” said she.
Twelve moons had gone by since Tian Shan had begun to think of saving and once again he was writing to Fin Fan.
“I have made and I have saved,” wrote he. “Shall I come for you?”
And by return mail came an answer which was not “No.”
Of course, Fin Fan’s heart beat high with happiness when Tian Shan walked into her father’s store; but to gratify some indescribable feminine instinct she simply noddedcoolly in his direction, and continued what might be called a flirtation with Wong Ling, who had that morning presented her with the first Chinese lily of the season and a box of the best preserved ginger.
Tian Shan sat himself down on a box of dried mushrooms and glowered at his would-be rival, who, unconscious of the fact that he was making a third when there was needed but a two, chattered on like a running stream. Thoughtlessly and kittenishly Fin Fan tossed a word, first to this one, and next to that; and whilst loving with all her heart one man, showed much more favor to the other.
Finally Tian Shan arose from the mushrooms and marched over to the counter.
“These yours?” he inquired of Wong Ling, indicating the lily and the box of ginger.
“Miss Fin Fan has done me the honor of accepting them,” blandly replied Wong Ling.
“Very good,” commented Tian Shan. He picked up the gifts and hurled them into the street.
A scene of wild disorder followed. In the midst of it the father of Fin Fan, who had been downtown, appeared at the door.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
“Oh, father, father, they are killing oneanother! Separate them, oh, separate them!” pleaded Fin Fan.
But her father’s interference was not needed. Wong Ling swerved to one side, and falling, struck the iron foot of the stove. Tian Shan, seeing his rival unconscious, rushed out of the store.
The moon hung in the sky like a great yellow pearl and the night was beautiful and serene. But Fin Fan, miserable and unhappy, could not rest.
“All your fault! All your fault!” declared the voice of conscience.
“Fin Fan,” spake a voice near to her.
Could it be? Yes, it surely was Tian Shan.
She could not refrain from a little scream.
“Sh! Sh!” bade Tian Shan. “Is he dead?”
“No,” replied Fin Fan, “he is very sick, but he will recover.”
“I might have been a murderer,” mused Tian Shan. “As it is I am liable to arrest and imprisonment for years.”
“I am the cause of all the trouble,” wept Fin Fan.
Tian Shan patted her shoulder in an attemptat consolation, but a sudden footfall caused her to start away from him.
“They are hunting you!” she cried. “Go! Go!”
And Tian Shan, casting upon her one long farewell look, strode with rapid steps away.
Poor Fin Fan! She had indeed lost every one, and added to that shame, was the secret sorrow and remorse of her own heart. All the hopes and the dreams which had filled the year that was gone were now as naught, and he, around whom they had been woven, was, because of her, a fugitive from justice, even in Canada.
One day she picked up an American newspaper which a customer had left on the counter, and, more as a habit than for any other reason, began spelling out the paragraphs.
A Chinese, who has been unlawfully breathing United States air for several years, was captured last night crossing the border, a feat which he is said to have successfully accomplished more than a dozen times during the last few years. His name is Tian Shan, and there is no doubt whatever that he will be deported to China as soon as the necessary papers can be made out.
A Chinese, who has been unlawfully breathing United States air for several years, was captured last night crossing the border, a feat which he is said to have successfully accomplished more than a dozen times during the last few years. His name is Tian Shan, and there is no doubt whatever that he will be deported to China as soon as the necessary papers can be made out.
Fin Fan lifted her head. Fresh air and light had come into her soul. Her eyes sparkled.In the closet behind her hung a suit of her father’s clothes. Fin Fan was a tall and well-developed young woman.
“You are to have company,” said the guard, pausing in front of Tian Shan’s cage. “A boy without certificate was caught this morning by two of our men this side of Rouse’s Point. He has been unable to give an account of himself, so we are putting him in here with you. You will probably take the trip to China together.”
