Mrs. Spring Fragrance
“I do not know what is the matter with the little boy,” said Grandfather
Chan. “He is so vexed because I cannot eat his candy.”
Mother Chan glanced at the string of cash and then at her little son’s
flushed face.
“I know,” said she. “The candy is not sweet to him, so he would have his
honorable grandfather eat it.”
Yen stared at his mother. How did she know! How could she know! But he
was glad that she knew, and at sundown he crept softly to her side and
said, “Honorable mother, the string of cash is less than at morn, but
the candy, it was not sweet.”
THE INFERIOR MAN
Ku Yum, the little daughter of Wen Hing, the schoolmaster, trotted into
the school behind her father and crawled under his desk. From that safe
retreat, her bright eyes looked out in friendly fashion upon the boys.
Ku Yum was three years old and was the only little girl who had ever
been in the schoolroom. Naturally, the boys were very much interested in
her, and many were the covert glances bestowed upon the chubby little
figure in red under the schoolmaster’s desk. Now and then a little lad,
after an unusually penetrating glance, would throw his sleeve over or
lift his slate up to his face, and his form would quiver strangely. Well
for the little lad that the schoolmaster wore glasses which somewhat
clouded his vision.
The wife of Wen Hing was not very well, which was the reason why the
teacher had been bringing the little Ku Yum to school with him for the
last three weeks. Wen Hing, being a kind husband, thought to help his
wife, who had two babies besides Ku Yum to look after.
But for all his troubled mind, the schoolmaster’s sense of duty to his
scholars was as keen as ever; also his sense of smell.
Suddenly he turned from the blackboard upon which he had been chalking.
“He who thinks only of good things to eat is an inferior man,” and
pushing back his spectacles, declared in a voice which caused his pupils
to shake in their shoes:
“Some degenerate son of an honorable parent is eating unfragrant sugar.”
“Unfragrant sugar! honorable sir!” exclaimed Han Wenti.
“Unfragrant sugar!” echoed little Yen Wing.
“Unfragrant sugar!”
“Unfragrant sugar!”
The murmur passed around the room.
“Silence!” commanded the teacher.
There was silence.
“Go Ek Ju,” said the teacher, “why is thy miserable head bowed?”
“Because, O wise and just one, I am composing,” answered Go Ek Ju.
“Read thy composition.”
“A wild boar and a sucking pig were eating acorns from the bed of a
sunken stream,” shrilly declaimed Go Ek Ju.
“Enough! It can easily be perceived what thy mind is on. Canst thou look
at me behind my back and declare that thou art not eating unfragrant
sugar?”
“To thy illuminating back, honorable sir, I declare that I am not eating
unfragrant sugar.”
The teacher’s brow became yet sterner.
“You, Mark Sing! Art thou the unfragrant sugar eater?”
“I know not the taste of that confection, most learned sir.”
The teacher sniffed.
“Some one,” he reasserted, “is eating unfragrant sugar. Whoever the
miserable culprit is, let him speak now, and four strokes from the
rattan is all that he shall receive.”
He paused. The clock ticked sixty times; but there was no response to
his appeal. He lifted his rattan.
“As no guilty one,” said he, “is honorable enough to acknowledge that he
is dishonorably eating unfragrant sugar, I shall punish all for the
offense, knowing that thereby the offender will receive justice. Go Ek
Ju, come forward, and receive eight strokes from the rattan.”
Go Ek Ju went forward and received the eight strokes. As he stood
trembling with pain before the schoolmaster’s desk, he felt a small hand
grasp his foot. His lip tightened. Then he returned to his seat, sore,
but undaunted, and unconfessed. In like manner also his schoolmates
received the rattan.
When the fifteen aching but unrepentant scholars were copying
industriously, “He who thinks only of good things to eat is an inferior
man,” and the schoolmaster, exhausted, had flung himself back on his
seat, a little figure in red emerged from under the schoolmaster’s desk
and attempted to clamber on to his lap. The schoolmaster held her back.
“What! What!” he exclaimed. “What! what!” He rubbed his head in puzzled
fashion. Then he lifted up the little red figure, turning its face
around to the schoolboys. Such a chubby, happy little face as it was.
Dimpled cheeks and pearly teeth showing in a gleeful smile. And the
hands of the little red figure grasped two sticky balls of red and white
peppermint candy—unfragrant sugar.
“Behold!” said the teacher, with a twinkle in his spectacles, “the
inferior man!”
Whereupon the boys forgot that they were aching. You see, they loved the
little Ku Yum and believed that they had saved her from eight strokes of
the rattan.
THE MERRY BLIND-MAN
The little finger on Ah Yen’s little left hand was very sore. Ah Yen had
poked it into a hot honey tart. His honorable mother had said: “Yen, you
must not touch that tart,” but just as soon as his honorable mother had
left the room, Yen forgot what she had said, and thrust the littlest
finger of his little left hand right into the softest, sweetest, and
hottest part of the tart.
Now he sat beside the window, feeling very sad and sore, for all the
piece of oiled white linen which his mother had carefully wrapped around
his little finger. It was a very happy-looking day. The sky was a lovely
blue, trimmed with pretty, soft white clouds, and on the purple lilac
tree which stood in front of his father’s cottage, two little yellow
eyebrows were chirping to each other.
