Tales of a Chinese Grandmother

by Frances Carpenter

  "See what I have caught, Lao Lao," Ah Shung cried just then, running to the summer house from the garden path where he had been playing. The boy held a long bamboo rod in his hand. One end of it had been slit, and a small bamboo crosspiece had been used to wedge its ends apart. In a bush in a far corner he had found some thick cobwebs, and he had twisted the split end of his stick around and around in the sticky mass.

  With this homemade trap Ah Shung had been chasing the butterflies that flittered hither and thither in the Garden of Sweet Smells. He had only to touch them and the pretty creatures were held fast in the sticky cobweb on the end of his rod.

  The butterfly which Ah Shung brought to show the Old Old One had bright-colored wings of blue, green, and yellow. Holding it carefully between his thumb and forefinger, the boy laid it down beside the butterfly pattern which Yu Lang was working with her embroidery silks.

  "Mine is the prettiest," he said.

  "But mine will last longer," his sister replied.

  "Yu Lang may be sure that her butterfly will bring her only joy," Grandmother Ling said, smiling. "But you, Little Bear, must take care how you handle the live butterflies. If you do not treat them gently they may bring trouble upon you as they did upon Mandarin Wang. Stop your chase for a moment, O Mighty Hunter, and I will tell you how the butterflies evened their score with that cruel man.

  "This mandarin, Wang, held a place of importance in a great city. He had received an appointment as judge before whom wrongdoers were brought to be sentenced. He alone could decide how much money in fines they should pay into the treasury or how long they should sit on the crowded streets wearing the 'wooden necktie.'"

  Grandmother Ling was speaking of the wooden board of punishment which was locked round the neck of prisoners in old China. It was very uncomfortable for it was so broad that the unlucky person who wore it could not get his hands to his face to brush mosquitoes away or to put food into his mouth.

  "Inside Wang's gate," the old woman continued, "there were many fine courtyards and the mandarin's money boxes were always full to the top. No other mandarin had finer food nor better rice wine than Wang. And none paid more attention to his own comfort and amusement.

  "One summer Mandarin Wang thought of a new way of giving himself pleasure. When a wrongdoer was brought before him, he would not fine him, nor would he put round his neck the 'wooden necktie.' Instead he would say, 'Worthless fellow, you shall go free, and you shall pay no fine for your offense, if you will only bring me tomorrow one hundred live butterflies.' The prisoner would be astonished, of course, but he would rejoice at getting off so easily. And the next day he would appear at the mandarin's gate, the hundred butterflies safely caged in a basket of woven bamboo.

  "Dressed in his official robes, with his judge's hat still on his head, as though he were going to pay an important visit, Wang would take his place on the shady veranda. There would be sweet cakes to eat and rice wine to drink, close at his hand. Then he would call together all the women and the girls who lived within his walls, and he would command them to play before him the Game of the Butterflies. With hairs pulled from their own heads, the women would tie tiny weights made of twisted paper to each butterfly's body so that it could not fly far away. Then they would set it free.

  "In the sunshine the butterflies flitted slowly about the mandarin's courtyard like scraps of bright silks blown by a wind. The women and girls chased them with their fans to make them fly faster. It was a gay sight, the hundred butterflies with their hundred gay colors, and the girls and the women in their summer gowns of soft flowerlike hues.

  The women and girls chased the butterflies with their fans to make them fly faster

  "One afternoon, when the Game of the Butterflies had just ended, and the maids had gone back to their inner courtyards, Mandarin Wang sat and dozed upon his veranda. His rice wine had made him so drowsy that his chin at last dropped upon his silken breast and he slept soundly.

  "During his slumber his soul made a voyage into the land of dreams, where he saw a fair maiden dressed in colors as gay as a butterfly's wing. He was about to pay her polite compliments when she spoke to him sternly. 'O Cruel Wang, I have come to warn you,' she said. 'I am a Butterfly Princess. Your selfish Game of the Butterflies has brought suffering and sorrow to my poor sisters. Some even have died. And for this you shall pay.'

  "Before Mandarin Wang could utter a word in reply, the maiden had changed herself into a huge butterfly and had flown out of sight. Then the mandarin felt the touch of a hand on his shoulder.

