Mrs. Van Buren drove into town next day. While there she made a call
upon the Chinese consular agent. Lucy was with her. Consul Bradley
appeared to have little fresh information to give.
"The boy's father is a good man," he said. "Like the wise fathers
everywhere he craves knowledge for his son. I promised him Sky-High
should see something of Boston, and I do for him all I can."
"Mother," said Lucy on the way home, "we might be nicer to Sky-High.
Listen!"
Her mother listened to Lucy's plan, and gave permission.
When Lucy got home she said to Sky-High, "We want you to go to church
with us; and Charlie and I want you to go with us to our Sunday school.
There are Chinese Sunday schools in Boston, but we wish you to be in
ours."
"I will have to wear my queue, and my flowing clothes, Lucy," said the
boy.
"But, Sky-High, you can braid your braid close, and wind it around
your head, and put on your black tunic, and you shall sit in our pew.
Besides, anyway, it would be proper for a person of China to wear his
braid down his back after the custom of his country."
"You speak as kindly as would the daughter of a wang!" said Sky-High,
with his beautiful bow of ceremony.
On Sunday the little Chinaman dressed his hair becomingly and put on
black clothes, with white ruffles. He sat in the Van Buren pew, beside
Charlie. He listened to the organ like one entranced. It was Easter Day,
and the house was full of the odor of lilies. The text for the service
was these words of Jesus: "_If any man keep my sayings he shall never
see death._"
The "Joss preacher," as he called the minister, came and spoke to him,
and invited him to go into the Sunday-school room.
In the evening he made Chinese tea, and served it in the library, and
afterward sat with the family.
Suddenly he said, "Mistress, what were the 'sayings' of Jesus? Sky-High
wishes to live on forever."
Mrs. Van Buren read the Beatitudes.
"And what is the heaven, mistress?"
"Sky-High," said Mrs. Van Buren, very earnestly, to her little servant,
"I scarcely know how to tell you what heaven is, only that we surely
have a part in its building here by our Loving and our Helping here. You
know how dear it is to be with those you love, you know how pleasant it
is to meet again those you have helped. That is the law of the soul. God
loves and helps us, and will rejoice in having us abide with him, and
that will make us happy; and all whom we have made better and happier
here will help make our heaven for us. Heaven is the gladness of Loving
and Helping as nearly as I know."
"That heaven--it is beautiful, mistress," said little Sky-High. In his
own country, it had been pleasant music to hear the "prayer-wheels" go
round in the temples, whirling the paper prayers fastened upon them, but
the pleasure he felt at this moment was different.
"I will help many, mistress," he said. "Perhaps Sky-High will help the
boys that pull his queue on the street when he goes errands to the
stores. Sky-High will go with his mistress and her children other
Sundays, if he may. Goodnight, mistress!"
So ended the Easter Sunday of the little Chinaman.