Mrs. Spring Fragrance
taught me to kotow to my father and run to greet him when he came into
the house,” said he, pointing to Little Waking Eyes, who came straggling
after them, a kitten in his chubby arms.
“Oh, Liu Venti,” replied Pau Tsu, “you are thinking of home—even as I.
This morning I thought I heard my mother’s voice, calling to me as I
have so often heard her on sunny mornings in the Province of the Happy
River. She would flutter her fan at me in a way that was peculiarly her
own. And my father! Oh, my dear father!”
“Aye,” responded Liu Venti. “Our parents loved us, and the love of
parents is a good thing. Here, we live in exile, and though we are happy
in each other, in our children, and in the friendships which the new
light has made possible for us, yet I would that our sons could be
brought up in our own country and not in an American Chinatown.”
He glanced comprehensively up the street as he said this. A motley
throng, made up, not only of his own countrymen, but of all
nationalities, was scuffling along. Two little children were eating rice
out of a tin dish on a near-by door-step. The singsong voices of girls
were calling to one another from high balconies up a shadowy alley. A
boy, balancing a wooden tray of viands on his head, was crossing the
street. The fat barber was laughing hilariously at a drunken white man
who had fallen into a gutter. A withered old fellow, carrying a bird in
a cage, stood at a corner entreating passers-by to pause and have a good
fortune told. A vender of dried fish and bunches of sausages held noisy
possession of the corner opposite.
Liu Venti’s glance travelled back to the children eating rice on the
doorstep, then rested on the head of his own young son.
“And our fathers’ mansions,” said he, “are empty of the voices of little
ones.”
* * * * *
“Let us go home,” said Pau Tsu suddenly.
Liu Venti started. Pau Tsu’s words echoed the wish of his own heart. But
he was not as bold as she.
“How dare we?” he asked. “Have not our fathers sworn that they will
never forgive us?”
“The light within me this evening,” replied Pau Tsu, “reveals that our
parents sorrow because they have this sworn. Oh, Liu Venti, ought we not
to make our parents happy, even if we have to do so against their will?”
“I would that we could,” replied Liu Venti. “But before we can approach
them, there is to be overcome your father’s hatred for my father and my
father’s hatred for thine.”
A shadow crossed Pau Tsu’s face. But not for long. It lifted as she
softly said: “Love is stronger than hate.”
Little Waking Eyes clambered upon his father’s knee.
“Me too,” cried Little Sleeping Eyes, following him. With chubby fists
he pushed his brother to one side and mounted his father also.
Pau Tsu looked across at her husband and sons. “Oh, Liu Venti,” she
said, “for the sake of our children; for the sake of our parents; for
the sake of a broader field of work for ourselves, we are called upon to
make a sacrifice!”
Three months later, Liu Venti and Pau Tsu, with mingled sorrow and hope
in their hearts, bade goodbye to their little sons and sent them across
the sea, offerings of love to parents of whom both son and daughter
remembered nothing but love and kindness, yet from whom that son and
daughter were estranged by a poisonous thing called Hate.
III
Two little boys were playing together on a beach. One gazed across the
sea with wondering eyes. A thought had come—a memory.
“Where are father and mother?” he asked, turning to his brother.
The other little boy gazed bewilderedly back at him and echoed:
“Where are father and mother?”
Then the two little fellows sat down in the sand and began to talk to
one another in a queer little old-fashioned way of their own.
“Grandfathers and grandmothers are very good,” said Little Waking Eyes.
“Very good,” repeated Little Sleeping Eyes.
“They give us lots of nice things.”
“Lots of nice things!”
“Balls and balloons and puff puffs and kitties.”
“Balls and balloons and puff puffs and kitties.”
“The puppet show is very beautiful!”
“Very beautiful!”
“And grandfathers fly kites and puff fire flowers!”
“Fly kites and puff fire flowers!”
“And grandmothers have cakes and sweeties.”
“Cakes and sweeties!”
“But where are father and mother?”
Little Waking Eyes and Little Sleeping Eyes again searched each other’s
faces; but neither could answer the other’s question. Their little
mouths drooped pathetically; they propped their chubby little faces in
their hands and heaved queer little sighs.
There were father and mother one time—always, always; father and mother
and Sung Sung. Then there was the big ship and Sung Sung only, and the
big water. After the big water, grandfathers and grandmothers; and
Little Waking Eyes had gone to live with one grandfather and
grandmother, and Little Sleeping Eyes had gone to live with another
grandfather and grandmother. And the old Sung Sung had gone away and two
new Sung Sungs had come. And Little Waking Eyes and Little Sleeping Eyes
had been good and had not cried at all. Had not father and mother said
that grandfathers and grandmothers were just the same as fathers and
mothers?
“Just the same as fathers and mothers,” repeated Little Waking Eyes to
Little Sleeping Eyes, and Little Sleeping Eyes nodded his head and
solemnly repeated: “Just the same as fathers and mothers.”
Then all of a sudden Little Waking Eyes stood up, rubbed his fists into
his eyes and shouted: “I want my father and mother; I want my father and
mother!” And Little Sleeping Eyes also stood up and echoed strong and
bold: “I want my father and mother; I want my father and mother.”
