Mrs. Spring Fragrance
One. He did this very carefully, leaving a small patch of hair, the
shape of a peach, in the centre of the small head. That peach-shaped
patch would some day grow into a queue. Ah Leen touched it lovingly with
her little finger after the ceremony was over. Never had the Little
Bright One seemed so dear.
The gifts were distributed after all the lanterns were lit. It was a
pretty sight. The mother of the Little Bright One held him on her lap,
whilst each guest, relative, or friend, in turn, laid on a table by her
side his gift of silver and gold, enclosed in a bright red envelope.
The elder sister had just passed Ah Leen with her gift, when Ah Leen
arose, and following after her sister to the gift-laden table, proudly
deposited thereon three leaves.
“They are silver—silver,” cried Ah Leen.
Nearly everybody smiled aloud; but Ah Leen’s mother gently lifted the
leaves and murmured in Ah Leen’s ear, “They are the sweetest gift of
all.”
How happy felt Ah Leen! As to the old woman who sold ducks’ eggs, she
beamed all over her little round face, and when she went away, she left
behind her a pink parasol and a folding fan.
THE PEACOCK LANTERN
It was such a pretty lantern—the prettiest of all the pretty lanterns
that the lantern men carried. Ah Wing longed to possess it. Upon the
transparent paper which covered the fine network of bamboo which
enclosed the candle, was painted a picture of a benevolent prince,
riding on a peacock with spreading tail. Never had Ah Wing seen such a
gorgeous lantern, or one so altogether admirable.
“Honorable father,” said he, “is not that a lantern of illuminating
beauty, and is not thy string of cash too heavy for thine honorable
shoulders?”
His father laughed.
“Come hither,” he bade the lantern man. “Now,” said he to Ah Wing,
“choose which lantern pleaseth thee best. To me all are the same.”
Ah Wing pointed to the peacock lantern, and hopped about impatiently,
whilst the lantern man fumbled with the wires which kept his lanterns
together.
“Oh, hasten! hasten!” cried Ah Wing.
The lantern man looked into his bright little face.
“Honorable little one,” said he, “would not one of the other lanterns
please thee as well as this one? For indeed, I would, if I could, retain
the peacock lantern. It is the one lantern of all which delights my own
little lad and he is sick and cannot move from his bed.”
Ah Wing’s face became red.
“Why then dost thou display the lantern?” asked the father of Ah Wing.
“To draw attention to the others,” answered the man. “I am very poor and
it is hard for me to provide my child with rice.”
The father of Ah Wing looked at his little son.
“Well?” said he.
Ah Wing’s face was still red.
“I want the peacock lantern,” he declared.
The father of Ah Wing brought forth his string of cash and drew
therefrom more than double the price of the lantern.
“Take this,” said he to the lantern man. “’Twill fill thy little sick
boy’s bowl with rice for many a day to come.”
The lantern man returned humble thanks, but while unfastening the
peacock lantern from the others, his face looked very sad.
Ah Wing shifted from one foot to another.
The lantern man placed the lantern in his hand. Ah Wing stood still
holding it.
“Thou hast thy heart’s desire now,” said his father. “Laugh and be
merry.”
But with the lantern man’s sad face before him, Ah Wing could not laugh
and be merry.
“If you please, honorable father,” said he, “may I go with the honorable
lantern man to see his little sick boy?”
“Yes,” replied his father. “And I will go too.”
When Ah Wing stood beside the bed of the little sick son of the lantern
man, he said:
“I have come to see thee, because my father has bought for my pleasure
the lantern which gives thee pleasure; but he has paid therefor to thy
father what will buy thee food to make thee strong and well.”
The little sick boy turned a very pale and very small face to Ah Wing.
“I care not,” said he, “for food to make me strong and well—for strong
and well I shall never be; but I would that I had the lantern for the
sake of San Kee.”
“And who may San Kee be?” inquired Ah Wing.
“San Kee,” said the little sick boy, “is an honorable hunchback. Every
evening he comes to see me and to take pleasure in my peacock lantern.
It is the only thing in the world that gives poor San Kee pleasure. I
would for his sake that I might have kept the peacock lantern.”
“For his sake!” echoed Ah Wing.
“Yes, for his sake,” answered the little sick boy. “It is so good to see
him happy. It is that which makes me happy.”
The tears came into Ah Wing’s eyes.
“Honorable lantern man,” said he, turning to the father of the little
sick boy, “I wish no more for the peacock lantern. Keep it, I pray thee,
for thy little sick boy. And honorable father”—he took his father’s
hand—“kindly buy for me at the same price as the peacock lantern one of
the other beautiful lanterns belonging to the honorable lantern man.”
CHILDREN OF PEACE
I
They were two young people with heads hot enough and hearts true enough
to believe that the world was well lost for love, and they were Chinese.
They sat beneath the shade of a cluster of tall young pines forming a
perfect bower of greenness and coolness on the slope of Strawberry hill.
Their eyes were looking ocean-wards, following a ship nearing the misty
horizon. Very serious were their faces and voices. That ship, sailing
from west to east, carried from each a message to his and her kin—a
message which humbly but firmly set forth that they were resolved to act
upon their belief and to establish a home in the new country, where they
would ever pray for blessings upon the heads of those who could not see
as they could see, nor hear as they could hear.
