Latest / The Best Short Stories of 1917 / Ching, Ching, Chinaman. By Wilbur Daniel Steele

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Ching, Ching, Chinaman. By Wilbur Daniel Steele · The Best Short Stories of 1917

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Section twenty eight of the Best Short Stories of nineteen seventeen. This is a
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LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Bill Romer.
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The Best Short Stories of nineteen seventeen by various ching Ching Chinaman by Wilbur Daniel
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Steele from the Pictorial Review. How gaily we used to chant it over Yen
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Sin's scow when I was a boy on urky waterfront, and how unfailingly it
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brought the Minister charging down upon us. I can see him now, just
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as he used to burst upon our vision from the wharf lane, face paper,
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white, eyes warm with the holy wrath, lips moving uncontrollably, and
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I can hear his voice trembling at our heels as we scuttled off for shame,
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lads, Christ died for him, lads for shame, shame, And
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looking back, I can see him there on the wharf above the scow,
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hands hanging, shoulders falling together, brooding over the unredeemed Minister Maldon had seen
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the field in a day of his surging youth, seen it, and no
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more he had seen it from the deck of the steamer by which he had
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come out, and by which he had now to return, since his seminary
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bride had fallen sick. On the voyage. He perceived the teeming harbor clogged
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with junks and house boats, the muddy River an artery out of the heart
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of darkness, the fantastic colored shore lines, the vast, dull drone of
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Heathendom stirring in his ears, the temple gongs calling blindly to the blind,
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the alluring and incomprehensible accents of the boatman's tongue, which he was to have
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made his own, and lightened with the fierce, sweet name of the Cross.
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And now could not poor young minister Maldon. He turned his face away.
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He gave up the field for the bride, And when the bride went
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out in mid ocean, he had neither bride nor field. He drifted back
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to New England somehow or other, and found Yen Sin. He found another
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bride too. Minister Maldon was human. It was a mercy of justice,
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folks said. When widow Gibbs got a man like minister Maldon, Heaven knows
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she had had bad enough luck with Gibbs, a sallow devil of a whaler
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who never did a fine act in his life till he went down with his
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vessel and all hands in the Arctic one year, and left Sympathy Gibbs sitting
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alone in the pillar House on Lovett's Court, pretty plump and rather well to
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do as Erkey goes. Everybody in the island was glad enough when those two
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undertook to mend each other's blasted life. Everybody but Mate snow he had been
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thinking of Sympathy Gibbs himself, they said. And they said he stood behind
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the prescription screen in his drug store, far into the night after the betrothal
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was given out in Center Church, his eyes half closed, his thin lips
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bluish white, and hell fire smoldering out of sight in him. And they
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said, Mate was the kind that never forget. That was what made it
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so queer. It seems to me that I must remember the time when the
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Minister lived in the pillar House with Sympathy Gibbs. Back there in the mists
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of youth, I seemed to see them walking home together after the Sunday morning,
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preaching arm in arm and full of a sedate joy. Turning in between
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the tubbed box trees at Lovet's Court, loitering for a moment to gaze out
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over the smooth harbor and nod to the stragglers of the congregation before they entered
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the big green door flanked by the lilac panes. Perhaps it was told me
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there can be no question though that I remember the night when Minister Malden came
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home from the Infield conference, a father of two days standing Irki Village made
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a festival of that homecoming to the tiny daughter he had never seen, and
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to sympathy Gibbs, weak and waiting and radiant. Yes, I remember,
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we were all at the landing making a racket. The Minister looked ill when
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he came over the packet's side, followed by Mate Snow, who had gone
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to conference with him as lay delegate from Centered Church. Our welcome touched him
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in a strange and shocking way. He staggered and would have fallen had it
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not been for Mate's quick hand. He had not a word to say to
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us. He walked up the shore street between the wondering lines till he came
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to the pillar house, and there he stood for a moment silhouetted against the
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open door, a drooping, hunted figure afraid to go in. We saw
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his shadow later moving uncertainly across the shades in the upper chamber where Sympathy Gibbs
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lay with her baby. His hand lifted once with the fingers crooked in mysterious
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agony. Someone started a hymn in the street below, and people took it
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up, bawling desperately for comfort to their souls. Mate Snow didn't sing.
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He stood motionless between the box trees, staring up at the lighted window shades,
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as if waiting by and by Minister Malden came down the steps and moving
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away beside him like a drunken man, went to live in the two rooms
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over the drug store. And that was the beginning of it. Folks said,
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Mate Snow was not the kind to forget an injury. And yet it
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was Mate who stood behind the minister through those first days of shock and scandal,
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who outfaced the congregation with his stubborn tight lips, and who shut off
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the whisperings of the Dorcas Guild with the sentence which was destined to become a
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sort of formula on his tongue. Through the ensuing years. You don't know
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what's wrong, and neither do I. But we can all see the man's
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a saint, can't we. But the woman some still persisted sympathy Gibbs.
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You ought to know sympathy Gibbs by this time. And if there was a
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far ain't curling at the corners of his lips, they were all too dull
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to wonder at it. As for me, the boy, I took the
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changing phenomena of life pretty well for granted, and wasted little of my golden
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time speculating about such things. But as I look back now on the blunt
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end of those urky days, I seem to see Minister Malden growing smaller as
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he comes nearer, and Mate Snow growing larger, Mate snow browbeating the congregation
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with a more and more menacing righteousness. Minister Maldon in his protecting shadow,
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leaner grayer, his eyes burning with an ever fiercer zeal, escaping center Church
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and slipping away to redeem the Chinaman. There is more joy in heaven over
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one sinner was his inspiration, his justification, and I suspect his blessed opiate.
