Chapter II: Part 2

Aunt Gwendolin has discovered my Chinese books that I had intended to keep hidden in my room. She came in suddenly one day and found me seated in the midst of them.

"What's this? What's this?" she cried in great agitation. "How are we ever going to get you into the ways of Christianised, civilised folk if you keep feeding your mind on literature about uncivilised people?" And she gathered my books up into her arms and carried them away.

I have them all read, however, and she cannot carry away the thoughts they have left in my mind. What great creatures we human beings are! What a world with which no one else can meddle we can carry around in our little brains and hearts! It is all the same whether they are American or Chinese brains or hearts.

"I see now where she has gotten all her smart sayings about the Chinese," my aunt said to my grandmother and Uncle Theodore. "How can we ever hope to do anything with her when she is being poisoned by such stuff as is in those books? 'For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain' commend me to the Chinese!"

"I'll sicken her of the Chinese," she added: "I'll bring one into the kitchen to cook; then perhaps she'll feel more compunction about acknowledging that she is part Celestial. She actually seems as if she were proud of the fact now."

Grandmother remonstrated, but my aunt replied: "I have always been wanting to try a Chinese cook; they are really the world's cooks and so careful and clean, it is said. Then I would like to give Pearl enough of it. She will not be so fond of claiming kinship with the cook."

The result of all this was that inside of twenty-four hours a Chinaman was installed in the kitchen--and the biscuits are perfect.

His name is Yee Yick; of course he has three names, all Chinamen have; but trying to become Americanised they use only two in this country.

My aunt has decided that it is sufficient to call him Yick. "The English call their servants by their surnames," was all the explanation she made.

Yick is a dude; he has a suit for almost every day in the week, and is very vain of his appearance. His queue is rolled up around his head, which is a sign that he has not yet abandoned his home gods. He is very anxious to learn English, and Betty tells me that he has a slate hanging up in the kitchen on which he is writing English words every spare moment.

I had watched Yick a good deal, but I never exchanged a word with him, until the event occurred about which I am going to write; and I know he never dreamed that I could speak his language. Poor Yick! if he is "chief cook and bottle-washer," as my aunt says, he is my countryman, and I cannot help taking an interest in him.

One day I walked to the end of the veranda which runs the whole length of the house, and glancing in through the kitchen window as I passed, I saw Yick making his tea-biscuits. He had the flour and shortening all mixed, and raising the bowl of milk which was on the table, he took a great mouthful, and then began to force it out in a heavy spray through his teeth into the dish of prepared flour, in the same manner as the Chinese laundryman sprinkles clothes.

I wrung my hands, and cried within myself, "Oh, Yick, you terrible man! You horrible little pigtail!"

But I slipped back to the front of the veranda without making an audible sound. How could I tell on poor Yick, and bring down such an awful storm on his head as would result? He was a stranger in a strange land, and it was my duty to protect him. Was it such a very wicked thing he had done? He never killed little birds, anyway, and wore them on his head; nor trapped cunning little animals, and strung their heads and tails around his neck! I decided I would not tell on him.

But that evening at dinner I passed the plate of white, flaky biscuits without taking any. I sat at grandmother's left hand, and when she was not looking, I slipped the biscuit which she had taken away from her bread-and-butter plate, and let it slide from my hand down onto the floor. Dear, absent-minded grandmother never missed it. Aunt Gwendolin and Uncle Theodore ate three biscuits each.

"It seems to me that Yick keeps constantly improving in his biscuits," said my aunt, as she reached for her third.

"They ought to be better than other people at most everything," returned my Uncle Theodore, "they have been a long while practising. They may have been making biscuits before Moses was born. The Chinaman possesses a history which dwarfs the little day of modern nations. It is a saying of theirs that from the time heaven was spread and earth was brought into existence China can boast a continuous line of great men."

I looked pleased and smiled. My aunt seeing it said, with a toss of her head:

"A continuous line of great cooks and laundrymen."

That evening when my aunt and uncle were out, and grandmother had gone to bed, I slipped down to the kitchen and stood face to face with Yick.

He almost kotowed to me, but commanding him to stand up, I told him in plain Chinese that I had seen him mixing the biscuits, and disapproved of his plan.

His hair almost seemed to stand on end when he heard me speaking his native tongue. He started to tremble, and his knees bent under him.

"Yee Yick," I continued, in the language he thoroughly understood, "if you ever put the milk in your mouth again, and sift it out through your teeth into the flour, I shall inform the mistress of the house, and you shall be dismissed!"

Trembling all over Yick began rapidly in Chinese to promise that he would never, _never_ be guilty of the act again. Then, as if scarcely able to believe that I could understand his native tongue, he repeated his promise in English.

"No, missee, Yee Yick not putee milk in mouthee! No, missee, Yee Yick not putee milk in mouthee!"

I assured him in Chinese that I would keep the secret of what I had seen on condition that he would keep his promise, and went out of the kitchen, leaving the poor fellow almost in tears. I believe he scarcely knows whether to regard me as a spirit or a being of flesh and blood, it is so hard for him to understand how I can speak Chinese.

The plumbers have closed up the hole in the floor, so I shall hear no more about the "wily Celestial."