But Yen, with his sore finger, did not feel at all happy. You see, if
his finger had not been sore, he could have been spinning the
bright-colored top which his honorable uncle had given him the day
before.
“Isn’t it a lovely day, little son?” called his mother.
“I think it is a homely day,” answered Yen.
“See those good little birds on the tree,” said his mother.
“I don’t believe they are good,” replied the little boy.
“Fie, for shame!” cried his mother; and she went on with her work.
Just then an old blind-man carrying a guitar came down the street. He
stopped just under the window by which Yen was seated, and leaning
against the wall began thrumming away on his instrument. The tunes he
played were very lively and merry. Yen looked down upon him and wondered
why. The blind-man was such a very old man, and not only blind but lame,
and so thin that Yen felt quite sure that he never got more than half a
bowl of rice for his dinner. How was it then that he played such merry
tunes? So merry indeed that, listening to them, Yen quite forgot to be
sour and sad. The old man went on playing and Yen went on listening.
After a while, the little boy smiled, then he laughed. The old man
lifted his head. He could not see with his sightless eyes, but he knew
that there was a little boy near to him whom he was making happy.
“Honorable great-grandfather of all the world,” said Yen. “Will you
please tell me why you, who are old, lame, and blind, make such merry
music that everybody who hears becomes merry also?”
The old man stopped thrumming and rubbed his chin. Then he smiled around
him and answered: “Why, I think, little Jewel Eyes, that the joyful
music comes just because I am old, lame, and blind.”
Yen looked down at his little finger.
“Do you hear what says the honorable great-grandfather of the world?” he
asked.
The little finger straightened itself up. It no longer felt sore, and
Yen was no longer sour and sad.
MISUNDERSTOOD
The baby was asleep. Ku Yum looked curiously at her little brother as he
lay in placid slumber. His head was to be shaved for the first time that
afternoon, and he was dressed for the occasion in three padded silk
vests, sky-blue trousers and an embroidered cap, which was surmounted by
a little gold god and a sprig of evergreen for good luck. This kept its
place on his head, even in sleep. On his arms and ankles were hung many
amulets and charms, and on the whole he appeared a very resplendent
baby. To Ku Yum, he was simply gorgeous, and she longed to get her
little arms around him and carry him to some place where she could
delight in him all by herself.
Ku Yum’s mind had been in a state of wonder concerning the boy, Ko Ku,
ever since he had been born. Why was he so very small and so very noisy?
What made his fingers and toes so pink? Why did her mother always smile
and sing whenever she had the baby in her arms? Why did her father, when
he came in from his vegetable garden, gaze so long at Ko Ku? Why did
grandmother make so much fuss over him? And yet, why, oh why, did they
give him nothing nice to eat?
The baby was sleeping very soundly. His little mouth was half open and a
faint, droning sound was issuing therefrom. He had just completed his
first moon and was a month old. Poor baby! that never got any rice to
eat, nor nice sweet cakes. Ku Yum’s heart swelled with compassion. In
her hand was a delicious half-moon cake. It was the time of the
harvest-moon festival and Ku Yum had already eaten three. Surely, the
baby would like a taste. She hesitated. Would she dare, when it lay upon
that silken coverlet? Ku Yum had a wholesome regard for her mother’s
bamboo slipper.
The window blind was torn on one side. A vagrant wind lifted it,
revealing an open window. There was a way out of that window to the
vegetable garden. Beyond the vegetable garden was a cool, green spot
under a clump of trees; also a beautiful puddle of muddy water.
An inspiration came to Ku Yum, born of benevolence. She lifted the
sleeping babe in her arms, and with hushed, panting breaths, bore him
slowly and laboriously to where her soul longed to be. He opened his
eyes once and gave a faint, disturbed cry, but lapsed again into
dreamland.
Ku Yum laid him down on the grass, adjusted his cap, smoothed down his
garments, ran her small fingers over his brows, or where his brows ought
to have been, tenderly prodded his plump cheeks, and ruffled his
straight hair. Little sighs of delight escaped her lips. The past and
the future were as naught to her. She revelled only in the present.
For a few minutes thus: then a baby’s cries filled the air. Ku Yum sat
up. She remembered the cake. It had been left behind. She found a large
green leaf, and placing that over the baby’s mouth in the hope of
mellowing its tones, cautiously wended her way back between the squash
and cabbages.
All was quiet and still. It was just before sundown and it was very
warm. Her mother still slept her afternoon sleep. Hastily seizing the
confection, she returned to the babe, her face beaming with benevolence
and the desire to do good. She pushed some morsels into the child’s
mouth. It closed its eyes, wrinkled its nose and gurgled; but its mouth
did not seem to Ku Yum to work just as a proper mouth should under such
pleasant conditions.
“Behold me! Behold me!” she cried, and herself swallowed the remainder
of the cake in two mouthfuls. Ko Ku, however, did not seem to be greatly
edified by the example set him. The crumbs remained, half on his tongue
and half on the creases of his cheek. He still emitted explosive noises.
Ku Yum sadly surveyed him.
“He doesn’t know how to eat. That’s why they don’t give him anything,”
she said to herself, and having come to this logical conclusion, she set
herself to benefit him in other ways than the one in which she had
failed.
She found some worms and ants, which she arranged on leaves and stones,
meanwhile keeping up a running commentary on their charms.
“See! This very small brown one—how many legs it has, and how fast it