Chapter 3

"And he lived in a palace, and the stairs of the palace were golden amber, and the windows were of crystal, and all the knives and forks were made of pearl and silver.

"And they told little Wang High-Sky that there were countries beyond the water, also.

"And the little Wang High-Sky said, 'Let me go and see. There may be something I can learn in other lands. There may be queer people there--if so, I would never laugh at them. Let me go and see how they live!'

"And they put him on board a dragon boat, with lanterns of silver and pearls, and with sails of silk, and carried him to the great hotel on the water, that had come from other lands, which was called a ship. For there truly were people beyond the water.

"And little Wang High-Sky was a very bright boy. He had a diamond in his brain. So he found a place to live in an awfully good family, and in the family was a little girl named Lucy.

"And he worked and worked and worked until he could do all things like the good family.

"And one day he thought he would go home to his palace with stairs of golden amber and windows of crystal.

"And Lucy thought she would like to see the people in little Wang's country.

"And Lucy's father and mother said they would take her to the country of little Wang when he went back.

"And she went to little Wang's country, and she found the trees there a hundred miles high, and the fishes two hundred miles long, and horses winged with gold as if just about to fly, and they staid and kept house in Wang High-Sky's palace two thousand years.

"And she and her father and mother and brother were very joyful when they all came back.

"And in their own country they found that every one had become rich and happy, and that people flew about like birds, and that the sun shone in the night. And!" she added, "isn't that a Jataka story?"

Lucy's mother seemed much pleased, also astonished; but Sky-High said nothing for some time.

"Do you think me a wang?" asked he, at last.

"I wish you were--oh, how Charlie and I would dance about if you were! I think the everyday boys in China cannot be like you. And I do not think you ironed clothes in China. I wish you _were_ a king's son!"

"And what if I were?"

"Oh--I don't know," laughed little Lucy. "Don't we treat you as well as if you were? Ladies and gentlemen treat ladies and gentlemen like wangs in America. Don't we, mother?"

"I trust so. I trust our little Sky-High has found it so," answered Lucy's mother.

"So would Sky-High treat you were you to come to his home," said the little Chinaman.

"But you have no home, Sky-High," broke in Charlie. "You said you lived with a mandarin!"

The little Chinaman, who had a beautiful fan in his hand, for it was a hot night, made his mistress and her children a bow of indescribable grace, and went to his own quarters.

X.

SKY-HIGH'S EASTER SUNDAY.

The little Chinaman seemed to make no very great task of learning "the art of the American home." His small deft olive hand was more or less upon everything, from cellar to attic.

"_I_ think our house-boy knew how to keep a house beautiful, mother, before he came to our country," said Lucy one day.

"Well, perhaps he _was_ a wang," said her mother, "and _did_ live in a palace!"

"Doesn't Mr. Consul Bradley know about him, mother?"

"Consul Bradley says Sky-High's father is a good man, and that Sky-High is a good boy with a bright mind. Of course, Lucy, there are nice Chinese people and nice Chinese homes."

Certainly the little house-boy was wonderfully energetic. He was able to save every Thursday for himself, and always went into Boston on that day and, as Mrs. Van Buren learned, visited the consular office.

One day Mrs. Van Buren asked, "What do you do all day in town, Sky-High?"

"I see Boston, mistress."

"And what is it you see?"

"The American stores, mistress, and the American little Kinder-schools, and the American great college-schools, and the American railcar shops, and the American hotels, and the American markets, and the Americans, mistress."

"And who goes with you on these visits, Sky-High?"

An attack of blinking seized little Sky-High. "The consul, he goes."

Mrs. Van Buren drove into town next day. While there she made a call upon the Chinese consular agent. Lucy was with her. Consul Bradley appeared to have little fresh information to give.

"The boy's father is a good man," he said. "Like the wise fathers everywhere he craves knowledge for his son. I promised him Sky-High should see something of Boston, and I do for him all I can."

"Mother," said Lucy on the way home, "we might be nicer to Sky-High. Listen!"

Her mother listened to Lucy's plan, and gave permission.

When Lucy got home she said to Sky-High, "We want you to go to church with us; and Charlie and I want you to go with us to our Sunday school. There are Chinese Sunday schools in Boston, but we wish you to be in ours."

"I will have to wear my queue, and my flowing clothes, Lucy," said the boy.

"But, Sky-High, you can braid your braid close, and wind it around your head, and put on your black tunic, and you shall sit in our pew. Besides, anyway, it would be proper for a person of China to wear his braid down his back after the custom of his country."

"You speak as kindly as would the daughter of a wang!" said Sky-High, with his beautiful bow of ceremony.

On Sunday the little Chinaman dressed his hair becomingly and put on black clothes, with white ruffles. He sat in the Van Buren pew, beside Charlie. He listened to the organ like one entranced. It was Easter Day, and the house was full of the odor of lilies. The text for the service was these words of Jesus: "_If any man keep my sayings he shall never see death._"

The "Joss preacher," as he called the minister, came and spoke to him, and invited him to go into the Sunday-school room.

In the evening he made Chinese tea, and served it in the library, and afterward sat with the family.

Suddenly he said, "Mistress, what were the 'sayings' of Jesus? Sky-High wishes to live on forever."

Mrs. Van Buren read the Beatitudes.

"And what is the heaven, mistress?"

"Sky-High," said Mrs. Van Buren, very earnestly, to her little servant, "I scarcely know how to tell you what heaven is, only that we surely have a part in its building here by our Loving and our Helping here. You know how dear it is to be with those you love, you know how pleasant it is to meet again those you have helped. That is the law of the soul. God loves and helps us, and will rejoice in having us abide with him, and that will make us happy; and all whom we have made better and happier here will help make our heaven for us. Heaven is the gladness of Loving and Helping as nearly as I know."

"That heaven--it is beautiful, mistress," said little Sky-High. In his own country, it had been pleasant music to hear the "prayer-wheels" go round in the temples, whirling the paper prayers fastened upon them, but the pleasure he felt at this moment was different.

"I will help many, mistress," he said. "Perhaps Sky-High will help the boys that pull his queue on the street when he goes errands to the stores. Sky-High will go with his mistress and her children other Sundays, if he may. Goodnight, mistress!"

So ended the Easter Sunday of the little Chinaman.

XI.

SKY-HIGH'S FIREWORKS.

One June evening, in the balcony, when Sky-High inquired about American holidays, Mrs. Van Buren related to him the story of Washington and of the American Independence. She enlivened her narratives by Weems's story of the boy Washington and the hatchet.

"He never told a lie?" asked Sky-High. "Was that so wonderful? Confucius, he tell no lies; Sky-High, he tell no lies."

Mrs. Van Buren described to him Independence Day, and how it was celebrated. Sky-High asked many questions, and began to look forward to the celebration.

On the morning of the Fourth the sun came up red, and glimmered on the cool sea and dewy trees. To Sky-High the air seemed to blossom with flags; the far State House dome rose like an orb of gold above the bunting that floated over the great forest of Boston Common.

Cannon rent the morning silence, and everywhere there were crackers bursting. Even the milkmen fired them as they went on their early way.

Sky-High danced about. "You have Cracker Day! It is all same as China!" he said.

Some of the Milton boys who had many bunches of fire-crackers, good-naturedly thought they would startle little Washee-washee-wang at his work. So they stole around a corner of the garden, where he was busy in his neat little cabin, and "lit" a whole bunch and threw it over the fence, at a point where all would "go off" right at his door, then threw after it two cannon crackers, whose fuses burned slowly.

When the small crackers began to explode Sky-High, to whom the noise was like music, came and stood in the door and danced with delight.

Irish Norah heard the rattling explosions in the garden, and ran out.

"China! China!" shouted Sky-High. "Red crackers make the bad spirits fly! The garden all free from evil spirits all day."

Just then both of the cannon crackers in the grass "went off," with a deafening bang. Norah jumped, and put her fat hands to her ears. But little Sky-High clapped his after the American fashion. His delight in the racket and in the smell of the gunpowder was so intense, that Charlie forebore to go out on the street, but staid in and fired his immense supply in front of the cabin.

In the evening there were fireworks everywhere, small and great. The children and Sky-High went up to a turret overlooking the sea. The sky over the towns around Boston blazed.

