Part 6

I am back again at grandmother's for the holidays. Grandmother and Uncle Theodore seemed so glad to see me that I am beginning to feel quite as if this were home. Yick and Betty are still here, Chauffeur Graham still manipulates the automobile.

Mrs. Delancy gave a "little Christmas dance," as she calls it, last night, and the description has come out in the morning paper:

"The home of Mrs. Delancy was transformed into a bower of flowers, ferns and softly shaded lights, on the night of her Christmas dance. The hall and staircase were decorated with Southern smilax entwined with white flowers, and the dressing-rooms with mauve orchids; while in the drawing-room the mantelpiece was banked with Richmond roses and maidenhair ferns, and that in the dining room with lily-of-the-valley and single daffodils. Passing through the dining room, where an orchestra was stationed behind a screen of bamboo, twined with flowers, the guests entered the Japanese tea pavilion, which had been erected for the occasion. The entrance was formed of bamboo trellis work covered with Southern smilax, flowers, and innumerable tiny electric lights. The walls were covered with fluted yellow silk, and from the ceiling depended dozens of baskets filled with flowers interspersed with Japanese lanterns and parasols. Huge bouquets of chrysanthemums were fastened against the wall. The table was exquisitely decorated with enormous baskets of flowers; in the centre was one with large mauve orchids over which was tilted a large pink Japanese umbrella, trimmed with violets, while from each basket sprang bamboo wands suspended from which were Japanese lanterns filled with lily-of-the-valley and violets, the whole forming the most beautiful scheme of decoration seen this season."

How tired I am writing it all! I wonder if any one felt tired looking at it.

Then followed a description of the ladies' gowns:

"The ladies were simply stunning in their smartest gowns, Mrs. Delancy queening it in an exquisite apple-green satin, with pearls and diamonds; Miss Morgan (which means my respected aunt), whose sparkling blonde beauty always charms her friends, in maize chiffon, through which sparkled a gold-sequined bodice and underskirt, and Mrs. Deforest, dark and graceful, in a rich white satin gown. Mrs. Austin looked extremely handsome in a most becoming orchid gown, with ribbon of the same shade twisted in her dark hair."

There was a lot more of the same, but my hand refuses to write it. One would think it was a number of half-grown children the newspaper reporter was trying to please by saying nice things about them. Strange that in this America nothing is ever said about what the women _say_ or _do_ at those social functions; nothing seems worth noticing about them but the kind of clothes they have on. The men do not count for anything at all.

I wonder was Professor Ballington there. I wonder did he look at any one with that smile away back in his eyes which was there when he looked at me the time I sang my _one_ Spanish song.

_December 21st, 1----_

Yick has given us a new diversion. Aunt Gwendolin gave him orders to make a _particularly_ nice layer-cake for an afternoon "tea."

Yick is quite proud of his cakes, and this day he wished to outdo anything he had previously done, so he made a layer cake, icing it with red and white trimmings. He delights to get a new recipe, or find some new way of decoration. The daily paper, which always in the end finds its way into the kitchen, had evidently attracted his attention. He saw in the advertisement pages a round box with an inscription on top. Taking the box for a cake, he decorated his culinary effort in imitation of the picture. Aunt Gwendolin never saw it until it was carried in to the table, before all the finest ladies of the city, and this was what they all read, in three rows of red letters across the white icing:

Dodd's Kidney Pills

Who says my people are not clever and original?

_Dec. 23d, 1----_

It is drawing near the festive season in this remarkable land, and there is a great bustle everywhere. Some people are concerned about providing luxuries for themselves, and some are concerned about providing for those poorer than themselves.

Mrs. Delancy came in all fagged out from her arduous work of shopping.

"I have just been treating myself to a few little Christmas presents," she gasped, as she carried a great, fat, pug dog and deposited him on grandmother's best white satin sofa pillow. She called the dog many endearing names, such as "darling," "little baby boy," "sweet one," and "tootsy-wootsy."

Dogs are thought as much of as babies in America; those are the very same terms of endearment that the women address to their babies.