_April 20th, 1----_

While I have been waiting to be prepared to "come out," I determined to walk around the streets and see some more of the doings of Americans. Grandmother gave her consent, with a warning to keep off certain streets.

"It is quite safe for a young girl to walk alone in most places in our country, thank God," said dear grandmother devoutly, "and I am very willing that you should look about you. I remember when I was a girl I liked to walk and see things, too."

But Aunt Gwendolin knocked the whole thing in the head--apparently.

"It is so plebeian for her to go tramping through the streets," she said to my grandmother. "Cannot she be satisfied to go out every day with us in the automobile? The grounds are spacious around this place, and she can have all the exercise she wants right here."

So the question was settled--to all appearance.

A week after my aunt's fiat I read in the daily newspaper that in the "House of Jacob," a certain Jewish synagogue downtown, there was conducted on a certain afternoon every week sewing classes for young Jewish girls. Instantly I decided that I wished to visit it, and see those "Children of Abraham," about whom grandmother had been teaching me in the Bible, those people who were God's favourites, and I set about laying plans to accomplish my desire.

Happily, when that afternoon came around, Aunt Gwendolin went out to a Bridge Party--I have not yet found out what that means, but I hoped that afternoon that she would have a good many bridges to cross, so it would keep her a long time away--and it was Betty's day out.

Previous to this I had found in a closet a black skirt and shawl formerly worn by grandmother, and a bonnet which she had laid aside.

As soon as my aunt had safely departed (I had seen Betty go an hour before), I hastily threw the heavy black satin skirt over mine, draped the black embroidered silk shawl around my shoulders, and tied on the bonnet. With a black chiffon veil, which was not very transparent, tied over my face, I felt very comfortable. It was quite proper for an _elderly_ lady to go anywhere she wished.

Grandmother was taking her customary afternoon nap, as I slipped down the backstairs into the kitchen. Yick, preparing the flour for his biscuits, saw me and started. I could not keep my secret from him; I decided to take him into my confidence and trust him.

So lifting my veil, I looked at him markedly, and told him rapidly in Chinese that he was not to tell any one he had seen me.

He smiled, winked, and nodded knowingly, assuring me in voluble Chinese that he would keep my secret.

"You no tellee onee me," he said significantly, with grimaces and gesticulations.

Going out through the back door, and down through a lane at the back of the house, I was soon on the street.

Taking the street-cars--in which Aunt Gwendolin thinks it is very plebeian to ride--I was soon whirled down in front of the "House of Jacob."

What a mercy it is, in this curious America, that so many people are plebeian and ride in street-cars that they do not pay any attention to one another. Nobody noticed my grandmotherly garb.

A woman reporter entered the front door of the synagogue along with me, and I imagined that I was regarded with some deference--grandmother's old skirt and shawl are made of rich material.

I followed the reporter around the room in which the classes were held, a few yards in the rear.

There they were, a hundred or more little Jewish children, red-headed, black-headed, blonde-headed, and Jewish women had them arranged in groups, and were teaching them to sew.

"These little red-heads are typical Russian Jews," I heard the director of the ceremonies say to the reporter, "only in this country a few months. _There's_ one that has the marked Jewish features," she added, pointing to another type of child. "They are all fond of jewellery--an Oriental trait."

Dear, dear, I only stayed a short time looking at them. They are not much different from others, those people who struck rocks and water gushed out, had manna and quails rained down on them, and walked through a wilderness led by a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. I have seen hundreds of Chinese who looked just as remarkable. I cannot understand why God showed partiality to Abraham's children.

I went out onto the street again, and wandered on till I came to what I recognized as Chinese quarters. There were the laundries of Hoy Jan, Lem Tong, Lee Ling, and the shops and warehouses of Moy Yen, Man Hing, and Cheng Key. The dear names; it did me almost as much good to look at them as it could to make a visit to my own country.

As I walked down the quiet street, a wistful oval face looked down on me from a window. A Chinese woman's face, and the first I had seen since coming to America. Stepping into a little shop near by, a shop containing preserved ginger, curious embroidered screens, little ivory elephants and jade ornaments, I asked who lived in the house where I saw the face at the window, and was informed that it was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Lee Yet.

It was drawing near dinner time in my grandmother's house; already I had stayed out longer than I had intended: I had no time to investigate further regarding Mrs. Yet.

When I got back to the house I found that my aunt had returned before me, but fortunately had not noticed my absence.

When Yick walked into the dining room with the steaming plum-pudding for our dinner, Aunt Gwendolin said:

"Yick, who was that little old woman I saw coming up our back lane half an hour ago?"

"Me nevee see no little old womee," returned Yick, with a child-like smile.

"How stupid those Chinese are," said my aunt, when Yick had left the room. "I certainly saw an old woman, and there that creature never saw her!"

The _Creature_ had helped a _young_ woman take off her black bonnet and shawl, and escape up the backstairs half an hour before.

I suppose it's "that Oriental blood--half witch, and half demon" that's at the bottom of my tantrum of this afternoon.

_April 25th, 1----_

Mrs. Paton has been in to make another Sunday visit to grandmother; she is an old friend and privileged to come when she chooses--and as before I had the privilege of hearing her talk.

