VIII
CAN HAPPEN!
Lew Wee, prized Chinese chef of the Arrowhead Ranch, had butchered,cooked, and served two young roosters for the evening meal with afinesse that cried for tribute. As he replaced the evening lamp on thecleared table in the big living room he listened to my fulsome praise ofhis artistry as Marshal Foch might hear me say that I considered him arather good strategist. Lew Wee heard but gave no sign, as one set abovethe petty adulation of compelled worshipers. Yet I knew his secret soulmade festival of my words and would have been hurt by their withholding.This is his way. Not the least furtive lightening of his subtle eyeshinted that I had pleased him.
He presently withdrew to his tiny room off the kitchen, where, as washis evening custom for half an hour, he coaxed an amazing number ofsquealing or whining notes from his two-stringed fiddle. I pictured himas he played. He would be seated in his wicker armchair beside a littletable on which a lamp glowed, the room tightly closed, window down,door shut, a fast-burning brown-paper cigarette to make the atmospheremore noxious. After many more of the cigarettes had made it all butimpossible, Lew Wee, with the lamp brightly burning, as it would burn thenight through--for devils of an injurious sort and in great numbers willfearlessly enter a dark room--he would lie down to refreshing sleep. Thatfantasy of ventilation! Lew Wee always sleeps in an air-tight room packedwith cigarette smoke, and a lamp turned high at his couchside; and LewWee is hardy.
He played over and over now a plaintive little air of minors that puta gentle appeal through two closed doors. It is one he plays a greatdeal. He has told me its meaning. He says--speaking with a not unpleasantcondescension--that this little tune will mean: "Life comes like abird-song through the open windows of the heart." It sounds quite likethat and is a very satisfying little song, with no beginning or end.
He played it now, over and over, wanderingly and at leisure, and Ipictured his rapt face above the whining fiddle; the face, say, of thePhilosopher Mang, sage of the second degree and disciple of Confucius,who was lifted from earth by the gods in a time we call B.C. but whichwas then thought to be a fresh, new, late time; the face of subtle eyesand guarded dignity. And I wondered, as I had often wondered, whether LewWee, lone alien in the abiding place of mad folks, did not suffer a vasthomesickness for his sane kith, who do not misspend their days buildingup certain grotesque animals to slaughter them for a dubious food. True,he had the compensation of believing invincibly that the Arrowhead Ranchand all its concerns lay upon his own slightly bowed shoulders; that thething would fast crumble upon his severance from it. But I questionedwhether this were adequate. I felt him to be a man of sorrow if not oftragedy. Vaguely he reached me as one who had survived some colossalbuffeting.
As I mused upon this Ma Pettengill sorted the evening mail and to Lew Weeshe now took his San Francisco newspaper, _Young China,_ and a letter.Half an hour later Lew Wee brought wood to replenish the fire. Hedisposed of this and absently brushed the hearth with a turkey wing.Then he straightened the rug, crossed the room, and straightened on thefarther wall a framed portrait in colour of Majestic Folly, a prize bullof the Hereford strain. Then he drew a curtain, flicked dust from acorner of the table, and made a slow way to the kitchen door, pausingto alter slightly the angle of a chair against the wall.
Ma Pettengill, at the table, was far in the Red Gap _Recorder_ for theprevious day. I was unoccupied and I watched Lew Wee. He was doingsomething human; he was lingering for a purpose. He straightened anotherchair and wiped dust from the gilt frame of another picture, Architect'sDrawing of the Pettengill Block, Corner Fourth and Main streets, Red Gap,Washington. From this feat he went softly to the kitchen door, where helooked back; hung waiting in the silence. He had made no sound, yet hehad conveyed to his employer a wish for speech. She looked up at him fromthe lamp's glow, chin down, brows raised, and eyes inquiring of him overshining nose glasses.
"My Uncle's store, Hankow, burn' down," said Lew Wee.
"Why, wasn't that too bad!" said Ma Pettengill.
"Can happen!" said Lew Wee positively.
"Too bad!" said Ma Pettengill again.
"I send him nine hundred dollars your money. Money burn, too," said LewWee.
"Now, now! Well, that certainly is too bad! What a shame!"
"Can happen!" affirmed Lew Wee.
It was colourless. He was not treating his loss lightly nor yet was hebewailing it.
"You put your money in the bank next time," warned his employer sharply,"instead of letting it lie round in some flimsy Chinee junk shop. They'realways burning."