"I will show you something fine," suddenly said Sky-High, after he had gazed for some time.

He went down and unlocked his great chest. He spoke to Mrs. Van Buren's friends on the verandah as he came back. "Sky-High, he is going to fire a star! Look this side!"

He called to all as he "fired the star." The company saw a dark, swift object ascending. It was soon lost to sight, and then appeared a wonder--a new star high in the heavens, that burned a long time with a steady flame and grew. How beautiful it was! At last it began to descend. When near the earth it burst into a hundred stars of seven colors. In all Boston there was no firework as wonderful as Sky-High's.

The day after he began to inquire about the next American holiday.

Mrs. Van Buren told him about Thanksgiving Day. Then she told him of Christmas, and how the Christmas festival was kept. She related the story of the birth of the Christ Child, and of the Bethlehem star, of the singing angels in the sky, of the Magi, and the manger; of the presents of gold and myrrh and nard. She told him how that now all people of "good will" made presents to each other like the magi to the Christ Child.

"So will Sky-High make you presents on the Christ Child day, then, he has good will. You have treated him as though he were no servant but a prince."

Charlie and Lucy told him of the Christmas-tree, and the plays under the misletoe. Their mother ordered misletoe from Florida every year, for Christmas decorations, from a plantation which their father owned near Tampa, a plantation of grape-fruit groves. She had a mistle-thrush among her caged birds, that always sang very sweetly when she hung it under the newly-gathered waxy misletoe.

From that time on, the little Chinaman dreamed of Christmas. One day he said to Mrs. Van Buren, "You will surely let Sky-High come up-stairs on the night of the Christmas-tree?"

"Yes, yes, you shall come up-stairs with us, and you shall hear the Christmas thrush sing under the misletoe."

Sky-High's heart fluttered, not at what he hoped to see, but at the thought of the presents that he hoped to make.

Shortly before Christmas Mrs. Van Buren went to her little servant to pay him his wages, for he had accepted no payment as yet.

"Keep it all for me," he said, as usual; "I will ask for it when I need it."

Mrs. Van Buren was very much surprised. "Young people in this country," said she, "think they need a little money before Christmas day to buy presents."

"Sky-High needs none. He will make you presents on the Christ Child day. He has them now in his chest."

Mrs. Van Buren could not but wonder what the presents would be. Everything that Sky-High did had a surprise in it. All things that came out of the chest were of an astonishing character.

"And I will serve you the tea that you have not yet tasted," added the little servant. "On the Christ Child night I will make in the cup the tea that came from the eyelashes of the Dharma. And afterwards I will tell you the story of the Dharma."

Again, a day or two before the holiday of Good Will, Sky-High's mistress asked him to take his wages.

"Keep it for me, mistress," said the boy as before. "Sky-High, he works for the good of his people."

Mrs. Van Buren stood pondering the words. What meant the little Washee-washee-wang?

"Mistress," said the boy, busy folding the glossy napkins on the ironing table, "the master plans to make a voyage around the world with his family."

"Yes, Sky-High," said Mrs. Van Buren, "that the children may see the world before they begin to study about it."

"And you will come to my country, mistress?"

"Yes; we hope to visit at least Hong Kong and Canton, Shanghai and Pekin."

"You will wish to see the home of Sky-High, mistress."

"Yes, we would like to see you in your own country."

"When will the master go?"

"Next year, probably."

"Sky-High will go home next year. Will you let him go with you, mistress? He will serve you on the ships, and in China he will make your visit pleasant. He will interpret for you, and show you about, and introduce you about."

Mrs. Van Buren was too kind to let her astonishment be seen by her little serving-man. She said that possibly it might be so arranged.

As she went up-stairs she heard Nora exclaiming to herself in the pantry. "And he says he'll inthroduce the misthress about, and the misthress is narely as quare!"

After supper Mrs. Van Buren related to her husband the singular interview she had had with their little Chinaman. Sky-High's kind offers seemed to amuse him for a long time. "But as for the little fellow's wages," said he, "don't bother. I'll step in to the consul's, and deposit them with Bradley."

When Sky-High found that he was serving to amuse his mistress's household, he turned silent. He worked, asking few questions, and listened to even the children without answering them.

