ninH5
SGffllli
•■■.■;■:•' i
■■ "■ "'■■■■ ■> w
.''•■' ■■''■'■»§ ' ''.'
■;.-.'•■'-■ "■'■•■
S.B9S 55QO£o'5B55£&'G■ ■5>55«'5<-■4W'.■
-'•'••■'■■■•."-■•■•
llill555§
5Bm


;;- \ ..



I
wanes,
i 8'7

n.-
RTES SCIENTIA VERITAS
«THUB PROBSTH/UN
LVNV0u-"^v








MY CHINESE DAYS









A RF.LIC OF ANTIQUITY


MY
.... j
CHINESE
t
DAYS
•
GULTELMA
F.ALSOP
. 'i
from Photographs
. ■' -j j
>
. i j
: -1
: ■*
LONDON
L. '■ -' j
i ,!
HUTCHINSON & COMPANY
PATERNOSTER ROW
Li" .j
- - '\
<'
1
1
* >
; F 1
rv-- - ' -...'
Li" J
"'11/
-


PS
A46
Copyright, 1918,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
NottoooB Ureas
Set up and electrotjrped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., 0.S.A.
Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.


£y/Sf/-r/2
Eo iHg iFatijer








CONTENTS
CBAROt FAGI
I The Mandarin's Bride ...... i
II The Coolie's Wife 13
III Flying Stones 21
IV The Girl from Tunis . . . . ' . 30
V Glowing Needles 40
VI A Romance of the East 51
VII The Business of Life 57
VIII The Song of the Coolies .... 68
IX The Warm Grave 79
X The Slave Refuge at Kaung Wan . . 92
XI The Walled City 109
XII The Fishing Birds 120
XIII The Brigand's Knife 132
XIV The Wives of Li 145
XV The House of the Dead 167
XVI The Sanctuary of the Well . . . .185
XVII Where There's a Will! 200
XVIII The Seeking Hand 226
XIX The Flaming Wind 249
XX The River of Silence 258





'■/ 7
^
< .-■■;*
. L
'* ■#*?•'
-'
■.'
:'


MY CHINESE DAYS
THE MANDARIN'S BRIDE
IHAD been in Shanghai one week and was com-
fortably settled in my study and bedroom but
my mode of life was still strange to me and I
was invariably startled by the appearance of a hand-
some, black-haired, blue-gowned man called "the
boy", whenever I rang for a maid. The "Ladies'
House", as the woman's dormitory was called, was
directly opposite St. Margaret's Hospital, where I
was to work for the rest of my appointed lifetime.
St. Margaret's is a Mission Hospital for Chinese
women and children. The nurses, too, are Chinese.
In their uniforms of light blue trousers and jackets
and white aprons, I thought them very neat and
jaunty. They are quick and agile, and move with
more freedom than our many-skirted women. None
of them have bound feet.
About six o'clock, Doctor Donnellon, the physician
in charge, was called out to the country on an urgent
case. As she gathered up her wraps, she said to me,
"I am sorry to leave you so soon, but I hope you
will have a quiet night. If you need anything,


a MY CHINESE-DAYS
remember that A-doo is the best nurse. She speaks
a little English. You had better sleep in my room
in order to hear the night bell."
"When will you be back?" I asked, following her
to the door.
"I can't say. Some time to-morrow," she an-
swered. ♦
She stepped into her ricksha, and the wild-haired
coolie burst into a run and whisked her out of sight
around the wall of the compound.
I went back and finished my dinner with the
other women — two evangelists and three teachers.
I felt a slight tingling in my veins, as a swimmer
does on the brink of a plunge into water of an un-
guessable temperature. The desultory talk of the
table flowed around me unnoticed; I was wonder-
ing what the coming night would bring forth, so
much of the true physician's attitude had I ab-
sorbed in the three years since my graduation.
Everything happens at night.
The hospital was quiet when I made the rounds
at nine o'clock. The outlines of the patients were
mere formless lumps under their "bi-deus" of
padded cotton. I opened windows right and left,
pulled the covers from the children's noses, and
returned to the house. Overhead, the stars were
brilliant and brightly opalescent. The upcurling
eaves of the Chinese houses huddling around the
compound cut sharply against the steely-blue of
the sky. The broad palm leaves clashed softly
against each other like cymbals.
The feeling of the night grew upon me, as I


THE MANDARIN'S BRIDE 3
crouched on a low stool over the fire. One by
one, the other women went to bed. The Chinese
servants ceased their chatter. From the street I
heard the click of the watchman's castanets as he
struck them together on his rounds. Once, a sudden
burst of sound leapt out upon the quiet night, like
the wild upflaring of a hidden fire, and died away
in faint reverberations.
The gaudy yellow flames that had raced between
the irregular lumps of shining black coal changed
to dim, flickering wraiths of blue, hovering over
crimson embers. I forgot my anticipations in
dreams: I fancied the tiny, twisting flames were
the imprisoned ghosts of past ages, freed by the
devastating fire.
Suddenly the night bell, a huge, metallic alarm
hung over Doctor Donnellon's bed, rang sharply.
Half bewildered by its vicious clangor, I started up
and threw open the shutters. The two night nurses,
in outer garments of fur, and five men, stood on
the steps. The bright starlight shone on their
pallid faces and dark, inscrutable eyes.
"What do you want?" I called in Chinese.
To my relief, a voice answered in pidgin English.
"Come quick. Makee baby."
"All right," I answered, almost disappointed
that nothing more than an ordinary baby case
awaited me. I dressed hurriedly and stole out of
the sleeping house. The group on the steps was
talking excitedly.
Merely as a formality, I asked, "Is the woman
in the hospital?"


4 MY CHINESE DAYS
One of the men stepped forward. He was
promiscuously dressed in a foreign felt hat, tan
leather shoes, and a blue, brocaded, satin gown lined
with lamb's wool.
"Woman no can come," he explained. "She
too muchee sick. Two days, wantchee burn one
baby, no can burn."
"Burn a baby!" I cried, with a start of horror,
remembering all the weird tales of Chinese cruelty
I had heard within the past week.
But in a rapid, voluble mixture of pidgin and
Chinese, the man explained what he wanted. My
heart sank, for I had no relish for the inky black
alleys of Shanghai at midnight.
"More better, bring woman hospital-side," I
urged.
"No can do," the man retorted. "She too
muchee scare. She no savvey hospital. You
come."
He laid a quick hand upon my arm and peered
into my face. I liked his eyes and his earnestness,
and some of my fear evaporated; I had done my
"out" practice work in the polyglot slums of New
York and Philadelphia, and knew the night and its
calls. Yet I protested. Hospital results are so
much superior.
"Cost very much outside," I answered. "I
charge you twenty-five taels outside. Hospital side,
only 30 dong-ban a day."
"Never mind," he answered proudly, "Can do.
You come. Woman already eatee too muchee
bitterness."


THE MANDARIN'S BRIDE 5
Turning to the men behind him, he explained our
conversation in quick idiomatic jerks. Each man
picked up a corner of his satin robe to reach the
money pocket in his belt. Between them, in the
brilliant starlight, they counted out to me thirty-
four silver, Mexican dollars, the equivalent of the
twenty-five taels I had charged.
"Now come," the spokesman said.
I acquiesced, and sent for A-doo, the best nurse,
to accompany me. The surgical bag with its
sterile instruments, chloroform, and dressings, was
ready. Not five minutes later we left the compound,
A-doo and I in the center of the string of rickshas.
It was about one o'clock in the morning, and the
ghostly radiance of a rising moon gave the pointed
shadows a palpable blackness. In truly medieval
fashion, the Chinese houses were closely shuttered
and barred. Once or twice we passed a tailor's
shop lit with smoky oil lamps, where twenty or
thirty men were bending at work over Singer sewing
machines. Out from the tangle of Chinese quarters
surrounding the hospital, we burst upon Nanking
Road, a glaring gash of modernity cutting across the
shrouded, ancient city. We left the international
settlement behind us, ran across some bare, ill-
smelling fields where the wind nipped the blood,
and plunged into "Frenchtown." Here again we
soon lost ourselves in an aimless twisting back and
forth through narrow alleys.
Since leaving St. Margaret's no one had spoken.
The two men before me bobbed along like specters in
an interminable nightmare. I looked back and saw


5 MY CHINESE DAYS
A-doo's pale face and her kind, intelligent eyes. It
reassured me. I had reconciled myself to riding on
for the rest of my life, in a cold and shivering dark-
ness, to I knew not where, when we suddenly stopped.
The shafts of the ricksha were tilted down, and I was
precipitated from my seat. In a huddled throng,
we moved to the entrance of a low Chinese house.
Several men were seated in the room that opened
from the street, and I had a blurred impression of
smoke-blackened walls, and solemn, sedate faces
pierced with long, gurgling pipes. A-doo and I,
following the spokesman, mounted the ladder-like
stairs, each step but as broad as the palm of a man's
hand. At the head of the stairs we were shown into
a small room lit by one candle. One bed, four-
posted and canopied, as are all the Chinese beds in
Shanghai, occupied most of the room, leaving only a
narrow crack between its dirty bulk and a small
shelf-like table against the wall. There was no
window, and, of course, no water. Three women
lay on the bed.
Then began my initiation into obstetrical work in
China. A-doo was a great help. She divined my
wants by the instinct of a long experience. She
was the buffer between me and the impenetrable
wall of Orientalism around me. Eventually we were
ready. A-doo gave the chloroform, and I began my
work. At the last moment, to prevent interruption,
I had shut and barricaded the door. In this small
closet, there was only the Chinese woman, her
mother-in-law, A-doo, and myself. There was no
air, the candle flickered maddeningly, and the sweet


THE MANDARIN'S BRIDE 7
insidious fumes of the chloroform expanded in the
close atmosphere.
It was a long, hard case. At intervals, my con-
sciousness grew alive to the crowded, silent, ominous
life about me. I recalled an old hag that had stared
at me from the door beyond; I felt acutely the
lives of the hostile people of the house pressing upon
me.
"Suppose the mother died? What if the child
died?" I thought dully.
From the room beyond, a low, fitful sound fell
on my ears, a sound as of the sudden moan of a
strange wind around the corners of a deserted house.
As I listened, the sound grew articulate, and un-
mistakable. It was a woman moaning.
My attention to this sound, so insidious and
insistent, was sharply snapped by the first cry of
the baby. The child yelled in a veritable paroxysm
of rage at the misfortune of its sordid birth. As the
crying of the infant in the close room rose trium-
phantly, there was an utter silence in the house, as
if each inmate had held his breath for just that
sound. The baby stopped yelling and lapsed into
sobbing breaths. The house seemed to relax, and
settle back again into the ways and thoughts of
ordinary living. I imagined that each of those
impassive faces took a long, deep, satisfied pull at
the poisoned smoke that gurgled up through long,
bamboo-stemmed pipes.
Out of this sudden calm and relief burst a wild
shriek, repeated again and again in an increasing
agony of intensity.


8 MY CHINESE DAYS
"Oh! My love! You are killing me." The
voice broke into pitiful sobbing.
"Oh, God! Oh, God!" over and over again it
moaned, in such a helpless fury of petition that my
blood curdled.
A-doo was already washing the baby. It was a
cunning little thing, a creamy pink color, with black
eyes and soft, downy, black hair. The mother was
lying insensible, still half dazed by the anesthetic,
and slumberous with the relief from pain.
While I stood irresolute, a brisk knock came at
the door, and an imperious voice called.
"Is there a doctor in there?"
"Yes," I answered. "I'm coming."
I quickly unbarred the door and opened it. A
crowd of Chinese men and women pushed past me
into the narrow room, but I hardly noticed them.
My eyes were fastened on the tall, blond white
man who faced me, who started violently when I
appeared.
"It's a woman," he muttered, and half turned
away.
I had heard that remark before and had chastened
my spirit to the acceptance of my body; but the
privilege of helping I would not be denied.
"I am a physician," I urged. "Do let me help
her."
He turned back and looked at me queerly. In
that moment, as often before, I wished I were tall
and broad and imposing.
"You're only a girl," he said. "You can't help." By his expression, I knew he was wavering. The


THE MANDARIN'S BRIDE g
sound of renewed moaning in the next room decided
me. I slipped past him and entered.
In great contrast to the squalor I had left, the
sumptuousness and magnificence of the apartment
startled me. Pausing a moment on the threshold,
my eyes swept the brocaded walls, the rug-strewn
floor, the quaintly carved Chinese furniture of red-
wood and teak, and fastened themselves on a bed
in the far corner. It was a beautiful bed of redwood,
with headboard and footboard inlaid with ancient
blue and white tiles. The posts were draped with
crimson curtains. The room was softly but bril-
liantly lit by innumerable candles stuck on all
available surfaces. Their sharp, bright, waving
flames gave the room a strange significance of things
unseen.
I crossed swiftly to the bed. A young Chinese
girl was sitting on it, propped up against crimson
cushions. In health she must have been extremely
beautiful, with a soft, voluptuous, creamy beauty,
but now her face was blanched with horror, and her
features distorted with pain. Her eyes hurt me.
They looked past me at the white, golden-haired man
with the amazed, bewildered reproach of a dog that
is struck by its master.
Instinctively my fingers closed over the young
girl's wrist, while I scanned her countenance.
From the corner of her mouth a dead-white, leprous
streak trailed off across her cheek. Her breath
came in irregular jerks and the same, low moan
escaped her lips. Her pulse barely fluttered beneath
my fingers. With sudden conviction, I leaned close


io MY CHINESE DAYS
and smelt her breath. I caught a full whiff of
the dangerous sweetness of carbolic acid.
I turned upon the white man in horror.
"Did you do this?" I cried.
The man looked at me, a flashing, blue glance,
and on to the girl on the bed without replying.
"She will die in horrible agonies," I exclaimed.
"I know," he said in a queer, quiet voice that
made me look at him again and notice how young he
was. "I know," he repeated, "but you said you
would help."
Looking at him, my scruples died within me. I
knew antidotes were useless; too much time had
elapsed since the swallowing of the poison.
I ran back to the other room for my hypodermic
case. The mother was awake. Every one was
happy because the baby was a boy; they beamed on
me.
I returned to the girl, and after giving the hypo-
dermic of morphine, sat on the edge of the bed to
watch its effect. Soon the pitiful moaning ceased,
and the face of the young girl smoothed itself into
all the beauty of her youth. Its soft, oval contour
held a subtle charm. The languid flicker of her
eyelids revealed her luminous dark eyes. She
smiled at me, and putting her hand to her neck,
she drew off a finely carved jade figure hung on a
thin gold chain.
"Thank you. It hurts no more," she said softly.
Then her attention lapsed from me entirely.
The golden-haired man was kneeling by her bed,
covering her hand with kisses.


12 MY CHINESE DAYS
I suppose I was looking at him stupidly, for he
suddenly exclaimed vehemently.
"She felt it as you would feel it— the stifling of
her brain, the turning back of her soul, the slavish
ownership of her body. Then we met. Oh! I
know how unusual it is! But her husband was so
proud of her foreign learning and English ways that
she was allowed to come to a small dinner. One
week later we escaped together. We crept down
the Yangtse in a common, brown-sailed junk, and
we laughed when we saw the swift launch of the
Mandarin steam past us. We were happy, as you
have no conception of happiness."
The man paused and almost stopped.
"Oh, it doesn't matter how it happened," he
continued. "Last night the Mandarin found us. I
promised May-ling she should never fall into his
hands alive."
He drew himself up regally beside the bed on which
the lifeless girl lay. A half smiling tenderness was
on his face.
"Love is the great adventure," he said softly.
A-doo came for me and we started back to the
hospital, in my hands the carved jade talisman, the
bringer of love and death, and in my heart the
memory of his words echoing:
"Love is the great adventure!"


II
THE COOLIE'S WIFE FOR a long time I could not tell the nurses
apart. Each one seemed a black-haired,
blue-gowned counterpart of the next, but
after the night the Mandarin's bride died, I knew
A-doo. Gradually, one by one, faces grew signifi-
cant; May-li, with a round, smiling countenance;
San-mae, taller and usually worried: Tsung-pau, of
the agile legs: and lastly, Ah-tsi. The first day
that I taught the English class I noticed her. She
was tall and slender, with a straight-boned nose and
pale, clearly marked lips. The nurses all wore the
regular hat of Chinese women, a band of black satin
or brocade, narrow across the forehead and curved
out to cover the ears. With this hat, the pale oval
of Ah-tsi's face was sharply outlined. She wore
earrings, two loops of irregular pearls set in deep
blue enamel. In class, and even at her work, she
was inattentive and distrait, yet I could not bring
myself to scold her because of an inexplicable quality
in her smile.
One evening after I had made rounds, I went as
usual to inspect the nurses' quarters and count
heads for the night. At once I noticed an air of


i4 MY CHINESE DAYS
subdued excitement. Ah-tsi was missing. I went
to A-doo about it.
"Do you know where Ah-tsi has gone?" I asked.
A-doo shook her head in scared silence.
Tsung-pau volunteered in her quick, broken Eng-
lish: "Evening rice time, go out. Blue satin
trousers wear."
"Was she alone?" I probed.
"Go alonee. Maybe, by-um-bly meet he," Tsung-
pau answered.
Further than that I could elicit no information. The
nurses, in their blue trousers and jackets, looked like
young boys excited over a secret plot. I left word that
Ah-tsi should report to me as soon as she returned.
I walked back slowly to the house. Each night
in the short walk from the hospital, I felt plunged
anew into the midst of China. The fantastic, up-
curling eaves of the crowded houses that shut in our
compound like a wall always reminded me that I was
in the midst of an alien race that lived by traditions,
trailed down the years from antiquity. That even-
ing I paid no attention to the menacing rows of
Chinese houses, as my thoughts were occupied with
Ah-tsi. There were no stars. The night was black
and shrouded with fog.
"Everything quiet?" asked Doctor Donnellon, as
I sat down in a chair by the fire.
"Ah-tsi is out," I answered laconically.
"That accounts for Kwung-ling's behavior,"
Doctor Donnellon exclaimed.
Kwung-ling is the upstairs boy who carries the
bath water, and scrubs the floors and makes the


16 MY CHINESE DAYS
. Doctor Donnellon looked at me queerly. An
intense melancholy lay in her expression.
"Love, as we know it, probably doesn't enter
into consideration," she said slowly. "Ah-tsi is
tempted away by the mere physical attraction of
the bigger man."
"Oh! You've seen him, have you?" I asked
eagerly.
"Yes, several times," Doctor Donnellon replied.
"He is the Raymonds' cook."
I easily recalled the man — tall, imposing, arrayed
in a long cut-velvet garment, still arrogantly swinging
a thick queue to his knees. Mentally, I placed the
two men side by side, and I wondered when bodily
qualities would cease to be supreme.
"One of the patients in the prisoner's ward escaped
this afternoon," said Doctor Donnellon. "An old
woman, about sixty, wrapped herself in her cotton-
padded quilt and dropped from the second-story
window. I found the comfort folded neatly by
the steps. The gatekeeper was having one of his
periodical naps, I suppose, when she went by."
"How did she dare!" I exclaimed. "She was a
miserable old hag, and would have been much better
off in the hospital."
"You've not learnt the value of freedom," Doctor
Donnellon said.
I stole a glance at her face. I wondered why
every one seemed to think I knew nothing of life,
or love, or freedom. I wasn't so young, after all.
In fact, a week ago I had passed my twenty-seventh
birthday.


THE COOLIE'S WIFE 19
caded trousers and jacket to match. Her high
standing collar was edged with soft white fur that
lay against her creamy cheeks. Her delicate oval
face was slightly tinged with pink. She walked in
quickly, with a determined air, entirely mistress of
herself. Casting one scornful glance at the fallen,
gory man prone upon the floor, she walked up to
Kwung-ling and touched his arm. At her touch, the
man was electrified. He caught her hand, and
together they ran out of the room. We never saw
either of them again.
All of our efforts to save the murdered man were
useless. He bled to death in five minutes. Kwung-
ling had severed neatly and completely both carotid
arteries, and hacked open the windpipe.
Doctor Donnellon telephoned the police court, and
that was the end of the affair. The next morning a
new coolie appeared with the bath water. Doctor
Donnellon seemed quite undisturbed.
"Don't you feel shivery about all those men in the
kitchen since last night's murder?" I could not
forbear asking her.
"No," she said. "No Chinese servant, or, for that
matter, no Chinese, would hurt a foreigner in the
settlement."
"What will happen to Ah-tsi?" I asked with
curiosity.
"Kwung-ling will either kill her or forgive her,"
Doctor Donnellon answered.
"Forgive her!" I repeated, mystified.
"Why not?" replied Doctor Donnellon. "His
rival is dead, his supremacy reasserted."


20 MY CHINESE DAYS
"But what of the woman's feelings?" I insisted.
Doctor Donnellon glanced at me and then away,
out of the window, to the irregular piece of blue sky
cut by the up-curling eaves of the Chinese houses.
"Ah-tsi is probably satisfied," she answered.
"And you mean that this is the end of the whole
affair?" I exclaimed. "Aren't you going to do any-
thing?"
"Oh! You are young," smiled Doctor Donnellon.
"In a four-year medical course you ought to have
learned more philosophy than to be upset over a
murder and a betrayal. I have more faith in the
body's power to resist microbes than in the soul's
to withstand temptation."
Doctor Donnellon got up and left the room.
From the window, I saw her cross the compound
and enter the hospital. I couldn't help wondering
at her impassivity under this tragedy. She was
neither agitated nor shocked, nor yet harshly
critical of any of the trio. In my hot-headed
youth, I felt the need of taking sides, of punishing
the wrongdoers, and rewarding the righteous. In
this case, all three, — Ah-tsi, Kwung-ling, and the
handsome cook, — seemed equally sinners.
Suddenly, with a shock of surprise, I grasped the
meaning of Doctor Donnellon's attitude. To her
and to the Chinese, this tragedy was just ordinary
living, and as such to be accepted, not criticized,
the offenders to be helped, not punished.
Ah-tsi's face, with its soft beauty, came to my
mind, and her lustrous brown eyes questioned me:
"Who are you that condemns?"


t
III
FLYING STONES
».
YOU will have to go alone, Doctor Wilhel-
mina," said Doctor Donnellon. "A walk
will do you good. I am too tired to come.
Besides, I am expecting to be called out on that Sey-
mour Road case at any moment."
"I am sorry you can't come," I replied. "I hope
you will have time for a little rest before you are
called. Good-by."
Wild horses could not have kept me indoors that
afternoon. We had had a week of fine weather that
had brought out all the early fruit blossoms. In
the gardens the plums and cherries were huge bou-
quets of pink and white fragrance. I walked
quickly along Hart Road, turned to the right, and
struck out across the country. The fields, that a
month ago had been barren and brown, were now
a vivid green. Through the interlacing branches of
the leafless trees, blue sky and floating white cloud
puffs chased each other. A string of laden wheel-
barrows, holding eight or nine women apiece, hands
from the silk mills, passed me. Otherwise the road
was empty.
At Christmas Doctor Donnellon had given me a
light, walnut-stained, bamboo cane. I was very


22 MY CHINESE DAYS
fond of it and always carried it on my solitary walks,
To-day I swung it back and forth jauntily, quite
contented with my lot as a missionary doctor in
China. In spite of their dirt and in spite of their
language, I liked the Chinese.
In half an hour I came to Soochow Creek and
crossed it into the Chapei Native district. At first
I did not realize that I was beyond the limits of the
International Concession, though I was astounded at
the squalor and poverty of the huts that bordered
the road. They were merely low, square rooms,
made of pieces of matting sewn together, entirely
without windows or doors. If any one wished to
enter, he pushed aside a loose mat and squirmed
in. The children playing about were covered with
scabs and ulcers, and the dogs were piebald with
mange. I would have turned back but that in the
distance I saw the graceful, peaked roofs of a
pagoda.
A little urchin ran after me, grinning and calling
"Nga-kok nyung" (foreign kingdom man), "Nga-
kok nyung." As my custom was in the settlement,
where all are friendly, I turned and smiled and waved
my hand. This proceeding scared him half out of
his wits. Screaming with fright, the child threw
himself on the ground and pounded the earth with
his hands and feet. Immediately a crowd collected
about him, some soothing the child, some scowling
at me. At his cry I had stopped to see if he were
hurt, but finding that I was the cause of the trouble,
I turned away and walked on. In a few moments I
dismissed the matter from my thoughts.


FLYING STONES 23
The brilliant sun made the brass-tipped eaves
of the pagoda glitter like jewels.
I was walking forward eagerly when I heard the
sound of running footsteps behind. Perhaps if I
had not turned to look back it might have been all
right, but instinctively I stopped and looked over
my shoulder. I saw a handful of big boys and one
yapping cur running along the road towards me.
As I paused, a sudden shower of small stones fell
about me. One hit my shoulder, and a faint
stain of blood dyed my thin waist.
At the touch of that hostile missile, a wild wrath
boiled up within me. Missionaries are supposed to
feel only righteous wrath. I am not sure about the
adjective that should qualify my feeling, but the
feeling itself I recognized. Very often I realize
that I am not fit to be a missionary, and in such
moments of humility I try to console myself with the
shortcomings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. At
that moment however I didn't stop to justify myself.
I turned around and shook my cane at that group
with an air of fiendish vindictiveness.
They wheeled precipitously. The hindermost boy
tripped over the dog, and the rest tumbled upon him.
I couldn't help laughing, they were so easily dismayed.
Again I set my eyes on the gleaming brass peaks
of the pagoda and walked on. The sun was almost
setting. As the Chinese say, "The sun falls down
the hill of heaven." Long level rays shot over the
flat earth and covered the mud huts and green fields
with a veil of woven, golden gauze. A faint mist
began to rise from the ground.


24 MY CHINESE DAYS
A second stone hit me full on the ankle. It stung
like fury. Turning, I found that the number of
my pursuers had doubled, and a few men hung on the
fringe of the group. More stones fell about me,
several hitting my head and shoulders. Shouting
and beating the air with my trusty bamboo cane, I
advanced towards my persecutors. Again, with
delighted shrieks, they fled, and once more I set out
for the sunlit pagoda.
But my heart wasn't in it. I didn't care whether
the brass gleamed like gold and the eaves slanted
upwards. I didn't think that trailing pink clouds
made a wonderful background for the century-old
wood of the roof. I tensed all my faculties in the
one act of listening. I tried to count the number of
bare, padding feet scurrying after me. Was it
six or twenty or one hundred? Now and again
came harsh, taunting cries and the crisp chatter
of flying, falling stones. They concentrated their
efforts on my ankles.
How I longed for a Sikh policeman in his handsome
blue uniform and crimson turban! I could have
embraced him! In fact, I would have embraced
any foreigner whatsoever, even any respectable
Chinaman!
I reflected on the number of missionaries stoned
and burned yearly. Also I remembered that the
Republic was but one year old and anti-foreign
feeling still in existence. Fit, or not fit, I seemed
to be chosen for a martyr's death. I wondered how
St. Stephen felt! I was mortally afraid.
I began to run. I set my eyes on that gleaming


FLYING STONES 25
pagoda and ran for dear life, at first easily and swiftly.
The pagoda came nearer by leaps and bounds. As
my tormentors chased me, the flying stones ceased.
Suddenly I found my knees'were trembling. My
throat was dry, and my breath came in great gasps.
A cloud floated between the pagoda andkmy straining
eyes.
I stopped dead and faced about. Because of
the pounding of the pulses in my ears, I could not
hear the approach of the rabble, but through my
tears I saw them magnified into the huge black hulk
of an antediluvian monster. With the certainty
of doom, my senses cleared, and I grew quite calm.
Ahead of the nondescript horde ran a lithe youth
about sixteen years old. Poised in his upraised
arm I saw a large round stone. His still uncut
queue flapped behind him.
I did the only thing that remained to be done. I
ran to meet him and broke my futile, vainglorious
cane over his shoulder. Then my hands fell to my
sides, and I awaited the next assault.
It never came. The boy, at the snapping of my
cane, laughed shrilly but broke off in mid-air. With
terrified eyes he stared over my shoulder, then
began to back off towards his companions. The
group behind him halted, then turned and fled.
The cur howled dismally. The boy gave a shriek,
whirled around, and raced after his comrades. The
large round stone dropped unheeded to the earth.
I stood petrified. Aid had come, as it always does,
at the last, unhoped-for moment. Who or how or
what, I did not know, nor did it matter. I had


26 MY CHINESE DAYS
#
been saved. I felt the Lord had sent His Angels
to beat the air with their unseen wings and strike
terror into the hearts of the heathen. My knees
began to shake, and I found it advisable to sit
down by the roadside.
"Are you hurt?" a man's voice behind me asked.
"No," I gasped. With the assurance of safety
and protection I began to cry. I don't at all re-
member what the man said or did, but eventually I
found myself stuttering out the details of what had
happened.
"I don't know how to thank you," I ended tritely.
"Never mind that," he answered. "Do you
still want to see the pagoda?"
His question took my breath away. In my heart
of hearts I considered myself quite unfit to walk,
or take an interest in anything less spiritual than
my saved life. He treated my escape in a very off-
hand fashion. Well, if he wanted to, so could I.
"Certainly," I answered in my most sprightly
manner. "If it isn't too late."
"Not at all," my rescuer replied. "The sunset
view is especially fine from the top gallery. The
custodian is a friend of mine. Shall I help you up?"
"I am entirely recovered, thank you," I said.
Unaided I rose to my feet and once again set out
towards the pagoda. I furtively dabbed my eyes
and looked at the man beside me as often as I
could without being observed. I saw his feet very
plainly, neat, trim feet, shod in very stubby-toed
American shoes. I also managed to see his ears.
They were not red; I was distinctly glad of that.


