THE YELLOW PEARL

_March 1st, 1----_

Here I am in this strange country about which I have learned in the

geography and history, and about which I heard my father talk. The

daughter of an American man and a Chinese woman, I suppose I am what is

called a mongrel. My father was a Commissioner of Customs in China, and

living for years in that country he fell in love with my mother and

married her--as was natural. Who could help falling in love with my

dear, yellow, winsome, little mother? My name is Margaret, called after

my father's mother; my father said that the word Margaret means a pearl,

so he gave me the pet name "Pearl." Dear father!

"It was a monstrous thing for Brother George to marry away there," I

overheard my Aunt Gwendolin remark a short time after my arrival. "Why

could he not have come back home to his own country and found a

wife?--And above all to have married a heathen Chinese!"

"Not a heathen," said my grandmother, reproachfully, "she had previously

embraced the faith of Europeans; so my dear George wrote me from that

far-away country."

"Oh, they are all heathens in my estimation," cried my Aunt Gwendolin,

scornfully; "what faith they embrace does not change the fact that they

belong to the yellow people."

My mother died while I was yet a child, and my father has died and left

me alone in the world within the last year. Grandmother, my father's

mother, when she learned about her son's death, sent at once for me.

"I cannot leave a granddaughter of mine in that country, and among that

heathen, if not barbarous, people," she wrote to the American consul,

"and I ask your services to assist her to come to my home in America."

The consul, absent-minded, gave me my grandmother's letter to read, and

thus I learned her feeling about my mother's people and country. I never

would have come to this horrible America if I could have helped myself;

but I am scarcely of age, and by my father's will grandmother is

appointed my guardian.

The result of it all is, that having crossed the intervening waters, I

am here in the home of my grandmother, my Aunt Gwendolin and my Uncle

Theodore Morgan.

When I arrived this morning I was ushered into the sitting-room by a

maid, and the first one I beheld was my grandmother, sitting in a

rocking-chair. She called me to her, and crossing the room, I kotowed to

her, that is I went down on my hands and knees and touched my forehead

to the floor, as my Chinese nurse had taught me when I was yet a baby

that I should always do when I came into the presence of an elderly

woman, a mother of children.

"My _dear_ grandchild!" cried my grandmother, "_do_ get up. All you

should do is to kiss me--your grandmother!" And she put out her hand and

assisted me from the floor.

Grandmother is the dearest, prettiest little woman I ever saw, with

white hair and the brightest of eyes, and I have to love her, although I

had made up my mind to hate everything in America. A moment after she

had lifted me from the floor, my Aunt Gwendolin came in. She is tall and

thin, not nearly so beautiful a woman as my Chinese mother. She wears

skirts that drag on the floor, and her hair is built up into a sort of a

mountain on top of her head. I am reminded every time I look at her of a

certain peak in the Thian Shan mountains. I very much prefer little

women, like my own dear mother, like the women of my own country.

My Uncle Theodore is long-armed, long-legged, long-bodied. He looks a

little like my father, and for that reason I hate him a little less than

my Aunt Gwendolin.

After my mother's death, my father brought into our home a French

governess, daughter of a French consul, to teach me. Father seemed to

be lost in his business, or his grief at the loss of my mother, and paid

very little heed to me after the arrival of the governess.

"She is an educated woman," he told me when he had engaged her, "and I

want her to teach you all you could learn in a first-class girls' school

in Europe or America."

After that the French governess spent hours with me every day, and I saw

my father only at intervals. How much we talked about, that French lady

and I! Everything, almost, except religion; _that_ my father vetoed, as

her faith was not the one he wished me to embrace. "I'll take you over

to your grandmother by and by," he used to say, "to get the proper

religious instruction."

The governess said that I inherited more from my father's side of the

house than my mother's; that although I was born in China, I was more

of an Occidental than an Oriental; more than once she said that my

American mannerisms and tricks of speech were really remarkable, and

that I was a living example of the power of heredity. But I am never

going back on my mother's people, _never_, my dear little oval-faced

mother whose grave is under a spreading camphor tree at the heart of the

world.

Does it not mean something that China is at the centre of the world--the

kernel?

"The girl is not bad to look at, in fact I think she is a beauty--a face

filled with the indescribable dash of the Orient," said my Uncle

Theodore, when they were talking me over in the sitting-room after I had

retired to my chamber upstairs. Evidently they had forgotten the

opening in the floor which had been left by the workmen while making

some changes in the plumbing. And they did not know my extraordinary

keenness of hearing, which my governess said was an Oriental trait.

It seemed to give my governess some pleasure to talk about that keen

sense of the Orientals, and to speculate as to how they had acquired it.

"They have lived in a country where it is necessary, for

self-protection, to hear all that is being plotted and planned," she

said, "a country of conspiracies and intrigues, of plots and

counterplots. Centuries of this have developed abnormal hearing."

"She has a superb figure," said my uncle, continuing to talk about me,

"and that oval face of hers, with her creamy complexion, is really

bewitching."

"Yellow! you mean, _yellow_!" interrupted my Aunt Gwendolin; "she's

entirely too yellow for beauty. I'm terribly afraid that some of our set

will discover her nationality. That's _one_ thing you must remember,

Theodore, nobody on this continent is ever to learn anything about her

Chinese blood. They are so despised here as a race. She is our brother's

daughter, with some foreign strain inherited from her mother; that

is enough; never, _never_, let us acknowledge the Chinese. The

Italians and Spanish are yellowish too,--I have it!" she exclaimed,

"_Spanish!_--Spanish will do!--Some of those are _our_ people now, you

know! It will be quite interesting to have her a native of one of our

Dependencies--a descendant of some old Spanish family!"

"Do not be foolish, Gwendolin," said my grandmother.

"I could not endure the thought of introducing a Celestial," continued

my aunt. "None must know that we have introduced the Yellow Peril into

the country!"

"Why, Gwendolin, how you do talk," said my grandmother; "the child's

father was an American, and she was admitted into this country as an

American."

"You must talk with the girl to-morrow, Theodore," continued my aunt,

ignoring my grandmother's remark, "and tell her to keep sacred her

progenitors. She speaks such perfect English no one would suspect that

there was much foreign about her."

"She has a striking, unusual air that would attract a second glance

from most people," said my uncle. "If you can keep her nationality from

Professor Ballington you will do better than I think you can; he is a

great ethnologist; it is his life-work to make discoveries in that

line."

"Well it _must_ be kept, no matter what means we resort to," returned my

Aunt Gwendolin, with a ring of determination in her voice.

"Poor child," said my dear old grandmother, "she is my granddaughter,

and I love her already, my George's child. She looks beautiful to me

whether yellow or no."