"We are calling ourselves a Christian country," she said to grandmother, "and yet we care more for pleasure than for anything else. An actress is paid more money in one month than a preacher of the Gospel is paid in a year. Does not that show what the people of our country care most for? Going over to Christianise the heathen forsooth! We are not following Christ ourselves! What an example we set them! How can we expect them to think much of our religion when they see it has done so little for _us_?

"Christianity is despised, and rightly so. It is called cant, and so it is; going around with the Bible under its arm, and never obeying its precepts. We want more men overturning the tables of the money-changers, and upsetting the commercialism that is grinding other men down to starvation!"

Dear grandmother was not argumentative, and gently assented to all her visitor was saying.

"When this country is really following Christ itself," continued the visitor, "we shall see our wealthy men, instead of using their wealth to build palaces, and to minister to the pride of themselves in a thousand forms, choosing to lead the simple life, with personal expenditure cut down to a minimum, and their ability to minister to others increased to a maximum; in short we will find them following in the footsteps of their Lord. Man is really the richer as he decreases his wants, and increases his capacity to help."

When she rose to leave, at the end of an hour's chat, she said very solemnly to me as she held my hand in a farewell clasp:

"My dear, each man and woman is born with an aptitude to do something impossible to any other. _You_ have an aptitude that the world has no match for. It is your aptitude for your own peculiar and immediate duty."

Oh, how solemn the words look as I write them down. What can my duty be? I wonder when I am going to find out. Aunt Gwendolin thinks it is to sing Spanish songs, I know; she firmly believes that to be my own _peculiar and immediate duty_. Grandmother thinks it is to study the Bible. And Uncle Theodore thinks it is to look artistically dressed. I have not come to a conclusion yet as to what I think myself.

When I get so terribly lonesome in this America that I cannot stand it any longer, I get Betty to steal down my yellow silk out of the box in the attic, the one trimmed with green dragons, and I dress up in it, and put on my head the pretty embroidered band that the Chinese women wear instead of the hideous hats of America, and sweep up and down the room like a peacock with a spreading tail, Betty going into raptures over my appearance, sometimes laughing hysterically, and sometimes almost in tears, because they have "no such grand clothes in America." If Aunt Gwendolin hears a noise and comes trailing along the hall, I jump into bed and cover myself up, yellow silk and all, and Betty proceeds to bathe my head for a headache--I really have one by that time.

How many foreigners they have in this great country, Shanghai roosters, Turkey hens, Persian cats, Arabian horses. I wonder do all those foreign creatures feel something calling them back, back to their own country?

Cousin Ned spends most all his time at grandmother's at present. He had his arm broken at a baseball game, and is carrying it in a sling.

_April 30th, 1----_

We had the pleasure of Professor Ballington's company at lunch to-day--Uncle Theodore had him down in his office on some business, and insisted on his coming home and lunching with him.

When he and my uncle walked in unannounced they found grandmother, Aunt Gwendolin, and me in the sitting-room.

The professor shook hands with me in a very friendly manner; he really seemed pleased to see me. Oh, it is awfully nice for a girl in a strange land, feeling alone and lonesome, to have some one glad to see her. He had not spoken to me since that morning my uncle introduced me to him, but he has seen me a number of times when I have been out in the carriage with my grandmother and aunt.

He seated himself beside me, and we were just beginning to chat pleasantly when my Aunt Gwendolin said:

"You have not heard our little Dependency sing, Professor Ballington?"

Grandmother's cheeks flushed, and Uncle Theodore looked embarrassed.

"Pearl, dear," she added sweetly, addressing me, "give us one of your stirring Spanish songs before we go to lunch. You can sing better before lunch than after."

In obedience to the request--which I felt to be a command--I went to the piano and sang lightly the only Spanish song _I could_ sing.

All the hearers seemed pleased with my effort. Professor Ballington looked calmly at me, but a smile lay behind his blue eyes. What did that smile mean?

We immediately sat down to lunch, and I was saved the embarrassment of having to tell that I could only sing _one_ Spanish song. I guess Aunt Gwendolin made sure that no such a dilemma should occur.

By some stray remark of Uncle Theodore's, the conversation at the table turned on what he calls the "Asiatic Problem."

"Those dreadful Asiatics," interposed Aunt Gwendolin, "so sly and subtle, they certainly should be shut out. They are a menace to any country."

"Above all nations is humanity," smilingly returned Professor Ballington.

"Especially those inferior people, the Chinese," added my aunt.

"We can scarcely call the Chinese inferior, Miss Morgan," returned Professor Ballington. (How I wanted to give him a hug!) "The Chinaman despises our day of small things. Like the Jew he possesses a great national history which dwarfs that of all other nations. The golden era of Confucius lies back five hundred years before the coming of Christ, and the palmy days of the Chan dynasty antedate the period of David and Solomon."

"Oh, yes," said my aunt curtly, "but what has he accomplished in all that time? We regard them as a nation of laundrymen."

"And they regard us as a nation of shopkeepers, and express lofty contempt for our greed of gain," said the professor.

"The idea!" said my aunt scornfully; "the fact is I always feel inclined to relegate the yellow-skinned denizens of China to the brute kingdom. Think of the _dreadful_ things that happen there! Life itself is of small account to them!"