FLYING STONES 27
1
"How did you make the Chinamen turn tail so
suddenly?" I asked.
"This way," he replied, slipping his hand into
his hip pocket and drawing out a small shining
pistol. "I merely pointed it at them. It was
sufficient."
"I can't begin to thank you," I stammered again.
"Don't begin, for heaven's sake," he protested
with a sound of merriment in his voice. "If I had
not happened to come along, some one else would
have. You acted as if you shared my philosophy.
Help always does turn up at the last, despaired-of
moment."
"It's unpleasant, waiting for that last moment,"
I answered. "I expected to be stoned to death."
"I thought you would be," the man replied
soberly. "I saw you from the pagoda. When you
began to run, I was terrified. You faced them
splendidly at the end. You must have hit that
fellow a pretty strong crack to break your cane at
the first stroke."
I began to laugh. "It was bamboo," I explained.
He laughed aloud in amusement.
We soon reached the gate of the enclosure sur-
rounding the pagoda. It opened to the push. A
fat, sleek Chinaman rose from a bench before the
gate house and came towards us. My companion
left me to speak to him. After a brief conversation
he returned and led the way up flights of ex-
tremely steep stairs. We emerged on the narrow
gallery that was overhung by the topmost roof. A
very low parapet of painted tiles ran along the edge,


28 MY CHINESE DAYS
and my companion and I leaned back against the
inner wall and let our eyes sweep over the view
before us. At the left lay Shanghai, with its foreign
buildings and chimneys rising like spars above the
floating, sealike mist that thickly covered the whole
plain. The waves of the fog heaved and billowed,
and were opalescent with sunlight.
"A beautiful sight," said the stranger, "but
deadly. Have you taken any quinine?"
I smiled at the question. "I am a doctor," I
replied.
He started. "You, a doctor!" he exclaimed. "I
can't believe it!"
"Why not," I retorted with some heat.
My fitness for medicine was a sore point with me.
I boasted a purple seal from the New York Regents,
one of the five awarded that spring among five
thousand students.
"I suppose I am too small!" I flung at him.
"Perhaps," he answered vaguely, adding, "I
only wonder you have had the leisure," making his
meaning quite obvious by a quick glance from his
eyes.
"I don't like men in general," I answered his
glance, "nor any one in particular," I hastened to
add.
He smiled as though suddenly pleased at some-
thing.
"Nor I women in general," he replied. "Only
one thing draws me — life, in all its wide, strange
forms. For about five years now I've been traveling
and watching. But, in my search, I have never



THE CREEK, NEAR RUBICON ROAD, SHANGHAI





FLYING STONES 29
included sampling the sweets. One soul attracts
another by infallible sympathies. I have waited
for that."
His eyes were upon me with an intentness of
glance that held me silent. He was leaning against
the low parapet to face me. The sun lit up one
side of his face and hair with a clear light.
"About a month ago," he continued, "I was in the
Temple of the Red-lipped Idols in the Native City.
The air was dim and fragrant with rising incense. I
was staring overhead at the huge, carven monsters,
then at the floor, at the kowtowing Chinese.
Suddenly, through the fragrant, floating incense, I
met a pair of eyes, — soft, intense, brown eyes, —
that looked directly into mine. They were your
eyes. Do you remember?"
I nodded and stretched out my hands towards
him. For half a minute we faced each other with
clasped hands, then, for fear of what he might say
next, I quickly ran down the stairs. At the gate an
open victoria was waiting for us. The drive home
passed like a mirage. I scarcely noticed the huts
of flapping mats and the mangy children. At the
steps of "The Ladies House" I hesitated a moment.
The stranger, hat in hand, was standing waiting.
"I don't know your name," I stammered, "but
won't you call?"



IV
THE GIRL FROM TUNIS
ABOUT seven o'clock in the evening I started
out to meet the tender on which the new
nurse for St. Margaret's was to arrive. She
was to start the new training school for Chinese
nurses. Her name was Miss Laurie, and she was a
Bryn Mawr girl. So much and no more we knew.
Doctor Donnellon and I had been speculating about
her. Doctor Donnellon hoped she would have a good
digestion, and I hoped she wouldn't be too good to
live with. I had put a bunch of violets in an old
brass bowl on the dressing table in her room and had
lent her my window curtains freshly starched and
ruffled. I didn't want her room to look too barren.
Nanking Road was thronged with Chinese. Two
new jeweler shops had been recently opened, and
the entire facades of the two buildings were covered
with hundreds of colored electric lights in rosettes
of rainbow silk; and in the fantastic shapes of tigers
and dragons and roosters. Opposite their blazing
front the street was blocked with gaping admirers.
The flare of the light was reflected against the sky
in a luminous haze.
Marching along by the curbing, in groups of twos
and threes, followed at a respectful distance by their


THE GIRL FROM TUNIS 31
ever-watchful amahs, were the satin-trousered
night slaves of the east, young girls with spots of
scarlet on their eyelids and upper lips. At the
debouchment of the cross roads, drab-colored groups
clustered and peered enviously at the satin-clad
girls that walked the road. Before the new Chinese
theater advertising ideographs flashed in changing
colors. In my mood of the moment China seemed
quite progressive and up to date.
At the jetty I found that the tender was expected
in ten minutes. Standing at the end of the wharf, I
scanned the harbor, an indistinct, blue-gray back-
ground, against which the junks and launches moved
as darker shadows punctuated with light. The
black outline of a warship, pierced with innumerable,
tiny yellow globes of light, loomed through the
gloom. While I was watching her, a junk with a
high curling poop and a tall oblong sail slipped
between us. Close to the pier, within the radius of
its light, rocked a dozen or so small rowboats. On
each side of the prows were carved and painted eyes
that made the boats look like sea dragons.
A group of Europeans were waiting at one end of
the jetty, and beyond them were Chinese, some in
foreign cloth suits and some in native satins. I
was struck by the barbaric gorgeousness of one tall,
handsome young man. His queue was cut, and his
hair had been allowed to grow thick and long over
his forehead and neck. Instead of an appearance of
femininity, this gave him a look of fierce, almost
cruel strength. His short, sleeveless outer jacket
was of plum-colored satin, and his long garment of


32 MY CHINESE DAYS
slate-blue satin lined with very white and very
fleecy lambs' wool. A Frenchman with upturned
moustaches and full beard joined them. His appear-
ance was shabby and mediocre, and his stature
stunted. In no way, except in the nameless flavor
of race, could he compare with the splendid specimen
of Chinese manhood before him. He was evidently a
piece of driftwood whom life was treating badly, yet
he thrust out his chest vain-gloriously and spoke in
shrill, excited tones.
"I tell you again and again, she vill gome. Regard
me. Am I not her elder broder? Am I not head
of my family? Have no fear. She gomes."
The man's words were easily heard, and they
aroused my curiosity.
A series of harsh toots announced the arrival of
the tender. The passengers were lined along the
rail, and I scanned their faces eagerly in search of
Miss Laurie. She was to wear an American flag
pinned on her coat. In the twilight on the deck I
could distinguish no separating badge, but as the
passengers stepped gingerly down the gangplank,
the familiar colors greeted me from the jacket of the
third comer. Miss Laurie was tall and stately and
young. As we shook hands, I saw that her eyes were
blue and her hair gold.
"She looks good," I said to myself. "It is
fortunate she is blond. Blond holiness is so much
less disagreeable than brunette holiness."
"You must be nearly famished," I said to her.
"Doctor Donnellon is waiting dinner. If you will
point out your trunks to our boy, he will attend to


THE GIRL FROM TUNIS 33
bringing them up. What kind of a trip have you
had? Was it frightfully hot in the Red Sea?"
Miss Laurie had come out via Europe.
"For twenty-four hours it was rather uncomfort-
able," she answered, "but I didn't mind it much.
The two typhoons we ran into on the way up from
Canton were infinitely more unpleasant." She broke
off abruptly to hurry after a vanishing trunk.
After a short search for her belongings, we were
ready to leave.
"Just a moment more," said Miss Laurie. "I
want to say good-by to a charming French girl
that I met on the steamer, Therese Fleurir. I have
been watching for her, but I have not seen her get
off. She is coming out to be married. Her elder
brother, whom she has not seen for years, has arranged
it. Isn't it a hideous method? But she doesn't
seem to mind; on the contrary, she is elated at the
prospect and looks upon it as a release. She lived
in Tunis and had a position as a stenographer in
the French Embassy."
Miss Laurie hurried up the gangplank, leaving me
plunged in dismay. It was painfully easy to fit
together brother and sister and to fathom the trap
that had been laid for the girl. I wondered if she
would mind. You never can tell about "foreigners."
The Chinamen were evidently rich.
As I turned from again staring at the Chinese, Miss
Laurie was descending the gangplank. Following
her came a slight, shrinking figure dressed in subdued
colors, save for two crimson plumes in her soft black
hat. The girl was trying to hide behind Miss


THE GIRL FROM TUNIS 35
The Frenchman gave the tall handsome youth a
vigorous dig with his cane. The boy laughed aloud.
"Like a foreigner I will salute her," he shouted
triumphantly.
Catching the French girl in his arms, he kissed her.
The touch stung her to life. She wrenched herself
free and rushed to the edge of the pier. I caught a
glimpse of a white despairing face under the flame-
colored plumes. Simultaneously Miss Laurie and I
grasped her intention. Miss Laurie caught her in her
strong arms.
"Let me go," she stormed. "To die now is
fitting. So it must be. A daughter of my race
cannot marry a Chinaman."
She struggled wildly, but Miss Laurie held her
securely, and I heard her whispering insistently to
the girl. I turned to the rabid brother. Like a
vexed child, he was dancing up and down with mor-
tification and anger.
"Such an insult! The ingrate! Here, have I
found a rich husband who is willing to marry her,
marry her legally, I say, and the first moment she
meets him, she insults him. Listen, Therese," he
called, edging nearer the girl. "Remember your
life of drudgery, no pleasure, no fine clothes, no
jewels, no pastries. Consider it well. He will give
you everything. Regard him. I say that he is
rich."
At this point the Chinese broke in stormily.
From their conversation I gathered that the bride-
groom's family had already paid down five hundred
taels for the girl and that five hundred more were


36 MY CHINESE DAYS
to be handed over upon her arrival. Fearing to
lose both money and face, they were furious and
insisted upon possession of the girl.
I was at my wits' end. Whatever happened to-
night would be irrevocable, either the Chinaman
would get Therese, or we would rescue her. Save
for a gang of coolies unloading cargo, we were alone
on the jetty. I longed for a man, and, above all
other men, for Edward Stevens, my pagoda man.
My wish was a prophecy. Looking up the road, I
saw him walking briskly toward us. I ran to him
and broke into breathless explanations.
"You want to take the French girl with you
to-night; is that it?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered. "Arrange for to-night, now.
To-morrow we can settle matters."
Edward stood a moment scrutinizing the group
of Chinese, then he selected the oldest man dressed
in foreign clothes and addressed his remarks to him.
"I understand that you wish to obtain in marriage
for one of your family a foreign-born maiden and in
all things to follow the foreign custom," he said
courteously.
Edward's clear, incisive words held their attention.
The shabby brother, with his cane still poised in mid-
air, stopped in the midst of a sentence. Even
Therese checked her sobs to listen.
"It is not according to 'Old Custom' to take the
maiden to your house to-night. To-night she must
lodge with her friends and to-morrow the bride-
groom may seek her there. I will give you my
address, and you can call in the morning."


THE GIRL FROM TUNIS 37
Edward took out his visiting card and handed it
to the old man.
The Frenchman expostulated. "Do not listen to
him; it is not so."
Edward turned on him with subdued anger.
"Shut up!" he whispered fiercely. "I am managing
this affair now."
The fellow cringed. He disgusted me, but he
looked as if he had been half fed for years, and I
was sorry for him in spite of myself.
That was the end of the affair. Edward's presence
calmed every one. The Chinamen dispersed, the
shabby outcast slunk away. Edward put Miss
Laurie and Therese into a cab, and we got into
another.
I smiled at him. "Edward to the rescue again,"
I said gratefully. "If you stay in Shanghai much
longer, Mr. Stevens, I shall grow to be quite
dependent on you."
"Nothing would please me better," he answered.
"How out of date you are," I replied. "Now-
adays, men like self-reliant girls who carry their
own suit cases and who don't need to be seen home
in the evenings."
"If that is your idea of modern men," Edward
answered, "I am thankful you class me among the
ancients."
"How do you like Shanghai?" I asked.
"Only fairly well," he answered. "As a place
for courting it has certain advantages. It provides
medieval situations of 'Fair Damsel in distress'
and 'Gallant Knight to the rescue.' However I


38 MY CHINESE DAYS
do not know whether such episodes are not too
dearly bought by the lack of woods and trees and
streams and wild flowers."
"The moon and the stars are still left," I sug-
gested.
"Too remote," Edward objected.
"How did you happen to come to meet Miss
Laurie?" I questioned.
"I didn't 'happen to come'," he replied; "I came
because you wanted me."
"I never once thought of you," I exclaimed.
"First I was thinking about Miss Laurie and then
about the French girl."
For reply, Mr. Stevens looked at me strangely.
I don't know what to do when he looks at me that
way. I feel as if a door in my brain had opened to
him, and he knew all my thoughts.
"I should have said, I came because I was think-
ing of you," he corrected himself. "My thoughts
led my footsteps."
When a clever man is gracious, he is really very
attractive. I was in a yielding mood, and such
places are dangerous. But being a woman of years,
I was discreet. I leaned back in the corner of the
seat and changed the subject.
"What will become of the poor child Therese?" I
asked.
"I will go to the French consul in the morning
and have the matter put straight," Mr. Stevens
replied. "That scoundrelly brother will have to
fork up his five hundred taels and make all the
amends he can. As for what will become of the


THE GIRL FROM TUNIS 39
girl, you women will have to decide. After all,
when she grows used to the idea, she may be willing
to marry the Chinaman."
We had reached the steps of the mission house,
where Doctor Donnellon was receiving the two girls.
"I can believe it was a shock to her," Mr. Stevens
continued, "as she was evidently expecting some-
thing very different."
"It's quite too much of a shock to contemplate
marrying at all, no matter how nice the man," I
said, as I sprang out of the carriage and followed the
others.


V
GLOWING NEEDLES
THERESE clung to Miss Laurie piteously.
The next morning after her arrival she had
absolutely refused to see or write to her
brother, and as Mr. Stevens had given the China-
men only his own address, the fellow had no means
of tracing his sister. The affair was fixed up
amicably with the Chinese. The brother produced
the money already paid over, and the incident was
closed. To all intents and purposes, Therese Fleurir
was swallowed up in the Orient. For days she was
afraid to stir out of the house, but eventually she
found a position to teach in one of the schools in
Frenchtown. The salary was not large, but it was
ample for clothes and board. Doubtless, sooner or
later, Therese would marry, so the incentive to
save for a rainy old age was removed. The principal
of the school, a rich widow, took a great fancy to
her, and after two weeks invited Therese to live
with her. Miss Laurie received an enthusiastic note
from the child.
"The house is beautiful, so large and so much
marble. My bathroom has white tiles. And,
moreover, Oh, joy! the cuisine is French. Come,


GLOWING NEEDLES 41
my friends, and taste and see and enjoy. Madame
Rounger has urged me to invite you. The time is
next Thursday for dinner at eight. Adieu, I live
only till we meet."
Miss Laurie smiled over the exaggerated wording
of the letter, but nevertheless she was pleased. A
"community dinner" is a distracting event in a
missionary's life.
When he heard of Therese's position, Mr. Stevens
shook his head dubiously.
"It is too good to be true," he said. "I am
afraid Therese has leaped from the frying pan into
the fire. Anyway I hate to have you over in
French town at night. I'll call for you with a
carriage at ten o'clock."
"That is much too early," I cried. "Dinner will
hardly be over."
"Four women can't eat for two hours," Edward
objected. "I shall be there at ten."
"Exactly, 'Just four women'!" I retorted,
angered. "You needn't come for those women at
all, Mr. Stevens. They prefer to do as they please
rather than to ride in a carriage at a man's dictation."
"Firebrand!" muttered Edward. "I wonder
what you will set alight!"
"You?" I flung at him tauntingly.
For answer, Edward looked at me in that dis-
concerting way of his which makes me feel there is
no use pretending. I like Edward, but I don't
like men's attitude toward women. Men are
handy, that's all. I stiffened and refused to relent,
though Edward harped again on his favorite subject


42 MY CHINESE DAYS
of souls akin. Men and women are too different
to be akin. They are like the banks of a river,
gashed apart. Often and often Doctor Donnellon
lectured me on my man-hating attitude. "Don't
you know men like girls who hate them?" she would
say. At that I always fled. I did not see Edward
again before the night of the dinner, and Miss Laurie
and I made arrangements to keep our rickshas all
the evening.
Madame Rounger's house stood in a large garden
and thoroughly came up to Therese's description.
Our dilapidated old rickshas seemed very in-
significant, rolling in under the high porte-cochere.
At the ignominious moment when the coolie put
the shafts on the ground and tilted me suddenly
forwards, as if I were descending from a camel's
back, a luxurious automobile panted up behind us.
Four gentlemen in evening dress got out of the car.
Being continental, they raised their hats and said
"Good evening." An extremely handsome Chinese
footman, dressed in full European uniform, opened
the door to us, and we entered a hall, the entire
height of the house, running from east to west. In
the center, on either side, were doorways hung with
heavy velvet portieres leading to the salon and the
dining room.
Therese came demurely down the stairs to meet
us, and led us up to her room, chatting volubly all
the way.
"It is to be a big dinner," she announced at once.
"A man apiece."
"Pooh, I would not have come if I had known


GLOWING NEEDLES 43
there were going to be men," I exclaimed, provoked
in spite of myself.
"Silly," said Therese lightly, "you needn't be
afraid. You look very pretty to-night. I love
that turquoise gown of yours. It makes the brown
of your eyes and hair deeper. Besides, the food will
be better because the men are coming."
Therese, in cerise chiffon, was an effective contrast
to the pale, gold beauty of Miss Laurie, who was
in absolute white.
"Cherie," cried Therese, turning to Miss Laurie,
"I am so glad you are not wearing a black velvet
bow in your waist or a narrow black band around
your throat! Only blonds passe and wicked, wish-
ing for innocence, do that. You are innocent."
"You funny child!" answered Miss Laurie.
"Because my skin is white, must my soul be white
too?"
For a moment the young girl's face fell into the
cast of tragedy so facile to the Latin race.
"Yes, yes," she replied quickly. "See me—I
am stained."
When we entered the salon we found Madame
Rounger surrounded by the men. She was a
handsome woman of prepossessing appearance, skil-
fully dressed in black. She evidently wished to
be considered young, and I wondered that she
tolerated any one as truly young as Therese near
her. As soon as the introductions were over,
Madame Rounger drew me aside.
"Therese says you are a physician, though it is
hard to believe. You look about eighteen.


44 MY CHINESE DAYS
Nevertheless, she assures me it is so. Pray forgive
me iPl trouble you. Just a moment ago, my table
boy came to me in great consternation, saying that
his only son was having a convulsion. I ordered
him to immerse the child at once in a hot mustard
bath. May I beg you to come to see him? I shall
feel more comfortable through dinner."
"Certainly," I answered. "I shall be very glad
to see the child."
Madame Rounger excused herself from the guests
and led me from the room, through the back hall,
along a covered corridor, to the semi-detached
servants' quarters in the rear. On the second floor
the doors of a row of cell-like rooms opened upon a
narrow porch. From the corner room came the
sound of confused and excited talk. The small
space was crowded with jabbering women and boys.
The sick child, a boy about ten, had just been taken
out of the mustard bath and put to bed.
"Let us turn them all out but his mother," I
insisted. "The child must be kept quiet."
Madame Rounger and I pushed the women out by
their shoulders. We got them as far as the doorway,
where they massed themselves, following my every
motion with their beady, curious eyes, as I made a
quick examination of the child. Madame Rounger
was able to supply me with the simple remedies
that were needed, and after half an hour's work, I
left the child sleeping quietly. As Madame and I
left the room, the Chinese squeezed in behind us like
an irresistible tide of water, eddying and flooding
the land.


46 MY CHINESE DAYS
The Frenchman looked at me as if I had been his
daughter. I grew red and wondered why I had
been so outspoken. Instinctively, I had relied
upon his ready sympathy and understanding.
"You do not know yourself, Mademoiselle," he
replied. "You cannot see the soft, gentle light in
your brown eyes. Yet, you are making a mistake.
I am not so old-fashioned as to think all women
should be mothers — some are too hard and cruel,
some too unstable and melancholy, some too stupid
and dull. But you, you ought to be a mother."
I sat speechless before Monsieur Armand. I was
astonished that I was not angry, but for the moment
I was as simple and unaffected as he.
"And leave my work?" I exclaimed.
"To find your work," he answered.
In the pause that followed a shrill scream startled
us. I sprang to my feet. "The little boy," I cried,
and ran from the room. Scream after scream filled
the air, the wild terrified screaming of a child in
sharp pain. I ran quickly along the corridor and up
the stairs. The door of the child's room was blocked
with figures. I pounded at the shoulders of the
nearest and pushed at them till they moved aside and
let me pass. For half a moment, frozen with horror,
I paused on the threshold.
The child, naked, was lashed to the bed with his
arms outstretched along the footboard. His head
was thrown back, and his eyes glared wildly at the
people. Trickles of blood were running down the
calves of his legs and dripping from his forearms. In
the air was the nauseous odor of burnt flesh. An


GLOWING NEEDLES 47
old priest in a hideously dirty robe sprang up from
the floor and thrust a red-hot needle through the
child's leg. The boy writhed and screamed with
pain.
I ran to him and jerked the burning needle out of
his flesh and began pulling out the other needles
which were stuck at random in his arms and legs.
The Chinese behind me pulled at me and tried to
catch my hands. The old priest broke into a torrent
of threats and insults. The needles I had plucked
out still glowed, red-hot, on the floor. I faced the
Chinese angrily. They began to remember I was
a foreigner, within the settlement, and they, only
tolerated aliens. One by one they slunk away, till
only the priest was left bending over the charcoal
fire, muttering maledictions on the white woman. I
cut the thongs and loosed the child. He seemed to
know I was his deliverer, for he clung to me in frantic
terror, sobbing and screaming.
Madame Rounger and Monsieur Armand appeared
in the doorway. Madame Rounger turned out the
old priest without ceremony and scolded her servant
energetically.
"You shall go if you have any more of your
heathen practices in my house," she said. "How
often have I told you you cannot do such things.
You are not fit to have a child!"
"But, Madame," stammered the terrified servant,
"the devil have catehee my son. Must makee
drive away. No can lose one only son. Must
makee drive away, must piercee with burning
needles. No can help. Must do."


48 MY CHINESE DAYS
The Chinaman began to cry. He was torn be-
tween a thousand fears of the evil spirits, of the
strange white woman, of the burning needles. I
soothed the child in my arms, and looked up at
Monsieur Armand who stood beside me.
"How can you ask me to give up a work like
this?" I asked.
He answered slowly, stroking the little boy's sleek
black head that lay against my shoulder.
"If you had loved children enough, you would
have guessed beforehand what these heathen Chinese
parents would do." I wondered if he were right.
Edward called for us with an auto. Miss Laurie
had decided to spend the night with Therese, so
he and I were alone in the tonneau.
"Do you want to go directly home?" Edward
asked. "Let us first go to the point and back."
I acquiesced. I liked the drive to the point along
the river bank. The night was clearly lit with
stars. Two junks were creeping up the river, their
huge sails looming, in the twilight, like the out-
spread wings of a gigantic bat. The air from the
water was fresh.
"Now I am going to tell you about the first time
I saw you," said Edward.
"You have already," I answered. "It was in
the Temple of the Red-lipped Idols."
"No," he said. "It was exactly one year earlier.
There had been a heavy snowstorm in Philadelphia,
and the sleighing was good. I had hired a team of
horses and a small sleigh and had gone for a long
night ride. No wonder Ludwig of Bavaria was


GLOWING NEEDLES 49
wild about snow at night! It is the most wonderful,
the most fairylike sight on earth. I came back
through Fairmount Park along the Skuylkill and
down Diamond Street. It was after midnight, and
this part of the town was silent and soundless as a
desert, rows and rows of small brick houses exactly
alike, with lights out and shutters closed. At the
crossing of Twenty-third and Diamond an arc light
sputtered brightly. The horses were galloping softly
on the thick snow. The bells on their collars made
the only sound in the stillness of the sleeping city.
"At the corner, I looked up, suddenly and swiftly.
In a third-story window knelt a girl in a white gown
with a mass of soft brown hair loose upon her
shoulders. Our eyes met. She drew back, startled, and the horses whirled me past. Like a knight of
old I have come searching for that girl. In that
lightning glance her spirit called to my spirit."
Edward turned and looked at me. "Do you
remember it?" he asked softly.
Mute with astonishment, I nodded.
"I had come home from the theater," I explained
later. "I had seen Mansfield in 'Peer Gynt',
and the spell of the play was still on me. I could
not go to bed, so I knelt at the window and waited.
I watched the electric light sparkle on the snowflakes.
The city was intensely still. Then, far off in the
remoteness, I heard sleigh bells. They seemed to
be what I had been waiting for. I had listened to
them for several minutes before the sleigh dashed
past, yet when you looked up, I was startled. I
drew back and knelt there, harkening, while the


VI
A ROMANCE OF THE EAST
IWAS amusing myself and incidentally the chil-
dren by distributing a stack of old Christmas
cards in the ward. My explanations were some-
what crude and simple, as my Chinese vocabulary
was still limited. Doctor Donnellon and Miss
Lancaster came in. Miss Lancaster has charge of
the municipal orphanage for city waifs, and her sick
children are taken care of at St. Margaret's.
"I've just had a most embarrassing experience,"
said Miss Lancaster, laughing at me. "I came to
take the 'Blue Moon' back with me, but she won't
come. She said the 'Summertime Doctor' (which
is my Chinese name) had given her two pennies,
and that if I would let her stay a little longer perhaps
the doctor would give her another."
"You are spoiling these children," said Doctor
Donnellon, shaking her finger at me. "A moment
ago the matron sent for me to see the owners of
'Weeping Willow', who wished to take her home.
The youngster was making a terrible rumpus, and
begging to be allowed to stay. What do you suppose
she said? 'Please, Foreign Healer, let me stay and
be the little slave of the hospital! Here, when the
amahs beat me, their hands are light.'"


!
5a MY CHINESE DAYS"Poor little kid," I said, "I wish we could keep
them all."
"Even the little slave girls are better off than my
waifs," said Miss Lancaster.
A sudden commotion in the courtyard startled
us. Running to the nearest window, I saw four
men bringing in a long wicker couch, upon which lay
a figure closely covered with blankets. A dozen or
more men and women surrounded the couch. A
nurse came flying upstairs.
"She has eaten opium," she cried excitedly.
"Another one of those tragic cases," said Doctor
Donnellon, as we hurried down. "So often the
family only bring the victims to us as a last resort
when it is too late to save the patient."
Before coming to China I had never known that
eating opium was the favorite way of committing
suicide, nor had I imagined the alarming frequency
of such attempts.
The bearers had deposited the couch in the empty
clinic room. Some one uncovered the girl's face —
pale and tranquil as the face of one already lying in
the shadow of death. Its serene beauty fascinated
me. It seemed almost sacrilegious to begin artificial
"*v -respiration and energetic stimulation. Among the
group gathered round two figures stand out in my
memory. One was that of a woman who stood close
beside the young girl, looking at her fixedly. Now
and again she put out her hand and laid the back of
it against the girl's cheek. She neither cried nor
spoke. The other was a man dressed handsomely in
satin, who stood aside talking to the matron and


A ROMANCE OF THE EAST 53
Doctor Donnellon. Now and again he glanced at
the girl, yet in his impassive face I could see no
trace of emotion. The rest of the group shrieked
and talked wildly and could not be quieted. Doctor
Donnellon gave her orders with the surety of
long experience. Slowly, rhythmically, we raised
the girl's arms above her head and crossed them
over her chest. There was no answering tinge
of color in her lips, no spontaneous flutter of her
breath.
"It's a hopeless case," said Doctor Donnellon.
"She ate the opium about ten this morning but
was not discovered till four this afternoon. Then
they brought her right around."
"Why did she take it?" I asked. "Was she a
slave?"
"No, she is a second wife," Doctor Donnellon
said. "That man is her husband. She has been
married about six months."
"I don't wonder she ate it," I exclaimed. "Prac-
tically she was a slave."
"Oh, no," Doctor Donnellon answered. "If the
first wife has no children, a Chinaman marries a
second, and if she bears him children, she is honored
above the first. In this case the Great Wife, as the
first is called, was very fond of this girl. The hus-
band also valued her highly. She was not at all
mistreated."
"Then why?" I asked again, raising my eyes to
Doctor Donnellon. Her face, beside that of the
immobile Chinese woman, had the same expression
of submission to fate.


54 MY CHINESE DAYS
"She must die," interposed the Chinese woman,
again touching the girl's cold face.
"Because she was forced to leave her mother."
Doctor Donnellon answered. "This woman is her
mother."
I looked at the mother and daughter and pondered
upon the strange love that had held them together.
The woman touched Doctor Donnellon's arm.
"It is enough," she said. "The spirit is already gone.
Permit me now to take my daughter home and light
the red candles and offer the food that everything
may be fitting for the journey of her spirit." Doctor Donnellon ceased her labor. Quiet, with
the strange, sure repose of death, the girl lay upon
the couch. Suddenly, some one began to laugh, and
immediately the entire group were laughing loudly.
I turned away. That sound of laughter as a greeting
to death always curdled my blood with horror. I
had heard it before in the wards when a patient
died, and the rest sat up in bed and laughed aloud.
Doctor Donnellon followed me out of the room.
"Doesn't it make you shiver?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "I can't get used to it. It seems
heartless, but no one can accuse the Chinese of that.
Their loves are not our loves, but they are great
loves. Think of this young girl. She made one
early attempt to run home and was brought back.
Then she bought morphine, and the first wife found
it. This time she had been buying it little by little
for months and hiding it in her money belt till she
had enough for a fatal dose."
I was silent, considering what seemed to me a


A ROMANCE OF THE EAST 55
childish, morbid, uncontrolled affection. Doctor
Donnellon must have read my thoughts.
"All great nations have their own peculiar
romance," she said. "In ancient times romance
lay in the friendship of man for man, in the David
and Jonathan sort of relationship. Later on, in
the feudal ages, romance dwelt in the service of a
vassal to his king, and loyalty was the great romance
of life. In our modern American world the love
of a man for a woman is the great romance."
I caught Doctor Donnellon's idea. "Not the
relationship, but the romance, is indispensable," I
said quickly.
"Exactly," Doctor Donnellon replied. "At home,
there is a new romance growing up, the friendship of
woman for woman, that parallels the ancient friend-
ship of men. But in China all romance centers in
the relation of parent to child. Marriage is no
more to them than an ordinary business enterprise."
We had reached the steps of the house during our
philosophizing, and Doctor Donnellon turned to
face the hospital. Its many windows and wide
verandahs gave it a comfortable, inviting appear-
ance. On the second-story porch, a group of waifs
were playing. The sun was low, and the sky
above the buildings burned a deep, golden yellow.
Already, close over the ground, a faint, misty veil
hung. With a quick, spontaneous motion, Doctor
Donnellon threw out one hand towards the hospital.
"There lies my romance," she said abruptly.
As if regretting her frankness, she turned quickly
and walked into the house. I sat down on the


56 MY CHINESE DAYS
steps and propped my elbows on my knees. A
profound sense of melancholy enveloped me, and
the tragic death of the young Chinese girl filled me
with sadness. Twilight fell while I brooded. One
by one the stars came out, and each one made me
lonelier than before. Then Edward came.
"What is the matter with you, Wilhelmina?" he
asked. "You look as if some one had hurt you."
I looked up at him gratefully. I was thankful
for his mere presence.
"Life in general hurts, doesn't it?" I answered.
"Everything goes wrong. All love is wasted and
lost."
I recounted the events of the afternoon, shivering
a little as I retold the story.
"I believe you are cold," Edward exclaimed.
"Put this on."
He wrapped the coat which he had been carrying
over his arm around my shoulders. "You don't
even know how to take care of yourself. You need
a man to look after you. The trouble with you
modern women is that you are all sensitiveness and
no strength, no endurance, no robust optimism. A
man knows it will all come out right, for he is so
delightfully conceited that he trusts his own powers
to right the whole world."
Edward seated himself beside me and shamelessly
put his arm around me. The strength of it com-
forted me, and I dropped against him, my head on
his shoulder. The words of the wise old psalmist
came to my mind: "A man shall be as the shadow of
a great rock in a weary land."


