Part 2

"Furs are luxuries, and it cannot be said in apology for the wrongs done in obtaining them that they are essential to human life. Skins and dead birds are not half so beautiful as flowers, or ribbons, or velvets, or mohair. They are popular because they are barbaric. They appeal to the vulgarians. Our ideas of art, like our impulses, and like human psychology generally, are still largely in the savage state of evolution. No one but a vulgarian would attempt to adorn herself by putting the dead bodies of birds on her head, or muffling her shoulders in grinning weasels, and dangling mink-tails. Indeed, to one who sees things as they are, in the full light of adult understanding, a woman rigged out in such cemeterial appurtenances is repulsive. She is a concourse of unnecessary funerals; she is about as fascinating, about as choice and ingenious in her decorations, as she would be, embellished with a necklace of human scalps. She should excite pity and contempt. She is a pathetic example of a being trying to add to her charms by high crimes and misdemeanours, and succeeding only in advertising her indifference to feeling.

"Of all the accessories gathered from every quarter of the earth to garnish human vanity, furs are the most expensive; for in no way does man show such complete indifference to the feelings of his victims as he does in the fur trade.

"The most of the skins used for furs are obtained by catching their owners in traps, and death in such cases comes usually at the close of hours, or even days, of the most intense suffering and terror. The principal device used by professional trappers is the steel-trap, the most villanous instrument of arrest that was ever invented by the human mind. It is not an uncommon thing for the savage jaws of this monstrous instrument to bite off the leg of their would-be captive at a single stroke. If the leg is not completely amputated by the snap of the terrible steel, it is likely to be so deeply cut as to encourage the animal to gnaw or twist it off. This latter is the common road to escape of many animals. Trappers say that on an average one animal in every five caught has only three legs."

"We'd never do it in China--_never_!" I cried, throwing the leaflet from me. "It is only this horrid, civilised America that could be so terribly cruel! I shall never wear my furs--_never_! I shall beg grandmother--she seems to be the only civilised being I know that has any heart--to allow me to go without them!"

I looked again at my leaflet, which I had picked from the floor, and continued to read the words of the author:

"I would rather be an insect--a bee or a butterfly--and float in dim dreams among the wild flowers of summer than be a man and feel the wrongs of this wretched world."

I rose from my chair and thrust my headed and tailed ermine scarf and muff into a box, and pushed them far back on the closet shelf.

"Stay there! Stay there!" I cried. "The Yellow Pearl will have nothing to do with civilisation!"

"Yellow Pearl," I said to myself, accusingly, half an hour later, "_you_ know that they have fur in China, that the rich wear fur-lined garments." "Yes," I replied to that accusing _I_, "the rich wear fur-lined garments, but they procure the fur from animals that have to be killed for food, or for man's self-preservation. They are not caught in the cruel steely traps of America. Linings, mind you, _linings_," I reiterated, "to keep them warm, not the heads, tails, paws, claws, eyes, teeth of the little animals to bedizen their persons."

_March 9th, 1----_

The result of all the pinching, puckering, fitting, which I underwent at the establishment of the Parisienne modiste is that I am walking around arrayed in taffeta silk, and squeezed out of all my natural shape by the steel waist. My sleeves are made so that my shoulders appear very much nearer my ears than nature intended them to be. My hair is done up in a quarter hundred--more or less--little puffs, and a quarter hundred hairpins are scratching my scalp. I have had to lay aside my nice soft shoes, and pretty Chinese slippers, and am gyrating around in tight shoes, with a French heel somewhere about the middle of the sole. I almost fell downstairs the first day I wore them; and when I wanted to take them off my Aunt Gwendolin was indignant.

"You'll learn to walk in them soon," she said; "you are in a civilised country now, and must do as the people do here. You cannot pad around without heels any more."