Lew Wee regarded her with a stilled face.
"Can happen!" he again murmured.
He was the least bit insistent, as if she could not yet have heardthis utterly sufficing truth. Then he was out; and a moment later thetwo-stringed fiddle whined a little song through two closed doors.
I said something acute and original about the ingrained fatalism of theOriental races.
Ma Pettengill laid down her paper, put aside her glasses, and said, yes,Chinee one fatal race; feeling fatal thataway was what made 'em such goodhelp. Because why? Because, going to work at such-and-such a place, thishere fatal feeling made 'em think one place was no worse than another; sowhy not stick here? If other races felt as fatal as the Chinee race itwould make a grand difference in the help problem. She'd bet a milliondollars right now that a lot of people wished the Swedes and Irish hadfatal feelings like that.
I said Lew Wee had the look of one ever expecting the worst; even morethan the average of his race.
"It ain't that," said my hostess. "He don't expect anything at all; ormebbe everything. He takes what comes. If it's good or bad, he says, 'Canhappen!' in the same tone of voice; and that ends it. There he is now,knowing that all this good money he saved by hard labour has gone up insmoke, and paying the loss no more attention that if he'd merely broke astring on that squeaky long-necked contraption he saws."
"He seems careless enough with his money, certainly."
"Sure, because he don't believe it does the least good to be careful."
From a cloth sack the speaker poured tobacco into a longitudinallycreased brown paper and adeptly fashioned something in the nature of acigarette.
"Ain't I been telling him for a year to buy Liberty Bonds with his money?He did buy two, being very pro-American on account of once having aviolent difference with a German; and he's impressed with the buttonthe Government lets him wear for it. He feels like the President has madehim a mandarin or something; but if the whole Government went flooeyto-morrow he'd just say, 'Can happen!' and pick up his funny fiddle. Ofcourse it ain't human, but it helps to keep help. I had him six yearsnow, and the only thing that can't happen is his leaving. I don't saythere wasn't reasons why he first took the place."
Reasons? So there had been reasons in the life of Lew Wee. I hadsuspected as much. I found something guarded and timid and long-sufferingin his demeanour. He bore, I thought, the searing memory of an ordeal.
"Reasons!" I said, waiting.
"Reasons for coming this far in the first place. Wanted to save his life.I don't know why, with that fatal idea he sticks to. Habit, probably.Anyway, he had trouble saving it--kind of a feverish week."
She lighted the cigarette and chuckled hoarsely between the firstrelishing whiffs of it.
"Yes, sir; that poor boy believes the country between here and thecoast is inhabited by savages; wild hill tribes that try to exterminatepeaceful travellers; a low kind of outlaws that can't understand a wordyou tell 'em and act violent if you try to say it over. And having gothere, past the demons, I figure he's afraid to go back. I don't blamehim."
Ordinarily, this would have been enough. Now the lady merely smoked andchuckled. When I again uttered "Well?" with a tinge of rebuke, she camedown from her musing, but into another and distant field. It was thefield of natural history, of zoology, of vertebrates, mammals, furredquadrupeds--or, in short, skunks. One may as well be blunt in thismatter.
Ma Petten
gill said the skunk got too little credit for its lovelycharacter, it being the friendliest wild animal known to man and neveroffensive except when put upon. Wasn't we all offensive at those times?And just because the skunk happened to be superbly gifted in thisrespect, was that any reason to ostracize him?
"I ain't sayin' I'd like to mix with one when he's vexed," continued thelady judicially; "but why vex 'em? They never look for trouble; then whyforce it on their notice? Take one summer, years ago, when Lysander Johnand I had a camp up above Dry Forks. My lands! Every night after supperthe prettiest gang of skunks would frolic down off the hillside and rompround us. Here would come Pa and Ma in the lead, and mebbe a couple ofaunts and uncles and four or five of the cunningest little ones, andthey'd all snoop fearlessly round the cook fire and the grub boxes,picking up scraps of food--right round under my feet, mind you--andlooking up now and then and saying, 'Thank you!' plain as anything, andwhat lovely weather we're having, and why don't you come up and see ussome time?--and so on. They kept it up for a month while we was there;and I couldn't want neater, nicer neighbours.