VII
THE BUSINESS OF LIFE
WE will have to hurry if we expect to be
ready by eleven o'clock," said Doctor
Donnellon, as we started across the
compound after breakfast to the hospital. "The
carriage is coming at that hour."
"I'll begin the dressings right away," I answered.
"I am quite eager to see what a Chinese wedding
feast is like."
"This will be a modified festival on our account,"
replied Doctor Donnellon. "Nevertheless it will
give you some idea of the Chinese customs."
At the hospital we parted, Doctor Donnellon to
make medical rounds, and I to do the surgical
dressings. One of the head nurses was also invited
to the feast, as the old lady whose son was being
married had been treated in the hospital. They
were a very modern family. The old dowager
sent her daughters-in-law to the hospital for their
babies.
At eleven o'clock Doctor Donnellon and I were
dressed and ready. I had consulted Doctor
Donnellon as to what I should wear and was
accordingly dressed in shirt waist and skirt. She
wore her brown fur coat and cap.


S8 MY CHINESE DAYS
"Probably we shall have to wait an hour or so
before the carriage comes. Chinese have no idea
of time," said Doctor Donnellon, settling herself at
her desk. "A Chinese feast is a reluctant duty
for me."
"Oh, I think it will be quite exciting," I answered.
"It's all very well for you," Doctor Donnellon
replied. "You are new and fresh. Even managing
chopsticks will amuse you. But Chinese feasts are
old stories to me. Wait till you have tried it, three
hours at table with Chinese women, and no real
conversation at all; besides that, there will be at
least thirty dishes to sample. Let me warn you, child,
do be careful. Choose what you eat and only eat a
little. The cooking is savory, and most foreigners
are apt to overeat."
"I'm glad I don't know much Chinese," I said.
"I will only have to smile and eat, and eat and
smile."
"As a continuous performance, that is not as
easy as you think," said Doctor Donnellon.
Mio-Kung announced the arrival of the carriage.
The eldest daughter-in-law, mother of three sons, had
come in a ricksha to escort us. It was then almost
twelve, and we still had to wait while A-doo finished
dressing. When she joined us, I was astonished at
her fine appearance. She was dressed in plum-
colored satin and wore a quantity of jewelry — two
gold rings, a beautiful jade ring, and a long jade
hairpin. A-doo and the daughter-in-law rode in
rickshas, while we rode in the carriage. I had hardly
recognized the daughter-in-law in her best clothes


THE BUSINESS OF LIFE S9
of black satin lined with turquoise blue, and her
many gold bracelets and pearl ornaments. The
carriage crossed Nanking Road, drove around the
Race Course, and took the road to the Native
City.
"I had no idea they lived so far away," exclaimed
Doctor Donnellon. "I imagined they were just
around the corner."
"I thought there were no carriage roads in the
Native City," I said. "The other day we saw
nothing but alleys."
"These horse roads are new and have been cut
through since the Revolution," answered Doctor
Donnellon. "When I first came out, a carriage in
the Native City was an unheard-of thing."
We entered by the New North Gate cut through
the wall a year ago. A three-storied temple with
ancient casement windows of leaded glass clung to
the inner side of the wall. The road, though wide
enough for our small coupe, barely allowed a ricksha
to squeeze past us, while it would have been quite
impossible to turn or to pass another vehicle. A
footman ran at the horse's head shouting and clear-
ing the way, "The horse carriage comes, The horse
carriage comes." As we penetrated the city more
deeply the road narrowed till the wheels of the
wagon scraped the walls of the houses. Suddenly
we were stopped by a Chinese policeman. The
footman and coachman and policeman had a heated
conversation, which ended by the footman dashing
on ahead.
"I suppose that driving through this street is


60 MY CHINESE DAYS
against 'Old Custom'," said Doctor Donnellon,
"and the footman has gone on ahead to collect
enough money to bribe the policeman."
We became at once the center of a closely packed
crowd, very good-natured and laughing but intensely
personal. Men with youngsters perched astride
their shoulders, women with baskets of food, and
numberless children clustered around us.
"See, the outside-kingdom woman wears her
clothes inside out," laughed a young girl, pointing
at Doctor Donnellon's coat which was made with the
fur on the outside.
"She, I think, is the Elder Sister," continued the
loquacious one, "while the small one is the Little
Sister. The Little Sister has no earrings, but she
has round pieces of gold in two teeth. I myself
prefer gold in the ears."
"What a pity she has such a very big nose,"
remarked an old woman, peering at me over the
young girl's shoulder. "I am sure her feet are
large too."
"Really, this is awful, Doctor Donnellon," I said
desperately. "I never imagined I would mind it,
but it grows embarrassing after a while. You never
know what they will say next."
"They say anything they please," said Doctor
Donnellon, "and it never ends. They keep on and
on, and it grows worse and worse. At a new station
in the interior, the Chinese just swarm over the
mission-house like ants in an ant hill. They line
the dining room wall to watch the missionaries eat,
they enter the bedroom to see the quality of the beds,


THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 61
and they often try to watch the novel and dangerous
process of bathing, immersed in a tub."
Doctor Donnellon leaned out of the window and
began conversing with the crowd.
"From where has she such clear words?" I heard
the old hag exclaim. "Her doctrine is truly good to
hear, but her clothes are very ugly to look upon."
Her attitude astounded me. Would I ever be
able to foretell the Oriental point of view?
After a half an hour or so of waiting, the footman
returned, the policeman was appropriately mollified,
and we proceeded unmolested on our way.
The bridegroom's house opened directly upon the
street. A wide gate in a high wall led into a shallow
courtyard which was separated by a few steps from
the main guest hall. This was a high, raftered room
whose walls were hung from ceiling to floor with
banners of scarlet satin. Heavily embroidered gold
characters ran up and down the banners, proclaiming
"Long Life and Happiness" and many other
blessings in the shape of riches and sons. In the
center of the wall facing the door stood a polished
redwood table on which were placed the ceremonial
candles and offerings. The seats of honor for the
Chinese guests were placed along the sides of the
room, a table and a chair, a table and a chair, in strict
and orderly sequence against the wall. Each table and
chair was covered with a cloth of crimson satin also
heavily embroidered with threads of gold and black.
Thesideof theroom facing thecourtwas entirely open.
Four slender, round columns supported the roof.
Dwarf peach trees and mimosas in ancient porcelain


6a MY CHINESE DAYS
flower bowls of blue and white stood in the corners
of the court by the shallow steps. Standing on the
threshold to greet us was the sprightly old dowager
and her four handsome sons, all sumptuously dressed
in brocaded Chinese satins.
It was a scene of bygone days of splendor, of the
ancient, clannish, patriarchal life of the forgotten
past. The gorgeousness and harmony of the picture
took my breath away. I could not have imagined
anything more effective than that wide, open room,
with its high, sloping ceiling and its riotous crimson
and gold walls. Doctor Donnellon looked at me triumphantly.
"I thought you would be pleasantly surprised,"
she said. "Wait till you have seen the bride's
trousseau."
A host of household servants, coolies, amahs, and
children, were constantly coming and going. We
were ushered into a small reception room to rest
and refresh ourselves. Sweetmeats were placed be-
fore us — sugared lotus buds, and watermelon seeds,
and puffed rice candy. We sat about the little,
marble-topped tables and nibbled the sweets and
made the conventional inquiries. Then we were
led to the bride's apartment. She had arrived the
night before.
We entered a long room in which a young girl was
standing alone. One arm hung at her side, and the
other was stretched up along the parted curtains of
the nuptial bed. She was immaculately dressed and
rouged and bejeweled. Her oval face, with its high
cheek bones and low-bridged nose, gave that illusive,


THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 63
Oriental appearance of calm. She gave me an im-
pression of immense isolation. Yet she was utterly
composed and knew exactly what was expected of
her in the traditional position of bride. The dowager
mother-in-law, the three other daughters-in-law,
and numerous young granddaughters accompanied
us.
"Don't be afraid to look at everything. Touch
and examine things," Doctor Donnellon said to me.
"They will be disappointed if you don't. Think of
what your very best manners are and then do the
opposite."
Thus emboldened, I turned towards the bed
where the young girl was still standing immobile.
It was of deeply glowing redwood, lovely as the
loveliest mahogany, carved and hung with silken
curtains. On one side the curtains were looped
back with heavy silver chains, the hook shaped like
a hand with clasping fingers. Many bright-colored
balls and fantastic ornaments hung from the curtain
rods.
"What a comfort it is to be so frankly mate-
rialistic," Doctor Donnellon said, "and not to have
to pretend one only cares for the giver of a present."
"Yes, it is simpler," I laughed.
The old mother-in-law proudly displayed the bride
to us, her ruddy cheeks, her health, her many pearl
ornaments and gold bracelets. The bride, immobile
and silent, suffered it all. Along one side of the wall
from floor to ceiling were piled her trunks, handsome
boxes of polished wood with hoops of beaten brass.
Over each keyhole was a beaten brass butterfly


64 MY CHINESE DAYS
with spread wings whose body moved aside to dis-
close the keyhole.
"What is the meaning of the shiny balls hanging
along the bed?" I asked.
"They are all best wishes for the safe arrival of
sons," explained Doctor Donnellon. "I suppose you
think it is a little early to think about sons, but sons
are the one thought and aim of a Chinese marriage.
The bride knows it as well as the groom. Getting
married and having children is the business of life,
and they set about it in a most business-like, matter-
of-fact way."
Of course I had known all this before, but I
realized it more acutely when I saw the young bride
standing by the bedside in the house of her husband.
I felt a sudden revulsion against this brutal Chinese
attitude. Materialists, sensualists, I called them to
myself. When we left the bride's room, she was
standing again by the curtains of the bed, gazing
after us with her inscrutable eyes. During our
entire visit she had not spoken a word. Was she
merely a living image, a symbol of an ancient rite,
or a young girl, aquiver with life, curbed by the
iron custom of years into that attitude of strange
impassivity! I wanted to speak to her alone, to
touch her hand, to make her smile. I wondered
if endearments and caresses would change her back
into something quick and responsive, or would she
always remain so, silent, motionless, gazing at us
with her soft brown eyes.
Of course I never spoke to her. I had no chance.
The old dowager carried us off to show us the rest


THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 65
of the house, and she was left there alone, standing
by her bedside, in the quiet of the empty room,
waiting till the next visitors came to look her over.
She haunted me. While I looked at all the beautiful
things that were shown to us, I kept on thinking of
her. How strange are our fates! If she bore sons
she would be happy! There she waited the test
of life. Did she think? Did she feel? Or was
she concentrated in merely waiting? I never saw
her again.
At last the feast began. The old dowager and
her two eldest daughters-in-law ate with us. The
men ate in a room apart.
"Where are the bride and groom?" I asked.
"For one month they have the privilege of eating
alone together in the bride's apartment," the dowager
replied.
My mind leaped upon that reply. What would
the young girl find to say to this man she had never
seen before, she who had never spoken to a man alone
in her whole life? How mysterious everyday events
are!
"What beautiful ivory chopsticks," Doctor
Donnellon exclaimed, much to the delight of the
family, who wished everything to be effusively
admired. I watched Doctor Donnellon enviously.
She used her chopsticks as if born to them. Mine
wobbled around hopelessly in my fingers. Fore-
seeing such a contingency, a silver fork, made like
a hairpin with an extra prong for a handle, was given
to me. I speared the morsels on it and nibbled from
them as daintily as I could.


66 MY CHINESE DAYS
The feast was indeed marvelous. All the well-
known dishes were served — the meat and vegetable
salad called "The Mandarin's Hat", "The Eight
Precious Pudding" with its dates and raisins, in-
numerable small omelets, meat patties, pigeon eggs,
wild duck, fried batter, and last of all rice and tea.
"I really and truly can't eat another mouthful,"
I said in despair to Doctor Donnellon.
"Never mind, you don't have to eat the rice,"
she said. "It is quite polite to leave it, as that
shows that the feast has been so ample and delicious
that you do not need the rice to complete your meal."
As a sign that she had finished, Doctor Donnellon
waved her chopsticks in the air and laid them down
across her bowl of rice, uttering the customary
phrase of Chinese etiquette, "Use slowly", to the
rest. The old dowager lifted the chopsticks from
across the bowl and placed them on the table as a
sign that Doctor Donnellon was urged to eat more,
saying insistently, "Eat plenty." After this cere-
mony had been performed by each member of the
party and the tea drunk, the feast was over. The
family, the children, and their servitors all crowded
into the great guest hall to see us off. The gate
man bolted the door in the wall behind us, shutting
in the splendor of the crimson-hung room, and we
were again in the narrow, muddy alley in the Chinese
City. As we passed along by the windowless walls,
I wondered what strange spectacles were to be seen
behind their jealous doors, and I fell to dreaming
about the hidden, mysterious life going on so remorse-
lessly and stealthily behind those closed gates.


THE BUSINESS OF LIFE 67
Doctor Donnellon roused me by a sigh of relief.
"I'm glad it's over," she said. "It is a tremendous
strain to be polite according to Chinese etiquette
for four hours."
On Nanking Road I saw Edward striding along
briskly towards St. Margaret's hospital.
"If you don't mind, I'll get out and walk with Mr.
Stevens," I said. "I feel like a stuffed pig." A
few minutes later Edward and I were swinging along
together, and I had launched into a full description
of the feast.
"I wish I had been there," exclaimed Edward
enthusiastically. "They must be a pretty rich old
family. I delight in the frank pleasure these old
codgers take in their possessions. They are far
more sincere than we."
"I didn't feel that way," I said. "I was op-
pressed, weighed down, by their evident worship
of things. Their accumulation of objects stifled
me."
Edward smiled one of his wise smiles, and I felt
myself blushing, for I had spoken with some heat.
"You are betraying one of your handicaps in
life, Wilhelmina," he said, looking at me with ten-
der eyes, "your spirituality. Spirituality is, in all
truth, 'other worldliness.' People with a love for
things have a firmer grip on the life of this everyday
world. Now, take me, for instance; I would make
a good anchor for you."


VIII THE SONG OF THE COOLIES
YOU might as well marry Edward Stevens
at once and be done with it," said Doc-
tor Donnellon.
We had made evening rounds together and were
standing on the wide second-story verandah over-
looking the compound. Behind us on the porch was
a row of beds containing the cases of bone and gland
tuberculosis. Before us lay the brief breathing space
of the compound's grass plot, walled in by a mass of
Chinese houses. Their peaked roofs cut across the
purple, silver-spangled sky in fantastic outlines. As
we stood by the railing listening, I heard the palm
leaves softly rattling against each other. From a
near-by alley came the weird, insistent song of a
"carry coolie":
Flung out into the night the notes dominated the air.
"Well, why don't you?" Doctor Donnellon
repeated. ■ I <
Without turning my head, I answered. "I don't
want to marry at all. It's quite another thing for a


72 MY CHINESE DAYS
V
"Here we are at the Creek," he said. "Shall we
hail a boat and float down instead of walking back?"
We had emerged at a ferry landing. Smooth
stone slabs supported on wooden piles led from the
high bank to the water. I suddenly felt tired.
"Yes," I answered simply.
"Sit here," said Edward, folding his coat into a
cushion. "We may not be able to get a boat at
once — one clean enough, I mean."
He ran down the steps to parley with the ferryman.
From the rape fields behind me came the faint,
distant "song of the coolies", growing clearer and
sharper. Soon five men emerged from the path,
carrying baskets of cabbage slung on bamboo poles
across their shoulders. I watched them file down
the stone stairway and step carefully on to the
ferry. The ferryman, a boy of about sixteen, poled
them across. A cool draft of air was wafted up
from the yellow-brown water. Beside me was a
battered temple in which sat a forsaken Buddha in
his attitude of eternal calm, with knees crossed and
smiling vermilion lips. A pervasive mystery exuded
from this decayed temple, from the swaying rape
seed, and the swiftly flowing river. For ages and
eons of time it had been the same. I seemed to
sink into this universal life, to be swallowed up by it.
"Here comes a cleanish junk," called Edward.
I ran down the flight of stone slabs and stepped
on the ferry. It poled out to midstream and drew
up alongside the chosen junk, and we easily jumped
across. The boat, long and narrow, was taking
garden truck to the Shanghai markets. The


THE SONG OP THE COOLIES 73
vegetables were piled in a sunken cradle in the
center of the boat. Two men were working side by
side at the long stern oar.
"This is much cleaner than most of them," said
Edward. "We were lucky." ■
I made no reply; I was tongue-tied. In silence
we seated ourselves in the prow of the boat. I felt
more and more unreal, as I watched the house boats
tugged up stream, each boat accommodating one or
two families in its one small cabin. The faces
that looked out at me were strange, like the faces
seen in a fantastic nightmare.
"What's the matter, Wilhelmina?" Edward asked-
"I believe you are completely tired out. In the
name of thunder, why won't you marry me? I
would make of my love for you a wall to protect
you from all weariness and sorrow. Why won't
you understand?"
Edward leaned closer, and his face too became as
one of the dream faces.
"It's you who don't understand," I whispered.
The junk swept around a bend in the stream. The
link with the past was snapped, and the present,
with all its immediate urgency, rushed upon us.
Just as we turned the corner we saw a house boat
with a pretentious, enclosed cabin slowly and
sedately turn turtle.
Our rowers dropped their oars and rushed for-
ward, shrieking wildly. Several other boats began
to float around aimlessly, while their occupants
screamed and yelled. In the midst of the stream the
overturned, flat-bottomed boat floated serenely. No


74 MY CHINESE DAYS
sound came from within it. I wondered if the im-
prisoned family were screaming.
"Make the idiots stop yelling, can't you, Wilhel-
mina," said Edward. "We must get there at once
and chop those fellows out."
"Won't the boat turn back?" I asked.
"It can't," Edward answered. "The roof must
be caught in the muddy bottom." My lethargy dropped away. I shouted at the
coolies in dialect, and they pushed our boat beside
the upturned hulk. From a second junk Edward
got an ax. Leaping upon the boat, he began to
chop at the wooden planks. Up and down the creek,
the hollow sound of the falling ax echoed and re-
echoed.
"Confound the wood," Edward growled. "It
must be teak. It's as hard as stone."
Two Chinese sprang across from a junk that had
just arrived, they and Edward took turns chopping.
Their faces grew red from exertion, and streams of
water dripped from their hands.
"We'll be too late," Edward cried. "She's filling.
I feel her settle."
As if to answer his fear, a cry penetrated the
wooden walls of the cabin and floated up through
the water. The next crash of Edward's ax cut
an air hole through. After the first opening was
made, the wood splintered in all directions. Edward
plunged in his hand and caught a Chinaman's arm.
While the other men continued ripping and tearing
at the planks, Edward pulled the fellow out through
the hole. I shall never forget the sheer fright


THE SONG OF THE COOLIES 75
depicted on his face — eyes rolled upwards, lips
blue, and every inch of hair on his close-cropped head
standing erect.
"How many more inside?" I called to him.
He held up two fingers.
No sooner were his feet out of the hole than a
second Chinese face appeared. This man was fat.
After he had poked his head and shoulders through,
the rest of his body stuck. At the sight, the
spectators began to laugh uncontrollably. Edward
threw down his ax and held his sides with laughter.
The fat, terrified man, hanging by his armpits, made
a ridiculous figure. Suddenly I remembered there
was a third inside.
"Hurry, Edward, pull him out," I cried. "There
is another one inside. Don't waste so much time.
The last one will drown."
The two Chinese began tugging at the out-
stretched arms of the fat man. A sound of loud
ripping and tearing of cloth rewarded their efforts.
The next instant they jerked out a comparatively
thin man, leaving his cocoon of padded garments
stuck like a cork in the opening. He promptly
collapsed upon the roof. Edward and I tore away
his clothes and peered into the hole. At first we
could distinguish nothing, but as our eyes grew
accustomed to the semi-darkness, we saw that about
three feet of air space remained above the surface
of the water. Stools and tables and eating bowls
were floating about, bobbing against each other.
"I see no one," said Edward, drawing back.
'' How many inside?" I again asked the rescued men.


76 MY CHINESE DAYS
Simultaneously they each held up one finger. "Must catchee one piecee woman," said the first. "Never mind. Belong second wife," added the
second.
As Edward caught their meaning, he quickly began
taking off his coat and shoes. While I watched him
prepare to dive into that submerged room, I suddenly
knew that I loved him, and the knowledge filled me
with a strange terror and a strange pride.
Edward let himself down feet foremost. A
moment his fingers clung to the opening, then they
too disappeared, and I heard a dull splash in the
cabin. I knelt at the hole. I believe some one
held my feet to prevent my falling in. I stared at
the heavy darkness till my eyes blinked with tears.
At last, when I could scarcely see, I realized that
Edward's head had appeared at the surface of the
water. The next moment he raised himself shoulder
high and dragged up the form of an unconscious
woman.
"I can't lift her," he called. "I am standing
on a stool on a table, and it's very shaky. Throw
me a rope. Quick. I am afraid she is too far
gone. She was lying on the bottom covered by
the bed."
"A rope! A rope!" I called to the Chinese. In
despair I wondered where I could find a rope in the
middle of Soochow Creek. But I had forgotten
the ways of the river. A boy shinned up the mast
of the next boat and deftly detached the tow rope
from its summit. The tow-man on the shore
stepped out of his harness, and in a second a long


THE SONG OF THE COOLIES 77
strong rope was ready. The men lowered an end
to Edward.
"Ready, pull," he called, but be careful. She is
unconscious."
When the men had drawn the woman out, I too
was sure she was dead. But "once a doctor, always
a doctor." My hypodermic case, as usual, was in
my wrist bag. After an injection I began artificial
respiration. Before I knew it, Edward was beside
me, helping with the rhythmic, swinging motions of
her arms. I was oblivious of all but the unconscious
woman lying on the planks of the upturned boat.
Her face was immobile and pallid as a death mask,
but her heart was still beating. Gradually a
faint pink tinge spread over her lips and finger tips.
Then my attention relaxed, and I suddenly became
conscious that our boat was the center of a closely
packed flotilla of junks from which hundreds of
bright brown eyes scrutinized us with interested
curiosity. Coolies, with their burdens resting at
their feet, were ranged along both banks. In the
distance the song of approaching coolies grew more
and more distinct.
Never till I die will I forget that song of the coolies,
monotonous, insistent, throbbing with a hidden
power, the song of the burden bearers of the earth.
At that moment I merged myself with them.
The girl drew a hesitating, fluttering breath. The
bystanders gave a triumphant shout. I straightened
myself and walked back to our hired boat. Slowly
the impacted mass of junks wormed itself apart.
Once again Edward and I, sitting on the prow of our


78 MY CHINESE DAYS
boat, drifted down stream towards Shanghai. I
was tired and leaned against Edward's shoulder in an
abandonment of content.
"Do you love me?" he murmured into my ear.
"I don't know," I answered. "But I am glad it's
decided. The rest doesn't matter."
Along the shore path, the coolies hurried back and
forth, carrying their ceaseless burdens, singing ever
the same, weird, monotonous song, the Song of the
Burden Bearers of the East.


IX
THE WARM GRAVE
COURTING is just as happy a time for a
girl in China as anywhere else under the
sun. All the world seemed to aid and abet
us. If Edward so much as called for afternoon
tea, as soon as the tea was drunk everybody would
fade away from the room, leaving Edward and me
together. I found it a little strange at first, but I
must confess that I liked it. On the whole it was an
excellent plan. It seemed as if all the world were
pushing us together — not only the people, Doctor
Donnellon and Miss Laurie, but all the inanimate
Chinese things about us.
My importance was greatly heightened in the
eyes of the nurses. "When will you be married?"
I was asked a dozen times a day. I always said
I didn't know, which surprised them very much.
As soon as a Chinese girl is betrothed, her mar-
riage month is set. Once I heard them whisper-
ing among themselves. "Astonishing! Is it not
strange? She does not know when she is to be
married."
But I didn't want to know. The world suited
me to a T. I didn't want it changed one iota.
Loving Edward seemed to make a great difference


80 MY CHINESE DAYS
in me. It seemed somehow to make me more a
part of the rest of the world, even more a part of
China, as if I had suddenly found a key to under-
standing. Before I had only looked through a
peephole at life; now I was inside.
One evening Edward came to take me driving in
one of the small Chinese victorias. It was well
along in June, and the days and nights were both
warm. All our woolen things had been hung out
on the second-story porch long ago to sun, before
the willow fuzz began to fly, and then had been
carefully put away in camphorwood or tin boxes
for the summer. Even in the evenings we only
needed a light silk scarf. The Chinese men had
discarded all semblance of upper garments for the
summer, and the women on the street wore trans-
parent gauze skirts over their thin summer trousers.
Punkahs and electric fans waved during meals, and
at night we slept out on the upstairs porch on bam-
boo couches without any covers. In the daytime
we rested when work was over. Only at night could
one enjoy motion.
I never get over a feeling of opulence when I lean
back in a victoria, no matter how shaky the vehicle
or how shabby the driver.
"Don't keep her out too late," warned Doctor
Donnellon. "We have a hard operation to-morrow
morning, and we must all be fresh for it."
"We won't be long," said Edward. "We are
going out along Soochow Creek and back by the
Rubicon Road."
The Rubicon is the last outlying ribbon of foreign


THE WARM GRAVE 81
influence around Shanghai. Across it lie the path-
less fields of China itself.
On the shafts of the carriage hung two large,
illumined, paper lanterns, shedding a fitful colored
light on the ground at the horse's head. The streets
were a mass of rickshas and people. Children,
amply dressed in a red handkerchief, played by the
roadside. At the doorways of the houses sat little
family groups, the father mayhap with the youngest
baby perched astride his shoulder. Here and there
a man was playing the primitive violin of the people.
Its wailing, plaintive notes hung like a subtle en-
chantment on the air. We passed a boy blowing a
flute, driving home to the stables a herd of unwieldy
buffaloes. Their huge, humped, black silhouettes
were unreal in the night. We turned down Myburgh
Road and out on to the thoroughfare of Bubbling
Well. There foreign motor cars mingled with the
rickshas. A handsome Sikh policeman saluted me
as we passed.
"How do you know him?" asked Edward.
"Oh! I know half the policemen in town. First
of all, they bring their wives to St. Margaret's for
treatment, and secondly they bring in a lot of
municipal cases. But this man is a special friend
of mine. He thinks I saved the life of his wife."
Edward smiled at me, and I felt a warm rush of
happiness tingle through me.
"I had such a queer sensation when he came to
take her away. She was standing in the hospital
court with her baby in her arms. They were both
dressed in some gaudy color and wrapped up to the


82 MY CHINESE DAYS
eyes. The Sikh, very tall and imposing in his
municipal uniform of blue serge, said something
rapidly to the woman that I couldn't understand.
She nodded her head. The next moment he was on
the ground, kissing my feet. I felt humble and
elated at the same moment. The homage woke up
a primitive feeling of delight in power over people.
I was rather scared to find how much I enjoyed it."
Along the road, the houses stood wide open to the
fragrant night air. We could look right in and see
groups of men and women in white on the veran-
dahs. Opposite the Burlington Hotel, a long row
of plastered Chinese houses was overflowing with
Chinese children. An eat-shop next door was
doing a good business. Then we left the city behind
us and drove out rapidly into the country. We
passed through Zau-Ka-Doo, where the silk filatures
were silent for the night, and came out beside Soo-
chow Creek. At once the air blew cool and damp
in our faces. The lights of the city and houses
gone, the world seemed to grow in immensity and
stretch away infinitely under the moon. I imagined
it stretching away and away till it touched Russia
and America, joining hands across the continent.
Down the silent river the junks, with their tall,
oblong sails, floated mysteriously. Now and then
the creak of an oar came to our ears, or the harsh
call of the ferryman. Willows grew along the bank,
and a pale silver moon hung in the sky.
"I'd like to go on and on along this road, Edward,"
I said. "I don't want to turn off from the Creek.
The fields without the water are meaningless. I



1-1
<
H
tr.
H
W
M
g
a
H
W
S
H
H


>.,'m' ■i'M


THE WARM GRAVE 83
feel that if we could only go on, we would come to
some secret. I've always had to turn back and
go home. Some day I want to just go right on and
never come back."
"Some day you shall," he promised, "but not
to-night. In spite of all the wisdom tucked away
inside your head, I know a thing or two you haven't
found out yet. Life has no secrets just around the
corner. All the secrets of life are inside us."
"No, it's not that kind of a surprise I want," I
replied. "I want something to happen to me from
the outside. I don't want to have to evolve it
from my inner consciousness."
i A carry coolie along the roadside passed us,
going in the other direction, humming his strange
two notes beneath his breath. It is a sound that
always takes my breath away.
"Never mind, dear," I said, "I'm satisfied."
Junk after junk moved past us noiselessly.
Phantoms they were, coming from the unknown,
going to the unknown, all palpitating with life.
Tree toads sang along the road, and their soft,
throaty gurgle filled me with a strange unrest. One
sleepless "Sau-Sau-Man-Hau" bird cried out across
the plains like the sudden night call of a loon. We
came to the bend in the road where it leaves the
Creek and turns back towards Shanghai through
the fields. This road is a small, winding road, sup-
posed to be kept in repair by the municipal council.
A run of water, edged with steep banks, borders
one side. Across that run is China, un-foreignized,
eternal, just as it was centuries ago. I remember,


THE WARM GRAVE 85
"Missey come look see," he answered.
We followed the crowds about a mile down the
road. They then crossed the run on a bridge of
flat stepping-stones and vanished into the silvery
darkness of the field beyond. The coachman turned
around eagerly. "Missey come too?" he said.
At first Edward wouldn't go. He said he was
afraid for me, though why he need be afraid for
me, I don't know, when I am never afraid for
myself. Men are incomprehensible creatures! For
a while I really thought he wouldn't let me go. I
didn't want to quarrel, but neither did I want to
sit there in that carriage and not see what was
going on, on the other side. My old feelings of
rebellion began to perk their heads up, but they
weren't needed. While our carriage waited at the
roadside, we saw a procession of lanterns coming
down behind us. When they drew near, we saw
that they were a company of priests in long gray
robes, carrying drums and short sticks which
they struck together like castanets. One by one
the priests crossed the little run on the century-
old slabs of stone, then they too vanished into
the silvery mistiness of the field beyond. But
now the meadow was not silent. It vibrated to
the rhythmic throb of the drums and the stick-
like castanets.
The driver wriggled about on his seat. "Missey
no come?" he inquired. "Never mind. Can do,
Missey, Master, come look see."
He jumped down from the box, and I followed
suit. By this time, I think that Edward's natural