"One of our own writers," returned the professor, "says, 'Life is safer in Pekin than in New York.' Another writer adds, 'Chicago beats China for official dishonesty!'"

"It is a nation which for thousands of years has set more store by education than any other nation under the sun," said Uncle Theodore, "I have been reading up about them lately" (that's because of me) "and it is perfectly astonishing, their high ideals. There are clearly marked gradations in society, and the highest rank is open only to highly educated men. First, the scholar; because mind is superior to wealth. Second, the farmer; because the mind cannot act without the body, and the body cannot exist without food and raiment. Third, the mechanic; because next to food and raiment shelter is necessary. Fourth, the tradesman; men to carry on exchange and barter become a necessity. And last of all the soldier; because his business is to destroy, and not to build up society. How does that compare with our country which makes more of the destroyer than of any other citizen? No man in China can rise to any position of responsibility except by education; money in _this_ country will carry a man into the legislature if he cannot write his own name."

"Chinese ethics are grand," added the professor. "Listen to the teaching of Lao Teh. 'I would meet good with good, but I would also meet evil with good, confidence with confidence--distrust with confidence. Virtue is both good and trustful.'"

"There isn't a doubt that they are a wonderful people," returned Uncle Theodore. "When our ancestors were wandering about in sheep-skins and goat-skins--if in any other skins but their own--China had a civilisation. Wrong seems to be not a question of right with us, but of might. We do not attempt to stop people taking chances on the stock exchange; taking such chances is perfectly legal, but taking chances in a lottery is a serious offence. If a Chinaman takes chances in a little game which he understands, the morals of the community are endangered, and the poor Celestial must be hurried off to jail. We civilised people allow betting at a horse-race, and disallow it in other places. It is only the uninfluential people we send to jail for violation of the law."

They talked back and forth in an animated way for some time. I was dying to speak, but did not dare; but I am sure that once in the heat of the argument, Professor Ballington shot a glance across the table at me which spoke volumes. The same smile was in his eyes that was there when I sang for him my _one_ Spanish song. What did he mean? Can he guess? Does he know that I am not Spanish?--that I am the Yellow Pearl?

_May 5th, 1----_

A very important item has appeared in the newspaper to-day--poor Lee Yet has fallen into trouble; rather, other people are trying to get him into trouble, and his wife, the little oval-faced Mrs. Yet, has been subpoenaed to appear as a witness in his behalf.

That dear little sad woman to have to go to court before all those Americans! "She shall _not_ be studied and laughed at as a curiosity. She _shall_ be dressed up like an American woman!" I declared as soon as I read the item.

In pursuance of my idea this afternoon, I a second time donned grandmother's garments--lucky that grandmother and I are the same height--and a second time left the house unnoticed by any one except Yick.

How very much at home I feel in the garments of an elderly gentlewoman! Perhaps I am walking around the world the eighteen-year-old reincarnation of some dear, silken-clad old granny who inhabited this sphere hundreds of years ago.

I quickly found my way down to the home of Mrs. Yet, and rapped at the door.

It was opened by the little woman herself, who looked even sadder than when I first saw her. I addressed her in Chinese and lifting my veil, told her that I had come to make her a visit. She smiled in a pleased way, opened wide the door, and invited me into the house. She had never noticed the discrepancy between my antiquated dress and young face, and was blissfully unconscious that my garments were fifty years (more or less) out of date.

On my entrance something small and pink moved behind a wire screen in the corner of the room, and Mrs. Yet clipclapped across the floor in her Chinese sandals, and picked up a little bundle of Chinese life, saying:

"This my baby. He eighteen month. He sick--get tooth--got one tooth."

We talked about the baby, she sometimes speaking in Chinese, and sometimes in broken English, until we felt acquainted. Then I said:

"Mrs. Yet, I see by the newspaper that you will have to appear in court to give evidence in behalf of your husband. You do not want to go there in Chinese dress to be the subject of curiosity, and newspaper remark?"

The trouble which had left her face while she was talking about the baby, reappeared, and tears gathered in her almond eyes.

It was more than I could stand, and I cried, "Don't! Don't! Mrs. Yet--I have come to make things all right--I, your country-woman--speaking your own language. I am going to give myself the pleasure of dressing you like an American woman."

She remonstrated politely but I urged so strongly that at last she yielded; and it seemed when she did so as if a great burden had rolled from off her pale little face.

Immediately I went out to one of the great stores and ordered several costumes for her to "fit on"--I wasn't a child any longer. Grandmother's rich old skirt and shawl carried weight a second time (they could not see my face distinctly through the veil), for without hesitation a woman was despatched with the costumes.

This woman expert worked over the little Mrs. Yet, pinching, and pulling, and puckering, after the manner of American dressmakers, until she had her resplendent in a rich maroon-coloured wool costume, which exactly suited her olive skin, and made her almost a beauty.

At last the costume was satisfactorily settled and paid for. Oh, it is nice to have plenty of money to pay for all one wants. Father left me plenty (and although I do not control it until I come of a certain age, I get a liberal monthly instalment). I then went to a milliner's and bought a hat of a shade to harmonise with the costume. It was trimmed with ribbon, and deep, rich, maroon roses, and just looked _too sweet for anything_. "Youthful and stylish," as the milliner said. Why not? Mrs. Yet is young, and she has just as good a right to look stylish as any American woman!

