THE CHINAMAN'S HEAD
For a long time afterwards, Freddie dreamed at night of a hunchbacked
man whose head came off and popped on again, and wicked red demons who
chased a poor man with a white face who tried to cry for help and could
not speak a word, and of a Chinaman's head without a body, smoking a
long clay pipe. In the daytime, he thought a good deal about the people
he was now acquainted with: Mr. Toby with his white derby hat, Aunt
Amanda swallowing pins, the sailorman from China, Mr. Punch and his
father, Mr. Hanlon with his head on the table, the Churchwarden smoking
his churchwarden pipe, and the two old Codgers, one so sly and the other
so beggarly; but that which occupied his mind more than anything else
was the Chinaman's head on Mr. Toby's shelf.
Freddie was older now, and as time went on it might be thought that he
would have grown accustomed to all these strange things; but he had not;
far from it; he thought about them more and more, and most of all about
the Chinaman's head and the magic tobacco. He really could not get that
Chinaman's head out of his mind. Here was magic just within reach of
your hand, and you were told that you mustn't touch it. You might as
well have Aladdin's lamp in your bureau drawer, and be told to keep away
from the bureau; even parents ought to know better than to expect such a
thing. Anyway, what harm could just one or two little whiffs do? You
needn't smoke a whole pipeful, if you didn't want to. However, Mr. Toby
would not be pleased, and Freddie did not intend to do anything to
displease Mr. Toby. Still, it did seem a pity, with such a chance right
over your head--Oh, well, he would think no more about it; he fixed his
mind on other things; he thought especially about a hymn they sang
nearly every Sunday in Sunday-school; it was a great help; he knew it by
heart, and it went like this:
"Yield not to temptation,
For yielding is sin,
Each vict'ry will help you
Some other to win."
He resolved he would never think about the magic tobacco again; he went
to sleep saying over to himself, "Yield not to temptation," and dreamed
all night about the Chinaman's head, and thought about it all the next
day.
In order to get it out of his mind, he called on Aunt Amanda. It was
late in the afternoon; he sat on his hassock and watched Aunt Amanda
sewing. Mr. Toby was in the shop, waiting on customers. Freddie watched
for a long time, and then said:
"What are you doing?"
"Basting," said Aunt Amanda.
"I thought that was what you did to a turkey," said Freddie.
"So it is," said Aunt Amanda.
"That isn't a turkey," said Freddie.
"No," said Aunt Amanda, "you baste a turkey with gravy."
"That isn't gravy," said Freddie.
"It's different," said Aunt Amanda. "You see, I have to sew this up with
needle and thread, and----"
"You sew up a turkey with needle and thread, too," said Freddie.
"But that's different," said Aunt Amanda. "You couldn't baste a turkey
with needle and thread, and you couldn't baste dress-goods with
gravy----"
"Why not?" said Freddie.
"Well," said Aunt Amanda, "well, you see, they don't do it that way;
it's _different_; it ain't the same thing at all; it's like this; when
you baste a turkey----"
"Have you ever had any children?" said Freddie.
Aunt Amanda put her hand to her heart suddenly, as if she had received a
shot there, and caught her breath; then she looked out of the window,
and then round at the wax flowers on the table, and then at the door,
and she really seemed to be thinking of running away. But she was too
lame to do that, and she at last clasped her fingers together tight in
her lap, and looked hard at Freddie. He was gazing at her calmly,
waiting for information.
"No," said Aunt Amanda, "I have never--had--any--children."
"Why not?" said Freddie.
"I have--never--been married," said Aunt Amanda.
Freddie thought about this for a moment.
"Didn't anybody ever want you?" said he.
"No," said she, "nobody--ever--wanted--me."
Freddie was puzzled.
"But you're nice," said he.
"That ain't enough," said Aunt Amanda.
"What else do you have to be?"
"You have to be pretty."
"Weren't you ever pretty?"
"I thought--so--once, but--but--I must have been mistaken. I guess I
never was."