86 MY CHINESE DAYS
curiosity had overcome his scruples. Without a
word of objection he followed us.
I climbed down the steep bank to the water's
edge and stepped out, across, on the flat stones.
They were solid as the very earth itself, Druid-
like and ancient. Across them countless farmers
and country folk had crossed the Rubicon into
Civilization. I tried to put myself into their minds,
to grasp the wonder and daring of thus rashly
venturing out of the snug past into the wild wonder
of the present. I tried and I failed. My own point
of view rushed back upon me. Here was I, a
modern as I liked to think, stepping back into the
untold ages of antiquity. After all it was as
wonderful as their stepping out. And one thing
I had gained, in that one particular I was ahead —
I was quivering with consciousness. O! I don't
mean of myself, but of the world. I suppose a lark
mounts and sings from an inner, sublime instinct,
but if a man were thus to mount and sing, it would
be with an ecstasy of joy. I felt that these silent,
shadowy folk were as primitive as the birds of the air.
I crossed the little stream and went up the opposite
bank by a narrow footpath into the rice fields beyond.
As soon as we had gained the level of the field, we
saw the people like a dense shadow near a circle of
cypress trees at the farther end of the meadow. The
field was thickly studded with grave mounds, little,
lonely ones of babies and family groups of twos and
threes. "Tsing Ming" was but lately past, and
the tops of the graves were bare of grass. At
"Tsing Ming" the families go to the graves of their


THE WARM GRAVE 87
ancestors and pull off all the grass that has grown
during the past year, leaving only a little tuft on
the top, so that the grave shall look fresh. On the
peak of the grave thus made bald, the offerings of
food and paper money are placed. The group of
cypresses towards which we were making our way
surrounded a pretentious family burying mound.
"Makee quick," urged the coachman. "Want-
chee look see."
He broke into a soft run, and I hurried after him.
The cypresses grew up straight and slender around
a group of three mounds. The people were clustered
close around the edge of the enclosure. The priests
were grouped at one end. A fresh grave was just
dug. The earth lay piled up at one side in a moist
brown heap. Two coolies, still sweating and wiping
their eyes, stood at one side beside their shovels.
We joined the crowd unnoticed; the priests were
already chanting. Out on the misty, silvery quiet-
ness of the night floated their ancient incantation,
the prayer for a blessing for the dead. The lighted
lanterns glowed in splashes of red and yellow light.
With intense interest the crowd watched the priests.
Heathen and ancient as the human race itself was
this prayer for the dead. And if Our Lord has said
that not one sparrow falls to the ground without His
compassion, so must His love flow out over this
heathen grave. I ceased to feel alien and strange, a
spectator; rather I felt I was a part of the mourning
crowd.
Little rustlings of the night wind crept through
the knee-high rice stalks. The clouds seemed to


88 MY CHINESE DAYS
lean close and whisper as they rushed across the
moon, now throwing the scene into sudden light, and
now hiding it in dusky gloom. The priests chanted,
and the acolytes beat their drums and wooden
sticks. The sound seemed to be arriving at a
frenzied climax.
Then I suddenly saw that all eyes were directed
toward a young man who stood a little before the
rest at the very edge of the grave. He wore the
unbleached sackcloth of a first mourner. An old
woman stood near him, holding a small child in her
arms.
The music came to an end, and the high priest
said a few words. I didn't catch their meaning, but
a thrill ran through me, as the tones of his voice
vibrated commandingly over the company. The
moon rushed behind a thick cloud. Some of the
lanterns had burnt out, only two or three still
glowed through their fragile paper frames. A
weird, ominous stillness fell on the group. I too
held my breath, and a sudden terror and horror
filled me. I put out my hand and caught Edward's.
His fingers were warm and felt comforting to my
cold ones.
The young man whom everybody was watching
suddenly knelt on the ground before the priests
and struck his head against the earth thrice. I
had no idea of what was to follow. When he rose
he turned toward the open grave and jumped
swiftly into its depths. A shuddering sigh, almost
a stifled laugh, swept through the crowd. The
chanting of the priests broke out again. The


THE WARM GRAVE 89
people began to stir about, as if their paralyzed
limbs had suddenly come to life. Here and there
one lighted a new candle in his lantern. A few
stragglers started off back across the fields. The
priests wound three times around the grave with its
living human occupant, then off across the zigzag
path through the rice field. Most of the people
followed. The woman carrying the baby and an
amah nurse or two accompanying her, still lingered.
The voices of the throng which had crossed back
over the Rubicon to the outskirts of the foreign
settlement floated out clearly on the night air.
The woman leaned over the edge of the grave.
"Are you all right," she called. "Is it cold in
the grave?"
"It's very cold. I feel the chill of death creeping
over my bones. However, it is of no importance.
I will warm the grave for my father's body. He shall
never feel the chill of death. I will warm it with my
warm blood. Go home, Great Mother, and sleep
till dawn. I will be waiting for your coming with
the sunshine in the morning. Lift up my son, my
first-born, that he may see the filialness of his
father and remember."
The voice from the grave ceased. The woman
at the edge of the grave lifted up the child and held
it out over the hole in the earth. Its baby eyes
wandered away and up to the pretty moonshine
above its head. It refused to look down into the
grave.
"Till to-morrow, with the sun," said the voice of
the Filial Son. At last the mother and her little


9o MY CHINESE DAYS
cortege filed away across the fields. We stood alone
under the shade of the cypresses. It seemed too
terrible for every one to go away to warm beds and
hot tea and leave that young man out there in the
silent rice field, shut in by the high walls of the
freshly dug grave, all alone in the darkness.
"Come," said the driver, tugging at my sleeve.
"Missey must come away. It no belong good
custom for any one to stay by the warm grave.
It no belong proper."
"But suppose something should happen to him,"
I cried.
The coachman shrugged his shoulders. "What
thing can happen?" he asked in scorn. "No man
touchee he. He belong one piecee very holy son.
Never mind! Come away. No can stay by warm
grave. The devils can catch."
"What devils," I asked.
"Oh, any devils, bad devils! No likee son warm
grave. Go round and round on the outside to
catch son if he get up too soon. Hear."
The man held up his hand and poised his head to
listen. The night wind was rising and moaning
through the stiff branches of the cypresses.
"I hear the devils already," he stammered.
"Missey makee quick. Come away."
He caught at my dress and pulled me along the path.
"It's useless to stay, Wilhelmina," said Edward.
"It's dangerous to interfere with the native customs.
Besides, there is no real danger to the fellow, not
any more than to any soldier who sleeps on the
ground all night."


THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 93
and buried itself in the opposite wall. "Loo-I-
Sung", as the Chinese call her, was in danger, and
our little band of refugees was tormented with fear
for her. She refused to leave the hospital, as there
were still a few patients too sick to be moved. After
it was all over I dined with her in the room still
riddled with bullet holes. But here at St. Margaret's
we were safe. A wild shot or two flew overhead, but
none fell in our compound.
One evening — it was the third day of the bom-
bardment — we were sitting on the verandah, listen-
ing to the far-off patter of bullets, when the telephone
rang shrilly. Edward rose to answer it.
"It is no use your going," I said. "It's sure to
be some one asking about a patient, and I might as
well go at once."
"Very well," said Edward.
It was Miss Judson at the Door of Hope. She
wanted some one to go down to the Slave Refuge at
Kaung Wan to relieve Miss Fairchild, who had come
down with dysentery. The orphanage for the
younger girls was at Kaung Wan near the Woosung
forts. Up till now all the fighting had been about
the Arsenal at the west of the settlement. Miss
Judson thought the children would be perfectly
safe with their Chinese teachers, but she didn't
like to feel there was no one in charge in such
uncertain times. Did I think any one could be
spared?
"I can come," I answered. "I was supposed to
go away on a vacation, but no one can get away just
now. We aren't able to do any proper medical


94 MY CHINESE DAYS
work, but spend our time dosing out sedatives.
I'll love to come."
So it was arranged, and I went down the next
day to take charge. The building is a square,
barrack-like affair of gray brick, standing alone
in a field of grave mounds. To the south lies the
stream of the Whangpoo, meeting at right angles
the vast yellow flood of the YangTse. On the fork
of land between the two rivers stand the Woosung
forts. All the shipping to and from Shanghai sails
up the Woosung. The new railroad from Shanghai
to the Point runs between the house and the shore.
Inland the ground stretches towards the horizon in
billowing, grave-humped fields almost concealing
the groups of bamboo houses and the scattered
villages.
I soon began to feel at home with all the little waifs.
They were as clean as a new day and obedient and
well behaved. When they found I liked to play
games when lessons were over, they took to me at
once. I had no real duties. The Chinese teachers
took care of all the regular lessons. I looked over
their scalps and eyes and ears while I had opportunity
and sat at the long table with them at meal times.
And at night I made rounds through the bare,
open-windowed rooms, seeing that each little tot
was in her appointed cot of the double-decker tiers.
Sometimes we played hide and seek around the
grave mounds, and sometimes we stood at the wide
curtainless windows and watched the sails on the
river. I'd tell them stories about each boat that
went by, about the gray warships, or the ancient


0 MY CHINESE DAYS
told us if there were, or Mr. Stevens would have
come out."
"Will you go? Will the children go?" asked
Dong lung.
"If there is real danger, of course we will go," I
answered. "But we must not let ourselves be
driven away by a foolish panic. It is hard to find a
home at a moment's notice for one hundred and
eighty little girls."
"There are the refuge camps," suggested Dong
lung. "Father says that bread and soup is being
distributed free every morning in the marketplaces
in Shanghai."
"That would never do," I cried aghast. "I'm
really not worried, for Miss Judson will let me know
in time if we have to leave."
"If you stay, then I will," answered Dong lung.
She started to her feet impetuously.
"I'd like to keep you," I said. "You are a great
help to me, but since your father has sent for you,
you must go."
Dong lung shook her head. "I'm not a slave
any more," she asserted. "I earn my own living.
My duty is the same as yours. You cannot make
me a coward. I will not run away."
She looked so very slim and boyish and determined
as she drew herself up in her trousers and jacket that
1 almost yielded.
"Where is the boy?" I asked.
"He is waiting in the kitchen," Dong lung
replied.
"Send him to me in my office," I said.


THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 97
Dong lung went to give my message, and I
walked across the hall into the tiny, white cubbyhole
which was Miss Fairchild's office. On the wall hung
a picture of Christ blessing little children. One big
desk stood across the wall opposite the door. There
were two chairs, one for Miss Fairchild and one for
a visitor. Dong lung came in, followed by a boy
in the long, white, regulation upper garment of a
Chinese house servant. Breaking into rapid Chinese,
he began his story. I\ caught his meaning well
enough, but I wanted to be sure.
"What does he say?" I asked Dong lung.
"He says," she answered, "that orders have been
issued to close the river to all incoming and out-
going craft, that all the government war boats are
steaming towards the point, and that the bombard-
ment will begin at 2 p.m. The rebels are expecting
reinforcements by evening."
If true, that was bad news indeed, but we had
been fed by so many unreliable rumors that I did
not let myself worry too much. I knew that Miss
Judson and Edward would let me know in time, if
anything really dangerous threatened. Still I dis-
missed all the paid teachers and servants and sent
them home till further notice. There was a good
deal of excitement among the children, for though I
forbade any one explaining the cause of the sudden
holiday, still the news leaked out. The servants
and teachers rushed about wildly, packing up their
belongings and taking tearful farewells. In an
incredibly short time the little cavalcade was ready
to start for the station a quarter of a mile distant.


98 MY CHINESE DAYS
Dong lung was the last to leave. She clung to my
arm weeping. "Come too," she urged. "You
don't know Chinese soldiers. First they fire the
place, then they loot. Pretty women first."
The girl clung to me in real terror. Almost she
shook my resolution. Suppose the news were really
authentic this time. Miss Judson and Edward
would not have time to reach us before the bombard-
ment began, and the Refuge was in the direct firing
line. If there hadn't been quite so many children, I
believe I would have gone, but No! It was im-
possible. My trust in the others reasserted itself. I
knew they would not forget us. Probably at this
very moment they were perfecting a plan for our
benefit. While I hesitated, the 'phone rang. It was
Miss Judson herself.
Dong lung paused in the doorway to hear her
message. It was short but reassuring. "It's all
right," I said, feeling that a weight had been lifted
off my heart. "The fighting is not to begin till
to-morrow afternoon, and in the morning Miss
Judson is bringing out a special train to take all the
children away to West Gate, which is now the safest
place."
"Then I shall stay too," said Dong lung.
"No, indeed," I said. "Your father has sent
for you and go you must."
I gave her a little shove and shut the door behind
her. I had a pang of loneliness after they all left,
and I wondered why Edward had not come down to
stay with us. It seemed, if there ever were a fitting
time to have a man in the house, this was it. I


THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 99
felt I belonged with the little outcasts, the poor
little tots who had been beaten and tortured and
starved little slaves. We were all forgotten and un-
wanted. It is a horrible feeling. Fortunately for
me, the children would not let me alone. They
clustered around me, wanting to know what it all
meant. A few of the older ones stood quiet and
solemn. They were all quite demoralized. Of
course I could not let that go on. I divided them
up into their usual classes and called each older
girl by the name of a departed teacher. Only give
a Chinese a part to play, and you have given her
an absorbing interest. Real dramatic ability seems
to lie around loose anywhere among them. The
veriest beggar off the streets can act a part. The
accustomed routine calmed the children, and by
afternoon no traces of unusual excitement were to
be seen. Only, when playtime came, I kept them
indoors, and we went upstairs to the attic. I stood
at the window and watched the Whangpoo River.
It looked very clear and gray, winding between its
willow-fringed banks. On the opposite shore the
low houses of Pootung were half hidden in trees.
Around the forts, in a menacing semicircle, clustered
a score or more Chinese men-of-war. Ultra-modern,
painted in hungry gray, or medieval survivors with
high, curling poops and painted yellow eyes on the
bows, the vessels loomed sinister through the
gathering dusk. Beyond their lines in the river lay
three or four foreign gunboats, and at the mouth of
the YangTse was a foreign liner waiting to come up
to Shanghai. So near they seemed, as if I could


ioo MY CHINESE DAYS
put out my hand and touch them. They were
soundless, motionless; they lay like phantoms on
the water. The low bamboo houses along the
bank, the willows bending in the wind, a wheel-
barrow trundled along in blissful leisure — these
were the real things, not those inconceivable shapes
conjured up by some evil imagination. Yet over
the forts, in flaunting arrogance, floated the flag
of the rebels. I stood at the window a long time
watching those motionless monsters.
Night fell. I put the children to bed in their long
rows of double-decker cots. Then I made the
rounds of the Refuge, bolting windows and barring
doors. At last I had done everything I could think
of. I went to my room and undressed for bed, but
I couldn't sleep. It was no use lying staring at the ceiling, so I got up and put on a wrapper and went
out on to the verandah outside my window. The
stars were shining peacefully. One, more brilliant
than the rest, cast a glittering drop of gold reflection
in the water. The men-of-war were hardly visible;
not a light shone on them. The night was very still,
not a cricket chirped, not a leaf stirred.
I almost went to sleep in my long chair on the
porch. Indeed, I must have dozed off, for I was
awakened by a red flash of light and a deafening
noise. The gunboats had opened fire on the forts.
Siau-Noen, the baby of the institution, began to
cry. I picked her up and held her in my arms. A
few of the children stirred and cried out in their
sleep, but most of them slept through the bombard-
ment. For an hour or more the boats kept up an


THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 101
active bombardment of the fort. A pallid search-
light played incessantly on its walls. In its light I
could see the holes torn through the masonry.
Once, when the wind veered, I fancied I heard the
cries of men in pain. Then the firing ceased, and
again the night was starred in silver peace. The
tall grasses on the conical grave mounds waved
gently, a cricket chirped, Siau-Noen slept soundly in
my arms. I sat on the verandah till dawn. I
watched the first, utterly forlorn, gray light that
streaked the sky, watched till it quivered in a vibrat-
ing purple and suddenly burst into rose and yellow.
The crows began to fly back to the fields behind
Shanghai for their day's feeding. I always loved
to watch them go, soaring past in twos and threes,
with an occasional lazy straggler by himself. Often,
when I had come in early from a night case, I had
seen them winging their way countryward across the
red dawn. At evening they came back to the shelter
of the city to roost. When I saw the crows, I was
reassured. Day had come, and we were safe. Soon
Miss Judson and Edward would appear, and my
vigil would be over. Lifting the baby in my arms,
I went in and put her down in her crib. Then I flung
myself across the bed and went to sleep at once.
Suddenly some one was shaking me and calling
to me in terror. "Wake up, wake up. A bullet
has come through the dining-room window."
Another child burst into the room, crying, "Three
bullets have come into the eating room."
"One fell into my bowl of rice," sobbed Ah-Me,
casting herself into my lap.


102 MY CHINESE DAYS
The room was rapidly filling with frightened,
crying children.
"My finger is hurt," wailed one of the smaller
youngsters, pushing her way through to me, cupping
her bleeding finger in the palm of her other hand.
"May-Li has fainted on the floor in the hall," some
one announced.
"They are shooting at us from behind the grave
mounds," said A-Doo, the first arrival. "Lots of
men."
I ran to one of the back windows. It was as the
children had announced. Little villainous puffs of
pale smoke floated out continually from behind the
grave mounds which made a series of natural
breastworks and effectually hid the assailants.
"Why?" I asked of myself. The children were
crowding about me again, some of them hysterical
and many crying. "Don't be scared," I said.
"See, I'm not scared at all. We'll just pretend they
aren't there at all, and sing our favorite hymn."
I began the old, old song, "There is a happy land
far, far away." The words of it were the first
Chinese words I had learned and now came as easily
to my tongue as the English. The children joined
me, at first falteringly but soon with more force
and volume. Still singing, I marched off to the
kitchen at the river side of the house. The rhythm
of the tune and the shuffling of the children's feet
drowned the ominous patter of the bullets on the
roof. I made them sit down in a kindergarten circle
in the kitchen and sing songs. The children grew
quieter. They began some of their favorite games.


THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 103
Crash! A shell burst through the roof and
splintered the chairs and tables in the dining room.
A jagged crack yawned in the wall between. The
children screamed with terror.
For a moment, I was paralyzed. We were caught
like rats in a trap, to be shot to death before help
could arrive. We were all alone! Miles from
Shanghai! Separated from our friends! The children
huddled about me, and I felt their little hands, cold
with fright, clinging to me. Then I remembered
the telephone. I called the older girls to me and
tried to instill into them some courage. Anyway
I made them all stop screaming and started them
again on "There is a happy land." I told them to
see how many verses they could sing before I got
back from the telephone. Then I dashed down the
hall. The telephone was in the vestibule on the
land side of the house. Everywhere were signs of
the effectiveness of the rebels' fire in broken windows
and charred splinters. I had to wait a little, while
Central got Miss Judson. I listened to the patter of
the bullets against the walls and roof of the building.
The children's voices came to me faintly through
the closed doors. Miss Judson's voice was the most
welcome sound on earth.
"We are being fired on, Miss Judson," I said.
"The rebels, hundreds of them, crouch behind the
grave mounds. Yes, several children are hurt
slightly. One shell burst in the dining room. No
one is killed. There must be some mistake.
Perhaps they think the house is a barracks. You'll
be down soon? I don't see how you can stop it,


io4 MY CHINESE DAYS ,
but I know you will. We are all right. Don't
worry. Good-by."
Reluctantly, I hung up the receiver. I wanted
to keep her talking to me; I felt more courageous
while she was talking. She had promised to organize
a relief party immediately and come down in a
special train for the children. Miss Judson hadn't
mentioned Edward, and I had half a mind to call
him up, but I didn't. I knew it would worry him
so. He might do something rash. I began cal-
culating how soon they would be here. Calculate
as I would, allowing for no delay, they couldn't
reach Kaung Wan under two hours.
Two hours!
A bullet tore through the glass of the vestibule
and grazed my cheek. It stung a little, and a few
drops of blood fell on my hand. The hideous cry
of a shell shrieked overhead. It fell into the yard
beyond, casting up a cascade of dirt. How fantastic
it was! An army of men storming a home for little
children!
My mind seized upon the idea that there must be
some mistake, that the rebels did not know. Surely
if they knew, they would stop. In that moment of
terror but one solution presented itself to me, quite
simple, as most solutions are. It was merely to
open the door and walk out and show myself a
couple of times. When the rebels knew that a
foreign woman lived in the house, surely they would
stop firing. And then the children and I would be
saved. I saw it with startling clearness. Just
open the door and walk out! But suppose the


THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 105
rebels didn't stop firing? Suppose they dashed
forward and surrounded me. With ghastly vivid-
ness, I remembered the tales of the Boxer atrocities,
of other women tortured in the slaying. A panic
swept over me. I was deathly afraid, afraid for
myself and for the children. I knew the rescue
party would be too late; if we were to be saved we
had to be saved now. I was in a blue funk. I
thought of the Chinese men, of their horrible,
bloody hands and their imperturbable, grinning
eyes. They were inhuman; they had no respect
for women. If they touched me I must die, and if
I died the children would be left alone. The fate of
these little rescued slave girls would be a thousand
times worse than before their rescue. Chinese
soldiers spear babies on the ends of their bayonets.
I believed the rebels thought troops of the Republic
were hidden within, waiting the opportune moment
to sally forth and repulse the attack. If they knew
there were only children, girl children, at their
mercy, would they stay their hands, or would they
rush the building and begin their malignant pillage
and loot?
A deadly weakness overcame me. I thought I
was dying. The one remaining thing to do my
body refused to do. I could not open that door
and walk out in the face of the raining bullets. It
would be foolhardy, reckless. And yet, therein lay
the only chance of safety for the children, the one
last slim chance for life. I was trembling in a
very passion of terror.
Another shell burst overhead. In a fresh access


io6 MY CHINESE DAYS
of fear, the children screamed aloud. The end
grew inevitable.
A quiet, emotionless calm fell on me. I loosened
the fastenings of my white duck skirt and slipped it
off, standing in a white petticoat. I unbolted the
heavily barred door and stepped out on the terrace,
waving my white skirt above my head. I was like
a person in a trance, without a quiver of fright.
Once, twice, three times I paraded the length of the
terrace, waving my white flag of truce. The bullets
kicked up the ground about me and struck little
bits of plaster and stone from the walls. I fancied I
felt the heat of their flying.
A dreadful sickness began to creep over me. The
fields reeled and grew black. The grave mounds
became tall peaks, spitting fire. The bullets flew
faster than ever. I groped for the door, found it,
pulled it to behind me, and slid to the floor in a
little heap against it. I think I must have fainted.
I seemed to live a long time with the raining of
bullets echoing through my brain.
A-doo awoke me. "They have stopped," she
cried. "They have stopped for almost a half an
hour. We were worried about you, so I came out to
find you."
I just put my arms around her and cried. "Thank
God, we are saved."
"How did God save us?" asked A-doo.
A flood of happiness rushed over me. God had
used me to save them; He had given me a chance to
help. I wasn't tired any more, I felt as gay and
light-hearted as a lark.


THE SLAVE REFUGE AT KAUNG WAN 107
"Let's get the noontime rice," I said.
We had a gay time getting lunch. The children
seemed to catch my good spirits. As for me, I was
only too thankful that I had been given strength to
rise to my chance. In the midst of the meal the
rescue party surprised us. Finding the door open,
they had come right in. I looked up to see Miss
J'udson, followed by the American consul and Doctor
Richards, the head of the Red Cross, standing in
the doorway. Over their heads I saw Edward.
There was a look in his eyes I had never seen before,
a look of deadly anxiety.
"For the last two hours I have lived in a purgatory
of expectation," said Miss Judson. "I expected to
find the house in flames, half the children burned to
death, and the other half slain, while you, my dear, I
never expected to find at all. And here you are
eating tiffin as quietly as if Shanghai were stormed
daily."
"How did you manage to get here so soon," I
asked.
"I 'phoned the consul at once. He got official
permission to use the Red Cross flag of truce and
bring away the children. There is a special train
waiting at the station to take them all back
to Shanghai. When we reached Kaung Wan, it
was as peaceful as a graveyard."
"It might very well have been a graveyard," said
the consul, "but for Doctor Wilhelmina's presence
of mind and bravery."
But I looked past him to Edward for my approval.
The light I saw shining in his eyes was my reward.


108 MY CHINESE DAYS
Each child made a bundle of its night clothes, and
we marched them down to the train, two by two.
On either side were drawn up the ranks of the soldiers,
rebels and government troops facing each other, and
as through the stemmed-back waters of the Red
Sea, the little children of the Lord walked in safety.
As the train pulled out of the station, the deadly pop-
ping of the bullets began again!


XI THE WALLED CITY
EDWARD insisted that I accept an invitation
that came for me from Soochow a few days
later. Doctor Donnellon also wanted me to
go, and it was my regular vacation time. Around
Shanghai the government troops were victorious,
and the panic was subsiding. One by one the
refugee families returned to the Native City, and
the hospital began to take on its usual appearance
of order and quiet. In the afternoons after tea it
became a fad to ride out to the Arsenal and pick up
spent bullets for souvenirs. Miss Chase at Jessfield
had two tall conical shells on the mantelpiece which
she had picked up after a riot. Always when I
visited her my eyes returned to those unexploded
shells on the mantelpiece among the vases of blue
and white plum blossoms. One of the men said
they might explode some day. They were to me
symbolic of life in China, so smooth and shiny and
symmetrical, yet with a deadly power hidden
within. Here and there through the settlement,
broken windows and tiny round holes through the
solid wood doorways testified to the excitement of
the past weeks. But otherwise it seemed all over.
Up the river however the rebels were drawing near
Nankin.


no MY CHINESE DAYS
I hated to admit it, but I found myself rather
shaky after the episode at Kaung Wan, and I was
glad enough to accept my Soochow invitation. So
far I had not been out of Shanghai; I had been too
busy. As the wide pathless fields of the country
around Shanghai had caught my imagination, so
my first sight of a walled city rising on the plain
was to take my breath away.
Edward came to the station to see me off. "I
wish you were coming with me," I said. "I
suddenly feel that I am going to be homesick."
"For me?" asked Edward. "That is the first
real sign of devotion on your part that I have seen."
"I know you pine for the clinging vine," I said
to tease him a little.
"No, I don't," he said. "I only pine for you.
Set a date and set it soon, and we'll go off and take
a lovely honeymoon all over China, and you shall
see all the world."
"It sounds like a famous temptation," I said.
"Well?" he questioned.
"I can't decide right here, all in a moment," I
said.
"But I thought you had been deciding at your
leisure all these last weeks. You said you were
deciding. I want you."
The guard came along, clanging to the carriage
doors. The vendors of food, of eggs boiled in tea,
of soggy dough balls, of bottled TanSan water,
moved away reluctantly from the carriage windows
and lost their interest in this particular trainload
of people.


THE WALLED CITY in
"Good-by," said Edward, holding my hand
through the open window. "Don't forget I will want
an answer when you come back."
Off we went. It took only a few moments to leave
Shanghai behind and to run out into those limitless
plains that had so allured me all winter. It was
unbelievable! Like some dinosaur, huge and crush-
ing, the train streaked through those fields of the
past. On each side they stretched, quiet, waving
with groves of fresh green bamboo grasses and the
lush green of the new rice. The planting season was
over, but here and there a few farmers were thigh
deep in mud, transplanting. Lazy buffaloes browsed
between the cultivated patches, guarded each by
an urchin. The little boys lolled side-saddle on
the wide backs of the huge animals and switched
at the flies with a leaf-tipped branch. No fences,
no walls, no dividing partitions of any kind were
in sight. Around the clan-like family dwellings
grew groves of bamboo and camphor and an oc-
casional sycamore. Through the leaves I caught
glimpses of the pointed, thatched roofs of the houses.
The walls were of plaited bamboo branches. Of
course there was no paint anywhere, and the houses
seemed as much an integral part of the fields as the
trees. Between the fields meandered little rills of
muddy water. Across the fields I suddenly saw the
slow, stately sails of junks. The hulls of the boats
were invisible; only the billowing brown sails moved
along over the fields like cloud shadows. It was
Soochow Creek off there, below its banks, winding
down from the interior to the shore. "The In-


ii2 MY CHINESE DAYS
terior", "Up River", are magic words to the dweller
in Shanghai. They represent the unknown and its
magic. I took a little quick breath of delight. Here
was I too going to "the Interior", voyaging back
fathoms deep into the unconscious past of the race.
My friend, Doctor Grace, had been a college mate
in Old Philadelphia. I had met her at the wharf
when she came out, but I had not seen her since. She
had said in her letter that she would meet me at the
station if she could get through with clinic in time.
If not, she would send the hospital boy. I had only
a suit case for my short visit.
The two hours passed like two minutes. With
startling suddenness I saw the walled city rise on
the horizon quite distinct and clear. It must have
been visible several minutes before I saw it, because
when I first turned, there it was, battlemented and
hoary and romantic, like any Maxfield Parrish
picture but a thousand times more real. Around it
swept the wide brown moat, a real moat full of water
and busy with rowboats and junks. The walls
were great, high, massive structures. I saw people
walking on them. Turrets marked the octagonal
corners. Ramparts of green sod ran up to the edge
of the walls, and tangled masses of vines with delicate
white blossoms cascaded from the top. I couldn't
take my eyes from the sight.
At the station a crowd of coolies, sedan-chair
carriers, and donkey men clustered around the exit,
crying their fare to the city of Beautiful Soo, for the
railroad station is outside the city and across the
moat. I looked in vain for Doctor Grace. Not a



t/1
M
3
«
Q
<
a
w





THE WALLED CITY 113
familiar face was in sight. I picked up my suit case
and followed the rest of the passengers out of the exit
gate. A tall coolie waved a piece of paper at every
foreigner who passed him. I saw them looking at
the paper and shaking their heads and passing on. I
was curious about the paper. I walked in line so that
I too should have a chance to look at the strange
writing on the paper. The man before me had
passed on. The coolie thrust the paper in my face.
I gasped in sheer surprise, for on that mysterious
paper that had been presented to each passenger who
had descended from the train was my name.
"For Doctor Wilhelmina," it said in Doctor
Grace's familiar handwriting. What a primitive
method, yet how simple and effective! At my smile
of recognition, the coolie nodded as if relieved,
grabbed my suit case, and led me out of the station
towards the stand of sedan chairs. Like waiting
palanquins, they were ranged along the path with
their groups of bearers, sometimes two by the poorer
chairs, more usually three, and occasionally four,
if the chair was meant for a fat man. Some were
ancient affairs with closely drawn curtains; some
more modern, of wicker, with their gay curtains
looped back. All around me was the bustle of
people making bargains and stowing away their
belongings. Just before me a portly Chinaman
with several bundles done up in silk handkerchiefs
got into a sedan chair. The little bearers stooped
into position under the shafts. One gave a guttural
grunt as signal to the man behind. With a sideways
lurch they rose to their feet and swung off down the


u6 MY CHINESE DAYS
turn. Without warning, up we would go, over high
flights of irregular steps. At the summit of the
bridge I would look up and down the canal and see
the houses built like a solid wall along its edge.
Some of the streets were empty and deserted, and
again we traversed the thoroughfares of the town.
We went along the Street of the Weavers. In each
low, open room I saw the looms on which were
stretched wondrous fabrics of flowered brocade,
palest pink and baby blue and bridal crimson. I
wondered how they were kept so clean in such
darkened houses. From the Street of the Weavers
we turned into the Street of the Jade Cutters. Here
the whirring sound of the wheels filled the air, and
the cutters stood stooping over their ancient revolv-
ing grindstones. We came out on the market square
before a huge temple. The air smelt faintly of
incense and the sound of temple bells hung over the
place.
On and on we went. A sense of unreality stole
over me. We weren't going anywhere in particular,
we were just going on and on, as I had always
wanted to, seeing all the wonder of the whole world.
I felt that this ancient, walled city contained every-
thing in the world.
After an hour and a half of this wild, silent carrying
into the unknown, I began to feel that I was being
carried off in earnest. I wasn't really scared, but I
felt pleasantly thrilled. Should I presently have to
call out to a chance passer-by to rescue me? Did
these silent, jogging men know where they were
going, or had they become hypnotized by the regular



a
w
H
i





THE WALLED CITY 117
motion? We were passing along an empty street.
A wide stream of water ran at one side, and beyond
it rose the walls of a house more pretentious than
most. It was two stories high. Small grilled
windows as big as a napkin overlooked the stream.
A heavy wooden door studded with brass nails
opened on to a steep flight of steps that led to the
water's edge. The fringes of two black cypresses
tipped the walls that ran down the side of the stream
from the house. The water itself was sluggish, and
a faint, iridescent green scum floated on its surface.
Two or three helpless brown leaves were caught in
this green mesh and lay listless and motionless. We
were the only people in sight. A queer, dank smell
pervaded the place. In the ooze between the house
and the water, a large green toad with purple spots
blinked its protruding eyes.
"What man live this side?" I asked in Chinese.
At the sound of my voice, the front bearer turned
around in surprise. This threw the back bearer out
of step, and they both stopped. They sat my chair
down and began mopping their brows. The third
bearer joined the one in front.
"Ah! Teacher knows to speak Middle Kingdom
speech," the man exclaimed in surprise.
"A little, little," I said. "Who lives in that big
house?"
"A very rich man, oh Teacher, born before. But
very sad. He has no sons. He is now old in years,
already sixty and very venerable. He has four wives,
but they all bear daughters. Only one year ago
he married a young and beautiful wife. There was


n8 MY CHINESE DAYS
great rejoicing in the whole house. She will soon
bear a child. All year he and all his wives have
prayed daily at the temple that the child may be a
son. The Small Wife was carried out herself daily,
so devout was she, but now she goes out no longer.
They are all awaiting the great day."
I looked at the silent, barred house with added
interest. In what frame of mind was the young girl
waiting within? A boy would mean the road to
happiness. She would be the old man's favorite,
the darling of his eyes. The Great First wife would
no longer look down on her and lord it over her. But
a girl meant despair. And as I looked at the house,
a face appeared at one of the small, barred upper
windows in the second story, at one of those windows
no larger than a napkin. It was the face of a girl,
and her eyes looked across at me, riding so brazenly,
so jauntily through the streets of the strange city,
in my outlandish clothes, with big feet. I wondered
did she envy my freedom, or did she shrink from it?
Did she think I was a "foreign devil" with bold,
forward manners, or did she think I was the fore-
runner of a like liberty for the girls of China? I
couldn't tell what she thought, but I felt her eyes
calling to me. She held the bars that spanned the
window in her fingers and pressed her face closer
and closer against them. Her hands looked very
slim and transparent, and her eyes held a look
of appeal.
I smiled at her and waved my hand. She looked
at me a moment, then she too smiled. Some one
appeared over her shoulder and drew her away.


