Part 17

Miss Harrison laid her hand upon the boy’s shoulder and spoke to him. It had not been very difficult for her to pick up a few Chinese phrases. Would he not like to come to her school and see some pretty pictures? Pat shook his ruddy curls and looked at Pan. Would Pan come too? Yes, Pan would. Pan’s memory was good, and so were lichis and shredded cocoanut candy.

Of course Pan was too young to go to school—a mere baby; but if Pat could not be got without Pan, why then Pan must come too. Lum Yook and his wife, upon being interviewed, were quite willing to have Pat learn English. The foster-father could speak a little of the language himself; but as he used it only when in business or when speaking to Americans, Pat had not benefited thereby. However, he was more eager than otherwise to have Pat learn “the speech of his ancestors,” and promised that he would encourage the little ones to practise “American” together when at home.

So Pat and Pan went to the Mission school, and for the first time in their lives suffered themselves to be divided, for Pat had to sit with the boys and tiny Pan had a little red chair near Miss Harrison, beside which were placed a number of baby toys. Pan was not supposed to learn, only to play.

But Pan did learn. In a year’s time, although her talk was more broken and babyish, she had a better English vocabulary than had Pat. Moreover, she could sing hymns and recite verses in a high, shrill voice; whereas Pat, though he tried hard enough, poor little fellow, was unable to memorize even a sentence. Naturally, Pat did not like school as well as did Pan, and it was only Miss Harrison’s persistent ambition for him that kept him there.

One day, when Pan was five and Pat was seven, the little girl, for the first time, came to school alone.

“Where is Pat?” asked the teacher.

“Pat, he is sick today,” replied Pan.

“Sick!” echoed Miss Harrison. “Well, that is too bad. Poor Pat! What is the matter with him?”

“A big dog bite him.”

That afternoon, the teacher, on her way to see the bitten Pat, beheld him up an alley busily engaged in keeping five tops spinning at one time, while several American boys stood around, loudly admiring the Chinese feat.

The next morning Pat received five strokes from a cane which Miss Harrison kept within her desk and used only on special occasions. These strokes made Pat’s right hand tingle smartly; but he received them with smiling grace.

Miss Harrison then turned to five year old Pan, who had watched the caning with tearful interest.

“Pan!” said the teacher, “you have been just as naughty as Pat, and you must be punished too.”

“I not stay away flom school!” protested Pan.

“No,”—severely—“you did not stay away from school; but you told me a dog had bitten Pat, and that was not true. Little girls must not say what is not true. Teacher does not like to slap Pan’s hands, but she must do it, so that Pan will remember that she must not say what is not true. Come here!”

Pan, hiding her face in her sleeve, sobbingly arose.

The teacher leaned forward and pulling down the uplifted arm, took the small hand in her own and slapped it. She was about to do this a second time when Pat bounded from his seat, pushed Pan aside, and shaking his little fist in the teacher’s face, dared her in a voice hoarse with passion:

“You hurt my Pan again! You hurt my Pan again!”

They were not always lovers—those two. It was aggravating to Pat, when the teacher finding he did not know his verse, would turn to Pan and say:

“Well, Pan, let us hear you.”

And Pan, who was the youngest child in school and unusually small for her years, would pharisaically clasp her tiny fingers and repeat word for word the verse desired to be heard.

“I hate you, Pan!” muttered Pat on one such occasion.

Happily Pan did not hear him. She was serenely singing:

“Yesu love me, t’is I know, For the Bible tell me so.”

But though a little seraph in the matter of singing hymns and repeating verses, Pan, for a small Chinese girl, was very mischievous. Indeed, she was the originator of most of the mischief which Pat carried out with such spirit. Nevertheless, when Pat got into trouble, Pan, though sympathetic, always had a lecture for him. “Too bad, too bad! Why not you be good like me?” admonished she one day when he was suffering “consequences.”

Pat looked down upon her with wrathful eyes.