"Lysander John, he used to get some nervous, especially after one chasedhim back into the tent late one night; but it was only wanting to playlike a mere puppy, I tells him. He'd heard a noise and rushed out, andthere the little thing was kind of waltzing in the moonlight, whirlinground and round and having a splendid time. When it came bounding towardhim--I guess that was the only time in his life Lysander John was scaredhelpless. He busted back into the tent a mere palsied wreck of his formerself; but the cute little minx just come up and sniffed at the flap in afriendly way, like it wanted to reassure him. I wanted him to go out andplay with it in the moonlight. He wouldn't. I liked 'em round the place,they was so neighbourly and calm. Of course if I'd ever stepped on one,or acted sudden--
"They also tame easy and make affectionate pets. Ralph Waldo Gusted, overon Elkhorn, that traps 'em in winter to make First-Quality LabradorSealskin cloaks--his children got two in the house they play with likekittens; and he says himself the skunk has been talked about in a looseand unthinking way. He says a pet skunk is not only a fine mouser butleads a far more righteous life than a cat, which is given to debaucheryand cursing in the night. Yes, sir; they're the most trusting andfriendly critters in all the woods if not imposed upon--after that,to be sure!"
I said yes, yes, and undoubtedly, and all very interesting, and well andgood in its place; but, really, was this its place? I wanted Lew Wee'sreasons for believing in the existence of savage hill tribes betweenthere and San Francisco.
"Yes; and San Francisco is worse," said the lady. "He believes that cityto be ready for mob violence at any moment. Wild crowds get together andyell and surge round on the least provocation. He says it's different inChina, the people there not being crazy."
"Well, then, we can get on with this mystery."
So Ma Pettengill said we could; and we did indeed.
This here chink seems to of been a carefree child up to the time thecivilized world went crazy with a version for him. He was a good cookand had a good job at a swell country club down the peninsula from SanFrancisco. The hours was easy and he was close enough to the city toget in once or twice a week and mingle with his kind. He could pass anevening with the older set, playing fan-tan and electing a new presidentof the Chinee race, or go to the Chinee theatre and set in a box and chewsugar cane; or he could have a nice time at the clubrooms of the YoungChina Progressive Association, playing poker for money. Once in a whilehe'd mix in a tong war, he being well thought of as a hatchet man--onlythey don't use hatchets, but automatics; in fact, all Nature seemed tosmile on him.
Well, right near this country club one of his six hundred thousandcousins worked as gardener for a man, and this man kept many beautifulchickens--so Lew Wee says. And he says a strange and wicked night animalcrept into the home of these beautiful birds and slew about a dozen of'em by biting 'em under their wings. The man told his cousin that thewicked night animal must be a skunk and that his cousin should catch himin a trap. So the cousin told Lew Wee that the wicked night animal was askunk and that he was going to catch him in a trap. Lew Wee thought itwas interesting.
He went up to the city and in the course of a pleasant evening at fan-tanhe told about the slain chickens that were so beautiful, and how thenight animal that done it would be caught in a trap. A great friend ofLew Wee's was present, a wonderful doctor. Lew Wee still says he is themost wonderful doctor in the world, knowing things about medicines thatthe white doctors can't ever find out, these being things that the Chineedoctors found out over fifteen thousand years ago, and therefore true.The doctor's name was Doctor Hong Foy, and he was a rich doctor. And hesays to Lew Wee that he needs a skunk for medicine, and if any one willbring him a live skunk in good condition he will pay twenty-five dollarsin American money for same.
Lew Wee says he won't be needing that skunk much longer--or words tothat effect--because he will get this one from the trap. Doctor HongFoy is much pleased and says the twenty-five American dollars is eagerto become Lew Wee's for this animal, alive and in good condition.
Lew Wee goes back, and the next day his cousin says he set a trap and thenight skunk entered it, but he was strong like a lion and had busted outand bit some more chickens under the wing, and then went away from there.He showed Lew Wee the trap and Lew Wee seen it wasn't the right kind, buthe knows how to make the right kind and will do so if the skunk canbecome entirely his property when caught.
The cousin, without the least argument, agreed heartily to this. He washonest enough. He explained carefully that the skunk was wished to becaught to keep it from biting chickens under the wing, causing them todie, and not for any value whatever it might have to the person catchingit. He says it will be beneficial to catch the skunk, but not to keep it;that a skunk is not nice after being caught, and Lew Wee is more thanwelcome to it if he will make a right trap. The cousin himself wasprobably one of these fatal "Can happen!" boys. When Lew Wee says he musthave the skunk alive and in good condition he just looked at him in adistant manner that Lew Wee afterward remembered; but he only said: "Oh,very well!" in his native language.