Freddie thought it over, and announced his decision seriously.
"_I_ would want you, anyway."
Aunt Amanda stretched out a trembling hand to him and ran her fingers
through his hair; then she threw both her arms around him and pressed
him against her knee. He was much annoyed. He was afraid she might be
going to kiss him; but she did not; instead, she pulled out her
handkerchief and blew her nose.
"How many children were there that you didn't have?" said Freddie, to
change the subject. Aunt Amanda did not understand this at first, but
she finally saw what he meant. What _did_ he mean? you may say. What he
meant was--well, it is perfectly clear, but it is hard to explain.
Anyway, Aunt Amanda understood him. "Three," said she. "Bobby was the
oldest, and Jenny next, and James was the littlest one."
"Did they all go to school?"
"Oh dear no. Only Bobby. And once he played hookey, and was gone
all day, and didn't come home until after dark, all muddy. I
was terribly worried. He was a very mischievous boy, but he was
his--mother's--own----"
"Did he play marbles for keeps?"
"Yes, but he went to Sunday-school just as regular, and liked it,
and----"
"He _liked_ it?"
"Yes, of course, and he always took good care of Jenny----. She had
little yellow curls. They went to Sunday-school together hand in hand,
and he didn't even mind her carrying her dolly with her; she wouldn't go
without it. He was so careful of her at street-crossings. She loved her
dollies. She used to pretend that James was one of them."
"Did James like that?"
"Not very well, but he put up with it for quite a few minutes at a time.
He couldn't be still very long. But he was pretty lonesome when Jenny
had the measles."
"I've had the chicken-pox. Did Bobby know how to mind his P's and Q's?"
"He didn't mind anybody very well. Once I had a note from his teacher,
and it said----"
But Freddie never learned what sin Bobby had committed in school; for at
that moment the shop door opened, and Mr. Toby thrust in his head and
said:
"Just got to get around to the barber-shop right away this minute; can't
put it off no longer. Won't be gone twenty minutes. Freddie!"
"Yes, sir," said Freddie, standing up.
"Do you think you could look after the shop for twenty minutes, while
I'm gone?"
Now Freddie did not know it, but this was in fact the most important
question that had ever been put to him in his life. Everything depended
on his answer; if he said no, we might as well stop this story right
here; if he said yes----
"Yes, sir," said Freddie.
"All right. If anybody comes in, just tell 'em to wait."
Freddie left Aunt Amanda, sitting very still, and gazing out of the
window, with her hands folded in her lap, and followed Mr. Toby into the
shop.
"All right, sonny," said Mr. Toby, "make yourself comfortable. I'll be
back in a jiffy. If anybody comes in, you tell 'em to wait." And with
that he went out of the door and up the street. Freddie was left alone
in the shop.
Everything was very quiet now, for it was beginning to be twilight, and
all the people seemed to be indoors. He knew he ought to be going home,
but he had promised to mind the shop, and it would never do to leave
before Mr. Toby came back. The street door and the door to Aunt Amanda's
room were both closed. He sat down on the chair by the front window and
looked out across the bull-dog's head. He thought of Bobby and his
little sister in Sunday-school, and that led him to think of the hymn
that did him so much good:
"Yield not to temptation,
For yielding is sin."
He sang that tune to himself for a while, and he found himself singing
other tunes, and finally one which began:
"There was an old codger, and he had a wooden leg,
And he never bought tobacco when tobacco he could beg."
Tobacco! There was a world of tobacco on those shelves. Smoking tobacco,
and churchwarden pipes. He strolled around behind the counter, and let
down the back of the show-case. There were the churchwarden pipes; he
selected one and took it out. It tasted cold and clammy when he put it
in his mouth, and he wondered what it would taste like with tobacco in
it. He brought the little ladder and got up on it, facing the shelves,
and to his surprise he found himself looking directly into the slanting
eyes of the porcelain Chinaman's head. He stood there gazing
thoughtfully into those eyes, and singing to himself the verse which was
always such a help to him:
"Yield not to temptation,
For yielding is sin,
Each vict'ry will help you
Some other to win."
