She looked at me in a startled way, then drawing a tiny handkerchief
from her bosom, she carefully wiped the spot on her cheek where my lips
had touched. The practice of kissing is unknown in China.
On the way home, when but a few yards from the house of Mrs. Yet, I met
Professor Ballington again, and told him the story about the sick baby.
He asked me to go back with him, and take him in to see it, which I did.
He looked scrutinisingly at the little hard pallet on which the baby
lay; and what did that dear man do but go out to one of the great stores
not far away, and buy the prettiest little cot, and the softest and best
mattress that could be found in the market, and order them sent home
without delay to that little yellow baby.
Was it the soft mattress that did it? I do not know; but almost
immediately the baby seemed to rest easier, and by degrees came back to
life and strength.
Oh, this would be a glorious country to live in!--if the people were
all like Professor Ballington.
_June 10th, 1----_
I made my first visit to the theatre. Aunt Gwendolin said I should not
go until I came _out_, but Uncle Theodore said he would take me himself,
and defy all fashions and formalities.
"I enjoy seeing the little girl absorbing our civilisation," he said to
grandmother; "sometimes I fancy it seems rather uncivilised to her."
Grandmother demurred a good deal; she said she did not know but I would
be quite as well, or better, if I never went near a theatre. But Uncle
Theodore said that was an old-fashioned idea that grandmother held to
because of her Puritan ancestry; that it was generally conceded now
that the theatre is a great educator, the greatest educator of the
people extant to-day.
"There is going to be a world-renowned actress to-night, a star of first
magnitude in the theatrical world," he added, "and I want my niece to
have the advantage of hearing her."
I dressed my very prettiest for the occasion. Uncle Theodore always has
an eye for the artistic in dress. I donned soft silks, soft ribbons, and
soft feathers. It is one of my uncle's ideas that women should be softly
clad; he absolutely hates anything hard, stiff, or masculine-looking on
a woman.
When we entered the theatre the orchestra was playing most ravishing
music. I could have stayed there all night and listened to it without
tiring, I believe. It must be the American half of me that is the
music-lover, for the Chinese are not very musical.
The boxes were full of wonderfully well-dressed men and women. How
beautiful women can look in this great country, dressed in every colour
of the rainbow! Men are of less account in America; but they looked well
enough, too, in black coats and white shirt-bosoms.
After awhile the heavenly music stopped, the curtain on the stage rolled
up, and the play began.
At first it was entrancing, magnificent--the stage-furnishings,
gorgeously dressed women, clever-looking men, all acting a part--a
lovely world without anything to mar it, right there in that small space
of the stage before our eyes.
Then a woman, the star actress, came in wearing a very décolleté gown
(I am getting hardened to them now), and began to talk in a manner I
never had imagined people in good society would talk--right before those
hundreds of men and women. I'll not write it down; I do not wish to
remember it. But the party of women on the stage, instead of being
shocked or ashamed, all laughed little, rippling, merry laughs. My
cheeks burned, and I did not dare to look at anybody, not even Uncle
Theodore.
After that I could not like the theatre any more and drawing away within
myself, I looked and listened as if the actors had been hundreds of
miles from me.
When the play was over and we were on the way home Uncle Theodore said:
"If I had known the nature of the play, I would not have taken you
to-night, Pearl."
"But _I_," I cried, "_I_ am only _one_! There were hundreds of people
being _educated_ as well as _I_!"
Uncle Theodore turned and looked at me quickly; then he said coldly:
"My dear, you have a great deal yet to learn."
When we reached home I went at once upstairs to my room, and Uncle
Theodore retired to his den.
Neither of us has ever mentioned the subject since.
Cousin Ned is around morning, noon, and night now. He is walking with a
crutch, having had his shin kicked at a foot-ball match.
_June 20th, 1----_
I went with grandmother to-day on her weekly visit to the "Home for
Incurable Children." Grandmother goes to carry her presents, and "to
cheer up the little folk," she says; I went prompted by curiosity.
We were ushered in by a cheery, wholesome-looking maid who knew
grandmother, and gave her the freedom of the house.
We first entered the ward where the older children were kept, and there
grandmother distributed her books and pictures.
While she sat to rest I wandered from one cot to another, where white
little faces looked up at me, pleasantly answering my questions, or
volunteering information.
"I am a _new_ patient," one midget said, with a placid air of
importance.
"I'm goin' to have an _operation_ to-morrow," said another exultingly.
"That's one blessed fact about children," said the attending nurse,
"they never fret in anticipation. They look forward with positive pride
to a new experience--even if it is an operation."
In one bright room three boys were playing a game of number-cards, one a
hunchback, another with crippled lower limbs, and a third, seated on a
long high bench, handling the cards with his toes, his arms and hands
being useless.
The top part of the foot of the socks belonging to this last lad had
been cut off, and he was picking the cards off the table with his bare
toes; passing them from foot to foot, and replacing a certain card on
the table, quite as expertly as another boy might do it with his
fingers.
I walked into another room to see the little babies; blind,
crooked-limbed, distorted, never going to be able to use their bodies
properly.
"Why does God leave them here?" I demanded of grandmother as soon as we
had reached the open air again.
"Perhaps," said grandmother quietly, "to give us the blessed privilege
of acting the God toward them."
"Christianity means brotherhood, Pearl, dear," she added, after we had
walked several yards in silence.
What a great country this America is! Caring for its ailing and crippled
in such a beautiful way!
"Oh, China!" I cried, when I was all alone in my own room, "_you_ would
drown your blind, crooked-limbed, distorted babies, or throw them out on
the hillsides to die! Oh, China! China! would you could come over here
and see how America treats her 'weak and wounded, sick and sore?' These
are the words of a church hymn."
I said something to this effect the same evening to grandmother, and she
replied:
"Perhaps, my dear, it may be the duty of some of us to carry America to
China."