When Anna Harrison, some months later, opened her school for white and
Chinese children in Chinatown, she determined that Pat, the adopted son
of Lum Yook, the Chinese jeweller, should learn to speak his mother
tongue. For a white boy to grow up as a Chinese was unthinkable. The
second time she saw him, it was some kind of a Chinese holiday, and he
was in great glee over a row of red Chinese candles and punk which he
was burning on the curb of the street, in company with a number of
Chinese urchins. Pat’s candle was giving a brighter and bigger flame
than any of the others, and he was jumping up and down with his legs
doubled under him from the knees like an india-rubber ball, while Pan,
from the doorstep of her father’s store, applauded him in vociferous,
infantile Chinese.
Miss Harrison laid her hand upon the boy’s shoulder and spoke to him. It
had not been very difficult for her to pick up a few Chinese phrases.
Would he not like to come to her school and see some pretty pictures?
Pat shook his ruddy curls and looked at Pan. Would Pan come too? Yes,
Pan would. Pan’s memory was good, and so were lichis and shredded
cocoanut candy.
Of course Pan was too young to go to school—a mere baby; but if Pat
could not be got without Pan, why then Pan must come too. Lum Yook and
his wife, upon being interviewed, were quite willing to have Pat learn
English. The foster-father could speak a little of the language himself;
but as he used it only when in business or when speaking to Americans,
Pat had not benefited thereby. However, he was more eager than otherwise
to have Pat learn “the speech of his ancestors,” and promised that he
would encourage the little ones to practise “American” together when at
home.
So Pat and Pan went to the Mission school, and for the first time in
their lives suffered themselves to be divided, for Pat had to sit with
the boys and tiny Pan had a little red chair near Miss Harrison, beside
which were placed a number of baby toys. Pan was not supposed to learn,
only to play.
But Pan did learn. In a year’s time, although her talk was more broken
and babyish, she had a better English vocabulary than had Pat. Moreover,
she could sing hymns and recite verses in a high, shrill voice; whereas
Pat, though he tried hard enough, poor little fellow, was unable to
memorize even a sentence. Naturally, Pat did not like school as well as
did Pan, and it was only Miss Harrison’s persistent ambition for him
that kept him there.
One day, when Pan was five and Pat was seven, the little girl, for the
first time, came to school alone.
“Where is Pat?” asked the teacher.
“Pat, he is sick today,” replied Pan.
“Sick!” echoed Miss Harrison. “Well, that is too bad. Poor Pat! What is
the matter with him?”
“A big dog bite him.”
That afternoon, the teacher, on her way to see the bitten Pat, beheld
him up an alley busily engaged in keeping five tops spinning at one
time, while several American boys stood around, loudly admiring the
Chinese feat.
The next morning Pat received five strokes from a cane which Miss
Harrison kept within her desk and used only on special occasions. These
strokes made Pat’s right hand tingle smartly; but he received them with
smiling grace.
Miss Harrison then turned to five year old Pan, who had watched the
caning with tearful interest.
“Pan!” said the teacher, “you have been just as naughty as Pat, and you
must be punished too.”
“I not stay away flom school!” protested Pan.
“No,”—severely—“you did not stay away from school; but you told me a dog
had bitten Pat, and that was not true. Little girls must not say what is
not true. Teacher does not like to slap Pan’s hands, but she must do it,
so that Pan will remember that she must not say what is not true. Come
here!”
Pan, hiding her face in her sleeve, sobbingly arose.
The teacher leaned forward and pulling down the uplifted arm, took the
small hand in her own and slapped it. She was about to do this a second
time when Pat bounded from his seat, pushed Pan aside, and shaking his
little fist in the teacher’s face, dared her in a voice hoarse with
passion:
“You hurt my Pan again! You hurt my Pan again!”
They were not always lovers—those two. It was aggravating to Pat, when
the teacher finding he did not know his verse, would turn to Pan and
say:
“Well, Pan, let us hear you.”
And Pan, who was the youngest child in school and unusually small for
her years, would pharisaically clasp her tiny fingers and repeat word
for word the verse desired to be heard.
“I hate you, Pan!” muttered Pat on one such occasion.
Happily Pan did not hear him. She was serenely singing:
“Yesu love me, t’is I know,
For the Bible tell me so.”
But though a little seraph in the matter of singing hymns and repeating
verses, Pan, for a small Chinese girl, was very mischievous. Indeed, she
was the originator of most of the mischief which Pat carried out with
such spirit. Nevertheless, when Pat got into trouble, Pan, though
sympathetic, always had a lecture for him. “Too bad, too bad! Why not
you be good like me?” admonished she one day when he was suffering
“consequences.”
Pat looked down upon her with wrathful eyes.
“Why,” he asked, “is bad people always so good?”