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But it must have been hard on Yen Sin. I remember him now,
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a steam blurred silhouette, earlier than the earliest, later than the latest,
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swaying over his tubs and sad irons in the shanty on the stranded scow
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by Picket's wharf, dreaming perhaps of the populous rivers of his birth, or
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of the rats he ate, or of the opium he smoked at dead of
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night, or of those weird heathen idols before which he bowed down his shining
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head familiar and inscrutable. Alien An even comes back to me when I sat
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in Yen Sin's shop and waited for my first stand up collar to be ironed,
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listening with a kind of awe to the tide making up the flats,
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muffled and unfamiliar, and inhaling the perfume compounded of steam, soap, hot,
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linen, rats, opium, tea idols, and what not, peculiar
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to Yen Sin's shop, and to a thousand lone shops in a thousand lone
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villages scattered across the mainland. When the precious collar was at last in my
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hands, still limp and hot from its ordeal, Yen Sin hung over me
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in the yellow nimbus of the lamp, smiling at my wonder, I stared
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with a growing distrust at the flock of tiny bird scratches inked on the band.
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What I demanded, suspiciously, is that that's mister you, he said,
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nodding his head and summoning another hundred of wrinkles to his damp, polished
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face. That ain't my name. You don't know my name, I accused
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him. Mister yen Sin got the name Ali Light. The thing fascinated me
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like a serpent. Whose name is that? Then? I demanded, pointing
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to a collar on the counter between us. The band was half covered with
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the cryptic characters. Done finally, and as if with the loving hand of
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an artist, Yen Sin held it up before his eyes in the full glow
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of the lamp. His face seemed incredibly old, not senile like our white
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beards mumbling on the wharves, but as if it had been a long long
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time in the making and was still young. I thought he had forgotten me,
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he was so engrossed in his handiwork. Lat kala, he mused,
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by and by that's mister minister boy, mister minister Maldon. And there both
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of us stared a little, for there was a voice at the door.
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Yes, yes, what is it? Minister Maldon stood with his head and
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shoulders bent, wary of the low door frame, and his eyes blinking in
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the new light. I am sure he did not see me on the bench.
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He was looking at Yen Sin. How is it with you tonight?
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My brother? The chinaman straightened up and faced him, grave, watchful,
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Fine, he said, mister Yen Sin, fine, mister minister fine.
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Yes. He bowed and motioned his visitor to a rocker upholstered with a worn
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piece of axe, minister, and a bit of yellow silk with half a
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dragon on it. The ceremony, one could see, was not new,
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vanishing into the further mysteries of rear. He brought out a bowl of tea
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steaming, a small dish of heathenish things, nuts perhaps or preserves, deposited
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the offering on the minister's pointed knees, and retired behind the counter to watch
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and wait. An amazing change came over the minister. Accustomed to seeing him
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gentle, shrinking, elusively, non resisting, I scarcely knew this white flame
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of a man burning over the tea bowl. You are kind to me,
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he cried, and yet your heart is not touched. I would give up
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my life gladly. Brother, If I could only go up to the throne
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and say to Jesus, behold, Lord, thy son, Yen Sin,
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kneeling at the foot of the cross. Thou gavest me the power, Lord,
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and the glory is thine. If I could say that, Brother,
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I I His voice trailed off, though his lips continued to move uncertainly.
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His face was transfigured, his eyes filmed with dreams. He was looking beyond
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Yen's Sin now and on the lost yellow millions. The tea untasted smoked upward
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into his face, an insidious, narcotic cloud. I can think of him
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now, as he sat there, resting out of his easeless years, one
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moment of those seminary dreams, the color of far away, the sweet shock
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of the alien, and the bizarre, the enormous odds, the game.
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The walls of Yen Sin's shop were the margins of the world, and for
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a moment the missionary lived. He would soften your heart, he murmured,
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in a wondrous way. Have you never thought, Yen Sin, I would
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like to be a good man. The others spread his right hand across his
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breast. Mister Yen Sin, very humble dog, Mister Yen Sin, no
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good, mister Yen Sin's head on la glount, mister Yen Sin, velly
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good man, washikala fine. It was evidently an old point, an established
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score for the heathen. Yes, I must say, you do do your
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work. I've brought you that collar for five years now, and it still
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seems new. The Minister's face fell a little. Yen Sin continued, grave
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and alert, and mister Mattie snow yes, his kala ali sin like new.
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Yes, yes, I must say, the other shook himself. But
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it's not that, brother. We're all of us wicked, Yen Sin.
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And unless we, mister minister wiki For a moment, the minister's eyes seemed
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fascinated by the Chinaman's pain whitened his face. All of us, he murmured,
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uncertainly, are weak, the best among us sins in a day enough
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to blacken eternity. And unless we believe and have faith in the divine mercy
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of the Father and confess confession. His voice grew stronger, and into it
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crept the rapt note of one whose auditor is within confession. A sin confessed
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is no longer a sin. The word spoken out of the broken and contrite
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heart makes all things right if one but had faith in that, if one
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had faith, The life went out of his voice, the fire died in
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his eyes. His fingers drooped on the tea bowl. The chinaman's clock was
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striking the half after seven. He stared at the floor, haggard with guilt.
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Dear me, I'm late for prayer meeting again. Snow will be looking
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for me. I slipped out behind him, glad enough of Erky's raw air.
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After that close chamber of mysteries, I avoided the warf lane, however,
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more than a little scared by this sudden new aspect of the minister,
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and got myself out to the shore street by me a White's yard and the
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grocery porch. And there I found myself face to face with mate Snow.