Lew Wee then found a small peaked-roofed chicken coop, with stoutslats on it, and made a figure-four trap, and put something for baiton the pointed stick and set the trap, and begun right off to squandertwenty-five dollars that was to come as easy as picking it up in theroad.
There wasn't any breakfast trade at the country club and Lew Wee was ableto get over across the golf links to the chicken place early the nextmorning. The cousin was some distance from the chicken place, hoeing abed of artichokes, but he told Lew Wee his trap had been a very wonderfultrap and the night animal was safe caught. Lew Wee was surprised at hiscousin's indifference and thought he should of been over there looking atthe prize. But not so. The cousin was keeping some distance off. He justtold Lew Wee that there was his animal and that he should take it awaywith as little disturbance as possible, which would be better far andnear for all concerned. He was strangely cool about it.
But Lew Wee was full of pleasant excitement and run swiftly to his trap.Sure enough! There was a nice big beautiful skunk in his trap. Lew Weehad never seen one. He said it was more beautiful than a golden pheasant,with rich, shiny black fur and a lovely white stripe starting from itsface and running straight down on each side of its back; and it had awonderful waving tail, like a plume. He looked at it joyfully through theslats. It was setting down comfortably when he come up; so he spoke toit in a friendly way. Then it got up and yawned and stretched itself,looking entirely self-possessed, but kind of bored, I suppose, like thiswas a poor sort of practical joke to play on a gentleman; so now wouldsomeone kindly lift this box off him?
The proud owner danced about it in great glee and told it how the nicedoctor wouldn't hurt it any, but would give it a good home, with chickenfor supper, mebbe, and so on. Then he went back to his cousin and givehim a pack of cigarettes, out of his overflowing heart, and asked wherewa
s something he could put his wild animal in and take it to town to hisgreat friend Doctor Hong Foy, who had a desire for it.
The cousin took the cigarettes, but he looked at Lew Wee a long time,like he didn't understand Chinee at all. Lew Wee said it all over again.He wanted something to take the wild animal to town in, because thechicken coop it was now in hadn't any bottom; and was too big, anyway.
The cousin again looked at him a long time, like one in a trance. Then,without any silly talk, he went over to the barn and handed Lew Wee abran sack.
Lew Wee said that was just the thing; and would the cousin come overand help him in case the animal would be timid and not want to go inthe sack? The cousin said he would not. And he didn't go back to theartichokes. He went to a bed of cauliflower clear at the other end ofthe garden, after giving Lew Wee another of them long "Can happen!"looks, which signify that we live in a strange and terrible world.
Lew Wee went back alone to his prize, finding it still calm, like agentleman in his club. He reassured it with some more cheerful words.He had a thought right then, he says; kind of a sudden fear. He had beentold the first day by his cousin, and also by his great friend DoctorHong Foy, that the skunk gave out a strong scent disagreeable to manypeople. But this one he'd caught didn't have any scent of any kind. Somebbe that meant it wasn't in good condition and Doctor Hong Foy wouldn'twish it for twenty-five dollars. However, it was sure a skunk, and lookedstrong and healthy and worth taking in to the doctor, who could then tellabout its condition.
Lew Wee opened the neck of the bag, laid it on the ground close by him,got down on his knees, and carefully raised one side of the coop. Thewild animal looked more beautiful than ever; and it didn't seem alarmed,but just the tiniest mite suspicious. It must of looked like it wassaying it was entirely willing to be friendly, but you couldn't ever tellabout these Chinamen. Lew Wee reached a hand slowly over toward it and itmoved against the back of the coop, very watchful. Then Lew Wee made aquick grab and caught the back of its neck neatly.
Of course this showed at once that a Chinaman wasn't to be trusted, andLew Wee says it put up a fierce fight, being so quick and muscular as tosurprise him. He was fully engaged for at least thirty seconds; theanimal clawed and squirmed and twisted, and it bit in the clinches andalmost got away. He was breathing hard when he finally got his wildanimal into the sack and the neck tied.
He says he didn't actually realize until then, what with all theexcitement, that something had gone kind of wrong. He was not onlybreathing hard but it was hard breathing. He says he felt awful goodat that moment. He had been afraid his animal might not be in goodcondition, but it undoubtedly was. He thought right off that if one injust ordinary good condition was worth twenty-five dollars to Doctor HongFoy, then this one might be worth as much as thirty-five, or even forty.He thought it must be the best wild animal of that kind in the world.
