“You think all right send money Salina Cruz, Mester?”
I did not think so, emphatically not. Prem Singh was in doubt. His
natural caution warned him against such a move. On the other hand his
affection for his brother, his instinctive generosity, his desire to
hasten in any way possible his brother’s approach to the land of promise,
urged him on. In the end he decided to wait for a more definite request.
It was not long in coming, arriving in the form of a telegram almost on
the heels of the letter. “Send seventy dollars, Kala Singh, care British
Consul, Salina Cruz, Mexico,” the message ran. Evidently this brother
was no fool.
Prem Singh immediately dispatched a hundred by registered mail, bemoaning
only the fact that the telegraph company would not transmit money to that
point.
Followed another period of waiting—anxious this time, for why should
there be so much delay?—and then the end.
It is no easy matter for Hindus to enter this country, though there is as
yet no definite Hindu exclusion act. The immigration laws already in
existence can be so construed, in accordance with the desires of a
certain rabid element of whites on the Pacific Coast, that it is almost
impossible for a turbaned citizen of Great Britain to enter the United
States. For the most part those that now drift into this country of ours
land in Canada or Mexico, and straggle across the international line,
running the gauntlet to escape detection.
This Kala Singh attempted. It was at Christmas time, we learned through
a Hindu who had made the voyage from Shanghai with him. Landed at Salina
Cruz, they had taken boat again for Ensenada; thence, working overland,
had come to the American border in the vicinity of Yuma. The pair had
been detected by the border patrol, pursued, captured, and locked up for
the night in a small jail. Participating, before daylight, with men held
for greater offenses, in a general jail break, they had been ordered to
halt, and fired upon in the darkness. Kala Singh had been found by a
chance bullet, and killed instantly.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” the Lady of the Castle asked me when I
told her about it. “Isn’t there anything?”
I went out to where Prem Singh crouched alone over his little fire of
greasewood roots under the great vault of heaven.
“Hello, Mester!” he called listlessly, as I approached awkwardly.
“Hello, Prem Singh!” I answered.
There was a pause. “I make my country bread,” he announced at length,
clearing his throat, obviously manufacturing conversation in order to put
me at my ease; and then, after a little: “I think maybe go back my
country pretty soon.”
“Go back to India, Prem Singh?” I was genuinely surprised.
He nodded affirmation. “Next month, maybe, I go,” he said wearily.
“America not very good. My country more better. Maybe bime-by been
marry.”
_John Amid_.