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That frightened me still more, for the light from Henny's notion's window was shining
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oddly in his eyes. You're looking for the minister, I stammered, ducking
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my head. He stopped and stared down at me, tapping a soul on
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the cobbles. What's this what's this? He He says, you'd be looking
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for him? And I seen him to the Chinaman's and he's comin right here,
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honesty is, mister snow Oh, So i'd be looking for him,
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would I? Yes, Sir. I sank down on the grocery steps and
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studied my toes. He was there, though I protested in desperation. When
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we had been waiting in vain for a long quarter hour, the dark monitor
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lifted his chin from his collar and looked at his watch. It's hard,
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I heard him sigh as he turned away from Lovett's court, where center Church
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blossomed with its prayer meeting lamps. Shadows of the uneasy flock moved across the
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windows. M. S. Nickerson, in his trustees black, peered out
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of the door into the dubious night, and beyond him, in the bright
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vestry, Aunt Nickerson made a little spot of color, agitated, nursing formless
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despairs an artist in vague dreads. I was near enough at the church steps
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to hear what Mate told them. I'll lead tonight. He's gone out in
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the back country to pray alone. Aunt Nickerson wept, quietly, peeping from
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the corners of her eyes. Reverend Awe struggled with an old rebellion in Emsi's
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face and in others. As they came crowding the trust, he broke out
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bitterly. Mea Whites took to the bottle again along o him, If only
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he do his prayin at me as house a spell stead of the back country.
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There was a back country in Judea mate cried him down, and some
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one prayed there not one night, but forty nights and days. What a
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far cry it was, from the thwarted lover behind the prescription screen, fanning
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the flames of hell fire through the night, to the seer thundering in the
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vestry. Had there been any there with heads enough to wonder at it?
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It happened from time to time, this mysterious retreat into the moors, more
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frequently as the infield conference drew on, and the hollows deepened in the minister's
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cheeks, and his eyes shone brighter with foreboding. Nor was this the first
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time the backcountry had been mentioned in the same breath with the wilderness of Judea.
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I can remember our miss Beattie in Sunday school, lifting her eyes and
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sighing at the first verse of the fourth chapter of the Book of Luke and
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Tonight, while I crept off, tingling through the dark of Lovet's court,
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he was in the wilderness again, and I had seen him last. I
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brought up by one of the tubbed box trees and peered in at the pillar
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house with a new wonder. I was so used to it there, dead
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on the outside and living on the inside, that I had never learned to
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think of it as a strange thing. Perhaps a dozen times I had seen
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little Hope Gibbs, they still said, Gibbs playing quietly among the lilacs in
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the backyard, was always at dusk, when the shadows were long there,
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and she a shadow among them, so unobtrusive and far away. As for
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her mother, no one ever saw Sympathy Gibbs crouching by the box tree.
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I found myself wondering what they were doing in there, Sympathy Gibbs and the
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little girl, whether they were sleeping, or whether they were sitting in the
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dark, thinking or whispering about the husband and father who was neither husband nor
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father, or whether in some remote chamber there might not be a lamp or
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a candle burning the dead hush of the place oppressed me. I turned my
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head to look back at the comfortable, bumbling devotion of Center Church, and
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this is what I saw there. The door was still open, a blank,
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bright rectangle giving into the deserted vestry. And it was against this mat
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of light that I spied Minister Maldon's head and shoulders thrust furtively as he peeped
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in and seemed to hearken to the muffled unison of the prayer. You may
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imagine me startled enough at that, but what of my emotion? When having
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peeped and listened and reassured himself for a dozen seconds, Minister Malden turned and
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came softly down the court toward the gate and the box trees, and me
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a furtive silhouette against the door light, his face turned back over one shoulder.
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I couldn't bolt. He was too close for that. The wonder was
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that he failed to see me, for he stopped within two yards of where
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I cowered in the shadow, and stood for a long time gazing in between
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the trees at the pillared porch. And I could hear his breathing, uneven
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and laborious, as though he had been running or fighting. Once I thought
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he struck out at something with a vicious fist. Then his trouble was gone
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between two winks, and he was gone too, up the walk and up
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the steps without any to do about it. I don't know whether he tapped
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on the door or not it was opened directly. I caught a passing glimpse
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of sympathy Gibbs in the black aperture. The door closed on them both,
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and the pillar house was dead again. Now this was an odd way for
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Minister Malden to fast and pray in the wilderness. Odd enough, one would
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say, to keep me waiting there a while to see what would come of
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it all. But it didn't. I had had enough of mysteries for one
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summer's night, or at any rate, I had enough by the time I
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got my short legs full tilt into the shore street, for I had caught
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a fleeting glimpse on the way of a watcher in the shadow behind the other
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box tree, Yen Sin the heathen, with a surprised eyeball slanting at me
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over one shoulder. Among the most impressive of the phenomena of life, as
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noted in my thirteenth year, is the amazing way in which a community can
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change while one is away from it. A month ierky village at the beginning
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of my teens seemed to me much the same erky village upon which I had
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first opened my eyes. And then I went to make a visit with my
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uncle Orville Means in Gillyport, just to cro the sound. And when I
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came back on the packet, I could assure myself with all the somber satisfaction
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of the returning exile, that I would scarcely have known the old place.
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Grandma Pilot's cow had been poisoned, there had been a fire in the Selectman's
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room at town Hall. Amber Matheson had left Missus Wharf's millinery and set up
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for herself opposite the Eastern School, and Mate Snow all of a sudden had
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bought the old Pond's house on the hill hanging high over the town, and
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gone to live there with a leap, And as it were, behind my
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back, he sat there, dominating the village and the harbor and the island.
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Our great man. He took Minister Maldon with him, naturally, out
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of the two rooms over the store into one room in the third story,
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of the house on the hill, where sympathy Gibbs could see him. If
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she chose to look that way, as frankly and ignominiously a dependent as any
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baron's chaplain in the golden days, she'd have done better with mate, after
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all, folks began to say. But of all the changes in the village,
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the most momentous to me was the change in Yen Sin. I don't
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know why it should have been I, out of all the erky youth who
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went to the Chinaman's. Perhaps it was the spiritual itch left from that first
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adventure on the scow. At any rate, I had fallen into a habit
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of dropping in at the cabin, and not always with a collar to do.