I look ugly, and I feel cross. I have reached the land of bondage! Oh, for my beautiful China silks, thick, soft, lustrous, and loose enough to be comfortable--which have been bundled up and put in a large cedar chest in the attic. Oh, for my own country, my heathen China, with its dress thousands of years old in fashion! What frights some of the women in this stuck-up country look--in their tight waists, showing their figures! That may be pretty enough--if really modest, which my country denies--when they are young, slender, lithe; but fancy a great stout woman in a "shirt waist," as they call it, with a belt defining her girth, and perhaps a tight skirt making her look positively vulgar. Ugh!

Grandmother has had me in her room; indeed, she took me in a couple of days after my arrival, and locking the door to keep out all intruders, she talked long and solemnly to me. She was shocked when she learned that I had scarcely heard of Christ, and that I had never read the Bible.

"My dear child," she cried, "what was your father thinking about? Why did he so neglect your religious education?"

"He always said that he was going to bring me over to you, grandmother, to teach me religion," I replied. "I know all about Confucius and Buddha, my nurses used to talk about them; but they never mentioned Christ."

The result of this conversation is, that grandmother has me go into her room for a half-hour every day to study the Bible. We began at the first chapter of Genesis, and already we have got as far as Abraham.

Between times I am reading the Chinese books in my own room upstairs, and I learn from one of them that more than a century before the birth of Abraham, China had two great and good men; fully as good as Abraham I should think,--Yao and Shun--who framed laws that govern the nation to-day. Why did not Yao and Shun get a "_call_" as Abraham did? I think they deserved one fully as well.

After we get through our study of Genesis and Abraham, grandmother usually has a little talk about that great and beautiful man, Christ; telling me how kind and gentle he was, and how he always considered the good of others rather than his own good.

"The Princely Man!" I cried the first time she mentioned him.

She wanted to know what I meant, and I told her that my nurses had told me about China's ideal and model, the "Princely Man," and I thought the Christ must be _he_.

"More, much more than Confucius, the Princely Man," returned my grandmother. "It is my sincere hope, my dear granddaughter, that your mind may become illumined as you proceed with your study, until you understand the vast difference between the Princely Man and Christ."

"There is a pretty legend about Christ," she added, "which says that as He walked the earth sweet flowers grew in the path behind Him. The legend is true in a spiritual sense--wherever His steps have pressed the earth all these centuries, flowers have sprung up, flowers of love, kindness, gentleness, thoughtfulness." Then grandmother began to sing softly, in the sweetest old trembly soprano voice one ever heard, asking me to join her:

"Let every kindred, every tribe On this terrestrial ball, To Him all majesty ascribe, And crown Him Lord of all."

_March 10th, 1----_

We went to church this morning, it being Sunday--Aunt Gwendolin, Uncle Theodore, and I. Grandmother was indisposed and did not go. It was my first attendance at church, for Aunt Gwendolin said I had nothing fit to wear until she dressed me up.

"Are _you_ going, Theodore?" I heard my aunt, through the opening in the floor, say in a surprised tone, as if she were not accustomed to seeing him go.

"I think I'll go this morning," returned my uncle, continuing to brush his coat, which act had prompted my aunt's question. "I want to see how our fashionable way of worshipping God will impress the little Celestial. It will be her first attendance at church."

Aunt Gwendolin came up to my room and selected the gown I was to wear, in fact my whole outfit. She took from the wardrobe a white French cloth costume (it was very much in harmony with my feelings that I should appear in America's church for the first time in the colour which China uses for mourning), and one of the beehive hats with several birds on it.

"Oh, I can't wear that if anybody is going to see me," I cried when she brought out the hat.

"Well, if you are going to make a scene," said my aunt curtly, "wear _this_," and she brought from its bandbox a "sailor" covered with white drooping ostrich feathers. "You'll look sweet in that," she added; "and when you get more used to civilised head-gear you can wear the others."

"Do we go to church to look sweet?" I inquired.

"Oh, dear, no," she answered impatiently, "but there is nothing gained in being a fright--were there no Christians in your country to hold meetings?"

Without waiting for my reply, she dived into the closet and brought out my fur tippet, but I begged so hard not to wear it, that she said as the day was mild I need not.