I had gone down to dinner on this first evening in a soft yellow silk,

with long flowing sleeves trimmed with dragons, I know I looked well in

it. Governess always said I did. It was partly Chinese and partly

European in design. Governess planned it herself, and she said the

French were born with a knowledge how to dress artistically; she boasted

that she made it to suit my peculiar style.

"Did you notice that China silk she had on at dinner?" said Aunt

Gwendolin; "there must be an end to all that; a ban must be put on

everything Chinese."

"It was rather becoming I thought," said Uncle Theodore, "in harmony

with the clear yellow of her skin. Let her dress alone, she seems to

know how to put it. That is a born gift with some women, and if it is

not, they never seem to acquire it. There is great elegance in the

straight lines of the Oriental dress."

"Let her alone," said Aunt Gwendolin scornfully, "and let the whole city

know we have introduced the Yellow Per----"

"Gwendolin, dear," interrupted grandmother, "do not speak so."

"Those Chinese silks, of which she seems to have gowns galore--I was at

the unpacking of her trunks--must be tabooed," said my aunt. "Her father

has evidently intended her to dress like an European or American; she

has _some_ waist line, and does not wear the sacque the women wear in

China; but her sleeves are _years_ old."

"The dear child may object to having her attire changed at once," said

my grandmother. "She is used to those soft clinging silks, and may not

want to give them up. And sleeves are of little consequence. Let her

alone for awhile."

"Let her alone!" again retorted Aunt Gwendolin, "and let Professor

Ballington see her? He'd know her nationality at once in that yellow

silk covered with sprawling dragons, as almost anybody might. I cannot

have anything so mortifying occur when the girl is calling me 'aunt'!"

"Ballington is a curious kind of a chap, and values people on their own

merits; _he'd_ think none the less of the girl because she has some

Chinese blood in her," returned Uncle Theodore.

"I'll take her out to-morrow," continued my aunt, "and buy her some

taffeta silks and French muslins, and dress her up as a Christian

_should_ be dressed."

Grandmother said no more. The mother is not the head of the house in

America as she is in dear old China. I suppose it is the daughter who

rules in this country.

I am so sleepy I cannot listen any longer, even to talk about myself. My

governess has taught me that eavesdropping is not honourable, but I

cannot avoid hearing so long as I stay in my room, and I have nowhere

else to go. I will turn out the electric light, throw myself on the bed,

yellow silk and all, and cry myself asleep. I wonder is that an American

or a Chinese act? My governess was continually tracing my actions to one

or other of the nations.

_March 2, 1----_

It happened this morning! That man Aunt Gwendolin thought would be so

sure to know that I was the Yellow Pearl, came to the house, and was

ushered into my uncle's den by the maid, a few moments after I had been

sent in there to have the "talk" with him which was spoken about the

night before.

"He is a tall man, very, very white," were my thoughts regarding him,

as he bowed politely before me, when my uncle introduced us; and I

suppose his thoughts regarding me were: "She is a short woman, very,

very, yellow."

He left after a few moments' conversation with my uncle; and turning to

me the latter said, "That gentleman who has just gone is professor of

ethnology in the State University. He knows all about the peculiarities

of all the peoples and tribes that ever have graced or disgraced the

face of this planet we call the world---- Has your aunt told you that

she thinks it better that you should say nothing about your Chinese

ancestry?" he added hastily and awkwardly.

"Have the Chinese done anything disgraceful?" I asked him.

"No, no, I don't suppose they really have," he answered with an air of

annoyance. "A girl like you cannot understand; you had better simply

follow instructions. I hope it will not be necessary to mention this

subject again," he added meaningly.

I could not mistake him; I must not _dare_ tell Professor Ballington or

any one else in this great country that my mother was a Chinese woman.

In the afternoon Aunt Gwendolin took me down into the shops of the city,

"to select an outfit," she said.

We stood for hours, it seemed to me, over counters laden with silks and

muslins of every colour in the rainbow. Aunt Gwendolin held the various

shades up against my face to see which best became my "Spanish

complexion." This was said, I suppose, for the ears of the sales-people,

and the fashionable customers standing around.

When selections were made among the goods, I was taken to the

establishment of a "Parisienne modiste," where I was pinched, puckered,

and pulled until I was nearly numb. A sort of a steel waist was put on

me, which my aunt and the modiste called a "corset," and was so tightly

pulled I could scarcely breathe.

"I can't stand it, Aunt Gwendolin," I whisperingly gasped.

"Yes, you _can_!" she returned peremptorily, "you'll get used to it;

that's nothing like as tight as the girls all wear them in this

country."

"I can't breathe," I gasped again, when the modiste had turned her back;

(Aunt Gwendolin had signed to me the first time not to let her hear me).

"Hush!" said my aunt; "for pity sake do not let the modiste know that

you never had a corset on before."

"I'd rather have my feet bound like the women do in Chi----"

Aunt Gwendolin placed her jewelled fingers over my mouth before I had

finished the sentence.

Just as I was through being "fitted," one of Aunt Gwendolin's

fashionable friends came in. "Arabella," my aunt called her, but the

modiste called her Mrs. Delaney. I was not noticed, and slipped off into

a corner, and this newcomer and my relative fell into a deep and

absorbing talk about the new style of sleeve. I saw my opportunity and

slipped unnoticed out the front door, which fortunately was behind them.

Hurrying down a few blocks I reached a bookseller's window. With one

glance I had noticed, when my aunt and I were passing the window on the

way to the establishment of the Parisienne modiste, the word China on

the cover of a book. "I'll buy that book," I had said to myself, "and

learn what there is about China that makes Americans despise her

people."

Entering the store, I found a number of books about China and the

Chinese: "One of China's Scholars," "How the Chinese Think," "The

Greatest Novels of China," "Chinese Life." I paid for them all and

ordered them sent to my grandmother's house.

The bookseller looked at me very curiously for several moments, and then

ventured, "You speak English very well."

"Of course I do," I said, tossing my head and trying to act saucily, as

my governess had told me the American girls did. I would not have dared

to treat a man that way in China.

He did not venture to speak again. It is funny to be able in this

America to frighten a man! Confucius says that women should "be always

modest and respectful in demeanour, and prefer others to themselves";

but I have not to mind Confucius any longer; I am now in the "sweet land

of liberty," as they sing in their national anthem. I heard my father

say once that the gentleness and modesty of Oriental women was really

beautiful; but it would not be beautiful in America.

I hurried back to the establishment of the Parisienne modiste, and found

my aunt and her friend still talking about sleeves. They had never

noticed my absence. How very important sleeves are in America! I never

heard them talked about in China.