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I had succeeded in worming out of him the meaning of that first set
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of bird scratches on my collar band, the boy who throws clam shells,
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and of a second and more elaborate writing, the boy who is courageous in
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the face of all the water of the ocean, yet trembles before so much
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of it as may be poured in a wash basin. There came a third
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inscription in time, but of that he would not tell me, nor of
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mate snows nor the minister's. It was a queer library. He had those
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fine written collars of Erky village. He had been growing feebler so long and
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so gradually, that I had made nothing of it. Once, I remember,
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it struck me queer that he wasn't working so hard as he had used
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to. Still, earliest of all and latest of all, he would sometimes
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leave his iron cooling on the board now and stand for minutes of the precious
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day dreaming out of the harbor window. When the sun was sinking, the
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shaft through the window bathed his head and his lean neck with a quality almost
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barbaric, and for a moment, in the gloom made by the bright pencil,
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the new raw things of Ierky faded out, leaving him alone in his
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ancient and ordered civilization. A little wistful, I think, and perhaps a
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little frightened as a child waking from a long dreaming sleep to find his mother
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gone. He had begun to talk about China too, and the river where
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he was born, And I made nothing of it. It came on so
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gradually, day by day. Then I went away, as I have said,
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and came back again. I dropped in at the scowl the second day,
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after the packet brought me home. Hello there, I cried, peeping
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over the counter. I got a collar for you too, too. I
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began to stumble. Mister Yen Sin, dear me, what's the matter of
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you, mister Yen Sin. Fine, he said in a strengthless voice,
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smiling and nodding from the couch where he lay, half propped up by a
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gorgeous faded cushion. Mister yan Sin, go back China away, plenty quick
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now, yes honest. He made no further answer, but took up the
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collar I had brought. You been gone, gillipot. Yes, you take
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kala China boy, Yes, yes, sir, he plenty nice man sam
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Low Yes, oh you know him? Then, Oh he's all right,
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Yan Sin. It was growing dark outside and colder, with a rising wind
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from landward to seaward against the tide. A sense of something odd and wrong
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came over me. It was a moment before I could make it out.
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The fire was dead in the stove for the first time in memory, and
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the vestal irons were cold. Yen Sin asked me to light the lamp.
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In the waxing yellow glow. He turned his eyes to mine, and mine
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were big, you know, mister God, He questioned, Oh yes,
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I answered somberly, Yes, indeed, mister God, Ali, same like
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mister YenS Sin. Yes. I felt myself paling at his blasphemy and thought
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of lightning. Mister God. He went on in the same speculative tone,
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mister God know Ali, bad things Ali, same like mister YenS Sin.
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Yes. Where's the minister, I demanded in desperation, mister yen Sin like
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you see, mister minister, When he added, with a transparent hand fluttering
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over his heart, like see plenty quick now, I seemed to fathom for
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the first time what was happening to him. Wait, I cried, too
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full of awe to know what I said. Wait, Wait, Yen Sin,
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I'll fetch him. It was dark outside, the sky overcast, and
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the wind beginning to moan a high note across the roofs as it swept in
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from the moors and out again over the graying waters in the shore street.
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My eyes chanced upon the light of Center Church, and I remembered that it
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was meeting night. There was only a handful of worshippers that evening, but
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a thousand could have had no more eyes. It seemed to me. As
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I tiptoed down the aisle with the scandalized pad pad of Emsi Nickerson's pursuing souls
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behind my back, Confusion seized me. I started to run, and had
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come almost up to mister Malden before I had wit enough to discover that it
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wasn't Minister Malden at all, but Mate Snow in the pulpit, standing with
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an open hymn book in one hand and staring down at me with grim inquiring
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eyes. After a time, I managed to stammer the chinaman, you know
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he's gonna die, the minister. Then I fled, dodging Emsy's legs.
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Confused voices followed me Aunt Nickerson's full of a nameless horror, Mate Snow's thundering
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brother hemans, you will please continue the meeting. I will go and see
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what I can do, but your prayers are needed here. Poor Minister Maldon
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his hour had struck, the hour so long awaited, and now it was
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Mate Snow who should go to answer it. Perhaps the night had something to
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do with it, and the melancholy disaster of the wind. Perhaps it was
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the look of Mate Snow's back as he passed me panting on the steps.
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His head bowed with his solemn and triumphant stewardship. But all of a sudden
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I hated him, this righteous man. He had so many things, and
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Minister Maldon had nothing, nothing but the chinaman's soul, and he was going
26:44
to try and get that too. I had to find Minister Maldon, and
26:48
right away. But where was he? And on prayer meeting night too,
26:52
my mind skipped back the wilderness. I was already ducking along the court to
26:59
reconnoiter the pillar house, black and silent beyond the box trees. And then
27:03
I put my hands in my pockets, my ardor dimmed by the look of
27:07
that vacant, staring face. What was I a boy of thirteen against that
27:12
house? I could knock at the door to be sure, as the Minister
27:15
had done that other night. Yes, But when I stood soft footed on
27:21
the porch, the thought that Sympathy Gibbs might open it suddenly and find me
27:25
there sent the hands back again into the sanctuary of my pockets. What did
27:30
I know of her? What did anyone know of her? To be confronted
27:33
by her suddenly in the dark behind a green door, I tiptoed down the
27:37
steps. If only there were a cranny of lights somewhere in the dead place.
27:44
I began to prowl around the yard, feeling adventurous enough, you may
27:47
believe, for no boy had ever scouted that bit of urky land before.