"I had to leave this little darling in a restaurant to be fed and cared for while I did my shopping," she explained. "He _would_ come with me, the pet."

She then informed Aunt Gwendolin that she had been to the milliner's and ordered five hats, and had just completed the purchase of a three thousand dollar jacket at the furrier's.

The dog on the pillow whined in the midst of her recital, and she stopped long enough to go over and give him a kiss.

She was still enlarging on the beauty of the fur coat, when the housemaid tapped on the door, and ushered Mrs. Paton into the sitting-room.

"I heard that you ladies were here," she said, "and I thought you might like to have the privilege of helping a little in those charities," and she began to unfold some papers which she held in her hand.

"Oh, my dear Mrs. Paton, do not ask me to-day, _really_," exclaimed Mrs. Delancy, holding up her hands. "I am among the poor myself to-day, and you know charity begins at home. I really haven't a cent to give to any one else. I'm stony broke, as the boys say. I have laid out so much money to-day for necessities!"

Mrs. Paton then turned to my aunt and said, "Gwendolin, _do_ give something out of the thousands you are expending on self-indulgence to help those who have not the necessities of life!"

Taking the paper into her hand with an ungracious air, my aunt wrote down a certain amount, and then passed it back.

"Dear me!" sighed Mrs. Delancy, as soon as Mrs. Paton had left the place, "how tired I get of those people with their solicitations for some Y. M. C. A., or Y. W. C. A., or something else _eternally_. They'd keep a person poor if one paid any heed to them, _really_! Some one starving or unclothed every time! It does annoy me so to hear harrowing tales!"

_January 1st, 1----_

Last night there was a sound of revelry in this great land. At the solemn hour of midnight, when the old year was dying, and the new year was just being born, one class of people in this American city rushed out into the open streets, cheering, blowing horns, ringing bells, and making all possible noises on all sorts of musical instruments. Another class celebrated the birth of the new year by eating an elaborate meal. This is what appeared in the morning paper regarding the latter:

"One million dollars was spent last night in this city celebrating the birth of another year. More than twenty-five thousand persons engaged tables at from three to ten dollars a plate in the leading hotels and cafes."

How fond of eating Americans are!

This is the first time I have seen the birth of a new year in any but my native land, and my mind goes back to the celebration on a similar occasion in China. It is a solemn event there. For weeks the people are preparing for it; houses are cleaned, and debts are paid, for a Chinaman, if he has any self-respect, will be sure to pay his debts before the new year.

I told this to Uncle Theodore a few days ago, and he said, "I wish that Americans would rise to that state of grace."

Nobody goes to bed that night, but all sit up waiting for the first hour of the new year, when the father of the home, his wife and children all worship before the spirit tablets of their ancestors, and then at the shrine of the household gods.

Then the door is opened, and the whole family with the servants go outside and bow down to a certain part of the heavens, and so worship heaven and earth, and receive the spirit of gladness and good fortune, which they say comes from that quarter.

At the same hour, when the old year is dying, China's Emperor, as High Priest of his people, goes in state to worship. Kneeling alone under the silent stars he renders homage to the Superior Powers. He on his imperial throne makes the third in the great Trinity, Heaven, Earth, and Man. Should there come a famine or pestilence, upon him rests the blame, and he must by sacrifice and prayer atone for the imperfections of which heaven has seen him guilty.

Oh, China! I would prefer kneeling with you under the silent stars on New Year's eve, to feasting at the groaning tables, or ringing the bells and blowing the horns of this great, civilised, noisy America!

_January 7th, 1----_

Oh, glorious! Grandmother says I need not go back to boarding school for the winter term; she says the family always go South during the cold weather, and she wants me to go with them. Wants me, think of it, _wants_ me. Isn't it nice to have somebody want one along with her! I believe grandmother really loves me. Aunt Gwendolin doesn't; she wanted me sent back to school. She said I would never be fit to be brought _out_ with that kind of carrying on. I love those that love me, but as for loving those that _hate_ me, as grandmother had been teaching me from the Bible, I haven't come to that yet.