Happy? I should say I am! I never was happier in my life than I am to-night; even if I did steal out in grandmother's old clothes, and am a "sly, subtle Oriental."

_May 10th, 1----_

The Court met to-day, and there has appeared in the evening papers this notice:

"A novelty in the shape of a Chinese woman witness appeared in the Sessions yesterday. Mrs. Lee Yet went into the box in behalf of her husband. Her trim little figure was becomingly attired in a dark-red, tailored costume, and a reddish trimmed hat set off to perfection her rich Oriental complexion and features, beautiful in their national type. She gave her evidence without an interpreter, and did much toward clearing her husband of the accusations falsely laid against him."

Oh, isn't it delightful to think that I have been instrumental in bringing all this to a happy issue! I shall carry this newspaper down to Mrs. Yet's home, and read to her this pleasing paragraph.

_May 11th, 1----_

A "Windfall," as Uncle Theodore calls it, has come to the family; grandmother was quite a "well-to-do" woman before, now she is a _rich_ woman. Some investments in mines that grandfather made years ago have turned out to be of marvellous value, and the result is that my grandmother, my Uncle Theodore, my Aunt Gwendolin have greatly increased in wealth.

Aunt Gwendolin wanted to change the form of our living at once; she would introduce a page and a butler to our household staff. But grandmother said she was accustomed to a quiet life and preferred it. She insists, in spite of my aunt's protests, that a Chinese cook, a house-maid, a laundress, a gardener, and that lovely chauffeur ought to be enough to attend to the wants of four people.

Aunt Gwendolin stormed, and said it was so _common_ to live as we did, that the English always kept a butler; but grandmother was firm. Another example that mothers in America can rule in the house if they wish.

Grandmother seemed a good deal concerned about this sudden acquisition of wealth. "An addition of silver to bell-metal does not add to the sweetness of the tone," she said. "I fear an undue proportion of silver impairs more than bells."

_May 13th, 1----_

"BULLS AND BEARS IN A HARD STRUGGLE OVER WHEAT." Uncle Theodore read the great headline from his evening paper.

"Wild scenes prevailed to-day at the Board of Trade," he continued, "when John Smith began taking in his profits on wheat. It is estimated that he made a profit of over three hundred thousand in less than half an hour. Altogether he has cleared more than five millions on his wheat deal, and that within six months."

"Dear me! Dear me!" cried grandmother, "and people dying for want of bread!"

"Well," returned Uncle Theodore, "Smith is only a highly sensitive product of our so-called civilisation; the civilisation we are rushing and straining to carry to the quiet, unassuming people whom _we_ call heathen. They have no millionaires, made so at the expense of their brothers. When we teach them all the graft, lynching, homicide, enormities of trusts, railroads, new religions, and quack remedies, we shall have them civilised."

"Christianity has to blush for Christendom," sighed grandmother.

I have been asking grandmother since how bulls and bears could struggle over wheat; and she tells me that the strugglers are not four-footed beasts at all, but _men_. I see how it is, bulls and bears are both cantankerous animals, which, if they come in conflict about anything, are sure to have a fight; and men who have given evidence of like natures have been called after those fierce animals. It must be that way. I have asked grandmother whether that is not the way they came by their names, and she said she supposed it must be.

_May 21st, 1----_

My poor despised people have fallen upon hard lines. Lee Yet met with an accident on the street and had to be taken to the hospital where he must remain for weeks, and the day following Mrs. Yet was stricken down with diphtheria.

I was out in the automobile with grandmother and Aunt Gwendolin and chancing to pass the house of Lee Yet, I saw the awful word "Diphtheria." in black letters on a scarlet ground, tacked to the door.

That night when all his day's work was done I gave Yick a coin and asked him to go down and learn who was stricken with the disease.

He came back with the intelligence that it was poor little Mrs. Yet, and that there was no one waiting on her.

Fortunately the next afternoon Aunt Gwendolin went to "bridge," and again donning grandmother's garments, I slipped out of the house and down to the home of Mrs. Yet.

Meeting the doctor at the door, just as he was coming out, I ordered him to engage a nurse.

He looked at me in surprise, but I paid in advance for a week's service, so he could do nothing but obey me.

Opening the door I went into the front room of the little home and found the Celestial baby fretting away in its cradle just as any other baby would fret if left to itself. I began to call it all sorts of pet names in Chinese, and the little slant-eye cooed and smiled back at me as if he really liked it.

A Chinese neighbour woman came in and told me that the baby was to be kept in the front room, while its mother was quarantined in a room upstairs. She further informed me that she came in twice a day to feed the baby, and the rest of the time he was alone.

"I have it! I have it!" I cried exultingly to my own interior self, "I know now my _aptitude_! I know now what I can do that is impossible to any other; it surely is _impossible_ to any other--in this nation of an hour--to jabber the Chinese I can jabber to this eighteen months' old baby! I shall come here and take care of him, while the trained nurse is taking care of the mother upstairs. I'll come for awhile every day anyway, and will pay the Chinese woman, who cannot leave her laundry-minding in the daytime, to take care of him at night! He's just as much a dear human baby as any purple-and-fine-linen American baby!"

