Doctor Chu Ping was a good man. He was clever and industrious, and wore
his pigtail long. No one knows why he was cursed with such an indolent
offspring as that lazy Ah Fun. Perhaps the vice was inherited, with a
skip, from Grandfather Chu Ping Fu. They do say in Lao Ya Shen that
Grandfather Chu Ping Fu was too lazy even to burn yellow paper on New
Year’s Eve, or to beat a copper pan in order to scare away the demons.
But no matter about Chu Ping Fu. Let nothing more be said of him. Not
Chu Ping Fu, but his graceless grandson is herein to be held up for
scorn.
That lazy Ah Fun—for such everyone called him—was nothing if not a
sluggard, and so he had been from the cradle. What a shameless creature
he was—a snail—a lame snail at that. Dr. Chu Ping sent him with a
bamboo tube of brick dust to the house of Chang Chi, where Mrs. Chang
lay sick with a fever, and greatly in need of the medicine. And did Ah
Fun hasten on his errand? No. A thousand times, no. He dawdled. He took
his own, his very own time, that lazy Ah Fun. Poor Mrs. Chang, may she
go to a good reward, was three days dead and in her paper coffin before
Ah Fun finally arrived with the medicine that was meant to save her.
Now that is but a single instance, and a sad one, of the way in which Ah
Fun was wont to dilly and to dally. Here is another illustration. Dr.
Chu Ping despatched his son to the pasture land, there to find the cow
and fetch her home for milking. Dr. Chu Ping knew the boy’s habit, so he
sent him when the sun was highest, at noon, in order that he might get
the cow home before darkness came. But Ah Fun went nowhere near the
pasture. He sat in the shade, playing the noisy game of “guess fingers”
with a comrade in idleness. And when night came, he went to the yard of
Low Moo, his next-door neighbor, and drove the Low cow into his own
yard. It was so much easier than walking way down to the pasture land
for his own cow.
Dr. Chu Ping had milked the cow and the cow had kicked the bucket over
before Low Moo came in tears, declaring that he had been greatly wronged
and that Ah Fun should be whipped with a bamboo. The other neighbors
gathered round, and without exception they said: “That lazy Ah Fun; he
is no good. He should be beaten.” But the doctor said that Ah Fun meant
no harm—he was merely too tired to go to the pasture, and that some
day—(here he thumped vigorously on the bucket, rum tum tum—one always
makes a noise to scare the demons, when saying complimentary
things)—some day Ah Fun would be a very famous man, and have a monument
half a li in height, covered with much carving to tell his praise.
Then the neighbors said “Humph,” and the way they said it was with the
corners of their mouths turned down, sneeringly. Clearly, they
disbelieved. And one said, “There was never a hyena that didn’t think
his own son fairer than the King’s child.” The good doctor laughed
heartily at that. He turned to Ah Fun and said (pounding on the bucket):
“Ah Fun, treasure of my miserable heart, take you the bucket, and going
to the well, fetch us home some water, for there is no milk, the
terrible cow having kicked it over. Hence we can have only water with
our Evening Rice. And be sure, my chiefest comfort, (rum dum, went the
bucket), to rinse the bucket thoroughly, twice at least.”
So Ah Fun took the _shui tung_ (the bucket), and pretended he was going
to the well. But the well was a li, a third of a mile distant. The ditch
was only a few steps distant. That lazy Ah Fun stopped at the ditch and
filled his _shui tung_. He came home with a bucket half full of green
ditch water. And in the water was an old shoe, a discarded shoe, a shoe
that someone had thrown away as wornout and utterly useless. Nor had the
bucket been rinsed.
But Dr. Chu Ping, instead of scolding Ah Fun, scolded the excellent
people of Lao Ya Shen, saying: “This town is getting very very bad. One
cannot walk decently and in peace from the well to one’s house, but that
some scamp must toss an old shoe in the water bucket.” What a deluded
man was that Dr. Chu Ping.