“Why,” he asked, “is bad people always so good?”

III

The child of the white woman, who had been given a babe into the arms of the wife of Lum Yook, was regarded as their own by the Chinese jeweller and his wife, and they bestowed upon him equal love and care with the little daughter who came two years after him. If Mrs. Lum Yook showed any favoritism whatever, it was to Pat. He was the first she had cradled to her bosom; the first to gladden her heart with baby smiles and wiles; the first to call her Ah Ma; the first to love her. On his eighth birthday, she said to her husband: “The son of the white woman is the son of the white woman, and there are many tongues wagging because he lives under our roof. My heart is as heavy as the blackest heavens.”

“Peace, my woman,” answered the easy-going man. “Why should we trouble before trouble comes?”

When trouble did come it was met calmly and bravely. To the comfortably off American and wife who were to have the boy and “raise him as an American boy should be raised,” they yielded him without protest. But deep in their hearts was the sense of injustice and outraged love. If it had not been for their pity for the unfortunate white girl, their care and affection for her helpless offspring, there would have been no white boy for others to “raise.”

And Pat and Pan? “I will not leave my Pan! I will not leave my Pan!” shouted Pat.

“But you must!” sadly urged Lum Yook. “You are a white boy and Pan is Chinese.”

“I am Chinese too! I am Chinese too!” cried Pat.

“He Chinese! He Chinese!” pleaded Pan. Her little nose was swollen with crying; her little eyes red-rimmed.

But Pat was driven away.

* * * * *

Pat, his schoolbooks under his arm, was walking down the hill, whistling cheerily. His roving glance down a side street was suddenly arrested.

“Gee!” he exclaimed. “If that isn’t Pan! Pan, oh, Pan!” he shouted.

Pan turned. There was a shrill cry of delight, and Pan was clinging to Pat, crying: “Nice Pat! Good Pat!”

Then she pushed him away from her and scanned him from head to foot.

“Nice coat! Nice boot! How many dollars?” she queried.

Pat laughed good-humoredly. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Mother bought them.”

“Mother!” echoed Pan. She puckered her brows for a moment.

“You are grown big, Pat,” was her next remark.

“And you have grown little, Pan,” retorted Pat. It was a year since they had seen one another and Pan was much smaller than any of his girl schoolfellows.

“Do you like to go to the big school?” asked Pan, noticing the books.

“I don’t like it very much. But, say, Pan, I learn lots of things that you don’t know anything about.”

Pan eyed him wistfully. finally she said: “O Pat! A-Toy, she die.”

“A-Toy! Who is A-Toy?”

“The meow, Pat; the big gray meow! Pat, you have forgot to remember.”

Pat looked across A-Toy’s head and far away.

“Chinatown is very nice now,” assured Pan. “Hum Lock has two trays of brass beetles in his store and Ah Ma has many flowers!”

“I would like to see the brass beetles,” said Pat.

“And father’s new glass case?”

“Yes.”

“And Ah Ma’s flowers?”

“Yes.”

“Then come, Pat.”

“I can’t, Pan!”

“Oh!”

Again Pat was walking home from school, this time in company with some boys. Suddenly a glad little voice sounded in his ear. It was Pan’s.

“Ah, Pat!” cried she joyfully. “I find you! I find you!”

“Hear the China kid!” laughed one of the boys.

Then Pat turned upon Pan. “Get away from me,” he shouted. “Get away from me!”

And Pan did get away from him—just as fast as her little legs could carry her. But when she reached the foot of the hill, she looked up and shook her little head sorrowfully. “Poor Pat!” said she. “He Chinese no more; he Chinese no more!”