The talkers had evidently forgotten me, so I slipped out again, and

walked several blocks, watching the manners, and catching snatches of

the conversation of Americans.

"I'm going to have mine eighteen gores----"

"Pleating down the front, frills at the side----"

"Pocahontas hat, and Prince Chap suit----"

"Front panel, and revers turned----"

"Frills and pipings all around----"

"Gored, or cut in one piece----"

"Oh, pompadour, by all means, with----"

These were the snatches of conversation which I caught from the women as

they passed me. The men were mostly silent and glum.

This curious country, that Aunt Gwendolin says has gone away ahead of

the rest of the world, why do its women talk more about dress than

anything else? And why have its men such pushing, hurrying,

knock-you-down-if-you-stand-in-my-way faces?

When I got back to the establishment of the Parisienne modiste I found

my aunt ready to take me to the milliner's to be "outfitted with hats."

Walking a block or two we entered a much-decorated room, and at my

aunt's request an attendant brought several hats for our

inspection--curious-looking things like straw bee-hives, or huge wasps'

nests, covered over largely with wings and the heads of poor little dead

birds, ends and loops of ribbon, roses and leaves, looking as if they

were only half sewed on and liable to tumble off if touched, and long

feathers, buckles, and pins. My aunt selected several, fitted them on

my head, and declared they were very becoming to my Spanish style of

beauty. I, almost in tears, whispered into her ear, so the attendant

would not hear me, "I shall not have to wear them where any one can see

me, shall I?" Aunt Gwendolin smiled (the attendant was looking) and

replied sweetly, "Yes, they are very pretty, indeed."

We in China could never kill our birds and wear them on our heads--the

breasts of our beautiful mandarin ducks, the wings of our gold and

silver pheasants, the heads of our pretty parrakeets--we never could do

it--we would feel like murderers. Our majestic-looking wild geese, that

fly over our heads in flocks sometimes thirty miles in length, going

south in the autumn and north in the spring, we never molest them. The

Buddhists believe that all geese perform an aerial pilgrimage to the

holiest of the lakes in the mountains every year, transporting the sins

of the neighbourhood, returning to the valley with a new stock of

inspiration for the people in the locality where they choose to alight.

Here in this civilised country--I have been reading in one of their

magazines that grandmother loaned me--they catch the beautiful

water-fowls, kill them, and hack off their downy breasts to make ladies'

hats. And the little young birds starve in the nest, because the mother

never returns to feed them. Ugh! Civilised countries are dreadful!

When the hats were selected my aunt conducted me to the furrier's.

"The cold weather is not over yet," she said, "and while we are about it

I shall select some necessary furs."

I had noticed as we were passing through the streets that the ladies

had curious looking things around their necks and shoulders, capes

trimmed with heads of animals, and tails and paws of the same. I

wondered the dogs did not bark at them. They looked like some hunters

who had been out shooting and had thrown their dead game over their

shoulders.

The furrier whose shop we had entered seemed to know my aunt, and as

soon as she said, "I want you to show me some of your best fur garments

suitable for a young lady," he brought down from some shelves the

greatest quantity of fur articles, ermine, mink, seal, sable, all

covered with heads, tails, paws, claws, eyes, mouths, teeth, whiskers. I

shuddered and drew back when my aunt went to place one around my neck.

"Oh, auntie!" I cried, "don't touch it to me!"

"Ha, ha, ha," softly and politely laughed the shopkeeper, "the young

lady has not become acquainted with the newest thing in furs, so

beautiful and realistic--so charming!"

Aunt Gwendolin frowned. She evidently did not like my display of nerves,

and resolutely fastened around my throat an ermine scarf with seven or

eight heads, and twice as many tails. "There!" she said, "that will do

nicely, it is very becoming to her creamy Spanish."

"It could not be better," said the polite shopkeeper.

A muff was then chosen to match the scarf, with just as many horrible

grinning heads, and little snaky tails; and paying for them, my aunt

ordered them sent home.

On my return home I dropped a silver coin into the housemaid's hand,

and told her when the parcel of books arrived she was to carry it up to

my room and say nothing about it. She seemed to understand, and asked no

questions.

An hour later she came to my door with the books in her arms, and found

me examining my new set of furs.

"Betty," I cried, throwing wide the door of my room, "come in and tell

me all about my furs--how the man that sells them gets all those little

heads and tails. Where do they get them? And how do they catch them? I

want to know it all."

"Oh, miss," said Betty, stepping briskly into the room, nothing loath to

accept the invitation to examine the new furs, "they lives out in the

wild woods--these little critters, an' men poisons 'em, an' traps 'em.

An' when they is dead, they skins 'em, tans the skins, an' makes 'em up

into muffs, an' boas, an' tippets, an' fur coats, an' so forth, an' so

forth."

"Poison and trap them!" I cried, "doesn't that make the little creatures

suffer?"

"You bet!" said Betty.

"How cruel!" I added.

"Yes, miss, ain't it awful?" returned Betty, making a wry face. "They's

a book just been throwed in at the door to-day telling all as to how it

is done. The American Humane Association has wrote the book--_they_

don't approve of killin' things. I'll bring it up an' let you read it."

Suiting the action to the thought Betty rushed away down to the kitchen

for the book.

She returned in a few moments with a small pamphlet, and thrust it

hastily into my hand--my aunt was calling her--and hastened away.

I glanced down at a picture on the front page--a hare caught by the hind

leg in a trap. A most agonised expression was on the little animal's

face. Below the picture was the title of the story, "_The Cost of a

Skin_." I dropped into a rocking-chair and read the story:

"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. Señor 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 décollete costumes of the women at the state functions. What

wonder!--if they looked anything like the women at my aunt's dinner

party!

Señor 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 Señor 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!_"

I, dressed in muslin, cream-coloured ground dashed over with wild roses,

or blue ground with white chrysanthemums (the latter is not very

becoming to my yellow skin) stand at his left hand stretching my mouth

to the utmost, trying to give utterance to the tones he is striking on

the piano, and trying to look Spanish, too.

Señor de la Prisa is teaching me the Spanish language--a lesson every

day, and I am beginning to jabber the strange gibberish like a parrot:

"_Es un dia bonita. El viento es frio. Se esta haciendo tarde. Es

temprano._" I'll soon believe myself that I am _really_ Spanish, and

have never come from "the country of yellow gods and green dragons," as

Uncle Theodore calls my dear native land.

I have been watching people, reading the daily newspapers and my Chinese

books, and asking grandmother questions until I feel very wise. I am

almost as wise as a real American now.