It was growing a little darker now, and he could not examine the
Chinaman's head very well without bringing it closer. He took the head
in his hands, lifted it from the shelf, got down off the ladder, and sat
down on the floor with his back against the counter; and while he was
doing this he hummed to himself the next part of his tune:
"Fight manfully onward,
Dark passions subdue."
He put the head on his knees, and took off the Chinaman's little round
cap, which proved to be in fact a lid. He put his hand inside and drew
out a good fistful of absolutely black tobacco, fine and powdery like
coal-dust; he held it to his nose, and it smelt very sweet, in fact much
like brown sugar. He wondered if it would taste like brown sugar through
the pipe-stem; and humming quietly to himself, "Each vict'ry will help
you," he poured the tobacco into the bowl of the pipe. He was
disappointed, on sucking in through the pipe-stem, to find that there
was no brown-sugar taste at all. Of course, the only way to give tobacco
any taste was to light it; he reached up and got a match off the counter
behind him, and sitting down again struck the match on the floor. It
made a very pretty glow in the twilight, and he watched it as it burned
away in his fingers; it would be burnt out in another second, so,
humming to himself those ever-helpful words, "Yield not to temptation,"
he put the pipe in his mouth and touched the lighted match to the
tobacco.
It is painful to have to tell these things, but it can't be helped; for
the consequences were so strange, and so important to Freddie and his
friends, that----
Anyway, he lit the pipe and drew in a long breath through the stem. He
nearly choked to death. Smoke got into his nose and his eyes and his
throat, and he coughed and coughed; but he remembered the words, "Fight
manfully onward," and he determined that he would not give up so soon.
He stopped coughing and pulled again at the pipe; this time he did not
swallow the smoke, but blew it out of his mouth as he had seen it done a
thousand times. He gave another pull, and blew the smoke out again; it
did indeed taste like brown sugar; it was extremely pleasant; he puffed
again and again. He was astonished that he could have produced so much
smoke in a few whiffs; there was quite a cloud over his head. He gave
another puff, and when he blew out the smoke the white cloud above him
was so thick that he could not see through it. It began to settle down
on him. He put the Chinaman's head on the floor, and looked up into this
cloud.
It was growing thicker and thicker, and it was beginning to churn about
as if in a whirlwind; it turned all sorts of colours, mostly yellow and
green, and parts of it looked like barber's poles revolving at a
terrific speed. He became dizzy as he gazed at it; his head began to
swim; the cloud was coming down closer and closer upon him, and whirling
about more and more wildly; he crouched down lower, and became dizzier
and dizzier. The counter and the shelves began to go round and round, so
that he had to put his hand on the floor to steady himself; in another
moment the shop disappeared altogether, and there was nothing under him
but a little square of floor, and nothing over him but the wild,
churning cloud, now sparkling with jets of fire. He felt himself
falling, falling, and as he came to the bottom with a crash, he heard
the shop door open and close, and found himself sitting on the floor
with his back to the counter as before, with no smoke anywhere to be
seen; and he was aware that a hoarse voice was speaking on the other
side of the counter, and it was saying these words, very loud and brisk:
"Avast, there! Belay that piping! All snug, sir, hatches battened down,
makin' way under skysails and royals, hands piped to quarters, and
here's your humble servant ready for orders! Shiver my timbers, where's
the skipper? Piped me up with a 'baccy pipe, he did, and where's he
gone? Skipper ahoy! Come for orders, I be, and ever yours to command,
Lemuel Mizzen! That's me!"
Freddie put the pipe down on the floor, rose to his feet, and looked
over the counter.
Leaning on his elbow on the other side of the counter was a Sailorman,
with a wide blue collar open at the throat, a flat blue cap with a black
ribbon on the back of his head, and a green patch over his right eye.