I'll have to see grandmother and have it disposed of before another churchgoing time.

Aunt Gwendolin herself was beautifully dressed in a light blue-gray; at a glance she looked like a passing cloud dropped down from the sky, but a closer inspection revealed a mystery of shirrings, tuckings, smockings, frillings never seen in a cloud. In reply to my questions she had told me the name of all the strange puckerings. I'd like the cloud-gown better without the puckerings.

"What do we go to church for?" I asked as we were being whirled along in the automobile, which was controlled by a very good-looking young man whom they called "Chauffeur."

"Why--Why--What a heathen you are! To worship God, of course," said my aunt shortly.

"Does God require us to wear such fashionable clothes to worship Him?" I asked, feeling wearied with the effort of dressing--collars, belts, buckles, pins, gloves, corsets, shoes, hats, buttonings, and lacings.

Uncle Theodore laughed, and Aunt Gwendolin frowned, and looked carefully round to see whether her white taffeta petticoat was touching the ground--we were by this time at the church and walking from the automobile to the church door.

Following Aunt Gwendolin's lead, we were soon in a front seat.

We were there but a few moments when a number of young men and women, dressed in black robes, with white ties under their chins, came in through some back door behind the gallery where they afterwards stood, and began to sing.

"Lead me to the Li-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ight," sang one young woman, all in a tremble.

"Lead me to the Li-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ight," sang a man in a heavy voice.

Then the woman screeched in as high notes as her voice could reach, I am sure, and the man ran away down to a growl.

After the whole company had repeated "Lead me to the Light," they began to sing against each other, all in a jumble; they seemed to finish the song in some foreign language. I did not know a word of it. I suppose as it was for the worship of God it did not matter whether any one else understood it or not.

After the singing was done, a man--the minister they call him--Uncle Theodore has since told me--stood up before the people and read a verse from the Bible--one of the verses I have not got to yet in my reading with grandmother. Then he began to talk about the hardships of poor missionaries out in what he called "the unchristianised West of our own country," and the _awful_ need of the natives. It was "missionary Sunday;" a bulletin lying in the seat acquainted us with the fact, and the music and the sermon were to be of a missionary character.

The minister told a story about a young man who had gone out as a missionary to the Indians, who was living in a shack, twelve by fourteen, cooking his own meals, and eating and sleeping in the one room. He had not salary enough to pay his board.

When the minister had talked half an hour, and had us all wrought up about the woes of the missionary, and the needs of the heathen, he closed his sermon. And we leaned back in our seats and were lulled into forgetfulness of the grievous story, by low-toned, dreamy, soothing music, from the echo organ. Aunt Gwendolin has told me since that the organ cost seventy thousand dollars.

Christians are most extraordinary people; they rouse one all up to the pitch of being willing to do most anything by a heart-rending address, and then scatter all the impression by their music. When the organist had finished, I wasn't the least worried about the ills of the missionary or the Indians. Indeed all the people looked relieved, as if a burden had been lifted from them.

When we were again in the automobile Aunt Gwendolin said: "Didn't the church look well this morning? It has been undergoing some repairs, and three thousand dollars' worth of cathedral oak has been added to the wainscoting."

"That would pay the board of the young missionary among the Indians for a long time," I said.

"Hush!" said Aunt Gwendolin impatiently, "do not talk foolishness!"

Perhaps Uncle Theodore thought she shut me up too peremptorily, for he said: "Paying that young man's board out in the West would never be noticed or talked about, my dear; other denominations would pay no attention to it, while this cathedral oak wainscoting--Oh my! Oh my! will excite the admiration and jealousy of the whole city."

"I _love_ beautiful churches," returned my Aunt Gwendolin poutingly. "I shall take Pearl around to see St. George's, where the altar cost five thousand dollars. It will be an education to the girl. A man gave it in memory of his wife, which was a very beautiful thing to do."

"Pooh!" exclaimed my uncle, "why didn't he do something for some poor wretches who need it, in memory of his wife?"