How fortune favoured me that evening! Aunt Gwendolin announced that she was going in the morning on a month's visit to another city.

She was not much more than out the door the following day when I asked grandmother's permission to go where I liked every afternoon of the week.

Dear grandmother remonstrated a little--for fear I might tire myself too much--or might go where it was not wise to go, etc., etc. But I coaxed, and I won the day.

A strange event happened the very first afternoon. Just as I had passed through the lane at the rear of the house, who should be standing there at the back gate but the chauffeur, beside the automobile. He knew me despite my grandmotherly garb (as I had commenced going to the house of Mrs. Yet in grandmother's black shawl, bonnet, and skirt, I thought it better to continue doing so), politely touched his cap, and said if I had far to go it would take him but a few minutes to whirl me there in the automobile.

He is very good looking, and a gentleman. Uncle Theodore says he is a student who is taking this means to earn money further to pursue his medical studies. Sometimes Uncle Theodore familiarly calls him "Sawbones."

Nodding my assent, I entered the car, gave my directions, and soon was down in front of Mrs. Yet's small house.

I lifted the fretting little baby out of his cradle as soon as I entered, washed and dressed him, he kicking and squirming just as I suppose any other baby kicks and squirms. All the fear I had was that he would roll out of my hands, he was such a slippery little eel when his body was wet.

Where did I learn how to wash and dress a baby? I must have known how by instinct, for I never did it, or saw it done before. The Chinese woman who keeps the little Oriental at night told me the articles that went next the skin, and I had no trouble guessing about where to put the others. After one or two attempts I did it as well as a mother of twenty babies.

Every day I am being conveyed down to my duties in the automobile. The chauffeur seemed to divine that I would go out every afternoon (perhaps because Aunt Gwendolin was away) without my telling him, and is always waiting at the little rear gate in the back street to obey my commands.

What a delightful time we are having! "When the cat's away the mice can play!"

Dear grandmother has never seen me either leave or return to the house, but necessarily Yick and Betty are both into the secret.

"'For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,' commend me to the Chinese."

_May 22d, 1----_

A most impressive occurrence has transpired, as Mrs. Paton would say. Just as I was coming out of Mrs. Yet's house this afternoon who should be passing but Professor Ballington!

I had not yet dropped my black chiffon veil, and glancing down from his great height of six feet, he looked me full in the face.

At the same instant he saw the word, "Diphtheria," in the great black letters on a scarlet ground, and stopping he exclaimed:

"Why, Miss Pearl! This is a surprise! Do you know where you are--what risk you are running? Diphtheria is contagious--_very_!"

"I know," I replied, "but some one has to mind a little Chinese baby in there. Its father is in the hospital, and its mother is shut in a room upstairs with diphtheria, and there is no one to stay all afternoon with the baby if I do not. He's a Chinese baby, and of no account in America," I added. (I came within one of telling him that I was the only one who could call him pet names in the language he could understand; wouldn't Aunt Gwendolin have taken a fit?) "I just _had_ to come," I pleaded, seeing his look of disapproval. "Each man and woman is born with an aptitude to do something impossible to any other, an aptitude that the world has no match for, Mrs. Paton says; and I have just found out that my aptitude, impossible to any other, is to mind this Chinese baby; no one else can _match_ me in this!"

He looked less severe, almost kind, and half as if he could scarcely keep from laughing. Then he said, "Have you disinfectants? They are very necessary."

I shook my head, and he said:

"Come with me to a drug store and I will supply you with a stock."

And I, decked in my grandmother's cast-off clothes, walked along the street, and into the "Palace Drug Store" with the elegantly dressed and caned professor.

He didn't seem the least ashamed of me; indeed, he was so polite that I forgot for the moment that my dress was anything odd--forgot it until I saw a young man clerk looking at me in an amused way; then I dropped my thick veil.

The professor insisted on my taking a certain kind of lozenge to hold in my mouth while I was in the infected house, and ordered quantities and quantities of disinfectants carried there, giving me instruction as to how they should be used.

When we were walking back to the house of Mrs. Yet, the professor remarked that the Chinese were a people worth studying.

"Have you heard any of their poetry, Miss Pearl?" he questioned. And before I had time to reply--perhaps he thought he had no right to make me give an answer to that question, he is a "great philologist"--he continued: "Could anything be more exquisite than those lines to a plum blossom?

"'One flower hath in itself the charms of two;
Draw nearer! and she breaks to wonders new;
And you would call her beauty of the rose--
She, too, is folded in a fleece of snows;
And you might call her pale--she doth display
The blush of dawn beneath the eye of day,
The lips of her the wine cup hath caressed,
The form of her that from some vision blest
Starts with the rose of sleep still glowing bright
Through limbs that ranged the dreamlands of the night;
The pencil falters and the song is naught,
Her beauty, like the sun, dispels my thought.'

"A certain collection of Chinese lyrics," he continued, "'A Lute of Jade,' moved a London journal to observe that, the more we look into Chinese nature as revealed by this book of songs, the more we are convinced that our fathers were right in speaking of man's brotherhood. Here's another to a calycanthus flower:

"'Robed in pale yellow gown, she leans apart,
Guarding her secret trust inviolate;
With mouth that, scarce unclosed, but faintly breathes.
Its fragrance, like a tender grief, remains
Half-told, half-treasured still. See how she drops
From delicate stem; while her close petals keep
Their shy demeanour. Think not that the fear
Of great cold winds can hinder her from bloom,
Who hides the rarest wonders of the spring
To vie with all the flowers of Kiang Nan.'