So he picked up the sack, with his prize squirming and swearing inside,and threw it over his shoulder and started back to the country club. Hestopped a minute to thank his cousin once more; but his cousin seen himcoming and run swiftly off in a strange manner, as if not wishing to bethanked again. Then Lew Wee went on across a field and over the golflinks. His idea was to take the little animal to his room in theclubhouse and keep it there until night, when he could take it intotown and get all that money for it. He was quite happy and wished hehadn't scared the poor thing so.
He thought when he got to his room he might let it out of the sack toplay round there in freedom during the day. He spent the twenty-fivedollars for different things on the way over the golf links. He told mehe knew perfectly well that his pet would be likely to attract notice;but he didn't realize how much. A Chinese is a wonder. He can very soonget used to anything.
But Lew Wee never did get to his room again. When he got up near theclubhouse some fine people were getting out of a shiny purple motor caras big as a palace, and they had golf sticks in bags. One of 'em was abig red-faced man with a fierce gray moustache, and this man begun toyell at Lew Wee in a remarkable manner. The words being in a foreignlanguage, he couldn't make 'em out well, but the sense of it was thatthe big man wanted him to go away from there. Lew Wee knew he wasn'tworking for this man, who was only a club member; so he paid no attentionto him beyond waving his hand friendly, and went on round toward the backentrance.
Then out of the side entrance come the chief steward, also yelling, andthis was the man he was working for; so he stopped to listen. It wasn'tfor long. He lost a good job as cook in no time at all. Of course thatnever bothers a Chinee any; but when he started in to get his thingsfrom his room the steward picked up a golf club with an iron end andthreatened to hurt him, and some of the kitchen help run round from theback with knives flashing, and the big red-faced man was yelling to thesteward to send for a policeman, and some ladies that had got out ofanother big car had run halfway across the golf links, as if pursued bysomething, and more people from the inside come to the door and yelled athim and made motions he should go away; so he thought he better not tryto get his things just then. He couldn't see why all the turmoil, even ifhe had got something in prime condition for his friend Doctor Hong Foy.
It was noticeable, he thought; but nothing to make all this fuss about,especially if the fools would just let him get it to his own room, whereit could become quiet again, like when he had first seen it in the trap.But he saw they wasn't going to let him, and the big man had gone in thefront way and was now shaking both fists at him through a side windowthat was closed; so he thought, all right, he'd leave 'em flat, withouta cook--and a golf tournament was on that day, too! He was twenty-fivedollars to the good and he could easy get another job.
So he waved good-bye to all of 'em and went down the road half a mileto the car line. He was building air castles by that time. He says itoccurred to him that Doctor Hong Foy might like many of these wildanimals, at twenty-five dollars each; and he might take up the worksteady. It was exciting and sporty, and would make him suddenly rich.Mebbe it wasn't as pleasant work as his cousin did, spending his timeround gardens and greenhouses; but it was more adventurous. He reallyliked it, and he would get even more used to it in time so he wouldn'thardly notice it at all. As he stood there waiting for a trolley car hemust of thought up a whole headful of things he'd buy with all thesesudden emoluments. Several motor cars passed while he waited and henoticed that folks in 'em all turned to look at him in an excited way.But he knew all Americans was crazy and liable to be mad about something.
Pretty soon a car stopped and some people got off the front end. Theystopped short and begun to look all round 'em in a frightened manner--twoladies and a child and an old man. The conductor also stepped off andlooked round in a frightened manner; but he jumped back on the car quick.Lew Wee then hopped on to the back platform, with his baggage, just as itstarted on. It started quick and was going forty miles an hour by thetime he'd got the door open. The two women in the car screamed at himlike maniacs, and before he'd got comfortably set down the conductor hadopened the front door and started for him. He got halfway down the car;then he started back and made a long speech at him from the front end,while the car stopped like it had hit a mountain, throwing everyone offtheir seats.
Lew Wee gathered that he was being directed to get off the car quickly.The other passengers had crowded back by the conductor and was tellinghim the same thing. One old gentleman with a cane, who mebbe couldn'twalk good, had took up his cane and busted a window quick and had hishead outside. Lew Wee thought he was an anarchist, busting up propertythat way. Also the motorman, who had stopped the car so soon, was nowshaking a brass weapon at him over the heads of the others. So he thoughthe might as well get off the car and save all this talk. He'd got hisfare out, but he put it back in his pocket and picked up his sack andwent out in a very dignified way, even if they was threatening him. Heknew he had something worth twenty-five dollars in his sack, and theyprobably didn't know it or they wouldn't act that way.