Some weeks following Mrs. Paton's Sunday visit to my grandmother, I was

out for a short walk of pleasure when I overtook her. She was pleased to

meet me again, she said, and we walked along together, chatting, at

least she talked and I listened, sometimes asking questions.

"Just think of it, my dear," she said, "this is the day on which men are

applying for licenses to sell poison to kill their fellow-men."

Then she told me story after story of the terrible misery caused by

intoxicating drinks, and the sin and crime they caused people to commit,

until I was almost in tears.

A noise of voices and tramping feet interrupted her, and there came

around a corner, marching toward us, a long procession of men.

"Who are they?" I inquired, slipping my arm into hers. I had never

before seen so many men together.

"Strikers," she returned sadly.

"Strikers?" I exclaimed.

"Yes," she added, "men who will not work until their employers pay them

the amount they think they ought to be paid."

Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! the great crowd passed us in long file, dusty,

worn, hard-worked men. My heart swelled as I looked at their strained

faces; I could not go any farther on my walk; I had to rush home to ask

grandmother questions.

"Grandmother!" I cried, panting into her room, "strikes in a country

that follows Christ!--And men asking for a license to sell poison to

their fellow-men!"

I fell on my knees in front of her chair and sobbed, I could not have

told why.

She took my face in her soft old withered hands, and holding it was

about to speak, when my Aunt Gwendolin, who had overheard me, came into

the room and cried indignantly:

"That crank of a Mrs. Paton has been talking to the girl; I know her

very words. That woman should be forcibly restrained!"

Grandmother did not answer her, but continued to stroke my face until I

grew quieter, and until my aunt had left the room. Then in reply to my

many pointed questions she told me in brief, that the reason men got

licenses to sell liquor was that they paid money for them, and the

country granted them for the sake of the great revenue they brought into

its treasury.

"Oh, grandmother!" I cried, raising my head from her lap, "when Britain

tried to induce the Chinese Emperor to legalise the opium traffic

because of the import duty, he said, 'Nothing shall induce me to derive

a revenue from the vice and misery of my people'!"--I had read all this

in my books on China.

Grandmother was wiping away tears, and I said no more.

I went up to my own room, and half an hour later I heard my Uncle

Theodore, to whom my grandmother had repeated my words, say:

"She is preternaturally sharp. No girl of this country thinks of the

things she does. I suppose they develop younger in those Eastern

climes."

"It is all new to her," said my grandmother; "she has just come in upon

it and sees it with fresh eyes. The girls here have grown up with it and

become used to it by degrees."

"Oh, it's that Oriental blood--half witch, half demon--that's at the

bottom of all her tantrums. The Orientals are all a subtle lot, and we

as a country are wise to make them stay at home," said my Aunt

Gwendolin.

_April 10, 1----_

Aunt Gwendolin has discovered my Chinese books that I had intended to

keep hidden in my room. She came in suddenly one day and found me seated

in the midst of them.

"What's this? What's this?" she cried in great agitation. "How are we

ever going to get you into the ways of Christianised, civilised folk if

you keep feeding your mind on literature about uncivilised people?" And

she gathered my books up into her arms and carried them away.

I have them all read, however, and she cannot carry away the thoughts

they have left in my mind. What great creatures we human beings are!

What a world with which no one else can meddle we can carry around in

our little brains and hearts! It is all the same whether they are

American or Chinese brains or hearts.

"I see now where she has gotten all her smart sayings about the

Chinese," my aunt said to my grandmother and Uncle Theodore. "How can we

ever hope to do anything with her when she is being poisoned by such

stuff as is in those books? 'For ways that are dark and tricks that are

vain' commend me to the Chinese!"

"I'll sicken her of the Chinese," she added: "I'll bring one into the

kitchen to cook; then perhaps she'll feel more compunction about

acknowledging that she is part Celestial. She actually seems as if she

were proud of the fact now."

Grandmother remonstrated, but my aunt replied: "I have always been

wanting to try a Chinese cook; they are really the world's cooks and so

careful and clean, it is said. Then I would like to give Pearl enough of

it. She will not be so fond of claiming kinship with the cook."

The result of all this was that inside of twenty-four hours a Chinaman

was installed in the kitchen--and the biscuits are perfect.

His name is Yee Yick; of course he has three names, all Chinamen have;

but trying to become Americanised they use only two in this country.

My aunt has decided that it is sufficient to call him Yick. "The English

call their servants by their surnames," was all the explanation she

made.

Yick is a dude; he has a suit for almost every day in the week, and is

very vain of his appearance. His queue is rolled up around his head,

which is a sign that he has not yet abandoned his home gods. He is very

anxious to learn English, and Betty tells me that he has a slate hanging

up in the kitchen on which he is writing English words every spare

moment.

I had watched Yick a good deal, but I never exchanged a word with him,

until the event occurred about which I am going to write; and I know he

never dreamed that I could speak his language. Poor Yick! if he is

"chief cook and bottle-washer," as my aunt says, he is my countryman,

and I cannot help taking an interest in him.

One day I walked to the end of the veranda which runs the whole length

of the house, and glancing in through the kitchen window as I passed, I

saw Yick making his tea-biscuits. He had the flour and shortening all

mixed, and raising the bowl of milk which was on the table, he took a

great mouthful, and then began to force it out in a heavy spray through

his teeth into the dish of prepared flour, in the same manner as the

Chinese laundryman sprinkles clothes.

I wrung my hands, and cried within myself, "Oh, Yick, you terrible man!

You horrible little pigtail!"

But I slipped back to the front of the veranda without making an audible

sound. How could I tell on poor Yick, and bring down such an awful storm

on his head as would result? He was a stranger in a strange land, and it

was my duty to protect him. Was it such a very wicked thing he had done?

He never killed little birds, anyway, and wore them on his head; nor

trapped cunning little animals, and strung their heads and tails around

his neck! I decided I would not tell on him.

But that evening at dinner I passed the plate of white, flaky biscuits

without taking any. I sat at grandmother's left hand, and when she was

not looking, I slipped the biscuit which she had taken away from her

bread-and-butter plate, and let it slide from my hand down onto the

floor. Dear, absent-minded grandmother never missed it. Aunt Gwendolin

and Uncle Theodore ate three biscuits each.

"It seems to me that Yick keeps constantly improving in his biscuits,"

said my aunt, as she reached for her third.

"They ought to be better than other people at most everything,"

returned my Uncle Theodore, "they have been a long while practising.

They may have been making biscuits before Moses was born. The Chinaman

possesses a history which dwarfs the little day of modern nations. It is

a saying of theirs that from the time heaven was spread and earth was

brought into existence China can boast a continuous line of great men."