THE WALLED CITY 119
"Good to look upon," said the bearers with a sly
smile. "The first wife is fierce come death."
They picked me up again and started off at the
never-tiring dogtrot down the street.
"This house, call itself how?" I asked.
"The House of Li," they answered.
In about fifteen minutes we reached the com-
pound. The mission had bought land on both sides
of the street long years ago and had planted rows of
trees. Frame cottages that reminded me of New
England stood on both sides. More pretentious
brick buildings, the girls' school and the boys'
college, stood in their own campuses. Sweet peas
looked at me over the low fence, and a mass of
petunias covered the posts of the porch. A wonder-
ful sense of peace and cleanliness and busy activity
pervaded the place. I heard the clear voices of
children at play and the thud of a falling ball.
In the round stone gateway, the entrance to the
hospital, which was built in Chinese style, stood
Doctor Grace to receive me.


XII
THE FISHING BIRDS
INEVER got over my feeling of enchantment
in Soochow. It has always remained for me
a place of marvels, yet the people who lived
there took it all as a matter of course. The con-
trast between the community of missionaries and
the Chinese was sharper than in Shanghai. Each
was more individual, more remote from the other.
And to me the strangest thing about the situation
was that the ultimate point of contact was not ma-
terial but spiritual. Each separate race held fast to
its own customs of eating and sleeping and dressing.
The Chinese women saw our unbound feet, and,
though some daring ones followed suit, the great
mass of the women were satisfied with small feet,
were still even proud of them. And we saw the
freedom of the daintily trousered Chinese women,
yet none of us adopted their custom, much as some
of us wanted to. No, it was not on the plane of
material things that the two races touched, it was on
that utterly essential plane of things spiritual. The
whole human race is forever groping with out-
stretched hands towards the light, and these groping,
unseeing hands touch in the darkness. That common





THE FISHING BIRDS 123
Doctor Grace laughed. "It won't evaporate
overnight," she said. "It has been here for thou-
sands and thousands of years. If ever anything in
the history of mankind can be called permanent,
this can."
"But you can't tell!" I cried. "It has never
before met western civilization. It's a solvent. All
the old things crumble at its touch."
"You are inconsistent," said Doctor Grace. "If
you regret the past, why be a missionary?"
"No, I am not," I answered. "I don't think
China is perfect, nor do I think we are perfect. I
have come to bring the love of Jesus Christ, not our
habits. But don't let's argue. I'd rather just
walk up and down under these old trees and feel
myself a part of the antiquity."
''You foolish child! We'll go to bed."
So we did. I hadn't slept outside my own room
since coming to China. Once shut in alone, within
four walls, I felt suddenly homesick. I wanted to
be back at St. Margaret's; I wanted to see Edward.
At least, I wanted a letter from him to put under my
pillow when I went to sleep. I crawled in under
the canopy of the mosquito netting. Close outside
my window grew some willows. It was so still that
I heard their tiny leaves slithering against each
other. And this desert-like quietness was in the
midst of a city, of a walled city of teeming millions.
If a baby cried, I felt the whole city would hear it.
You feel that such profound quiet is the preparation
for a stupendous event.
Before I knew it, it was morning. I made rounds


i24 MY CHINESE DAYS
with Doctor Grace and helped with clinic. In the
afternoon she had prepared a treat for me. One of
the men in the mission had a rowboat which he
loaned to us. That again caught my breath away.
Here I was in a rowboat, floating along on the inner
moat of Soochow! We went down the watersteps,
Mr. Jackson held the boat for us, and we pushed off.
Doctor Grace insisted upon rowing, for, she said, I
was to sit in the stern and see the sights. We
rowed down to the nearest Watergate. It was as
thick as a house and the old blocks of stone were
green with moss. Overhead I saw the black teeth
of the raised portcullis hanging suspended above
me. The air under the wide, thick gate was damp
and cool as in a cellar. Near the gate, the inner
moat was crowded with boats. As each long house-
boat approached the entrance, the oarsman, standing
at the stern, gave a guttural call, and the prow,
seeming to move of itself, swung sharply into sight.
Once through it and on the outer moat, we were
plunged into another sphere of life. House boats
drifted slowly by, a man at the stern oar, and children
sprawling all over the narrow space. Little tots,
dressed in red rags, climbed around the edges of the
boat precariously. The next moment I saw one
fall overboard. Before I had time to scream out,
its mother jerked it up again by a rope which was
tied around its middle.
"Don't they mind it at all?" I asked.
"Oh, no, " said Doctor Grace. "They must fall
in a dozen times a day. Whenever I come out, I
see mothers pulling up their dangling infants."


THE FISHING BIRDS 125
Away to the horizon stretched the fields, those
limitless, pathless fields I had grown to love so well.
To my utter delight we followed the streams right
into them. I had never seen them from the winding
waterways, and at once I knew this was the proper
way to approach them. The little huts faced the
water. Flights of crooked stone steps led down the
banks to the edge of the water. Women stooped
on the last step, washing the evening rice. We
passed two lengths of the river which had been fenced
off with anchored buoys and twisted lines of straw
rope. The stretch of water inside had been sewn
with grain. On and on we went.
"Are we going anywhere in particular?" I asked.
"Or don't you know where you are going?"
"Of course I do," said Doctor Grace. "We are
going to see the fishing birds."
"The what?" I asked.
"The fishing birds," said Doctor Grace. "Wait
till you see them. They belong to the husband of
one of our patients. The women and children of
the family come to the hospital. Only a month
ago the last baby was born there."
It was about five o'clock. The shadows were
long and level. Wafts of the sweet fragrance of
blossoming beans blew to us from the banks. I
recognized the smell; I knew the look of the plants
— low, grey-green, with the blossoms close against
the stems as if a host of purple and gray butterflies
had cuddled against the bushes for the night. Birds
were flying across the sky, swift crows, jet black,
against the sunset, and the plumper "Sau Sau Man


i26 MY CHINESE DAYS
Hau" (the Cook Cook Rice Well bird) that cries
as it flies.
We turned a bend in the stream and came upon
the queerest sight I have ever seen in my life.
The point of land where the streams divide rose
steeply from the water. A house of wicker and
bamboo, larger than most of the farmers' houses,
stood in a grove of fresh green bamboo trees. The
evening wind, rustling through their papery leaves,
made a clear, soft, calling sound. Buffaloes and
chickens roamed along the shore. On the lowest
step of the water stairs stood a group of women and
children watching a boat in the river.
A long narrow boat swung mid-stream. At
first glance it looked as if the boat were not floating
on the water, but as if it were being held just over
its surface by a flock of black, strong birds as large as
eagles, which hovered on both sides of it and flapped
their great black wings, screaming harshly. Two
men stood in the boat, which was shaped like a long
scooped-out canoe. The men were motionless and
silent. The little group on the shore was also motion-
less and silent. Doctor Grace stopped rowing. We
caught the branch of an overhanging tree and moored
ourselves at the bank, and we too were motionless
and silent.
Fascinated, I watched the birds. They screamed
and fluttered their wings. Suddenly one swooped
into the water, more plunged after it. I saw them
struggling and flapping their sooty black wings over
the brown water as does a white sea gull when it
snatches a fish. The men sprang into sudden


THE PISHING BIRDS 127
activity. They pulled the birds up by stout strings
tied around their legs. They caught the struggling
birds under their arms and jerked the fishes from
their mouths. I saw a gleam of silver as they tossed
the fish into a wicker fishing basket. The commotion
among the birds subsided. They settled down into
quietness on the rows of horizontal perches, making
a soft blackness on the water beneath by the shadow
of their wings.
"How many?" called a voice from the shore.
"Three," answered one of the men. "Later,
more," he said. "The sun not yet falls down the
Hill of Heaven. Wait till the fish see not the
shadow of the black birds."
Doctor Grace explained the custom of cormorant
fishing to me. It is an ancient Soochow industry.
The birds, tied by a stout rope, three or four deep
on the perches which stick out in parallel rows from
each side of the boat, are kept very hungry. They
fish, and the men steal the fish from their beaks.
Along the outer moat they can often be seen fishing
by daylight.
"Suppose all the birds flew up in the air at once?"
I said. "Wouldn't they carry the boat right out of
the water?"
"There is an ancient legend about a fisherman
who was cruel to his birds," said Doctor Grace.
"He took all the fish from them, not even giving
them their just and due reward at the end of an
evening's fishing. The birds were fierce and lean
and hungry, and caught fish well. At night, the
oldest son of the fisherman crept out to the tied


128 MY CHINESE DAYS
birds and fed them stolen morsels of rice and left-
over bits of fish. This kept the birds strong. The
friends of the fisherman warned him that he must
give his birds more to eat. Day by day the birds
became fiercer and leaner. They flapped their
black pinions angrily over their perches and screamed
harshly whenever the fisherman pulled open their
beaks and robbed them of their fish. Once the
fisherman was ill, and a neighbor took the birds out
fishing. That day the birds gorged themselves,
and the neighbor came home with his hand scratched
and bleeding.
"' Your birds are not cormorants but evil spirits,'
he said to his friend. 'If I were you, I would set
them loose and let them fly away in a great black
cloud over the sky.'
"But the fisherman only laughed and continued to
treat the birds as before. He grew rich from his
daily catch. And at night his little son crept out,
in the shivery darkness, to feed the birds. He loved
the birds. Sometimes in the early dawn he played
to them on his little, hollow bamboo flute. As his
father grew richer, he seemed to think all the world
was his, and he treated everybody just as he treated
his fishing birds. Everybody in the house grew
afraid of him. The children hid away when they
saw him coming home at night, and the women
retired into their own quarters. At night when the
birds were tied in safety, he sat under the cypresses
at the little table in the front yard, and counted his
fish. His little son would crouch behind the shutters
and watch the long, lithe bodies of the fish slip


THE FISHING BIRDS 129
through his father's hands like shining pieces of
silver.
'' One day the little boy was sick. He had smallpox
and lay moaning on a mattress on the floor in his
mother's room. When evening came he remem-
bered the hungry birds, but he was afraid to tell his
mother lest she feed them clumsily and his father
catch her at it and beat her. He tried to get up,
but he fell back fainting on his mattress. So that
night the birds had no food.
"The next day when the fisherman tied them in
orderly rows on the side perches of the boat, the
birds were very still and lifeless. Like black,
wooden images they sat motionless and without
sound. The sun hung low over the fields, making
the shadows ebony-black, and the light places like
patches of gold. On the farther side of the boat,
where its shadow lay over the water, the cormorants
saw the swift shadows of the gliding fishes. They
saw the instantaneous flash of silver as the fish
darted out of the shadow into the sunlit water be-
fore disappearing from their sight. Usually this
was the signal for diving, but the birds waited.
Not one moved, or fluttered a pinion. The fisher-
man stood waiting, too, wondering what had come
over the birds. He also saw the fish shadows in the
water like immaterial phantoms.
"The sun slipped slowly down the vault of the sky.
A Minne bird called from the rice fields, a star hung
in the west. Still the birds waited; and the fisher-
man waited, too. It grew night. The fisherman
could barely see the mass of birds on his right and


i3o MY CHINESE DAYS
on his left. Finally a strip of the rising moon
showed scarlet over the rice fields. It was the
signal. With harsh cries the birds flapped their
wings in unison. The boat swayed and rocked on
the water. A wind swept along the water from the
rice fields and the moon. The birds lifted the boat
free of the water, and it hung like a cradle between
their soaring black wings.
"The people in the house heard the screaming of
the cormorants and the rush of their wings, and
they ran to the front door. Above the rice fields
they saw the boat carried away. Like a black
feather, it floated across the moon, which rose up
scarlet and still over the water. The man was never
seen or heard of again.
"And so," said Doctor Grace, "every cormorant
fisher is careful to feed his birds well after the
catch."
I wanted to wait for the sunset, but it was not
allowed.
"That's one of the penalties of living in a walled
city," said Doctor Grace. "You can never see the
sun set or rise out in the fields. You can only see
it from the walls of the city. If you don't pass
through the water gates before sunset, you have to
stay out all night, for at sunset the portcullis is
lowered."
We waved our farewell to the little group on the
shore. I too took an oar and we rowed for dear
life. For, much as I would like to have stayed out
all night, it's not proper! There would be some
advantages in having a husband!


THE PISHING BIRDS 131
When we got back to the hospital we found a boy
there with a note for Doctor Grace.
"It's from the house of Li, the jade merchant,"
she said. "They are expecting a baby there to-
night. Will you go along?"


THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE 133
the necessary little, sharp cries that kept the donkey
going and occasionally prodding him with a pointed
stick, as we cantered gayly down the twilight
street. Overhead the crimson sunset lingered, but
in the narrow street of the city it was almost dusk.
Lanterns hung before the shops. The dwelling
houses were already closed and shuttered for the
night. Across the court of a deserted temple,
around a corner, and up over a bridge we went.
The bridge, like all Chinese bridges, arched up
at the center, making a half circle over the surface
of the water. Up we went without slowing, and
off I slid. It happened very simply. As the back
of the donkey assumed the steep incline of forty-
five degrees I slipped gently backward over his
tail. Ah Fok rushed to my rescue. Placing both
his hands in the small of my back, he pushed with
all his might and main to stop my avalanche. But
I was too heavy; I went on sliding over the donkey's
tail till I sat on the ground. It was all so funny I
couldn't speak for laughing.
"Try cross-saddle," advised Doctor Grace.
"They saw you start off in the proper fashion.
Your intentions were good, but the only thing to do
is to ride the way you can stay on."
I agreed. Those were the days of hobble skirts.
Fortunately my petticoat was an heirloom of the
past and possessed frills and ruffles. My dress
skirt vanished from sight; it became a mere string
around my waist. But my petticoat spread out
in a truly gratifying manner over my legs. This
manner of riding was a great improvement. The


134 MY CHINESE DAYS
donkey was small enough for me to grasp com-
fortably between my knees, and I felt as secure as
in a rocking chair.
"Missey can do?" asked Ah Fok, running at my
side.
"Can do," I answered.
Sometimes we trotted, but more often we galloped.
Over the up and down arches of the bridges we
walked. The donkey boys had muscles of wire
and heart and lungs of India rubber. Without
the slightest effort they ran along beside the
donkeys, shouting and giving little sharp jabs at
their flanks.
From the comparative quiet of darkened streets
we turned into one of the busy thoroughfares where
the shops stood wide open. The houses were like
partitions, with separating walls and a back stoop
but without any front at all. Unless one has seen
such a street, it is hard to conceive the variety and
color that all the lighted interiors give. The eating
shops were full of men sitting in groups around small
square tables, shoveling in rice by the mouthful.
They hold the bowls close up against their lips, open
their mouths to the fullest extent, and poke in
great mountains of fine white rice. Holding the
bowls at their mouths, they turn around and stare
at the passers-by. Men with baskets full of towels
wrung out of boiling, perfumed water pass among
the eaters, offering a towel to each guest. It is the
custom to wipe off one's face and head and neck with
these towels. The waiter passes the same towel to
the next guest and so on until the towel is cold.


THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE 135
In the wine-shops men were filling their tiny tea-
cups with hot wine from metal teapots. In a large
eat-shop a band of musicians sat playing a weird
minor song, which echoed up and down the street
above the sounds of evening life. At a temple a
funeral was going on, and I caught a swift glimpse
of priests in robes of red and green with mitered
caps. On the outskirts of the crowd hung a fringe
of monks in dirty gray. The hired mourners, in a
discordant chorus, wailed shrilly, and little boy
acolytes, in tattered, embroidered cassocks of blue
and red, beat drums. The whole party were
evidently enjoying themselves very much.
Opium dens, looking like sections of Pullman
sleepers, with rows of closely curtained bunks one
above the other and a narrow passage running down
the middle, were squeezed in between the shops.
The streets themselves were filled with a busy
throng of men. Dignitaries were carried about in
stately sedan chairs. Once or twice I passed a
chair in which I caught a fleeting glimpse of a
bejeweled woman, slowly fanning herself and peer-
ing out through the half drawn curtains with list-
less eyes. There were no women afoot in that crowd
of animated, merry, eating humanity.
Ah Fok ran ahead, crying out, "Make way for the
Illustrious Foreign-born Healer. Make way."
The clatter of the donkeys' hoofs, the shouting
of the donkey boys, made a stir of interest in
the mass of people. The men squeezed up against
the walls to let us pass, and I heard murmurs of
surprise. In the eyes of an oriental, we were


136 MY CHINESE DAYS
incomprehensible. Even our own grandmothers
would have gasped! Women, alone, at that time
of night, single and virtuous!
On the bridges I looked down on the dark canals,
stretching like black ribbons through the city,
separating the opposite houses, but linking the far
parts together. Dark and mysterious they lay, in
silent contrast to the night lights of the city. Over
the bridge, through the bright streets, we went,
till at last we left all the busy quarter of night life
behind us. Ah Fok gave a vigorous jab at my
donkey, and it burst into a run. Away went my
stirrups; my skirts streamed out behind me. I
clamped my legs around the animal's body, found I
was perfectly secure, and gave myself up to enjoy-
ment. Ah Fok was forgotten and out of sight. A
long straight alley lay before me, where blank walls
rose on either side. No one was in sight. Faint,
dim starlight made a deeper darkness of this narrow
straight alley. No lanterns hung at the doorposts,
no light gleamed from under the threshold of the
barred doors sunk in the walls, no sound came from
the houses. The night wind blew in my face. My
hairpins fell out, and my hair streamed back in the
wind. Only a woman knows the sense of adventure
and freedom that comes with loose, flying hair.
China dropped away from my consciousness, and I
was filled with the elemental delight of swift motion
toward an unknown destination. But the little
donkey knew where it was going. Right and left, we
turned the corners galloping, with the thudding
clatter of hoofs the only sound in the stillness. We


THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE 137
seemed to be running through a city of the dead. We
met no one, saw no one, heard no one.
Into the blue-black night, to which my eyes had
grown accustomed, shot a thin gleam of yellow light,
close along the ground. Suddenly it widened to a
triangle, then vanished utterly. A door in the
silent walls had opened and closed, yet I heard no
footfalls nor the chatter of voices. Perhaps some
one, startled by the tumultuous sound of our ap-
proach, had but peered out from curiosity. My
eyes focused themselves on the spot in the wall
where the break of light had occurred. Suddenly
we were abreast of it, then had left it behind. A
thrill of excitement tingled through me. In that
moment, as we flashed by, I saw a man leaning,
slouching against the wall. He had not moved as
we passed, nor had I turned my head to look at him.
From some obscure reason I had pretended I had
not seen him. He looked as if he did not want to
be seen. The door against which he leaned was
sunken in the wall about a foot. He stood in that
depression, motionless and sinister. I just caught
the dark blur of a man's figure and the pale patch
of a face. For no reason under the sun I was excited.
I looked back over my shoulder for Ah Fok, but
no one was in sight, not even the hiding man. The
alley stretched away behind me as dark and im-
penetrable and uninhabited as when I had dashed
down it. Yet I felt I was not alone.
To my great relief I heard the sound of ricksha
wheels, and I drew the donkey down to a walk.
The shrill voices of two women talking came to me


i38 MY CHINESE DAYS
down the alley; the next moment I saw the lantern
at the handlebars of a ricksha. It threw dancing,
elfin shadows on the ground and made the legs of
the coolie look tremendously black and thick. He
was coming along carelessly at a jogtrot. The
donkey halted at one side of the road, and I gathered
up my hair and began rebraiding it. Two women
were in the ricksha, a coolie woman and her mistress,
who was sitting on the lap of the amah. Some
unusual event had called them out, and they were
talking in eager shrill tones, the ricksha man entering
into their conversation when he saw fit. They gave
a little shriek when they saw me, and craned their
necks to stare back at me.
The coming of that flickering lantern made me feel
suddenly forlorn. The night loomed black and
threatening around me. I had no idea where I
was, I didn't know how to return. The donkey had
lost his initiative; he didn't seem to know any
more than I did. The voices died away down the
alley. The bobbing gleams of light were quite gone,
so was my thrill and exhilaration. I felt utterly
deserted and alone. I also felt that Edward had been
very remiss to let me go off alone to Soochow! He
might have known something would happen to me!
Then I couldn't stand it any longer.
I dug my heels into the donkey and turned him
back down the alley in the direction from which we
had come, for I wanted to catch up with that lighted
lantern and those voices. The donkey sensed my
meaning, and quite resignedly he trotted along back.
Around the next corner I caught sight of the friendly


THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE i39
light shining on the legs of the ricksha man and on
the spokes of the ricksha wheels and making a little
arc of light on the pavement. It was a wonderful
splash of light.
Suddenly something happened to it: it was
dashed out of existence. A wild clamor broke out
in front of me. The women screamed shrilly, their
voices echoing back and forth across the alley from
wall to wall, like balls bouncing to and fro. I heard
the low guttural growl of a man. Then the ricksha
man rushed past me, yelling. A woman screamed
in a mounting shriek of terror, and I heard a stir
of doors opening and closing on the other side of the
walls, but no one came out into the alley. (
I was deathly afraid, but I couldn't stay there
and hear two women murdered, so I kicked the
donkey, and we clattered towards the fray. But
after all it wasn't I who saved the day, it was Ah
Fok, the donkey boy. Running and shouting, he
turned into the alley and bore down upon us.
The mistress had been thrown out on the ground
by the sudden desertion of the ricksha man. A
heavy figure stooped over her, and the amah was
pounding and pulling at this figure. Ah Fok and I
made a goodly din in the stillness. The robber
was startled. He sprang to his feet, looked up and
down the alley, and saw foes approaching in both
directions. Quickly he leaned against the sunken
door in the wall, and vanished from our sight.
Ridiculous and infantile, more like a hopping
shadow than a rescuer, Ah Fok sprang towards the
prostrate woman. I was already off my donkey


THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE 141
I noticed a faint glimmer of light near the threshold.
"What's that?" I asked Ah Fok.
He stooped and picked up a knife and held it out
to me. It had a wide bright blade, and dusty red
spots mottled its edge. I looked at it curiously.
The handle was bluntly round and dark from much
holding in hot, sweaty hands. I wanted to take it
home as a souvenir. I wanted to show it to Edward.
I wanted it very much, but so did Ah Fok. His
whole body trembled with fearful entreaty. I
suddenly became convinced that the robber was
crouching on the other side of that barred door,
listening with every nerve of his body. I almost
fancied that Ah Fok turned and spoke so that his
voice and words should carry to any one listening on
the other side of the wall.
"Belong bad knife," he said. "Suppose Missey
take homeside, some night knife can walk, can kill.
Throw away."
Ah Fok held out his hands for the knife, but I
still turned it over and over in my fingers, loath to
relinquish it. Ah Fok, searching in his belt, drew
out a box of matches. He lit two or three at once.
The sudden flame made the scene weird and un-
canny, throwing a great distorted shadow of us on the
smooth surface of the opposite wall. The donkey
was like some monstrous beast while Ah Fok and I
bent like two gnomes over the blade in my hands.
At one end of the handle, cut deeply into the wood
and painted red, were two Chinese characters
meaning "White Wolf."
"Bah Long" (White Wolf), shouted Ah Fok.


142 MY CHINESE DAYS
He caught the knife from my hands and threw it
over the wall. We stood immobile till we heard it
clang on the pavement of the garden within the
wall. From over the wall came the sound of stealthy
motions and a just audible sigh of content.
Ah Fok too was satisfied. He pulled at the rope
on the bridle and we walked sedately back, down
that long, narrow, sinister alley where all the houses
were dark and barred and silent, where no glimmer
of light shone through the chinks in the walls and
doorways. The way back was long and tortuous.
I had a suspicion that Ah Fok was purposely twisting
this way and that so that I should utterly lose
what sense of direction I had, so that I should never,
by any chance, find that barred door in the blind
wall.
We crossed a high bridge. The dark canal was
dotted with the pinpoint, white reflections of the
tranquil stars overhead. With soft gurgles, the
water rushed and swished against the posts of the
bridge. Something like the curved blade of a
knife stuck in the ooze on the shore. I was never
sure about that crescent bit of light. It might have
been metal, but it might have been merely the
iridescent gleam of a stagnant pool that took shape
and meaning from our heated imaginations.
"A White Wolf knife," I whispered, pointing at
the bit of silver light.
Ah Fok shivered.
"Bah Long," he whispered, his teeth chattering.
The name of the famous brigand was yet more
fearful than the fear of devils. Ah Fok jabbed


THE BRIGAND'S KNIFE 143
the donkey fiercely, and we plunged down the
steep, irregular steps of the high bridge. The
donkey slipped to his haunches and recovered his
footing with a jerk, but Ah Fok, as if pursued by a
hundred evil spirits, urged the donkey along, regard-
less of pitfalls. His sharp ringing cries echoed
shrilly up and down the empty street. We did
not slow down till we caught up with Doctor Grace.
We found her dismounted, waiting in front of a
massive door, with a group of amahs and coolies
around her. Lanterns hung on the gateposts. A
lighted doorway threw floods of light down the path
to the gate. From within the house came the sound
of a woman moaning.
"Where have you been?" she asked. "I was
about to turn back to hunt for you."
"The donkey ran away, and I got lost," I answered,
"we had quite an adventure." I explained, telling
her all the details. Doctor Grace took my news
seriously.
"I'm afraid we'll have to discharge Ah Fok," she
said. "He came to us without a recommendation.
Once before his donkey has run away in that direc-
tion. That is a very dangerous part of the city.
Even in peaceful times it is unsafe, but since the
terrorism of the White Wolf brigands it is really
dangerous. A nest of them are reported to be in
hiding somewhere over there near one of the gates.
Just last week one was shot by a sentry while he
was trying to escape over the wall by night.
Robberies are frequent, but the people are so afraid
that they do nothing."


144 MY CHINESE DAYS
"It wasn't Ah Fok's fault," I said. "I think I
rather enjoyed it."
Something within me, utterly primitive and un-
tamed, exulted in the close danger, in my dip into
the days of lawlessness and disorder and secrecy.
My blood tingled through my veins. I wanted to go
back to the hidden world of violence, to cast off my
tame, demure shackles and be an Amazon. I was
feeling very wild and reckless. I had not known
before that each individual harbors all the past of
the race within his own inner consciousness, battened
down, clamped under by the etiquette of civilization.
It had only needed the runaway, galloping hoofs
of a little donkey and the gleam of a knife along the
wall to hurl me back into the aeons of the past.
But Doctor Grace guessed none of this. Out-
wardly as quiet and well behaved as she, I walked
through the gate of the House of Li, the Jeweller
in Jade.