That reminds me, I wish Aunt Gwendolin would stop snapping at Yick; I am afraid some day he will kill himself on the doorstep, so his ghost may haunt her the rest of her life. But I think he likes grandmother and the other members of the family sufficiently well to cause him to refrain from that act of Chinese revenge.

MEXICO, _February 1st, 1----_

A great migratory movement has taken place in our family--we are now in the warm, sunny country called Mexico.

Aunt Gwendolin was the cause of it. She said she was tired of going to Florida, that it was so _common_ to go there now, everybody was going there, that the latest thing was to winter in Mexico, and she thought we all ought to follow suit. She talked and argued so much about it that she persuaded grandmother and Uncle Theodore to her way of thinking, and after travelling hundreds of miles in Pullman and sleeper cars, here we are in this land of cactus fences, tortillas, great snakes, and parrots; this land where roses and strawberries grow all the year round; where in some parts are luscious tropical fruits, flowers, and palms.

Mrs. Delancy has come along with us, and Professor Ballington says he may join our party later. There are many Americans around us in the various towns--it is so fashionable at present to winter in Mexico.

Uncle Theodore takes me out for long walks with him in this land of perpetual summer, and we see many strange and interesting sights. The rich are so _very_ rich, and the poor are so _very_ poor. There is one drawback--we had to leave behind us our automobile. Of course we can hire one here, but we can not have our own lovely chauffeur, and grandmother says she is afraid to trust any of those Mexicans. I suppose our poor chauffeur is pegging away hard over his medical lore now, while I am lounging around doing nothing. The granddaughter of a millionairess, with money to get anything I want, and yet I am beginning to think there is nothing worth getting. It is lovely to be poor like the chauffeur and have to work hard for something. My life is so small and worthless that I am oppressed with it.

One of the sights that interest us the most when we are out in the country are the cactus hedges. There are great palisades of the organ-cactus lining the railways, and there are ragged, loose-jointed varieties used for corralling cattle. Great plantations of a species of cactus called maguey with stiff, prickly leaves a dull, bluish-green, are seen in abundance. From this plant the Mexicans get not only thread, pins, and needles, but pulque, the juice or sap of the plant, which they ferment and make into a national beverage. Pulque is used by the Mexicans as whisky is used by Americans, and opium by Chinamen.

Great fields of maize are cultivated, of which there are two or three crops a year. The food of the people is tortillas, made out of this maize mashed into a paste and baked into flat cakes.

I ate those tortillas when I first came, as a curiosity, a native production, but I am not going to eat any more. While Uncle Theodore and I were watching a woman making them, great drops of perspiration fell from her brow into the paste. She pounded away, poor tired creature, and paid no heed to the drops. Poor women of Mexico, they have to work so hard, preparing the paste, and making those little cakes to be eaten hot at every meal! But no more tortillas for me.

We visited the old churches which are beautifully decorated with veined marble and alabaster. Precious stones seem to grow in this remarkable land.

"Keep your eyes open, Pearl," said my uncle, "and you may pick up some opals, or amethysts. They grow in this country, and I have heard they can be had for the picking."

MEXICO, _February 12th, 1----_

I have made a discovery--I have found out America's Princely Man! It is Abraham Lincoln, and this is his Birthday!

Magazines have been coming down from the North telling us all about this Princely Man, and I have asked grandmother and Uncle Theodore hundreds of questions, it seems to me, about him. And I can see that they never get tired answering those questions, but seem as if they could talk about him forever.

Scarcely a political debate occurs, either in Congress or in the Press of the country, but the possible views or actual example of Abraham Lincoln are quoted as the strongest argument, Uncle Theodore says.

The magazines find it impossible to publish too much about him. Mention of his name in an incidental fashion from a stage or forum draws a burst of cheering; or if the reference is of a humorous nature the laughter is close to tears.