I looked pleased and smiled. My aunt seeing it said, with a toss of her

head:

"A continuous line of great cooks and laundrymen."

That evening when my aunt and uncle were out, and grandmother had gone

to bed, I slipped down to the kitchen and stood face to face with Yick.

He almost kotowed to me, but commanding him to stand up, I told him in

plain Chinese that I had seen him mixing the biscuits, and disapproved

of his plan.

His hair almost seemed to stand on end when he heard me speaking his

native tongue. He started to tremble, and his knees bent under him.

"Yee Yick," I continued, in the language he thoroughly understood, "if

you ever put the milk in your mouth again, and sift it out through your

teeth into the flour, I shall inform the mistress of the house, and you

shall be dismissed!"

Trembling all over Yick began rapidly in Chinese to promise that he

would never, _never_ be guilty of the act again. Then, as if scarcely

able to believe that I could understand his native tongue, he repeated

his promise in English.

"No, missee, Yee Yick not putee milk in mouthee! No, missee, Yee Yick

not putee milk in mouthee!"

I assured him in Chinese that I would keep the secret of what I had

seen on condition that he would keep his promise, and went out of the

kitchen, leaving the poor fellow almost in tears. I believe he scarcely

knows whether to regard me as a spirit or a being of flesh and blood, it

is so hard for him to understand how I can speak Chinese.

The plumbers have closed up the hole in the floor, so I shall hear no

more about the "wily Celestial."

_April 20th, 1----_

While I have been waiting to be prepared to "come out," I determined to

walk around the streets and see some more of the doings of Americans.

Grandmother gave her consent, with a warning to keep off certain

streets.

"It is quite safe for a young girl to walk alone in most places in our

country, thank God," said dear grandmother devoutly, "and I am very

willing that you should look about you. I remember when I was a girl I

liked to walk and see things, too."

But Aunt Gwendolin knocked the whole thing in the head--apparently.

"It is so plebeian for her to go tramping through the streets," she said

to my grandmother. "Cannot she be satisfied to go out every day with us

in the automobile? The grounds are spacious around this place, and she

can have all the exercise she wants right here."

So the question was settled--to all appearance.

A week after my aunt's fiat I read in the daily newspaper that in the

"House of Jacob," a certain Jewish synagogue downtown, there was

conducted on a certain afternoon every week sewing classes for young

Jewish girls. Instantly I decided that I wished to visit it, and see

those "Children of Abraham," about whom grandmother had been teaching me

in the Bible, those people who were God's favourites, and I set about

laying plans to accomplish my desire.

Happily, when that afternoon came around, Aunt Gwendolin went out to a

Bridge Party--I have not yet found out what that means, but I hoped that

afternoon that she would have a good many bridges to cross, so it would

keep her a long time away--and it was Betty's day out.

Previous to this I had found in a closet a black skirt and shawl

formerly worn by grandmother, and a bonnet which she had laid aside.

As soon as my aunt had safely departed (I had seen Betty go an hour

before), I hastily threw the heavy black satin skirt over mine, draped

the black embroidered silk shawl around my shoulders, and tied on the

bonnet. With a black chiffon veil, which was not very transparent, tied

over my face, I felt very comfortable. It was quite proper for an

_elderly_ lady to go anywhere she wished.

Grandmother was taking her customary afternoon nap, as I slipped down

the backstairs into the kitchen. Yick, preparing the flour for his

biscuits, saw me and started. I could not keep my secret from him; I

decided to take him into my confidence and trust him.

So lifting my veil, I looked at him markedly, and told him rapidly in

Chinese that he was not to tell any one he had seen me.

He smiled, winked, and nodded knowingly, assuring me in voluble Chinese

that he would keep my secret.

"You no tellee onee me," he said significantly, with grimaces and

gesticulations.

Going out through the back door, and down through a lane at the back of

the house, I was soon on the street.

Taking the street-cars--in which Aunt Gwendolin thinks it is very

plebeian to ride--I was soon whirled down in front of the "House of

Jacob."

What a mercy it is, in this curious America, that so many people are

plebeian and ride in street-cars that they do not pay any attention to

one another. Nobody noticed my grandmotherly garb.

A woman reporter entered the front door of the synagogue along with me,

and I imagined that I was regarded with some deference--grandmother's

old skirt and shawl are made of rich material.

I followed the reporter around the room in which the classes were held,

a few yards in the rear.

There they were, a hundred or more little Jewish children, red-headed,

black-headed, blonde-headed, and Jewish women had them arranged in

groups, and were teaching them to sew.

"These little red-heads are typical Russian Jews," I heard the director

of the ceremonies say to the reporter, "only in this country a few

months. _There's_ one that has the marked Jewish features," she added,

pointing to another type of child. "They are all fond of jewellery--an

Oriental trait."

Dear, dear, I only stayed a short time looking at them. They are not

much different from others, those people who struck rocks and water

gushed out, had manna and quails rained down on them, and walked through

a wilderness led by a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by

night. I have seen hundreds of Chinese who looked just as remarkable. I

cannot understand why God showed partiality to Abraham's children.

I went out onto the street again, and wandered on till I came to what I

recognized as Chinese quarters. There were the laundries of Hoy Jan, Lem

Tong, Lee Ling, and the shops and warehouses of Moy Yen, Man Hing, and

Cheng Key. The dear names; it did me almost as much good to look at them

as it could to make a visit to my own country.

As I walked down the quiet street, a wistful oval face looked down on

me from a window. A Chinese woman's face, and the first I had seen

since coming to America. Stepping into a little shop near by, a shop

containing preserved ginger, curious embroidered screens, little ivory

elephants and jade ornaments, I asked who lived in the house where I saw

the face at the window, and was informed that it was the home of Mr. and

Mrs. Lee Yet.

It was drawing near dinner time in my grandmother's house; already I had

stayed out longer than I had intended: I had no time to investigate

further regarding Mrs. Yet.

When I got back to the house I found that my aunt had returned before

me, but fortunately had not noticed my absence.

When Yick walked into the dining room with the steaming plum-pudding for

our dinner, Aunt Gwendolin said:

"Yick, who was that little old woman I saw coming up our back lane half

an hour ago?"

"Me nevee see no little old womee," returned Yick, with a child-like

smile.

"How stupid those Chinese are," said my aunt, when Yick had left the

room. "I certainly saw an old woman, and there that creature never saw

her!"

The _Creature_ had helped a _young_ woman take off her black bonnet and

shawl, and escape up the backstairs half an hour before.

I suppose it's "that Oriental blood--half witch, and half demon" that's

at the bottom of my tantrum of this afternoon.