XIV
THE WIVES OF LI
AS Doctor Grace led the way quickly into the
house, I caught but a fleeting glimpse of
the dark spaces of the garden. Great
rocks and tall cypresses and the gentle sound of
water filled the shadows. In the guest hall we were
met by Li Sien Sang. He was a short man with a
picture-book Chinese moustache, very fine and thin,
with the ends drooping down on each side of his
mouth like a pair of walrus tusks. The skin on his
cheeks was pulled tightly across the malar bones
underneath, giving him a look of emaciation. His
manners were very courtly and his English good.
He made us welcome and turned us over to the
women of the house.
The guest hall was large and handsomely fur-
nished. A beautiful scroll hung on the back wall of
the room over the table of ceremonial worship.
Two tall candlesticks, of a metal resembling pewter,
on which thick red candles were spiked and flaring,
stood on each corner of the table. A thin curl of
incense from a brass griffin scented the room. Along
the two walls, in rows of rigid orderliness, stood the
guest tables and chairs, as if placed in readiness for
ghostly visitors. The great divan of honor was of


146 MY CHINESE DAYS
finely woven rattan and carved redwood. My
restless eyes were roving around the apartment
while Doctor Grace and Mr. Li were talking. Here
all was the height of formality. Each step of a
guest was preordained, each formula of greeting
ancestrally old and hallowed. Here it is, in the
great guest hall, that the westerner is baffled. He
comes with a direct purpose, a direct question in his
mind, and is enwebbed by the delicate, shimmering
fabric of oriental politeness. To us, it will ever be a
mystery, one of the essential, lasting mysteries of
existence, deeper than the evanescent customs of
civilization, buried in the fiber of the race.
But our errand carried us past this jealously
guarded room of ceremonies, into the primitive
openness of life, where the Chinese are more aston-
ishingly communicative than we.
The mother of Li, an autocratic old dame, still
vigorous in spite of her advanced years, led us up
the stairs into the apartment of the latest bride.
Too much power throughout a long life had left
her with an ungovernable temper. This was her
reputation in Soochow, and her face showed as
much. Servants and amahs clustered about us.
Upstairs the rooms of the women's quarters were
furnished with the same elegance as the guest hall.
We were led through one room after another in
which stood beds of carved redwood and heavy,
round, redwood tables, with deeply carved dragons
sprawling along the edge. The servants laughed and
whispered and nudged each other, as is the way of
servants in the Orient. In spite of the customs of a


THE WIVES OF LI 147
higher caste, they show a strange democratic free-
dom of behavior and speech.
At last we came to the room of the fourth wife
of Li. A young girl was propped up on a bed, lying
back against the shoulders of her body servant.
"Already three days she has not slept," said the
mother-in-law. "The noise of her groans disturbs
me. I have not much hope that the child is a boy.
I said as much to my son when he married her. She
was pretty, but not of a suitable house. So to-day
I said to my son, 'call the foreign-born healer and
let this noise be stopped.'"
The old dowager walked over to the bed on her
tiny stilt-like feet. Her silken trousers flapped
against her. Her jacket was buttoned on her right
shoulder with round jade studs, as large as a robin's
egg and of that wonderful, clear, prized color of
fresh spinach. Her hair ornaments were jade and
pearl. The edge of her headband was incrusted
with pearls. In spite of her advanced age, she was
a graceful and imposing figure. I saw the other
women watching her anxiously, as with her slow,
wooden-kneed, mincing step she crossed the room
and stood by the bed of the fourth wife. A not
unkindly expression crossed her face.
"If it is a boy," she said, "I will make you my
son's Great Wife. I will give you jade rings and
pearl earrings and new clothes of satin and em-
broidery. But if it is a girl, Oh! then, thou un-
fortunate woman, go hide thy face from me forever.
You will be fit only to be cast forth on the
street."


i48 MY CHINESE DAYS
The picture is cut into my brain — the square
Chinese room with its curtained, carved bed, the
center of all eyes; along the walls and in the door-
way the faces of the curious, peeping women, some
in silks and some in the common blue cloth of amahs;
the figure of the mother-in-law, aloof and scornful
at the corner of the bride's bed. From the recess
of the bed looked the wide, drawn eyes of the girl.
Her face was white with pain, yet the fear that lurked
in her glance was more than the fear of physical
suffering; it was the helpless, haunting fear of fate.
This was the night of her ordeal. All her future life
lay in the balance. Should it be happiness and honor
and favor, or dishonor and drudgery? Already the
answer lay decided within her. She had carried
it around with her wherever she went, month after
month, while her very soul was torn with suspense.
Was it a girl, or was it a boy? Her agony of body
was nothing to her agony of mind.
She was dressed in bridal crimson, and her hands
were covered with rings. From the canopy of her
bed hung countless balls and tassels, the supposed
bringers of sons. Over her shoulder peered the
curious eyes of her amah. For three days this
woman too had shared the vigil of her mistress.
"Do you want me," I asked Doctor Grace.
"Not just now," she said. "Why don't you go
and lie down, and I will call you when it is time for
the anesthetic."
They led me away to the chamber adjoining and
offered me a bed. I was tired, and I knew that a
long wait, probably most of the night, lay before


THE WIVES OF LI 149
me, so I lay down. All the bedclothes were silk.
A cover of pink padded satin was spread on the
mattress of, woven coconut fiber. A little, wooden,
neckpillow was placed under my head. A neatly
rolled up pile of comforts lay along one side of the
bed, ready for use — turquoise blue, imperial yellow,
peach-blossom pink, all in the softest fabrics. On a
round table near the bedside stood two water pipes
of silver.
I lay down and pretended to sleep, but my mind
was in too much of a whirl to compose itself. Amahs,
carrying wooden pails of hot water, passed through
the room, spilling puddles on the bare floor. The
Chinese have evolved a strange, practical utility in
their furniture. Scalding water neither hurts the
varnish of the tables, nor the bare boards of their
floors. In the next room I heard Doctor Grace's
quiet voice. The groaning ceased, and soon Doctor
Grace came in on tiptoe.
"She is sleeping," she said. "I have given her a
sedative. She was quite worn out. This is a
fiendish method, to keep the woman awake for
days and days. Poor thing! She is only eighteen
and scared to death of the old mother-in-law."
The doctor went back to her vigil, and I lay with
my eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Another
woman came in and stood beside me. She was
about the age of Li and wore very handsome clothes.
Her hair, though thin, was still black, and, in the
uncanny fashion of the Chinese, her scalp had
been blackened so that her baldness did not show.
She took up the pipe that stood on the table, opened


ISO MY CHINESE DAYS
the lid of the tobacco box, and picked up a tiny pinch
with the little, silver pinchers that stood in a slim
stand at the side. She poked this little pinch of
tobacco into the pipe and drew two whiffs. Then
she emptied out the smoked tobacco and repeated
the process. She was leaning against the table,
one satin, trousered leg crossed over the other, in a
pose very graceful and natural. She smoked at
least five minutes in silence, her eyes on the little
instrument of pleasure. Her hands were laden
with rings, and heavy bracelets of carved gold set
with jade and sapphire clasped her wrists. The
little pipe itself, with its carved dragons, and dangling
silken tassels of peach pink, was utterly alluring.
Graceful, daintily feminine, she intrigued my fancy.
I wanted to know what she was thinking, what she
had been thinking all her life, whether she liked it or
not, what thrilled her, what bored her, what she
thought about babies and men. I wanted to bridge
the gulf between us and to have her talk to me
frankly. I thought of the women I knew at home,
women of fifty or thereabouts and, to my mind's
eye, none of them presented the picture of mystery
and charm this Chinese woman did smoking her
silver pipe.
I had been watching her ever since she came into
the room. She must have felt my staring, for she
turned and smiled at me. This was my first sight
of her full face, and I saw at once that she was an
aristocratic Chinese beauty. She had the delicate
oval face of classical beauty, and a smooth skin of
almost occidental fairness, a skin that had never


THE WIVES OF LI 131
been sunburned or wind-burned. She was, more-
over, very carefully rouged and painted. Her eye-
brows were drawn in a thin, fine, black arch over
her sleepy eyes. The eyes themselves were faintly
almond shaped and drowsy lidded. Her under lip
was carmined, but not the upper. Hoops of pearl
hung in her ears, lustrous against the soft bloom of
her cheeks.
Here was a woman, past master in all that I was
ignorant of, a creature that had made of herself a
mysterious thing of subtle charm. How did she do
it? Was she satisfied?
I sat up and spoke to her in English for I was sure
that all the women in such a house would be educated.
Nor was I mistaken. She spoke it beautifully, with
only the hint of a delicious accent. I remembered
that personal questions are the height of oriental
politeness, so I began asking them.
"I'm not sleepy," I said, "I might as well get up,
if you will stay and talk to me. Does it not wear
you out staying up so many nights?"
"Oh, no," she said, "I like to stay up when there
is a child coming. It is the proper place of the first
wife. I have seen almost twenty babies born in
this house since I came here thirty years ago."
"Tell me about them," I said. "Tell me about
yourself."
Li Ta Ta smiled with pleasure. "If you like to
listen, I will gladly tell you," she said. "It is an
event to me to talk to a young foreign-born woman.
Sometimes, from our latticed window on the moat,
we see them coming to the home of the- Doctrine-


THE WIVES OP LI 153
I have eaten. At sixteen I was married. Even
after all the long, benumbing length of years, I can
still taste the salt tears on my lips as I sat shrouded
in my bridal veil and was carried from the house of
my parents to the home of my bridegroom's parents.
Such utter, sweeping desolation engulfed me! I
had a gorgeous bridal procession. My chair was
lacquered in crimson and gilded with many dragons.
My clothes were stiff with embroidery and pearls.
Eight men took turns carrying me through the
streets. But I sat within, crying. Thankful I
was for my veil. I was lonely and frightened to
death. Wealthy as was the house of Li, my mother-
in-law had already established a reputation for
tyranny and cruelty. She beat a slave to death.
She cut off her amah's forefinger because she dropped
a favorite vase. No wonder I sat in my bridal dress,
crying bitter tears behind my veil of pearls, under
my coronet of blue kingfisher feathers. I wished I
could die.
"Within nine months my baby was born. It was
a girl. My cup of bitterness ran over. Then, little by little, I loved the baby. It was so soft and round
and rosy. I would take it away from the amah and
run off to a corner in the garden, and play with it
and sing to it and kiss it. I was in disgrace in the
household because I had borne a girl, but, in those
days, there was still hope. My husband was good
to me. In my heart I was sick that the baby was
not a boy, but by-and-by I grew happy again. In
the winter, it was warm in the sunshine in the walled
garden where I watched the lizards crawl out to


154 MY CHINESE DAYS
sun themselves. From the top window I looked up
at the clouds and saw the line of the wall marching
across the sky. On feast days we were carried
forth in our sedan chairs to the temples or the graves.
My husband was proud of my foreign accomplish-
ments.
"With the passing of each year came a baby
girl. The temper of my mother-in-law grew worse.
Three of the little girls died. She rejoiced when
they died, and I hated her. Then, one day, my
husband told me he had arranged to take a second
wife to bear him sons. He said I was accursed and
would only bear girls.
"For days, I hid in the garden. My old amah,
the one who had nursed all my babies, brought me
food from the house. I heard the sounds of the
wedding preparations. Finally pride made me go
back, and I took my rightful place as the Great
First Wife. I meant to hate the Small Wife, just as
my mother-in-law hated me; it was my perquisite
to hate her and make her life a misery to her. But
I loved her from the first. She was young, and we
were like sisters. Together we escaped from my
mother-in-law's presence and sat in the garden.
My amah bored a chink in the wall at the further
end, and we took turns looking out at the world of
passers-by.
"When May Li's first girl was born, I had already
three living and three dead children. Not nursing
my children myself, I had a child every year. May
Li was too discouraged to get well. She lay in bed
and grew white and pale. She didn't love her baby


THE WIVES OF LI 155
girl as I had loved mine. One day she said to me,
'Ask thy husband if we may go to the temple to
pray before the Goddess Kwannon. We will take
the children and lunch and spend the day.'
"That night I beguiled my husband, and he prom-
ised to get us permission from his mother. The
next day was clear and calm with a warm sun
shining. It was springtime and, even in the city,
the peach trees were blooming, and the little patches
of yellow rape were like carpets of gold. Four
chairs and bearers were prepared for us. I took
my three daughters, Ling-Di (leading a brother),
A-doo, (the greatest), and San Me (the third sister)
with me. A-doo sat in the chair with my amah,
Ling-Di sat on my lap, and San Me crouched at my
feet. May Li got into her chair alone, the amah in
another, with the baby Ai Ling in her arms. The
cook had put up a nice lunch for us, which the
amahs carried in two wicker baskets."
Li Ta Ta paused and blew a little whiff of smoke
and looked at me questioningly. "Are you sure you
care to hear all this?" she asked.
I eagerly assured her that I did.
"You see," she said, "the mind of a Chinese woman
is filled with all manner of foolishness. It concerns
itself, not with the big things of life, but with each
little happening of our days with our children. It
treasures them up, to think over by and by when the
children are gone from us. I even remember the
clothes my daughters wore that day of long ago.
It is long since I lost them. They have all married
and are gone to the houses of their mothers-in-law.


THE WIVES OF LI 157
candles and packages of incense. Before the Image
were rows and rows of candlesticks with empty
spikes. We filled them all with candles, sticking each
candle on its sharp spike. An old priest came out
from the shadows behind the Goddess and>lit the
candles. We crouched on the floor and beat our
heads against the ground. I do not know for what
May Li prayed. I had ceased to pray for sons. I
too believed the words of my mother-in-law, that I
could only bear girls, and it no longer mattered
to me. It was so many years ago that I had hoped
to have sons! Now, I no longer hoped for them. My
mind was a blank. I sat on my feet on the old
stones and beat my head against the ground and
prayed for gentle mothers-in-law for my daughters.
Then I sat back on my feet and lifted up my face
and looked at the Goddess. She was a great Goddess
and filled all the space of the temple. Her head was
lost under the gloom of the peaked roof; her many
hands were painted golden. Through the twinkling
yellow lights and the long red lines of the candles I
looked up at her and wondered. We had lit all
our incense, so that the air was hazy and fragrant
with it. A-doo got up and ran away to play with
the other children. I looked over my shoulder and
saw them bargaining at the candy shops. I saw
the ancient scribe waiting bent over his table. No
one wanted a letter written. The old priest in dirty
gray robes went mumbling around in the shadows
behind the great Goddess. Many strange thoughts
went through my mind as I sat on my feet before the
Goddess. I looked at May Li. She was rocking


THE WIVES OP LI 159
hont of the candy shops. There were three or
four tables filled with lunch parties who had come
to worship at the feet of the Goddess of Mercy.
We got hot water for our tea from the hot-water shop
at the corner. The children and the amahs and I
were happy. We watched everything with new
eyes. Men riding by on donkeys, carry-coolies,
amahs with bundles — everything was of intense
interest to us. The sun was warm and pleasant;
a drowsy peace pervaded the deserted market
square.
"Suddenly the booming of the Crimson Fish
startled me. I turned around and looked at it.
May Li stood under it. With one arm she held
Ai Ling pressed against her heart, with the other
she struck the fish sharply again. The sound
echoed out over the happy square. The children
and amahs turned in a fright. Even the sleepy
scribe lifted up his head to look in amazement.
Again May Li struck the fish. Three times its
hollow, mournful sound reverberated out over the
square. She bent her head as if listening for foot-
steps on the other side of the gate, while we stood as
motionless and silent as if we too were listening for
the sound of approaching feet. She heard them.
She bent forward quickly, jerked open the baby
drawer, and laid Ai Ling in it. Then she shut the
drawer, and again she bent her head to listen. She
heard the slow retreat of feet from the gateway.
With a shriek of despair she pulled open the drawer
again. It was empty! May Li fell shrieking into
my arms.


160 MY CHINESE DAYS
"The events of the day were not yet over. The
bearers and the amahs clustered around May Li
in great concern. One of the bearers suggested that
we go a little way into the country, to make May Li
forget the sharpness of her sorrow. To go outside
the walls was to us like going to another continent.
Even sunk in the depths of sorrow, such a prospect
must have roused one. May Li grew calmer. 'I
could not let her live where she was unwanted,' she
said. 'The nuns will be good to her.'
"The men took us through a little gate in the wall
and set our chairs down on the ground. With
utter astonishment we looked off, far away, across
the fields without houses, without stores, without
temples. I had never seen such a far horizon in
my life, nor so much grass. The rape fields blazed
like captive sunshine and rippled in the wind like
golden water. The boats on the moat moved
mysteriously. We saw the wind belly out their
tall brown sails, and we saw them slip over the water
without effort of any kind. We saw the greatest
wonder of our lives. A feather of black cloud
appeared over the field and approached towards us,
as if driven by a great wind. But we did not feel
this wind; we felt only the gentle summer wind in
our faces, the same wind that ballooned out the
brown sails of the boats. But the wind that
blew the black cloud down upon us was another
wind. The black cloud rushed at us. It spread
out over the plains and cast a dark shadow on
the rape fields, so that they no longer were golden,
but gray.


162 MY CHINESE DAYS
was expensive to bring up a houseful of girls. It
was a pious act.
"The climax of the day was upon us. Entering
the streets of the city, where even the sunlight seemed
shadowy and unreal, a great noise met our ears.
People were running hither and thither; men
called out to one another. A sharp smell of burning
struck our nostrils. We turned into the temple
square. A mass of fire and flames writhed and
twisted upward. The crowds surged around it.
The temple was burning and the cloister beside it.
Frightened nuns ran screaming from the doorway.
One, a tower of flame, threw herself from a second-
story window, and more jumped after her. The old
priest we had seen mumbling prayers in the shadow
of Kwannon, crouched by the scribe, scared half out
of his wits. With an echoing crash the temple roof
fell in. Showers of splinters rushed up heavenwards.
Smoke and flames swirled and tossed about the great
Goddess. Now, for the first time, I knew she was
great. Without outcry, immovable and glowing,
she sat among the eddying clouds of smoke. Her
thousand hands glowed red and live. Her eyes
shone. Her heavy hair seemed to move. Gone
was the crimson and gold; naked and glowing, she
sat unmoved. More terrible than in her days of
prosperity, potent and powerful, she shone at us
through the drifts of gray smoke.
"The crowd grew silent watching the transformed
goddess. Only May Li began to cry aloud 'My
baby.' She jumped out of her chair and struggled
through the crowd. They let her pass till at last


164 MY CHINESE DAYS
Even this peasant woman bore only girls. Round,
laughing, merry girls, a new one came every year. It
was a bitter disgrace. The mother-in-law mocked
at us, saying, we would be called The House of
Girls. Li decided to adopt a boy, the younger son
of his first cousin, to carry on the name. That would
have ended our troubles, but one day he went to
Shanghai and brought this girl back with him.
'Jewel \ he called her. I was very angry, for I
saw that my husband had taken her because he
loved her. He had bought her in a wicked house
because of her beautiful face and hands. Though
she was only fourth wife, he made her his favorite.
The mother-in-law was terribly angry. She wished
me to torment the girl, but though I too was angry,
I could not. She was but little younger than my
San Me who had married and left me, and I could
not beat her and mistreat her. Once when my
husband was gone on a long business trip, the
mother-in-law herself beat her till she fainted. Li
came home unexpectedly that night and found the
marks of the beating still on her body. The mother-
in-law has feared him since. Pau Tsu (Jewel) is
terrified. She is afraid to have a girl. But I do not
think my husband cares so much any more. He
is contented in his mind to adopt a son. He only
cares for the girl herself. It is as if he loved for the
first time. And now I do not mind that either. He
leaves me alone and I am able to think and remember.
I wish that Pau Tsu may bear him a son."
Li Ta Ta stopped speaking and went over to the
door leading to the next room. All was silent


THE WIVES OF LI i 165
within, and I got up and went in to see Doctor Grace.
Both she and the patient were sleeping. In an
adjoining room I saw the dowager and some of the
other women sleeping. While I looked at them they
opened their eyes and questioned me mutely. I
shook my head, and their eyelids fluttered to again.
Li Ta Ta left me. The house was silent with an un-
canny silence, the ominous, forced silence of people
and places that wait for some momentous event,
that save and husband their energies for swift action.
I was troubled. The recital of Li Ta Ta's story
had stirred me strangely. It was so alien, so primi-
tive in its physical interests, yet, the more I pondered
it, the better I realized that she had found quietness
for her soul by a spiritual conquest. She had come
to possess her soul in peace and comfort. Her fight
was the fight of all humanity, the struggle to rise
above surroundings, to grow out of things material
into things spiritual. What sublimer height could an
oriental woman reach than for the first wife to wish
her rival a son!
I was awakened from a doze by Doctor Grace
standing over me.
"It's time," she said, "if you will give the
anesthetic."
With the sudden plunge into full consciousness
which doctors acquire, I followed her into the
next room. Amahs were coming and going. The
mother-in-law and Li Ta Ta sat on a couch be-
hind the curtains of the bed. Li himself caught
Doctor Grace's sleeve as we passed through the
doorway.


i66 MY CHINESE DAYS
"Never mind about the child," he said. "I only
care about the woman."
His hands trembled, and his voice was husky.
Li Ta Ta was right. Her husband loved his bought
slave bride. He had forgotten about the necessary
son to worship at his tomb, had forgotten all but the
woman he loved. Love had released his soul from
superstition and the thraldom of custom. Love
shatters all but its own bonds.
In the eyes of the girl herself lay no happiness,
only an overpowering fear, fear of the mother-in-
law.
A few minutes later Doctor Grace held a little
crying baby in her arms. The mother-in-law walked
over to Doctor Grace and inspected the baby. She
gave it one swift glance, folded her arms, and sniffed.
"Female," she said. "Take the little dog out
of my sight."
"Give her to me," said Li Ta Ta; "I am the
mother of girls."
Li himself gave not a thought to the baby but
possessed himself of one of Jewel's listless hands and
stroked it softly.
"It is all right," he said, his face shining with
relief. "Pau Tsu is well."
It was dawn. The room was filled with a pallid
light that made the innumerable candle flames but
bits of sickly color on the tables and stools. The
women suddenly looked tired. An amah went
around blowing out the candles. Day had come
with the new life, but the bride lay weeping in her
crimson curtained bed.


XV
THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD
THE case of the Li bride utterly demoralized
me. When we got back to the compound
I found a letter from Edward, which I put
under my pillow, and then I cried myself to sleep.
Doctor Grace had arranged to let me sleep late, but
she got up in an hour or two to go to work. About
eleven, I got up and dressed and took my letter out on to the back steps of the cottage to read again and
again. It comforted me somewhat but not thor-
oughly, for I had had a revelation of the abyss of
difference between the thoughts and lives of men
and women. Li Ta Ta and I, women of the East
and West, born of different races, separated by
centuries of education, were yet nearer together in
feeling and understanding than Edward and I. All
the sweet things he said — how much did he mean
of them? And did he interpret them as I did?
Moreover, even if he meant them, could he keep his
promises? I had an illuminating glimpse into the
fundamental variation of men from women. I had
a new grasp of the stuff out of which we women must
weave our happiness. I did not want to achieve a
happiness like the happiness of Li Ta Ta, a happi-
ness of doing without love, a happiness of renun-





i74 MY CHINESE DAYS
Edward's coming made the queerest difference
to me. All the things that I had been bothering
about all the week were suddenly insignificant.
They seemed to me foolish thoughts. A whirl
of merriment seized the company, as we climbed
back again into our house boat. The oarsman at
the stern, on the other side of the bamboo hood, was
out of sight and forgotten. The boat seemed to
move of itself, to have a life of its own. We spread
an old steamer rug on the boards of the prow and
sat on the floor, dangling our feet over the edge of
the boat. Edward sat behind me, and our fingers
met on the gunwale. How can the mere touch of
fingers solve all the problems of the universe!
We were on the inner moat. On one side towered
the great wall against the sky, cutting the serene
blue with its jagged, warlike outline; on the other
lay the city. Every time we pierced the heart of a
bridge and its reflection, I drew a quick breath of
delight.
"Do you like it so much?" asked Edward. I nodded.
"Shall I bring you here on your honeymoon?"
he whispered. I shook my head.
"Why not, if you like it so much?" he asked.
"I want to go to a new place," I answered, "where
I have never been before, where I have never had
any other thoughts, where I have never seen things
without you."
"Where?" he asked.
"How should I know?" I replied.


176 MY CHINESE DAYS
future might hold, I knew what I wanted now. I
slipped my hand back along the boards and found
Edward's fingers. Then I was quite satisfied.
"See that wall along the inner side of the canal?"
said Doctor Grace. "That is the Coffin House."
A low strip of wet green grass ran down to the
water's edge. Willows, very old, with their weeping
fronds trailing in the water, stood like mournful
sentinels along the narrow path that led from the
water to the walled house. Just beyond were rice
fields and two lazy buffaloes, each watched by a
little boy. We moored our boat and got out. Be-
fore us rose a square, walled house, blind and
windowless. A gatekeeper let us pass without chal-
lenge. A series of three open courts led to the pool
of the House of the Dead, where the ancient tortoises
played. Around the courts were rows and rows of
cells filled with coffins, waiting to be buried. Some-
times the coffins wait in the House of the Dead a
hundred years, till the soothsayer foretells an
auspicious day for burying, or until the family can
afford the money for a fortunate place of burial.
There were big coffins, — black, with gorgeous
sprawling dragons in gilt on the lid, — little baby
coffins, the size of a doll's trunk, rich coffins of teak,
and cheap ones of ash roughly put together. Row
after row, tier above tier, the chambers were filled
with the coffined bodies of the dead. The dead and
the stars always give me a feeling of the preciousness
and futility of living. I always want to live more
than ever. As in the catacombs of Latin countries,
these dead shivered to decay above the ground.


THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 177
We came at last to the inner court and the Pool
of the Tortoises. There were really two pools,
linked by a low flat bridge. A lattice of fretwork
ran around the four sides of the pool. Slippery,
moss-green steps of stone rose up from underneath
the brown water. Ancient weeping willows grew in
the open earth between the irregular flagging. Half
the pool was in shadow and half in sunlight. The
still water was a golden brown, the slanting beams
of the sun penetrating but a short distance beneath
its surface. I stood at the top of the steps, over-
come by the silence, by the walls honeycombed with
the dead past, and by the ancient mystery of the
pools.
I had no feeling of being in a Campo Santo with
its subtle benediction, but rather of being in a home
of disembodied spirits who had not yet found rest and
peace for their souls. Snatches of the gatekeeper's
words drifted in to me as he showed the others some
famous coffin.
"He was the richest man in Soochow. He had
ten wives. His youngest wife died upon his body.
People said she was forced to kill herself. She took
opium. They were buried in the same coffin. Yes,
this very coffin that you are looking at. The family
have never been able to bury it. Whenever a
fortune teller is called in to cast the charm
and decide where and when to bury it, he cannot
find a fortunate day. So it has been for a hundred
years. See how well the wood has kept. The
colors are still as bright as when they were first
painted. The priests say that he does not want to


178 MY CHINESE DAYS
be buried, that his spirit interferes with the casting
of the burying spell. He likes it here in the house
of the dead. He likes the warm sunshine when it
slants in during the early morning and touches the
foot of his coffin. He likes the cool and shade in
the hot summer days. He likes to feel the feet of
the living walking past him and to hear their cheerful
voices. And he likes the little body of his slave-wife
lying against him in the close warm darkness. In
the ground he would long ago have moldered and
withered. Only last year the family took the lid
off and saw the two lying clasped in each other's
arms. They were very gorgeous, he in his official
mandarin robes, she dressed as a bride. She was
very young. She had not yet borne a child, and the
Mandarin loved her. The other wives were jealous.
I think she was glad to die. It was an act of
devotion. Once at twilight I sat alone at the gate
smoking my long pipe and thinking of nothing at all.
All the women and children had gone home. Soon
I too would go home to my little house at the end of
the field, to a good hot supper of rice and fish. But
there was still a little time to watch. The sun had
not yet set. I knew it by the pink light on the clouds,
though within the city walls all was long ago in
shade. The water in the moat was running faster
than its wont. The branches of the willows made
a little rippling sound as they dipped in the water.
On the other side of the wall I heard the cries of
birds. Overhead flew a flock of crows, one by one,
in a black stream across the pink sky, crying loudly.
"Light shone dimly in the open rooms of the houses


180 MY CHINESE DAYS
move. I stood quite still, and they passed me with-
out seeing me. A cool breath of air struck against
me and I shivered. I watched them. They came
out into the second court and stood beside this
coffin. I looked again but they were gone. Other
people had seen them too. Oftenest it is a slave-
girl bride who sees the Mandarin's bride. They
say she smiles and beckons. Then the bride dies.
It is very bad luck to see the girl alone."
The voice of the gatekeeper ceased. For half a
moment it was silent in the second court, and in the
court of the Pool of the Tortoises. Then in the
outer court talking broke out again. Still no one
came in. My eyes, half staring and unseeing, were
fixed on the sunlit space of the water. Suddenly it
moved and heaved, and a great golden back came
into sight. Another and another rose into view.
Eight or ten huge tortoises, their backs mottled in
gleams of yellow and brown, ruffled the pool with a
thousand ripples. Centuries old, pampered and
protected, fed cake and sweetmeats by the hands
of countless generations, they lived on from age
to age. I looked at their beautifully marked and
tinted backs with awe. What had they not seen!
Even the ghosts of the Mandarin who cannot
be buried and his slave were not as old as the turtles.
The mystery of the pool was a thousandfold in-
tensified by the appearance of these animals who
seemed to have lived forever.
A babel of tongues broke out in the outer court.
A bevy of Chinese women and children entered the
Court of the Pool. There were several high-born


THE HOUSE OP THE DEAD 181
women, innumerable amahs and coolies carrying
babies and baskets of food.
They looked at me with interest and in a moment
I had recognized them as belonging to the family of
Li. Li Ta Ta was there, and the peasant wife from
the north, and the Favorite. An amah followed her
closely, carrying her baby girl in her arms. The
women were accompanied by a countless number of
children.
"Let us eat together," Li Ta Ta said. "Will the
foreign-born teacher honor us by eating of our
humble food?"
Doctor Grace and the others joined us. We
combined our food and exchanged egg sandwiches
for dough balls. The children were provided with
little paper bags full of soft cakes to throw to the
tortoises. They led me to the other side of the
bridge where not only willows grew but vines of
wisteria as thick as my waist. "The color of the
sky," said Li Ta Ta, "and sweet as a field of beans."
The children laughed and fed the turtles just as
little American children feed the bears with peanuts.
It was like going to the circus to them. I was
fascinated by the face of the bride. Li Ta Ta
stood by the lattice with the children. Edward and
Doctor Grace left again to explore a ruined pagoda
behind the house, and I moved over beside the girl.
She was very pale, with blue stains under her eyes.
Her lips were the beautiful lips of a Chinese child,
the upper lip very full in the center and deeply
curved. She was carefully painted, spots of rouge
on each cheek and in the middle of her chin. She


i82 MY CHINESE DAYS
had taken her baby from the amah and held it in her
arms.
"The little dog," she said, looking at it tenderly.
"If she had only been a little boy, the mother-in-law
would have called her the Little Prince."
"Nevermind the mother-in-law," I said. "She is
your Little Princess."
"It cannot be," said the bride. "She will be a
little slave. I know about slaves," she continued.
"Li Sien San bought me in a slave house in Shanghai.
My father was a scholar. One day he went into
Shanghai to meet a friend. This friend had become
an opium eater, though father knew it not. Father
was gone a month, and when he came back he
brought opium with him. At first he smoked
secretly, but soon he did not care what we thought
any more. He smoked openly. Mother implored
him on her knees to give it up, and so did his old
mother. But he wouldn't. Already, in a few
months, he loved the opium better than mother and
wife and children. His mother died with a broken
heart. My father sold everything we possessed.
By day and by night he lay on the couch and
smoked. He grew thin; the bones seemed to
stretch his skin, so dry and shrunken had it become.
He apprenticed my brother to a weaver. This
broke my mother's heart, for my brother was to
have been a scholar like my father. Soon that
money was all gone too. Then father ordered
mother to make for me beautiful clothes and pre-
pare for a journey. 'I will take her to Shanghai,'
he said. 'Her beauty is worth much gold.' Mother


*._
1THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 183
and I knew what that meant, but we dared not
disobey. Day after day we stitched on the fatal,
beautiful clothes, such clothes as I should have had
were I to be married in honor. Father set the day
for departure. That night mother slipped her
hand under father's pillow^ where he kept the
precious store of opium, and stole a handful. She
got up and boiled hot water on the charcoal stove
and made herself a cup of opium tea. Then she
lay down beside father again and slept. In the
morning, when father found she was dead, he was
very angry. 'Now she will haunt me forever,' he
said. Sometimes she haunts me too," said Pau Tsu.
"In the slave house in Shanghai I used to see her
sitting sorrowfully by the side of my bed. I learned
many things there, too many to understand."
"Are you happy now?" I asked. "How should I be happy?" she asked. "My
child is a girl."
"But your husband loves you," I said.
Pau Tsu smiled faintly. "What is the love of a
man?" she said. "Other men have also loved me,
and it did not make me happy. No, it is not enough.
He must love me for something more than sons. I
am very tired."
I tried to cheer her up. I talked of all sorts of
things, of the mission school and what she could do
for her baby girl. To all my suggestions she offered
the same reply. "It is impossible. The mother-
in-law would not permit it."
She was so armored in misery that I could not
reach her. Yet she was not rebellious or complain-


184 MY CHINESE DAYS
ing. Life was so, and she found it bitter. Then
suddenly she touched my arm.
"See," she said, pointing across the pool at the
shadow of the ancient willow. "See, the Man-
darin's slave girl. She stands close against the
trunk of the tree, half hidden by it, and beckons to
me with her hand."
I looked across the pool. Already the opposite
side of the court was dark with purple and blue
shadows. The willows were misty gray like olive
trees. The water was a fathomless slate color.
The tortoises had sunk out of sight, or else floated
motionless, with their backs just above the surface
of the water, hardly distinguishable from the water
itself. I looked up at the sky. A pink gauze veil
was drawn across it. Directly overhead hung one
silver star. Pau Tsu and I were alone beside the
pool. Cool and mysterious with its dead people and
its living tortoises, the court grew darker and darker.
"Listen," said Pau Tsu, now grasping my arm
tightly. "I hear her laughing."
But under the willow I saw only the gathering
mists of the evening and in the hollow court I heard
only the soft stir of the evening wind and the lap-
ping of the dead brown water against the moss-
green stones.