"With love and reverence his memory is cherished by the American people as is the memory of no other man," said dear grandmother. "Quoting a 'Decoration Day' orator," she added, "'He was called to go by the sorrowful way, bearing the awful burden of his people's woe, the cry of the uncomforted in his ears, the bitterness of their passion on his heart. Misunderstood, misjudged, he was the most solitary of men. He had to tread the wine-press alone, and of the people none went with him. But he turned not back. He never faltered. As one upheld, sustained by the Unseen Hand, he set his face steadfastly, undaunted, unafraid, until in Death's black minute he paid glad life's arrears: the slaves free! Himself immortal!'"

Yes, it is quite certain that Abraham Lincoln is America's Princely Man!

_I_ would like to make something happen in the world that would be talked about after I am dead. Grandmother says that it is only something that one does for the _good_ of the world that is remembered after he is dead. "If a man has money, people will lionize him as long as he is living for the sake of it," she says, "but money counts for nothing when a man is dead."

"Money!" said Uncle Theodore, who had been listening to our talk. "I doubt whether Abe ever owned enough to buy a farm."

_February 15th, 1----_

One comfort, I am not bothered much with Aunt Gwendolin--she has become acquainted with a French nobleman, Count de Pensier, and he is attracting all her attention, thanks be to goodness! Mrs. Delancy is delighted, and is doing all she can to further the acquaintance. "It is not every day that one has the privilege of associating daily and hourly with one of the _titled aristocracy_ of the old world," she has said several times in my hearing.

When we first arrived Aunt Gwendolin saw some of the Spanish ladies wearing mantillas on their heads, and she immediately bought one for me.

"There!" she said when I put it on, "isn't that simply perfect? Doesn't that make her Spanish through and through?" She says that when I become a thorough Spanish-American she is going to give a "coming out party" for me.

The scarf is really quite becoming. Uncle Theodore admired it, or admired me with it on, so I wear it wound around my head when I go on my rambles through the country with him. I really much prefer it to the bristling hats of the American women, and it is quite pleasant to be called "senorita," and to be thought Spanish.

These long head scarfs are also worn by the poor women, but theirs are made of cotton. On the street they carry their babies strapped to their backs with it, the little heads and legs bobbing up and down until one would think they might snap off. Sometimes the scarf ties the baby to the mother's bosom, thus leaving her hands free for other work.

"Our American sensibilities" (quoting Aunt Gwendolin) "are sometimes shocked by Mexican doings."

One day we saw a procession headed by the father carrying a tiny coffin on his head. Behind him walked the mother dragging by the hand a little bare-foot girl, of two or three; and behind them again trotted a dog. The father was drunk, and staggered as he walked.

As we watched the little procession on the way to the graveyard they passed in front of a saloon where they sold pulque. The father wanted another drink, so he started to enter the saloon taking the little coffin under his arm. He stumbled on the threshold, and the little pine box fell out of his hands down onto the flag-stones, the cover coming off. And we saw a little dead baby within the coffin, with a crown of gilt paper on its head, and a cross of gilt paper on its brow. In its little hands were a bunch of flowers. The man laughed awkwardly, put the lid on the coffin and placed it on his head again, proceeding toward the graveyard without his drink, followed by the mother, the girl, and the dog.

"Why do not the American missionaries who are crossing oceans to find heathen, look for them at their own doorstep?" said Uncle Theodore afterwards, when he was telling the story to grandmother.

"Sure enough," returned grandmother, "it does look as if the unenlightened of its own continent is America's first duty."

Aunt Gwendolin is having moonlight walks and talks innumerable with Count de Pensier--and--oh, I am having LIBERTY!