This disturbed Charlie and Lucy.

"See here, Sky-High, can't you take a joke?" demanded Charlie.

"Sky-High no joke with the mistress. Sky-High no make a lie!" said the patient Chinaman; "Sky-High, his heart is hurt."

XII.

A CHINESE SANTA CLAUS.

The day before Christmas Lucy came to her mother with a request. "Just one thing, mother! And it isn't more presents--the Good Will tree hangs full!"

"Well, then, what is it, Lucy?" asked Mrs. Van Buren.

Little Lucy laughed. "A Chinese Santa Claus, mother! Think what a Santa Claus Sky-High would make in his flowing robes of black, yellow, and white all sprinkled over with silver and gold! Nearly all the gifts are Chinese, you know--all but ours for him. Just remember how he looked last summer on Sunday afternoons when the birds flew down to admire him!"

Yes, the birds seemed to have felt a curiosity about the little Chinaman when he went out into the garden with the children after Sunday luncheon; for sometimes, on that day, he used to put on garments so splendid that he did not like to show himself above stairs or on the street, and the birds came out of the trees to take a peep at him. One of these garments was a frock of silk covered with golden dragons, lotus-flowers, and gilded fringes; and with it he wore a golden butterfly with jeweled wings on his rimless cap.

Even Mr. Van Buren had wondered where a servant obtained such a glittering robe! One day he described the wardrobe of his house-boy to the consul. "Is everything all right?" he asked.

The consul laughed. "You don't know China!" he said. "Probably the old Manchurian mandarin had a fancy for decking out the boy!"

Nora's eyes used to double in size when she saw him in silk and gold and silver, with the jeweled butterfly waving above his narrow black eyes. "There's not the loikes on this planet," she would say. "I would think he'd stepped off a star and landed here! Queen Victory never looked the aqual of that little hathen varmit!"

It was agreed that Sky-High should be made the Santa Claus of the Christmas party. He promised to appear in his dragon robe, though he said it was never worn in public excepting on vice-royal occasions.

"Sky-High, did you ever see a vice-royal occasion?" asked Lucy, wondering what the double word meant.

"Yea, my little Lady of the Lotus," answered the house-boy. "And once I was present on a royal occasion in Pekin. The Son of Heaven appeared that day in all his splendor."

"You waited on your mandarin?" asked Lucy.

"I attended upon my mandarin--yes?" Little Sky-High burst forth into the forbidden "flowery language." "It was in the Purple City. Barbarians cannot understand; but in our court, in the Inner City, in the ancient Purple City, we associate with the Sun and Moon and the Dragon that swallows the Sun. The Sacred Lotus is our flower, and at the feast the heavens are made to shine on us!"

Lucy's face shone too, just to hear the words of the mysterious little "Washee-washee-wang,"--in fact she had been radiant ever since she had first thought of making a Santa Claus of him. She wondered how he would look to her mother's friends on Christ Child night, wearing his "celestial" robes.

The children were to have their own tree on Christmas eve, at the church among the evergreens and music, and Sky-High was to accompany them in his black clothes and white ruffles. The Christmas night tree was always at home, for Mrs. Van Buren and her friends.

Little Lucy was to lead the Christmas night jollities, and only the Santa Claus himself knew what would follow the wave of the long Chinese wand which she carried.

The guests gathered early--half a dozen ladies--for it was to be a story-telling evening.

Promptly at the moment when Lucy waved for him, little Sky-High came into the parlors fanning slowly with his great ceremonial fan, as if entering some languid pagoda garden of his native land. Every guest leaned forward to gaze at the gorgeous stranger. His silk stockings were white, over black shoes with silver buckles and whitened soles. His robe sparkled gaily with the dragon and lotus, and the butterfly on his gold-banded cap shook its jeweled wings with every step. He wore a sash of gems which the family had not seen before. He moved before the company like a figure of sunshine.

Little Lucy had come to his side. "I have the great felicity," she began--she had got the fine word from Sky-High--"to have a celestial Santa Claus, a wang from China, to serve you the gifts from the Good Will tree."

The glittering wang bowed to the four corners of the earth, then to all, turning round and round in dazzling circles.