"This is Wang Seng-Ju's tiny poem," he added, "I presume a great many people in this greatly enlightened America never ascribe any sentiment to the Chinaman:

"'High o'er the hill the moon barque steers,
The lantern lights depart,
Dead springs are stirring in my heart,
And there are tears;
But that which makes my grief more deep
Is that you know not that I weep.'"

The moon had appeared in all her full-orbed glory, although it was early twilight, and the professor looked at me so earnestly while quoting those words that I actually believe I blushed.

"'There yet is man--
Man, the divinest of all things, whose heart
Hath known the shipwreck of a thousand hopes,
Who bears a hundred wrinkled tragedies
Upon the parchment of his brow.'

"Ou-Yang Hein penned those lines," he added, raising his hat in adieu. But before we parted I made him promise to write out for me the Chinese verses he had quoted; and it is his beautifully written lines I have copied. I am going to learn them off by heart. How I would love to recite them at one of Aunt Gwendolin's "Drawing-rooms!"

The professor had gone but a few paces when he returned to inquire what hospital poor Lee Yet was in, saying that he would go around and see how he was faring.

"This is such a very selfish world," he added, as if half to himself, "I sometimes fear those poor foreigners that come to our shores get woefully treated."

That was lovely of him! After all, men are brothers under their skin. That was what their great man, Christ, taught--that all men are brothers; he did not except the Chinese, as some Americans want to do.

_June 7th, 1----_

Almost as soon as Mrs. Yet was pronounced well, and was allowed to go among people again and before Mr. Yet had left the hospital, Baby Yet fell seriously ill--his teeth.

He grew worse, and worse. Yick told me about it one day in a few concise Chinese words, which he snatched an opportunity to drop to me in passing through the dining room. The wily Celestial seems to understand, without being told, that no one is to know that he and I can exchange thoughts in our native tongue.

That afternoon I stole out again, and went down to the little Yet home. It was just as Yick had said, the baby was very ill.

He lay on his little pallet, white and still, almost unconscious, and his mother stood over him wringing her hands, and shedding bitter tears.

"Oh, my baby! My baby! He die and leave me! My heart break!" she cried in Chinese when she saw me. "Precious treasure! Precious treasure!" she continued, bending toward the almost inanimate form on the pallet.

The latter is the almost universal term of endearment in China, and no American mother ever agonised more bitterly than did that Chinese mother over that atom of herself lying before her.

I had to do something to comfort her, so I began to tell her about heaven. _I_, who was not sure that I could get to that blessed place myself (stealing out on the sly in a grandmother's clothes is not a very heavenly trick), said that whoever missed it, babies would be there.

"Will Chinese babies be there? They do not want them in America," she asked rapidly and tremblingly in Chinese.

"Certainly," I replied; and at that moment I seemed to have a vision of all the babies of this wide world that had died--black babies, brown babies, yellow babies, red babies (probably the colour of their skin was only the earth garb); I saw the whole throng, for grandmother had read to me from the Bible that of such was the kingdom of heaven.

"His tooth not bother him there?" she added.

"No," I returned, "there shall be no more pain there."

"He like it," she continued, almost smiling through her tears.

Then she grew very, very still, and a glow stole over her yellow face which made it beautiful.

I stepped nearer, put my arm around her, and kissed her on the cheek.

She looked at me in a startled way, then drawing a tiny handkerchief from her bosom, she carefully wiped the spot on her cheek where my lips had touched. The practice of kissing is unknown in China.

On the way home, when but a few yards from the house of Mrs. Yet, I met Professor Ballington again, and told him the story about the sick baby.

He asked me to go back with him, and take him in to see it, which I did. He looked scrutinisingly at the little hard pallet on which the baby lay; and what did that dear man do but go out to one of the great stores not far away, and buy the prettiest little cot, and the softest and best mattress that could be found in the market, and order them sent home without delay to that little yellow baby.

Was it the soft mattress that did it? I do not know; but almost immediately the baby seemed to rest easier, and by degrees came back to life and strength.

Oh, this would be a glorious country to live in!--if the people were all like Professor Ballington.

_June 10th, 1----_

I made my first visit to the theatre. Aunt Gwendolin said I should not go until I came _out_, but Uncle Theodore said he would take me himself, and defy all fashions and formalities.

"I enjoy seeing the little girl absorbing our civilisation," he said to grandmother; "sometimes I fancy it seems rather uncivilised to her."

Grandmother demurred a good deal; she said she did not know but I would be quite as well, or better, if I never went near a theatre. But Uncle Theodore said that was an old-fashioned idea that grandmother held to because of her Puritan ancestry; that it was generally conceded now that the theatre is a great educator, the greatest educator of the people extant to-day.

"There is going to be a world-renowned actress to-night, a star of first magnitude in the theatrical world," he added, "and I want my niece to have the advantage of hearing her."