When the spring rains were at their heaviest, Dr. Chu Ping was called
from this house to that house to visit the ailing. The rains caused much
sickness, and the doctor was out at all hours, no matter how foul the
weather. In consequence, he was more often wet than dry, and the wetness
worked against his health. One night he came home dripping water from
every thread of his garments, and his teeth were chattering, upper
against lower. He crawled upon the _kang_, which is both stove and bed,
saying, as well as he could: “Ah Fun, my blessing most cherished, build
a fire under the _kang_. Your so miserable old father has a chill that
no doubt will end his wholly useless existence. Build a tremendous fire,
Ah Fun, my precious jewel. _Ai ya_, I am cold and ill.”
Ah Fun tore a few leaves of paper from a medicine book, and inserting
them under the _kang_, struck fire to them. Then he resumed his play.
After a while Dr. Chu Ping raised the quilt from his head and hoarsely
whispered, “I—I—I am still shivering, Ah—Ah Fun. M—m—more
w—w—wood.” Ah Fun looked about, but he saw no firewood. And he was too
lazy to go in search. However, the doctor’s gold-crested cane stood in a
corner. Well, why not? It was bamboo. It would burn. Into the _kang_
went the cane, and right pleasantly did it crackle. But after a time Dr.
Chu Ping again uncovered his head and begged weakly, “M—m—more
w—w—wood, Ah—Ah Fun!” Once more Ah Fun looked round the room. There
was positively no firewood in sight. However . . . upon a shelf lay half
a hundred bamboo cylinders, tubes that contained medicines. In one
bamboo was cuttlefish-bone. In another was _ko fen_ (powdered oyster
shell). The doctor had used that on old Mrs. Fuh Lung’s rheumatism, with
good effect, too. In a third were salt and _chieh tzu_. A fourth held
_chen pi_ and _shih hui_ (orange-peel and lime). The fifth contained
_chang nao_ (camphor, and ashes) . . . all good medicines and valuable
indeed.
But . . . what did Ah Fun do? He chucked the first bamboo tube into the
_kang_, and the tube crackled as the flames bit through. Presently, he
cast in the second tube. Followed the third and fourth. Tube after tube,
medicines and all, went into the _kang_, atop which lay Dr. Chu Ping.
Now it so happened that the fiftieth tube contained _huo yao_—(_the_
medicine)—and _huo yao_ is made of sulphur, saltpetre, and
charcoal—those three, the very three that combine to make Gun
Powder—as we call it—nothing less.
Dr. Chu Ping lay upon the _kang_, all a-twitch with the chill that had
worsted him. His son, Ah Fun, threw into the _kang_ a large tube of _huo
yao_. The fire crackled smartly, eating the tube. . . . Then. . . .
“BROOOOMP.”
Oh, that terrible Ah Fun. He has blown up the bed-stove. To say nothing
of his honorable father.
[Illustration: “Broooomp.”]
It was raining heavily, but just the same Mrs. Low Moo came out and
upbraided the doctor unmercifully for coming down in, and utterly
havocking, her patch of _huang ya tsai_ (her tender, pretty cabbages).
She told him her every thought upon that subject, with such words as
“_Hun chang tung hsi_ (Stupid, blundering old thing you).” But Dr. Chu
Ping merely gazed sheepishly at the destroyed cabbages, and at the hole
in the room through which he had been blasted, and murmured, “Kai tan
(Ah me, what a pity).”
And again came the other neighbors, the very kind people who loved Dr.
Chu Ping and wished to help him in his troubles. These well-wishing
neighbors came and said: “Beyond a doubt, that boy is to blame.
Honorable doctor, why do you not break many stout bamboos upon the back
of that boy—that lazy, good-for-nothing Ah Fun? He will be the disgrace
of, and the death of you yet.” But Dr. Chu Ping rubbed his shoulder and
said: “What? Beat Ah Fun? Why he is a good boy and a comfort. He just
built me an excellent fire in the _kang_.”
Then the doctor limped into his house and awoke Ah Fun, asked him what
had happened. Ah Fun, though he was bad—goodness knows, terribly
bad—yet was truthful. Reluctantly, we must give him credit for that. He
told of all that had happened: how he placed tube after tube in the
_kang_—being unable to discover any firewood—and how the last tube had
exploded, hurling his father through the roof.
Dr. Chu Ping wrinkled his brow till it was all hills and hollows. He
pulled his long and neatly braided hair in a highly meditative manner.