It was the day of rebellion of the sons of Liu Venti and Pau Tsu.
When the two new Sung Sungs who had been having their fortunes told by
an itinerant fortune-teller whom they had met some distance down the
beach, returned to where they had left their young charges, and found
them not, they were greatly perturbed and rent the air with their cries.
Where could the children have gone? The beach was a lonely one, several
miles from the seaport city where lived the grandparents of the
children. Behind the beach, the bare land rose for a little way back up
the sides and across hills to meet a forest dark and dense.
Said one Sung Sung to another, looking towards this forest: “One might
as well search for a pin at the bottom of the ocean as search for the
children there. Besides, it is haunted with evil spirits.”
“A-ya, A-ya, A-ya!” cried the other, “Oh, what will my master and
mistress say if I return home without Little Sleeping Eyes, who is the
golden plum of their hearts?”
“And what will my master and mistress do to me if I enter their presence
without Little Waking Eyes? I verily believe that the sun shines for
them only when he is around.”
For over an hour the two distracted servants walked up and down the
beach, calling the names of their little charges; but there was no
response.
IV
Thy grandson—the beloved of my heart, is lost, is lost! Go forth, old
man, and find him.”
Liu Jusong, who had just returned from the Hall, where from morn till
eve he adjusted the scales of justice, stared speechlessly at the old
lady who had thus accosted him. The loss of his grandson he scarcely
realized; but that his humble spouse had suddenly become his superior
officer, surprised him out of his dignity.
“What meaneth thy manner?” he bewilderedly inquired.
“It meaneth,” returned the old lady, “that I have borne all I can bear.
Thy grandson is lost through thy fault. Go, find him!”
“How my fault? Surely, thou art demented!”
“Hadst thou not hated Li Wang, Little Waking Eyes and Little Sleeping
Eyes could have played together in our own grounds or within the
compound of Li Wang. But this is no time to discourse on spilt plums.
Go, follow Li Wang in the search for thy grandsons. I hear that he has
already left for the place where the stupid thorns who had them in
charge, declare they disappeared.”
The old lady broke down.
“Oh, my little Bright Eyes! Where art thou wandering?” she wailed.
Liu Jusong regarded her sternly. “If my enemy,” said he, “searcheth for
my grandsons, then will not I.”
With dignified step he passed out of the room. But in the hall was a
child’s plaything. His glance fell upon it and his expression softened.
Following the servants despatched by his wife, the old mandarin joined
in the search for Little Waking Eyes and Little Sleeping Eyes.
* * * * *
Under the quiet stars they met—the two old men who had quarrelled in
student days and who ever since had cultivated hate for each other. The
cause of their quarrel had long been forgotten; but in the fertile soil
of minds irrigated with the belief that the superior man hates well and
long, the seed of hate had germinated and flourished. Was it not because
of that hate that their children were exiles from the homes of their
fathers—those children who had met in a foreign land, and in spite of
their fathers’ hatred, had linked themselves in love.
They spread their fans before their faces, each pretending not to see
the other, while their servants inquired: “What news of the honorable
little ones?”
“No news,” came the answer from each side.
The old men pondered sternly. Finally Liu Jusong said to his servants:
“I will search in the forest.”
“So also will I,” announced Li Wang.
Liu Jusong lowered his fan. For the first time in many years he allowed
his eyes to rest on the countenance of his quondam friend, and that
quondam friend returned his glance. But the servant men shuddered.
“It is the haunted forest,” they cried. “Oh, honorable masters, venture
not amongst evil spirits!”
But Li Wang laughed them to scorn, as also did Liu Jusong.
“Give me a lantern,” bade Li Wang. “I will search alone since you are
afraid.”
He spake to his servants; but it was not his servants who answered:
“Nay, not alone. Thy grandson is my grandson and mine is thine!”
* * * * *
“Oh, grandfather,” cried Little Waking Eyes, clasping his arms around
Liu Jusong’s neck, “where are father and mother?”
And Little Sleeping Eyes murmured in Li Wang’s ear, “I want my father
and mother!”
Liu Jusong and Li Wang looked at each other. “Let us send for our
children,” said they.
V
“How many moons, Liu Venti, since our little ones went from us?” asked
Pau Tsu.
She was very pale, and there was a yearning expression in her eyes.
“Nearly five,” returned Liu Venti, himself stifling a sigh.
“Sometimes,” said Pau Tsu, “I feel I cannot any longer bear their
absence.”
She drew from her bosom two little shoes, one red, one blue.
“Their first,” said she. “Oh, my sons, my little sons!”
A messenger boy approached, handed Liu Venti a message, and slipped
away.
Liu Venti read:
May the bamboo ever wave. Son and daughter,
return to your parents and your children.
LIU JUSONG, LI WANG.
“The answer to our prayer,” breathed Pau Tsu. “Oh Liu Venti, love is
indeed stronger than hate!”
THE BANISHMENT OF MING AND MAI
I
Many years ago in the beautiful land of China, there lived a rich and
benevolent man named Chan Ah Sin. So kind of heart was he that he could
not pass through a market street without buying up all the live fish,
turtles, birds, and animals that he saw, for the purpose of giving them
liberty and life. The animals and birds he would set free in a cool