I dressed my very prettiest for the occasion. Uncle Theodore always has an eye for the artistic in dress. I donned soft silks, soft ribbons, and soft feathers. It is one of my uncle's ideas that women should be softly clad; he absolutely hates anything hard, stiff, or masculine-looking on a woman.

When we entered the theatre the orchestra was playing most ravishing music. I could have stayed there all night and listened to it without tiring, I believe. It must be the American half of me that is the music-lover, for the Chinese are not very musical.

The boxes were full of wonderfully well-dressed men and women. How beautiful women can look in this great country, dressed in every colour of the rainbow! Men are of less account in America; but they looked well enough, too, in black coats and white shirt-bosoms.

After awhile the heavenly music stopped, the curtain on the stage rolled up, and the play began.

At first it was entrancing, magnificent--the stage-furnishings, gorgeously dressed women, clever-looking men, all acting a part--a lovely world without anything to mar it, right there in that small space of the stage before our eyes.

Then a woman, the star actress, came in wearing a very decollete gown (I am getting hardened to them now), and began to talk in a manner I never had imagined people in good society would talk--right before those hundreds of men and women. I'll not write it down; I do not wish to remember it. But the party of women on the stage, instead of being shocked or ashamed, all laughed little, rippling, merry laughs. My cheeks burned, and I did not dare to look at anybody, not even Uncle Theodore.

After that I could not like the theatre any more and drawing away within myself, I looked and listened as if the actors had been hundreds of miles from me.

When the play was over and we were on the way home Uncle Theodore said: "If I had known the nature of the play, I would not have taken you to-night, Pearl."

"But _I_," I cried, "_I_ am only _one_! There were hundreds of people being _educated_ as well as _I_!"

Uncle Theodore turned and looked at me quickly; then he said coldly:

"My dear, you have a great deal yet to learn."

When we reached home I went at once upstairs to my room, and Uncle Theodore retired to his den.

Neither of us has ever mentioned the subject since.

Cousin Ned is around morning, noon, and night now. He is walking with a crutch, having had his shin kicked at a foot-ball match.

_June 20th, 1----_

I went with grandmother to-day on her weekly visit to the "Home for Incurable Children." Grandmother goes to carry her presents, and "to cheer up the little folk," she says; I went prompted by curiosity.

We were ushered in by a cheery, wholesome-looking maid who knew grandmother, and gave her the freedom of the house.

We first entered the ward where the older children were kept, and there grandmother distributed her books and pictures.

While she sat to rest I wandered from one cot to another, where white little faces looked up at me, pleasantly answering my questions, or volunteering information.

"I am a _new_ patient," one midget said, with a placid air of importance.

"I'm goin' to have an _operation_ to-morrow," said another exultingly.

"That's one blessed fact about children," said the attending nurse, "they never fret in anticipation. They look forward with positive pride to a new experience--even if it is an operation."

In one bright room three boys were playing a game of number-cards, one a hunchback, another with crippled lower limbs, and a third, seated on a long high bench, handling the cards with his toes, his arms and hands being useless.

The top part of the foot of the socks belonging to this last lad had been cut off, and he was picking the cards off the table with his bare toes; passing them from foot to foot, and replacing a certain card on the table, quite as expertly as another boy might do it with his fingers.

I walked into another room to see the little babies; blind, crooked-limbed, distorted, never going to be able to use their bodies properly.

"Why does God leave them here?" I demanded of grandmother as soon as we had reached the open air again.

"Perhaps," said grandmother quietly, "to give us the blessed privilege of acting the God toward them."

"Christianity means brotherhood, Pearl, dear," she added, after we had walked several yards in silence.

What a great country this America is! Caring for its ailing and crippled in such a beautiful way!

"Oh, China!" I cried, when I was all alone in my own room, "_you_ would drown your blind, crooked-limbed, distorted babies, or throw them out on the hillsides to die! Oh, China! China! would you could come over here and see how America treats her 'weak and wounded, sick and sore?' These are the words of a church hymn."

I said something to this effect the same evening to grandmother, and she replied:

"Perhaps, my dear, it may be the duty of some of us to carry America to China."

SEASIDE, _July 31st, 1----_

We are at the seaside. It is the fashion in America for whole families to shut up their houses in hot weather and go off to some summer resort--the women of them--whether to be cool, or to be in the fashion I do not yet know. Grandmother wanted to go one place, Aunt Gwendolin to another, and Uncle Theodore, who said he might run over for a few Sundays, to yet another. At last a charming spot upon the Atlantic coast was decided upon. Uncle Theodore settled the question emphatically, because dear grandmother needed the revivifying influence of the sea air.

Aunt Gwendolin fretted a little at first for fear it might be humdrum, and commonplace, and for fear none of "our set" would be there; but she recovered from her depression when she heard that Mrs. Delancy, Mrs. Deforest, Mrs. Austin, and others of the same clique had also chosen that particular part of the coast as their recuperating place.

Mrs. Delancy dropped in one day to tell her that the whole fashionable tide had turned toward that coast this summer, and she knew we should have a "simply _grand_ season."

Aunt Gwendolin's spirits rose after that, and she immediately went about ordering a most elaborate summer wardrobe--morning gowns, evening gowns, walking suits, yachting suits, bathing suits.