27:52
And I did find a light beneath a drawn shade in the rear, approaching
27:56
as stealthily as a red Indian. I but one large round eye to the
28:00
aperture. If I had expected a melodramatic tableau, I was disappointed. I
28:07
had always figured the inside of the pillar House as full of treasures, for
28:11
they told tales of the old whaler's wealth. My prying eyes found it bare,
28:17
like a deserted house, gutted by seasons of tramps. A little fire
28:21
of twigs and a broken butter box on the hearth made a pathetic shift at
28:26
domestic cheer. Minister Maldon sat at one side of it, his back to
28:30
me, his face half buried in his hands. Little Hope Gibbs played quietly
28:34
on the floor, building pig pens with a box of matches, a sober
28:38
fire lined shade. Sympathy. Gibbs was not in the picture, but I
28:44
heard her voice after a moment, coming out from an invisible corner, how
28:48
much do you want? This time? Will want? There was an anguished
28:52
protest in the man's cry need. Then the voice was softer. The minister's
28:57
face dropped back in his hands, and after a moment the words came out
29:02
between his tight fingers, hardly to be heard. Five hundred dollars sympathy,
29:08
I thought. There was a gasp from the corner suppressed. I caught the
29:12
sound of a drawer pulled open, and the vague rustling of skirts as the
29:15
woman moved about. Her voice was as even as death itself. Here it
29:21
is, Will it brings us to the end? Will God knows where it
29:25
will come from? Next it it you mean? An indefinable horror ran through
29:30
the minister's voice, and I could see the cords shining on the hands which
29:34
gripped the chair arms. Next time, next year. His eyes were fixed
29:41
on the child at his feet. God knows where it will come from.
29:45
Perhaps before another time, something will happen, dear little hope, little girl.
29:51
The child's eyes turned with a preoccupied wonder as the man's hand touched her
29:56
hair, then went back to the alluring pattern of the matches. Symothy Gibbs
30:00
spoke once more, I've found out who holds the mortgage, will mister Dwell
30:06
told me. His hand slid from Hope's hair and hung in the air.
30:11
During the momentary hush, his head half turned seemed to wait in a praying
30:15
suspense. It's mate Snow, the voice went on. The man covered his
30:22
face. Thank god, he said, I thought he shivered. Then it's
30:26
all all right, he sighed. After a moment, I was afraid it
30:30
might be somebody who would who might make trouble. He took out a handkerchief
30:36
and touched his forehead with it. Thank God. Why do you thank God?
30:41
A weariness like anger touched her words. Why why do I thank God?
30:47
He faced her, wondering, because he has given me a strong man
30:51
to be my friend and stand behind me. Because mate Snow, who might
30:56
have hated me, has has sucked the life out of you. It came
30:59
out of the corner like a blade. Yes, yes, he has sucked
31:03
the life out of you in his hate and thrown the dry shell of you
31:06
to me. And that makes him feel good on his hill. There,
31:10
no, no, no, I'm going to say it now. Has he
31:12
ever tried to find out what was wrong with us. No, he didn't
31:17
need to why because no matter what it was, we were given over into
31:22
his hands, body and soul. And now it's Mate Snow who is the
31:26
big man of this island. And it's the minister that eats the crumbs that
31:30
fall from his table, and folks pity you and honor him because he's so
31:36
good to you. And this was Erki village and Knight and Yen Sin was
31:41
dying and he's down to the Chinaman's now, I screamed, waking out of
31:45
my dream. And the Chinaman's dying and wants the minister and Mate Snow he
31:51
got there first. The light went out in the room. I heard a
31:53
chair knocked over, and then Minister Malden's voice, God forgive me, God
31:57
forgive me. Sprawling headlong through the shrubs out in the dark of Lovet's court,
32:02
I found people all around me. The congregation led out, hobbling and
32:07
skipping and jostling shoreward a curious route. Others were there, not of the
32:12
church. Kibbie Baker, the atheist, who had heard the news through the
32:15
church window where he peeped at the worshipper's Nea White's brother, the ship Caulker,
32:20
summoned by his sister, A score of others herding down the dark wind
32:23
at the shore street. Folks were coming from the westward. It was strange
32:28
to see them all, and to think it was only a heathen dying.
32:31
Or perhaps it wasn't so strange when one remembered Minister Maldon coming down the years
32:37
with that light in his eyes, building his slow edifice like one in Israel,
32:42
prophesying the coming of the Messiah. I shall never forget the picture I
32:45
saw that night from the deck of the Chinaman scow. The water here in
32:51
the lee was as smooth as black glass, save for the little ground swell
32:54
that rocked the outer end of the craft. The tide was rising the rounded
33:00
and would soon be swimming. There were others on the deck with me,
33:04
and more on the dock overhead, their faces picked out against the sky by
33:07
the faint irradiations from the lighted shanty. Beneath and over and behind it all
33:13
ran the tumult of the elements. Behind it, the sea where it picked
33:16
up on the bite out there beyond our eyes. Above it, the wind
33:21
scouring the channels of the crowded roofs and flinging out to meet the waters like
33:25
a ravening and disastrous bride. Mate snow stood by the counter in the little
33:30
cabin, his close cropped head almost to the beams, his voice dry,
33:36
austere, summoning the Chinaman to repentance. Verily, if a man be not
33:40
born again, he shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. His eyes
33:45
skipped to the door. And to be born again, he went on,
33:49
with a hint of haste. You must confessyen sin, and have faith.