  "'Wake, master, wake!' a servant was calling. 'The governor comes! The governor comes! He is even now at the gate.'

  "Wang jumped to his feet. He hurriedly straightened the folds of his gown, and he hastened through the courts to meet the great man. Breathless, he made his bows of politeness as the visitor dismounted from his sedan chair. The mandarin knew well that the governor would be angry if all was not done according to custom and if he did not receive the full honor due him.

  "To Wang's surprise his guest did not return his bows or his greeting. Instead his face flamed with anger. 'How dare you receive me thus, O Man of Little Respect?' the governor cried.

  "'Excellent One of Surpassing Goodness,' Wang said, bowing again and again, 'how am I lacking in respect to your importance? Have I not kept the custom and met you here at the gate? Have I not bowed low before you as I would bow to my grandfather? How can I have offended you?'

  "'Is it the custom, is it being respectful, to greet a guest like myself in the costume of a traveling player?' the governor asked, eying poor Wang with great disapproval. 'Look at your hat, your official hat, with flowers upon it! Are you a woman that you should deck yourself so? What could be more unseemly?"

  "The mandarin looked dazed. His knees knocked together as he took off his precious hat with the judge's button upon it. To his surprise he saw that a garland of white flowers had been twisted about it. He stammered and stuttered as he tried to explain that he knew nothing about them. The governor would not believe him and declared he would take Wang's position away from him if such a thing ever should happen again.

  "Wang bowed his head meekly. His brain was still whirling, and it was only when the governor had departed that he could gather his wits together. It was then he remembered the threat of the Butterfly Princess. At once he knew that it was she who had put the flowers round his hat and that this was her way of punishing him for his cruel Game of the Butterflies. He also knew he would never dare to play it again."

  XXV

  HENG O, THE MOON LADY

  FOR DAYS, in every court inside the bright red gate of the Lings, there had been comings and goings quite out of the ordinary. In the Garden of Sweet Smells blue-clad workmen were planting in pots new flowers just coming into bloom. The maid servants were putting the houses in order under the watchful eyes of their mistresses. Treasures that had not been taken out of the chests since this time last year were being arranged on tables in the reception halls, where guests might inspect them.

  The kitchen was perhaps the busiest of all the little low buildings that stood round the courtyards. There the men cooks and the younger women of the Ling family were working from morning till night, making little round cakes stuffed with almonds and orange peel, melon seeds and sugar, and other good things. They were decorating these cakes with tiny rabbits and toads and pagodas made of sugar. Besides, they were preparing other delicious dishes which they always ate in their celebration of the Moon Lady's birthday on the Fifteenth Day of the Eighth Moon.

  The Old Mistress herself, with Fu, the number one servant, and her maid, Huang Ying, spent the days going from one court to the other, directing the work of preparing for the feast that was about to take place. Ah Shung and Yu Lang followed her like a shadow. They could hardly wait for the Moon Lady's birthday party to begin. Each time they saw packages brought in through the bright red gate they whispered to each other, "Perhaps it is a pagoda or a moon rabbit for us. " Their old nu
rse, Wang Lai, had taken them to the fair in the temple grounds, where they had seen the toysellers with their trays of painted clay rabbits and gay-colored toy pagodas.

  The Moon Lady's birthday table was set out in the open Courtyard of Politeness. It was covered with a red cloth and laid with five plates filled with fruits as round as the round moon itself. There were apples and peaches, pomegranates and grapes. A pyramid of the little moon-cakes rose high into the air. Candles in pairs and urns filled with incense-sticks stood here and there.

  The children were charmed with the splendid clay pagoda which stood in the center to represent the palace of the Moon Lady. Inside it a burning candle sent light shining through each tiny paper windowpane, just as lights shone from the houses round the courtyard. But the boys and girls were even more interested in the tall clay Moon Rabbit in his mandarin's gown, standing up on his long hind legs just like a man. Ah Shung had made a little bundle of bean stalks, the Moon Rabbit's favorite food, and Yu Lang had been allowed to place it herself at the feet of the statue. Near the birthday table, on the courtyard wall, there was a bright printed poster that showed the Moon Rabbit under his cinnamon tree, pounding the pill-of-long-life in his little bowl.