While they had been talking I was looking at the curious, high-crowned, black, shiny hats (a stove-pipe, Uncle Theodore has since told me they ought to be called) which the men all were wearing. They seem to be as essential in America as the queue is in China.

In the afternoon grandmother invited me into her private room to have a quiet talk with her, she said.

"Everything is very new to you, my dear Margaret--Pearl I believe your father called you--in this country, and you must come to me with all your troubling problems. I feel for you, my dear grandchild, and do not fear to say anything, _anything_ at all you feel like saying to me."

She took my small yellow hands in hers, and looked at me lovingly, saying as she gently chafed them that they were very pretty and plump.

There _were_ things puzzling me, had puzzled me that very day, and I felt inclined to place them before my kind granny.

"What are Christians, grandmother?" I asked.

"My dear child," said my grandmother, "the word simply means the followers of Christ."

"Oh, it cannot mean _that_!" I cried, then stopped, abashed.

Grandmother raised her glasses from her eyes, placed them on her forehead, and stared at me in a puzzled way for a few seconds, then she said:

"My dear Pearl, why do you say that?"

She was looking at me and I must answer, although fearing that I had hurt her feelings in some way by my abrupt contradiction.

"You said that the man, Christ, was very kind and gentle, and that He always thought of the good of others before His own," I continued. "Would _He_ pay thousands upon thousands for a grand church, in which to sit and be happy, and feel rich; and thousands upon thousands for a great organ to play sweet music and make Him forget the world's sorrows, while His brothers were too poor to pay for their board----?"

"No, he would _not_!" said grandmother, tears welling into her blue eyes.

Jumping from my seat I threw my arms around her neck and kissed her wrinkled, quivering face, saying, "_You_ are a follower of the Princely Man--of the good man, Christ, _you_ are, grandmother----"

A peremptory rap at the door stopped further conversation, and when I opened it, a lady was ushered in to see grandmother.

I was introduced to Mrs. Paton, of whom I had before heard my grandmother speak as "a great Christian worker," and whom I heard my Aunt Gwendolin denounce as a "tiresome crank, spoiling every one's comfort." I looked very earnestly at the lady, trying to fit her into the two definitions.

Mrs. Paton began almost at once to talk about the "temperance movement," and the "evils of intoxicating liquors," and "the selfishness of the onlooking world, who were not the real sufferers."

She left after the expiration of half an hour, and grandmother said to me: "You would not understand Mrs. Paton's remarks, my dear. You will have to be longer in the country before you know what is meant by the 'evils of intoxicating liquors.' Did you ever really see a drunken man?"

"No, grandmother," I said, "I never even _heard_ of one. _Drunk!_--what does it mean?"

"Oh," said grandmother, "something that as a country we have reason to be terribly ashamed of--men drinking intoxicating liquors until they lose their senses----"

Another rap interrupted grandmother, and we were called out to tea. The only really delightful thing they do in this America is to drink tea, just the same as we do in China.

I see how it is; they have a new Confucius in this America, but they do not live the new Confucius--none but my dear grandmother.

_March 12th, 1----_

It is settled--but not without a fight--I do not have to wear the furs with heads and tails, and all the rest. To please my grandmother, who was so afraid I might catch cold, I submitted to accepting a plain set, a set which dear grandmother had selected herself. Aunt Gwendolin was furious, and fought hard that I should be compelled to wear the first set, but grandmother overruled. I see the mother can be the head of the house in America when she chooses.

It was the kittens that decided grandmother. One day she and I were out for a short walk, and we met a girl with two little kittens around her hat--not real live kittens, but the skins of two little gray and white kittens stuffed with cotton batting, and with glass eyes, arranged as if meeting and sparring around the crown of that girl's hat. "It is barbaric," said grandmother. "There are two kinds of heathen. There are the heathen who are born such, and there are the heathen by choice. And if we look about us we must acknowledge we have a great multitude of them at home." It almost made grandmother sick, and she decided at once that I could get the furs changed. "I never seem to have awakened to the enormity of it before," said poor grandmother with a sigh. How glad I am that the mother can be the head of the house in America when she chooses!