33:52
That is enough the outer and inner manifestations. Confession and faith, me mist
34:00
yen sinh confess he A curious and shocking change had come over the Chinaman in
34:07
the little time I had been away. He lay quite motionless on his couch,
34:12
with a bit of silken tapestry behind his head, like a heathen halo
34:15
protecting him. At last he was more alive than he had been, precisely
34:20
because the life had gone out of him, and he was no longer bothered
34:24
with it. His face was a mask, transparent and curiously luminous, and
34:30
there for the first time I saw the emotion of humor, which is another
34:35
name for perception. His unclouded eyes found me by the door, and he
34:39
moved a hand in a vague gesture. I went walking, stiff legged,
34:45
awe mingling with self importance. Mister boy, please, he whispered in my
34:50
ear. The kallas on the shelf there lead paper. Wondering, I took
34:57
them down and piled them on the couch beside him, him, one after
35:00
another, little bundles done up carefully in flaring tissue with black characters inked on
35:06
them. That one, he whispered, and I undid the one under his
35:09
finger, discovering half a dozen collars coiled with their long imprisonment, and that
35:15
one and that one. They covered his legs and rose about his thin shoulders,
35:22
those treasured soiled collars of his, gleaming under the lamp like the funeral
35:27
pyre of some fantastic potentate. Nothing was heard in the room save the faint
35:31
crackling of the paper, and after a moment lem pigeon murmuring in amazement to
35:36
his neighbor over in a corner. Look it there, will you. He's
35:39
got my collar with the blood spot onto it where the Lisbon woman's husband hit
35:44
me that time down to New Bedford, What you make of that. Now,
35:49
Jen Sin lifted his eyes to Mate Snows, hanging over him in wonder.
35:52
Mister Mate Snow confessey. Yes. There was a moment of shocked silence
35:59
while our great man stared at Yen Sin. He took his weight from the
36:02
counter and stood up straight. I confess my sins to God, he said.
36:07
The other moved a fluttering hand over his collars. Mister Yen Sin Ali,
36:13
same like mister God. Yes. In the hush, I heard news
36:16
of the blasphemy, whispering from lip to lip, out the door and up
36:21
the awestruck dock. Mate Snow lifted a hand. Stop. He cried,
36:25
Yen Sin, you are standing in the valley of the shadow of death,
36:30
mister Mate Snow wicky man. No, Yes, mister Matie Snow confesse.
36:36
He the Chinaman was making a game of his deathbed, and even the dullest
36:42
caught the challenge. Mate Snow understood the Yellow Man had asked him, with
36:46
the divine clarity of the last day, either to play the game or not
36:51
to play the game, and Mate Snow wanted something enough to play. Yes,
36:57
he murmured, I am weak. All flesh is weak. He faltered,
37:02
and his brow was corded with the labor of memory. It is hard
37:06
for a good man to summon up sins enough to make a decent confession.
37:09
Nearly always they fall back in the end upon the same worn and respectable category.
37:15
I confess to the sin of pride, he pronounced slowly, and to
37:20
good deeds and kind acts, undone to moments of harshness and impatience. Mister
37:24
Mattie Snow confesse yen sin shook a weary protest at the cheater, wasting the
37:30
precious moments with words. Mate Snow lifted his eyes, and I saw his
37:37
face whiten in a pearl of sweat form on his forehead. A hush filled
37:42
the close cave of light, awaiting silence. Oppressive and struck with a new
37:46
expectancy. Little sounds on the dock above became important, Young Gilman Pilot's voice
37:52
cautioning, here best take my hand on the ladder. Mister Maldon, last
37:57
rungs carried away. It was curious to see Mate Snow's face at that.
38:01
It was as if one read the moving history of years in it. As
38:06
he leaned over the counter and touched the dying man's breast with a passion strange
38:10
in him. I will tell you how wicked I am, yen Sin.
38:15
Three years ago I did Ginny Silva out of seventy dollars wages in the bogs.
38:20
And if he's here tonight, I'll pay him the last cent of it.
38:23
And and he appealed for mercy to the chinaman's unshaken eyes. Then,
38:29
hearing the minister on the deck behind, he cast in the desperate sop of
38:32
truth. And and I have coveted my neighbor's wife. It was now that
38:38
Minister Malden cried from the doorway, that is nothing, yen Sin. Nothing.
38:44
When you think of me, you may laugh. But just then,
38:47
in that rocking death chamber, with the sea and the dark and the wind,
38:52
no one laughed except yen Sin. Perhaps he may have smiled, though
38:57
the mask of his features did not move. Minister Maldon stepped into the room,
39:01
and his face was like new ivory. Look at me. I have
39:06
wanted to bring your soul to Christ before I died. That is white,
39:10
but all the rest of me is black. I have lived a lie.
39:14
I have broken a law of God. To cover that I have broken another
39:19
another. His voice hung in the air, filled with a strange horror of
39:22
itself. The Chinaman fingered his collars without our consent or our understanding. He
39:29
had done the thing which had so shocked us. When he said it with
39:31
his lips. The heathen sat in judgment, weighing the sins of our little
39:37
world. Yes, he seemed to murmur, and then the Minister's eyes widened.
39:44
Pain lifted him on his toes. I am an adulterer, he cried,
39:49
and my child is a a bastard. Her mother's husband, Joshua Gibbs,
39:53
didn't go down with the vessel. After all, he was alive when
39:58
I married her. He is alive today, A wanderer. He learned of
40:01
things and sent me a letter. It found me at the Infield conference the
40:06
day before. I came home that time to see my baby. Since that
40:08
day, it has seemed to me that I would suffer the eternity of the
40:12
damned rather than that that stained should mar my child's life. And in the
40:16
blackness of my heart, I have believed that it wouldn't if it weren't known.
40:22
I have kept him quiet, I have hushed up the truth. I
40:24
have paid him money, leaving it for him where he wrote me to leave
40:28
it. I have gone hungry and ragged to satisfy him. I have begged
40:32
my living of a friend. I have drained the life of the woman I
40:37
love, And yet he is never content. And I have betrayed even him,
40:42
for he forbade me to see his wife ever again, or even to
40:45
know the child I had begotten. And I have gone to them in secret
40:49
by night. I have sinned not alone against God, but against the devil.
40:53
I have sinned against everything. The fire which had swept him on left
40:59
him now of a sudden. His arms hung down at his sides, his
41:02
head drooped. It was Mate Snow who broke the silence, falling back a
41:07
step as if he had been struck. God forgive me, he said,
41:12
in all, and I have kept you here, you to preach the word
41:15
of God to these people. God forgive me, I think, mister God
41:21
laugh. Yes, Yen Sin wasn't laughing himself. He was looking at his
41:25
collars. Mate Snow shrugged his shoulders fiercely, impatient of the interruption. I
41:30
have kept you here, he pursued, bitterly, for the good of my
41:34
own soul, which would have liked to drive you away. I have kept
41:37
you here even when you wanted to go away, Little mousey want to go
41:42
away? Little cats say no, no Yen. Sin's head turned slowly,
41:47
and he spoke on to the bit of yellow silk, his words clear and
41:52
powerless as a voice in a dream. No, no mousey, stay with
41:58
little cat good little cat like see little mousey jump, little cat. Mate
42:06
Snow wheeled on him, and I saw a queer sight on his face for
42:08
an instant, the gray wrinkles of age. My cousin Duncan was there,
42:14
constable of Urkie village, and he saw it too, and came a step
42:17
out of his corner. It was all over in a wink. Mate Snow
42:21
lifted his shoulders with a sigh, as much as to say, you can
42:24
see how far gone the poor fellow is. The chinaman, careless of the
42:29
little bye play went on. Mister sam cow Nice China Fella, Mister minister,
42:35
go to mister sam cow in infield Washikala, mister yan Sin Light a
42:40
letter to mister sam cow On, mister minister Kalaband see mister sam cow Light
42:47
a letter back on Calaband. See. We saw that the yellow man was
42:53
no longer talking at random, but slowly with his eyes on the collar he
42:59
held in his hand like a scholar in his closet, perusing the occult pages
43:04
of a chronicle. Mister Sam Cow, say this man go nighttime in chestnut
43:10
sleep picky out letter under sidewalk, sticky money bag under sidewalk, cry shiver,
43:19
make ye Ali, same like sick fella walkie all down town, Ali,
43:23
knight Ali, same like Christian dlunk man. No sleepy, that's all
43:30
Sam Cow. Mister yen Sin keep e kala. When mister minister come back,
43:37
give new colla one two five seven time, mister minister, say you
43:45
washy colla fine yen sin This collar Ali same like new. Mister Mattie Snow
43:52
his collar Ali same like new too. Something happened so suddenly that none of
43:59
us knew what was going on. But there was my cousin Duncan, standing
44:02
by the counter, his arm and shoulders still thrust forward with the blow he
44:07
had given. And there was our great man of the hill, flung back
44:09
against the wall, with a haggard grimace set on his face. No you
44:15
don't, Duncan, growled his voice, shivering a little with excitement. No
44:17
you don't, mate, mate, Snow screamed and his curse was like the
44:22
end of the world in Erkeye Island. Curse you. The man's a thief.
44:25
I tell you he's stolen my property. I demand my property. Those
44:30
collars there in his hand. Now you're constable, you say, well,
44:35
I want my He let himself down on the bench as if the strength had
44:38
left his knees. He's going to tell you lies, he cried. He's
44:43
making fools of you all with his Duncan. Boy, don't listen to the
44:46
black lyar. He's going to try and make out twas me put the letter
44:50
under the walk in Chestnut Street up there to Infield, that it was me
44:53
all these years that went back and got out money he put there. Me
44:58
mate, snow boy, he's going to tell you a low, black hearted
45:01
lie. How do you know? That was all my cousin Duncan said to
45:08
the dying man. Nothing made much difference. It was as if he had
45:13
only paused to gather his failing breath. And when he spoke his tone was
45:16
the same, detached, dispassionate, with a ghost of humor running through it.
45:22
How many times he counted the collars with a fingertip, one two,
45:29
tlee, six, seven times seven years too bad any time, mister minister,
45:37
want to confess to mister God, makee Ali light, mister Yen sin
45:43
Ali, same like mister God. Wait wait, wait, laugh cly inside,
45:52
Mate Snow was leaning forward on the bench in a queer lazy attitude,
45:57
his face buried in his hands and his elbows prop on his knees. But
46:00
no one looked at him, for Minister Maldon was speaking in the voice of
46:05
one risen from the dead, his eyes blinking at the chinaman's lamp. Then
46:10
you mean you mean that he isn't alive? After all that he wasn't alive?
46:19
Then you mean it was all a a kind of a joke. I
46:25
I oh, mate, Mate Snow. It was queer to see him turning
46:32
with his news to his traditional protector. It had been too sudden. His
46:37
brain had been so taken up with the naked miracle that Gibbs was not alive,
46:43
that all the rest of it, the drawn out and devious revenge of
46:45
the druggist, had somehow failed to get into him as yet, Mate Snow,
46:52
he cried, running over to the sagging figure. Did you hear me,
46:57
mate, ey? It isn't true. It was all a a joke,
47:00
mate, He shook snows shoulders with a pleading ecstasy. It's been a
47:04
mistake, mate, and I am she is little hope is? He fell
47:09
back a step, letting the man lop over suddenly on his double knees,
47:13
and stared blankly at a tiny drug file, uncorked and empty. Rolling away
47:17
across the floor. He passed a slow hand across his eyes. Why why
47:23
I I'm afraid, mate, isn't very well? Erky had held its tongue
47:30
too long. Now it was that the dam gave way, and the torrent
47:34
came whirling down, and a hundred voices were lifted. Crowds and shadows distracted
47:39
the light. One cried, the man's dead, you fools, can't you
47:43
see? A dozen took it up and ran out and away along the rumbling
47:46
rock. Doctor. Another bald, he's drank poison? Where's the doctor at?