No, Mrs. Van Buren's Christmas guests had never seen a Santa Claus like this one! All eyes were wide with pleased wonder.

"Isn't he perfectly splendid?" whispered Lucy, tripping over to the wife of the rector.

"He is indeed, dear," said the rector's wife; and added low to her neighbor, "Is it not their wonderful house-boy?"

No one was certain. And no one, excepting Lucy and the Santa Claus, knew what were the gifts on the Good Will tree. Lucy and little Sky-High had bought them in Boston. All those for the guests were blue-and-white mandarin plates, wrapped in squares of gay silk crape, and tied with a profusion of soft gold cord. As the packages were alike, the celestial Santa Claus could present them without mistakes.

But there were some packages in red-and-gold crape still on the tree, not large ones--not magic plates, certainly.

The Santa Claus unwrapped the three which he next took from the green branches. The presents were amulets. When unfolded they revealed bells and gems; the bells looked like gold; the gems like pure pearls, opals, and crystals. One was a necklace for Mrs. Van Buren; one a bracelet for Lucy; and the other a charm for Charles.

The amulets awakened a great surprise. The little golden bells burned with the red lusters of rubies, and tinkled as though they were dream-bells.

"They keep evil spirits away," said Sky-High, with sparkling eyes. "They ring warnings."

Mrs. Van Buren rose and put one of the other packages in little Sky-High's hand. The wrappings revealed a four-fold case of gold, which some curious mechanism permitted to open into leaves, and stand us a tablet, or half-closed. Each leaf held a small and perfect portrait--the four were of the little serving-man's mistress and her children and the master; and it is impossible to describe the blissful expression in Sky-High's eyes when he first looked upon the familiar faces.

And there was still another package. That one the little Chinaman had put on the Good Will tree for Nora.

It was an English gold sovereign in a case tied with red ribbon.

"And may the Angel of Mercy spread her white wings over that hathen boy's pigtail!" said Nora, as she was given the gift. "I wish I had something for him. I will give him kind words now, and sure!"

XIII.

A LEGEND OF TEA.

At a wave of little Lucy's wand the shining, golden Santa Claus floated away as he came. When he next appeared--and it seemed but a moment or two after--he bore a salver that was gorgeous to see. Upon it, sending up clouds of steam, was a wonderfully beautiful pitcher that his mistress never before had seen, encircled by some exquisite small black cups, inlaid and encrusted heavily with gold, each with a perforated cover.

"Sky-High presents to his mistress, the Moon Lady of the Christ Child Night," the little fellow said in his best flowery English, "and to her friends, the Stars of the Midnight, the mandarin tea in the mandarin cups of his country--they will please to be accepted from the Santa Claus."

From the pitcher he poured the bubbling water in the mandarin cups, when an exquisite fragrance filled the rooms, as of apple-blossoms.

While the guests sipped the priceless tea from the priceless cups, at the request of his mistress the little Chinaman related a Buddhist legend.

THE DHARMA'S EYELASHES.

More than four hundred and a thousand years ago, O Madame my Mistress, the great Dharma came to China to teach the people. He ate only fruits, and he slept but little; he gave his time almost entirely to meditation.

The Dharma ate less and less, and slept less and less, and all things were beginning to appear clear to him within, when a drowsiness came over him, and it increased day by day.

One day his eyelashes became too heavy for his eyes; they hung like little weights on his eyes, and he fell asleep.

He awoke after a long time. The inner light had gone. He felt that he had committed a great sin.

"It is you, my little eyelashes," he said, "that weighed me down, and I will punish you. I will cut you off."

Then the great Dharma cut off the little black eyelashes, and strewed them upon the ground. As he did so he had the inward light again.

He meditated. As he did so the little eyelashes on the ground turned into wee shrubs, and began to grow.

They were tea.

The Dharma ate the tea. The shrub filled his heart with joy and gladness. So tea came into the world. Drink it--it will fill your heart with joy and gladness.

The Rector's wife gave the Santa Claus a seat by her side that he might share with the company the pleasure of the Good Will story his mistress was next to relate; and little Lucy, too, and Charlie came and sat near-by, for they loved their mother's stories, and could always understand them.

XIV.

MRS. VAN BUREN'S CHRISTMAS TALE.