He felt first his right shoulder, then his left shoulder. He rolled his
eyes upward to the limit of their travel. He gazed at the hole in the
roof, where still fluttered a fragment of clothing on a jagged edge. He
rolled his eyes downward and scrutinized the ruined _kang_. He felt of
his two ears that still reverberated with the enormous explosion. Then
he spoke. “My son,” said he, “it strikes me that we are on the verge of
a great discovery. One of those medicines—though gracious knows which
one—seems to be more than a medicine. It is good for something
else—though dear knows what. Perhaps to grow wings, so that men may
fly. It certainly enabled me to fly. We must make more medicines, and
experiment.”
The next day Dr. Chu Ping opened his book of instructions for the
compounding of medicines—a book which he himself had written. Beginning
at the very beginning—which, of course, was on the last page, good Dr.
Chu studied the first formula. “Red pepper, and alum, and toad claws,”
so he read. The three ingredients were found and mixed in the specified
proportions. The mixture was poured into a bamboo tube and the tube was
placed in a fire. For an hour Dr. Chu Ping stirred the fire and fanned
it into furious blazing. Nothing but much heat and much smoke resulted.
There was no noise and no flying. Clearly, the combination of pepper,
alum, and toad claws was quite worthless—except in the treatment of
scarlet fever, for which it is intended. The doctor made a careful
writing of the experiment and turned another page.
Next came oyster shell and ginseng. Worthless that, also. Shark fins and
turmeric. Dr. Chu Ping marked that likewise worthless. So the
experimenting continued, day after day. It took a great deal of time.
The doctor was a most thorough man, as well as brilliant. One couldn’t
find a more thorough or brilliant in all Kiang Su, or Kiang Si, or even
in Kuang Si. Methodically he tried his medicines in the fire—by one and
one he tried them—and thus he came to the mixture _huo yao_, which, to
repeat, is sulphur, and saltpetre, and charcoal, and which the Fan Kwei,
or Foreign Devils, with their white faces call Gun Powder. Dr. Chu Ping
placed a long tube of _huo yao_ in the fire. He leaned over it, fanning
vigorously. For a moment the tube lay on the coals, sizzling and
swelling, seeming to gather its breath for a supreme effort. . . .
Zzzzzzz. . . . Zeeeee. . . . BROOOOMP.
And up went Dr. Chu Ping.
Now it so chanced that a moment before the explosion, old man Low Moo
was milking his cow. A moment after the explosion, he was _not_ milking
his cow. He was running for dear life in a northerly direction. His cow
was running for dear life in a southerly direction. And Dr. Chu Ping
sprawled upon the flattened bucket and the smashed stool, where he had
fallen.
The doctor came to in five minutes. Old Mr. Low Moo came back in half an
hour. The cow has never since been seen. It is doubtful if she will ever
return.
No sooner did Dr. Chu Ping revive than he hobbled into the house, where
Ah Fun sat calmly playing with a _pan pu tao_, a little toy man who has
round feet, and always regains an upright position, no matter how often
he is knocked over. “What happened, my father?” asked Ah Fun. Dr. Chu
Ping beamed upon him. “Ah Fun, my pearl, my jade, my orange tree, it is
discovered. _Huo yao_ is the great medicine. And it is good for scaring
demons. Old man Low Moo, as everyone knows, is possessed of a demon—and
he was frightened horribly. And his unkind cow, which is guided by at
least four and twenty demons, has been frightened completely out of the
country. There can be no doubt—_huo yao_ is a frightener of demons.
And, you and I are the discoverers. Oh, my precious one, we shall be
famous. A thousand thousand years from now men will still use _huo yao_
to scare the demons.”
[Illustration: Doctor Chu Ping beamed upon him; “Ah Fun, my pearl, my
jade, my orange tree, it is discovered.”]
And that was a very good prediction. _Huo yao_ is still placed in tubes,
little paper tubes, and the fuses are lighted, and “Sput,” “Sput.” The
firecrackers explode and a thousand demons tremble and flee, reviling
the names of Ah Fun and Dr. Chu Ping, who invented Gun Powder.
[Illustration]