_April 25th, 1----_

Mrs. Paton has been in to make another Sunday visit to grandmother; she

is an old friend and privileged to come when she chooses--and as before

I had the privilege of hearing her talk.

"We are calling ourselves a Christian country," she said to grandmother,

"and yet we care more for pleasure than for anything else. An actress is

paid more money in one month than a preacher of the Gospel is paid in a

year. Does not that show what the people of our country care most for?

Going over to Christianise the heathen forsooth! We are not following

Christ ourselves! What an example we set them! How can we expect them to

think much of our religion when they see it has done so little for _us_?

"Christianity is despised, and rightly so. It is called cant, and so it

is; going around with the Bible under its arm, and never obeying its

precepts. We want more men overturning the tables of the

money-changers, and upsetting the commercialism that is grinding other

men down to starvation!"

Dear grandmother was not argumentative, and gently assented to all her

visitor was saying.

"When this country is really following Christ itself," continued the

visitor, "we shall see our wealthy men, instead of using their wealth to

build palaces, and to minister to the pride of themselves in a thousand

forms, choosing to lead the simple life, with personal expenditure cut

down to a minimum, and their ability to minister to others increased to

a maximum; in short we will find them following in the footsteps of

their Lord. Man is really the richer as he decreases his wants, and

increases his capacity to help."

When she rose to leave, at the end of an hour's chat, she said very

solemnly to me as she held my hand in a farewell clasp:

"My dear, each man and woman is born with an aptitude to do something

impossible to any other. _You_ have an aptitude that the world has no

match for. It is your aptitude for your own peculiar and immediate

duty."

Oh, how solemn the words look as I write them down. What can my duty be?

I wonder when I am going to find out. Aunt Gwendolin thinks it is to

sing Spanish songs, I know; she firmly believes that to be my own

_peculiar and immediate duty_. Grandmother thinks it is to study the

Bible. And Uncle Theodore thinks it is to look artistically dressed. I

have not come to a conclusion yet as to what I think myself.

When I get so terribly lonesome in this America that I cannot stand it

any longer, I get Betty to steal down my yellow silk out of the box in

the attic, the one trimmed with green dragons, and I dress up in it, and

put on my head the pretty embroidered band that the Chinese women wear

instead of the hideous hats of America, and sweep up and down the room

like a peacock with a spreading tail, Betty going into raptures over my

appearance, sometimes laughing hysterically, and sometimes almost in

tears, because they have "no such grand clothes in America." If Aunt

Gwendolin hears a noise and comes trailing along the hall, I jump into

bed and cover myself up, yellow silk and all, and Betty proceeds to

bathe my head for a headache--I really have one by that time.

How many foreigners they have in this great country, Shanghai roosters,

Turkey hens, Persian cats, Arabian horses. I wonder do all those foreign

creatures feel something calling them back, back to their own country?

Cousin Ned spends most all his time at grandmother's at present. He had

his arm broken at a baseball game, and is carrying it in a sling.

_April 30th, 1----_

We had the pleasure of Professor Ballington's company at lunch

to-day--Uncle Theodore had him down in his office on some business, and

insisted on his coming home and lunching with him.

When he and my uncle walked in unannounced they found grandmother, Aunt

Gwendolin, and me in the sitting-room.

The professor shook hands with me in a very friendly manner; he really

seemed pleased to see me. Oh, it is awfully nice for a girl in a strange

land, feeling alone and lonesome, to have some one glad to see her. He

had not spoken to me since that morning my uncle introduced me to him,

but he has seen me a number of times when I have been out in the

carriage with my grandmother and aunt.

He seated himself beside me, and we were just beginning to chat

pleasantly when my Aunt Gwendolin said:

"You have not heard our little Dependency sing, Professor Ballington?"

Grandmother's cheeks flushed, and Uncle Theodore looked embarrassed.

"Pearl, dear," she added sweetly, addressing me, "give us one of your

stirring Spanish songs before we go to lunch. You can sing better

before lunch than after."

In obedience to the request--which I felt to be a command--I went to the

piano and sang lightly the only Spanish song _I could_ sing.

All the hearers seemed pleased with my effort. Professor Ballington

looked calmly at me, but a smile lay behind his blue eyes. What did that

smile mean?

We immediately sat down to lunch, and I was saved the embarrassment of

having to tell that I could only sing _one_ Spanish song. I guess Aunt

Gwendolin made sure that no such a dilemma should occur.

By some stray remark of Uncle Theodore's, the conversation at the table

turned on what he calls the "Asiatic Problem."

"Those dreadful Asiatics," interposed Aunt Gwendolin, "so sly and

subtle, they certainly should be shut out. They are a menace to any

country."

"Above all nations is humanity," smilingly returned Professor

Ballington.

"Especially those inferior people, the Chinese," added my aunt.

"We can scarcely call the Chinese inferior, Miss Morgan," returned

Professor Ballington. (How I wanted to give him a hug!) "The Chinaman

despises our day of small things. Like the Jew he possesses a great

national history which dwarfs that of all other nations. The golden era

of Confucius lies back five hundred years before the coming of Christ,

and the palmy days of the Chan dynasty antedate the period of David and

Solomon."

"Oh, yes," said my aunt curtly, "but what has he accomplished in all

that time? We regard them as a nation of laundrymen."

"And they regard us as a nation of shopkeepers, and express lofty

contempt for our greed of gain," said the professor.

"The idea!" said my aunt scornfully; "the fact is I always feel inclined

to relegate the yellow-skinned denizens of China to the brute kingdom.

Think of the _dreadful_ things that happen there! Life itself is of

small account to them!"

"One of our own writers," returned the professor, "says, 'Life is safer

in Pekin than in New York.' Another writer adds, 'Chicago beats China

for official dishonesty!'"

"It is a nation which for thousands of years has set more store by

education than any other nation under the sun," said Uncle Theodore, "I

have been reading up about them lately" (that's because of me) "and it

is perfectly astonishing, their high ideals. There are clearly marked

gradations in society, and the highest rank is open only to highly

educated men. First, the scholar; because mind is superior to wealth.

Second, the farmer; because the mind cannot act without the body, and

the body cannot exist without food and raiment. Third, the mechanic;

because next to food and raiment shelter is necessary. Fourth, the

tradesman; men to carry on exchange and barter become a necessity. And

last of all the soldier; because his business is to destroy, and not to

build up society. How does that compare with our country which makes

more of the destroyer than of any other citizen? No man in China can

rise to any position of responsibility except by education; money in

_this_ country will carry a man into the legislature if he cannot write

his own name."