XVI
THE SANCTUARY OF THE WELL
YOU will have plenty of time to walk to the
incubator on the way to the feast at Li's,"
said Doctor Grace. "I will meet you there
at seven."
Edward and I started off on foot. He had been
prevailed upon to spend the night. Before we had
left the House of the Dead yesterday, Li Ta Ta
had invited us to a feast this evening. All the
morning we had sat on the water steps under the
old camphor trees and watched the boats drift by
on the inner moat. Edward had almost talked me
out of my obsession of fear — almost, but not
quite. But I managed for the moment to banish
my worries and just be happy in the shared sunshine.
Now we started off gaily on my first walk through
the intricate streets of Soochow. Doctor Grace
had given me elaborate directions, and with Edward
I feared no adventure.
The streets were vivid with the coming and going
of Oriental life. At the nearest corner stood a chow
man. He had put down his wood and wicker stand,
which he carried on his shoulder, and was fanning his
charcoal fire into a flame. We stopped to watch
him. Half a dozen ragged urchins had already


188 MY CHINESE DAYS
bees, and out to a market place near one of the gates
in the wall. Here a building, larger than the others,
caught our eyes at once. It was higher and of
weather-beaten brick. At the door a workman wel-
comed us. He seemed to know our errand by in-
tuition, or perhaps by experience, for the Incubator
at Soochow is one of the sights of the city. Within
we found ourselves in a large room, filled with small
ovens made of clay and straw. In each oven was a
shelf on which lay the eggs. A coolie walked
leisurely around, blowing at a bed of dying charcoal,
or banking down one that flamed too brightly.
The next room was the most interesting. Above
our heads, in long shallow bunks, under the ceiling,
were laid hatching eggs. I had to climb up on a
stool to see the shelves. They were covered, some
with padded cotton comforts, just as if the eggs
were persons, and some with layers of warm thick
straw. The uppermost bunk was the hottest.
Bigger ovens heated this room. Standing on
the stool brought my head just on a level with
the surface of the lowest shelf. This one was
covered with yellow straw. "Peep, Peep", I heard
the sound everywhere. Through the straw I saw
myriads of gaping yellow beaks sticking up for air
and food. Every moment another head appeared.
By listening closely I fancied I heard the soft
breaking of countless eggshells. A chick was born
every second! And this had been going on from
time immemorial! On one shelf a brood of fluffy,
feathery chicks were feeding. Soft and yellow and
warm, they ran about gaily. I wanted one.


i9o MY CHINESE DAYS
"Let's watch just one half minute," I said to
Edward. "It fascinates me to see the shape
emerge."
The old man looked up from his wheel. He had
a benevolent, kindly smile; his eyes looked pre-
occupied. From the wet mound of clay at his side
he pulled off a lump and stuck it on his revolving
wheel. He looked up again at us, but his fingers
went on shaping the wet mass of clay. Not once
did he glance at the evolving vase, but as if by magic,
under his caressing fingers, the formless lump took
form and shape. It sprang up, it hollowed itself
within, it curved in at the neck and flared out at the
mouth, all in the twinkling of an eye, while the an-
cient past-master of his art looked at us with his
benevolent, kindly eyes. The girl and the boy
stopped in their work to watch the exhibition.
"Perfect," I cried.
"Marvelous," said Edward, with genuine admira-
tion.
The boy spoke to the girl rapidly. She put
down her embroidery and came up and stood beside
us.
"My husband tells me to say to you that our
father is blind. Long ago when he was a young man
he worked in the great pottery factories up the river
at Ching tuh Chen. He was one of the most expert.
After many years, little white stones grew in his
eyes. We came down here to the foreign doctors
to have them taken out, but it was useless; even the
foreign-born magician could not make him see again.
Then, for many moons, father sat in the sun and


THE SANCTUARY OP . THE WELL 193
V
The swift southern night was upon us when we reached the House of Li. It was decked as for a festival: gorgeous lanterns hung at each side of the gate, as long as a man and as round as a barrel. Their yellow candle flames shining through the red paper cast a mellow glow over the doorway. The servants, in fresh, white, long garments, waited to receive us. Smaller lanterns hung about the garden. The guest hall was draped in crimson hangings, and tall red tapers flared on the ancestral table at the end of the room, facing the open threshold of the hall. The mother-in-law, Li Sien San, and his wives and children were assembled to greet us, making a modification of true Chinese etiquette in allowing the women to share in the reception. Doctor Grace was already there. For the feast we separated, the men eating in the great hall itself and we having a room adjoining. Doctor Grace sat at the table of honor with the mother-in-law, and I sat at the next table with Li Ta Ta and the fourth wife. The bare tables were as clean as fresh snow. At each place were placed chopsticks and a small spoon with a short handle of ancient pewter. The servants brought in the first dish, a bowl of clear soup with a single pigeon's egg floating in it. The white of the egg had a translucent appearance like the look of milky blue opal. The Chinese balanced the egg delicately on their chopsticks. I tried it too, but halfway to my mouth it fell back into the bowl of soup with a geyserlike splash. I was chagrined, though I saw it really didn't matter. There was no tablecloth to ruin, and a damp towel


194 MY CHINESE DAYS
soon made my place as immaculate as before.
When the larger bowls of stewed duck were brought
in, Li Ta Ta and Pau Tsu vied with each other in
helping me to tempting morsels. "Just a little,
little more," Li Ta Ta would say, reaching out with
her chopsticks to the bowl in the center of the table.
She would fish around among the slices of meat till
she found one especially savory, then convey it to
my tiny saucer. There is something extremely
gracious and hospitable in this Chinese manner of
picking out a tempting morsel for the guest of honor.
It is a relic of the days when hospitality was an art
of life, and the host served, the servitors merely
bringing in fresh food and clearing away the used
dishes. The amahs and children sat at a third
table in the same room.
The mother-in-law made a sort of speech. She
was talking only to Doctor Grace, but we all listened.
"It is a great pleasure to me and my son Li to
invite the foreign-born healers to our humble feast.
The feast is to do honor to the foreigner, but not in
honor of the little dog that has been born to the
house, nor of its low-born mother. As for them, it
would be better had they never been born." The
mother-in-law cast a malevolent glance at Pau Tsu.
I saw the girl shiver. From that time her manner
changed. It was as if she had forgotten something
unpleasant during the first part of the evening, and
had been suddenly reminded of it. She sat silent
and wordless and pushed away her food. The
baby began to cry. The amah promptly began
to nurse it, but still she cried. She refused to


THE SANCTUARY OF THE WELL 19s
be comforted by food, turned away her head, and
cried and cried.
"Take the little dog out of my sight," said the
mother-in-law. "Take it where I cannot hear the
sound of its howling."
The amah hurried from the room with the wailing
baby. We heard the sound of its crying diminish,
as an echo grows fainter and fainter. When we
heard it no more, the house was strangely still, as if
life had left it. Pau Tsu rose without a word and
followed it from the room. We heard the patter,
patter of her stilted feet through the uncarpeted
rooms beyond.
After that the food was tasteless to me, it choked
me. I felt I was eating the poisoned dishes of an
evil-eyed ogress. I strained my ears, listening for
any sound of footsteps or voices in the rooms over-
head. By and by the amah came in quietly.
"The mistress sent me back to help with the
serving," she said in Li Ta Ta's ear. "She herself
has taken the infant and stilled her crying."
On went the interminable feasting. Dish after
elaborate dish was placed before us. At the next
table Doctor Grace talked easily. Li Ta Ta talked
to me, but I didn't hear a word of what she was
saying. One thought filled my brain: I must man-
age to slip out of the room and hunt through the
silent upper stories of the house for the girl bride and
her baby. I thought of Pau Tsu sitting upstairs,
alone in her room, with her baby clasped in her
arms, her eyes glazed with misery and bitterness. No
one paid any attention to her prolonged absence.


THE SANCTUARY OF THE WELL 199
and the thin clouds covering the full moon were
torn into shreds and scarfs of chiffon. Full and
clear, shining like a silver shield, the moon freed
herself of the cloudy drapery. Right down into
the well it shone, as I peered over. Deep down I
saw a face; I thought it the reflection of my own.
Fascinated, I looked and looked. I lifted up my
hand and pushed back the hair from my face, but
the mirrored face made no such jesture. I screamed
with terror. Flying through the yard, I burst into
the guest hall where the juggler still juggled, and
the musicians played their weird, melancholy music.
"Edward," I cried, "come."
I caught his hands and ran with him through the
garden to where the face still looked up at the sailing
moon. It seemed to have moved. The moonlight
shone on it with soft, tender beams. Beside it
cuddled another, smaller, tiny face.
They had found a sanctuary.


WHERE THERE'S A WILL 201
So I sent him away, and the world turned to utter
desolation. He left one morning, just walked out
of the house and said he wouldn't be able to see me
for a while. I had no address, I didn't know where
he was going, or what he was going to do, or when
he would come back. I suddenly found I had been
very foolish to let him go like that, without knowing
all about him. Doctor Donnellon and Miss Laurie
were standing around us in the hall when he said
good-by, so that I couldn't ask him anything.
The days went by in a dragging dreariness. In
those desolate hours I learned a great deal more about
love than I had known before. I learned, for one
thing, that work is only absorbing and satisfactory
if the heart is securely anchored. I hated my work;
I forced myself out of bed every morning and dragged
myself about the wards. The patients were so
dirty and smelly! It was such a hopeless task to
cure them! And even if I did cure them, there
were so many more to be cured! A never-ending
stream of sick humanity came in at the gates. I
wanted to lie in bed and do nothing, to eat less,
and to pity myself. But the pressure of the daily
routine saved me, gave me back my sanity again,
though it came slowly, inch by inch, through the
long months that followed. Doctor Donnellon
went away on her vacation. Miss Laurie and I were
left alone, and then even Miss Laurie went up-river
to a Nurses' Conference. I was busy from morning
to night.
One afternoon Mrs. Maitland called with a new
nurse. Mrs. Maitland is little and slim and has


202 MY CHINESE DAYS
been in China twenty-five years. When she first
came out, she was a China Inland Mission worker,
way up in the interior. Now she is in Shanghai
and directs the policy of a chain of girls' boarding
schools. I always liked Mrs. Maitland to come to
see us. She was my ideal of what a missionary
should be, not "goody-goody" at all, nor always
preaching, but radiating something happy and peace-
ful. The Chinese girls idolized her.
"I've brought you a new probationer," she said.
"E Tsung" (love and honor).
The prettiest little Chinese girl shook hands with
me. She had rosy cheeks and merry brown eyes
and a very quick responsive smile.
"She has rather an interesting history," continued
Mrs. Maitland. "Almost twenty years ago, when
I was in the interior, I was riding along the banks of
a canal. It was in the summer, and the water in
the canal had shrunk to a mere moving trickle of
brown mud. The house boats had been left high
and dry on the steep, shelving bank, and a veritable
village of mat-sheds had sprung up beside the boats.
Four bamboo poles, four square mats of woven
fiber and the fifth for the roof made a mat-shed.
There were no doors. If you wanted to enter, you
picked up one of the flapping mats and crawled in.
It was a hot afternoon. All the rest of the mission
were indoors. I would not have been out myself
but that word had come from one of the Bible
women that a convert, an old woman, was very sick
in the next village. So I took a wheelbarrow and
started out. The wheelbarrow man stopped every


WHERE THERE'S A WILL 203
few moments to mop himself. He did it thoroughly,
beginning at his eyes and only stopping at his tightly
drawn belt. Along this mud river, the stench was
horrible. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed in the air.
Naked babies and mangy dogs played with each
other in front of the huts. At the door of one hut,
the mat over the opening was looped back. A
crowd of women were gathered about the doorway,
wailing aloud. Children hung to the skirts of their
mothers. Wisps of unbleached white cloth were tied
around the arms of two or three of the mourners.
My wheelbarrow man stopped to rest and dry off. I
got down from my narrow shelf on one side of the
wheel and approached the mourners.
"'The old woman has become nothing,' they said.
'She died this morning. Her daughter died yester-
day. There remains only the young aunt and this
new-born baby.'
'"Where is the father?' I asked.
"'We know not the father,' they replied. 'The
aunt says he is a river man who comes by here when
the river is in flood, but no one knows him. We
think to bury the baby with her mother, for there is
no one to care for it.'
"'Yes,' said the aunt, 'we must bury the baby.
I am about to go to the home of my mother-in-law,
and I cannot take a sucking child with me. We will
bury them all three together in one coffin.'
"Within the hut, which was no bigger than a
large packing box, lay the dead bodies of two women.
In the crook of a dead woman's elbow lay a little,
warm, living child. It had been wrapped in rags,


2o4 MY CHINESE DAYS
filthy rags, full of lice, but it lay there, in the bend of
the dead woman's arm, contented and smiling. It
was so young that it was not yet hungry.
"'Give it to me,' I said.
"Some one caught up the baby and placed her in
my arms.
"'Yes, yes, we will give the baby to the foreign-
born healer to be her adopted child. We do not
want the baby at all. We would bury the baby
alive. It will be more better that the foreign-born
teacher take the child for her own.'
"'The women clamored around me. I was silent
with astonishment. I had only wanted to see the
baby when I said 'give her to me.' But to them my
request had suggested a way out of the difficulty.
The baby snuggled against me as if she were glad
not to be pressed against that cold, dead body any
longer. I was a new missionary. I knew that
often the mission was involved in legal difficulties by
just such a gift of transfer, yet I could not go away
and put that baby back beside its dead mother.
My wheelbarrow man decided the question for me.
I don't know how long I would have stood there,
pondering. 'Come, Missey,'he said. 'Too muchee
hot. Must go on.'
"I wrote my name and address on a slip of paper
and gave it to the aunt. I also took her name and
the name of her mother-in-law, who lived in an
adjoining hut. I didn't promise to adopt the baby,
as they all wanted, but I did tell them I would look
after it. I made the aunt say she would come to
the mission once a month to see the child.


; WHERE THERE'S A WILL 205
i" I got back on the wheelbarrow with the strange,
dirty beggar baby in my arms. At the house of
the convert I found the old woman much better.
Together we dressed and washed the baby and gave
it its first feeding of warm goat's milk. The old
woman took a fancy to the child. She said to
me she knew more about bringing up babies than
I did — I wasn't married then. She said also that
she knew what it was necessary for a Chinese child
to know. She asked me to leave the baby with her,
to bring up till she was old enough to go to the
mission boarding school. That is the story of E
Tsung. She graduated at the mission boarding
school last spring. She is only eighteen and she
chooses not to be married yet. She herself asked
to be a nurse."
That was how Pretty came to us. She was the
gayest, most agile youngster. Nothing was too
hard for her, nothing too tiring. Everything in-
terested her. Miss Laurie fell in love with her at
once. "That girl will make a good nurse," she
said enthusiastically. "She is worth any amount
of training. But I suppose she will get married
right away and spoil it all. She can manage
anybody."
We started volley ball that fall for the nurses. We
strung up an old tennis net in the yard and divided
the girls into two teams. When they took off their
aprons to play, they looked the cutest, most frolic-
some set of children on earth. And Pretty was the
quickest and brightest among them; she was a
universal favorite. Another pastime of the nurses


WHERE THERE'S A WILL 207
terrifying sickness as we left the earth," said A-
doo. "I looked at E Tsung, and she looked as if
she would soon lose her eyes; they were popping out
of her head. But she said she liked it. At the
top we got out on a kind of square platform and
looked off in all directions at all the world. We saw the Whangpoo and the boats and the yellow mist
where lies the Great Yangtse. We were very busy looking first this way and that. We were higher
than the Loong Wha pagoda. We saw its tower oh'
a level with our eyes across the fields. We could
look down on Nanking Road and see the carriages
crawling as slowly as ants. Then we looked for
E Tsung, and she was gone. We asked everybody,
but no one had seen her. How could she leave
but by the rising and falling box? And how could
she have vanished without our knowledge?"
A-doo and the amah were very much excited, and
so, for that matter, was I. The loss of a girl in
Shanghai is no laughing matter, especially of such
a young and pretty one as E Tsung. She had never
been out alone in all her life. I told A-doo and the
amah not to tell any of the nurses ofjPretty's dis-
appearance, for I did not want to ruin the girl's
reputation while there yet might be hope of her
coming back. I didn't know what to do, so I
phoned Mrs. Maitland.
"E Tsung is here," she said. "I have told her
she must never run away like that again. I have
told her to go right to you and apologize."
I was weak with the sudden relief. Half an
hour later, E Tsung came, all contrition and smiles,


2o8 MY CHINESE DAYS
to offer her excuses. Chinese excuses are invariably
works of art, but hers was a masterpiece.
"My heart came up into my mouth when we
were carried up so far into the clouds," she said.
"The earth was changed and strange. I was afraid
it would vanish and be there no longer. Already it
was only a mirage. I turned around quickly and
sprang back into the descending box before it should
go down and leave me away from everybody, up
in the clouds. At the bottom, I waited and waited,
half a day, for A-doo and the amah. They came
not. I felt in my heart that some evil thing had
happened to them. I was afraid to come back to the
hospital without them, so I called a ricksha and went
to the home of my adopted mother. She scolded
me for having run away like that and said you would
be very much worried. I am sorry for my wicked-
ness and foolishness."
She was very contrite. Her breath came quickly,
and her eyes watched my face for signs of anger. She
twisted a corner of her jacket in her fingers. I
scolded her severely, and forgave her, then dismissed
her with a heart full of thankfulness that no harm
had come of the episode. I got up and walked to
my window, without any plan of espionage in my
action. I was only moving around aimlessly, as we
all do at times. I saw Pretty pause a moment on
the threshold, look cautiously around, dance down a
few steps, then wave her hands towards the houses
on the left. After waving, she stopped as if waiting
an answering signal. Evidently it came, for she
waved again and ran back to the hospital.


WHERE THERE'S A WILL 209
All my peace of mind was gone. An intrigue was
brewing. I knew it, I felt it in my bones. Pretty's
little air of triumph when she waved her hand at
the invisible watcher had betrayed her. Miss
Laurie came home soon, and I told her all the story.
"I don't see how you can suspect her," she said
indignantly. "I would as soon suspect my sister.
She is too honest, too self-reliant to do anything
underhand. She was only waving her hand with
relief at your forgiveness. Did you see anybody
return her salute?"
"No," I said. "But don't forget that the
Paulun Hospital is visible through the alley. I
myself have seen the Chinese interns in their white
uniforms on the upper balcony."
"You don't mean to say you think she would
carry on a flirtation with one of them?"
"I don't know," I said, "but that is what I was
thinking."
"Chinese girls don't do such things," said Miss
Laurie. "Our girls wouldn't. They are too nice."
"Anybody will," I said. "It's not a question of
being nice or not. It's a question of life. I think
we ought to guard the girls more carefully. In-
dependence is fermenting in the air. It's a dan-
gerous time."
"You want to coddle the nurses and make babies
of them," said Miss Laurie. "I want to make them
self-respecting women."
"So do I," I agreed. "Only I want to watch
over them while they are young, so that they will
never have an occasion for loss of self-respect."


2io MY CHINESE DAYS
"You suspect them," asserted Miss Laurie. "I
think it is an insult." "I know," I replied.
There the matter dropped. When one day Mrs.
Maitland came to tea, I told her my suspicions.
She was Pretty's godmother, and I didn't want the
responsibility on my soul. She agreed with Miss
Laurie, so, little by little, my apprehension was
stilled.
One morning I went over to the hospital earlier
than usual. On the steps the nurses were gathered
around a flower woman. The flower-seller held a
round, shallow basket slung over her shoulder by a
string. The basket was full of tiny flower buds, tied
on invisible wires, ready to be hung on the studs
that close a woman's dress on the shoulders, or to
be stuck in the hair. The nurses were buying.
Pretty stood at one side of the group, a flower lying
unobserved at her feet, and in her hand a letter.
It was a long, thin Chinese letter, written on double
rice paper. I saw the graceful straggling characters
going up and down the page from top to bottom.
Pretty was utterly engrossed; her cheeks were a
bright pink.
The matron, Wang S Moo, came out of the
counting room, and saw me looking at Pretty.
She beckoned to me with her eyes. I followed her
into the office and closed the door.
"Every day it is so," said Wang S Moo. "The
postman brings a letter for E Tsung. When I ask
her who writes it, she looks at me angrily and says,
'It is from my aunt.' But all the world knows her


WHERE THERE'S A WILL 211
aunt lives in a mat-shed and can neither read nor
write. The nurses say, when she has her off hours,
she goes into her room and shuts the door, and refuses
to let any one come in. But one of the nurses
looked through the keyhole and saw her writing a
letter. The gateman says that every day E Tsung
gives him a cash to post a letter for her. If you
wish, I will tell the gateman not to post the letter,
but to give it to you. Then we will find out all
about the mischief."
"Oh, we couldn't do that," I exclaimed, aghast
at the systematic, curious spying.
"We must do something," said the matron. "E
Tsung no longer does her work. When she makes
the beds in the morning she does not sweep out the
crumbs, she merely pulls the quilt straight. She
boasts to the other girls that she will soon be rich
and not have to work any more."
"This is dreadful," I said helplessly. "I will
tell Miss Laurie." Miss Laurie, however, was
inclined to believe that the matron had a spite
against the girl because she was so quick and clever
and did her work so well. Miss Laurie refused to
accept such evidence. "But I tell you what I
will do," she said, "I will call all the nurses together
and announce the rule that no girl may receive
letters that are not first opened by me. I hate to
do it, it seems so suspicious, but we don't want
anything to happen to that child. That will put
an end to the correspondence."
A few of the advanced spirits among the nurses re-
sented the innovation. Daily the postman handed


2i2 MY CHINESE DAYS
the letters to Miss Laurie, but Pretty got no more,
and we congratulated ourselves that the incident was closed. Then one afternoon I went over to the hos-
pital about five o'clock, the time I was least likely to
be there. In the front hall, sitting on one of the
stiff guest chairs reserved for relatives of the sick, sat
a dapper young Chinese man, and before him stood
Pretty, dressed in her best clothes, blushing and
smiling. "Who is this man?" I asked severely.
"My uncle," said Pretty promptly.
"Do you not know you cannot receive men in this
hospital?" I asked.
"Not strangers, of course," said Pretty, "but an
uncle—"
"No, not a young uncle," I said. "It is not good
custom. If the nurses in the hospital do not observe
good custom, no one will want to send their daughters
to us to be trained for the honorable calling of nurse."
I sent him off, and I ordered Pretty up to her
room for the rest of the day.
"I think we will have to send her back to Mrs.
Maitland," I said to Miss Laurie. "Something is
going on. I don't trust her."
"That is just the trouble," said Miss Laurie.
"Neither of us trusts her. The matron suspects
her and spies on her. The other nurses are jealous
and envious."
"But what can we do," I asked
"I'll go over and have a talk with her," said Miss
Laurie. "Won't you come too?"
This was not according to Chinese etiquette, that
the superiors should go to the inferiors, but it was


WHERE THERE'S A WILL 217
"I cannot say," said Pretty.
"But you must say when I ask you," said Miss
Laurie. '' You know the rules of the Training School.
No girl is ever permitted to go out alone after dark.
It is bad custom. You yourself know it is not
proper custom for a Chinese young girl. Every
one will say words that are not good to hear."
Pretty drew herself away from Miss Laurie's arm.
"It is all true, what you say," she said. "I
know it is not proper Chinese custom. I know what
people will say, Me Li especially. But what have
you come here for, but to teach us new customs that
shall be proper for Chinese women as well as foreign
women? You tell us we must not worship our
fathers. There was no custom more sacred than
that. If we do not worship our fathers, what
matters it what class of strangeness we do? Often
have I seen Miss Laurie and Au-I-Sung go out at
night. Sometimes alone, sometimes with a man
who is not relation. No one says wicked words. It
is proper American custom. Why shall it not be
proper Chinese custom? I have done nothing
wrong."
How could we explain the difference, the danger, in
the face of the scandalized nurses, to the bright,
defiant eyes of Pretty?
"Go to your room and stay there till I send for
you," said Miss Laurie. "Your meals will be
brought up to you. When you came here, you agreed
to obey our rules, and you have disobeyed."
Miss Laurie went into the room with Pretty. I
shooed the rest to their room and gave them some


WHERE THERE'S A WILL 219
carrying of the coffin to the coffin house. At the
money changer's across the way the men leaned
on the counter, naked from the waist up, and smoked
and chatted. The eat-shop next door was filled with
coolies. An opium den, silent and shadowy, with
its sign hung far out over the door, was faintly lit.
Farther down the street came a break in the light, a
crack of darkness which marked the mouth of a back
alley. A large automobile waited in front of the
curb at the entrance of the alley. Another glided
up noiselessly, and two Chinese in handsome silks
got out quickly and hurried into the darkness of
the alley. A gambling den! Along the curb sat
men and women on tiny four-legged stools enjoying
the coolness of the evening air. Worlds upon
worlds crowded upon me, one world of the lit, gay
street, another of the quiet dim compound but a few
yards away, and yet another of the small neat room
with its iron bedstead and chest of drawers and
dressing case where Miss Laurie talked with Pretty,
and yet another of my own consciousness and its
bitter wants and needs.
"What did you accomplish?" I asked Miss
Laurie, when she came.
"Nothing," she said. "She wouldn't tell me
anything about where she had been or what she
had been doing. She said a thousand times she
had done nothing wrong and asked me to trust her.
I said I did trust her, but that she must obey the
rules of the hospital. She said that wasn't trusting
her. We went over and over the same ground.
Finally I locked her in, and said she was to stay in


WHERE THERE'S A WILL 221
unframed on the dresser. I went to the window.
The roof of the veranda sloped steeply towards the
ground. The drop from it would be not more than
ten feet. On a nail at the edge of the roof I caught
sight of a piece of black gauze. At least she had not
taken opium! Would she come back, or had she
gone forever? And where?
I listened along the corridor, but no one was
stirring, so I stuffed the keyhole with a bit of cotton
to keep the empty room from the prying eyes of Me
Li, and escaped unobserved. I rushed through
clinic and set out for Mrs. Maitland's. I did not
like to telephone the news. I wanted to save Pretty,
and somehow I felt sure that Mrs. Maitland would
know a way. I almost hoped I might find Pretty
there, for Mrs. Maitland was the kind of woman to
whom a girl could go with any trouble. To my eager
mind, that warm afternoon, man-power seemed a
snail-like way of covering distance. The naked
waist of my runner glistened with sweat. He shook
his head violently every so often, and a spray of
moisture flew into the air. On the benches along
the houses, narrow as a hand's-breadth, men lay
full length asleep. Everywhere was the incessant
whir of fans, round and oval and conical, fanning
faces and backs and stomachs. On an empty lot a
circle of horses were exercising. At the head of
each animal walked its keeper. In the center of the
slowly, ever-revolving circle, stood a man with a bird
cage, containing a black minne bird with a yellow
beak, singing. The whirling horses and the whirl-
ing men were utterly silent, as if mesmerized by



<
Q
3





WHERE THERE'S A WILL 223
"Who is he!" I asked.
"He is my future husband," Pretty answered.
The answer took my breath away. But one
solution appeared to my dazed faculties. We
would go to Mrs. Maitland. She would know
what to do.
"Call a ricksha," I said to the man, "and follow
us. I will take E Tsung with me."
"Where are you taking me?" asked Pretty.
"To Mrs. Maitland," I answered.
They made no objection. I took Pretty on my
lap as an amah takes her mistress. The runner
demurred, but I promised him double the fare.
Holding her on my knees in the intimate way one
holds a little child, I could feel no anger at her. In
fact, I had not been as much angry as worried all
along. I wanted to save her. There was something
so utterly lovable about her, one could not help
liking her. After we had ridden in silence a block
or so, Pretty's hand stole into mine.
"You will understand, Au-I-Sung," she said.
"You also love the foreign man. Days when he
comes not to see you, your heart is sad and heavy.
I know, for I have watched the look in your eyes.
At first I did not know what made you so different,
some days so merry, as if the sunshine lived in your
eyes, and some days so sad, as if your heart were
crying. But lately I have understood. I could
not pass a day without seeing him. I had to run
away. You are not angry, are you?"
"No, E Tsung," I said, "I am not angry. If you
wished to be married, why did you not tell us, so


224 MY CHINESE DAYS
that we could have arranged it for you in an honor-
able manner."
"No," she said, "I did not want it arranged. I
wanted to do it myself."
"Who is this man?" I asked. "What do you
know about him? Where did you meet him?"
"He is Li-I-Sung. I met him at the house of a
school friend of mine, that first day I ran away from
A-doo and the amah. I had in my heart no wicked-
ness that day, but to run away and see my school
friend. She is married and has a baby. I wanted
to see the baby. Her husband was there, also
Li-I-Sung. They also were schoolmates. Li-I-
Sung has studied the foreign medicine already
three years. When I saw him I wanted to marry
him at once, and I asked him if he would like it. I
think he wanted to marry me at once too. He
works at the Paulun Hospital. But we couldn't
marry at once. We planned a signal of hand wavings
and letters, and we used to meet every afternoon at
the corner. The day I was out at night, I had not
been able to go to meet him in the afternoon, and so
I had to go after supper."
Mrs. Maitland looked very serious at the tale.
"You cannot marry Mr. Li now, at once," she said.
"It is not seemly. You will have to return to the
mat-shed of your aunt and eat the rice and water of
bitterness. Do you not know that Mr. Li must first
finish his course? If he marries he will have to
leave."
"That is a foolish and unjust custom," said
Pretty, "but it can't be helped. He will have to


THE SEEKING HAND 227
out over the centuries with inscrutable calm. I saw
them worshiping their idols, knocking their fore-
heads on the cold stones at the feet of the images,
bound and tortured by fear and yearning. No
wonder they listened with bated breath to the story
of a God who went after the lost to seek and to find.
I heard low murmurs run through the crowd,
"Wonderful!" "It is not to be believed!" "The
words are good to hear!" "What is the meaning?"
Wonder, I think, was the principal expression on
their faces, wonder and a shy delight, much as you
or I would feel if we were suddenly told we had wings
and could fly up into the sky at will. Then we sang
the old gospel hymn, "Jesus loves me." The
Chinese words are simple, and the tune went with a
swing. Enough of the nurses and patients who
knew the hymn were there to make it go.
We were at the third verse when Little Wang,
who was on duty in the wards, slipped in and
touched my arm.
"Comequickly," she said, "aman is killing A-doo." I left them singing the hymn and ran along
through the half empty ward with Little Wang.
Sounds rose up to meet us — the loud angry tones
of a man's voice and a sobbing, pleading woman's
voice. I burst open the door of A-doo's room. A
tall rough man was leaning over her bed, shaking
her violently by the shoulders, speaking all the time.
He repeated his words over and over again. "You
must come. You must do as I tell you. Are you
not mine! Get up and come."
"I can't. I have been sick," A-doo cried.


