Mrs. Spring Fragrance
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!”
THE SING SONG WOMAN
I
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.
II
“The Sing Song Woman! The Sing Song Woman!” It was a wild cry of anger
and surprise.
The ceremony of unveiling the bride had just been performed, and Hwuy
Yen, the father of Mag-gee, and his friends, were in a state of great
excitement, for the unveiled, brilliantly clothed little figure standing
in the middle of the room was not the bride who was to have been; but Ah
Oi, the actress, the Sing Song Woman.
Every voice but one was raised. The bridegroom, a tall, handsome man,
did not understand what had happened, and could find no words to express
his surprise at the uproar. But he was so newly wedded that it was not
until Hwuy Yen advanced to the bride and shook his hand threateningly in
her face, that he felt himself a husband, and interfered by placing
himself before the girl.
“What is all this?” he inquired. “What has my wife done to merit such
abuse?”
“Your wife!” scornfully ejaculated Hwuy Yen. “She is no wife of yours.
You were to have married my daughter, Mag-gee. This is not my daughter;
this is an impostor, an actress, a Sing Song Woman. Where is my
daughter?”
Ah Oi laughed her peculiar, rippling, amused laugh. She was in no wise
abashed, and, indeed, appeared to be enjoying the situation. Her bright,
defiant eyes met her questioner’s boldly as she answered:
“Mag-gee has gone to eat beef and potatoes with a white man. Oh, we had
such a merry time making this play!”
“See how worthless a thing she is,” said Hwuy Yen to the young
bridegroom.
The latter regarded Ah Oi compassionately. He was a man, and perhaps a
little tenderness crept into his heart for the girl towards whom so much
bitterness was evinced. She was beautiful. He drew near to her.
“Can you not justify yourself?” he asked sadly.
For a moment Ah Oi gazed into his eyes—the only eyes that had looked
with true kindness into hers for many a moon.
“You justify me,” she replied with an upward, pleading glance.
Then Ke Leang, the bridegroom, spoke. He said: “The daughter of Hwuy Yen
cared not to become my bride and has sought her happiness with another.
Ah Oi, having a kind heart, helped her to that happiness, and tried to
recompense me my loss by giving me herself. She has been unwise and
indiscreet; but the good that is in her is more than the evil, and now
that she is my wife, none shall say a word against her.”
Ah Oi pulled at his sleeve.
“You give me credit for what I do not deserve,” said she. “I had no kind
feelings. I thought only of mischief, and I am not your wife. It is but
a play like the play I shall act tomorrow.”
“Hush!” bade Ke Leang. “You shall act no more. I will marry you again
and take you to China.”
Then something in Ah Oi’s breast, which for a long time had been hard as
stone, became soft and tender, and her eyes ran over with tears.
“Oh, sir,” said she, “it takes a heart to make a heart, and you have put
one today in the bosom of a Sing Song Woman.”
_Tales of Chinese Children_
THE SILVER LEAVES
There was a fringe of trees along an open field. They were not very tall
trees, neither were they trees that flowered or fruited; but to the eyes
of Ah Leen they were very beautiful. Their slender branches were covered
with leaves of a light green showing a silvery under surface, and when
the wind moved or tossed them, silver gleams flashed through the green
in a most enchanting way.
Ah Leen stood on the other side of the road admiring the trees with the
silver leaves.
A little old woman carrying a basket full of ducks’ eggs came happily
hobbling along. She paused by the side of Ah Leen.
“Happy love!” said she. “Your eyes are as bright as jade jewels!”
Ah Leen drew a long breath. “See!” said she, “the dancing leaves.”
The little old woman adjusted her blue goggles and looked up at the
trees. “If only,” said she, “some of that silver was up my sleeve, I
would buy you a pink parasol and a folding fan.”
“And if some of it were mine,” answered Ah Leen, “I would give it to my
baby brother.” And she went on to tell the little old woman that that
eve there was to be a joyful time at her father’s house, for her baby
brother was to have his head shaved for the first time, and everybody
was coming to see it done and would give her baby brother gifts of gold
and silver. Her father and her mother, also, and her big brother and her
big sister, all had gifts to give. She loved well her baby brother. He
was so very small and so very lively, and his fingers and toes were so
pink. And to think that he had lived a whole moon, and she had no
offering to prove the big feeling that swelled and throbbed in her
little heart for him.
Ah Leen sighed very wistfully.
Just then a brisk breeze blew over the trees, and as it passed by, six
of the silver leaves floated to the ground.
“Oh! Oh!” cried little Ah Leen. She pattered over to where they had
fallen and picked them up.
Returning to the old woman, she displayed her treasures.
“Three for you and three for me!” she cried.
The old woman accepted the offering smilingly, and happily hobbled away.
In every house she entered, she showed her silver leaves, and told how
she had obtained them, and every housewife that saw and heard her,
bought her eggs at a double price.
At sundown, the guests with their presents began streaming into the
house of Man You. Amongst them was a little old woman. She was not as
well off as the other guests, but because she was the oldest of all the
company, she was given the seat of honor. Ah Leen, the youngest daughter
of the house, sat on a footstool at her feet. Ah Leen’s eyes were very
bright and her cheeks glowed. She was wearing a pair of slippers with
butterfly toes, and up her little red sleeve, carefully folded in a
large leaf, were three small silver leaves.
Once when the mother of Ah Leen brought a cup of tea to the little old
woman, the little old woman whispered in her ear, and the mother of Ah
Leen patted the head of her little daughter and smiled kindly down upon
her.
Then the baby’s father shaved the head of the baby, the Little Bright