Thus I met Liu Kanghi, the Chinese who afterwards became my husband. I
followed him, obeyed him, trusted him from the very first. It never
occurred to me to ask myself what manner of man was succoring me. I only
knew that he was a man, and that I was being cared for as no one had
ever cared for me since my father died. And my grim determination to
leave a world which had been cruel to me, passed away—and in its place I
experienced a strange calmness and content.
“I am going to take you to the house of a friend of mine,” he said as he
preceded me up the hill, the baby in his arms.
“You will not mind living with Chinese people?” he added.
An electric light under which we were passing flashed across his face.
I did not recoil—not even at first. It may have been because he was
wearing American clothes, wore his hair cut, and, even to my American
eyes, appeared a good-looking young man—and it may have been because of
my troubles; but whatever it was I answered him, and I meant it: “I
would much rather live with Chinese than Americans.”
He did not ask me why, and I did not tell him until long afterwards the
story of my unhappy marriage, my desertion of the man who had made it
impossible for me to remain under his roof; the shame of the divorce,
the averted faces of those who had been my friends; the cruelty of the
world; the awful struggle for an existence for myself and child;
sickness followed by despair.
The Chinese family with which he placed me were kind, simple folk. The
father had been living in America for more than twenty years. The family
consisted of his wife, a grown daughter, and several small sons and
daughters, all of whom had been born in America. They made me very
welcome and adored the baby. Liu Jusong, the father, was a working
jeweler; but, because of an accident by which he had lost the use of one
hand, was partially incapacitated for work. Therefore, their family
depended for maintenance chiefly upon their kinsman, Liu Kanghi, the
Chinese who had brought me to them.
“We love much our cousin,” said one of the little girls to me one day.
“He teaches us so many games and brings us toys and sweets.”
As soon as I recovered from the attack of nervous prostration which laid
me low for over a month after being received into the Liu home, my mind
began to form plans for my own and my child’s maintenance. One morning I
put on my hat and jacket and told Mrs. Liu I would go down town and make
an application for work as a stenographer at the different typewriting
offices. She pleaded with me to wait a week longer—until, as she said,
“your limbs are more fortified with strength”; but I assured her that I
felt myself well able to begin to do for myself, and that I was anxious
to repay some little part of the expense I had been to them.
“For all we have done for you,” she answered, “our cousin has paid us
doublefold.”
“No money can recompense your kindness to myself and child,” I replied;
“but if it is your cousin to whom I am indebted for board and lodging,
all the greater is my anxiety to repay what I owe.”
When I returned to the house that evening, tired out with my quest for
work, I found Liu Kanghi tossing ball with little Fong in the front
porch.
Mrs. Liu bustled out to meet me and began scolding in motherly fashion.
“Oh, why you go down town before you strong enough? See! You look all
sick again!” said she.
She turned to Liu Kanghi and said something in Chinese. He threw the
ball back to the boy and came toward me, his face grave and concerned.
“Please be so good as to take my cousin’s advice,” he urged.
“I am well enough to work now,” I replied, “and I cannot sink deeper
into your debt.”
“You need not,” said he. “I know a way by which you can quickly pay me
off and earn a good living without wearing yourself out and leaving the
baby all day. My cousin tells me that you can create most beautiful
flowers on silk, velvet, and linen. Why not then you do some of that
work for my store? I will buy all you can make.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed, “I should be only too glad to do such work! But do
you really think I can earn a living in that way?”
“You certainly can,” was his reply. “I am requiring an embroiderer, and
if you will do the work for me I will try to pay you what it is worth.”
So I gladly gave up my quest for office work. I lived in the Liu Jusong
house and worked for Liu Kanghi. The days, weeks, and months passed
peacefully and happily. Artistic needlework had always been my favorite
occupation, and when it became a source both of remuneration and
pleasure, I began to feel that life was worth living, after all. I
watched with complacency my child grow amongst the little Chinese
children. My life’s experience had taught me that the virtues do not all
belong to the whites. I was interested in all that concerned the Liu
household, became acquainted with all their friends, and lost altogether
the prejudice against the foreigner in which I had been reared.
I had been living thus more than a year when, one afternoon as I was
walking home from Liu Kanghi’s store on Kearney Street, a parcel of
silks and floss under my arm, and my little girl trudging by my side, I
came face to face with James Carson.
“Well, now,” said he, planting himself in front of me, “you are looking
pretty well. How are you making out?”
I caught up my child and pushed past him without a word. When I reached
the Liu house I was trembling in every limb, so great was my dislike and
fear of the man who had been my husband.
About a week later a letter came to the house addressed to me. It read: