[Idah Meacham Strobridge, The Wonder of Sui Seen Fah, from The Land of Purple Shadows (1909)]

 

THE WONDER OF SUI SEEN FAH.

          MY HORSE shied as the lightning flashed in our faces. There was a heavy crash of pealing thunder, and before the last reverberation had died away the big rain-drops began to come down on my riding-habit, while I urged him to still faster pace on the steep and rugged trail leading down the cañon.

          A great rush of wind swept up through the gorge, bringing with it the slap of driving sleet. Nowhere was the footing safe beyond a fast walk; and my horse was already doing his best in making as rapid a descent as possible down the slipping, sliding rocks which were brightening their tints in the fast falling rain. Tall, dry grasses, and the brushwood on the banks of the creek, bent and swayed with the winds sweeping through the deep-cleft cañon. Birds with tip-tilted wings were buffeted hither and thither by the strength of the storm, as they fought their way to shelter.

          It was one of those sudden storms which one may encounter up on the heights of a mountain ragged with shattered rocks, and cut into cliff and gorge; storms that may not last over an hour, at most, but which—while they do last—rage with a fury that makes them something not to be braved. So I looked anxiously

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about me for some cover under which I might hide, and an overhanging wall where my horse could find shelter from the brunt of the beating rain-sheets.

          Lowering my head to the storm, and looking out eagerly from beneath the brim of my hat, I saw nothing—absolutely nothing—offering the protection I so desired. I had about resigned myself to what seemed to be the inevitable, when a sudden turn in the cañon's winding trail disclosed to me the roof of a habitable building. Made of the jagged, unevenly broken rocks that littered the mountain's western slope, the chinks cemented with a rough plastering of mud, there stood a cabin under the lee of the sheer wall which rose from almost the very edge of the trail.

          Riding quickly up to the cabin, I slipped from my saddle to the ground. As I did so, the rude door swung open, disclosing a little, lean, yellow-skinned son of the Orient, who seemed rather startled by my unexpected appearance.

          "May I come in, John," I asked, "until it stops raining?"

          "Certainly. You go inside. I tie your horse," was the reply, in better English than one usually hears from Chinamen.

          While he was securing my poor, dripping, shivering beast, and fastening a rice mat over the saddle in an effort to protect it from further dampness, I entered the one-room dwelling, and found there two other coolies sitting before a stove radiating a generous warmth.

          Both nodded pleasantly as they looked up, and one of them offered me a three-legged stool, asking me in broken English to be seated. This I declined, preferring to stand by the fire until I had dried my water-soaked clothing.

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          My eyes roved over the strangely assorted objects filling the low-ceiled room. A typical "China camp" of the West! Dozens of domestic utensils were lying about, ingeniously contrived from what must have been a meagre supply of manufacturing material. Surely the little yellow man has a wonderful ingenuity! A collection—vast, varied, and chaotic—of ill-looking bags and boxes were stuffed with articles whose uses were, mainly, unguessed by me. Odds and ends of clothing, American-made and of Chinese make, were tossed about. Foul-smelling fish, dried, and surely from China, hung from the rafters. Boxes of tea, mats of rice, vegetables smelling of earth and decay, together with the flotsam and jetsam of a placer camp, littered the mud floor. Bunks built against the stone walls of the room were strewn with blankets and quilts which had—strange to say—the appearance of cleanliness; while curled upon one of the beds was a cross-looking dog that eyed me evilly, without, however, raising his head. Chinese bowls and cups, with grotesque figures in gray and blue, were scattered about on the table. Like the beds they bespoke cleanliness. Standing on the table was an earthen jar of Chinese brandy and a pot of preserved ginger. An opium "kit" was in full view; and the air was filled with the mingled odors of opium, tobacco, dried fish, stove-smoke, and the heavy tuberose-like fragrance which exhaled from a great bowl of exquisitely beautiful Chinese lilies set upon a small shelf near the one window of the squalid room.

          White as snow is white, with a center all yellow as gold; sweet as orange flowers, and altogether lovely, they seemed strangely out of place in the dingy, dusky stone cabin under the cliffs. It was as though a feather from some passing angel's wing had fluttered down to fall in the mud and mire of a sty.

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          My eyes went burrowing among the strange, shadowed corners of this habitation of creatures who seemed to me scarcely human. There was something wonderfully interesting in studying their environment. With what squalor were they surrounded! And what barrenness of perceptions was theirs! They lived a life wholly limited to victuals and drink, sleep and rude shelter, totally devoid of Nature's poetry, or the beautiful in the world that is lent us by Art—the things that glorify even the meanest surroundings.

          "Poor, ignorant, starved wretches!" I said to myself. "Life has never in the remotest degree—even once—touched their days with the finger of graceful thought, nor has the Creator given them the faculty of wandering through lands of delightful fancy. Hard realities, unredeemed by a single quality of poetic imagery (such as, consciously or unconsciously, we are ever adorning our daily lives with), make the sum total of their degraded existence. Animals all—miserable, soulless animals." I declared, "And yet we call them human beings!" And I sighed impatiently.

          One of the little yellow men had been busying himself about the stove, and now proffered me a bowl of steaming, fragrant tea; for who can brew the bowl equal to a Chinaman?

          "I makee you some tea," he said, pleasantly. "You dlink it, you no catchee cold, I thlink. You gettee plitty wet now; maybe you no dlink, you catchee sick. More better you dlink. You savvy?"

          I "savvyed," and smiling an acceptance, drank the delicious beverage.

          The third Chinaman nodded and smiled at me in the most friendly way; but evidently he spoke no English. The first one I had met now re-entered the cabin, and a moment later engaged himself in adding fresh water to the bowl holding the lily bulbs that were bedded in

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bits of sugar-white quartz rock. I noted how his slim, brown, tapering fingers touched with tender care—and almost lovingly—the tall shoots loaded with their clusters of sweet, white flowers. It was the month in which the greatest celebration of their year occurred, "Chinese New Year," and I knew that the blossoming of the lily, as it might be prolific or blighted in bloom, augured well or ill for the luck of the ensuing year to its owner. I commented upon the perfection and profusion of its blossoms, in acknowledgement of the pretty superstition. He looked up with a quick, appreciative smile.

          "Yes, I think I have very much good luck this year. I guess I find plenty gold in the creek (I got placer claims here in Black Cañon), so that I get very rich and can go back to China and give my mother nice things. I be very glad, then."

          He called my attention to a half-tone portrait of Li Hung Chang, evidently torn from the pages of some magazine, and which was now tacked to the wall above the lilies, and near the shrine-like shelf where a great number of burning punks and gaudy red paper slips gave evidence of an unashamed devotion to the religious observances of a people who shame our own in their infrequent prayers.

          As I stepped nearer the picture to look closer at the peculiar face, so unlike anyone of my own race, I saw that part of the text of the article for which the print had been used as an illustration, was there; and my eyes caught the line: "Li has always been something of a mystic, a dreamer, a poet." (My lip curled derisively. A Chinaman! One of the same race as these little oblique-eyed men here? I smiled disdainfully.) "Dr. Bedloe thus translates one of his stanzas;" I read,

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                   "Dragon, who rul'st the shoreless sea of death,

                             When I lie dreaming on my loved one's lip,

                   And thou dost come to steal away her breath,

                             O, take me with her on thy phantom ship!"

          I stared. It was indeed poetry! Could it be possible that such a gem had fallen from the pen—a pointed brush rolled in India ink, and held by the long-nailed fingers of—a Chinaman? Had the four lines really found birth in the brain of a tip-eyed, be-queued, shaven-headed Celestial?—even the great Li—for a great statesman I must needs admit his being. But a poet—he, a Chinaman! Why, the sentiment—the music of the quatrain were something any man, white-skinned or yellow, might be proud to father. I was confounded—amazed! Ah, but then (I said to myself) his was an exceptional mind! He was not to be classed with ordinary coolies. His public life had shown of what unusual material the great dictator was made. I granted that—foreign as the idea had been to my mind before—he might possess the grace of poetic thought. He was a great statesman—therefore he might be, also, a great poet. But these men here in the mountain cabin—half dug-out, half hovel—they were of his race, but not of his kind; they were mere opium-smoking animals.

          "You like that?" A voice broke in upon my musing. The little Mongolian was watching me with interest. "I can read some English," he said, "And I think that very good kind reading." He pointed to the verse. "But, not so good in English as in China." His lips moved as he whispered the Chinese words softly to himself. "Sound very pretty read that kind in China book."

          I was mute. The little man, after all, could appreciate that which the great man had written; and I had but just said in my ignorance that these coolies did not

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know the charm of the beautiful! I turned away to the window, shamed into silence, and watched the drip, drip, drip of the rain from the casing outside where it ran in trickling streams against the glass.

          Heaven was shedding a flood of tears in ceaseless weeping; weeping as though never, since the birth of time, had it known aught to grieve over until now, and was giving way to sorrow with the abandon of some young heart hitherto untouched by woe; wailing and weeping as if to wash the wicked old earth free from all its sins, and make it once more pure and clean as when it came fresh from the hand of its creator.

          A cheap nickel clock, hanging against the wall, noisily ticked away the moments. Five minutes—ten —a quarter of an hour! Rain—rain—rain; and no promise of cessation. I came back and seated myself near the lilies of China, lifting my face to inhale their fragrance. How lovely they were! A cup of ivory with a heart of gold.

          And then—? Then—! How it came about—how the story began, I do not know, nor how long it took for the telling; but, sitting there in that squalid cabin of Chinese miners, I heard for the first time the Legend of the Chinese Lily.

          I do not know if he meant to relate the story to me, or if he was simply repeating to himself the lovely legend, as one repeats over and over that which is pleasant to the ear; nor do I remember the exact words he used in the telling of the tale. I only know that there—circled by strange surroundings, with the storm raging through the cañon and beating its water-wings against the window-pane—it fell to my lot, that afternoon on the heights of a great Western mountain, to listen to a fanciful story out of fairyland, and which

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held me fascinated, and forgetful of all else in the world as I heard.

          And this was the story:

          Long ago—so long that the world, and all in it, was new; even as all now is old, very old—there dwelt in that oldest of all lands, China, a man great, and good, and with money and possessions too plentiful to be counted. And he had wives—two, three, or four, as a rich man may. But only the children of the first two wives have to do with this story. Each wife bore a son. And the first-born—he that was the son of the first wife—was the father's favorite. But the second son it was who loved the father best. This the sire did not know, for the boy hid his great love ; yet ever obeying to the most minute particular each request asked of him. For goodness, and honor, and duty, and truth, for loyalty, and for love this son was one man among ten thousand times ten thousand. But the father went about with an invisible fold of cloth, bound across his eyes by an evil spirit, which blinded him to this noble son's worthiness. And the evil spirit removed the bandage whenever the father looked on the elder son, and put, instead, before his eyes a magic glass which made that son's vices seem as virtues, and his treachery as loyalty, and his lies as truth, and his deceitful bearing as love. So the father was ever deceived, and lived out the measure of long life believing that good was evil, and that that which was evil was good.

          Then when the measure of his days was done, he died; and the people mourned. For he had been well beloved for his many virtues, and honored for his greatness and his riches.

          Now, when his father died the elder son fell to lamenting; and he lamented loudly and long the first

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day, and lamented less loud the second day, and the third day lamented not at all. For his heart was bad; and in secret he rejoiced that his sire was dead, for now all these great possessions would be his own. Money, and hills where the tea plants grew, and houses in the village, and rice swamps, and riches of many kinds—much of all—were his own. All that his father had left was his. All but one small bit of waste land far up on the side of a great mountain. A barren tract up there in a hollow of the heights was deemed of no worth; for it had never grown tea-tree, nor rice, nor grass, nor flower, nor weed. So this was the father's bequest to the younger son. For the law was that to every son a man had, must be given a portion—little or great—of his lands when he died; and to this son, to whom he wished to leave nothing, he could give no less.

          To the elder and favorite went all else; but to the younger, who was worthier than any other child of China, was given but this tract covered with fine bits of broken rock, where no green thing had ever grown, and where the ground was dry and forbidding.

          Yet against the unjust division this noble son rebelled not; but only mourned the father that was dead. Mourned sincerely—mourned without ceasing, and without comfort—that the beloved and honorable being was gone beyond the reach of his gaze.

          Of the injustice done him—of the smallness of his portion of the inheritance—he thought little. His father was dead; his father whom he had so loved—whom he still loved beyond all expression—was gone from him. Nothing else mattered.

          And days went by. The elder one went abroad among his newly acquired possessions, saying: "This is mine, now; and this; and this, also." And, because

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he was what he was, he forgot the dead man whose gift all these things had been.

          But his brother, whose heart was heavy with grief, and who counted not the value of his portion, nor the lack, only longed to see his father's face once more.

          Then the new moon came and looked down upon them both—the evil son, and the son who was good. And the moon grew to the full—lessened—and waxed old. And in the old of the moon the younger son journeyed to the mountain where his poor inheritance lay; to the miserable and barren land which was awaiting him.

          His eyes looked with sadness upon it; not because of its barrenness, but that it was the last gift his father had bestowed upon him.

          His heart swelled with sorrow; and tears which scorched and stung, flowed down his cheeks as he flung himself on the ground in his grief. He lay there long, so long a time he had lost all count of the hours, mourning as only they can mourn who are true of heart.

          It was a great night, full of stars. A night when they burn like fire in the Heavens. A band—filmy and far —stretched across the arc like the ragged white smoke in the wake of a fast speeding steamer. Meteors shot through the infinite blue-black depth, and the vastness of space could be felt, like the presence of a thing alive, in the vitalized atmosphere.

          Though he did not raise his head, he was aware that something most strange had happened. Though hearing no sound, yet he felt near him a presence.

          Then a voice spoke to him from out the Heavens; and its vibrations fell upon his ear like the multitudinous cadence of birds in song.

          "Why weep you?" the voice asked, and he replied:

          "Because I loved my father, and he is dead."

          "Though he is gone hence, he loves you in measure

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now as you have ever loved him," he heard the voice say; and it sounded like the ringing of silver bells. And now his heart bounded within him with a great thrill of joy that a father's love was at last his. Yet it was in fear and trembling that he asked, falteringly:

          "Even as he loved my brother?"

          "Even as he loved your brother once; but he loves not your brother, now," the voice of music answered him. "The evil bandage across his eyes has been removed, and the magic glass is broken. He now sees into his children's hearts with the penetrating eye which belongs to the dead, and he knows the truth at last. Weep no more; your father sees you—touches you—loves you. And because of your faithfulness and loyalty through all trials, your reward shall be great. Here, where only sterility has been, shall henceforth be bountiful yield. Never again will the earth here be dry and barren; for your tears have wetted the ground so that for a thousand times a thousand years a generous moisture shall keep the plant-roots healthily growing. The prayers you have breathed here for the dead shall ward off all evil from the living—from you and the family that will be yours. The warmth of your true heart, as it has lain beating and breaking here on the earth, shall call forth blossoms of unearthly beauty.

          "Dig into the soil, O, most dutiful of dutiful sons, and tell me what it is that you find."

          And in the starlight the young man began scraping with his fingers; and digging, he found an unknown bulb.

          "What is it?" asked the voice.

          "A strange, new kind of root," he answered; "I do not know its name," and he covered it over again with the earth and bits of broken rock. Then once more the voice of sweet music spoke:

          "Out of the land from whence your father looks

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down on you here these roots came, sent by him in his remorseful love; and the flower which grows from the root and stalk is called the Flower of Filial Affection. Go, and come again the third day at noon!"

          Then the young man went away. And when, at noontide of the second day, he came again, he was amazed, for green shoots had sprung up from among the stones that were now wetted with water which oozed from the ground.

          The voice he had heard before, spoke at his elbow.

          "What see you?"

          And he answered: "I see the earth rich with plant-life where it was barren before."

          "Even as your father now sees the living evergreen truth of your soul, where once his blinded eyes saw but barrenness! Mourn no more; go, now, and come again tomorrow, which will be the third day, at early morning light when the sun first shines here on the mountain."

          At early morning of the third day he came, as he was bidden; and lo! the air was weighted heavy with delicious perfume. It seemed to drop down from the Heavens and fall, fold upon fold, on the earth in inexpressible, ineffable sweetness.

          All about him green plants were in bloom. From the root came the plant, and the plant bore a beautiful flower. From filial love, rooted deep in the heart of a man, springs all that is noble and good; and the reward of virtues in a good son shall be made manifest. The whole earth seemed to be covered over with blossoms of waxen purity—wax-white blossoms were about him where he stood, like the flowers of Heaven that we dream we see under the full moon. All the world seemed snowed under by petals of fragrance; and as he gazed in awe at the wondrous beauty of the scene, he shook with the intensity of his emotions. Moved

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to helpless weakness by the spirituality of what he saw, he fell upon his knees in worship of the great Power that had caused such exquisite loveliness to grow, and bowed his forehead on the ground.

          Then, out of the Heavenly surroundings, spoke the voice.

          "My son," it said, tenderly, and oh! so sweetly; and now he recognized the loved accents, for it was his father's voice that was speaking—that had been speaking since the hour he had first come to mourn on the mountain—"Oh, my son—son beloved—once a burden you bore, bore it with uncomplaining lips. Life has set no greater task for a child than to be loyal and loving in the face of injustice and misunderstanding. So, for this, your reward shall be great. Because of your heart's loving loyalty these flowers shall henceforth be made sacred to your race, and shall grow only upon this land of yours, and in that way be only for your family. Nowhere else—East or West, North or South—shall they ever be made to grow in the earth to the perfection of blossoming; yet here on this tear-bedewed land shall they forever thrive, on this spot made sacred by your faithfulness. Yours, shall they be only ; yours, and your sons', and your sons' sons, through all coming generations.

          "The bulbs shall grow for you and yours to sell—for others to buy; and riches past all counting shall be yours. Greater riches will be yours than can ever come to him who is your brother. And now I go. Even as I love you I bless you; going hence to await you in that land from whence these white blossoms came. Farewell, beloved child; most honorable son, farewell!"

          And the one who was prostrate on the ground raised himself and—though he had seen nothing—knew that

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the presence had gone, and that he was alone. But in his heart was comfort and everlasting peace.                                     

          This was the tale brought out of legend-land by the Chinaman for my charmed ear to hear.                             

          And this, and the poetic gem of the great minister—both alike, refuted my earlier conceptions of the race.                             

          I could say nothing. It was a time for silence; but I think he understood, and knew how the beauty of the legend had entered my heart. For some time it was very still in the dusky little dug-out, then the older Chinaman spoke.                              

          "Chinaboy, he no b'lieve him stoly tlue. Jus' plitty stoly; tha's all. That pla' in China country where flow' glow b'long all time jus' one fam'ly—more one hun'ed year b'long one same fam'ly. Chinaboy, he say same fam'ly like talk 'bout stoly; 'cause flow' nebber glow aly pla' else." 

          Only a legend. Only a story made by the fairies for children and these simple minded folk, who saw its poetic charm as did I. Only a tale brought out of lily-land for those to hear who have the poet-hearts of little children.                             

          I was still under the glamour of the beautiful legend, when looking window-ward I saw that the storm had long abated. A shaft of yellow sunlight pierced the window-pane, and fell upon the lilies. I saw a speck of gold gleaming in the bright light, from one of the broken bits of pure white quartz. I touched it lightly with my finger, looking questioningly at the story-teller of the cañon.                                    

          He glanced at the one who spoke no English, smiling as he did so; the other said something in Chinese. To me the younger man said:             

          "My cousin have few gold specimens that man gave             

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him from quartz claim up in the cañon, and that been very rich—show much free gold in every piece. He want put all that rich kind in dish here, 'cause lie say he think that flower lonesome in this country and want to go to China again. So he give best kind rocks he can get for this flower to grow in, and then the flower maybe glad, 'cause it know Chinaboy do best he can for it."

          Did I once say these people had no poetic feeling? Never again would I think so.

          My eyes, too, had been blinded with the bandage of an evil spirit; but the gentle spirit out of lily-land had torn it away, and I saw in the hearts of those little people a fineness of feeling which vied with the delicacy of the gold-hearted snowy blossoms growing in the bowl filled full of snow-white stones, each bearing a golden star.

          As I rode away from the little, low cabin at the edge of the mountain-trail, I was thinking that, after all, there is a quality in all peoples which answers to our poetic thought—even in the blue-bloused, bequeued yellow men—though I had been sceptical before.

          Down through the cañon I went; riding over growing, young grass glistening with wet, and through brush which was dripping diamonds. Away below me, in the valley, a twin rainbow—big and beautiful—arched over the flats and meadows, across which my road ran straight to the hills beyond.