A TRIP TO CHINATOWN
Samuel Brannan brought the first news from Washington. Gwin, who owed
his place to Broderick, had after all betrayed him. The bargained-for
double patronage was not forthcoming. Broderick was grievously
disappointed in Buchanan. There had been a clash between them. No
Democratic Senator, the President had said, could quarrel profitably
with the Administration. Which meant that Broderick must sustain the
Lecompton Resolution or lose face and favor in the nation's forum.
Things were at a bitter pass.
"What's the Lecompton Resolution?" Alice asked.
"It's a long story," Brannan answered. "In brief, it means forcing
slavery on Kansas, whose people don't want it. And on the Lecompton
Resolution hinges more or less the balance of power, which will keep us,
here, in the free States, or give us, bound and gagged, to the South."
"And you say Gwin has repudiated his pact?"
"Either that ... or Buchanan has refused to sanction it. The result is
the same. David doesn't get his patronage."
"I'm glad! I'm glad!" cried Alice.
Brannan looked at her astonished. "But ... you don't know what it means.
His men, awaiting their political rewards! His organization here ... it
will be weakened. You don't understand, Mrs. Windham."
"I don't care," she said. "It leaves him--cleaner--stronger!" She turned
swiftly and left the room. Brannan shrugged his shoulders. "There's no
fathoming women," he thought.
* * * * *
But Broderick, in far Washington, understood when there came to him a
letter. It bore neither signature nor salutation:
"When one is stripped of weapons--sometimes it is by the will of God!
And He does not fail to give us better ones.
"Truth! Righteousness! Courage to attack all Evil. These are mightier
than the weapons of the World.
"Oh, my friend, stand fast! You are never alone. The spirit of another
is forever with you. Watching--waiting--knowing you shall win the
victory which transcends all price."
He read this letter endlessly while people waited in his ante-room. Then
he summoned Herbert Waters, now his secretary, and sent them all away.
Among them was a leader of the New York money-powers who never forgave
that slight; another was an emissary of the President. Broderick neither
knew nor cared. He put the letter in his pocket; walked for hours in the
snow, on the banks of the frozen Potomac.
That afternoon he reviewed the situation, was closeted an hour with
Douglas of Illinois. The two of them sought Seward of New York, who had
just arrived. To their conference came Chase and Wade of Ohio, Trumbull
of Illinois, Fessenden of Maine, Wilson of Massachusetts, Cameron of
Pennsylvania.
Soon thereafter Volney Howard in San Francisco received an unsigned
telegram, supposedly from Gwin:
Unexpected gathering anti-slavery forces. Looks bad for Lecompton
Resolution. President worried about California.
In the southeastern part of San Francisco a few tea and silk merchants
had, years before, established the nucleus of an Oriental quarter.
Gradually it had grown until there were provision shops where
queer-looking dried vegetables, oysters strung necklace-wise on rings of
bamboo, eggs preserved in a kind of brown mold, strange brown nuts and
sweetmeats were displayed; there were drugs-shops with wondrous gold and
ebony fret work, temples with squat gods above amazing shrines.
There were stark-odored fish-stalls in alleyways so narrow that the sun
touched them rarely, barred upper-windows from which the faces of
slant-eyed women peeped in eager wistfulness as if upon an unfamiliar
world. Cellar doorways from which slipper-shod, pasty-faced Cantonese
crept furtively at dawn; sentineled portals, which gave ingress to
gambling houses protected by sheet-iron doors.
On a pleasant Sunday, early in February, Benito, Alice, Adrian and Inez
walked in Chinatown with David Broderick. The latter was about to leave
for Washington to attend his second session in Congress. Things had
fared ill with him politically there and at home.
Just now David Broderick was trying to forget Congress and those battles
which the next few weeks were sure to bring. He wanted to carry with him
to Washington the memory of Alice Windham as she walked beside him in
the mellow Winter sunshine. An odor of fruit blossoms came to them
almost unreally sweet, and farther down the street they saw many little
street-stands where flowering branches of prune and almond were
displayed.
"It's their New Year festival," Adrian explained. "Come, we'll visit
some of the shops; they'll give us tea and cakes, for that's
their custom."
"How interesting!" remarked Inez. She shook hands cordially with a
grave, handsomely gowned Chinese merchant, whose emporium they now
entered. To her astonishment he greeted her in perfect English. "A
graduate of Harvard College," Broderick whispered in her ear.
Wong Lee brought forward a tray on which was an assortment of strange
sweetmeats in little porcelain dishes; he poured from a large tea-pot a
tiny bowl of tea for each of his visitors. While they drank and nibbled
at the candy he pressed his hands together, moved them up and down and
bowed low as a visitor entered; the latter soon departed, apparently
abashed by the Americans.
"He would not mingle with the 'foreign devils,'" Broderick smiled. "That
was Chang Foo, who runs the Hall of Everlasting Fortune, wasn't it?"
"Yes, the gambling house," Wong Lee answered. "A bad man," his voice
sank to a whisper. "Chief of the Hip Lee tong, for the protection of the
trade in slave women. He came, no doubt, to threaten me because I am
harboring a Christian convert. See," he opened a drawer and took
therefrom a rectangle of red paper. "Last night this was found on my
door. It reads something like this:
"Withdraw your shelter from the renegade Po Lun, who renounces the gods
of his fathers. Send him forth to meet his fate--lest the blade of an
avenger cleave your meddling skull."
"Po was a member of the Hip Yees when he was converted; they stole a
Chinese maiden--his beloved and Po Sun hoped to rescue her. That is why
he joined that band of rascals."
"And did he succeed?" asked Alice.
"No," Wong Lee sighed. "They spirited her away--out of the city. She is
doubtless in some slave house at Vancouver or Seattle. Poor Po! He is
heartbroken."
"And what of yourself; are you not in danger?" Broderick questioned.
Wong smiled wanly. "Until the New Year season ends I am safe at any
rate."