  "Heng O, the Moon Lady, comes at last," the Old Old One said to her family as they stood together out in the courtyard. "How she lights up the sky! The moon is larger tonight than at any time of the year."

  Everyone watched the round silver disk come slowly out from its hiding place behind the big willow tree. The children gazed at it in wonder. They thought they could trace the outline of the Moon Rabbit upon its bright face, and sometimes they thought they could also find a toad or the Moon Lady, Heng O, herself. Tonight Yu Lang imagined that she could see an open door in the moon, for she had been taught to believe that each year on her birthday the Moon Lady left her shining palace and came down to earth.

  The Old Old One led the procession to the birthday table which they had spread in honor of the Moon Lady. She knelt on the stones of the courtyard before it and swayed back and forth in a respectful kowtow. At the same time she said this little prayer to the Queen of the Night:

  "O Light One,

  O Bright One,

  O Wheel of Ice,

  O Mirror Bright

  We bow tonight,

  Bless thou our rice!"

  Ah Shung's older sister played sweet tunes on her four-stringed lute while the Ling family waited, to allow time for the Moon Lady and the Moon Rabbit to partake of the good things which they had spread out for them. When the feasting was over, they sat for a time out in the moonlight. It was the end of summer and in the fields beyond the city the yellow grain was being cut. But the air was still warm, and sweet smells were wafted across the courtyards by the soft night breeze.

  "Tonight I must tell you how the lovely Heng O flew up to the Moon, and how the Moon Rabbit came to be," the Old Old One said as she gathered her grandchildren about her. "It was long, long ago in the time when the Emperors of China came from the family of Shia. One day as the Son of Heaven rode forth from the palace in his yellow sedan chair he saw upon the highway a man with long arrows and a huge red bow in his hands. The Emperor had never seen another bow like it, and he stopped to examine it.

  "'I am Hou Ye, the bowman,' the man replied to his questions. 'With my red bow I shoot arrows from one side of the world to the other. And swift as their flight, I ride on the winds. I am lighter than air because I eat only flowers.' The Emperor was astonished. He hardly believed these words of Hou Ye.

  "'Do you see yonder pine tree on the top of that mountain, O Bowman?' he asked, pointing to a high peak that rose clear and sharp against the blue sky. 'If you can indeed shoot from one side of the world to the other, send an arrow through its branches. If you can do that, we shall give you the post of Imperial Archer.'

  "The bowman took aim. He bent his red bow, and, straight as a bird flies, his arrow sped to the pine tree on the top of the far mountain. At once the bowman jumped upon a passing wind and flew off to fetch it back to the chair of the Son of Heaven.

  "The Emperor kept his promise. He made Hou Ye Imperial Archer, and again and again he called upon him to aim his red bow at some enemy. When a wicked serpent or a tiger did harm to a village, Hou Ye was sent forth to kill him. When the Heavenly Dog tried to eat up the moon, Hou Ye shot an arrow into the sky to drive him away. When the rains did not fall, he would shoot his sharp arrows into the clouds to remind the sky dragons that water was needed.

  "One year there came a terrible flood. The rivers spilled out over the fields. People were drowned. Houses and animals were carried away. Sadness filled the land. The Emperor ordered Hou Ye to take his magic bow and seek out Ho Po, the great God of the Waters, who was causing the flood. Quickly the archer mounted the wind and he soon found the water spirit. He shot his swift arrows and he wounded Ho Po so that he flew far away and never returned to do evil again. Immediately the waters flowed back into the rivers. The country was saved.

  "Now, my children, the water spirit had a beautiful sister whose name was Heng O. Hou Ye saw her standing beside her brother, Ho Po, but she was so fair to look upon that he could not bring himself to wound her. When he bent his red bow he was careful to aim his arrow at her thick raven-black hair which she wore in a coil high on her head. The water spirit's sister was so grateful to him for saving her life that she gladly consented to become his wife.

