I
The sun was conquering the morning fog, dappling with gold the gray
waters of San Francisco’s bay, and throwing an emerald radiance over the
islands around.
Close to the long line of wharves lay motionless brigs and schooners,
while farther off in the harbor were ships of many nations riding at
anchor.
A fishing fleet was steering in from the open sea, scudding before the
wind like a flock of seabirds. All night long had the fishers toiled in
the deep. Now they were returning with the results of their labor.
A young Chinese girl, watching the fleet from the beach of Fisherman’s
Cove, shivered in the morning air. Over her blue cotton blouse she wore
no wrap; on her head, no covering. All her interest was centred in one
lone boat which lagged behind the rest, being heavier freighted. The
fisherman was of her own race. When his boat was beached he sprang to
her side.
“O’Yam, what brings you here?” he questioned low, for the curious eyes
of his fellow fishermen were on her.
“Your mother is dying,” she answered.
The young man spake a few words in English to a Greek whose boat lay
alongside his. The Greek answered in the same tongue. Then Fou Wang
threw down his nets and, with the girl following, walked quickly along
the waterfront, past the wharves, the warehouses, and the grogshops, up
a zigzag hill and into the heart of Chinatown. Neither spoke until they
reached their destination, a dingy three-storied building.
The young man began to ascend the stairs, the girl to follow. Fou Wang
looked back and shook his head. The girl paused on the lowest step.
“May I not come?” she pleaded.
“Today is for sorrow,” returned Fou Wang. “I would, for a time, forget
all that belongs to the joy of life.”
The girl threw her sleeve over her head and backed out of the open door.
“What is the matter?” inquired a kind voice, and a woman laid her hand
upon her shoulder.
O’Yam’s bosom heaved.
“Oh, Liuchi,” she cried, “the mother of Fou Wang is dying, and you know
what that means to me.”
The woman eyed her compassionately.
“Your father, I know,” said she, as she unlocked a door and led her
companion into a room opening on to the street, “has long wished for an
excuse to set at naught your betrothal to Fou Wang; but I am sure the
lad to whom you are both sun and moon will never give him one.”
She offered O’Yam some tea, but the girl pushed it aside. “You know not
Fou Wang,” she replied, sadly yet proudly. “He will follow his
conscience, though he lose the sun, the moon, and the whole world.”
A young woman thrust her head through the door.
“The mother of Fou Wang is dead,” cried she.
* * * * *
“She was a good woman—a kind and loving mother,” said Liuchi, as she
gazed down upon the still features of her friend.
The young daughter of Ah So Nan burst into fresh weeping. Her pretty
face was much swollen. Ah So Nan had been well loved by her children,
and the falling tears were not merely waters of ceremony.
At the foot of the couch upon which the dead was laid, stood Fou Wang,
his face stern and immovable, his eye solemn, yet luminous with a
steadfast fire. Over his head was thrown a white cloth. From morn till
eve had he stood thus, contemplating the serene countenance of his
mother and vowing that nothing should be left undone which could be done
to prove his filial affection and desire to comfort her spirit in the
land to which it had flown. “Three years, O mother, will I give to thee
and grief. Three years will I minister to thy three souls,” he vowed
within himself, remembering how sacred to the dead woman were the
customs and observances of her own country. They were also sacred to
him. Living in America, in the midst of Americans and Americanized
Chinese, the family of Fou Wang, with the exception of one, had clung
tenaciously to the beliefs of their forefathers.
“All the living must die, and dying, return to the ground. The limbs and
the flesh moulder away below, and hidden away, become the earth of the
fields; but the spirit issues forth and is displayed on high in a
condition of glorious brightness,” quoted a yellow-robed priest,
swinging an incense burner before a small candle-lighted altar.
It was midnight when the mourning friends of the family of Fou Wang left
the chief mourner alone with his dead mother.
His sister, Fin Fan, and the girl who was his betrothed wife brushed his
garments as they passed him by. The latter timidly touched his hand—an
involuntary act of sympathy—but if he were conscious of that sympathy,
he paid no heed to it, and his gaze never wavered from the face of the
dead.