Mrs. Spring Fragrance
said Mermei to Sin Far—her new friend, and Sin Far, the meaning of whose
name was Pure Flower, or Chinese Lily, answered:
“Yes, indeed. The woman must be the friend of the woman, and the man the
friend of the man. Is it not so in the country that Heaven loves?”
“What beneficent spirit moved you to come to my door?” asked Mermei.
“I know not,” replied Sin Far, “save that I was lonely. We have but
lately moved here, my sister, my sister’s husband, and myself. My sister
is a bride, and there is much to say between her and her husband.
Therefore, in the evening, when the day’s duties are done, I am alone.
Several times, hearing that you were sick, I ventured to your door; but
failed to knock, because always when I drew near, I heard the voice of
him whom they call your brother. Tonight, as I returned from an errand
for my sister, I heard only the sound of weeping—so I hastened to my
room and plucked the lily for you.”
The next evening when Lin John explained how he had been obliged to work
the evening before Mermei answered brightly that that was all right. She
loved him just as much as ever and was just as glad to see him as ever;
but if work prevented him from calling he was not to worry. She had
found a friend who would cheer her loneliness.
Lin John was surprised, but glad to hear such news, and it came to pass
that when he beheld Sin Far, her sweet and gentle face, her pretty
drooped eyelids and arched eyebrows, he began to think of apple and
peach and plum trees showering their dainty blossoms in the country that
Heaven loves.
* * * * *
It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. Lin John, working in his
laundry, paid little attention to the street uproar and the clang of the
engines rushing by. He had no thought of what it meant to him and would
have continued at his work undisturbed had not a boy put his head into
the door and shouted:
“Lin John, the house in which your sister lives is on fire!”
The tall building was in flames when Lin John reached it. The uprising
tongues licked his face as he sprung up the ladder no other man dared
ascend.
“I will not go. It is best for me to die,” and Mermei resisted her
friend with all her puny strength.
“The ladder will not bear the weight of both of us. You are his sister,”
calmly replied Sin Far.
“But he loves you best. You and he can be happy together. I am not fit
to live.”
“May Lin John decide, Mermei?”
“Yes, Lin John may decide.”
Lin John reached the casement. For one awful second he wavered. Then his
eyes sought the eyes of his sister’s friend.
“Come, Mermei,” he called.
* * * * *
“Where is Sin Far?” asked Mermei when she became conscious.
“Sin Far is in the land of happy spirits.”
“And I am still in this sad, dark world.”
“Speak not so, little one. Your brother loves you and will protect you
from the darkness.”
“But you loved Sin Far better—and she loved you.”
Lin John bowed his head.
“Alas!” wept Mermei. “That I should live to make others sad!”
“Nay,” said Lin John, “Sin Far is happy. And I—I did my duty with her
approval, aye, at her bidding. How then, little sister, can I be sad?”
THE SMUGGLING OF TIE CO
Amongst the daring men who engage in contrabanding Chinese from Canada
into the United States Jack Fabian ranks as the boldest in deed, the
cleverest in scheming, and the most successful in outwitting Government
officers.
Uncommonly strong in person, tall and well built, with fine features and
a pair of keen, steady blue eyes, gifted with a sort of rough eloquence
and of much personal fascination, it is no wonder that we fellows regard
him as our chief and are bound to follow where he leads. With Fabian at
our head we engage in the wildest adventures and find such places of
concealment for our human goods as none but those who take part in a
desperate business would dare to dream of.
Jack, however, is not in search of glory—money is his object. One day
when a romantic friend remarked that it was very kind of him to help the
poor Chinamen over the border, a cynical smile curled his moustache.
“Kind!” he echoed. “Well, I haven’t yet had time to become sentimental
over the matter. It is merely a matter of dollars and cents, though, of
course, to a man of my strict principles, there is a certain pleasure to
be derived from getting ahead of the Government. A poor devil does now
and then like to take a little out of those millionaire concerns.”
It was last summer and Fabian was somewhat down on his luck. A few
months previously, to the surprise of us all, he had made a blunder,
which resulted in his capture by American officers, and he and his
companion, together with five uncustomed Chinamen, had been lodged in a
county jail to await trial.
But loafing behind bars did not agree with Fabian’s energetic nature, so
one dark night, by means of a saw which had been given to him by a very
innocent-looking visitor the day before, he made good his escape, and
after a long, hungry, detective-hunted tramp through woods and bushes,
found himself safe in Canada.
He had had a three months’ sojourn in prison, and during that time some
changes had taken place in smuggling circles. Some ingenious lawyers had
devised a scheme by which any young Chinaman on payment of a couple of
hundred dollars could procure a father which father would swear the
young Chinaman was born in America—thus proving him to be an American
citizen with the right to breathe United States air. And the Chinese
themselves, assisted by some white men, were manufacturing certificates
establishing their right to cross the border, and in that way were
crossing over in large batches.
That sort of trick naturally spoiled our fellows’ business, but we all
know that “Yankee sharper” games can hold good only for a short while;
so we bided our time and waited in patience.
Not so Fabian. He became very restless and wandered around with
glowering looks. He was sitting one day in a laundry, the proprietor of
which had sent out many a boy through our chief’s instrumentality.
Indeed, Fabian is said to have “rushed over” to “Uncle Sam” himself some
five hundred Celestials, and if Fabian had not been an exceedingly
generous fellow he might now be a gentleman of leisure instead of an
unimmortalized Rob Roy.
Well, Fabian was sitting in the laundry of Chen Ting Lung & Co., telling
a nice-looking young Chinaman that he was so broke that he’d be willing
to take over even one man at a time.
The young Chinaman looked thoughtfully into Fabian’s face. “Would you
take me?” he inquired.
“Take you!” echoed Fabian. “Why, you are one of the ‘bosses’ here. You
don’t mean to say that you are hankering after a place where it would
take you years to get as high up in the ‘washee, washee’ business as you
are now?”
“Yes, I want go,” replied Tie Co. “I want go to New York and I will pay
you fifty dollars and all expense if you take me, and not say you take
me to my partners.”
“There’s no accounting for a Chinaman,” muttered Fabian; but he gladly
agreed to the proposal and a night was fixed.
“What is the name of the firm you are going to?” inquired the white man.
Chinamen who intend being smuggled always make arrangements with some
Chinese firm in the States to receive them.
Tie Co hesitated, then mumbled something which sounded like “Quong Wo
Yuen” or “Long Lo Toon,” Fabian was not sure which, but did not repeat
the question, not being sufficiently interested.
He left the laundry, nodding goodbye to Tie Co as he passed outside the
window, and the Chinaman nodded back, a faint smile on his small,
delicate face lingering until Fabian’s receding form was lost to view.
It was a pleasant night on which the two men set out. Fabian had a rig
waiting at the corner of the street; Tie Co, dressed in citizen’s
clothes, stepped into it unobserved, and the smuggler and
would-be-smuggled were soon out of the city. They had a merry drive, for
Fabian’s liking for Tie Co was very real; he had known him for several
years, and the lad’s quick intelligence interested him.
The second day they left their horse at a farmhouse, where Fabian would
call for it on his return trip, crossed a river in a row-boat before the
sun was up, and plunged into a wood in which they would remain till
evening. It was raining, but through mud and wind and rain they trudged
slowly and heavily.
Tie Co paused now and then to take breath. Once Fabian remarked:
“You are not a very strong lad, Tie Co. It’s a pity you have to work as
you do for your living,” and Tie Co had answered:
“Work velly good! No work, Tie Co die.”
Fabian looked at the lad protectingly, wondering in a careless way why
this Chinaman seemed to him so different from the others.
“Wouldn’t you like to be back in China?” he asked.
“No,” said Tie Co decidedly.
“Why?”
“I not know why,” answered Tie Co.
Fabian laughed.
“Haven’t you got a nice little wife at home?” he continued. “I hear you
people marry very young.”
“No, I no wife,” asserted his companion with a choky little laugh. “I
never have no wife.”
“Nonsense,” joked Fabian. “Why, Tie Co, think how nice it would be to
have a little woman cook your rice and to love you.”
“I not have wife,” repeated Tie Co seriously. “I not like woman, I like
man.”
“You confirmed old bachelor!” ejaculated Fabian.
“I like you,” said Tie Co, his boyish voice sounding clear and sweet in
the wet woods. “I like you so much that I want go to New York, so you
make fifty dollars. I no flend in New York.”
“What!” exclaimed Fabian.
“Oh, I solly I tell you, Tie Co velly solly,” and the Chinese boy
shuffled on with bowed head.
“Look here, Tie Co,” said Fabian; “I won’t have you do this for my sake.
You have been very foolish, and I don’t care for your fifty dollars. I
do not need it half as much as you do. Good God! how ashamed you make me
feel—I who have blown in my thousands in idle pleasures cannot take the
little you have slaved for. We are in New York State now. When we get
out of this wood we will have to walk over a bridge which crosses a
river. On the other side, not far from where we cross, there is a
railway station. Instead of buying you a ticket for the city of New York
I shall take train with you for Toronto.”
Tie Co did not answer—he seemed to be thinking deeply. Suddenly he
pointed to where some fallen trees lay.
“Two men run away behind there,” cried he.
Fabian looked round them anxiously; his keen eyes seemed to pierce the
gloom in his endeavor to catch a glimpse of any person; but no man was
visible, and, save the dismal sighing of the wind among the trees, all
was quiet.
“There’s no one,” he said somewhat gruffly—he was rather startled, for
they were a mile over the border and he knew that the Government
officers were on a sharp lookout for him, and felt, despite his
strength, if any trick or surprise were attempted it would go hard with
him.
“If they catch you with me it be too bad,” sententiously remarked Tie
Co. It seemed as if his words were in answer to Fabian’s thoughts.
“But they will not catch us; so cheer up your heart, my boy,” replied
the latter, more heartily than he felt.
“If they come, and I not with you, they not take you and it be all
lite.”
“Yes,” assented Fabian, wondering what his companion was thinking about.
They emerged from the woods in the dusk of the evening and were soon on
the bridge crossing the river. When they were near the centre Tie Co
stopped and looked into Fabian’s face.
“Man come for you, I not here, man no hurt you.” And with the words he
whirled like a flash over the rail.
In another flash Fabian was after him. But though a first-class swimmer,