  "Not long after, a dreadful thing happened. In the sky there appeared not one sun but ten. Ten round burning disks sent their fierce rays down on the earth. Leaves died on their branches. Grass blades burned to a crisp. No grain could grow. In the terrible heat the water dried up in the wells and the streams. Quickly the Emperor called for Hou Ye.

  "'O Archer,' he said, 'save us as you have saved us before! The soothsayers declare that in each of those suns there lives a golden raven upon whose life the sun's heat and light depends. Take your red bow and shoot the gold ravens! Shoot quickly, O Archer, or we shall all die.'

  "Hou Ye drew back his bow. He turned it up toward the sky. Zing-ng-ng! went his arrow as it flew straight and sure to the first of the blazing suns. And before you could finish that moon-cake in your hand, Ah Shung, that sun was gone out of the sky. Zing-ng-ng! A second arrow sped upward to find the second sun. And that ball of fire also was gone. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine sun ravens were killed by the arrows of Hou Ye.

  "The archer was just taking aim at the tenth when a voice came from the clouds. 'Hold, Archer,' it said, 'listen to the Sun God. Leave one sun in the sky so that the earth may be lighted. Without its brightness and warmth no one could live. Take care how you shoot!' So Hou Ye stayed his hand and the tenth sun still shines, high up there in the heavens.

  "The fame of this deed spread far and wide over the earth. It reached the palace of the Empress of the West on the Kun Lun Mountains, and she sent a swift whirlwind to bring Hou Ye before her. With her own hand she put into his a precious pill-of-long-life.

  "'When you swallow this, Mighty Archer,' she said, 'you shall be carried to the heavens, where you will live forever. But do not swallow it now. The time is not ready. For twelve months you must prepare yourself. Hide the pill away. Keep it a secret until the hour comes for you to fly away to the sky.'

  "When Hou Ye returned home he followed the advice of the Lady of Kun Lun. He hid the pill-of-long-life carefully up under the roof, and he said never a word about it to anyone, not even to his dear wife, the lovely Heng O.

  "It was not long after that the Emperor sent his Imperial Archer on a journey to the south, to fight with a strange man who had round popping eyes and a single sharp tooth from which he got his name, 'Chisel Tooth.'

  "While her husband was away Heng O found the time long. One day, as she was going here and there through the house, she saw a bright light high up under the roof. Sweet perfume filled the air. She easily found that the light and the perfume came from the pearly white pill-of-long-life which Hou Ye had hidden. She pu
t the pill into her mouth and, as soon as she had swallowed it, she felt light as a kite and she found she could fly like a bird.

  "When her husband returned from killing old Chisel Tooth, he discovered that his precious pill-of-long-life had disappeared, and he sought out Heng O to ask what had become of it. In fear of his anger, she flew out of the window and up to the sky, where she hid in the moon. Hardly had she landed than a fit of coughing seized her, and out of her mouth flew the shell of the pill, which straightway became a rabbit of purest white jade. You can see the Jade Rabbit now on the shining moon disk there above us. Some say Heng O was punished for stealing the pill-of-long-life. They declare she was turned into a toad. But I like to think she is still a fair lady.

  "You can imagine that at first Hou Ye was cross," the Old Old One continued. "He mounted a swift wind and rode this way and that way, seeking his wife. The Empress of Kun Lun took pity upon him when he sought her aid. 'Do not fret, Archer,' she said. 'You shall dwell in the sun and you, too, shall live forever.' And she gave him a magic cake to eat, in order that he should be able to withstand the fierce heat in his new palace.

  "Yet another gift Hou Ye received from the Empress of Kun Lun, a golden bird with a red comb standing high on his head. 'You have been told how to make the sun rise,' said the Empress, 'but how should you know when the hour has come? This golden bird with the red comb will wake you each morning.' And that golden bird which Hou Ye took with him to his palace must have been the ancestor of the roosters in our stable yard that wake us from our sleep each day when the skies first see the sun.

  "In his sun palace Hou Ye felt more kindly toward his wife, Heng O. With a charm which the Western Empress had given him, he made his way to the moon to tell her he had forgiven her. He found the moon a sad empty place, ice cold, and with no plants but the cinnamon tree under which the Jade Rabbit stood mixing the pill-of-long-life in his little stone bowl.