“My mother will weep when she reads,” sighed the girl.
“Pau Tsu,” the young man asked, “do you repent?”
“No,” she replied, “but—”
She drew from her sleeve a letter written on silk paper.
The young man ran his eye over the closely penciled characters.
“’Tis very much in its tenor like what my father wrote to me,” he
commented.
“Not that.”
Pau Tsu indicated with the tip of her pink forefinger a paragraph which
read:
Are you not ashamed to confess that you love a youth who is not yet
your husband? Such disgraceful boldness will surely bring upon your
head the punishment you deserve. Before twelve moons go by you will be
an Autumn Fan.
The young man folded the missive and returned it to the girl, whose face
was averted from his.
“Our parents,” said he, “knew not love in its springing and growing, its
bud and blossom. Let us, therefore, respectfully read their angry
letters, but heed them not. Shall I not love you dearer and more
faithfully because you became mine at my own request and not at my
father’s? And Pau Tsu, be not ashamed.”
The girl lifted radiant eyes.
“Listen,” said she. “When you, during vacation, went on that long
journey to New York, to beguile the time I wrote a play. My heroine is
very sad, for the one she loves is far away and she is much tormented by
enemies. They would make her ashamed of her love. But this is what she
replies to one cruel taunt:
“When Memory sees his face and hears his voice,
The Bird of Love within my heart sings sweetly,
So sweetly, and so clear and jubilant,
That my little Home Bird, Sorrow,
Hides its head under its wing,
And appeareth as if dead.
Shame! Ah, speak not that word to one who loves!
For loving, all my noblest, tenderest feelings are awakened,
And I become too great to be ashamed.”
“You do love me then, eh, Pau Tsu?” queried the young man.
“If it is not love, what is it?” softly answered the girl.
Happily chatting they descended the green hill. Their holiday was over.
A little later Liu Venti was on the ferry-boat which leaves every half
hour for the Western shore, bound for the Berkeley Hills opposite the
Golden Gate, and Pau Tsu was in her room at the San Francisco Seminary,
where her father’s ambition to make her the equal in learning of the son
of Liu Jusong had placed her.
II
The last little scholar of Pau Tsu’s free class for children was
pattering out of the front door when Liu Venti softly entered the
schoolroom. Pau Tsu was leaning against her desk, looking rather weary.
She did not hear her husband’s footstep, and when he approached her and
placed his hand upon her shoulder she gave a nervous start.
“You are tired, dear one,” said he, leading her towards the door where a
seat was placed.
“Teacher, the leaves of a flower you gave me are withering, and mother
says that is a bad omen.”
The little scholar had turned back to tell her this.
“Nay,” said Pau Tsu gently. “There are no bad omens. It is time for the
flower to wither and die. It cannot live always.”
“Poor flower!” compassionated the child.
“Not so poor!” smiled Pau Tsu. “The flower has seed from which other
flowers will spring, more beautiful than itself!”
“Ah, I will tell my mother!”
The little child ran off, her queue dangling and flopping as she loped
along. The teachers watched her join a group of youngsters playing on
the curb in front of the quarters of the Six Companies. One of the
Chiefs in passing had thrown a handful of firecrackers amongst the
children, and the result was a small bonfire and great glee.
It was seven years since Liu Venti and Pau Tsu had begun their work in
San Francisco’s Chinatown; seven years of struggle and hardship, working
and waiting, living, learning, fighting, failing, loving—and conquering.
The victory, to an onlooker, might have seemed small; just a modest
school for adult pupils of their own race, a few white night pupils, and
a free school for children. But the latter was in itself evidence that
Liu Venti and Pau Tsu had not only sailed safely through the waters of
poverty, but had reached a haven from which they could enjoy the
blessedness of stretching out helping hands to others.
During the third year of their marriage twin sons had been born to them,
and the children, long looked for and eagerly desired, were welcomed
with joy and pride. But mingled with this joy and pride was much serious
thought. Must their beloved sons ever remain exiles from the land of
their ancestors? For their little ones Liu Venti and Pau Tsu were much
more worldly than they had ever been themselves, and they could not
altogether stifle a yearning to be able to bestow upon them the
brightest and best that the world has to offer. Then, too, memories of
childhood came thronging with their children, and filial affection
reawakened. Both Liu Venti and Pau Tsu had been only children; both had
been beloved and had received all the advantages which wealth in their
own land could obtain; both had been the joy and pride of their homes.
They might, they sometimes sadly mused, have been a little less assured
in their declarations to the old folk; a little kinder, a little more
considerate. It was a higher light and a stronger motive than had ever
before influenced their lives which had led them to break the ties which
had bound them; yet those from whom they had cut away were ignorant of
such forces; at least, unable, by reason of education and environment,
to comprehend them. There were days when everything seemed to taste
bitter to Pau Tsu because she could not see her father and mother. And
Liu’s blood would tingle and his heart swell in his chest in the effort
to banish from his mind the shadows of those who had cared for him
before ever he had seen Pau Tsu.
“I was a little fellow of just about that age when my mother first