"Chinese ethics are grand," added the professor. "Listen to the teaching

of Lao Teh. 'I would meet good with good, but I would also meet evil

with good, confidence with confidence--distrust with confidence. Virtue

is both good and trustful.'"

"There isn't a doubt that they are a wonderful people," returned Uncle

Theodore. "When our ancestors were wandering about in sheep-skins and

goat-skins--if in any other skins but their own--China had a

civilisation. Wrong seems to be not a question of right with us, but of

might. We do not attempt to stop people taking chances on the stock

exchange; taking such chances is perfectly legal, but taking chances in

a lottery is a serious offence. If a Chinaman takes chances in a little

game which he understands, the morals of the community are endangered,

and the poor Celestial must be hurried off to jail. We civilised people

allow betting at a horse-race, and disallow it in other places. It is

only the uninfluential people we send to jail for violation of the law."

They talked back and forth in an animated way for some time. I was dying

to speak, but did not dare; but I am sure that once in the heat of the

argument, Professor Ballington shot a glance across the table at me

which spoke volumes. The same smile was in his eyes that was there when

I sang for him my _one_ Spanish song. What did he mean? Can he guess?

Does he know that I am not Spanish?--that I am the Yellow Pearl?

_May 5th, 1----_

A very important item has appeared in the newspaper to-day--poor Lee Yet

has fallen into trouble; rather, other people are trying to get him into

trouble, and his wife, the little oval-faced Mrs. Yet, has been

subpoenaed to appear as a witness in his behalf.

That dear little sad woman to have to go to court before all those

Americans! "She shall _not_ be studied and laughed at as a curiosity.

She _shall_ be dressed up like an American woman!" I declared as soon as

I read the item.

In pursuance of my idea this afternoon, I a second time donned

grandmother's garments--lucky that grandmother and I are the same

height--and a second time left the house unnoticed by any one except

Yick.

How very much at home I feel in the garments of an elderly gentlewoman!

Perhaps I am walking around the world the eighteen-year-old

reincarnation of some dear, silken-clad old granny who inhabited this

sphere hundreds of years ago.

I quickly found my way down to the home of Mrs. Yet, and rapped at the

door.

It was opened by the little woman herself, who looked even sadder than

when I first saw her. I addressed her in Chinese and lifting my veil,

told her that I had come to make her a visit. She smiled in a pleased

way, opened wide the door, and invited me into the house. She had never

noticed the discrepancy between my antiquated dress and young face, and

was blissfully unconscious that my garments were fifty years (more or

less) out of date.

On my entrance something small and pink moved behind a wire screen in

the corner of the room, and Mrs. Yet clipclapped across the floor in her

Chinese sandals, and picked up a little bundle of Chinese life, saying:

"This my baby. He eighteen month. He sick--get tooth--got one tooth."

We talked about the baby, she sometimes speaking in Chinese, and

sometimes in broken English, until we felt acquainted. Then I said:

"Mrs. Yet, I see by the newspaper that you will have to appear in court

to give evidence in behalf of your husband. You do not want to go there

in Chinese dress to be the subject of curiosity, and newspaper remark?"

The trouble which had left her face while she was talking about the

baby, reappeared, and tears gathered in her almond eyes.

It was more than I could stand, and I cried, "Don't! Don't! Mrs. Yet--I

have come to make things all right--I, your country-woman--speaking your

own language. I am going to give myself the pleasure of dressing you

like an American woman."

She remonstrated politely but I urged so strongly that at last she

yielded; and it seemed when she did so as if a great burden had rolled

from off her pale little face.

Immediately I went out to one of the great stores and ordered several

costumes for her to "fit on"--I wasn't a child any longer. Grandmother's

rich old skirt and shawl carried weight a second time (they could not

see my face distinctly through the veil), for without hesitation a woman

was despatched with the costumes.

This woman expert worked over the little Mrs. Yet, pinching, and

pulling, and puckering, after the manner of American dressmakers, until

she had her resplendent in a rich maroon-coloured wool costume, which

exactly suited her olive skin, and made her almost a beauty.

At last the costume was satisfactorily settled and paid for. Oh, it is

nice to have plenty of money to pay for all one wants. Father left me

plenty (and although I do not control it until I come of a certain age,

I get a liberal monthly instalment). I then went to a milliner's and

bought a hat of a shade to harmonise with the costume. It was trimmed

with ribbon, and deep, rich, maroon roses, and just looked _too sweet

for anything_. "Youthful and stylish," as the milliner said. Why not?

Mrs. Yet is young, and she has just as good a right to look stylish as

any American woman!

Happy? I should say I am! I never was happier in my life than I am

to-night; even if I did steal out in grandmother's old clothes, and am a

"sly, subtle Oriental."

_May 10th, 1----_

The Court met to-day, and there has appeared in the evening papers this

notice:

"A novelty in the shape of a Chinese woman witness appeared in the

Sessions yesterday. Mrs. Lee Yet went into the box in behalf of her

husband. Her trim little figure was becomingly attired in a dark-red,

tailored costume, and a reddish trimmed hat set off to perfection her

rich Oriental complexion and features, beautiful in their national type.

She gave her evidence without an interpreter, and did much toward

clearing her husband of the accusations falsely laid against him."

Oh, isn't it delightful to think that I have been instrumental in

bringing all this to a happy issue! I shall carry this newspaper down to

Mrs. Yet's home, and read to her this pleasing paragraph.

_May 11th, 1----_

A "Windfall," as Uncle Theodore calls it, has come to the family;

grandmother was quite a "well-to-do" woman before, now she is a _rich_

woman. Some investments in mines that grandfather made years ago have

turned out to be of marvellous value, and the result is that my

grandmother, my Uncle Theodore, my Aunt Gwendolin have greatly increased

in wealth.

Aunt Gwendolin wanted to change the form of our living at once; she

would introduce a page and a butler to our household staff. But

grandmother said she was accustomed to a quiet life and preferred it.

She insists, in spite of my aunt's protests, that a Chinese cook, a

house-maid, a laundress, a gardener, and that lovely chauffeur ought to

be enough to attend to the wants of four people.

Aunt Gwendolin stormed, and said it was so _common_ to live as we did,

that the English always kept a butler; but grandmother was firm. Another

example that mothers in America can rule in the house if they wish.

Grandmother seemed a good deal concerned about this sudden acquisition

of wealth. "An addition of silver to bell-metal does not add to the

sweetness of the tone," she said. "I fear an undue proportion of silver

impairs more than bells."

_May 13th, 1----_

"BULLS AND BEARS IN A HARD STRUGGLE OVER WHEAT." Uncle Theodore read the

great headline from his evening paper.