He set down and wai
ted for another car, still spending his money.
The next one slowed down for him; but all at once it started up againmore swift than the wind, he says; and he could see that the motormanwas a coward about something, because he looked greatly frightened whenhe flew by the spot. He never saw one go so fast as this one did after ithad slowed up for him. It looked like the motorman would soon be arrestedfor driving his car too fast. He then had the same trouble with anothercar; it slowed up, but was off again before it stopped, and the people init looked out at him kind of horrified.
It begun to look like he wasn't going to ride to the city in a trolleycar. Pretty soon along the road come a Japanese man he knew. His namewas Suzuki Katsuzo; and Lew Wee says that, though nothing but a Japanese,he is in many respects a decent man. Suzuki passed him, going round in awide circle, and stopped to give him some good advice. He refused to comea step nearer, even after Lew Wee told him that what he had in the sackwas worth a lot of money.
Suzuki was very polite, but he didn't want to come any nearer, evenafter that. He told Lew Wee he was almost certain they didn't want himon street cars with it, no matter if it was worth thousands of dollars.It might be worth that much, and very likely was if the price depended onits condition. But the best and most peaceful way for Lew Wee was to finda motor car going that way and ask the gentleman driving it to let himride; he said it would be better, too, to pick out a motor car without atop to it, because the other kind are often shut up too tightly for suchaffairs as this, like street cars. He said the persons in street cars arecommon persons, and do not care if a thing is worth thousands of dollarsor not if they don't like to have it in the car with them. He didn'tbelieve it would make any difference to them if something like this wasworth a million dollars in American gold.
So Lew Wee thanked Suzuki Katsuzo, who went quickly on his way; and thenhe tried to stop a few motor cars. It seemed like they was as timid asstreet cars. People would slow up when they seen him in the road and thenstep on the gas like it was a matter of life and death. Lew Wee must ofsaid "Can happen!" a number of times that morning.
Finally, along come a German. He was driving a big motor truck full ofempty beer kegs, and Lew Wee says the German himself was a drinking manand had been drinking so much beer that he could nearly go to sleep whiledriving the car.
He slowed up and stopped when he saw Lew Wee in the middle of the road.Lew Wee said he wanted to go to San Francisco and would give the driver adollar to let him ride back on the beer kegs. The driver said: "Let's seethe dollar." And took it and said: "All right, John; get up." Then hesniffed the air several times and said it seemed like there had been askunk round. Lew Wee didn't tell him he had it in his bag because thedriver might know how much it was worth and try foul play on him to getpossession of it. So they started on, and the German, who had beendrinking, settled into a kind of doze at the wheel.
Lew Wee was up on the beer kegs and enjoying himself like a richgentleman riding to the city in his motor car. It was kind of nice, inspite of being used to his pet, to be going through the air so fast.
The German seemed to be getting sobered up by something, and afterabout five or six miles he stopped the car and yelled to Lew Wee thata skunk had been round this place, too; and mebbe he had run over one.Lew Wee looked noncommittal; but the German was getting more wakefulevery minute, and after a couple more miles he pulled up again and comeround to where Lew Wee was. He says it seems like a skunk has been roundeverywhere; and, in fact, it seems to be right here now. He sees the sackand wants to know what's in it. But he don't give Lew Wee a chance tolie about it. He was thoroughly awake now and talked quite sober butbitterly. He ordered Lew Wee to get off of there quickly. Lew Wee sayshe swore at him a lot. He thinks it was in German. He ain't sure of thelanguage, but he knows it was swearing.
He wasn't going to get off, at first; but the German got a big stick fromthe roadside and started for him, so he climbed down the other side andstarted to run. But the cowardly German didn't chase him a single step.He got back in his seat and started down the road quicker than it lookedlike his truck had been able to travel.
Anyway, Lew Wee was a lot nearer to town, owing to the German not havingbeen sensitive at first; and if worst come to worst he could walk. Itlooked like he'd have to. Then he saw he'd have to walk, anyway, becausethis brutal German that put him off the truck hadn't give him back hisdollar, and that was all he had. He now put the First High Curse of theOne Hundred and Nine Malignant Devils on all Germans. It is a grandcurse, he says, and has done a lot of good in China. He was uncertainwhether it would work away from home; but he says it did. Every time hegets hold of a paper now he looks for the place where Germans in closeformation is getting mowed down by machine-gun fire.
