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Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as italic.
Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are referenced.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
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Mrs. Spring Fragrance
Mrs. Spring Fragrance
_BY SUI SIN FAR_ [EDITH EATON]
CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1912
COPYRIGHT, 1912 A. C. McCLURG & CO.
PUBLISHED, MAY, 1912 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS [W·D·O] NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A
CONTENTS
MRS. SPRING FRAGRANCE
MRS. SPRING FRAGRANCE 1
THE INFERIOR WOMAN 21
THE WISDOM OF THE NEW 47
“ITS WAVERING IMAGE” 85
THE GIFT OF LITTLE ME 95
THE STORY OF ONE WHITE WOMAN WHO MARRIED A CHINESE 111
HER CHINESE HUSBAND 132
THE AMERICANIZING OF PAU TSU 144
IN THE LAND OF THE FREE 161
THE CHINESE LILY 178
THE SMUGGLING OF TIE CO 184
THE GOD OF RESTORATION 193
THE THREE SOULS OF AH SO NAN 203
THE PRIZE CHINA BABY 214
LIN JOHN 220
TIAN SHAN’S KINDRED SPIRIT 224
THE SING SONG WOMAN 235
TALES OF CHINESE CHILDREN
THE SILVER LEAVES 242
THE PEACOCK LANTERN 246
CHILDREN OF PEACE 249
THE BANISHMENT OF MING AND MAI 265
THE STORY OF A LITTLE CHINESE SEABIRD 277
WHAT ABOUT THE CAT? 285
THE WILD MAN AND THE GENTLE BOY 288
THE GARMENTS OF THE FAIRIES 291
THE DREAMS THAT FAILED 294
GLAD YEN 296
THE DECEPTIVE MAT 297
THE HEART’S DESIRE 300
THE CANDY THAT IS NOT SWEET 303
THE INFERIOR MAN 308
THE MERRY BLIND-MAN 312
MISUNDERSTOOD 314
THE LITTLE FAT ONE 320
A CHINESE BOY-GIRL 323
PAT AND PAN 333
THE CROCODILE PAGODA 344
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I have to thank the Editors of The Independent, Out West, Hampton’s, The Century, Delineator, Ladies’ Home Journal, Designer, New Idea, Short Stories, Traveler, Good Housekeeping, Housekeeper, Gentlewoman, New York Evening Post, Holland’s, Little Folks, American Motherhood, New England, Youth’s Companion, Montreal Witness, Children’s, Overland, Sunset, and Westerner magazines, who were kind enough to care for my children when I sent them out into the world, for permitting the dear ones to return to me to be grouped together within this volume.
SUI SIN FAR
Mrs. Spring Fragrance
I
When Mrs. Spring Fragrance first arrived in Seattle, she was unacquainted with even one word of the American language. Five years later her husband, speaking of her, said: “There are no more American words for her learning.” And everyone who knew Mrs. Spring Fragrance agreed with Mr. Spring Fragrance.
Mr. Spring Fragrance, whose business name was Sing Yook, was a young curio merchant. Though conservatively Chinese in many respects, he was at the same time what is called by the Westerners, “Americanized.” Mrs. Spring Fragrance was even more “Americanized.”
Next door to the Spring Fragrances lived the Chin Yuens. Mrs. Chin Yuen was much older than Mrs. Spring Fragrance; but she had a daughter of eighteen with whom Mrs. Spring Fragrance was on terms of great friendship. The daughter was a pretty girl whose Chinese name was Mai Gwi Far (a rose) and whose American name was Laura. Nearly everybody called her Laura, even her parents and Chinese friends. Laura had a sweetheart, a youth named Kai Tzu. Kai Tzu, who was American-born, and as ruddy and stalwart as any young Westerner, was noted amongst baseball players as one of the finest pitchers on the Coast. He could also sing, “Drink to me only with thine eyes,” to Laura’s piano accompaniment.
Now the only person who knew that Kai Tzu loved Laura and that Laura loved Kai Tzu, was Mrs. Spring Fragrance. The reason for this was that, although the Chin Yuen parents lived in a house furnished in American style, and wore American clothes, yet they religiously observed many Chinese customs, and their ideals of life were the ideals of their Chinese forefathers. Therefore, they had betrothed their daughter, Laura, at the age of fifteen, to the eldest son of the Chinese Government school-teacher in San Francisco. The time for the consummation of the betrothal was approaching.
Laura was with Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Mrs. Spring Fragrance was trying to cheer her.
“I had such a pretty walk today,” said she. “I crossed the banks above the beach and came back by the long road. In the green grass the daffodils were blowing, in the cottage gardens the currant bushes were flowering, and in the air was the perfume of the wallflower. I wished, Laura, that you were with me.”
Laura burst into tears. “That is the walk,” she sobbed, “Kai Tzu and I so love; but never, ah, never, can we take it together again.”
“Now, Little Sister,” comforted Mrs. Spring Fragrance, “you really must not grieve like that. Is there not a beautiful American poem written by a noble American named Tennyson, which says:
“’Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all?”
Mrs. Spring Fragrance was unaware that Mr. Spring Fragrance, having returned from the city, tired with the day’s business, had thrown himself down on the bamboo settee on the veranda, and that although his eyes were engaged in scanning the pages of the Chinese World, his ears could not help receiving the words which were borne to him through the open window.
“’Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all,”
repeated Mr. Spring Fragrance. Not wishing to hear more of the secret talk of women, he arose and sauntered around the veranda to the other side of the house. Two pigeons circled around his head. He felt in his pocket for a li-chi which he usually carried for their pecking. His fingers touched a little box. It contained a jadestone pendant, which Mrs. Spring Fragrance had particularly admired the last time she was down town. It was the fifth anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Spring Fragrance’s wedding day.
Mr. Spring Fragrance pressed the little box down into the depths of his pocket.
A young man came out of the back door of the house at Mr. Spring Fragrance’s left. The Chin Yuen house was at his right.
“Good evening,” said the young man. “Good evening,” returned Mr. Spring Fragrance. He stepped down from his porch and went and leaned over the railing which separated this yard from the yard in which stood the young man.
“Will you please tell me,” said Mr. Spring Fragrance, “the meaning of two lines of an American verse which I have heard?”
“Certainly,” returned the young man with a genial smile. He was a star student at the University of Washington, and had not the slightest doubt that he could explain the meaning of all things in the universe.
“Well,” said Mr. Spring Fragrance, “it is this:
“’Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.”
“Ah!” responded the young man with an air of profound wisdom. “That, Mr. Spring Fragrance, means that it is a good thing to love anyway—even if we can’t get what we love, or, as the poet tells us, lose what we love. Of course, one needs experience to feel the truth of this teaching.”
The young man smiled pensively and reminiscently. More than a dozen young maidens “loved and lost” were passing before his mind’s eye.
“The truth of the teaching!” echoed Mr. Spring Fragrance, a little testily. “There is no truth in it whatever. It is disobedient to reason. Is it not better to have what you do not love than to love what you do not have?”
“That depends,” answered the young man, “upon temperament.”
“I thank you. Good evening,” said Mr. Spring Fragrance. He turned away to muse upon the unwisdom of the American way of looking at things.
Meanwhile, inside the house, Laura was refusing to be comforted.
“Ah, no! no!” cried she. “If I had not gone to school with Kai Tzu, nor talked nor walked with him, nor played the accompaniments to his songs, then I might consider with complacency, or at least without horror, my approaching marriage with the son of Man You. But as it is—oh, as it is—!”