"Wild scenes prevailed to-day at the Board of Trade," he continued,

"when John Smith began taking in his profits on wheat. It is estimated

that he made a profit of over three hundred thousand in less than half

an hour. Altogether he has cleared more than five millions on his wheat

deal, and that within six months."

"Dear me! Dear me!" cried grandmother, "and people dying for want of

bread!"

"Well," returned Uncle Theodore, "Smith is only a highly sensitive

product of our so-called civilisation; the civilisation we are rushing

and straining to carry to the quiet, unassuming people whom _we_ call

heathen. They have no millionaires, made so at the expense of their

brothers. When we teach them all the graft, lynching, homicide,

enormities of trusts, railroads, new religions, and quack remedies, we

shall have them civilised."

"Christianity has to blush for Christendom," sighed grandmother.

I have been asking grandmother since how bulls and bears could struggle

over wheat; and she tells me that the strugglers are not four-footed

beasts at all, but _men_. I see how it is, bulls and bears are both

cantankerous animals, which, if they come in conflict about anything,

are sure to have a fight; and men who have given evidence of like

natures have been called after those fierce animals. It must be that

way. I have asked grandmother whether that is not the way they came by

their names, and she said she supposed it must be.

_May 21st, 1----_

My poor despised people have fallen upon hard lines. Lee Yet met with an

accident on the street and had to be taken to the hospital where he must

remain for weeks, and the day following Mrs. Yet was stricken down with

diphtheria.

I was out in the automobile with grandmother and Aunt Gwendolin and

chancing to pass the house of Lee Yet, I saw the awful word

"Diphtheria." in black letters on a scarlet ground, tacked to the door.

That night when all his day's work was done I gave Yick a coin and

asked him to go down and learn who was stricken with the disease.

He came back with the intelligence that it was poor little Mrs. Yet, and

that there was no one waiting on her.

Fortunately the next afternoon Aunt Gwendolin went to "bridge," and

again donning grandmother's garments, I slipped out of the house and

down to the home of Mrs. Yet.

Meeting the doctor at the door, just as he was coming out, I ordered him

to engage a nurse.

He looked at me in surprise, but I paid in advance for a week's service,

so he could do nothing but obey me.

Opening the door I went into the front room of the little home and found

the Celestial baby fretting away in its cradle just as any other baby

would fret if left to itself. I began to call it all sorts of pet names

in Chinese, and the little slant-eye cooed and smiled back at me as if

he really liked it.

A Chinese neighbour woman came in and told me that the baby was to be

kept in the front room, while its mother was quarantined in a room

upstairs. She further informed me that she came in twice a day to feed

the baby, and the rest of the time he was alone.

"I have it! I have it!" I cried exultingly to my own interior self, "I

know now my _aptitude_! I know now what I can do that is impossible to

any other; it surely is _impossible_ to any other--in this nation of an

hour--to jabber the Chinese I can jabber to this eighteen months' old

baby! I shall come here and take care of him, while the trained nurse

is taking care of the mother upstairs. I'll come for awhile every day

anyway, and will pay the Chinese woman, who cannot leave her

laundry-minding in the daytime, to take care of him at night! He's just

as much a dear human baby as any purple-and-fine-linen American baby!"

How fortune favoured me that evening! Aunt Gwendolin announced that she

was going in the morning on a month's visit to another city.

She was not much more than out the door the following day when I asked

grandmother's permission to go where I liked every afternoon of the

week.

Dear grandmother remonstrated a little--for fear I might tire myself too

much--or might go where it was not wise to go, etc., etc. But I coaxed,

and I won the day.

A strange event happened the very first afternoon. Just as I had passed

through the lane at the rear of the house, who should be standing there

at the back gate but the chauffeur, beside the automobile. He knew me

despite my grandmotherly garb (as I had commenced going to the house of

Mrs. Yet in grandmother's black shawl, bonnet, and skirt, I thought it

better to continue doing so), politely touched his cap, and said if I

had far to go it would take him but a few minutes to whirl me there in

the automobile.

He is very good looking, and a gentleman. Uncle Theodore says he is a

student who is taking this means to earn money further to pursue his

medical studies. Sometimes Uncle Theodore familiarly calls him

"Sawbones."

Nodding my assent, I entered the car, gave my directions, and soon was

down in front of Mrs. Yet's small house.

I lifted the fretting little baby out of his cradle as soon as I

entered, washed and dressed him, he kicking and squirming just as I

suppose any other baby kicks and squirms. All the fear I had was that he

would roll out of my hands, he was such a slippery little eel when his

body was wet.

Where did I learn how to wash and dress a baby? I must have known how by

instinct, for I never did it, or saw it done before. The Chinese woman

who keeps the little Oriental at night told me the articles that went

next the skin, and I had no trouble guessing about where to put the

others. After one or two attempts I did it as well as a mother of twenty

babies.

Every day I am being conveyed down to my duties in the automobile. The

chauffeur seemed to divine that I would go out every afternoon (perhaps

because Aunt Gwendolin was away) without my telling him, and is always

waiting at the little rear gate in the back street to obey my commands.

What a delightful time we are having! "When the cat's away the mice can

play!"

Dear grandmother has never seen me either leave or return to the house,

but necessarily Yick and Betty are both into the secret.

"'For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,' commend me to the

Chinese."

_May 22d, 1----_

A most impressive occurrence has transpired, as Mrs. Paton would say.

Just as I was coming out of Mrs. Yet's house this afternoon who should

be passing but Professor Ballington!

I had not yet dropped my black chiffon veil, and glancing down from his

great height of six feet, he looked me full in the face.

At the same instant he saw the word, "Diphtheria," in the great black

letters on a scarlet ground, and stopping he exclaimed:

"Why, Miss Pearl! This is a surprise! Do you know where you are--what

risk you are running? Diphtheria is contagious--_very_!"

"I know," I replied, "but some one has to mind a little Chinese baby in

there. Its father is in the hospital, and its mother is shut in a room

upstairs with diphtheria, and there is no one to stay all afternoon

with the baby if I do not. He's a Chinese baby, and of no account in

America," I added. (I came within one of telling him that I was the only

one who could call him pet names in the language he could understand;

wouldn't Aunt Gwendolin have taken a fit?) "I just _had_ to come," I

pleaded, seeing his look of disapproval. "Each man and woman is born

with an aptitude to do something impossible to any other, an aptitude

that the world has no match for, Mrs. Paton says; and I have just found

out that my aptitude, impossible to any other, is to mind this Chinese

baby; no one else can _match_ me in this!"

He looked less severe, almost kind, and half as if he could scarcely

keep from laughing. Then he said, "Have you disinfectants? They are very

necessary."