But his money was gone miles away from him by this time; so he startedhis ten-mile walk. I don't know. It's always been a mystery to me how hecould do it. He could get kind of used to it himself, and mebbe hethought the public could do as much. It was an interesting walk he had.
At first, he thought he was only attracting the notice of the vulgar,like when some American ruffians doing a job of repair work on the roadthrew rocks at him when he stopped to rest a bit. But he soon noticedthat rich ladies and gentlemen also seemed to shun him as he passedthrough little towns. He carried his impetuous burden on a stick overhis shoulder and at a distance seemed to be an honest workman; but peoplecoming closer didn't look respectfully at him, by any means. It seemedas if some odium was attached to him.
Once he stopped to pick a big red rose from a bush that hung over thewall in front of a pretty place, and a beautiful child dressed like alittle princess stood there; and, being fond of children, like all Chineemen, he spoke to her; but a nurse screamed and run out at him and yelledsomething in another foreign language. He thinks it was swearing, same asthe German, though she looked like a lady. So he went sadly on, smellingof his lovely rose from time to time.
The only way I can figure out how he got through them suburbs is thatparties wanted to have him arrested or shot, or something, but wouldn'tlet him stick round long enough to get it done; they was in two mindsabout him, I guess: they wished to detain him, but also wished harderto have him away.
So he went on uninjured, meeting murderous looks and leaving excitementin his trail; hearing men threaten him even while they run away from him.It hurt him to be shunned this way--him that had always felt so friendlytoward one and all. He couldn't deny it by this time: people was shunninghim on account of what Doctor Hong Foy wanted alive and in goodcondition.
As he worked his way into the city the excitement mounted higher. He tookto the middle of the street where he could. Mobs collected behind him andwaved things at him and looked like they would lynch him; but they didn'tcome close enough for that. It seemed like he bore a charmed life inspite of this hostility. When he'd got well into the city a policeman didcome up and start to arrest him, but thought better of it and went rounda corner. It made him feel like a social cull or an outcast, orsomething.
He wasn't a bit foolish about his cunning little pet by this time. Andit looked as if these crowds of people that gathered behind him wouldfinally get their nerve up to do something with him. They was gettingbigger and acting more desperate. When he was on the sidewalk he sweptpeople off into the road like magic, and when he was in the street theywould edge close in to the buildings.
It really hurt him. He'd always liked Americans, in spite of theirforeign ways, and they had seemed to like him; but now all at once theywas looking on him as a yellow peril. He still kept his rose to smell of.He said it was a sweet comfort to him at a time when the whole world hadturned against him for nothing at all.
He made for Chinatown by the quietest streets he could pick out, thougheven on them hardly escaping the lawless mob. But at last he got to thestreet where Doctor Hong Foy's office was. It was largely a Chinesestreet and lots of his friends lived there; but even now, when you'dthink he'd get kind words and congratulations, he didn't.
His
best friends regarded him as one better let alone and made swiftgestures of repulsion when he passed 'em. Quite a crowd followed at asafe distance and gathered outside when he went into Doctor Hong Foy'soffice. It was a kind of store on the ground floor, so Lew Wee says, withshelves full of rich old Chinee medicines that had a certain powerfulpresence of their own. But even in here Doctor Hong Foy should of knownbeyond a doubt what his friend had brought him.
It seemed the doctor had to make sure. He wasn't of the same believingnature as the street-car people, and the German and others. He wanted tobe shown. So they undone the sack and opened it down to where Doctor HongFoy could make sure. But their work was faulty and the wild animal didn'tlike handling after its day of mistreatment. It had been made morbid, Iguess. Anyway, it displayed an extremely nervous tendency, and manyimpetuous movements, and bit Doctor Hong Foy in the thumb. Then the firstowner tried to grab him and the pet wriggled away on to a tray of driedeel gizzards, or something, and off that to the open door.
The little thing run into the front of the large crowd that had waitedoutside and had a wonderful effect on it. Them in the centre tried tomelt away, but couldn't on account of them on the outside; so there wasfights and accidents, and different ones tromped on, and screams of fear.And this brought a lot bigger crowd that pressed in and made the centreones more anguished. I don't know. That poor animal had been imposed onall day and must of been overwrought. It was sore vexed by now and didn'tcare who knew it. Lots of 'em did.