47:51
And that too went out, and a faint shout answered from somewhere shoreward
47:54
that the doctor was out at side Pilot's place, and Mia White was after
47:59
him. Of the tar wagon horse. Through it all, I can remember
48:02
Aunt Nickerson's wail continuing, undaunted and unquenchable. God save our souls, God
48:08
save our souls. And then, following the instinct of the frightened pack,
48:14
they were all gone of a sudden, carrying the dead man to meet the
48:17
doctor. I would have gone too, and I had gotten as far as
48:22
the door at their heels. When I paused to look back at the Chinaman
48:25
he lay so still over there on the couch, the thought came to me
48:30
that he too was dead, And of a sudden, leaning there on the
48:34
door frame, the phantom years trooped back to me, and I saw the
48:38
man for the first time, moving through them alone, far outpost of the
48:43
thing. He knew, one yellow man against ten thousand whites, unshaken,
48:49
unappalled, facing the odds, working so early, so late, day after
48:54
day and year after year, and smiling a little perhaps as he peeped by
49:00
behind the scenes of the thing which we call civilization. Yes, cry as
49:05
he might inside, he must have smiled outside sometimes through those years of terror,
49:12
at the sight of Minister Malden, shrinking at the shadow of the ghost
49:15
of something that was nothing to vanish at a touch of light. And now
49:22
his foreign service was ended. His post was to be relieved, and he
49:27
could go wherever he wanted. To go. Not quite yet he had been
49:31
dreaming, that was all. His eyes opened and rested not on me,
49:36
but to the right of me. Then I saw for the first time that
49:39
I wasn't alone in the room with him after all, but that Minister Maldon
49:44
was standing there where he had stood through all the din like a little boy
49:47
struck dumb before a sudden Christmas tree. And like a little boy, he
49:52
went red and white and began to stammer. I I sin. He held
50:00
his breath for a moment, then it came out altogether. I'll run and
50:06
fetch them both. With that, he was past me, out of the
50:09
door and up the ladder, and I heard his light feet drumming on the
50:13
dock, bearing such news as never was. The Chinaman's eyes had come to
50:17
me now, and there was a queer light in them that I couldn't understand.
50:22
An adventure beyond my little comprehension was taking shape behind them, and all
50:28
I knew enough to do was to sneak around behind the counter and take hold
50:30
of one of his fingers and shake it up and down, like one man
50:35
taking a day's leave of another. His eyes thanked me for my violence.
50:40
Then they were back again to their mysterious speculations. An overweening excitement gathered in
50:46
them. He frightened me quite abruptly, as if an unexpected reservoir of energy
50:52
had been tapped. The dying man lifted on an elbow and slid one leg
50:57
over the edge of the couch. Then he glanced at me with an air
51:00
almost furtive. Boy, he whispered, run quick, getty, missed a
51:05
minister. Yes, but he's coming himself. I protested, you better lay
51:09
back, mister Yen sin Asky, please please, boy? What was there
51:16
for me to do? I ran once on the dock above. Misgivings assailed
51:21
me. I was too young, and the night was too appalling. I
51:23
had forgotten the wind down in the cabin, but in the open here I
51:27
felt its weight. It grew all the while, Its voice drowned the world
51:30
now, and there was spin drift through it. Picked from the back shore
51:35
of the island, and flung all the way across. Objects were lost in
51:38
it, ghostly things, shore lights, fish, houses, peers, strained
51:43
seaward. I heard the packets singing masts at the next wharf, but I
51:46
saw no packet. The ponderous scowl below me became a thing of life and
51:51
light, an eager bird, fluttering at its bonds and calling to the wide
51:54
spaces. To my bewildered eyes, it seemed to move. It was moving,
52:00
shaking off the heavy hands of bondage, joining itself with the wind.
52:05
I got down on my knees of a sudden and peered at the deck,
52:07
Yen Sin. I screamed, what are you doing out there? I saw
52:13
him dimly in the open air outside his door, fumbling and fumbling at something.
52:17
This was his great adventure. The thing that had gleamed in his eyes
52:22
had tapped that unguessed reservoir of strength. His voice crept back to me,
52:27
harassed by the wind, this very funny, kuntly, mister boy, mister
52:32
Yen Sin, go back, chine away. His bow line was fast to
52:37
an iron ring on the wharf. I wanted to hold him back, and
52:39
I clutched at the rope with my hands, as if my little strength were
52:43
something against that freed thing. The line came up to me, easily cast
52:47
off from the scow. At the other end he was waning. His window
52:52
and door and the little fan light before the door were all I could see
52:54
now, And even that pattern blurred and became uncertain and ghostly on them.
53:00
That of the night. He was clear of the wharves now, and the
53:02
wind had him sailing China Way, so peaceful, so dreamless, surrounded by
53:09
his tell tale cargo of Urkey's unwashed collars. I don't know how long it
53:15
was I crouched there on the timbers, staring out into the havoc of that
53:20
black night, and listening to the hungry clamor of the bite. I must
53:24
have been crying for the Minister over and over without knowing it, for when
53:29
my cousin Duncan's hand fell on my shoulder and I started up, half out
53:32
of my wits, he pointed a finger toward the outer edge of the wharf,
53:37
and there they were in a little close group, Sympathy Gibbs standing straight
53:42
with the child in her arms, and Minister Maldon down on his knees.
53:46
There were many people on the pier, all with their eyes to see,
53:51
all except Sympathy Gibbs. Hers were up shore, where mate Snow lay in
53:57
state on his own counter, all his sweet revenge behind him and gone.
54:04
I thought Little Hope was asleep in the swathing shawl till I saw the dark
54:08
round spots of her eyes. If it was a strange night for the others,
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it was stranger still to her. The wind and the rain beat on
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Minister Maldon's bended back. He loved it that way. The missionary was praying
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for the soul of the heathen. End of Section twenty eight