228 MY CHINESE DAYS
I flew at the man and jerked him away by the back
of his coat.
"Go," I said, pointing at the door. "Go quickly
before I have you arrested. And if I ever see you
here again, I will send for the police. Do you hear
me? Go!"
If I had been less angry or had hesitated, I might
not have gotten rid of him so easily, though in
Shanghai lower-class Chinese are accustomed to
obeying the foreigner. The man hung a moment in
the doorway, then turned and hurried down the
stairs. I ran over to the window and poked my
head out, to be sure that he had left the compound.
I saw him hesitate at the gate, but I shook my fist
at him, and he disappeared. Then I turned to
A-doo, who was crying desperately. The entire con-
gregation had adjourned and followed me through
the ward to A-doo's room and now was crowding
around A-doo's bed. I took the nearest gently by
the shoulders and pushed them towards the door.
A babel of questions arose. Feeling how humiliat-
ing this swarm of curious onlookers must be to A-doo,
I urged them vigorously towards the door.
Suddenly A-doo sat up in bed and flung out her
hands dramatically towards us. Her pale face, her
red and swollen eyes, her disheveled hair, lent her
figure the strange, arresting menace of despair. The
crowd, which had been yielding to my pressure and
ebbing through the door, now surged back and filled
the room. The hospital amahs, the coolies, the
patients and their visitors, all were huddled in a
close-breathing group in the small room. As if


THE SEEKING HAND 229
caught on the crest of a wave, the crowd, pressing
forward to A-doo's bed, had carried me ahead. I
stood close beside her
"Let them go, A-doo," I said.
"In a little moment," she said. "They must
first hear my woe. Listen, all ye who pass by, and
hear my woe and see the bitterness which I have
eaten. That man who was killing me is my hus-
band. Ten years have I supported him by the work
of my hands, him and my old mother. Too much
is it for a woman. I work and am paid, then in the
night comes my husband and threatens to kill me
or to sell me, unless I give him my money. Some-
times he finds it all, and sometimes he only finds a
part, for I hide it in many different places. Then
he takes it and drinks and gambles. When he wants
more he sets my mother-in-law to upbraid me. She
fills me with fear, because she lives close beside my
mother, in the village street, and when I do not give
him enough money, she torments my mother. She
sits at the gate of her courtyard and reviles the name
of my mother to all the passers-by. Then, at last,
even my mother comes to me to beg me to give up
more money. I have none left. For two years I had
peace. I was like a little girl, free and unafraid on
the streets, for my husband was in prison. He stole
a pair of blankets from a foreign woman, and the
foreign man put him in prison. But what is a pair
of blankets to what he has stolen from me! All my
money which I was saving for the old age of my
mother, who has no son, all my peace and happiness.
The taste of bitterness, only bitterness, is in my


23o MY CHINESE DAYS
mouth for many days. And now I will pray the
foreign doctor to have my husband put in prison
again; only thus shall I have peace and security."
During this recital, the audience listened spell-
bound. A-doo fell back exhausted. "Miserable
one," murmured the crowd. A few old women
hovered around the bed with advice, but the rest of
the audience melted away. Baffled by the utter
foreignness of A-doo's proceeding, I stood at the foot
of the bed, not knowing what to say. A-doo began
to cry again, so I sent little Wang for a quieting dose
and led the last lingering gossips from the room.
"Why did you excite yourself so, A-doo?" I asked.
"I had to," she answered. "All those people
would have gone away wondering what was the
matter. They would have said terrible things about
me, about the hospital, about the foreign doctors.
I had to tell them. Besides, it is good Chinese
custom. In the villages, if a woman has a bitter-
ness past bearing alone, she goes to the scolding
place and cries out her trouble to all the world that
passes by. Then, after that, if her trouble is just,
the village folk all sympathize with her and do not
slander her. Truly it is a good custom. Already
my heart feels lighter. Do not worry. The
wretched man, my husband, is now thoroughly
scared by the fierceness of the foreign woman. He
will not come back for a long time. Also because
he thinks he has all my money, but he has not. See."
A-doo opened the sliding cover of her dressing
box which stood on the little table by the bedside.
She slipped back one shelf after the other and in the


THE SEEKING HAND 231
undermost, hidden under her hair ornaments, lay a
roll of bills. She took them out and counted them
over carefully. "Fifty," she said. "That will buy
my mother rice till she dies. I have been saving it
for many years."
The next day A-doo was worse. Her relapse was
a much more serious affair than the original attack,
and she rallied very slowly. One day I found a
country woman sitting at her bedside when I went in
in the morning. She was a little, shriveled woman
with wisps of gray hair pulled back from her face.
Her brown eyes were bright, and her shrunken
cheeks were ruddy with the marvelous health of
the aged country folk. She was neatly dressed in
faded blue cotton.
"My mother-in-law," said A-doo.
"I have come to take my dear daughter home,"
said the mother-in-law. "When a Chinese woman
gets sick, then it is time for her to go home and not
to eat the rice of strangers. We will start this after-
noon."
The woman's bright, beady eyes held me like a
snake's eyes. The simple assurance of her state-
ment aroused my antagonism. I stole a swift glance
at A-doo. She was looking at me with a painful
questioning. She did not want to go. Assured of
that, I knew what course to take. I told the old
hag firmly that I was the doctor of the house and
that everybody had to obey my orders. I told her
that A-doo was not well enough to go, and that I
would not permit her to go. This made no im-
pression on the old woman.


THE SEEKING HAND 233
I heaved a sigh of relief, for I felt we were out of the
woods. I had disposed of both the husband and
the mother-in-law. Beware! The foreigner who
thinks he has bested a Chinese mother-in-law!
A week went by uneventfully, A-doo improved
daily so that I let her get up and around. She ate
her rice with relish and asked for a piece of foreign
bread. She too seemed to have forgotten her
trouble and to be once more the serene and smiling
A-doo who had stood by me so manfully in the days
of my greenness. I wondered at her calmness. I
had not known her story in any detail, but I remem-
bered Doctor Donnellon saying that A-doo was not
a widow, as I had supposed, but a married woman,
and that her husband was a rascal. The knowledge
had gone out of my mind at once. Now, whenever
I saw her, I thought of it and of the sudden revela-
tion I had had of the hidden bitterness of her life.
That woman, with the distorted face and accusing
words, pouring forth her woes in a torrent to the
unknown listeners, seemed to me a stranger from the
capable, smiling A-doo of the operating room. I
wondered had she two personalities? Was this one
of the incomprehensible cases of dissociation of the
ego? Had she an ancient Chinese individuality
and a superimposed foreign-trained personality?
I only knew that to me, the two A-doos were
as distinct as two people. I was yet to meet
a third.
One morning after chapel Little Wang said to me,
"A-doo's mother has come. She wants her to come
home."


a34 MY CHINESE DAYS
"Her own mother?" I asked. "Not her mother-
in-law?"
"Yes, her own mother," Little Wang answered.
I found her sitting at the bedside of A-doo. She
was utterly different from the mother-in-law. She
was a large, placid woman with the kindly, benevo-
lent eyes and smile that one often sees in old Chinese
people. She wore hoops of blue enamel in her ears,
and her hair ornaments were of the same. Her
scanty black hair was brushed neatly and twisted in
a tight small roll at the back of her head. Yet her
face had not the force of the face of the mother-in-
law. In her I felt no sinister, malignant power.
"Do you want to go home?" I asked A-doo.
"You are well enough to go now if you want to. A
change and vacation would be good for you. But I
will not let you go, if you do not want to. You
must tell me truly. Do you want to go of your own
freewill?"
"Yes," said A-doo. "My mother wants me,
therefore I must go."
"Not unless you yourself want to go," I insisted.
"I myself wish to go," said A-doo.
Yet somehow her words did not satisfy me. She
repeated them too mechanically, as if they were
a response that had been learned generations
ago, as if they had neither root nor branch in her
own consciousness. Nor yet did she rebel. Her
mother had come for her, therefore she must go.
She was strangely passive. They were to leave in
the afternoon at the same time that the witchlike
mother-in-law had set, when the shadows grew long.


THE SEEKING HAND 235
All day the nurses were in a whirl, running about
getting things for A-doo, helping her pack up her
small square pigskin box, thrusting presents on her,
cooking her a specially savory meal at noon. San
Me, her best friend, sat in her room and talked.
Just before parting time, San Me came to me.
"All is not well," she said. "Since you sent away
the son and the mother-in-law, for one long month,
the mother-in-law has sat in the door of her house,
which is next the house of A-doo's mother, and has
reviled her and A-doo. All the village has heard the
words. She has said that A-doo is unfilial. She
has said that A-doo has sold herself in the big city.
She has said that, while her husband was in prison,
A-doo has had a child. All the village has stopped
to listen, the men and the women and the children.
They gossip about it around their gateways in the
cool of the evening. Many do not believe it, but
some do. The mother-in-law of A-doo is a wicked
woman, and the village fears her. When she was
young she cast fortunes. When she does not sit in
her gateway and talk to all the passers-by, she takes
out her magic scrolls and reads them and laughs and
mutters to herself. It is more than the mother can
bear any longer. So she has come for A-doo, to
take her home to confound the old witch."
"I will keep them both here," I said. "I will not
let A-doo go back to be tormented."
"It must be," said San Me. "She cannot stay.
She would lose face."
So I too acquiesced. I had raged and interfered
and endeavored to prevent the fulfilment of a


236 MY CHINESE DAYS
Chinese destiny, and I was baffled. It was useless.
The old witch had her way. A-doo was as if a spell
had been put upon her. She neither spoke nor
wailed nor objected. I went to her once again, but
she shook her head. "It must be," she said. "I
must go. It is my fate."
The whole hospital turned out to say good-by.
But it was not a hilarious leave-taking. Every one
was oppressed with the shadow of some disaster.
San Me went weeping to her room.
"We will never see her again," she said.
"Nonsense," I replied, but I felt a sinking of my
heart.
Weeks went by, and no sign came from A-doo.
She had promised to write to San Me, but no letter
came. At last San Me asked if she might not take
two days off and go up the creek to see A-doo,
spend one night with her, and come back the next
day. San Me was a widow and so could be allowed
more liberty than a young girl; moreover she was
an older woman. I let her go gladly, for I had grown
worried at the utter disappearance of A-doo. She
had vanished as completely as if some monster had
opened his jaws and swallowed her up. It had
been a terrible month for me. What with my long-
ing for Edward and my uncertainty as to his where-
abouts, a thousand doubts of his love had crept into
my heart to torment my days and nights. I knew
quite well what I wanted; I wanted Edward back
again. Then I was worried about A-doo. I
reproached myself with having let her go too easily.
So when San Me suggested that she go to see her I


238 MY CHINESE DAYS
I do not know. But the mother heard them. She
sat embroidering a slipper, and tears ran down her
cheeks. She has grown old and thin. Her skin
hangs on her cheek bones as if it were a loose bag.
She touched A-doo on the arm, and they went in.
The mother-in-law, as if she had somehow triumphed
in making them go in first, sat on reviling them
aloud. A group of little boys stood about her,
listening with eager eyes and open mouths. I
slipped into their house by the back door, and the
mother-in-law did not see me. It was terrible.
A-doo was in bed, she did not know me. The old
mother wept. 'She has been this way from the first
week,' she said. 'Her husband came back and took
away her money and beat her. He thinks she still
has more money, and sometimes he comes back and
beats her and beats her, but A-doo won't speak to
him. He thinks she is hiding more money, but I
have not seen it. I tell him he will kill her, and then
how will she ever work for him any more. I tell
him he is foolish, but he is filled with wind and will
not see sense. When he has beaten A-doo, then he
creeps through the mats to the house of his mother,
and I hear them talking and whispering till late in
the night.'
"I asked them both to come back in the boat with
me, but the old woman wouldn't. She said it was
fate. They would lose face if they ran away. In
the morning before I left, A-doo knew me. She
brought back her eyes from the clouds, and her soul
seemed to return to her for a minute. She cried,
and said she would like to come back to the hospital.


THE SEEKING HAND 241
It was true, he said, the foreigners were good
to his wife, but it was also true that she had con-
tracted this mortal sickness while working like a
servant in their hospital. He did not find it fitting
for his wife to work as a servant. He had heard the
nurses were forced to do the work of amahs. No,
it was not fitting for his wife. Moreover the new
doctor was fierce and had spoken very fiercely to him.
How did he know she would be good to his wife?
I was hot with rage and disappointment and
chagrin. I also accused myself of my former domineering manner. If I had only been soft-spoken!
Now he had me at his mercy. But Mr. Lok made
light of his argument. He painted my character
as a dove of peace, fierce only in the defense of
her children. On flowed his words, but now I had
ceased to listen. Instead I watched the face of the
thief. If he should not yield, I determined to see if
a prison might not again be found for him. I knew
there were crimes enough to commit him, for Wang
S Moo had just been telling me of the disappearance
of silver, piece by piece, in the house where he was
at service. I hated him; a personal spite filled me
with a startling, strong emotion. He was vile, and
he was balking me.
Our words were wasted like water thrown against
a wall. Mr. Lok and the thief, polite to the end,
talked on. The man had no idea of yielding, and I
wondered why he had come. I wondered if we
should have offered him money. Of course we could
not have done it, but still I wondered. Finally I got
up and left. I could not sit there and watch him


THE SEEKING HAND 243
would arrive after dark, San Me would lead me to
the home of A-doo, I would persuade one or both of
them to come back with me, and we would creep
back to the boat at once. It was a very simple plan,
but my heart misgave me.
San Me busied herself in the cabin of the little
boat. The boatman swayed back and forth with
his oar. Out from the tangle of houses we slipped,
out past the silk filatures of Chapei, past the village
of Zau Ka Doo, where the house boats were moored
along the shore, and the willows trailed their
branches in the brown water, past the compound of
the mission school and college at Jessfield, where the
foreign houses were half hidden among the tall palms
and cryptomeria of the campus, past the ferry
stones and the flat-bottomed ferry, out into fields.
It was already twilight. A lantern dangled at our
prow and our stern. The current swished around
the curves of the shore and beat against the side of
the boat in a gentle gurgle. Past us, like huge bats
with outspread wings, brown-sailed junks floated
down with the tide to Shanghai. A carriage with
two occupants galloped along the shore. A man
began to whistle merrily; the gay western tune
mocked the silent stealing river. At the customs
station, the custom boat was alight with lanterns,
and sounds of laughter floated out over the water.
Soon we were beyond the noises of gaiety. Gray-
brown, misty, the fields stretched away on either side
of us. We passed the abandoned shrine with its
ancient Buddha which we had passed the day
Edward proposed to me, passed it and went on


244 MY CHINESE DAYS
farther and farther into the country. Through the
mist of the fields, here and there, rose a hedge of
bamboo and cypress like an Indian stockade, sur-
rounding a group of clannish homes. A dog would
bark suddenly and as suddenly fall silent. In about
two hours, lights appeared along the edge of the creek.
"The village of A-doo," said San Me. "We will
go to the steps behind her house, where her mother
washes the rice, and moor the boat. Alas, that the
house of the mother-in-law is next door! It will be
necessary to be very quiet. If she is sitting out in
front reviling, perhaps she will not hear us."
Like phantoms we glided over the water and
moored at the foot of the ancient stones. I waited
while San Me went in to reconnoiter. With her
shoes in her hand, she tiptoed up the stone steps
and vanished through an open door. I stood on
the lowest step and waited. No sound of voices
filled the evening. The village seemed to have gone
to sleep. We were later than I had calculated. A
spice of danger tingled through me. We had come
like thieves in the night. A bird called suddenly
from a tree and I trembled. Then San Me came
back, followed by the old mother, and we crouched
on the boat and talked in whispers.
She refused to slip away now. She said A-doo
would not come in the dark. She said that if they
slipped away now, in the dark, they would lose their
home and could never come back again. She was
afraid. Then she invited us to spend the night
with her and make an open visit. She said it would
give her face in the eyes of the village.


252 MY CHINESE DAYS
his foot. He stopped and tilted down the shafts.
As I slid forward, half standing, my eyes fastened
upon that shutter. I met a pair of eyes. Suddenly
I raised my hand and beckoned to that hidden
watcher. The coolie, fatally deft and quick, tied
his ankle-strap and rushed off at double quick after
my two guides. I turned to look back, but the
shutter was still closed.
The usual crowd of rickshas and wheelbarrows
was gone, as we sped down the smooth, asphalted
street at a marathon speed. At the jetty a little
tilting rowboat was waiting for us. Its yellow eyes
were bulging on each side of the prow, and the stern
tilted up in the air like the poop of an ancient
galley.
"I thought you had a big junk for me," I said,
hesitating.
"This is a big junk," they said.
I got in. Perhaps it was just as well that we had
no sail. I saw one house boat with a tall brown sail
go tearing past like a runaway boat, the men on her
sitting on the gunwale, grinning. They seemed to
like it. Along the shore a host of craft were moored
— rafts, junks, house boats, steam launches, and
foreign white-painted, white-sailed cat-boats. The
plane trees on the bund and in the garden made a
noise like violin strings, as their leaves whipped
back and forth and up and down in the wind. On
the water the waves leaped up in white spray,
hiding the brown stream. Our futile cockleshell
danced up and down. Half the time the oar was
out of water.


254 MY CHINESE DAYS
ride brought us to a neat house of plaster and
thatch, standing in a grove of young bamboo.
They bent over, touching their frond-like tips in a
deep kowtow to the ground. Out here, on the edge
of the plains, the wind met us with augmented
force, sweeping up from out an inferno of torrid
heat. My skin was parched and dry. I wiped my
face off with my handkerchief. The linen was
covered with a fine dry gritty sand. Around the
house the chickens and dogs had found shelter within
the courtyard.
The old mother was in a pitiable condition. While
the men were gone, her daughter and her daughter-
in-law had managed to get her to bed. They had
slipped a shutter under her, and so had lifted her
from the ground and carried her up to her room,
Her leg was horribly twisted. She had been lean-
ing on the railing of the second-story balcony when
it had suddenly given away and she had fallen head-
long on to the flagging of the courtyard.
"The sleeping medicine," she moaned.
I gave her some whiffs of chloroform and set her
leg. I also attended to five or six bruises upon her
body. It took me in all about an hour, and in
that time darkness had descended over the land.
In the blackness without, neither sun nor moon
nor stars were visible. In the house they lit
a few candles which were continually going out
in a sudden draft.
I went to the door and stood a moment before
starting back, looking out over the fields and listen-
ing to the roar of the wind. As I stood tilted for-


THE RIVER OF SILENCE 259
the bedding on the cots, dragging in sheets and
blankets and mattresses. My hair was loose and
lying like a wet shawl on my shoulders. The chairs
and the table blew over with a loud reverberation.
The loosened blind flapped distractingly. The whole
house groaned and shook with the might of the
wind. Wet and shivering, like rescued swimmers,
we stood in fearful groups at the windows, fascinated
by the endless rush and whistle of the hurricane.
Two more blinds tore loose. One was carried off
bodily into the darkness, the other was torn in bits,
and pieces of shredded bamboo like the scattered
fragments of a shredded wheat biscuit were whirled
hither and thither into the night. The sound of
the flapping curtain distracted me. I put on a rain
coat, tied up my hair, opened the door on to the
porch, and went out.
"Be careful," called Miss Laurie.
She was too late.
The bamboo shade, in its swoop from ceiling to
floor, hit me on the head and knocked me to the
floor, half dazed. In one gust the rain had soaked
me to the skin. My coat was torn off me, and sailed
away into the raging space. The released blind
tore to and fro over my head, hitting the ceiling
with a terrific bang and swinging down to the floor,
just grazing my head. Half of its length was gone.
Momently it disintegrated. The outlines of the
Chinese houses close behind were lost. The black-
ness was as impenetrable and formless as if I had
been on the deck of the solitary surviving ship on
the ocean. I struggled to my knees. Like a living


a6o MY CHINESE DAYS
creature, filled with venom, and destruction, the
wind bore me to the floor again. Crash! Crash!
The night reverberated with sound. With a brisk
cannonade, the Chinese tiled roofs fell in. On my
hands and knees I crawled back to the French
window. Miss Laurie opened it a crack and pulled
me in. In that moment the wind also tore in and
blew over the chairs and tables. The glass splin-
tered into fragments and the wind rushed through
the house. We managed to shut the wooden shut-
ters. The servants came creeping in from the back
quarters, frightened to death.
That night passed like an eternity. The others
went to bed. I sat crouching at my one remaining
window, not that I could see anything at all, but
because I was fascinated by the force of the storm.
I sat on a cushion on the floor and pressed my face
against the windowpane. Again and again came the
crash of falling roofs. Once, a piercing scream shot
up into the night. It came right after the thunder
of a falling roof, and a sudden shiver ran down my
spine. Some one was hurt. The noise of wind
was like a mighty trumpet, as it screamed and
shrieked and bellowed through the black darkness
of the night. It drowned the sound of the rain,
which fell in torrents as from a waterspout. At
last the darkness was tinged with a desolate gray.
I saw the pillars of the porch rise into view before
my eyes, and across the garden, the dim peaked
roofs of the Chinese houses appeared like outlines
in the clouds. The rain was driven over the earth
in spouts of water, and the wind never ceased its


THE RIVER OP SILENCE 261
howling and rushing. I had a sudden vision of the
power lying hidden in the veriest white fluff of cloud,
power against which houses and bricks and mortar
were as thistledown. I had a quick, mad desire
to rush out and stand on the railing of the porch
and spread my arms to the wind like wings and be
carried off. In the gray darkness of the dawn I
would be carried off, over the roofs of the city, out
over the pathless plains, over the plains, over the
rivers, up and up, to the hills! So swept the wind!
Up from the hot south of Formosa, over the China
Sea, bursting in rushing sound and falling water
on the banks of the Yangtse! I felt part of it. I no
longer wanted to be housed and protected. I wanted
to cast loose from the cramping safety and merge
myself with the typhoon.
Morning came with utter desolation. Every tree
on the compound was uprooted and lay at full
length on the grass. The third-story tuberculosis
ward was a wreck. The Venetian blinds were
wrenched from the window frames, tearing off long
strips of wood. The tables and chairs were splin-
tered. The patients had crept down in the night,
dragging their mattresses after them, and slept on
the floor in the ward below. There the ceiling had
leaked, and great pools of muddy water covered
the floor of the second-story ward. Out-patients,
with heads cut by falling bricks, crowded to the
clinic.
Edward came with news of the devastation in
the settlement. Along the bund all the hundred-
year planes were uprooted, carrying great slabs of


262 MY CHINESE DAYS
cement into the air. The entire house-boat popu-
lation had been swept out of existence. The Whang-
poo, the Soochow Creek, and all the little tributary
canals were empty and bare of craft. Wires were
down, and the settlement was without light and
telephone.
The air was full of tingling life. The clouds were
gathered up and folded away like the folds of a
closed camera. The sun shone forth with a dazzling
brightness. Every one laughed and sang. The
coolies and amahs were busy clearing up the debris
of the night. The usual routine of the hospital
was demoralized. The regular clinic patients stayed
at home, and by afternoon all the cut heads seemed
to be bound up.
"Come, let's go for a walk," said Edward.
Off we went, through the settlement, out along
the Jessfield Road.
We came to the house of the Wistaria Tower.
It is a great, red-brick house standing in spacious
grounds with a thick hedge of shrubbery along the
outer wall. At one corner, a three-story, square,
red-brick tower overlooks the road. Ancient wis-
taria vines, both white and purple, climb to the top
of the tower. In the early spring the fragrance of
the blossoms floats out over the land in an enticing
smell. The fullest blossoms grow about the tower.
"Do you know the story of that house?" I asked
Edward.
"No," he said. "Has it got a story? Never
mind. I don't want to hear any story but how you
managed to get along without me for so long."


264 MY CHINESE DAYS
about silver taels. But she was happy neverthe-
less, for she had her baby. Then one summer the
baby died. For a week the husband forgot about
his money and was tender to his wife, but he soon
forgot all about her again. Day by day, she used
to sit in her room and pretend the baby was just
out for a walk with his amah and would come bound-
ing in to her in a few moments. Her friends and
her servants whispered among each other, saying
she would go mad from grief. One of them spoke
to her husband, and he sent for a doctor. Now
this doctor was a young man, just out from England.
He felt sorry for the wife and, by and by, he and the
wife became good friends. There was no wicked-
ness or sinfulness in their friendship. It merely
brought warmth and happiness to their two empty
hearts.
"One night, at dinner, the wife noticed that her
husband eyed her strangely. After that he would
come home at unexpected moments, or suddenly
appear in the shrubbery if he heard the voices of
his wife and the doctor talking. At first the wife
rejoiced, because she thought her husband wanted
to be friends again. But it was not so; he was
devoured by a fiendish jealousy.
"Little by little it killed him. He left the
strangest will. His wife was to be allowed only
the income from his estate until she took his body
home and buried it in a certain cemetery in England.
When that had been done, she was to be given the
principal. This principal was a huge sum of thou-
sands and thousands of pounds. By this devise,


268 MY CHINESE DAYS
thud made the inert brown log roll over. A sicken-
ing horror gripped us. Something white and life-
like stared up at us from the water. A swirl of the
current caught the object. It flung an arm out on
the water, and quite distinctly I saw a hand appear
and vanish before the current rolled it back again.
Once more it lay floating like a log, drifting up a
little way and down a little way with the lazy current.
I looked at Edward and saw the same knowledge
in his eyes. I sent the children off home, for I did
not want them to see the ghastly, drowned face turn
again to the light. We walked along the shore to
the ancient ferry above and got the ferryman to
pole us downstream to the drowned man. Very
slowly he was drifting down towards the ocean.
The ferryman was scared and refused to touch the
body. When we found ourselves alongside it, it
was floating on its face, with arms and legs sinking
downwards, leaving its khaki-clad body like a log
on the surface. We drew it to the shore.
"A rebel soldier!" cried the ferryman in fear.
"Do not touch him. Put him back again into the
water. It is not good to touch the drowned dead."
"We'll bury the corpse," said Edward. "We
can't let him go floating up and down the stream,
to frighten the children out of their wits."
The dead rebel soldier lay on the grass with his
white, shrunken face upturned to the sunset skies.
Overhead the crows flew by, one by one, in twos and
threes, back to their roosts in the shelter of the settle-
ment for the night. The wide, level plains stretched
off in the distance to the faint irregular rim of the


27o MY CHINESE DAYS
I picked it up and held it in my hand. It was a
wonderful jade ring. The stone was oval, of a deep
spinach color and translucent. A light of its own
burned within. The characters "Long Life and
Happiness" were carved on each side of the stone.
Like the imprisoned wonder and magic and hope
of the greenness of spring, it lay in my hand and
gathered to itself all the lingering light in the sky.
"He was an up-country man," said Edward.
"Probably from Nanking. Can't you just see him
looting, cutting off the women's earrings, and
grabbing their bracelets and rings? In the three
days' loot of Nanking, he revelled. All the hard and
fast restraints of civilized life were cast to the winds.
He could enter where he chose; he could take what
he chose; he could do what he chose. Here is an-
other gash on his forehead, under his shock of hair.
He fought like a demon, and laughed when the women
jumped down the wells at his approach. He stuffed
his pockets full of loot and drank and was riotously
happy. Then the tide turned; the rebels were
ousted. Fearful of losing his loot, or of being caught
with it on his body, he slunk away from the army
and set out for home. Somehow he reached Soochow.
There he entered a wine shop. The wine was hot
and strong. The men around him ate and joked.
He began his fatal boasting. He pulled earrings
and bracelets from his belt pocket and spread them
before the greedy eyes of the coolies. Soon they
were fighting, swaying around and around the eating
tables in a hilarious drunken mob. The rebel
soldier was pinned against the wall. Behind him,


THE RIVER OF SILENCE 271
a window yawned over the canal. A long, gleam-
ing dagger reached out and lunged itself into his
heart. The sudden warm gush of blood staggered
his enemies. They drew back with terror staring
in their eyes. In a panic they ebbed away from their
victim. Steadied by the wall behind him, undis-
torted with pain, and strangely aloof, as are those that
die from hemorrhage, the rebel stared at the crouch-
ing, cowed mob. I can fancy him making one last
defiant gesture, waving the marvelous ring in their
faces, before plunging backward into the slow,
silent, sluggish creek. The men, too frightened to
follow him, slunk away one by one to their homes.
Through the winding black canals, in the cold black
night, the body floated till morning saw it out in
the open fields. Unconcerned, it floated down-
stream, drifting with the eddying current, past the
lighted house boats, past the brown-sailed junks,
past the staring, stone Buddhas, past the low stone
steps where the women washed their morning rice,
floating like a log, as dead men float out to sea.
Only the children, shying their smooth, round stones,
stopped its seaward destiny. Through such wild
bloody scenes, from such a high-born home the
magic ring has come to you."
Edward stood up and put the ring on my fourth
finger. I slipped my hand within my waist and drew
out the pendant of jade that the Mandarin's Bride
had given me, and I remembered the words: "There
is no adventure without love. Love is the great
Adventure."


UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 01285 2557

J
DO NOT REMOVE
OR
ITILATE CARD



w
5■ H