Of course Lew Wee dashed out after his property, hugging the sack to hischest; and, of course, he created just as much disturbance as his littlepet had. Policemen was mingling with the violence by this time and addingmuch to its spirit. One public-spirited citizen grabbed Lew Wee in spiteof its being distasteful; but he kicked the poor man on the kneecap andmade a way through the crowd without too much trouble.
He wasn't having any vogue whatever in that neighbourhood. He run downa little side street, up an alley, and into a cellar he knew about, thiscellar being the way out of the Young China Progressive Association whenthey was raided up the front stairs on account of gambling at poker.
He could hear the roar of the mob clear from there. It took about an hourfor this to die down. People would come to see what all the excitementwas about, and find out almost at once; then they'd try to get away,and run against others coming to find out, thus producing a very earnestriot. There was mounted policemen and patrol wagons and many arrests,and an armed posse hunting for the escaped pet and shooting up alleys atevery little thing that moved. They never did find the pet--so one of LewWee's cousins wrote him; which made him sorry on account of Doctor HongFoy and the twenty-five or mebbe thirty dollars.
He lay hid in this cellar till dark; then started out to find his friendsand get something to eat. He darned near started everything all overagain; but he dodged down another alley and managed to get some noodlesand chowmain at the back door of the Hong-Kong Grill, where a tongbrother worked. He begun to realize that he was a marked man. The markdidn't show; but he was. He didn't know what the law might do to him.It looked like at least twenty years in some penal institution, if nothanging; and he didn't want either one.
So he borrowed three dollars from the tong brother and started forsome place where he could lead a quiet life. He managed to get toOakland, though the deck hands on the ferryboat talked about throwinghim overboard. But they let him live if he would stay at the back endtill everyone, including the deck hands, was safe off or behind somethingwhen the boat landed. Then he wandered off into the night and found afreight train. He didn't care where he went--just somewhere they wouldn'tknow about his crime.
He rode a while between two freight cars; then left that train and founda blind baggage on a passenger train that went faster and near froze himto death. He got off, chilled in the early morning, at some little townand bought some food in a Chinee restaurant and also got warm. But hehadn't no more than got warm when he was put out of the place, right byhis own people.
It was warm outside by this time, so he didn't mind it so much. The towndid, though. It must of been a small town, but he says thousands of menchased him out of it about as soon as he was warmed up enough to run. Hecouldn't understand this, because how could they know he was the one thatcaused all that trouble in San Francisco?
He got a freight train outside the town and rode on and on. He sayshe rode on for weeks and weeks; but that's his imagination. It must ofbeen about three days, with spells of getting off for food and to getwarmed when he was freezing, and be chased by these wild hill tribes whenhe had done the latter. It put a crimp into his sunny nature--all thisarmed pursuit of him. He says if he had been a Christian, and believedin only one God, he would never of come through alive, it taking aboutseventy-four or five of his own gods to protect him from these maddenedsavages. He had a continuous nightmare of harsh words and blows. Hewondered they didn't put him in jail; but it seemed like they onlywanted to keep him going.
Of course it had to end. He got to Spokane finally and sneaked round toa friend that had a laundry; and this friend must of been a noble soul.He took in the outcast and nursed him with food and drink, and repeatedlywashed his clothes. Wanting a ranch cook about that time, I got in touchwith him through another cousin, who said this man wanted very much togo out into a safe country, and would never leave it because ofunpleasantness in getting here.
It was ten days after he got there that I saw him first, and I'll bedarned if he was any human sachet, even then. But after hearing his storyI knew that time would once more make him fit for human association.He told me his story with much feeling this time and he told it to meabout once a week for three months after he got here--pieces of it at atime. It used to cheer me a lot. He was always remembering something new.He said he liked the great silence and peace of this spot.
You couldn't tell him to this day that his belief about the savage hilltribes ain't sound. He believes anything "can happen" in that countrydown there. Doctor Hong Foy never paid him the twenty-five, of course,though admitting that he would of done so if the animal had not escaped,because he was in such good condition, for a skunk, that he was worthtwenty-five dollars of any doctor's money. I don't know. As I say,they're friendly little critters; but it's more money that I wouldactually pay for one.
Through two closed doors the whine of the fiddle still penetrated.Perhaps Lew Wee's recent loss had moved him to play later than was hiscustom, pondering upon the curious whims that stir the gods when theystart to make things happen. But he was still no cynic. Over and over heplayed the little air which means: "Life comes like a bird-song throughthe open windows of the heart."
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