Tian Shan continued reading a Chinese paper which he had been allowed to retain. He was not at all interested in the companion thrust upon him. He would have preferred to be left alone. The face of the absent one is so much easier conjured in silence and solitude. It was a foregone conclusion with Tian Shan that he would never again behold Fin Fan, and with true Chinese philosophy he had begun to reject realities and accept dreams as the stuff upon which to live. Life itself was hard, bitter, and disappointing. Only dreams are joyous and smiling.
One star after another had appeared until the heavens were patterned with twinkling lights. Through his prison bars Tian Shan gazed solemnly upon the firmament.
Some one touched his elbow. It was his fellow-prisoner.
So far the boy had not intruded himself, having curled himself up in a corner of the cell and slept soundly apparently, ever since his advent.
“What do you want?” asked Tian Shan not unkindly.
“To go to China with you and to be your wife,” was the softly surprising reply.
“Fin Fan!” exclaimed Tian Shan. “Fin Fan!”
The boy pulled off his cap.
“Aye,” said he. “’Tis Fin Fan!”
Ah Oi, the Chinese actress, threw herself down on the floor of her room and, propping her chin on her hands, gazed up at the narrow strip of blue sky which could be seen through her window. She seemed to have lost her usually merry spirits. For the first time since she had left her home her thoughts were seriously with the past, and she longed with a great longing for the Chinese Sea, the boats, and the wet, blowing sands. She had been a fisherman’s daughter,and many a spring had she watched the gathering of the fishing fleet to which her father’s boat belonged. Well could she remember clapping her hands as the vessels steered out to sea for the season’s work, her father’s amongst them, looking as bright as paint could make it, and flying a neat little flag at its stern; and well could she also remember how her mother had taught her to pray to “Our Lady of Pootoo,” the goddess of sailors. One does not need to be a Christian to be religious, and Ah Oi’s parents had carefully instructed their daughter according to their light, and it was not their fault if their daughter was a despised actress in an American Chinatown.
The sound of footsteps outside her door seemed to chase away Ah Oi’s melancholy mood, and when a girl crossed her threshold, she was gazing amusedly into the street below—a populous thoroughfare of Chinatown.
The newcomer presented a strange appearance. She was crying so hard that red paint, white powder, and carmine lip salve were all besmeared over a naturally pretty face.
Ah Oi began to laugh.
“Why, Mag-gee,” said she, “how odd you look with little red rivers running over your face! What is the matter?”
“What is the matter?” echoed Mag-gee, who was a half-white girl. “The matter is that I wish that I were dead! I am to be married tonight to a Chinaman whom I have never seen, and whom I can’t bear. It isn’t natural that I should. I always took to other men, and never could put up with a Chinaman. I was born in America, and I’m not Chinese in looks nor in any other way. See! My eyes are blue, and there is gold in my hair; and I love potatoes and beef, and every time I eat rice it makes me sick, and so does chopped up food. He came down about a week ago and made arrangements with father, and now everything is fixed and I’m going away forever to live in China. I shall be a Chinese woman next year—I commenced to be one today, when father made me put the paint and powder on my face, and dress in Chinese clothes. Oh! I never want anyone to feel as I do. To think of having to marry a Chinaman! How I hate the Chinese! And the worst of it is, loving somebody else all the while.”
The girl burst into passionate sobs. The actress, who was evidently accustomed to hearing her compatriots reviled by the white and half-white denizens of Chinatown, laughed—a light, rippling laugh. Her eyes glinted mischievously.
“Since you do not like the Chinese men,” said she, “why do you give yourself to one? And if you care so much for somebody else, why do you not fly to that somebody?”
Bold words for a Chinese woman to utter! But Ah Oi was not as other Chinese women, who all their lives have been sheltered by a husband or father’s care.
The half-white girl stared at her companion.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“This,” said Ah Oi. The fair head and dark head drew near together; and two women passing the door heard whispers and suppressed laughter.
“Ah Oi is up to some trick,” said one.