_February 21st, 1----_

We have had some unusual excitement lately--a bull and tiger fight. The day following, the description came out in a morning paper:

"A fight between a Tiagua bull and a Bengal tiger in the bull ring this afternoon was most ferocious, and will result in the death of both animals. The sickening spectacle was witnessed by 5,500 people, largely Americans, and many of them tourists, who stopped over here especially to witness the barbaric spectacle. After three bulls had been despatched in the regulation manner, the star performance was pulled off. The two animals, enclosed in an iron cage, about thirty feet square, were brought together, and the battle between the enraged brutes commenced. The bull was first taken into the enclosure and given the usual bull fight tortures to arouse his ire, and then the iron cage containing the tiger was wheeled up to the entrance; but the tiger refused to get out and open the battle, and the bull attempted to get into the small cage and get at his adversary. The bull was badly scratched about the face. Finally the tiger came from his cage, and the bull gored the cat with a long, sharp horn as he emerged. With a screech of pain, the cat, with a powerful lunge, broke the bull's right leg, and then the two animals went into the fight for their lives. The tiger was able to spring out of the way of the bull in a number of instances, but when the big, heavy animal caught his adversary it went hard with the tiger. The bull stepped upon the tiger in one instance and there was a crunching of ribs audible in the seats of the amphitheatre.

"The bull disabled the tiger in the back, and after that the fighting was tame, and the Americans cried for pity, while the Mexicans cheered and wanted the performance to continue."

Mrs. Delancy, and Aunt Gwendolin, along with Uncle Theodore and Count de Pensier, attended the fight. Grandmother would not go, and I stayed with her.

"A _Christian lady_ going to a bull fight," I said to grandmother under my breath.

"Yes, my dear," returned grandmother looking really pale, "it shocks me quite as much as _you_. It was not so when I was young. American women of the present day must see everything. It is deplorable!"

When the scene was the most harrowing, and the Americans were calling for the fight to be stopped, Aunt Gwendolin, and I believe several other American women, fainted, and had to be carried out.

"Dear me, dear me," said grandmother again, when she heard the harrowing details. "That is just the way with Americans of the present day; they must see everything. It was not so when I was young."

Who should walk into our presence at that very moment but Professor Ballington. He had heard grandmother's remark, without knowing the cause for her words, and as he was shaking hands with us he said:

"You believe the poet Watson diagnosed Uncle Sam's case when he said:

"'But when Fate Was at thy making, and endowed thy soul With many gifts and costly, she forgot To mix with those a genius for repose; And therefore a sting is ever in thy blood, And in thy marrow a sublime unrest.'"

"It was not so when I was young," said grandmother. "How can we lay the shortcoming at the door of Fate?"

"Chinese women would never attend a bull and tiger fight, grandmother," I whispered into her ear when the professor was looking the other way, "nor Chinese gentlemen."

"I hope not, my dear," is all the reply dear grandmother made.

Professor Ballington only stayed with us a day or two; he was just on a tour, he said, and had to cover a certain amount of space within a certain period of time. Grandmother and I were very desirous that he should remain longer; but I really believe Aunt Gwendolin felt relieved when he was gone. She did not appear to feel comfortable with his comprehending eyes upon her when she was entertaining Count de Pensier.

_February 28th, 1----_

The Count has proposed to my Aunt Gwendolin, and she has accepted him. Grandmother is in tears ever since, and Uncle Theodore is furious. I heard the latter talking to my grandmother--in his excitement he seemed to forget my presence--and he said:

"That Frenchman is just a fortune-hunter, one of those penniless, titled gentry that swarm in Europe. He wants Gwendolin's money to regild a tarnished title, and Gwendolin wants the title! He has found out from Arabella Delancy the size of Gwendolin's fortune, in possession and in prospective, and he has offered his title in exchange for it! That's the size of the whole affair!"

"That's what grieves me most," said grandmother, with quivering lips; "it is not holy matrimony."

"I look for a divorce within five years!" continued my uncle.

"I had always hoped that Gwendolin and Professor Ballington would make up some time," added grandmother.

"Oh, Gwendolin would never suit Ballington," returned Uncle Theodore. "Your granddaughter--the little Celestial--is the making of a woman much more to his taste--" He looked up suddenly, and seemed to remember for the first time that I was in the room.

I, sly, subtle Oriental that I am, worked away on my shadow embroidery and never by the wink of an eyelid, or the movement of a muscle showed that I heard a word.

_April 5th, 1----_