A young man whom we all call Cousin Ned, because he is a distant relative of the family, comes here to grandmother's house very often. He talks incessantly about "first base," "second base," and "third base," "innings," and "runs," "pitchers," and "short-stop," "outfield," and "infield," "right-fielder," "centre-fielder," and "left-fielder," "scores," and "catchers." It is all Greek to grandmother and me, but we can get him to talk about nothing else. I asked Uncle Theodore the first time I saw this cousin of ours, what he was doing--his home is many miles away, and he is boarding in the city.

"He is here ostensibly to attend the University," said Uncle Theodore, "but Ned is a great sport."

As Uncle Theodore was walking away he sang lightly:

"If fame you're on the lookout for and seek it over all The words you must engrave upon your mind are these: Play Ball!"

This was rather unusual, for Uncle Theodore rarely sings, and I am sure I do not know what he meant by it.

By reason of the relationship, Cousin Ned feels free to come to the house without ceremony at all hours of the day. Most of the time he is wearing a "sweater," with a large letter on the breast.

_March 30th, 1----_

Aunt Gwendolin decided, soon after I came, that I must begin at once to take lessons in Spanish. The teachers are now visiting the house daily, one to teach me the Spanish language, and the other to instruct me how to sing Spanish songs. Senor de Bobadilla has just been here, and I have been screeching away for half an hour in a small room where my aunt has had a piano placed specially for my use. She says she is not going to "bring me out"--that means introduce me to society, grandmother says; that was one of the puzzling questions I carried to her--until I can sing Spanish songs. I see through it all, because of the conversation I heard through the floor opening; she thinks by that means to convince her society friends that I am Spanish instead of Chinese. How very funny!

There was a small dinner-party at this house the other evening, but of course I could not be at the table. I have not "come out." Grandmother argued for my appearing, but Aunt Gwendolin was firm to the contrary, and she won. Ancestors are not much regarded in America.

My aunt gave me permission, however, to look in on the guests when they were seated at the table. She had a large mirror fastened to the door, and by leaving it open at a particular angle I could watch--myself unseen behind a curtain--the ceremony of dining as practised in America.

Mercy! those women with bare arms and bare shoulders sitting there before the men! How could they help blushing for themselves! I just gave one glance at them, then ran away and hid my face!

Having the evening to myself, I went up to my room and enjoyed myself reading my Chinese books. My aunt said that I was to stay at the curtained door, and learn the ways of society by watching the manners of the guests at dinner; but I saw all I wanted to see in one glance. I'd like to carry all those women little shawls to put around their bare shoulders. Mrs. Delancy's was the barest of them all, but I have heard my aunt talk since about how "elegantly gowned Mrs. Delancy was."

A strange thing happened up in my room; I opened one of my books just at the page where it tells about the Chinese ambassadors, on the occasion of their visits to Christian countries, noticing with grave disapproval the decollete costumes of the women at the state functions. What wonder!--if they looked anything like the women at my aunt's dinner party!

Senor de Bobadilla says that I am making remarkable progress with my Spanish songs; he tells grandmother in a half-whisper, as if fearing to let me hear him, that I am very bright and intelligent; he congratulated her on having such a prodigy for a grandchild. Oh, cunning Senor de Bobadilla, you want to continue my lessons indefinitely. I am learning to quiver and shake, and trill, run up the scale, and down the scale, jump from a note away down low to a note away up high. I'll soon be able to sing "Lead me to the Light," as well as the church choir.

The professor looks very Spanish in brown velvet coat, red necktie, shoes shining like a looking-glass, a moustache waxed into long points on each side of his top lip, and hair hanging in a curling brown mat down to his shoulders. Seated at the piano, his thin yellow fingers sprawl over the white and black ivory keys, while in response to my efforts he keeps ejaculating, "Goot! Goot! _Excellent! Superb!_"