THE CROCODILE PAGODA

When the father of Chung and Choy returned from the big city where lived their uncle, he brought each of his little girls a present of a pretty, painted porcelain cup and saucer. Chung’s was of the blue of the sky after rain, and on the blue was painted a silver crane and a bird with a golden breast. Choy’s cup was of a milky pink transparency, upon which light bouquets of flowers appeared to have been thrown; it was so beautiful in sight, form, and color that there seemed nothing in it to be improved upon. Yet was Choy discontented and envied her sister, Chung, the cup of the blue of the sky after rain. Not that she vented her feelings in any unseemly noise or word. That was not Choy’s way. But for one long night and one long day after the pretty cups had been brought home, did Choy remain mute and still, refusing to eat her meals, or to move from the couch upon which she had thrown herself at sight of her sister’s cup. Choy was sulking.

On the evening of the long day, little Chung, seated on her stool by her mother’s side, asked her parent to tell her the story of the picture on the vase which her father had brought from the city for her mother. It was a charming little piece of china of a deep violet velvet color, fluted on top with gold like the pipes of an organ, and in the centre was a pagoda enamelled thereon in gold and silver. Chung knew that there must be a story about that pagoda, for she had overheard her father tell her mother that it was the famous Crocodile Pagoda.

“There are no crocodiles in the picture. Why is it called a crocodile pagoda?” asked Chung.

“Listen, my Jes’mine flower,” replied the mother. She raised her voice, for she wished Choy, her Orchid Flower, also to hear the story.

“Once upon a time, there was a big family of crocodiles that lived in a Rippling River by a beach whose sands were of gold. The young crocodiles had a merry life of it, and their father and mother were very good and kind to them. But one day, the young crocodiles wanted to climb a hill back of the beach of golden sand, and the parents, knowing that their children would perish if allowed to have their way, told them: ‘Nay, nay.’

“The young crocodiles thereupon scooped a large hole in the sand and lay down therein. For half a moon they lived there, without food or drink, and when their parents cried to them to come out and sport as before in the Rippling River, they paid no attention whatever, so sadly sulky their mood.

“One day there came along a number of powerful beings, who, when they saw the golden sands of the Rippling River, exclaimed: ‘How gloriously illuminating is this beach! Let us build a pagoda thereon.’ They saw the hole which the young crocodiles had made, but they could not see the hole-makers at the bottom thereof. So they set to work and filled the hole, and on top thereof they built a great pagoda. That is the pagoda of the picture on the vase.”

“And did the children crocodiles never get out?” asked Chung in a sad little voice.

“No, daughter,” replied the mother. “After the pagoda was on top of them they began to feel very hungry and frightened. It was so dark. They cried to their father and mother to bring them food and find them a way to the light; but the parent crocodiles, upon seeing the pagoda arise, swam far away. They knew that they never more should see their children. And from that day till now, the young crocodiles have remained in darkness under the pagoda, shut off forever from the light of the sun and the Rippling River.”

“Please, honorable mother,” spake a weak little voice, “may I have some tea in my pretty, pink porcelain cup?”

Transcriber’s Note

Several words appear with and without hyphenation, and are retained as printed: passersby/passers-by, everyday/every-day, singsong/sing-song, doorstep/door-step.

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.

3.11 comforted Mrs. Spring Fragrance[,] Added. 4.22 said Mr[.] Spring Fragrance Added. 36.6 but schoolgirls in comparison.[”] Added. 50.21 in a long yellow book[.] Added. 114.26 “Oh![”] I cried, Added. 119.28 ‘Let me pass, sir,[’] Added. 119.29 in that tone of voice.[’]” Removed. 146.29 think of no reply to Lin [W/F]o’s speech. Replaced. 152.21 At these word[s] the girl bent Added. 171.22 [“]She seems less every day,” Added. 172.12 “Then,[”] said the young fellow, Added. 174.21 The lawyer moved le[si/is]urely Transposed. 228.8 a little mouse sq[u]eaked it Inserted. 281.17 making worse my broken wing[?/.] Replaced. 284.15 answered the other birds.[”] Removed. 315.10 smile and sing whe[n]ever she had the baby Inserted. 328.28 She [was] interested Inserted.